All language subtitles for 7 Turning The Tide

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As World War II got underway,

both the Allies and the Germans

were looking for
the knockout blow.

The new weapon that
would decisively

defeat the enemy.

For Hitler's Germany
the problem was

that Britain was an island.

His tanks couldn't blitzkrieg
across the channel.

The only way to
defeat her was to

strangle her seaborne
supply routes.

That meant warships and
above all, submarines.

For the Western Allies, the
problem was attacking Germany

when there were no Allied
troops in mainland Europe.

The solution they adopted
was strategic bombing.

Aerial bombardment,
aimed at destroying

Germany's infrastructure
and pounding

its people into submission.

The two sides had
adopted two very

different tactics
but with one aim.

To save their troops
and to bring the war

to an end as quickly
as possible.

Ironically, it was the Germans

who first started
strategic bombing.

In August 1940, Luftwaffe bombers
accidentally hit London.

The RAF retaliated
by bombing Berlin.

By the autumn,
Germany was bombing

Britain's cities almost daily,

convinced the British
would eventually crack.

But the Blitz, as it was called,

never showed any sign of forcing

the British to surrender.

And by the summer of
1941, it was dying away

as the Luftwaffe turned its
attention to the war in Russia.

But for the British
military command,

bombing remained the only way of

striking directly at
Hitler's Germany.

Moreover, by early 1941
the RAF was starting

to receive a new
generation of bigger,

more powerful,
four-engined bombers.

These could carry loads of up
to 18,000 pounds of bombs,

four times the capacity
of earlier aircraft.

The first of these was
the Short Stirling.

To begin with, the plan was not

to hit the German population,

but specific
infrastructure targets,

cutting transport
and oil supplies,

damaging Germany's
ability to wage war.

But it suffered one
central problem.

Britain's bombing was
extremely inaccurate.

In August 1941, a secret
British report showed that

over the crucial German
Ruhr industrial area,

only 10% of British
bombers were getting

their bombs within five
miles of their target.

At the same time, the
German air defences

were taking a terrible
toll on British planes.

By late 1941, up to
10% of the bombers

on any raid were
being shot down.

A loss rate which
couldn't be sustained.

The Royal Air Force High Command

decided to change tactics.

It gave up any pretence of
trying to hit specific targets.

Instead, Bomber Command was
instructed to undertake

what it called "area bombing."

A euphemism for what is known
today as carpet bombing.

The idea was to deliberately
target an entire area

of a city, regardless of
the civilian population.

In the chilling words of
the British Air Ministry,

it would destroy "the morale
of the civilian population"

and, in particular, of
industrial workers."

Its leading exponent
was Air Marshal

Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris,

who was now appointed
commander-in-chief

of RAF Bomber Command.

There are a lot
of people who say

that bombing can
never win a war.

Well, my answer to
that is that it has

never been tried yet
and we shall see.

They sowed the wind
and now they are

going to reap the whirlwind.

In spring 1942, Harris
launched what was, in effect,

a huge public
relations stunt for

what he preferred to call,
"strategic bombing."

He gathered every available
aircraft in Bomber Command.

Over a thousand took off for
the German city of Cologne.

The city's defences
were overwhelmed.

Six hundred acres
were destroyed.

But only 39 British
aircraft were lost.

Harris had won his point.

He now had the full
support of the

British prime minister,
Winston Churchill.

He also now had an
outstanding new weapon,

the Avro Lancaster, the finest

heavy night bomber of the war.

And he had a new partner.

By the summer of 1942,
the United States

had joined the air
war in Europe.

American planes began
to appear in Britain.

The majority were the Boeing
B-17 Flying Fortress.

It was heavily armed
with 13 machine guns

and could, in theory,
fight its way through

to a target in daylight
without a fighter escort.

It was also equipped
with a new bomb sight

that would supposedly allow
it to drop its bombs

with almost unerring precision.

These features
encouraged the Americans

to ignore the lessons of
the early British campaign

and return to targeted raids
on Germany's infrastructure.

In August 1942,
the Americans put

the Flying Fortress to the test.

Twelve of them attacked
marshalling yards

near Rouen in France.

Damage was slight, but the
United States lost no aircraft.

For the Americans, it was the
proof that daylight raids

on infrastructure
targets could work.

For the British, it simply
showed that the Americans

could hit a minor and
relatively undefended target.

But that winter, the two Allies

agreed to combine
their approaches.

They would launch a
massive bombing campaign

against Germany's
industrial heartland.

The Americans would
attack by day against

carefully selected
infrastructure targets.

The British would
attack by night,

carpet bombing whole areas,

destroying war production
and civilian morale.

They hoped it would
be so devastating

it might even bring
the war to an end.

In March 1943, British
planes took off

for the German industrial
city of Essen.

High-speed mosquito light
bombers went in first,

dropping flares to
highlight the targets.

Then a force of nearly
450 Lancaster bombers

swept over the city,
dropping their loads.

The German defences
were overpowered.

Only 14 British aircraft
were shot down.

The Essen raid was followed
by wave after wave

of similar attacks on
industrial towns in the Ruhr.

But the German air
defences now began to

get the measure of
the Allied attacks.

Britain's losses
climbed to one in ten.

Harris was forced reluctantly
to call a halt to the attacks.

But then he was informed about
a new Allied invention.

Code named "Window,"
it consisted of clouds

of aluminium foil strips
dropped from an aircraft.

As the foil fell, it
jammed any radar system.

It promised to cripple
the German air defences.

Harris seized on it.

And four months after the
Essen raid, in July 1943,

he went back on the offensive.

He called it Operation Gomorrah.

The target this time was the
industrial port of Hamburg.

Bombers, equipped with Window,
jammed the German radar.

Other aircraft dropped
incendiary bombs.

A giant firestorm engulfed
the city's centre.

Forty thousand people
died and half a million

were made homeless.

More raids on the port followed.

It was an enormous shock
to the German people.

Four months later, in
the autumn of 1943,

Harris followed Hamburg with a
series of attacks on Berlin.

But by now the Germans
were learning to overcome

the effect of Window
and by spring 1944,

British losses were back at
nearly one plane in ten.

Worse, there was no sign

German civilian
morale was cracking.

Harris's carpet bombing
campaign was just not working.

But neither was the
American alternative

of targeting infrastructure.

By the spring of 1943, US
Army Air Force daylight raids

were steadily reaching
deeper into Germany.

But American losses
were climbing.

Around one in every 15
planes was being shot down.

Yet, undaunted, the American
command now launched

an attack on factories
in the German towns

of Regensburg and Schweinfurt.

It was hugely ambitious.

Both were deep in
southern Germany,

far beyond the range
of US escort fighters.

It was a disaster.

The 380 Flying Fortresses,
which US bomber chiefs

had assured everybody wouldn't
need a fighter escort,

were harried and shot down.

The loss rate was over 16%.

The US was forced to suspend
its bombing campaign.

The war in the air had
reached stalemate

and there was still
no sign of it

helping to usher in a victory.

Then, in the early
summer of 1944,

as the Allies prepared to
invade mainland Europe,

the British and American
air forces were tasked

with disrupting
German communication

lines and oil supplies.

It represented a return to
targeted infrastructure bombing.

But this time, the
Allies had a new weapon.

The British had
experimentally modified

a US fighter, the P-51 Mustang.

The US engine had
been replaced by

a British made Rolls
Royce Merlin.

It gave the plane a
much longer range.

It was the ideal
long-distance bomber escort.

The Allied bombers hit
bridges and roads

leading to the German
front in France

with almost surgical precision.

Oil supplies to the
German military

were drastically reduced.

Once again, the German
fighters attacked,

but they were now out
manoeuvred by the Mustang.

Much of the German air force,

now running low on
fuel, was grounded.

The campaign of targeted bombing

on Germany's infrastructure
may not have been

the knockout blow the
Allies hoped for,

but it was finally
paying dividends.

But one man was not impressed.

Bomber Harris was still
obsessed with the idea

that ever more devastating
carpet bombing attacks

would stop Germany in her
tracks once and for all.

So it was, that in late 1944,

Britain returned
to carpet bombing.

German city after city
was hit and devastated.

Then, in February 1945,
Harris attacked Dresden,

a city with virtually no
military significance.

The city's civilian
population had been inflated

by refugees fleeing
bombing raids elsewhere.

Yet Harris seems to have had
no regard for civilian life.

The city was flattened.

Some 50,000 people died.

It was a raid too far.

Finally questions began to
be asked about the morality,

let alone the efficacy,
of carpet bombing.

Whatever it had achieved, it
had been done at a horrendous

cost of civilian and
military lives.

Critically, it had failed
to break German morale,

yet 60% of RAF crews had died

before they had
completed 30 missions.

For all the hopes put in it,

carpet bombing had not come
up with the knockout blow.

The Germans, meanwhile,
had put their faith

in an altogether
different technology

to give them the knockout blow
they needed to win the war.

For Germany, Britain
was a problem.

It was an island and, for once,

Hitler's formidable land
forces were useless.

Britain also had a much
more powerful navy.

Yet Hitler calculated
that if he used

what he had strategically,
he could fatally

disrupt the sea convoys
that were keeping

Britain supplied with
everything from oil to food.

In the first 18
months of the war,

German raiders sank more than
130 British merchant vessels.

Some of the most
effective raiders

were the so-called,
"pocket battleships."

Small but powerful warships
designed in the 1930s

to circumvent
restrictions imposed on

German rearmament
after World War I.

One, the Graf Spee, became
particularly notorious.

In a matter of weeks she sank
nine Allied merchant ships

in the South Atlantic
before being cornered off

the River Plate in South
America and scuttled.

But the raids were
taking a serious toll.

If the losses continued to rise,

Britain would have
real supply problems.

Then, in early spring 1941,
Germany's first and only

two full-sized battleships
completed their sea trials.

They sent a shiver through
the British Navy.

Their potential for
destruction was enormous.

First into action
was the Bismarck.

In May, RAF
reconnaissance aircraft

spotted her in the
Norwegian port of Bergen,

trying to sneak out into
the North Atlantic.

The British Navy set
off in pursuit.

Two days later, the Bismarck was

sighted in the North Atlantic.

Britain's latest battleship,
the Prince of Wales,

was sent to intercept her.

With her was the British
battle cruiser, Hood.

Early on May 24, 1941,
the two forces met.

It was the first time the
two sides' battleships

had squared up to each other.

Almost immediately, a
shell from the Bismarck

plunged through the weak
deck armour of the Hood.

It penetrated one of
the aft magazines.

There was a huge explosion.

Only three of the Hood's
1,200 crew survived.

The Prince of Wales, now
outnumbered, retreated.

It was round one
to the Bismarck.

Two days later, Bismarck
was spotted again.

This time far to the south,

several hundred miles off
the coast of France.

British Swordfish torpedo
bombers swooped in.

One hit and jammed the
Bismarck's rudder.

The following morning,
two British battleships,

the Rodney and King George V,

caught up with the
crippled Bismarck.

They started pouring
heavy calibre shells

onto the hapless German ship.

She was soon reduced
to a blazing wreck.

Bismarck was finally
sunk by a torpedo.

All but 110 of her
2,300 crew perished.

The Bismarck had
been sunk before

she'd had a chance
to prove her worth.

Then in June 1941, Hitler
invaded the Soviet Union.

War at sea entered a new phase.

Britain began sending
supply convoys

to the Russian Arctic ports of

Murmansk and Archangel.

Immediately the German navy
prepared to cut them off.

Convoy after convoy was
attacked or threatened.

By summer 1943, it had
become so dangerous,

further convoys to Russia were
suspended until the autumn,

when it was hoped
bad weather and

poor visibility would
offer some protection.

While the convoys
were suspended,

Britain turned its
attention to one

of the biggest threats it faced,

the Bismarck's
sister ship Tirpitz.

She'd spent months hiding
in the Norwegian fjords

waiting for the
moment to pounce.

All the while the
British Navy had been

keeping her under close watch,

determined to eliminate
Germany's last battleship.

In September 1943, five
British midget submarines,

known as X-craft, were sent into

the Norwegian
fjords to sink her.

The attack caused
only minor damage

and by the following
spring, the Tirpitz was,

once again, ready the
menace the Arctic convoys.

The Royal Navy now sent in a
massive force to attack her.

It included six
aircraft carriers.

They took the Germans
completely by surprise.

British dive bombers
attacked Tirpitz.

But she was heavily
armoured and the relatively

small bombs caused only
superficial damage.

Three months later she was
ready for action again.

She was soon spotted in
another Norwegian fjord.

Lancaster bombers carrying
massive five-ton Tallboy bombs

were sent in to sink
her once and for all.

Tirpitz put up a smoke screen
which partially obscured her.

Nevertheless several
bombs struck her bow

causing severe damage.

Finally, two months later, a
squadron of Lancaster bombers

caught her in perfect
weather conditions.

Three Tallboys struck home.

Tirpitz slowly capsized

Almost a thousand crew
members went down with her.

After more than two years
of hiding and running

from the British navy,
she had been sunk.

Germany's battleships
had promised much,

but against the overwhelming
might of the British navy,

they'd never had a chance
to prove their worth.

Hitler had lost the
battle at sea,

at least on the surface.

But below the waves, it
was a different story.

Germany's military
planners had long expected

that the country's U-boat
fleet would play a key role

in cutting Britain's
supply lines.

They could sneak up underwater
on British merchant vessels,

attacking them at
the last moment.

The submarines were also
extremely agile on the surface.

To combat the threat,
Britain's merchant fleet

was corralled into
convoys for protection.

But there was a serious shortage

of anti-submarine
ships to escort them.

Many ships sailed
without protection.

Yet Britain's naval command
remained remarkably complacent.

They believed they
had the weapons

and the technology to
contain the U-boat threat.

It was soon proved wrong.

In the early months of the war,

Britain's supply lines were
harassed and disrupted.

Often the U-boats would
attack on the surface,

picking off merchant ships
with their deck guns.

In response, the Royal Navy
sent aircraft carriers

equipped with submarine
hunting aircraft

to patrol the sea lanes
used by the convoys.

But they had only
limited effect.

By the end of 1939, over a
hundred Allied merchant ships

had been sunk by
German submarines.

If losses continued
at this rate,

Britain would face disaster.

Oil, food, and weapons would
all begin to run short.

Then things got even
more difficult.

Germany overran France.

Suddenly the German
Navy, which until now

had been largely bottled
up in the North Sea,

had access to France's
Atlantic seaboard.

They now had a base to attack
Britain's Atlantic convoys.

France's Atlantic
ports filled with

newly built German U-boats,

particularly the Type
VIIC ocean-going vessel.

Admiral Karl Doenitz, head of
the German U-boat service,

now organised his submarines
into what he called Wolfpacks.

A group would be lined up
across a likely convoy route.

As soon as one U-boat
spotted a convoy,

it called in the rest to attack.

Sometimes the U-boats
were also guided

by long-range patrol aircraft.

By the end of October
1940, up to 40% of Allied

merchant shipping per
convoy was being sunk.

Britain's supplies
were under threat.

German U-boat crews
called it the Happy Time

and top U-boat commanders
became national heroes.

Britain was paying dearly for
its lack of preparation.

But, finally, things
began to change.

A crash building program
of anti-submarine

escort vessels was
producing results.

The first Corvettes,
as they were known,

were coming off the slipways.

For the first time,
Britain could set up

permanent groups of warships
to escort the supply convoys.

But their effectiveness
was limited by the fact

that their top speed
was 15 knots,

two knots slower than the
surface speed of a U-boat.

At the same time the patrol
aircraft of Britain's

Coastal Command were
equipped with depth charges.

They lacked the range to
cover the mid-Atlantic,

but U-boats on the
surface near their bases

could be harried and
forced to submerge.

Then, as in the
bombing campaigns,

it was a series of
technological breakthroughs

that really came
to Britain's help.

In early 1940, a
new type of radar,

known as centimetric
radar, was developed.

It was smaller than
existing systems and,

for the first time,
could be fitted

to escort ships and aircraft.

Now any German U-boat on the
surface was vulnerable.

Some months later,

there was a second
technological breakthrough.

Huff Duff was a radio detector.

Any time a German U-boat
surfaced to communicate,

Huff Duff could pick
up the radio signal

and pinpoint its exact position.

Steadily, during the
spring of 1941,

Britain began to contain
the U-boat threat.

Merchant shipping losses
fell by more than half.

In early March, Guenther Prien,

one of Germany's top
U-boat commanders,

failed to return from a patrol.

Shortly afterwards, two
more top German U-boat

commanders lost their lives
in quick succession.

Then Germany suffered
a major disaster

that would reverberate
through the rest of the war.

In May 1941, the British
destroyer Bulldog forced

U-110 to the surface and
captured the submarine.

On board was an Enigma machine,

used for encoding
German signals.

More importantly,
Bulldog also captured

the naval code books that
went with the machine.

It would provide
vital assistance

to Britain's code breakers.

Soon, unbeknown to the Germans,

Britain was getting
a real insight

into German naval
communications.

For the Royal Navy, it
meant convoys could now be

routed away from the
U-boat Wolfpacks.

Germany's submarines
had to work harder

and search further to
find and sink their prey.

Yet, despite the Allied
gains, by the winter of 1941

the German war machine
was producing

ever greater numbers of U-boats.

The long term outlook for
Britain's supply routes

still looked ominous.

Then, in December 1941,

the war at sea
changed decisively.

In December 1941,

Hitler declared war
on the United States.

Almost immediately,
Admiral Doenitz,

head of the German
U-boat service,

sent submarines to attack
US merchant shipping

along the American seaboard.

At first, only a few
of his submarines,

the new Type IX, were
capable of making

the long voyage from Europe.

They found easy pickings.

The US Navy's
commander-in-chief,

Admiral Ernest King,

had resisted British
advice to coral

his merchant ships into convoys.

Over a three month period,
more than 400 US merchant

ships were sunk or destroyed.

America was learning
the tough lesson

Britain had already learned.

Something had to be done.

King now changed his
mind and by May, 1942

the United States had introduced

a limited system of convoys.

By July, the US
losses were falling.

It forced the Germans
to adopt a new tactic.

They would concentrate
their U-boats

in one particular part
of the North Atlantic,

the Black Gap, the area
in mid-ocean, too far

from land for anti-submarine
aircraft to reach.

Often a convoy would
be hit by more than

fifteen submarines
coming at it in waves.

During October 1942,
fifty-six Allied ships

were sunk in the Black Gap.

By the following March,
Allied losses had reached

a hundred and twenty
ships in a single month.

During the same month, the
Germans lost only 12 U-boats.

Hitler's tactic of disrupting
Britain's supply lines

so severely the country
would collapse,

seemed a real possibility.

It looked as though his U-boats
might win him the war.

But now the Allies began
to up their game.

Britain had brought
in a new commander.

Admiral Max Horton was
former head of the

Royal Navy's submarine fleet.

His first move was to
set up permanent groups

of destroyers and frigates
that would provide

additional support to convoys,

rushing in as soon as an
enemy Wolfpack was spotted.

Equally importantly,
a string of yet more

technological developments
came on stream.

The Hedgehog was an
anti-submarine mortar

that fired 24 bombs.

Allied aircraft were
fitted with a new

high-powered searchlight,
the Leigh Light.

As an aircraft swooped
in, it could be

turned on at the last
moment, catching

a submarine by surprise
on the surface.

2-9-5.

Fire!

The steady technological

advance now began to pay off.

The German U-boat
losses increased.

The German commander,
Admiral Doenitz,

struggled to regain
the initiative.

In April, he ordered an
all out U-boat attack

on Convoy ONS5, a convoy
of 43 merchant ships

travelling from
Liverpool to Canada.

It was designed to
be a demonstration

of German naval force.

Forty U-boats descended
on the convoy.

The British sent in
extra support groups.

Anti-submarine aircraft
flew from Canada.

It would take four days
for the the Allies

to beat off the German attack.

Eleven merchant ships were sunk,

but the Germans had
lost seven U-boats.

Two weeks later,
Doenitz tried again,

attacking a second convoy.

It was a disaster.

Five U-boats were sunk without

a single merchant
ship being lost.

During May 1943,
a quarter of all

Germany's operational
U-boats were sunk.

The Germans were finally
beginning to lose

the U-boat war in the Atlantic.

So the Allies now took the
battle to the Germans.

A new long-range
version of the US B-24

Liberator bomber was introduced.

It could now reach the German
U-boats in the Black Gap.

Germany's submarine
designers tried to respond

with innovations of their own.

U-boats were fitted
with radar detectors

and anti-aircraft guns.

Some were also fitted with the
Dutch designed Schnorkel,

an air inlet that
meant that submarines

could spend longer underwater,

hidden from Allied radar.

But it was too little, too late.

The Allies still found them.

Hitler's U-boats were now
pinned down in port.

It was too dangerous for them
to roam the ocean freely.

German attempts
to find an answer

became increasingly desperate.

They now produced a
revolutionary new submarine.

It was known as the Type XXI.

It was electric
powered and capable

of 17 knots while submerged,

over twice the speed of
a traditional submarine

and fast enough to out-run
most surface vessels.

But again, it was too late.

Only one ever became operational

and it never made
contact with the enemy.

By the end of 1943, the Allies
dominated the Atlantic.

It was a turning
point in the war.

Hitler's U-boat
campaign had taken

a terrible toll on both sides.

The Germans lost
nearly 800 submarines.

Seventy-five percent of the
U-boat crews perished.

On the Allied side, some
32,000 sailors died.

But now, at last, with the
U-boats out of the way,

great waves of US
troops and equipment

could flood across the
ocean in preparation

for the invasion of Europe.

Victory in the Battle of the
Atlantic would fundamentally

change the course of the war.