All language subtitles for U-Boat.Wargamers.S01E06.The.End.Game.1080p.NOW.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

- ONS-5. One of the largest
single convoys ever undertaken.

- Fire torpedo tubes!
One, two and four!

- Donitz's fleet is expanding.
He will not rest till he's sent

every convoy ship
to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

- 41 U-boats. A wolf pack
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!

CREW MEMBER:
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.

- The breakthrough we've waited for.
- There's no going back.

NARRATOR: Ten days
into its journey to Canada,

convoy ONS-5 has been battered
and dispersed by gale force winds.

As the storm passes,
the largest wolf pack

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 got Gretton's report.

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

- That leaves what?
- Nine or ten.

- God knows where they are.

Scattered all over the ocean
for now probably.

And he's sent another escort

- to assemble them.
- Till further information,

shall I put the stragglers

- here at stern?
- Hm.

No air cover
and down to seven escorts.

I hope this new man Sherwood
is up to it.

NARRATOR: Following Gretton's
departure, Robert Sherwood,

Lieutenant Commander of HMS Tay,
is now in charge

of the stricken convoy.

- 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 defences

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

- You, here!

- In spring 1943,
after the German army's defeat

at the Battle of Stalingrad,
Donitz is still gaining successes

in terms of sinking enemy vessels.

So strong hopes lie
from the side of Hitler on Donitz

to be one of the men 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.

NARRATOR: Due to
an intelligence blackout,

the Allies are unaware of
the unprecedented scale

of the wolf pack
that Karl Donitz is assembling.

- We're covering 400 miles,
west-northwest to east-southeast.

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

- We're getting sightings, ships
drifting miles from the escorts.

- 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.

NARRATOR: Six miles
behind the convoy,

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

SHERWOOD: Fire torpedo tubes!
One, two and four!

- Donitz 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.

Donitz by this stage of the war
is aware that this is a duel

between him
and Western Approaches command.

- So many stragglers.
Miles away from the convoy.

There could be strikes
Sherwood doesn't 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,
quite another out there.

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.

NARRATOR: As the convoy
travels into the black pit,

where there is no Allied air cover,

the wolf pack 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 wargaming

is that it allows officers
to practise

and create a sort of muscle memory

about responses
to different scenarios.

They just do it intuitively.

- Convoy full steam ahead.

Loosestrife, proceed to stern

and assist Northern Spray
with the survivors.

NARRATOR: Three merchant ships
are torpedoed at close range,

all sinking
within 19 minutes of each other.

- They’re in columns one and two.
Escort ships, half-Raspberry!

- Half Raspberry!
- CREW MEMBER: 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 brainchild
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 burned the candle
at both ends

looking at those fresh statistics.
How do you confront

eight wolf packs?
How do you confront an enemy

that's 30-plus U-boats-strong.

This is a totally different fight.

NARRATOR: Once the escort ships
are in a half-Raspberry formation,

a pattern of depth charges
are fired.

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

they've no way of knowing

if those depths charges
were successful or not,

they can only hope
that they can continue in safety.

NARRATOR: In Belfast Castle,
Christian Oldham,

awaiting news of her fiance
John Lamb,

refuses to leave the plotting room.

- It was the only place
that 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’d probably lay down on the chair
or something, but, you know,

there was no way
that I could leave the plot

until the battle was decided.

NARRATOR: 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.

(sonar pinging)

- ASDIC contact 1200 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 a U-boat
and it goes in pursuit.

- And John was woken up
by a huge bang,

which he thought was them
going aground.

They couldn't possibly be
going aground, he realised,

they were right out
in the middle of the ocean.

He realised 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...

(huge thud)

- ...and was actually
lying on top of it,

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

NARRATOR: 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 brutalisation
took place

and this led to incidents where,

contrary to the laws of the sea

and also international law,
survivors were not picked up.

- There is chaos, there is the sound
of depth charges going off,

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. They're now
perfectly in target,

silhouetted for the U-boats.

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

following tactics
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.

- Torpedo fire, column two.

Golias is hit. Artichoke.

Artichoke.

(gulls crying)

- 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-boats 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 have 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 Donitz 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.

- Jean.

(panting) It was quite a night.

- Well, can I take heart?

- That is your prerogative.
All I can say

is that I think that there will be
a lot more food on our plates soon.

- Did they use our tactics?
Do we know?

(breathes heavily)

- I believe so.
- Were any U-boat strikes?

- Five, can you believe it?

(gasps)

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.

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

- Absolutely not.

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

He's outmanoeuvred.
Our technology and our tactics

have outwitted him.

- I always knew they would.

The breakthrough
we've been waiting for.

- There's no going back.

- Complacency, Gilbert?

- Touche.

- We never know what Donitz has
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 darned 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.

All of a sudden,
Donitz is on the run.

Donitz is summoned
to the Wolf's Lair,

the Wolfsschanze,
Hitler's HQ on the eastern front.

HITLER: You know what our people
are calling that convoy?

- Hitler is furious, and he rants
against Donitz: "How dare you?

You promised me these wolf packs
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 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.

NARRATOR: The REN, a new weapon
that Donitz has been developing

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

- Hitler believes 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.

- Donitz 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 Schwarzer Mai,

Black May.

This is where Peter Gretton,
the former commander of OMS-5,

comes back into the story.

He is returning from St John's,
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 Donitz's son,
who dies in the attack.

- Actually,
Donitz lost his two sons,

who were also naval officers,
in action.

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.

It was very similar
to the British approach

of keeping a stiff upper lip.

NARRATOR: Following the relocation
of Donitz'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.

NARRATOR: 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 so that was my job,
which was quite interesting,

and extremely secret, of course.

NARRATOR: 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,
Donitz has a surprise up his sleeve.

The question is, can they work out
what it is

before a catastrophe happens?

NARRATOR: 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 was 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,
but 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
Donitz is targeting first any more,

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 propellor

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.

NARRATOR: Roberts and Laidlaw
know that the acoustic torpedo

targets the loudest sound, the twin
propellers of the escort ships.

- 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

NARRATOR: 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
as 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 anyone else.
It was very good, enjoyed ourselves.

- Ah.

I have news. I've received a letter.

- You have? That's... good.

- Not just any letter.

I'm to be honoured.

Commander of the Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire.

CBE.

- That's marvellous!

- 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.
- Mm.

- None of the women of WATU
received any honours,

not even Jean Laidlaw,
who was almost equal

to Gilbert Roberts in her efforts
at 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 honoured
officially.

NARRATOR: 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 Donitz understood

that there'd be large ships
manoeuvring in position.

If a U-boat gets amongst those
it is going to 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,
attacks in confined waters.

- Tactics that could be deployed,
say, in a water-based invasion.

- It is not our place to speculate
or share our speculations, Jean.

- Talk is cheap.

- Yes, sir.

- Donitz 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 the U-boats
won't get to the invasion fleet.

ARCHIVE ANNOUNCER: 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.

(explosion)

- 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.

- I think we all felt
enormous relief,

not least for our
Free French friends,

that at least 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.

NARRATOR: 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.

- Donitz is absolutely shocked.
So what does he do?

He goes in for a sort of
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 the order
as a kind of a suicide mission.

It is like
Donitz is kind of saying,

"I even sacrificed my sons
on the altar of the Fatherland

so I'm not expecting something
from my crews

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

NARRATOR: Only 35 U-boats
scramble to 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 have been
probably major attacks on the fleet,

Even though there were few U-boats,
this was the decisive battle.

The Germans would have 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 Donitz.

Once the high mighty admiral
of the German Navy,

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

(car horn, tram bell)

(bell dings)

- Night, ladies.
- Oh, night.

- Speech?
- Yeah, speech!

- No, no.
I will leave that to the admirals.

But I will say this.

We may not be awarded CBEs,

but we are honoured
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-ra...!

- Ooh!
- (laughs)

Look who it is. Captain Roberts.

June, you're the performer,
you should read it.

- 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 realised that they
first saw the same situation

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

- But isn't it a little strange
to be putting it in a magazine,

giving the game away,
excuse the pun,

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 modelling, or acting

when this is all over,
everyone says it.

- You should, it'd be a 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
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...!

Yeah...!

NARRATOR: As the Allies push
through Nazi-occupied Europe.

Karl Donitz'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.

But before doing this,
he names his successor.

And that is... Donitz.

- Donitz had once seen himself
as one of the sort of saviours

of Germany, along with Hitler.
They were going to create

this sort of brave new German Reich.

(chair scrapes)

- And there he is, he's the one
who's responsible

for signing the unconditional
surrender of Germany

at the end of World War Two...

- Enter.

- ...for this lowest point, really,
in German history.

NARRATOR: Overseeing
the unconditional surrender

of Germany, Donitz 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.

- Thank you.

NARRATOR: But before Donitz'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 Flinsberg.

And who is in Flinsberg?

- 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 peaceful surroundings
at the end of the war,

looking at one another
and sizing one another up

and then finally
having to say goodbye.

He comes across, ironically,
a photograph of himself

which had been printed
in a magazine, and it says,

"This is your enemy."

- Well, well, well...
That's how he recognised me.

- Your men have forced their way
into my operations room.

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.

(German)

- Admiral Godt,
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 Godt
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.

- 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.

NARRATOR: Unbeknown to Godt,

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 Godt 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 wargaming strategies.

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

NARRATOR: For his war efforts,
Karl Donitz is tried

along with other top-ranking Nazis,
in Nuremberg.

- Donitz denies any knowledge
of the Holocaust,

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

He's a 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 different.

NARRATOR: Donitz is accused
of breaking international naval law

by not rescuing enemy survivors.

But his lawyers force the court
to recognise the same behaviour

in the Allied fleet.

As a result,
Donitz avoids execution

and is sentenced to ten years
in Spandau Jail.

- Fire.

NARRATOR: U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer
is never charged with war crimes.

Resuming
an illustrious naval career,

he rises to become Chief of Staff
of the Baltic Naval Command

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

GAMING VOICEOVER:
Smoke on horizon, Captain!

(OTTO KRETSCHMER, ARCHIVE)
It was, sadly, easy for me

to penetrate
the screen of the escort

and getting into the convoy proper.

- 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 a convoy,
and the chaos.

Engines silenced
for the danger to pass.

It was you who insisted that was
their modus operandi and it was.

Admiral Godt confirmed it.

- Well, thank you,

but it was the 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.

ROBERTS' VOICEOVER: The Battle
of the Atlantic is against

our two great enemies...

...the U-boat and the cruel sea.

LAIDLAW: We will prevail.
I know we will.

ROBERTS: Well done, Laidlaw.

NARRATOR: 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.

NARRATOR: After the war,
Jean Laidlaw resumes her career

as an accountant and lives quietly
with her partner Beryl

until her death in 2008.

ROBERTS:
So meet WREN rating Janet Okell,

the woman who beat you five-nil.

NARRATOR: Janet Okell returns
to her old life near Liverpool.

She dies in 2005,
less than ten miles

from the Western Approaches
tactical unit.

- Never surrender.
- Never surrender.

NARRATOR: June Duncan
enjoys a successful career

as a top model and actor,

later becoming the Assistant Editor
of Harper's Bazaar.

In 1945, Vera Lawton Matthews,
wartime director of the WRENS...

- I've got a secret little plan.
- NARRATOR: ...is made a Dame.

She dies aged 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 admired 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.".

NARRATOR: The WATU WRENS
may not have received any honours,

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.

(stirring orchestral music)

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