Original subtitles

ln 1914, German and British sailors believed their war was going to be...

a great confrontation of huge battleships.

But only once was there a full clash of fleets.

The rest of the naval war was very different...

from what had been expected.

lt was a war dominated by a new weapon--

the submarine.

Submarines were terrible, really. They were small and so vulnerable.

lt was a war of blockades and sinkings on a massive scale.

lt brought disappointment and disaster before ultimate victory.

Above all this sea war was about' innovation...

and dazzling advances in technology...

from the skies above to the deep oceans below.

Now for the first time, it can be seen as it really happened--

in color.

Ever since the battle of Trafalgar, the British navy had dominated the seas.

Pre-war displays like the Spithead review showed its might.

l remember going to a review at Spithead...

where Spithead was full of ships of all sizes...

and it was a delight to be there...

because as children we were all very excited about it.

Everywhere you went you would see Bluejackets.

You would see sailors everywhere.

So, we were a naval country in those days.

Britain, a small island, depended on trade...

and keeping its trade routes open and safe...

required control of the sea.

But in the decade Ieading up to World War l...

British naval supremacy had faced a new challenge.

Ever since he'd become Emperor of Germany in 1888...

Haiser Wilhelm Il had been determined...

to build an overseas empire to rival other European nations.

To acquire this empire, he needed to build a navy.

The Haiser's ambitions...

and Britain's determination to maintain its lead at sea...

led to a hugely expensive naval arms race.

At its heart was a new type of battleship...

pioneered by the British...

and named after the first to be built in 1905--

the Dreadnought.

lt was enormous and outgunned anything built before.

The Dreadnought introduced...

two fundamental changes in battleship technology.

First, it replaced the main armament of four heavy guns...

with an armament of eight or ten heavy guns.

And secondly, it gradually introduced...

high powered turbine engines, so it increased the speed of the fleet.

Essentially, it's a quantum leap in the performance of the battleship...

and for a period of eight years, you have a sustained building race...

in which ever-bigger and more powerful battleships...

are built in competition.

Admiral Lord Fisher, inventor of the Dreadnought...

claimed it made every other class of battleship irrelevant.

The only issue is the number of Dreadnoughts.

No matter who tries to fight the Dreadnought...

the Dreadnought gobbles them all up.

lt's the armadillo and the ants.

The armadillo puts out its tongue and licks up the ants.

By the time war was declared in August, 1914...

Germany had built 13 Dreadnoughts to Britain's 21.

Ordinary sailors on both sides...

now looked forward to putting their massive new weapons to the test.

There's great enthusiasm, and recruits are flocking in daily.

lf only the German fleet would come out.

We would wipe them out in a few minutes.

Fred Bunday was a 15-year-old cadet when war broke out.

l just knew that the Haiser was somebody l didn't ought to know.

lf l had the chance, l'd shoot him, if l had the chance, you know.

As soon as he could, Fred Bunday joined up full time.

l thought it was wonderful.

ln a trench, for instance...

l just have to run up top and get bullets in me...

anything like that.

l was joining the navy.

And well ships had always be'en my ideal.

German sailors were just as excited.

ln 1914, seaman Richard Stumpf...

was waiting with the German high seas fleet.

Our joy and excitement were boundless...

and lasted late into the night.

The thing we had yearned for and feared had come true.

We had built our navy...

so we could fight the false and treacherous English.

But the sheer expense and prestige of the Dreadnoughts...

began to have a curious result.

No one could afford to lose one.

Admiral John Jellicoe...

Commander of the Grand Fleet based at Scapa Flow...

was reluctant even to let his Dreadnoughts out of port.

Provided there is a chance of destroying...

some of the enemy's heavy ships...

it is right and proper to run risks of our own.

But unless the chances are reasonably great...

l do not think that such risks should be run.

His main fear was that if he took...

his very expensive battle fleet to sea...

and he lost a battle...

he effectively might, as he put it, Iose the war in an afternoon.

So you would get two fleets in their fleet anchorages...

or at their headquarters and bases...

which were mutually opposing each other...

and, in a sense, stalemated each other by not even going to sea.

The caution was so great...

that it would be a full two years into the war...

before the fleets of both sides engaged in a proper battle.

As the Dreadnoughts stayed safely in their harbors...

the rest of Britain's navy set out to starve Germany...

by blockading it and stopping its trade with the outside world.

The British, with their vastly bigger surface fleet...

of cruisers and destroyers...

quickly gained control of the North Sea.

They were able to intercept almost all merchant shipping...

from neutral nations headed for German ports.

The neutral ships would go into a British port...

and their cargo would simply be bought by the British for their own use.

So the neutrals weren't particularly disappointed.

Their voyage was cut short, they got home sooner...

and they were paid in full.

So essentially nobody was upset, apart from the Germans.

German sailors could only watch...

as naval superiority enabled Britain to stock up for war...

while their own nation was made to suffer.

When one saw the amount of shipping converging on Britain...

when one saw how busily the enemy was engaged...

in importing from all quarters of the globe...

the materials that reinforced his strength...

in his fight against us...

one saw the writing on the wall.

One weapon would revolutionize the war at sea--

the submarine, or U-boat, as the Germans called it.

When war began, the British navy had more submarines than Germany.

Life on board was in stark contrast to the big battleships.

To me, it was claustrophobia or whatever they call it.

You know, l didn't like-- l liked to be where l could get out.

l didn't like to be closed in.

And submarines were terrible, really. They were small and so vulnerable.

lt was all volunteers.

Reason--to get a shilling a day extra.

There wasn't many submarines...

so they didn't want a lot of men to volunteer.

But as it went further on and got more...

then of course we had to go in them.

l didn't want to go, but they had to go...

but after we saw them after they were delighted.

ln the submarine there, all is one, you see.

You're a Lieutenant, and l'm a stoker.

We'd both work together, because if you got hit...

you've got to know what to do, you see, in a submarine.

The British used their submarines for patrols in support of the surface fleet.

The German U-boats would have a totally different purpose.

They became the lone hunters, and they gave Germany...

its one truly effective naval weapon of the war.

Much of a U-boat's Ionely time in the ocean...

was still spent on the surface, allowing moments of peace and calm.

After an excellent supper on the fresh fish...

given to us by our fisherman friends...

we were glad to clamber up on the conning tower...

to enjoy the northern evening air and a cigar.

Gray and violet hues replaced the shining glow of sunset.

Underneath the water, as the U-boat went in search of its prey...

life became very different.

The atmosphere below was really beyond description.

An appalling burst of heat flung me backwards.

The thermometer stood at nearly 45 degrees Celsius.

The men were standing over the engines in the bare minimum of clothing...

and their drawn, gaunt faces smeared with oil and filth...

looked like skulls.

ln September, 1914...

this new underwater threat showed its murderous potential.

Three aging British battleships, the Aboukir, Hogue, and Cressy...

were sunk in a single day by one German U-boat.

A British midshipman wrote home with the remarkable story of his survival.

Dear Granny, l had a most thrilling experience.

We were woken by a terrific crash, and the whole ship shook.

The Aboukir went down suddenly, and we slid down her side into the water.

l swam to the Hogue and was just going on board...

when she was struck and sunk in three minutes.

l then swam on to the Cressy, where l had a cup of cocoa.

But as l finished it, she was struck.

l jumped off again.

l was picked up, having been three hours in the water.

1,400 other sailors lost their lives.

A U-boat was able to sneak up on its target without being seen.

But when it came to merchant shipping...

this unique quality of surprise presented a legal and diplomatic problem.

Under international law, an attacking warship of any side...

was first required to stop a merchant ship...

board it, and inspect its cargo.

lf the cargo was found to be assisting the enemy...

the attacker was required to allow the merchant crew...

to leave their ship safely.

Only then could they blow it up.

Of course, stopping vessels and going through this rigmarole...

was inimical to the advantage...

that the submarine had in attacking merchant shipping.

lt was a sneaky weapon-- a damned un-English weapon...

as it had been called by one British commentator.

Frustrated U-boat commanders began to bend the rules...

sinking merchant ships without warning...

but claiming that their targets were carrying munitions...

or even that it was the British doing the sinking, not them.

German propaganda films tried to convince the world...

that they were still sticking to the law-- even towing merchant crews to safety.

ln early 1915, this farce came to an end.

The Haiser and his commanders decided to let the U-boats loose.

The war on the Western Front was now bogged down...

in the stalemate of the trenches.

The Germans were getting nowhere against the British and French on land.

The only way forward was to cut Britain off...

from the trade which kept it alive.

On February 22, Germany declared unrestricted U-boat warfare.

U-boats would fire on merchant shipping headed for allied ports without warning.

Unrestricted submarine warfare is a case of ''What else can we do?''

Let's try this. Maybe this will work.

There's a sense of desperation.

lt's also, l think, the German navy saying...

''We're not doing what we thought we were going to do.

''We're not fighting this great battle with Dreadnoughts...

''but if we don't do something...

''all those soldiers on the Western Front will say...

'why are we fighting and dying? The navy's doing nothing.'''

For the U-boat crews, there was relief and celebration.

At last it arrived.

Unrestricted U-boat warfare began.

We'd lost a burden we had carried since the day the war broke out.

ln three months, the U-boats sank 115 ships.

But then one U-boat went too far.

On May 7, 1915, the Cunard liner the Lusitania...

set sail for Britain from the United States.

Alice Drury, nanny for an American family...

was looking after the baby when the first German torpedo struck.

l just picked up the shawl and the baby with it.

Stuart was also in the cabin, and he was crying...

''l don't want to be drowned, l don't want to be drowned.''

And l crossed over to him and said...

''Hang on to me whatever happens.'' And he did.

The other nurse called down to me, ''What shall l do?''

l said, ''You look after the baby.''

l never saw her or Bunny ever again.

Over 1,200 people drowned in the Lusitania.

lt gives the British a real advantage, which they exploit very effectively.

British propaganda in this war is going to be one of the major weapons...

and the principal target is the opinion of the United States.

The Lusitania is a godsend to the British.

lt's quite the most stupid thing the Germans could have done.

The torpedoing and sinking of the Lusitania...

evinces a disregard of opinions of the world in general...

and of this country in particular...

only compatible with the assumption...

that blood lust has toppled reason from its throne.

Much of the outrage fell on the Haiser himself.

Now, that was wicked.

lt should never have happened, because if he'd have been a good man...

he'd have said, ''Well, it's full of all civilians.

''What do l went with sinking that?

Let the thing go where it wants to go.''

That would have been my sentiment.

But it wasn't his. It was just to perform something...

that would shock the English people.

You know, we're not playing any games. This is real now.

The outcry over the Lusitania persuaded Germany...

to return to complying with international law.

But the frustration soon built up again.

ln November, 1915, the German Commander-in-Chief noted...

A U-boat cannot spare the crews of steamers.

The shipping world can be warned...

that the lives of the steamer's crews will be endangered.

This will be one good reason...

why all shipping trade with England should cease...

within a short space of time.

The gravity of the situation...

demands that we should free ourselves of scruples.

ln February, 1916, unrestricted U-boat warfare returned.

So did the disgust.

Submarines cannot be used against merchantmen...

as the last few weeks have shown...

without inevitable violation of many sacred principles of justice and humanity.

Our commerce was subject to attack by an unseen enemy...

to be sunk by a torpedo before any signal for help could be sent...

or any escape could be attempted.

Liners, tramps, fishing craft...

men, women, children, were all at the mercy of an unseen enemy.

ln spring 1916, fearing that America would be provoked...

into entering the war...

Germany called off its second unrestricted U-boat campaign.

During it, the U-boats had sunk 212 ships.

While the British blockade and Germany's U-boats...

dominated the war in the Atlantic and the North Sea...

the British navy had also been engaged...

in a very different and disastrous campaign 1,500 miles to the east.

When war broke out, the man in charge of Britain's navy...

was the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.

With the trench warfare on the Western Front getting nowhere...

Churchill believed the navy provided another way to win the war.

His plan was to attack Germany's ally, Turkey.

Winston Churchill decides...

that an attack on Turkey through the Dardanelle Straits...

will knock Turkey out of the war...

allow Britain to supply Russia with weapons...

and will help to defeat Germany by knocking away her supports.

So the object is a grand strategic maneuver...

to win the war by attacking somewhere else.

ln February, 1915, British and French ships...

began to bombard the Turkish forts which guarded the Dardanelles.

But the old pre-Dreadnought battleships were in for a nasty surprise.

The Turks had managed to lay a line of mines...

just where the allied fleet...

the French and British pre-Dreadnoughts would be maneuvering.

the result was three pre-Dreadnoughts sunk...

hundreds of lives lost, and a huge blow to British prestige.

The allied sailors realized they were sitting ducks.

We went into the jaws of death today...

but owing to God's mercy, we returned without loss of life...

although the majority of the sailors didn't think it was God's mercy.

They put it down to having three bats on board the ship.

Minesweepers tried to clear the minefield.

They had limited success, but eventually the forts were silenced.

Then on April 25...

British, French, Australian and New Zealand soldiers...

known as Anzacs, Ianded on the Gallipoli peninsula.

l felt a distinct feeling of fear and uncertainty...

as l realized that very many of the soldiers...

on board these ships were for certain death.

l pictured in my mind...

hundreds being shot down before they reached the shore...

and then mown down long before they could leave the beaches...

and reach the Turks' positions.

The Turks were excellent defensive fighters, brilliantly led.

Their--both the German and the Turkish officers were superb.

And the British, the allied campaign...

because the French were there in large numbers as well...

the French, the British, and the Anzacs...

they didn't really have a chance.

The land operation turned into a disaster.

ln eight months, the allies suffered 250,OOO casualties.

Of these, 110,OOO died.

ln January, 1916, the troops were evacuated.

Churchill was forced to leave the Admiralty.

After the failure of the Gallipoli offensive...

Britain and her allies will never again try...

a major overseas offensive in this war.

lt's the last big amphibious operation.

lt means that the fighting will be confined to the European mainland...

and all the initiatives will now be fought out on land.

Unlike the army, it seemed the navy's war would be a quiet one.

Watchfulness, blockade, and the peculiarities of life on board.

You couldn't carry enough water to let everybody have a bath...

so we didn't have a bath.

We used to have a bowl to wash in...

and then throw it over yourself like a bowl.

But the officers had one, and the ensign commander...

would paint a black mark so far...

so the young officers didn't go too much in the bathroom.

There was the monotonous daily cycle of being on watch...

resting, back on watch again.

And the one traditional consolation.

You had a bugler who would sound up-spirits...

and then you'd go along and get your tot of rum then.

Because we always had rum, right through the First World War...

you know, and then you had your dinner.

And that all had to be washed up.

But it was a dirty, sticky arrangement in those days...

and can l say that every ship in the First World War...

yeah, even on the battleships...

you still got cockroaches and all that kind of thing.

So that you lived with the cockroaches.

You didn't-- well, as far as l was concerned...

l used to think, well, now...

their life was more filled than what our life was.

ln 1916, the daily routine was rudely, if briefly, interrupted.

Having called off the second unrestricted U-boat campaign...

Germany needed a new naval tactic...

and appointed a new aggressive fleet commander...

Admiral Reinhard von Scheer.

The war on the Western Front was entering its bloodiest phase yet.

Since February, German and French soldiers...

had been fighting over the border town of Verdun...

each side suffering 350,OOO casualties.

German naval commanders knew they couldn't just sit back...

and watch their soldiers being slaughtered.

They had to do something.

Admiral von Scheer came up with an ambush plan...

to destroy part of the British grand fleet.

lt is possible using mainly film of naval exercises...

to reconstruct how events unfolded.

Von Scheer's idea was to send out German battle cruisers...

from their ports of Hiel and Wilhemshaven...

to patrol off the coast of Norway...

and tempt the British battle cruiser fleet...

of Admiral Sir David Beam out from its base at Rosyth.

Von Scheer would then send in German Dreadnoughts...

to destroy them before the main body of the British fleet...

under Sir John Jellicoe could arrive from Scapa Flow.

But Jellicoe deduced from an intercepted radio signal...

that the Germans were up to something...

and decided to anticipate them by taking his grand fleet to sea.

At Scapa Flow, sailors geared up for the battle...

they'd been awaiting for two years.

The C-in-C hoisted a momentous signal.

Raise steam and report when ready to proceed.

Everybody seemed to have a premonition...

that the day had really arrived.

There was an almost electric atmosphere of expectation...

and suppressed excitement...

as officers and men went about the work of preparing for sea.

On the same night, Beam's fleet set sail from Rosyth.

lmagine, darling, if you can, a fine, though starless night...

and twelve great ships steaming out of the port.

No lights visible...

and not a sound to be heard but the swish of the waves.

Watching German U-boats did not realize...

that the whole British fleet was now at sea.

Von Scheer went ahead with his plan.

On May 31, 1916...

the main German fleet set sail.

The sun rose magnificently, covered the sea with its golden rays...

and soon showed us the picture of the whole high seas fleet...

proceeding to meet the enemy, always a wonderful sight.

The two fleets were heading towards one another across the North Sea.

At midday, one of Beam's commanders spotted the Germans.

Urgent. Two cruisers, probably hostile...

bearing south, south east.

The Germans then spotted the British.

Suddenly, l saw some big ships, black monsters...

six broad beamed giants steaming in two columns.

The two fleets closed at a combined speed of fim miles an hour.

The place was filled with dust and smoke and as hot as an oven.

At last we were hammering the Hun...

after two years of weary waiting and watching.

The battle of Jutland was under way.

The first phase turned into a British disaster.

Unfortunately for Beam, his ships don't shoot very well.

They have disadvantages of light and weather...

but they haven't done enough training.

And the German battle cruisers...

very quickly achieve fire power superiority...

and two of his ships, the Queen Mary and Indefatigable....

blow up and sink with the loss of almost all their crew.

A tremendous explosion occurred...

which must have blown the bows to atoms.

Then another explosion.

l sank a considerable distance, and on reaching the surface...

could see only wreckage and oil floating on the surface.

l was standing beside Sir David Beam...

and we turned round to see the unpleasant spectacle.

He turned to me and said...

''There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.''

The problem was not the ships...

but the way in which Beam and his squadron were using them.

Speed was everything...

so every safety precaution that was introduced...

you know, doors that closed had to be opened...

and passages were closed off, were broken.

So that a hit on a gun turret would lead to an explosion...

and flash traveling down into the magazine...

where 120 tons of high explosive were waiting to go off.

The consequences were simply devastating...

and they just blew up.

And that's exactly what happened to the Indefatigable and the Queen Mary.

His ships badly hit...

Beam headed north to try to find Jellicoe's grand fleet.

Von Scheer went after him.

Within hours, the Germans found themselves...

facing the entire British grand fleet.

That, l suggest to you was a tremendous moment in anybody's life.

l remember thinking to myself...

well, we've lost a lot, and we're going to lose more...

but we don't mind losing this and that as long as the two fleets meet.

The main battle of Jutland began.

This time, the British navy proved its superiority.

The Germans lost one Dreadnought, four light cruisers, and five destroyers.

But the British also lost another battle cruiser, the Invincible.

Of over 1,OOO men on board, only six survived.

The crew of a neighboring ship, the Indomitable...

watched as it went down.

We young Indomitable officers had particularly poignant feelings...

since the day before we sailed...

the junior officers of Invincible had come aboard us...

and a merry and riotous evening was had by all.

Now every one of those was asleep in the deep.

ln fading light, accurate firing became ever more difficult...

but both fleets continued to bombard each other.

The light was perhaps even more weird and awe inspiring than the day.

Every now and then, a tremendous explosion was heard...

and great flames a hundred feet high shot up into the sky.

This sort of thing went on all night, till early dawn.

ln the darkness, the German fleet ran for home and escaped unseen.

By the morning of the first of June...

the Germans were nearing the safety of Hiel and Wilhelmshaven.

We went back to the harbor to receive hot coffee and food.

Like many of my comrades, l did not want them.

We lay down on the floor in a corner of the ship.

We did not care where we were and went to sleep.

We hadn't slept for 48 hours.

Jutland is just about the most controversial naval battle of all time.

Everybody says they won.

The Haiser the next day said...

''The magic of Trafalgar is broken. We've beaten the British.''

Von Scheer, in his official report, said...

''We must never do this again. They'll wipe us out.''

And that was the truth.

The Germans knew they were lucky to get home...

with almost all of their ships and almost all of their men.

As in Germany, the British presented the battle of Jutland...

as a great naval victory.

But Jellicoe knew that his losses...

had been substantially greater than the Germans...

both in terms of ships and lives.

He did, however, still control the North Sea.

For the German navy, it was back to square one.

There was still stalemate on the Western Front.

The British had launched their offensive at the Somme...

suffering 600,OOO casualties...

but the Somme had drained German blood, too.

With its surface fleet bottled up in port...

the only way the German navy could help...

was by returning to unrestricted U-boat warfare.

ln February, 1917, the fateful decision was made.

ln the United States, the impact was dramatic.

A few months before, Woodrow Wilson had been re-elected American President...

telling his people that they could no longer...

isolate themselves from the turmoil across the Atlantic.

There is much more involved in this election...

than domestic issues...

and much more involved in the world situation than our people realize.

Democracy hangs in the balance...

and its fate not only here, but throughout the world.

After the German declaration of unrestricted U-boat warfare...

Wilson, emboldened by his electoral mandate...

gave Germany a final warning.

The Germans took no notice, and increased production of U-boats.

They now had 110 at sea.

lf we are not finally to be bled to death...

full use must be made of the U-boat as a means of war...

so as to destroy England's vital nerve.

During February and March 1917...

U-boats succeeded in sinking no fewer than 500 ships.

The number of neutral merchant ships...

arriving in British and allied ports fell by three quarters.

Some U-boat skippers began to achieve staggering totals of ships sunk.

As they returned to port after successful forays...

they became national heroes-- rather like the aces of the air war.

The Germans used the full range of propaganda tricks...

to emphasize the heroic status of the U-boat captains and their crew.

They start to fly flags.

They showed emblems of the numbers of ships they'd sank.

They created newsreels.

They made them into celluloid heroes.

That this small gray vessel...

which just submerged beneath the waves...

accomplished all these things...

was it possible?

Was it conceivable that such a small and insignificant vessel...

could disrupt the mission of an entire great and powerful fleet?

How l envy the men in her crew.

The U-boats' success Ied to food rationing in Britain.

Even the troops on the Western Front were asked to tighten their belts.

1917 was a low point for the allies...

but America was edging ever closer to war.

The present German submarine warfare against commerce...

is a warfare against all mankind.

lt is a war against all nations.

The world must be made safe for democracy.

On April 6, the United States finally declared war on Germany.

The British welcomed their new allies with open arms.

There was no foreign feeling about them...

not a sign of jealousy...

no impatience from receiving orders from a foreign Admiral.

They were single minded in their endeavors...

to do their utmost for the common cause...

and in consequence, they proved to be a most valuable asset to the allies.

But even with the Americans on board...

the allies still had to find some way of defeating the U-boats.

As Germany's U-boats continued to maul allied shipping...

one tactic was to pack merchant ships into convoys escorted by warships.

But that was purely for defense.

To attack U-boats, they first had to be found.

Airships began to be used to spot U-boats...

which still had to spend most of their time on the surface.

The airships had a 1,500-mile range...

and could fly for nearly fim hours at a time.

Flying boats and float planes were armed...

with torpedoes, bombs, and machine guns--

all ways of attacking U-boats Iying on the surface.

We were attacked by an airplane.

He had slunk up unseen in the bright sunshine...

and notified his arrival with a lot of bombs...

which could easily have cost us our lives.

To find U-boats beneath the sea, the allies used a new device--

the hydrophone.

lt was a microphone placed underwater...

to detect the sound of a U-boat's electric motors.

lt was then possible to work out at what depth the submarine was lying.

That brought into play another new weapon--the depth charge.

Mines launched from ships and set to explode at a particular depth.

A depth charge burst with a frigh_ul explosion.

Our hopes grew fainter...

as the risk of being crushed or blown up increased.

We worked on and on, if only to distract our minds...

from the imminent doom at the bottom of the sea.

Another British idea was the Dover Barrage...

a barrier of nets and mines...

designed to stop U-boats coming through the Channel.

Minefields began to spread right across the North Sea.

ln 1918, the allies laid 70,OOO mines to stop U-boats getting into the Atlantic.

lt is a very unpleasant feeling...

when the boat grazes against the mooring cable of a mine...

and death bumps and crashes against the hull.

Clearing mines was a nasty, dangerous job.

Occasionally, U-boats managed to lay mines near British ports.

Once recovered, they could be individually defused.

Out at sea, the minesweeper...

initially converted fishing trawlers, came into service.

Ask any man who served at sea between 1914 and 1918...

which was the most perilous, monotonous...

and bitterly uncomfortable work of the war afloat.

The reply, nine times out of ten, will be the work of the minesweepers.

Cables were used to cut mines from their mooring.

They were then destroyed with rifle fire.

One ingenious invention was the U-boat decoy...

called the Q-ship.

There was not a sign of life aboard.

We rose to the surface.

Suddenly, the ship came to life.

Hidden portholes sprang open. The stern gun was manned.

Other guns were unmasked and poured a devastating fire over us.

Finally, the British tried closing the U-boat havens on the Belgian coast.

Strange looking craft...

little more than pla_orms for large 15-inch guns...

were sent to bombard German batteries protecting the U-boat harbors.

ln April, 1918, the port of Zeebrugge was attacked.

Three old ships were deliberately sunk across the entrance to the harbor...

to try to block U-boats getting in or out.

During the operation, the British Cruiser Vindictive...

was badly damaged and lucky to get home.

By early 1918...

this combined technology had the U-boat threat under control.

American troops could now be transported safely...

across the Atlantic to Europe.

The sheer weight of numbers was bound to tell.

But the British had also won the naval war of blockade...

partly by their acceptance of rationing.

Meat, butter, and margarine became luxuries...

potatoes, the staple diet.

Rationing was something Germany never introduced...

and it meant that by the end, food and supplies were running out.

Total war is all about...

the most efficient use of all your national resources.

ln the First World War...

the Germans were seriously inefficient in their use of their resources.

They mobilize all of their agricultural workers...

out of the countryside, into the army...

and then use them in battle.

They didn't replace them.

This meant agricultural productivity collapsed.

They didn't mobilize female labor.

They didn't mobilize to any large extent...

any other available labor resource...

so agricultural production collapses.

This means they need to import food.

The British blockade means they can't import food...

so very steadily the Germans find their rations being cut...

and from a diet rich in animal fats, they end up living on turnips.

The naval war had begun with the Dreadnought race...

and by its end, the array of American and British battleships...

seemed to symbolize allied victory at sea.

But this was not the real naval conflict.

The all big-gun battleship was, in a sense...

the lineal descendant of Nelson's day--

the idea of throwing a huge weight of metal...

over the greatest distance and destroying the enemy.

And during the First World War, that notion of big fleets...

big national fleets meeting and clashing...

and deciding the outcome of a war...

was really shown to be completely false.

War had changed. All that glamor had gone.

lt was now about logistics, survival, protection of trade...

and defeating the enemy that way.

There was a final irony for the Dreadnoughts.

On the 10th of June, 1918...

the Austrians put their star Dreadnought, the St. Istvan...

out to sea in the Adriatic.

lt was immediately hit by two Italian motor torpedo boats.

lt took just three and a half hours to sink.

Astonishingly, only 89 men died.

But the demise of the battleship was there for all to see.