All language subtitles for World War II Secrets from Above - S01E06 (2022) WEB.eng

May, 1940...

On the beaches of Dunkirk,

Hitler's army surrounds
more than 400,000 Allied troops.

On the other side of the Channel,
in England,

Navy planners race to assemble

a fleet of ships
to launch a rescue mission.

Luftwaffe fighter planes
circle above the beaches,

targeting their easy prey
on the sand below.

As the Nazi noose tightens,

hundreds of civilian vessels

join the largest military evacuation
in history.

In this series,

we investigate the most
extraordinary events of World War II

from a brand new perspective,

matching rarely-seen archive film,

photography from the front line,

and remarkable
aerial reconnaissance images

to their original locations.

We reconstruct the crucial battles,

daring bombing raids,

and deadly terror weapons

that changed the course of history.

Soaring over the battlefields,

we reveal the secrets of World War II...

from above.

April, 1940. Dunkirk, in northern France.

All is quiet along this sprawling beach.

But not far to the south
of this small coastal town,

the Allied armies are spreading out
for hundreds of kilometers

along the Belgium border
to set up a defensive front.

Since the war broke out
in September, 1939,

almost 400,000 British soldiers
have arrived in France.

They've been working
with the French forces

to set up World War I style defenses

to ward off potential attacks
from the Nazis.

But on the 10th of May,

Hitler's army launches
a sudden and massive invasion

on the neighboring countries of Belgium,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

They use a tactic known as "blitzkrieg,"

which combines vast numbers of tanks,

infantry, artillery, and aircraft
to stage highly concentrated attacks.

This allows Hitler to overwhelm even
the most organized of Allied defenses.

As the Nazis steamroller to the west,

Allied forces surge forward
to stop the advance.

Hitler's blitzkrieg tactics
allow his armies to move

at astonishing speeds
and create a pincer move.

This onslaught completely
takes the Allies by surprise,

creating panic and triggering
a mass withdrawal towards the coast.

Almost half-a-million Allied soldiers
retreat to the beaches

between Dunkirk and La Panne,
in Belgium, to try to escape.

Most are British, but there are also
Belgians, Dutch and French.

Many have been split up from their units
as they race towards the coast.

One of the soldiers
that reaches the vast shoreline

is private Ronald Mott
of the Queen's Royal Regiment.

I had hit the beach at La Panne.

There were so many men coming down
all roads to get to the beach

that you got pushed and shoved
and you got parted and you got lost.

We were all scared.

There was no Navy.

We didn't know what was going on.

It was complete chaos.

Thousands upon thousands of men
in the beach.

And nobody's getting off.

Former Royal Marine Arthur Williams

explores the beach at Dunkirk

to understand the dire situation
the Allies face.

Arriving on the beach
must have been terrifying for the troops

because thereafter,
you've got nowhere to go.

In the military,
we train to be on the offensive.

We're trained how to attack.

We train to always be moving forward.

We never really do any training
on how to withdraw safely

or how to withdraw effectively.

This is a battered army
that's been defeated,

not really knowing where they're going,
what they're doing and why.

One thing that strikes me
is the scale of the beach here at Dunkirk.

Right over there on the far horizon,

you can literally see
into another country.

That's Belgium over there and then
down there's the harbor town

of Dunkirk itself.

Imagine how terrifying it would have been.

If somebody decides to come
and try and have a go at you,

there's nothing you can do about it.

The Luftwaffe is quick
to exploit this vulnerability

with one of its most
potent aircraft, the Stuka.

These are extremely accurate
precision dive bombers,

armed with three
7.9 millimeter machine guns

and five bombs.

It's also mounted with an instrument
that produces a terrifying sound.

Its sole purpose is to strike fear
into the Allied forces below

as the plane dives towards its targets.

These aircraft were fitted
with what's called a "trumpet of Jericho."

It's a siren that makes a horrendous noise

when the aircraft starts its dive,

and these sirens don't do anything
for the airplanes' operation.

It's just purely to terrify those
on the ground who it's about to kill.

The soldiers are easy targets.

The only way they can defend themselves
is with their rifles.

But they stand little chance
against the Stukas.

The Stuka dive bombers overhead
were like vultures circling around,

waiting to just come down
and pick off their prey.

They had a choice of targets.

They were spoiled for choice.
They could have gone for anything.

From a soldier's point of view,

I think that they would have tried
to stay in the dunes as much as they could

because they offer you relative safety.

You can dig in there

and you've got a bit of cover
from bomb explosions and shell explosions.

It's not just the Luftwaffe circling above

that threatens the lives
of all these soldiers.

If the Allies can't find a way to slow
the advancing German ground troops,

almost all the British Army
could be wiped out.

The retreating soldiers
set explosives on sluice locks,

bridges and all critical infrastructure.

They build rudimentary defenses

and barricades on roads
to set up a defensive front.

The local canals and rivers
can also be harnessed as obstacles

to slow the Nazi tanks and infantry.

The men raced to use these waterways
as part of a defensive perimeter

to hold back the German advance
and buy some precious time.

But on the 25th of May,
the nearest of the Nazis' forces

are only 27 kilometers away
from the Allied beaches

between Dunkirk and La Panne.

The rearguard is ordered
to fight to the last man.

This should buy the Allies some time.

But it won't hold
the rampaging German forces for long.

Time is running out

and the Nazis' noose is ever-tightening.

The Allied commanders must find a way

to rescue their men from the dunes
and get them off Dunkirk's beaches.

If they fail,
it will almost certainly mean

total domination for Hitler across Europe.

These guys know that their area

is just being squeezed smaller
and smaller and smaller.

By the day, by the hour, by the minute,
the Germans are getting closer.

This is make-or-break.
This is do-or-die right here.

In Britain, evacuation planning has begun.

Since the start of the war,
Dover Castle has been set up

as a top-secret command center
for the Navy.

In May, 1940,

it's on the front line of one of the most
pivotal moments of the millennium.

Beneath the castle lies
a network of secret tunnels,

many of which were excavated into
the chalk during the Napoleonic wars.

In these tunnels,
a team of 20 senior officers

has just days to coordinate
one of the biggest evacuations in history,

code-named "Operation Dynamo."

Dr. Lynette Nusbacher investigates
why these tunnels have been chosen

to be the crucial nerve center
of operations for the Navy planners.

The naval staff is here,
bunkered up in the tunnels

underneath Dover Castle
because this enables them

to communicate directly
with the senior naval officers

running the ports along the coast here.

These guys are used to serving at sea,
and so the cramped quarters

that these guys are used
to working in aboard ship

are just being replicated
here underground.

You're gonna have a room here
for communications,

a room for logistics, a room
for each of the functions of the staff.

The people down under Dover Castle
are innovating.

They're making it up as they go along.

They are working around the clock.

Nobody expected the Germans
to encircle the British Army.

Nobody expected the Germans
to be winning the war so quickly.

The only way to prevent
a German victory in May of 1940

is to get the British Army
off the beach in France,

and bring it back to England.

One of the Navy's top commanders,

Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay,

is commander-in-chief
for this herculean operation.

Ramsay is just the right man for the job.

He is able to bring his keen intellect

and a technical orientation
to solving this problem.

Bertram Ramsay's task here in Dover

is to coordinate things on a scale

that nobody has ever done before.

So Ramsay's staff has got to figure out
how to get enough ships to France

to load up that whole British Army
and get it back to Britain.

Ramsay has a fleet of more than
200 ships at his disposal,

including destroyers,
minesweepers and passenger ferries.

But even with all these vessels,

they face formidable logistical challenges
when they arrive in France.

German bombers have been
targeting Dunkirk's harbor.

There's no way the British Navy ships
can use these docks for the evacuation.

Naval officer Captain William Tennant
devises an ingenious plan.

He proposes to use Dunkirk's
kilometer-long breakwater wall,

known as "the mole," as a makeshift dock.

Tennant and the officers in charge here

managed to maintain
a cool head under pressure.

With the situation
they found themselves in here,

it would have been easy
to dwell on what they didn't have.

They didn't have the infrastructure
that they needed

to get hundreds of thousands of troops
off the beach.

So what they had to do
was think outside the box

and look at what they did have
and adapt to that, and work with it.

But there's a problem with Tennant's plan.

The mole was not designed
for ships to be able to dock at.

It's less than three meters wide and
is exposed to the rapidly shifting tides.

It's a breakwater.
It's just a sea defense.

It's not built to have large ships
moor up alongside it,

and troops and supplies
shipped on and off.

It's a risk, but it's the only option.

On the 27th of May, the Navy's vessels
begin docking alongside the breakwater.

But with limited space,

some of the destroyers are forced
to drop anchor off the beaches.

They must remain
almost one kilometer offshore

to avoid running aground
on the shallow beach.

With the Luftwaffe
continuing to circle above,

the warships are tantalizingly close.

The thousands of soldiers on the beaches

are desperate to board the Navy vessels
so they can escape,

so they leave
the relative safety of the dunes

and wade out towards the ships
anchored offshore.

But here they are completely exposed.

With the water up to their necks,

they form queues and wait for hours.

But their hopes of salvation
are mercilessly dashed.

The huge Navy destroyers prove easy prey
for the Luftwaffe Stuka bombers.

One of the men submerged in the water
is Royal Artillery gunner James Bradley.

The dive bombers were, you know,
knocking the ships here

and there were terrible things happening.

I saw a destroyer
actually packed with men on board hit,

and it just went on its side

and hundreds of men went into the sea,
thrashing about.

Many of them couldn't swim on shore.

The attacks forced the men on
the beach to retreat back into the dunes.

Out of a force of almost 400,000,

the Navy planners estimate that, at best,
they'll only be able to rescue 45,000.

Barely one in ten men.

Back in Dover, the Allied planners
scramble to find ways

to evacuate more of their men
from Dunkirk's beaches.

If they fail, Britain itself
will be left all but defenseless.

In desperation,

Vice Admiral Ramsay and the Navy
requisition smaller civilian vessels.

The Medway Queen is one of the many boats
being sent to Dunkirk.

It's a 55-meter-long paddle steamer.

Built in 1924,

it's designed for pleasure cruises
up and down river estuaries.

To prepare the ship for war,

engineers have fitted two antiaircraft
machine guns in the middle of the deck.

They've also extended the bridge
and enclosed it for protection,

and installed a huge gun on its bow that
fires shells weighing over five kilos.

On the 27th of May,
the ship sets sail for Dunkirk.

Trustee Pamela Bathurst

investigates the challenges
the crew of the Medway Queen faces

on such a treacherous mission
across the Channel.

The Medway Queen
is an estuary paddle steamer

and should never go to sea.

She's not big enough to go to sea.

But of course, in times of war,
all sorts of things happen

and, you know,
rules and regulations are forgotten.

The crew is led by Royal Navy
officers and reserves,

but it also includes 14 merchant seamen.

The crew were extremely brave.

Some of them were Cornish
and Devon fishermen,

so had no experience of fighting a war.

The English Channel
is a tough crossing to make

because you've got fast-flowing water
through the Channel.

You had mines, you had German planes
dive bombing them.

So it was a very dangerous time.

Vice Admiral Ramsay and his advisors

believe that smaller vessels like this

could be the key
to speeding up the evacuation.

All the paddle steamers
had very shallow drafts,

so could get very close up into the beach.

Not quite to the beach,
but get very close.

Mercifully for the men stuck in France,

the Medway Queen isn't the only
merchant vessel to set sail for Dunkirk.

Ships of all shapes and sizes depart
from harbors around the coast of Britain.

They include fishing boats from Cornwall,

and luxury motor yachts
commandeered from their wealthy owners.

More than 600 civilian vessels
join the flotilla,

and begin the perilous voyage
across the Channel.

They are christened the "Little Ships."

One of the motor yachts
that makes the crossing is Mimosa.

Former owner Jane Percival is on board

the 14-and-a-half-meter long Little Ship.

Within a very short space
of time, the Ministry of War Transport

put out a request for any vessels
from 30 feet to 100 feet.

And with some boats just like this one,

a note was left on her mooring
that she'd been requisitioned,

and they'd get back in touch
with the owner after the war.

So although it was put out as a request,

it was actually an order and you couldn't
stop them taking the boat.

Even though most of these ships
have Navy crews,

they haven't been trained
for an operation like this,

and nothing can prepare
the civilian volunteers on board

for what they are about to experience.

They were going into a war zone.

And these pleasure boats became warships.

The majority of the boats
had fully-qualified naval staff

that knew these waters,

but they still had to skirt around
boats that had been sunk,

boats that were on fire.

They had to worry about the aircraft.

They had to worry about
whether they might be torpedoed.

They had to plan a crossing
where they could avoid all the minefields.

So it's a kind of zigzag route,
not a direct route.

To negotiate
the Channel's sprawling sandbanks

and hazardous minefields,

the Little Ships
take three different routes.

Route Z is the shortest, at 75 kilometers,

but is vulnerable to heavy fire
from German gun emplacements near Calais.

Route X is 101 kilometers,

and runs right through
the shallow sandbanks and minefields.

Route Y is 161 kilometers
and relatively free of mines,

but it's twice the distance of Route Z,

which heightens the risk of attack
by German bombers and submarines.

All the Little Ships are headed
for the heart of the Allied-held beaches

between Dunkirk and La Panne.

Nearby is the Fort des Dunes,

a key stronghold supporting
the shrinking defensive perimeter.

Buried beneath the sand dunes
that surround it,

the Fort des Dunes
is designed to be invisible.

Resident specialist Lily Soki
scales the fort to investigate

why it's so valuable
to the retreating Allied forces.

In May 1940, soldiers come here
to find their units amongst the chaos.

The fort is being used
to coordinate the French troops

holding the defensive perimeter.

After receiving fresh orders, they're sent
back out to reinforce the front line.

They're instructed
to defend the perimeter to the last man.

Twenty-eighth of May,
two days into the evacuation.

Nearly 25,000 Allied troops
have now been rescued.

But hundreds of thousands
remain in Dunkirk

as the Luftwaffe air attack continues.

The situation is just as dire for
the Allies on the ground further inland.

Their defensive perimeter
is under attack and shrinking fast.

The Allied-held area is one-sixth
of what it was just three days earlier.

In the harbor,
the Saint-Pol oil refinery is on fire.

It billows smoke that drifts
across the beaches,

providing some cover
from the Luftwaffe for the men below.

The scene here would have been
almost apocalyptic.

The sky would have been thick
with black, acrid smoke,

and the smell would have been
equally as menacing.

There would have been signs of death.

I think it would have been
an incredibly scary place to be.

But all is not lost.

As men continue to wade out
into the water,

specks appear on the horizon.

The sight of the Little Ships delivers
fresh hope to the desperate soldiers.

But loading thousands of men
onto hundreds of vessels

of all shapes and sizes
is a complex and time-consuming exercise.

As they reached Dunkirk, it was chaos
and there were ships everywhere.

The Little Ships' role
was to actually head for the beaches

where they could see the men
in the water waiting to be rescued.

They were avoiding obstacles.
They were avoiding wrecks.

They were avoiding fuel
that was on fire in the water.

From the skippers' point of view,

obviously they wanted to be
as effective as possible,

so they had to choose a point on the beach
where there was a line of men

and then start to pull them on board.

The skipper would have been very aware of
managing the weight that was in the boat.

To get 70 men on a boat
that should only take 12,

you could probably fit about 40
outside on the decks of this boat,

and another 30 down below.

It was a case of just loading
on as many as you could,

because every man saved was another man
that could fight another day.

Boat crews haul
the exhausted men on board.

But they're then faced
with heartbreaking decisions.

The traumatizing thing
for the skippers and their crew

must have been when to decide

not to pull anyone else
on board and to leave,

and they would have had
to say to them, "No more.

"Someone else will be here to help you.
We'll be back."

The soldiers devise innovative ways

to board the Little Ships
as fast as possible.

Evidence can be seen from above.

A super-low tide exposes the remains
of vehicles buried deep in the sand.

Local resident Yves Janssen
examines the sunken artifacts.

The soldiers drive trucks
as far as possible into the water,

and lay planks of wood over them
to create the makeshift jetties.

They assemble multiple pontoons
along the beaches,

which keep the men dry
as they board the small vessels.

Two days into the evacuation,

Little Ships are setting off
back to Britain packed to the brim.

Thousands of men
may finally be on their way home.

But on the land, Hitler's tanks
and infantry move ever-closer.

And in the air,

his Stuka bombers target the rescue ships
docking alongside the mole.

Twenty-nineth of May, 1940...

Allied ships dock alongside the mole,

three days into the evacuation
from Dunkirk.

But as the men board the ships,
they are far from safe.

Nazi Stukas continue to attack
the makeshift jetty,

which stretches for a kilometer
along the edge of the harbor.

I think being on the mole,
they would have been so vulnerable.

It's a perfect target.

It stands out
like a sore thumb from the air.

It's very linear, so you can strafe it.
You can bomb it.

And because the troops
are so tightly confined here,

they'd have been trapped.

They'd have been sitting ducks, really.

As the Stukas dive,

the men scramble
onto the ships to try to find cover.

The thing is,
once you get on board one of the ships,

you could be forgiven for thinking,

"Great. I'm safe now.
I'm on my way back home."

But no, you're not.
You're still vulnerable to air attack.

Arguably more so, because you're on
a prime target for enemy aircraft.

One of the ships docked at the mole

is the paddle steamer the Crested Eagle.

It's loading up with 600 men,

but just as it sets sail,
it's targeted by a Stuka.

Four bombs land directly
on the Crested Eagle.

Corporal Bob Bloom, a probationary
medical attendant, is on board.

The next thing I heard was,
"Abandon ship!"

So I jumped in the water.

And as I came up, somebody else
jumped in and pushed me down under again.

Then a whaler came alongside.

Two chaps pulled me in board
and they covered me with tarpaulin.

As Bob is hauled out of
the water, the Crested Eagle is ablaze.

With its engine still running,
it careers out of control along the coast

until it beaches on the sand
roughly nine kilometers from the mole.

For the men still stranded on the beaches,

it's a traumatic thing to see.

But there is hope.

Despite the risks that they could meet
the same fate as the Crested Eagle,

the other Little Ships continue to ferry
the beleaguered men back to Britain.

Each crossing takes,
on average, six hours.

Many of these vessels sail at night
to minimize the threat of enemy attacks.

On the front line in France,

the number of Allied soldiers
on their defensive perimeter is dwindling.

They're making a last stand to prevent
the Germans finally storming the beaches.

But they won't be able
to hold them for long.

The Allied perimeter around Dunkirk
has shrunk even further.

By the 31st of May,

the Nazis' frontline is only 10 kilometers
from the beaches.

But before Hitler's troops
can go in for the kill,

they must capture Fort des Dunes,
the final Allied stronghold.

French soldiers desperately try
to hold on to this vantage point

to buy the men on the beaches more time.

On the second of June,
the German front line is so close,

the Allies can see it from the fort.

General Janssen is in charge
of the division here.

Early evening,
German Stukas attack the fort.

Two bombs land in the courtyard.

The Germans continue to bomb
the fort for two days,

and kill over 100 soldiers.

On the fourth of June,
the surviving troops abandon the fort.

As the perimeter crumbles,
the Little Ships continue to collect

as many of the remaining
soldiers as possible

before the beaches are overrun.

But more than 200 of these small vessels
are sunk during the operation.

The Medway Queen
is one of the last to leave.

On the steamer's final trip,

one of its paddle boxes is damaged
whilst moored alongside the mole.

But it limps home, carrying hundreds
of members of the French rearguard.

The crew and soldiers on board

even manage to shoot down
three enemy aircraft.

The Medway Queen
makes a total of seven trips,

rescuing over 7,000 Allied troops.

But over 80,000 men have been
left behind and taken as prisoners of war.

It's a somber mood on board
as they return to England.

The surviving soldiers are traumatized,
hungry, and feel like cowards.

The sight of home brings some solace,

especially for those badly injured.

Somebody would shout out,
"Look, there's the white cliffs!"

And the wounded begged to be lifted up
to the window

so that they could see the white cliffs.

They just wanted to see that they were
going home, and they were going home.

Thanks to the efforts of
the Navy and these Little Ships,

338,000 men escape from Dunkirk.

Seven times more than Churchill
and the Admiralty thought was possible.

As the soldiers arrive in Britain's ports,
it's then time to treat the wounded.

The men are crestfallen
after defeat by the Germans.

But these men survive
to fight another day.

Their courage and determination
in the face of adversity

gives birth to the phrase
"Dunkirk spirit."

Britain will not have to surrender.

On the fourth of June, 1940,
the final day of the evacuation,

Churchill addresses Parliament.

We shall go on to the end.

We shall defend our island,
whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches.

We shall fight on the landing grounds.

We shall fight in the fields
and in the streets.

We shall fight in the hills.

We shall never surrender.