World War II in Colour (2009–…): Season 1, Episode 7 - Turning the Tide - full transcript

[theme music plays]

[background music over dialogue]

[bomb exploding]

[cannons firing]

[woman crying]

[narrator] 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.

[cannons firing]

[tanks rumbling]



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.

[water splashing]

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.

[bombs whistling]

[explosions]

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.

[aircraft revving]

[plane engine roaring]

Ironically, it was the Germans
who first started strategic bombing.

In August 1940, Luftwaffe
bombers accidentally hit London.

[explosions]

The RAF retaliated
by bombing Berlin.

[bombs whistling]

By the autumn,
Germany was bombing

Britain's cities almost daily,

convinced the British
would eventually crack.

[background music over dialogue]

[indistinct chattering]

[cheering]

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.

[plane engine roaring]

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.

[aircraft revving]

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.

[bombs whistling]

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.

[raid sirens wailing]

At the same time,
the German air defences

were taking a terrible
toll on British planes.

[artillery firing]

[continuous artillery firing]

[indistinct chattering]

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."

[fire crackling]

[indistinct chattering]

Its leading exponent
was Air Marshal

Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris,

who was now appointed
commander-in-chief

of RAF Bomber Command.

[car engine revving]

[commander] There are a lot
of people who say

that bombing can
never win a war.

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.

[narrator] 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.

[explosions]

Six hundred acres were destroyed.

[fire crackling]

[indistinct chattering]

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.

[playing harmonica]

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.

[aircraft engine starts]

[aircraft engine roaring]

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.

[explosions]

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.

[background music over dialogue]

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.

[bombs whistling]

They hoped it would
be so devastating

it might even bring
the war to an end.

[murmured conversations]

[propellers revving up]

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.

[air raid siren sounding]

But the German air defences

now began to get the measure
of the Allied attacks.

Britain's losses
climbed to one in ten.

[explosion]

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.

[aircraft engine roaring]

The target this time was
the industrial port of Hamburg.

Bombers, equipped with Window,
jammed the German radar.

Other aircraft dropped
incendiary bombs.

[explosions]

A giant firestorm engulfed
the city's centre.

[fire roaring]

Forty thousand people died and
half a million were made homeless.

[guns firing]

[explosion]

More raids on the port followed.

It was an enormous shock
to the German people.

[indistinct conversation]

Four months later,
in the autumn of 1943,

Harris followed Hamburg
with a series of attacks on Berlin.

[artillery firing]

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.

[indistinct chattering]

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.

[continuous firing]

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.

[continuous firing]

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.

[aircraft engine roaring]

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.

[explosion]

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.

[bombs whistling]

German city after city
was hit and devastated.

[multiple explosions]

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.

[cannons blasting]

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.

[artillery firing]

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.

[fire crackling]

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.

[music playing]

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

It was the first time
the two sides' battleships

had squared up to each other.

[explosions]

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.

[indistinct conversation]

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.

[tanks rumbling]

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.

[cannon firing]

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.

[inaudible]

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 to
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.

[firing]

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.

[cannon blasting]

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.

[car engine revving]

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.

[fire crackling]

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.

[torpedo firing]

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.

[seagulls squawking]

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.

[background music over dialogue]

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.

[explosion]

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.

[cheering]

Britain was paying dearly
for its lack of preparation.

[background music over dialogue]

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.

[signal alert]

Steadily, during
the spring of 1941,

Britain began to contain
the U-boat threat.

Merchant shipping losses
fell by more than half.

[indistinct German chatter]

In early March, Guenther Prien,

one of Germany's top
U-boat commanders,

failed to return from a patrol.

[crowd cheering]

Shortly afterwards,
two more top German U-boat

commanders lost their
lives in quick succession.

[gun fire]

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.

[code machine clattering]

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.

[waves crashing]

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.

[applause]

[speaking German]

In December 1941,

Hitler declared war
on the United States.

[crowd cheering]

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.

[explosions]

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 15 submarines
coming at it in waves.

[explosions]

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.

[continuous firing]

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.

[man] 2-9-5.

Fire!

[narrator] 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.

[explosion]

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.

[continuous firing]

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.

[aircraft revving]

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.

[background music over dialogue]

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.