Original subtitles

ONS 5, one of the largest single convoys ever undertaken.

Flood torpedo tubes one, two, and four.

(dramatic music)

Doenitz's fleet is expanding and he will not rest

until he's sent every convoy ship

to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

41 U-boats, a wolfpack like we've never seen before.

Ladies, remember every one of you plays an essential part.

Never forget that.

Don't overestimate your opponent.

Strike him dead.

Escort ships, Half-Raspberry, Half-Raspberry.

Half-Raspberry. Half-Raspberry.

We're dealing with a new weapon.

Come on, ladies, think.

Your men have forced their way into my operations room.

And now you expect me to talk to you.

(dramatic music)

(ship creaking)

This is the breakthrough we've been waiting for.

There's no going back.

(telegraph beeping)

(slow dramatic music)

10 days into its journey to Canada,

convoy ONS 5 has been battered and dispersed

by gale force winds.

(thunder rumbling)

As the storm passes, the largest wolfpack

of the Second World War begins to stalk the convoy.

Following the departure of Commander Peter Gretton

to refuel in Newfoundland,

Admiral Horton assesses the damage.

We've got Gretton's report.

Before detaching he said he could only account for 32 ships.

That leaves what?

Nine or 10.

God knows where they are.

Scattered all over the ocean for now probably.

And he sent another escort to assemble them.

Until we get any further information,

shall I put the stragglers here astern?

No air cover and down to seven escorts.

I hope this new man, Sherwood is up to it.

Following Gretton's departure,

Robert Sherwood, Lieutenant Commander of HMS Tay,

is now in charge of the stricken convoy.

(slow music) (thunder rumbling)

They're sitting ducks out there,

bobbing around like corks.

We need to start rounding them up as soon as we can.

Sherwood is now your number one man.

He's the commander in charge.

But lo and behold, there he is

literally in the eye of the storm.

Multiple intercepts.

Port bow, port quarter,

starboard beam, starboard quarter.

About 20 U-boats.

This is the crisis because this is the point

when the maximum number of U-boats are engaged

and the escorts are reduced.

Prepare for contact.

Prepare for contact, prepare for contact.

The Germans can exploit gaps in the defenses

and maximize the number of kills they make on the convoy.

You, here.

(slow dramatic music)

In spring 1943, after the German Army's defeat

at the Battle of Stalingrad,

Doenitz is still gaining successes

in terms of sinking enemy vessels.

So strong hopes lie from the sight of Hitler on Doenitz

to be one of the man who is still able

to win the war for Germany.

What he really wanted to do

was wipe out a convoy altogether

to demonstrate to the Allies

that they could not venture onto this ocean,

that that convoy could lose every ship in it.

That was his goal.

Due to an intelligence blackout,

the Allies are unaware of the unprecedented scale

of the wolfpack that Karl Doenitz is assembling.

We're covering 400 miles,

west-northwest to east-southeast.

41 U-boats, a wolfpack like we've never seen before.

We're getting sightings,

ships drifting miles from the escorts.

(slow dramatic music)

What are they waiting for?

Message.

You are better placed than you ever were before.

I am certain that you will fight with everything you've got.

Don't overestimate your opponent.

Strike him dead.

(slow dramatic music)

Six miles behind the convoy,

a straggling merchant ship is spotted by U-boat 707.

Flood torpedo tubes one, two, and four.

(bomb exploding)

Doenitz has made many promises to the fuhrer.

And now that he holds that rank,

he has to prove the German Navy can deliver a victory.

Doenitz, by this stage of the war,

is aware that this is a duel between him

and Western Approaches Command.

(slow dramatic music)

So many stragglers, miles away from the convoy.

There could be strikes that Sherwood

doesn't even know about, ships that have already gone.

We have to focus on what we know for now.

Sherwood has done our course.

He'll know what to do.

Will he?

It's that simple, is it?

Did I say it was simple?

It's one thing to teach them here in this little room.

It's quite another out there.

(slow dramatic music)

If we don't get results soon, if we don't prove our worth,

we may as well pack our bags.

We will prove our worth, sir.

I wish I had your confidence, Laidlaw.

It's not confidence, sir.

It's determination.

I'm just expressing a reasonable concern.

If we don't do that, complacency sets in.

If you're saying I am complacent, then you are mistaken.

I am determined not to feel defeated.

Now, can I have the convoy report please?

For Roberts and Laidlaw the pressure is on

because they're just hoping that when the weather improves

and the U-boats do start really circling

that the WATU tactics kick in, that they'll be able to show

once and for all that they work.

(dramatic music) (plane engines roaring)

As the convoy travels into the black pit

where there is no allied air cover,

the wolfpack begins to penetrate the screen of escorts.

This is a crucial phase, and this is where

the convoy escort commander comes into his own.

Message from Admiralty.

Heavy and continuous traffic in all directions.

One of the key benefits of war gaming

is that it allows officers to practice

and create a sort of muscle memory

about responses to different scenarios.

They just do it intuitively.

(bomb exploding)

Convoy, full steam ahead.

Loosestrife, proceed astern

and assist Northern Spray with the survivors.

Three merchant ships

are torpedoed at close range,

all sinking within 19 minutes of each other.

(bombs exploding)

They're in columns one and two.

Escort ships, Half-Raspberry, Half-Raspberry.

Half-Raspberry. Half-Raspberry.

Half-Raspberry, similar to Raspberry.

However, some escorts are held back

at the group commander's discretion to protect the convoy.

Whilst the other escorts hunt for U-boats.

Half-Raspberry is the brain child

of Jean Laidlaw, as was Raspberry.

She's our statistician.

She's one of our pioneering female accountants.

And she's someone who is quite literally

taking the fight to Hitler

via our escort commander, Sherwood,

who's falling back on a plan designed by a woman.

I bet she burnt the candle at both ends

looking at those fresh sets of statistics.

How do you confront eight wolfpacks?

How do you confront an enemy that's 30-plus U-boats strong?

This is a totally different fight.

(dramatic music)

Once the escort ships

are in a Half-Raspberry formation,

a pattern of depth charges are fired.

(bombs exploding)

And this tactic, the thing that he'd learned from WATU,

now they've no way of knowing

if those depth charges were successful or not.

They can only hope that they can continue in safety.

(bombs exploding)

(gentle music) (birds chirping)

In Belfast Castle, Christian Oldham,

awaiting news of her fiance, John Lamb,

refuses to leave the plotting room.

It was the only place where you could have any contact

with what was happening to John.

So naturally I needed to stay there.

And although they tried to persuade me to,

I probably lay down on the chair or something,

but there was no way that I could leave the plot

until the battle was decided.

Christian doesn't yet know

that HMS Oribi is about to play a key part

in the most important sea battle of the Second World War.

(radios beeping)

Asdic contact, 1,200 yards.

Around midnight, the Oribi,

which is one of Horton's support ships

that has come to rescue this convoy,

gets an asdic ping on U-boat.

And it goes in pursuit.

And John was woken up by a huge bang,

which he thought was them going aground.

But as they couldn't possibly be going aground,

he realized, 'cause they were right out

in the middle of the ocean,

he realized that it couldn't be that.

What could it be?

In two seconds he was back on the bridge

and there he found that his ship had rammed the-U boat.

(ship thudding)

And was actually lying on top of it,

so that he could then see the extraordinary sight going on.

As HMS Oribi heads to Newfoundland to refuel,

the whole of the U-boat crew is left to perish.

During the Battle of the Atlantic,

on both sides a process of brutalization took place.

(bomb exploding)

And this led to incidents,

where contrary to the laws of the sea

and also international law, survivors were not picked up.

(dramatic music)

There is chaos.

There's the sound of depth charges going off.

(bomb exploding)

Ships that have been struck.

And there are flames visible in the darkness,

silhouetting the other vessels around them,

making them increasingly at risk of a torpedo attack.

(bombs exploding)

They're now perfectly in target,

silhouetted for the U-boats.

In addition, there are escorts racing from point to point,

following the tactics that are being defined

by the escort commander,

and the U-boats hovering on the periphery

looking for an opportunity to work their way through

to the convoy to target their victim.

(bombs exploding)

Torpedo fire, column two.

Dolius is hit.

Artichoke, Artichoke.

(gulls squawking)

(car engine roars)

(dramatic music)

Wake up.

Come on, let's be having you.

From Sherwood.

"24 attacks were attempted on the convoy during the night.

All repulsed.

Five U-boats sunk.

Vidette claims hits.

Loosestrife depth charged the U-boat,

which surfaced and blew up.

Sunflower has one depth charge remaining.

Sunflower rammed one.

Snowflake destroyed one by depth charge.

And Oribi rammed one."

Well done, all of you.

Thank you.

Well done.

Well, as you were.

They would've been absolutely thrilled and delighted

if they'd even managed to sink one.

But to sink five U-boats means that the tactics

that they've put in place are clearly working.

And what it really means in the overall war for the Atlantic

and to Doenitz is that everything is changing now.

It's just so important.

And it means an enormous amount to the entire team

of the Wrens at Western Approaches.

(gentle music)

Jean.

(breathing heavily)

It was quite a night.

Well, can I take heart?

That is your prerogative.

All I can say is

I think there would be a lot more food on our plates.

Did they use our tactics?

Do we know?

I believe so.

Any U-boat strikes?

Five.

Can you believe it?

And to think we used to count ourselves lucky

if we managed to sink one.

Indeed.

How many ships were lost?

13, I'm afraid.

Five U-boats to 13 ships.

That's an unsustainable ratio.

Doenitz can't keep going on like that, can he?

Absolutely not.

His fleet would be wiped out in a matter of months.

He's outmaneuvered.

Our technology and our tactics have outwitted him.

I always knew they would.

This is the breakthrough we've been waiting for.

There's no going back.

Complacency, Gilbert.

Touche.

We never know what Doenitz up his sleeve.

But for now I think this deserves a celebration.

Would you care to join me for a cup of warm tea

and a stale scone, sir?

Don't mind if I do, Laidlaw.

Might even eat one of the darn things this time.

This is vindication for Roberts and Laidlaw entirely.

Their tactics are not only working,

they're working in the most difficult conditions

against ridiculous numbers of boats under constant attack.

They must have felt elated.

It means that tonnage isn't disappearing.

It means goods, fuel, food are coming back into England.

It means that people's lives are being saved.

(dramatic music)

All of a sudden

Doenitz is on the run.

(birds chirping)

Doenitz is summoned to the Wolf's Lair, the Wolfsschanze,

Hitler's headquarters on the Eastern Front.

You know what our people are calling that convoy?

Hitler is furious and he rants against Doenitz.

"How dare you.

You promised me these wolfpacks were going to destroy

and decimate these allied convoys.

We were going to conquer Britain.

And now what's happening?"

It is not our tactics that have failed.

That would be to ignore the real truth.

The enemy's new technology is making it impossible

for us in the Atlantic.

Their new radar can find us in zero visibility.

In a fog we are fighting blind.

We have losses of 15 to 20 boats a month.

War is a numbers game.

The bottom line,

you've got to have the statistics on your side.

And what we see is quite literally

the tide turning in May of 1943.

We have an unsustainable level

of U-boat losses.

It's not defeat.

We withdraw, we regroup,

we develop the Ren and when we are ready,

we go back to the Atlantic.

We will prevail.

The Ren, a new weapon

that Doenitz has been developing

since the beginning of the war, is about to be launched.

Hitler believes that other weapons,

his so-called wonder weapons, will attain the victory.

And merely slightly improving a U-boat isn't as exciting

as the new weapons that he's looking at,

the new weapons that promise victory.

(suspenseful music)

Doenitz has gone through really this incredible fall

from grace, March riding high, now by May it's all over.

He starts to withdraw his U-boats to the Azores

because there's no point in keeping them

in the Atlantic any longer.

This is known in Germany as Schwarz Mai, Black May.

This is where Peter Gretton, the former commander of ONS 5,

comes back into the story.

He is returning from St. Johns, Newfoundland.

They call a WATU tactic, Observant.

And because of this, a U-boat is sunk.

And one of the victims of that sinking

is actually Karl Doenitz's son, who dies in the attack.

Actually, Doenitz lost his two sons,

who were also naval officer, in action.

(sad music) (birds chirping)

I certainly believe that he felt grief

and there was a big loss for him.

But it did not affect him as a naval officer

and as a professional soldier.

Well, it's very similar to the British approach

of keeping a stiff upper lip.

Following the relocation of Doenitz's U-boats

to the Azores, the Allies are now able to transport

vast amounts of supplies and troops

across the North Atlantic.

And of course this allows Britain and America

to plan the re-invasion of Europe.

They can push the Nazis back now

once they get all their supplies.

(suspenseful music)

But the Battle of the Atlantic isn't over

and the work of the Wrens is not yet done.

I was working in Whitehall.

I had a little office below the stairs all to myself.

And the walls of the office were all covered

in huge scale maps of Northern France,

which was where we were about to have our great battle,

which was going to be called D-Day.

My job was to draw a map of every compass bearing

on that particular point so that any captain of a ship

who was intending to invade from that point

would be able to identify exactly where he was.

And that was my job, which was quite interesting

and extremely secret, of course.

(dramatic music)

The date and location of D-Day are known only

to the very top of Allied Command.

But it is an open secret on both sides of the Atlantic

that preparations are underway.

It's strategy now.

Stealth, cunning, this.

When they come, we'll be ready.

The German spirit won't be defeated.

I know what we have to do.

The problem is Doenitz has a surprise up his sleeve.

The question is, is can they work out what it is

before a catastrophe happens?

September 1943, four months after ONS 5.

Two convoys delayed by poor weather

come under ferocious U-boat attack.

Roberts, come and see this.

They're going for our escorts.

Two so far.

One could be a misfire.

Two, that's intentional.

They seem to be goading us to go for them.

And then when we line them up,

the stern of the escort is blown.

We always knew he'd come back at us.

It's just a question of time.

And now the Germans have thought of their own tactics.

They've got this new weapon and they're not using them

against the merchant ships,

they're using them against the escort ships.

And that is a big change.

Now it's aggressor against aggressor.

I know some of you have loved ones and friends

in the two convoys that are under attack tonight.

All the more reason for us to focus now on how we stop them.

There's a difference with this attack,

a crucial difference.

It marks a change of strategy.

It's not the merchant ships

Doenitz is targeting first anymore,

it's the escorts.

The U-boats seem to be goading our escorts to engage,

and then they're struck astern.

The U-boat begins to dive only when the escort closes in.

Why might that be?

Come on ladies, think.

Sound?

They need our ships to move.

Good.

It needs the sound of our escort's propeller

to find its target.

We're dealing with a new weapon,

the German Navy acoustic torpedo.

And we need to work out a new tactic to stop it.

This is exactly the point of WATU.

Something weird happens, tell WATU.

They will go away and think about it

and explore the options.

Robert and Laidlaw know

that the acoustic torpedo targets the loudest sound,

the twin propellers of the escort ships.

(bomb exploding)

So they look at how these acoustic torpedoes are working

and they find out some key points.

Firstly, the U-boat wants the escort ship

coming towards them so they can fire the acoustic torpedo.

And that is when you turn your ship

and you go in the other direction.

The acoustic torpedoes will miss you.

That's when you turn back on the U-boat

and you go full pelt and you ram it.

So that's how it works.

We should think of a code name.

Please, not another fruit.

(women laugh)

The new tactic, code named Step Aside,

works on three principles.

You evade, you detect, you attack.

What is it?

Evade, detect, attack.

Step Aside is used for the rest of the war

and continues to be used by NATO after the war.

And this is the ultimate accolade

for WATU's ability to develop

new and original effective tactics against submarines.

(gentle music)

Whilst the war still rages,

Christian Oldham is reunited with her fiance briefly

on his return from the battle.

In December 1943, they meet up for the third time,

to be married.

It was a very good party.

And then we were lent a Baby Austin which we drove

to the Savoy Hotel for this part of our honeymoon.

It was all great fun.

It was really such a splendid idea to be able to get married

and rush off and drive by car just ourselves

without anybody else.

It was very good.

We enjoyed ourselves.

(traffic rumbling) (birds chirping)

(suspenseful music)

Hi.

I have news.

I've received a letter.

You have?

That's good.

Not just any letter.

I am to be honored,

Commander of the Most Excellent Order

of the British Empire, CBE.

That's marvelous.

And there's another thing.

I wondered, would you accompany me to the palace?

Oh.

I couldn't have done it without you.

Of course.

Thank you.

Splendid.

None of the women of WATU received any honors,

not even Jean Laidlaw who was almost equal

to Gilbert Roberts in her efforts devising these war games.

It's really very moving to look at the history

of the Wrens at Western Approaches,

the contribution that they made,

the sacrifices that each of them made

in their own personal lives.

And they really did do an enormous amount actually

to help win the Battle of the Atlantic.

None of them were ever honored officially.

(dramatic music)

As D-Day gets closer.

one of the few people to be involved

in the highly secretive planning is Gilbert Roberts.

Sir.

There was a genuine concern if Doenitz understood

that there'd be large ships maneuvering in position,

if a U-boat gets amongst those,

it is gonna kill thousands of troops

or destroy hundreds of tanks.

I've just got back from London.

We'll be teaching a new course, three days,

to include tactics on patrols in shallow water,

escort duty of unusual objects, tactics in confined waters.

Tactics that could be deployed,

say, in a water-based invasion?

Is not our place to speculate

or share our speculations, Jean.

Talk is cheap.

Yes, sir.

Doenitz is still out there.

Let's focus on that.

Of course.

What can I do?

And in fact, when the Monarch himself

is informed that WATU has been tasked with this,

he actually states to Roberts

that his confidence is now complete.

He is more than sure that U-boats

will not get towards the invasion fleet.

(dramatic music)

D-Day has come.

Early this morning, the Allies began the assault

on the northwestern face of Hitler's European fortress.

I heard it on the radio.

I was more than frightfully excited, I can tell you.

I didn't know whether they ever used my maps,

but they had them anyway.

(guns blasting)

D-Day was the largest amphibious operation

in the history of the world.

Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of men.

And even more importantly, their supplies, the trucks,

the Jeeps, the tanks that had to get across the channel,

the food to feed them.

(dramatic music)

I think we all felt enormous relief,

and not least for our free French friends,

that at last Europe was going to be freed.

We always had absolute confidence

that that would be the conclusion.

It was the most wonderful moment of my life.

Misled by the Allies to believe

that D-Day is going to happen near Calais,

the Germans are totally unprepared

for the landings in Normandy.

(dramatic music)

Doenitz is absolutely shocked.

So what does he do?

He goes in for sort of a reckless, strange order to his men.

Every enemy vessel is a target.

It is to be attacked.

Even if this carries the risk of

loss of one's own life.

Many U-boat captains see this order

as a kind of a suicide mission.

It is like Doenitz is kind of saying,

"I even sacrifice my sons on the alter of the fatherland,

so I'm not expecting something from my crews

or from my commanders that I wouldn't do myself."

Only 35 U-boats scrambled in Normandy.

Deterred by WATU tactics and the vast invading force,

they sink only 23 allied vessels.

It is my belief that if WATU

had not been deterring U-boats

through the deployment of escorts,

the use of mines, et cetera,

that there would've been probably

major attacks on the fleet.

Even though there were a few U-boats,

this was the decisive battle.

The Germans would've taken every risk

if they had a chance of disrupting that invasion.

And in the end, five U- boats limp back to their ports.

This is a terrible, terrible blow for Doenitz.

Once the high mighty Admiral of the German Navy,

he now has five U-boats back from Normandy landings.

(traffic rumbling)

Night, ladies.

Night. Good night.

Speech.

Yes, speech. Speech.

No, no.

I will leave that to the admirals.

But I will say this.

We may not be awarded CBEs,

but we are honored to have served our country.

Every one of us has helped to save fathers,

sons, brothers, uncles, sweethearts.

And if you don't believe me, here, look at this.

Ta-da.

(women laugh)

Look who it is.

Captain Roberts.

June, you're the performer.

You should read it.

Oh.

Yes, here it is.

"So thorough is the course,

so clever the setting of each game

that many naval officers

fighting actual U-boats in the Atlantic

suddenly realized that they first saw

the same situation present itself

when it was only a game on a make-believe ocean."

(women laugh)

Isn't it a little bit strange

to be putting it in a magazine, giving the game away,

excuse the pun.

(women laugh)

When the war's not even finished?

It is strange,

but it must have been cleared for publication.

They must want the Germans to know about us

in case they start again.

We call it today an information campaign.

That is where you put a message out

which is designed to influence your adversary's thinking,

to deter them from action,

or to confine their thinking, to concern them,

to add an element of risk to their decision making.

I know you're too modest to think this, June,

but you really should think about modeling

or acting when this is all over.

Everyone says it.

You should, you really should.

It'd be waste of that beautiful face if you didn't.

What about you, Jean?

Will you go back to the accountancy?

If they'll have me, a mere woman.

Yeah, I mean, you only helped

to win the Battle of the Atlantic, so.

Not that we can tell anyone it was us.

Good girls, polite girls didn't show off.

Heavens above, no, that's not what women

in the 1940s were encouraged to do.

So the Wrens, that crucial crack team in WATU

at the top of Derby House,

didn't leave much of a paper trail.

Well cheers to us.

Cheers. Cheers.

(Jean laughs)

As the Allies push through

Nazi-occupied Europe, Karl Doenitz's life

takes a bizarre twist.

On the 29th of April, 1945,

Berlin has been under siege by the Soviets,

and they are desperate at this point.

There are children with guns in the streets

trying to defend the city, and they just can't.

Hitler knows this and he gives up.

He commits suicide.

(dramatic music)

But before doing this, he names his successor.

And that is Doenitz.

Doenitz had once seen himself

as one of the sort of saviors of Germany along with Hitler.

They were going to create

this sort of brave new German Reich.

And there he is.

He's the one who's responsible for signing

the unconditional surrender of Germany

at the end of World War II.

Enter.

For this lowest point, really, in German history.

Overseeing the unconditional surrender

of Germany, Doenitz betrays Hitler and the Reich.

But his leadership is in name only.

After 23 days he is arrested by the Allies

and charged with war crimes.

(upbeat music)

Thank you.

But before Doenitz's fate

is sealed by the Allies,

Gilbert Roberts faces one final challenge.

On the 23rd of May, 1945,

Gilbert Roberts is asked to go to Flensburg.

And who's in Flensburg?

(dramatic music)

Good afternoon, Admiral.

I am on Admiral Sir Max Horton's staff.

I'm here to gather information about German U-boat practice.

As Fuhrer, I have a number of duties

to perform in Luxembourg.

Very well.

I will not keep you.

One can only imagine this encounter between these two men

who for years have been locked in a deathly struggle

for mastery over the Atlantic,

and yet there they are

in these sort of peaceful surroundings

at the end of the war,

looking at one another and sizing one another up,

and then finally having to say goodbye.

(dramatic music)

He comes across, ironically, a photograph of himself

which had been printed in a magazine.

And it says, you know, "This is your enemy."

Well, well, well, that's how he recognized me.

Your men have forced their way into my operations room.

(dramatic music)

I've been waiting five hours in the parade ground.

They've broken into my cabin.

And now you expect me to talk to you.

(speaking in foreign language)

Admiral Gott, did you have a tactical unit

similar to that of WATU?

No.

No such need.

The men did all the tactical work on the North Atlantic.

It surprises me that women would be involved at this level,

especially when they had never seen battle.

And it surprised Gott that women were given

such an important role in naval operations.

They did have the equivalent of Wrens in the German Navy,

but they weren't given anything like the responsibilities

of the women of Britain.

Do you know any of our tactics?

Raspberry, I have heard of.

Very complicated but useful if all the escorts acted

according to the stated plan.

And this is so amazing because of course it brings

this whole story back to Jean Laidlaw

who named this tactic Raspberry

as a kind of raspberry to Hitler.

Thank you.

Unbeknown to Gott,

a second recorder secreted in a suitcase is recording,

even when Roberts' recorder is switched off.

So why, in your opinion, did the U-boats not prevail?

Detection technology.

Your radar meant we would not operate

economically on the surface.

Anything else?

Superior training

of your escorts.

And our tactics?

Did they play a part in our victory?

I noticed the photograph.

Perhaps.

The information gained by Roberts from Gott

is a real vindication for Jean Laidlaw.

She managed to get into the brains of U-boat captains.

She understood their tactics

just from her war gaming strategies.

It was an amazing vindication for her and everybody at WATU.

(dramatic music)

For his war efforts, Karl Doenitz,

is tried along with other top-ranking Nazis, in Nuremberg.

Doenitz denies any knowledge of the Holocaust,

even though he's known to be a virulent anti-Semite.

He's an absolute dyed in the wool supporter of Hitler

and Hitler's war aims.

And yet he manages at the Nuremberg trials

to present himself as something quite different.

Doenitz is accused

of breaking international naval law

by not rescuing enemy survivors.

But his lawyers forced the court

to recognize the same behavior in the allied fleet.

As a result, Doenitz avoids execution

and is sentenced to 10 years in Spandau Jail.

Fire.

U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer

is never charged with war crimes.

Resuming an illustrious naval career,

he rises to become chief of staff

with the Baltic NATO Command

and is featured in the '90s computer game Aces of the Deep.

Smoke on horizon, captain.

It was fairly easy for me

to penetrate the screen of the escort.

And getting into the convoy problem.

You know, their aces lacked one quality

that you have in abundance,

imagination.

I've never seen myself like that.

You put yourself into the mind of our enemies,

in the middle of the convoy and the chaos,

engine silenced till the danger had passed.

It was you who insisted

that was their modus operandi, and it was.

Admiral Gott confirmed it.

Well, thank you.

But it was a team effort.

It was, but we couldn't have done it without you.

Likewise.

Laidlaw. Sir.

Sir,

do you mind?

I will look the other way.

(gentle piano music)

The Battle of the Atlantic is against our two great enemies,

the U-boat and the cruel sea.

We will prevail, I know we will.

Well done, Laidlaw.

(gentle piano music)

After years of ill health

and campaigning for arthritis charities,

Gilbert Roberts CBE

dies in 1986.

I find this story tremendously moving.

It's inspirational.

It's just a symbol of what women were capable of

if given the chance,

even in the dire circumstances of the Second World War.

So really their story should be celebrated,

should be written large,

and should be really commemorated as much as possible.

After the war, Jean Laidlaw resumes her career

as an accountant and lives quietly with her partner Beryl

until her death in 2008.

Meet Wren rating Janet Okell,

the woman who beat you five-nil.

Janet Okell returns to her old life

near Liverpool.

She dies in 2005,

less than 10 miles

from the Western Approaches Tactical unit.

Never surrender.

June Duncan enjoys a successful career

as a top model and actor,

later becoming the assistant editor of Harper's Bazaar.

In 1945, Vera Laughton Matthews,

wartime director of the Wrens.

I've got a secret little plan.

Is made a Dame.

(crowd cheering)

She dies age 71 in 1951.

What have I done?

You may ask compared to what my boy has to put up with

dodging submarines in the Atlantic.

When I have talked with women,

how often when I admire their pluck, have I heard them say,

"Oh, well, it's not much.

I'm just doing my best to help us win the war."

(dramatic music)

The WATU Wrens

may not have received any honors,

nor did they publish their memoirs,

but they did something far more important.

They recaptured the savage waves of the Atlantic

for the allies.

And so delivered them victory.

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0