The episode covers some of Otto Kretschmer's 11 Points of Submarine Warfare. Here's the full list: 1. Efficient lookouts are of prime importance. 2. It is essential not simply to spot the target, but to spot it in good time. 3. Lone ships should be attacked on the surface with gunfire in order to save expensive torpedoes. 4. Survivors should be assisted where possible. 5. Convoys should only be attacked in daylight if it is not feasible to wait for nightfall. 6. Attack at night from the dark side of the convoy, so that the target is silhouetted and the submarine is in shadow. 7. When there is little or no moonlight, attack from the windward side [to avoid a visible white bow-wave when motoring into the wind]. 8. Fire one torpedo per target, not fanned salvoes. 9. Fire at close range. 10. Once the attack is launched, do not submerge except in circumstances of dire necessity. Remember that on the surface it is easier for you to spot the enemy than for the enemy to spot you. 11. Dive only for two hours before dawn each day, to rest the crew, sweep with the sound detection equipment, etc.; otherwise, remain on the surface. Before commenting, please check out the rules of conduct which apply to this comment section: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518 Cheers, Joram
@@bobharvey6957 Im sure they will, considering how successful that silent service was in destroying both merchant and naval forces it'd be impossible to not do one Edit: oof as always only a couple people blew this comment section up in debate that got heated. To everyone else, hi, hope you're having a good day and are staying safe :)
A moment to remember the fallen merchant seamen, often just civilians crewing these freighters and tankers and they endured hell time and time again between the attacks, survival at sea, or simple weather conditions that would sink ships in peacetime anyway. Not honored in the same way, their duty wasn't glorious, but nonetheless just as sacrificial. Many a ship that went missing without a soul to tell of how it sank, weeks, months at sea rotting away in the elements, they are the merchant marines and merchant navy
The US Merchant Marine had the highest casualty rate of any "service" in WWII, higher even than the Marine Corps operating in the Pacific Theater. It's not unusual to read about US Merchant seamen who had five or more ships sunk from under them, but were rescued and joined another crew. They finally began receiving some compensation in the early 2000's, IIRC.
Al Stewart's brilliant song "Murmansk Run" (part of a two-song medley on his album 24 Carrots-- it's on TH-cam) covers this topic, albeit of course in the context of the Battle of the Arctic, not the Atlantic. But the risks to merchant sailors were essentially the same.
The non military sailors contribution to victory is under appreciated in both world wars. Sadly as time goes on appreciation for the sacrifice off those who served honourably in both conflicts will decline just as it did in many previous conflicts.
I'm suprised you didn't mention that as soon as a wolfpack spots Tom Hanks, they will go on a suicidal mission, to try and sink his ship, ignoring all other ships and their actual mission directive.
I’ll like to hear more about the Germans Craking the British naval codes, I mostly hear of the British cracking of the ENIGMA or the Americans cracking MAGIC
B-Dienst "Among his accomplishments was reconstructing the Royal Navy Administrative Code prior to the war, the breaking within six months of the new Navy Cipher, and by May 1940 cracking the British Merchant Navy Code, which allowed the U-Boat command to track and anticipate the routing of allied convoys. However, this source dried up at the beginning of 1943 when the British switch to a new Cipher #5, superenciphered with a machine cipher." www.ticomarchive.com/the-targets/b-dienst-navy
Thanks for illustrating this video with a photo of Canadian sailors. Few people realize that by the end of the war, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world, most of it employed in the Battle of the Atlantic.
I actually just watched greyhound yesterday. It's an ok movie, well made and fun to watch, but the radio taunting was ridiculous, and the fact that the uboats kept suiciding into their guns felt pretty ridiculous too. But it was still a pretty decent movie and I feel like it did nail the mood at least.
Fun fact: U-boats inspired the Star Wars the Clone Wars episode “Cat and Mouse” where the Republic has a small cloaked ship that is used to destroy a Separatist blockade.
U-569 makes the contact and lead them U-94 scores a kill in the dark U-124 sinking four in two approaches 406 suffers failure on launch again In their own track Came the wolfpack Gleaves led the convoy Into the hornets nest To their own shore Came the world war Gleaves and the Ingham Leading the bury west Because yes Also, yes, I know that the song's events are in 1942
Great episode, as usual. My grandad joined the Royal Navy in 1941, served in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, was sunk twice, landed an LST at D-Day, and was demobbed in 1946. He told me about a time when two of his friends were shot in the head and chest at his side by a German fighter as they manned an AA gun. He was only 5ft 2 according to his record, so perhaps being a midget saved him? I'm currently writing a history booklet for my relatives, outlining what my grandad did and where he went in the war. Unfortunately, my grandad passed away years ago, so I'm having to cobble together his history from his ship legers (provided by the MoD), stories he told me and my relatives, and whatever information I find on the internet. Can anyone give me any pointers on other sources I should use? Thanks!
Sorry I'm late but I too am in the process of writing a book about my late granddad's ww2 experience and I found his Royal Naval war records were absolutely priceless, there's a dedicated department who are very willing to assist any applicants. You will need written permission from the living next of kin to gain the records.
I someone whose been playing Silent Hunter IV: Wolves of the Pacific, I hope you guys do a submarine tactics of the US in the pacific at some point. I feel the non carrier aspects of the Pacific War are often neglected.
I just noticed the shadows cast by those Nazi warplanes hanging in the background land over Britain and most of Germany's eastern ambitions (even Norway), but not Germany itself. Very cool
If the Americans enter the War in the Atlantic, I'm sure Adrm. King will listen to the British and quickly put in a convoy system for ships in the Gulf and Atlantic with air stations and destroyers at the ready for when the U-Boats arrive in American waters.
Britain instituted convoys in September 1939 and that did not prevent the FIRST Happy Time. How many ships were sunk in the US Neutrality Zone 1939-1942? USS West Point On 5 November 1941 she embarked 241 officers and 5,202 men of the 55th Brigade, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, and 100 men of a US Army Field Service company. On 10 November, West Point - in company with five other transports: Wakefield, Mount Vernon, Orizaba, Leonard Wood, and Joseph T. Dickman - got under way for India as Convoy HS-124. En route, they were joined by the aircraft carrier Ranger, the cruisers Vincennes and Quincy, and a division of destroyers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_America_(1939)#US_Navy_service_(1941-1946)
LOL!!!! King was anti British. " There's nothing that they can teach me" that's why 165 British ships which had been escorted across the Atlantic were sunk of the coast of the USA. Another quote " the war would have been over quicker if someone had just shot King"
@@colingibson8018 That's a total myth. Admiral King was pissed off having been order to give up ships to the Brits he felt he was going to need and he was right. When America entered the war King had no available ships for mechant convoy duty and what he had was being used to escort the Army to Europe.
@@colingibson8018 The first "Happy Time" was in 1940-1941 in the North Atlantic and North Sea. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941, so their navies could begin the "Second Happy Time". Duncan Redford; Philip D. Grove (2014). The Royal Navy: A History Since 1900. I.B. Tauris. p. 182
Can you provide me with sartorial advice? Over on War Against Humanity we are planning for a black tie affair to commemorate the Nuremberg rally in a few years. I need some sizing ideas
Love this special, was greatly looking forward to your coverage of the Ubootwaffe. I look forward to a part 2 in several months time covering the "Second Happy Time".
My grandfather was in the RN during WWII & for the first half of the war he was on the Atlantic Convoys, Mediterranean Convoys & Russian Convoys. In October 1939, he was on board a ship that was captured & sunk by the Graf Spee & was then transferred to the supply ship Altmark as a POW. He was then freed when HMS Cossack boarded the ship in Jøssingfjord, Norway 17th Feb 1940. He also took part in Convoy PQ17 where his ship was damaged & his 3 friends were killed in late June early July 1942. My grandfather told me his stories of the U Boat threat, the times they were attacked on various convoys & how the threat kept the sailors on edge. It took guts & determination to be on those convoys and watching docos with other sailors interviewed, they all said the same thing, they were scared during the entire time. I also read Lothar-Günther Buchheim's book Das Boot based on his wartime experience on U96 & when it was made into a film, I rented a VHS copy of it to show my grandfather. My grandfather when watching war films was always dismissive but Wolfgang Petersen's film really caught what went on in a U Boat. My grandfather was on the edge of his seat during the entire film & did not move. When Das Boot: The Director's Cut was released I bought the DVD & my grandfather & myself watched it. Again he was on the edge of his seat. The longer version brought more dialogue surrounding the crew. My grandfather said of Das Boot that it was the closest thing to a war brought onto film at that time. He respected German submariners more after watching it. For those wanting to watch a movie that's as close to war, I highly recommend Das Boot: The Original Uncut Version. Scenes were done in German & again in English (little dubbing). I recommend watching the German version & read the subtitles. The acting in it is brilliant & the tension of the story, and the U Boat crew made a great film. Fun fact about the U Boat used in Das Boot was also used in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Thanks again Indy & team for providing this Time Ghost special.
Yes, along with "Stalingrad" it´s probably the most realistic film about WWII, contrary to most Hollywood-BS. You can visit the mock-up of the inside of the Sub used in "Das Boot" in the Bavaria Film Studios near Munich.
@@18roselover Having respect for your enemy is not uncommon in warfare and a noble thing. The U-boat men themselves had the highest casualty rate over the course of the whole war. Facing the risk and horror to be for example depth charged, surely deserves respect, even when they were fighting for the wrong side. Besides, a lot of them weren´t Nazis, some were for sure, for example Prien, others like Kretschmer were not. Things escalate very quickly in war. Early in the war most U-boat commanders tried to save the crews of the ships they sunk by giving them aid or calling in surface ships for their rescue. This changed dramatically when the British bombed the rescue mission for the crew and passengers of the RMS Laconia. Look it up!
@@philp8872 Yes, those who actually risk their lives in war always deserve a lot of respect. Sometimes I feel like some people think that every german soldier wanted to go to war and shared the ideologies of their bosses.
Why wasn't any of this a bigger part of the regular weekly episodes? "This week, at sea, the U-boats sank y ships for z tonnes..." "The air war continued with bombing raids on London, the RAF raided...." The obsession with Barbarossa has wiped all other events from your channel. You have become the Barbarossa in Real Time, instead of WW2.
Well lets be honest, WW2 IS mostly Barbarossa...some bombing raids on London, as terrifying as they might have been for the people there, are just irrelevant compared to battles with several millions of participants.
@@SmokeJam Not alone actually, she was escorted by the Prinz Eugen, but thats my point, she wasnt meant to be alone, all the escorts meant for Operation Rheinübung were sunk or heavily damaged during the Norway campaign, the Germany high seas fleet was a joke.
Enigma isn’t “the name of code used”. Rather the encoding machine used by the Germans. The British in general called ULTRA all intelligence gathered from the Axis, including the Enigma encrypts. Decoders at Bletchley Park had different names for naval Enigma cyphers, like “Shark” and “Dolphin.
I imagine living conditions for those U-boat sailors using the slop bucket were much like living with my wife. When either of us use the bathroom and toxic gas emerges, nothing is said. You get used to it after a while.
@Albert D in ww1 the soviets capituled and the "real" enemy France fell with ease so from a 1941 perspective its understandable, add to that the whole race thing and it becomes an inevitability.
1:40 sinking of over 100 allied ships 2:30 unrestricted submarine use as of 1940 2:40 britain develops an effective convoy system 3:15 sonar tactics were dealt with by not submerging the submarines. 4:37 one year 492 cargo ships got sunk 7:09 wolfpack tactics
Went to IWM Duxford at the weekend with my family. Didn't realise the German subs used a gyrocopter called Focke-Achgelis. Some poor chap would sit in it and be towed by the submarine to provide as a better lookout than the sub itself. However the copter and crew member was considered expendable should the sub come under attack!
Please do one for Decima Mas when they enter the war. Italians arguably pioneered the UDT with two frogmen, using a modified torpedo, managed to sink an Austro Hungarian warship in ww1👍. They still are still considered top notch (more info in the covert ops website).
Spoilers: Gotta say it seems a major reason Germany lost was trying to look the part of a Empire before being one. Focus on big surface ships for example, how many subs could have been build in place of the Tirpitz line (the beauty that they were) and how much more effective they could’ve been.
As funny as that is, no they didn’t do that because up to the end of the war U-boats didn’t have radios for ship to ship comms, they were reliant on enigma signals and Wolfpack coordination was done from Kriegsmarine HQ
Len Deighton's 'Blood Tears and Folly' is a good intro to each theatre of the war up to the end of 1941. He outlines how slow U-boats actually were; moving at a cyclist's pace on the surface and at walking pace submerged, covering distances as great as from Berlin to London -and back- each sortie. The convoys often sailed through the U-boat screen undetected. About 50% of U-boat sorties at this time featured no action; the boat sailed out, followed its route, met no Allied ship and returned to base to refuel. Most of the duration of a sortie was getting there then getting back, time on patrol being relatively short. That's if they didn't hit a mine or get discovered and sunk. War was 90 to 99% tedium, 1 to 10% terror (often the last 1% of their lives) for submariners and sailors on the merchant ships alike, the latter being civilians don't forget.
@@IJustKant U-Boats were extremely hard to see at night. This was due to their low profile. It wasn't until radar that they lost the advantage of surface attacks and--ultimately--cost them the Battle of the Atlantic.
One mayor disadvantage of the allied merchant ships was that they were so underpowered that they could only travel at a top speed of around 8 knots. For this reason they could never get away from a U-boat(s), once spotted. Even all the new-build liberty ships from the U.S. could only travel at 8 knots. If they could have been built to travel at 20 knots, the U-boat(s) could never have caught up with them. Millions of tons of shipping, their cargoes, and their crews would have been saved.
There was clearly a trade-off: increasing the speed that much would have really lengthened the time of construction, resulting in fewer ships each week. Also, merchant ships should not have to outrun U-boats, leaving speed to their escorts.
The USNavy was taking notes. They started using wolfpacks in the Pacific in 43 in conjunction with SigInt and tore the Japanese Navy and merchant marine up.
Hey, Indy & co, great video as always! Could you maybe do a special on submarine technology and tactics in WW2 in comparison to those in WW1? I'm mostly interested in technology differences here, but tactic progression would make for an interesting topic as well. In any case, thank you for the great content!
The biggest difference (ultimately) was the Allies had radar in both cases. The Germans and Japanese had poor versions of it but mainly relied on the Mark 1 Eyeball. It would be a fun comparison for this series!
The latter was much more successful. 30% of all Japanese shipping sunk and 54.6% of all Japanese shipping lost during the war were lost to US submarines.
The Germans were starved by the British blockade in ww1. The Germans were trying to return the favor. The Americans were able to do to Japan what the Germans couldn't do to Japan. Yes, the radar aspect was huge. But another huge part was American submarine numbers. The Germans were never able to do that. German crew quality suffered as the war went on. As losses mounted, morale amongst the impressed crews plummeted. Thanks for all your hard work fleshing out the history of the times. You have a real talent for the common touch. Kudos on the phone as a prop. Thanks!
Can you do an episode on Axis POW's in North America? Most people have never heard of them, though I know about 400,000 Germans were sent to the US and considerable numbers of Italians.
In German they often use two vowels for one vowel sound. Ergo, Prien is preen. They also have a substitute form for the umlaut with the vowel E following the missing umlaut vowel for modification. Commandant Erich Raeder could also be spelled Erich Räder, both are correct and in either spelling his name is pronounced as in English - raider.
@@QuizmasterLaw No, I don't. I live in Sweden. I just listened at 5:16 and I say Preen. And Räder is not pronounced like straight up "raider" in English, that would be anglicizing the Ä too simply to ai.
@@Southsideindy I don't think I corrected your pronunciation of Raeder. You do say Pre-ehn, not so terribly obviously but yep you barely turn it into 2 syllables. It's a personal name he might have pronounced it as you did though I expect he didn't. Priehen (h is silent) is what you pronounced fwiw.
The key speed that needed to be reached to provide a great deal of protection to merchant ships was 13 knots or greater. Ships that could maintain such a pace were at a very low risk of being sunk, even if completely without protection. It was estimated that independents were three times safer if they could travel at 14 knots rather than at 12 knots.
@Fransen Part of reason for the large troop ships not being in danger was due to careful routing thanks to the work of the Submarine Tracking Room at Liverpool and their careful plotting of each U-Boats location.
When you do the opposite story about Allied anti-submarine tactics, in addition to new weapons like the hedgehog depth charge launching system, can you please spend some time about Operations Research and the role it played in improving convoy tactics? For that matter, while the Battle of the Atlantic is in play, could please you do a spotlight on British Admiral Gilbert Stephenson? He was a pioneer in anti-submarine warfare and a training commandant who may be eccentric and the trainees called him "The Terror of Tobermory" and "The Monkey", but he was so effective in training sailors in his own way that some historians consider him a factor in the Allied victory in the battle.
The hedgehog was quite important, but I'd say that centimetric radar (which allowed the easy-ish spotting of those low-profile surfaced boats) and huffduff were probably more so. Can't kill 'em if you can't find 'em. Even aside from that, just forcing them to travel submerged through the Bay of Biscay effectively put dozens of U-Boats out of commission at any given time by making it take far longer to get to and from the operational theater.
the most interesting ORG story is when they were trying to figure out which parts of A/C were the most vulnerable to enemy fire and then also noticed that their most valuable samples of weakpoints were all downed on enemy territory. i think this is also where markov chains come from. i'm unsure how they resolved this problem but they claim to have done so statistically "these got hit here and survived so i guess the armor is good enough" as opposed to "we know those spots are vulnerable yet strangely we have No returned a/c damaged in those very spots".
Priorities, priorities, priorities Look on the map, Germany is a medium sized European nation who has a few lucky victories against its immediate neighbours. Great Britain is a worldwide empire with vast manpower and resources. Their fabulous navy hasn’t been defeated in 250 years. Does Germany combine its resources in defeating Great Britain with submarines? Or does it try to combine its resources to defeat the Soviet Union, world’s biggest country with newly declared industrial and military greatness. Make one choice. U boat aces sinking old ships, that’s a joke.
Size doesn't always matter, it is more about the ressources in your territory. And as Germany aquired the Elsass very early in the war, coal, iron and other minerals were not that difficult to come by. Well Soviets are something else as they just threw millions of men against the german war machine without really caring for the casulties, and they were extraordinarily high compared to german losses, even in soviet victories... It is estimated that at least 10 soviets died for 1 german soldier, infamous Stalingrad it was about 20-30 russian soldiers per german soldier. For former wars: The Elsass was german territory as was South Germany with its riches of gas and coal at that time, not forgetting the close alliance with Austria and their ressources all over the Alpen as goes for Italy in WW2. Nowadays almost every part but the brown coal is exhausted since decades. You could call former victories "lucky", but for example the brother wars against the French were simply won by technological edge (backloader rifles against muskets, more efficient cannons with less use of powder, faster modernizing of troop tactics, not fighting in collums and stretched lines like during the industrial revolution or napoleonic wars, but more loose troop deployment, etc) . WW1 was close to a loss for the allies, if not for thousands of american and canadian soldiers getting pumped into the bloodpress too. Almost any war Germany really lost in Europe was due to outer intervention. And thank god it is that way, I for my part with my mindset wouldve been dead in the first years of my youth under Nazi rule... Would be a horrendous world to live in if the Nazis had won and the system would still be alive...
@@SmokeJam while the USSR had way higher losses than Germany, those numbers are absurdly off. Soviet military casualties total were 14 million, while German casualties were 5 million.
@@bezahltersystemtroll5055 that is not correct. 5 million total for Germany on all fronts. 14 Millions for soviets on one front. There were never even 5 Million german soldiers on the eastern front, you are mixing up the numbers here^^
I got the chance to board the fully intact, captured German sub U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago! It's an incredibly fascinating tour! Highly recommend seeing! Keep up the great videos!
I hope you were there the day I toured it. My wife and kids were laughing as I went right into docent mode explaining many of the submarine's features to anyone who would listen. After all these decades of studying WWII, I usually know more than the docents and even taught a P-51 pilot some things about his aircraft at an air show.
carriers too. iirc Glorious Courageous Hermes, Ark Royal was also sunk but not by a submarine iirc. Just about all the British pre war carrier did not survive the war (just like the U.S. ones) Fuck the Washington Treaty. Peace of shit wishful thinking .
@@QuizmasterLaw AR, Eagle, Audacity, and Courageous were sunk by U-boat but Glorious was by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and Hermes was by IJN carrier planes. IJN also lost a lot of CV by subs... they made Pacific a hell hole for IJN...
@@victorskwrxsti7899 thank you. my point wasn't so much about which ships were sunk but how and so many. it contrasts nicely with Japan, because German doctrine was anti-freighters, whereas Japanese was anti-warships. Yet, germany wound up sinking more surface combatants and more freight. so German doctrine was more correct. Japans submarines weren't totally ineffective but mostly so.
For anyone curious about how miserable life is in a U-Boat, the podcast "Lions Led by Donkeys" did a recent episode talking about this. It features getting gassed, flammable soap, walls covered in sweaty moss, and an overly complicated toilet with fatal results.
"Das Boot" has them eating meat which still has the animal's hair on it, and onboard flatulence caused by eating Brussels sprouts. U-Boat crews were casually dressed, there was no room for spit and polish in their lives.
U505 - on your way back from Hawaii to Europe, stop through Chicago and check with the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry if you can talk with someone there about the U505. I know, it would be a long way home, but I think that would be a pretty neet exhibit for you to go through!
The British Royal Navy captured the first German U-boat 'U-110' on May 9, 1941 and bagged ourselves an Enigma Machine six months before America even entered the war. We'd already cracked the codes via the genius of Alan Turing and by the time Uncle Sam showed up we'd done the hard work.....
Wait, Indy, you mention Enigma, but didn't you in earlier episodes mentioned that German Kriegsmarine had most complicated Enigma code that wasn't entirely or at all decoded? I remember you saying Luftwaffe had the easiest one to break or decode.
for further reading on the subject of U-boats I would recommend these books: Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 (1996) and Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942-1945 (1998).
I'm proud that Lithuanian Zenonas Lukosius was one of the crew, sealing valves and preventing German submarine to sink, who captured Enigma machine from U-505.
For its part it played in the Battle of the Atlantic, at the end of the war the U Boats in the North Atlantic were ordered to surrender at Derry, Northern Ireland. At Lisahally they were lined up in rows at the dock.
Thanks for your excellent films. But, please don;t repeat the British crap about ENIGMA. The German coding device was offered on the trade fears in Europe before WWII and purchased by the Poles. Crucial was the breaking of codes in Bletchley Park, GB by three Polish mathematicians. Or if you prefer the MICKEY MOUSE of the interpretation, then go on with your version.
Standing orders number 1 from Western Approaches Command Instructions were that the top priority for escorts was to get the convoy to its destination. Everything was subordinate to this instruction.
7:18 - You've got the wrong caption there. He was actually urging those cadets to keep fighting, even if the Kriegsmarine was reduced to that boat right in front of him ;)
Thanks for this, apart from the weekly grind of panzer divisions in Russia, WW2 involved rapid deployment of innovative ideas, especially in the battle of the Atlantic
The US may be supporting the allies in Europe, but they have no intention of ever entering the war. The only way the US might enter the war is if they were suddenly attacked at an outpost somewhere. But what are the chances of that happening, am I right?
US escorting convoys as far as Greenland? I thought it was Iceland, where the USS Reuben James was sunk two months before the Pearl Harbor attack. The Reuben James was even based in Iceland.
As far as I know Iceland was the first turning point but after the casulties stacked, they stayed between iceland and greenland. I mean they are not that far off each other, so it doesn't really change a lot in the grand scheme of things.
The US Neutrality Patrol/Zone was expanded from inception on 5 September 1939 to 27 May 1941. By May it covered most of the Atlantic. United States Neutrality Patrol 5 Sep 1939 - 11 Dec 1941 (with map) ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=336
It's a few years off, but J Walker should make a good episode "...must be made to realise that the royal Navy considers the Bay of Biscay a happy hunting ground and will stamp out any attempt to restrict the free and rightful passage of Allied shipping. When we meet him we will destroy him " although, that is from 1943.
Hi, any chance of creating a WWII year-by-year DVDs? I think they will make a good buy, as well as another source of income for you guys. You really do a great job. Thank you!
They had a few fleet Carriers early in the war and needed them for other work but later the USA produced a lot of Escort carriers for ASWarfare and the Brits had the Audacity in service in 1941 give em a bit time ;) and they will produce Escort carriers (in quantity) for ASW equippet with TBM/TBF Avengers and Wildcat/FMs for Anti Sub warfare I know its shitty engl sry
The US was also fighting a two front war, and Japan was the much more formidable foe when it came to naval power. It actually had a surface fleet of note, unlike Germany, and for a time early in the war could field more carriers than the US navy. In short US carriers were needed elsewhere.
Full size fleet carriers were expensive and in high demand. As the war progressed the concept of the escort carrier was developed, often converted merchantmen with a few aircraft on board. You didn't need much for convoy escort, a few fighters to knock down Luftwaffe long range reconnaissance aircraft, a few anti-submarine warfare aircraft later in the war to kill the U-boats before they got close. It was a numbers game, I can afford to loose a cheap merchant ship conversion with half a dozen or so aircraft on it, I can't afford to loose a vary expensive fleet carrier with a fifty plus sized strike wing. Look up HMS Audacious and learn from there :-)
In the book the struggle for Europe by Chester wilmot he says by mid 1943 the germans gave up submarine raids on shipping in the Atlantic because of much improved tactics by the allies.
Great little episode, but please pleae just say "U-boat" when referring to a U-Boot, the pronounciation of boat/boot in English and German is exactly the same. Kaythanksbye!
8. Fire one torpedo per target, not fanned salvoes. That point was Kretschmer's personal preference. The German Submarine Handbook clearly emphasizes to use as many torpedoes as possible to ensure the ship is sunk. Convoys merchants, tankers, troop transports and ammunition ships were priority targets that might take more than one torpedo to sink. Kretschmer was also one lucky SOB, because early war torpedoes were vulnerable to be duds or be deep-runners.
It must have been equally terrifying to be a sailor in a supply convoy waiting night after night for a torpedo attack as it would be for a submariner waiting deep and silent for a depth charge attack to come. Either way, your demise would be just a short time away. Knowing that convoy ships would not stop to pick up casualties and U Boat survivors after an attack are rare would only increase the mental strain.
Had Hitler waited and given Admiral Doenitz the 300 boats he needed the war very easily could have ended quickly in a defeat of the British and Europe. As it turned out they almost succeeded in spite of Hitler who was, himself, one of the best assets the Allies had.
If the Nazis would of made a pact with Russia and had Russia as a Alliance? That would have been a big difference in the amount of supplies the Nazis had and they would not have started to running low on supplies. The war would have been way different.
There are two awesome websites for anyone interested in this subject: uboat.net and uboatarchive.net. Uboatarchive contains hundreds of actual U-boat war diaries and I have been absolutely addicted to them.
The episode covers some of Otto Kretschmer's 11 Points of Submarine Warfare. Here's the full list:
1. Efficient lookouts are of prime importance.
2. It is essential not simply to spot the target, but to spot it in good time.
3. Lone ships should be attacked on the surface with gunfire in order to save expensive torpedoes.
4. Survivors should be assisted where possible.
5. Convoys should only be attacked in daylight if it is not feasible to wait for nightfall.
6. Attack at night from the dark side of the convoy, so that the target is silhouetted and the submarine is in shadow.
7. When there is little or no moonlight, attack from the windward side [to avoid a visible white bow-wave when motoring into the wind].
8. Fire one torpedo per target, not fanned salvoes.
9. Fire at close range.
10. Once the attack is launched, do not submerge except in circumstances of dire necessity. Remember that on the surface it is easier for you to spot the enemy than for the enemy to spot you.
11. Dive only for two hours before dawn each day, to rest the crew, sweep with the sound detection equipment, etc.; otherwise, remain on the surface.
Before commenting, please check out the rules of conduct which apply to this comment section: community.timeghost.tv/t/rules-of-conduct/4518
Cheers,
Joram
I will use this information while playing U-Boat.
this really inspired me to play silent hunter 3 now
Will you do at a later date a similar special about the far less known but no less important american submarine war against japan
Why two hours before dawn?
@@bobharvey6957 Im sure they will, considering how successful that silent service was in destroying both merchant and naval forces it'd be impossible to not do one
Edit: oof as always only a couple people blew this comment section up in debate that got heated. To everyone else, hi, hope you're having a good day and are staying safe :)
A moment to remember the fallen merchant seamen, often just civilians crewing these freighters and tankers and they endured hell time and time again between the attacks, survival at sea, or simple weather conditions that would sink ships in peacetime anyway. Not honored in the same way, their duty wasn't glorious, but nonetheless just as sacrificial. Many a ship that went missing without a soul to tell of how it sank, weeks, months at sea rotting away in the elements, they are the merchant marines and merchant navy
Here here.
There is a nice display about convoys and merchant seamen at the WWII museum in New Orleans.
The US Merchant Marine had the highest casualty rate of any "service" in WWII, higher even than the Marine Corps operating in the Pacific Theater. It's not unusual to read about US Merchant seamen who had five or more ships sunk from under them, but were rescued and joined another crew. They finally began receiving some compensation in the early 2000's, IIRC.
Al Stewart's brilliant song "Murmansk Run" (part of a two-song medley on his album 24 Carrots-- it's on TH-cam) covers this topic, albeit of course in the context of the Battle of the Arctic, not the Atlantic. But the risks to merchant sailors were essentially the same.
The non military sailors contribution to victory is under appreciated in both world wars. Sadly as time goes on appreciation for the sacrifice off those who served honourably in both conflicts will decline just as it did in many previous conflicts.
I'm suprised you didn't mention that as soon as a wolfpack spots Tom Hanks, they will go on a suicidal mission, to try and sink his ship, ignoring all other ships and their actual mission directive.
Lmfao
To be fair 80% of U-Boat crews were on a suicide mission.
and howling like a wolf through the radio
Wait until you see the sequel It's Tom Cruise on an Impossible Mission to single handedly sink the entire German Navy.
@@perparimmedia He'll sit in the middle of a mines that the Germans charge at.
I’ll like to hear more about the Germans Craking the British naval codes, I mostly hear of the British cracking of the ENIGMA or the Americans cracking MAGIC
It was the cracking of the Convoy Codes that is referred to.
B-Dienst "Among his accomplishments was reconstructing the Royal Navy Administrative Code prior to the war, the breaking within six months of the new Navy Cipher, and by May 1940 cracking the British Merchant Navy Code, which allowed the U-Boat command to track and anticipate the routing of allied convoys. However, this source dried up at the beginning of 1943 when the British switch to a new Cipher #5, superenciphered with a machine cipher."
www.ticomarchive.com/the-targets/b-dienst-navy
What about the Automedon ???
Here is a fairly comprehensive article on German code breaking en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Dienst
Nick Danger thanks for sending me down a three hour rabbit hole exploring the British Far East Appreciation. LOL
Thanks for illustrating this video with a photo of Canadian sailors. Few people realize that by the end of the war, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world, most of it employed in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Our pleasure!
Has anyone told Tom Hanks about this episode
Did anyone see that movie? Trailer looked atrocious
@@Masada1911 honestly wasnt too bad
Yeah was alright movie
I actually just watched greyhound yesterday. It's an ok movie, well made and fun to watch, but the radio taunting was ridiculous, and the fact that the uboats kept suiciding into their guns felt pretty ridiculous too. But it was still a pretty decent movie and I feel like it did nail the mood at least.
@@Masada1911 I've not seen the film, but the book on which it was based - The Good Shepherd by CS Forrester - is excellent.
Man i kept remembering about Das Boot when watching this video.
ALAAAAAAAAAARM!
Great Movie
Working at the Car wash....... .
Got the director's cut. I insist on listening to it in German.
@@mjstbnsn6294 Good? ?
Gibraltar ist so eng wie ne Jungfrau.
Wenn wir da durchwollen, können wir den Kahn mit Vaseline einschmieren.
It's time for that Das Boot U96 techno song again: "Maximum Velocity!" "Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!"
Total earworm 🤘
Man, last month in Berlin, I heard a bagman in his 50s have it as his ringtone, it dud put a smile on my face for the whole day.
ALARM!
When the Pathetic Sharks got aboard😂
It should be the soundtrack for this episode!
Fun fact: U-boats inspired the Star Wars the Clone Wars episode “Cat and Mouse” where the Republic has a small cloaked ship that is used to destroy a Separatist blockade.
Yeah, the separatist ship Malevolence was based on Bismark.
It was 1 of my favorites cartoons when I was a child
Ah, republic army commiting more war crimes
@@mwkoala how?
@@romaniacountryball anakin ramming the Venator into the Lucrehulk when he said he was gonna surrender
Those u-boats wouldn't have been intercepted if they had nord VPN
Last time I was this early, we were all gonna be home by Christmas 1914.
U-569 makes the contact and lead them
U-94 scores a kill in the dark
U-124 sinking four in two approaches
406 suffers failure on launch again
In their own track
Came the wolfpack
Gleaves led the convoy
Into the hornets nest
To their own shore
Came the world war
Gleaves and the Ingham
Leading the bury west
Because yes
Also, yes, I know that the song's events are in 1942
Well yeah it says convoy 92 in it
Great episode, as usual. My grandad joined the Royal Navy in 1941, served in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, was sunk twice, landed an LST at D-Day, and was demobbed in 1946. He told me about a time when two of his friends were shot in the head and chest at his side by a German fighter as they manned an AA gun. He was only 5ft 2 according to his record, so perhaps being a midget saved him?
I'm currently writing a history booklet for my relatives, outlining what my grandad did and where he went in the war. Unfortunately, my grandad passed away years ago, so I'm having to cobble together his history from his ship legers (provided by the MoD), stories he told me and my relatives, and whatever information I find on the internet. Can anyone give me any pointers on other sources I should use? Thanks!
Sorry I'm late but I too am in the process of writing a book about my late granddad's ww2 experience and I found his Royal Naval war records were absolutely priceless, there's a dedicated department who are very willing to assist any applicants. You will need written permission from the living next of kin to gain the records.
I someone whose been playing Silent Hunter IV: Wolves of the Pacific, I hope you guys do a submarine tactics of the US in the pacific at some point. I feel the non carrier aspects of the Pacific War are often neglected.
Not to mention that the U.S> pretty much did to the Japanese what the Germans were trying to do to Great Britain. Also, I love that game too!
WW2 US Merchant Marine had a higher casualty rate than any armed service.
I just noticed the shadows cast by those Nazi warplanes hanging in the background land over Britain and most of Germany's eastern ambitions (even Norway), but not Germany itself. Very cool
Did you mean German warplanes? I doubt the planes themselves were members of the nazi party.
@@lukum55 Well, how would you know what their Machine Spirits think, meatbag?
Yes if you're German during the 40s you're a Nazi
Above the surface it seems quiet and calm
Deep down below the wolfpack lurks...
If the Americans enter the War in the Atlantic, I'm sure Adrm. King will listen to the British and quickly put in a convoy system for ships in the Gulf and Atlantic with air stations and destroyers at the ready for when the U-Boats arrive in American waters.
Britain instituted convoys in September 1939 and that did not prevent the FIRST Happy Time. How many ships were sunk in the US Neutrality Zone 1939-1942? USS West Point On 5 November 1941 she embarked 241 officers and 5,202 men of the 55th Brigade, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, and 100 men of a US Army Field Service company. On 10 November, West Point - in company with five other transports: Wakefield, Mount Vernon, Orizaba, Leonard Wood, and Joseph T. Dickman - got under way for India as Convoy HS-124. En route, they were joined by the aircraft carrier Ranger, the cruisers Vincennes and Quincy, and a division of destroyers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_America_(1939)#US_Navy_service_(1941-1946)
LOL!!!! King was anti British. " There's nothing that they can teach me" that's why 165 British ships which had been escorted across the Atlantic were sunk of the coast of the USA. Another quote " the war would have been over quicker if someone had just shot King"
@@colingibson8018 That's a total myth. Admiral King was pissed off having been order to give up ships to the Brits he felt he was going to need and he was right. When America entered the war King had no available ships for mechant convoy duty and what he had was being used to escort the Army to Europe.
@@colingibson8018 The first "Happy Time" was in 1940-1941 in the North Atlantic and North Sea. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini declared war on the United States on 11 December 1941, so their navies could begin the "Second Happy Time".
Duncan Redford; Philip D. Grove (2014). The Royal Navy: A History Since 1900. I.B. Tauris. p. 182
map ships sunk in Atlantic March to December 1941
navalmatters.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/the_battle_of_the_atlantic_1941_map-de.png?w=630
In accordance with Otto Kretschmer's first rule about efficient lookouts: What does the Millenium Falcon do behind Indy? ;-)
Must be part of some prototype vehicle one of the countries is working on.
Hint: the cockpit
It's classified. Move along.
For a moment after your question, I thought that you must be confusing two of Harrison Ford's characters.
This is another one of those ties that likely would have made a bigger impact without the waistcoat. The bit we can see looks lovely though. 3.5/5
Your tie reviews are the primary reason I browse the comment section.
@@lycaonpictus9662 Appreciate it!
Can you provide me with sartorial advice? Over on War Against Humanity we are planning for a black tie affair to commemorate the Nuremberg rally in a few years. I need some sizing ideas
@@QuizmasterLaw Are you looking for historical accuracy or present-day trends?
@@gianniverschueren870 I have a list. It's very long. Let's keep them talking. Both.
Love this special, was greatly looking forward to your coverage of the Ubootwaffe. I look forward to a part 2 in several months time covering the "Second Happy Time".
My grandfather was in the RN during WWII & for the first half of the war he was on the Atlantic Convoys, Mediterranean Convoys & Russian Convoys. In October 1939, he was on board a ship that was captured & sunk by the Graf Spee & was then transferred to the supply ship Altmark as a POW. He was then freed when HMS Cossack boarded the ship in Jøssingfjord, Norway 17th Feb 1940. He also took part in Convoy PQ17 where his ship was damaged & his 3 friends were killed in late June early July 1942.
My grandfather told me his stories of the U Boat threat, the times they were attacked on various convoys & how the threat kept the sailors on edge. It took guts & determination to be on those convoys and watching docos with other sailors interviewed, they all said the same thing, they were scared during the entire time.
I also read Lothar-Günther Buchheim's book Das Boot based on his wartime experience on U96 & when it was made into a film, I rented a VHS copy of it to show my grandfather. My grandfather when watching war films was always dismissive but Wolfgang Petersen's film really caught what went on in a U Boat. My grandfather was on the edge of his seat during the entire film & did not move. When Das Boot: The Director's Cut was released I bought the DVD & my grandfather & myself watched it. Again he was on the edge of his seat. The longer version brought more dialogue surrounding the crew. My grandfather said of Das Boot that it was the closest thing to a war brought onto film at that time. He respected German submariners more after watching it.
For those wanting to watch a movie that's as close to war, I highly recommend Das Boot: The Original Uncut Version. Scenes were done in German & again in English (little dubbing). I recommend watching the German version & read the subtitles. The acting in it is brilliant & the tension of the story, and the U Boat crew made a great film.
Fun fact about the U Boat used in Das Boot was also used in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Thanks again Indy & team for providing this Time Ghost special.
I/m sure all the allied servicemen/women that were sunk by german u boats , had a lot of respect for these nazis !
Yes, along with "Stalingrad" it´s probably the most realistic film about WWII, contrary to most Hollywood-BS. You can visit the mock-up of the inside of the Sub used in "Das Boot" in the Bavaria Film Studios near Munich.
@@18roselover Having respect for your enemy is not uncommon in warfare and a noble thing. The U-boat men themselves had the highest casualty rate over the course of the whole war. Facing the risk and horror to be for example depth charged, surely deserves respect, even when they were fighting for the wrong side. Besides, a lot of them weren´t Nazis, some were for sure, for example Prien, others like Kretschmer were not.
Things escalate very quickly in war. Early in the war most U-boat commanders tried to save the crews of the ships they sunk by giving them aid or calling in surface ships for their rescue. This changed dramatically when the British bombed the rescue mission for the crew and passengers of the RMS Laconia. Look it up!
@@philp8872 Yes, those who actually risk their lives in war always deserve a lot of respect. Sometimes I feel like some people think that every german soldier wanted to go to war and shared the ideologies of their bosses.
This episode: Exists
Me: Has "Das Boot Movie" flashbacks
*Me watching*
*Sabaton starts getting louder*
Bury did fail the test
Only thing I heard was the Das Boot soundtrack
@@lukum55 that movie is on my wishlist. I have never watched it
@@TrickiVicBB71 You are officially uncultured if you have not watched it.
Into the motherland, the german army march, comrades side by side, stop the nazi charge!
Why wasn't any of this a bigger part of the regular weekly episodes?
"This week, at sea, the U-boats sank y ships for z tonnes..."
"The air war continued with bombing raids on London, the RAF raided...."
The obsession with Barbarossa has wiped all other events from your channel. You have become the Barbarossa in Real Time, instead of WW2.
Im sooooo glad I've not been the only one to think this as much as i love the regular episodes.
Well lets be honest, WW2 IS mostly Barbarossa...some bombing raids on London, as terrifying as they might have been for the people there, are just irrelevant compared to battles with several millions of participants.
"Imagine using actual ships."
-probably germany.
"What is actual ship"
-100% Germany
@@hazzmati And in ww2, just ask the Bismarck how well a German high seas fleet works
"Imagine using ships lmao"
This post was made by the landlock gang
@@connorbranscombe6819 Bismarck was alone though... Can you call that a fleet?
@@SmokeJam Not alone actually, she was escorted by the Prinz Eugen, but thats my point, she wasnt meant to be alone, all the escorts meant for Operation Rheinübung were sunk or heavily damaged during the Norway campaign, the Germany high seas fleet was a joke.
I'm a simple man. I see 'Silent Otto' Kretschmer in the thumbnail, I hit the like button.
Enigma isn’t “the name of code used”. Rather the encoding machine used by the Germans. The British in general called ULTRA all intelligence gathered from the Axis, including the Enigma encrypts. Decoders at Bletchley Park had different names for naval Enigma cyphers, like “Shark” and “Dolphin.
It was ALL Enigma traffic just split into various users and units
This episode: Exists
Me: Has "Silent Hunter" flashbacks
hemmingwayfan MAN THE DECK GUN
The enemy is pinging us, sir!
depth charges in the water!
@@lukum55 Or if you had German audio on, "Auchtung! Wasserbombe!"
U boat is a new silent hunter
All this talk about subs, what about doms?
🥁
I imagine living conditions for those U-boat sailors using the slop bucket were much like living with my wife.
When either of us use the bathroom and toxic gas emerges, nothing is said.
You get used to it after a while.
I guess Germany just lives by the adage: if it didn't work last time, try, try, try again.
@Albert D you are right except for Germany didn't invade russia in WW1
@@blackmantis3130 ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_I)
@Albert D in ww1 the soviets capituled and the "real" enemy France fell with ease so from a 1941 perspective its understandable, add to that the whole race thing and it becomes an inevitability.
@@duke9555 get educated and then you can have an opinion.
They were still studying the tactics of Luigi Cadorna at U-Boat school.
1:40 sinking of over 100 allied ships
2:30 unrestricted submarine use as of 1940
2:40 britain develops an effective convoy system
3:15 sonar tactics were dealt with by not submerging the submarines.
4:37 one year 492 cargo ships got sunk
7:09 wolfpack tactics
Went to IWM Duxford at the weekend with my family. Didn't realise the German subs used a gyrocopter called Focke-Achgelis.
Some poor chap would sit in it and be towed by the submarine to provide as a better lookout than the sub itself.
However the copter and crew member was considered expendable should the sub come under attack!
Yep, ending up sitting in a gyrocopter in the middle of the Atlantic is certainly no fun. But, if some enemy ship is around he might could land there.
Wtf. Life must have sucked for so many people.
Focke-Achgelis is the name of the company, not the Gyrocopter itself 😎
Please do one for Decima Mas when they enter the war. Italians arguably pioneered the UDT with two frogmen, using a modified torpedo, managed to sink an Austro Hungarian warship in ww1👍. They still are still considered top notch (more info in the covert ops website).
Spoilers:
Gotta say it seems a major reason Germany lost was trying to look the part of a Empire before being one. Focus on big surface ships for example, how many subs could have been build in place of the Tirpitz line (the beauty that they were) and how much more effective they could’ve been.
Do you think the captains of the U boats would go onto the escort’s radio frequencies to give them a cheesy villain speech like in grey hound?
As funny as that is, no they didn’t do that because up to the end of the war U-boats didn’t have radios for ship to ship comms, they were reliant on enigma signals and Wolfpack coordination was done from Kriegsmarine HQ
My dads ship was torpedoed and sank in 1942. Fortunately the Nazi boat were destroyed a few months later. Really shouldn't glorify these people.
Len Deighton's 'Blood Tears and Folly' is a good intro to each theatre of the war up to the end of 1941. He outlines how slow U-boats actually were; moving at a cyclist's pace on the surface and at walking pace submerged, covering distances as great as from Berlin to London -and back- each sortie. The convoys often sailed through the U-boat screen undetected.
About 50% of U-boat sorties at this time featured no action; the boat sailed out, followed its route, met no Allied ship and returned to base to refuel. Most of the duration of a sortie was getting there then getting back, time on patrol being relatively short. That's if they didn't hit a mine or get discovered and sunk.
War was 90 to 99% tedium, 1 to 10% terror (often the last 1% of their lives) for submariners and sailors on the merchant ships alike, the latter being civilians don't forget.
Keeping your sub surfaced to avoid sonar and sneak into a convoy is the most galaxy-brained thought I’ve ever seen.
You've never seen the north atlantic at night.
@@hymanocohann2698 Fair, but it’s still pretty audacious if you ask me.
@@IJustKant U-Boats were extremely hard to see at night. This was due to their low profile. It wasn't until radar that they lost the advantage of surface attacks and--ultimately--cost them the Battle of the Atlantic.
@@ssPeto I did watch the video lol, I know that. It’s just amusing to me.
Indy: Ultra is the name of the code, Enigma is the name of the machine.
Nope Ultra was the code name for the decoded traffic . Ultra was the information the allies used
The Golden Horseshoe A book following Otto Kretchsmer of U-99 is an excellent read on a lot this video.
One mayor disadvantage of the allied merchant ships was that they were so underpowered that they could only travel at a top speed of around 8 knots. For this reason they could never get away from a U-boat(s), once spotted. Even all the new-build liberty ships from the U.S. could only travel at 8 knots. If they could have been built to travel at 20 knots, the U-boat(s) could never have caught up with them. Millions of tons of shipping, their cargoes, and their crews would have been saved.
There was clearly a trade-off: increasing the speed that much would have really lengthened the time of construction, resulting in fewer ships each week. Also, merchant ships should not have to outrun U-boats, leaving speed to their escorts.
Biographies about U-Boat commanders??
Just not autobiographies!
The USNavy was taking notes. They started using wolfpacks in the Pacific in 43 in conjunction with SigInt and tore the Japanese Navy and merchant marine up.
Wow nobody with Wolfpack lyrics yet?
Well guess I'll start then.
To their own shore,
Came the world war.
Gleaves and Ingham,
Leading the bury west.
TOOK THE SHORT WAY IN
THE LONG ROUTE BACK CONVOY 92
"Bury Gleaves and Ingham leading,
Tankers to the west."
When I saw the picture of Joachim Schepke I thought that was the former cyclist Jan Ulrich for a second.
A warrior who knows his weapons use inside and out, very dangerous .
Will you do an special episode on U Boats in the Gulf of Mexico, The Caribbean Sea, and off the coast of America.
Hey, Indy & co, great video as always! Could you maybe do a special on submarine technology and tactics in WW2 in comparison to those in WW1? I'm mostly interested in technology differences here, but tactic progression would make for an interesting topic as well.
In any case, thank you for the great content!
I've always compared the German Submarine campaign to the American Submarine campaign against Japan. Perhaps you could make a video about it?
The biggest difference (ultimately) was the Allies had radar in both cases. The Germans and Japanese had poor versions of it but mainly relied on the Mark 1 Eyeball. It would be a fun comparison for this series!
The latter was much more successful.
30% of all Japanese shipping sunk and 54.6% of all Japanese shipping lost during the war were lost to US submarines.
The Germans were starved by the British blockade in ww1. The Germans were trying to return the favor. The Americans were able to do to Japan what the Germans couldn't do to Japan.
Yes, the radar aspect was huge. But another huge part was American submarine numbers. The Germans were never able to do that. German crew quality suffered as the war went on. As losses mounted, morale amongst the impressed crews plummeted.
Thanks for all your hard work fleshing out the history of the times. You have a real talent for the common touch. Kudos on the phone as a prop. Thanks!
"Britain".
Can you do an episode on Axis POW's in North America? Most people have never heard of them, though I know about 400,000 Germans were sent to the US and considerable numbers of Italians.
Always love a good U boat story. Apparently, Churchill said that the only thing that worried him was the U boats!
In German they often use two vowels for one vowel sound. Ergo, Prien is preen. They also have a substitute form for the umlaut with the vowel E following the missing umlaut vowel for modification. Commandant Erich Raeder could also be spelled Erich Räder, both are correct and in either spelling his name is pronounced as in English - raider.
Correct. ie=e and ei=i
i've no idea how he mispronounced it... he literally lives in Germany no?
@@QuizmasterLaw No, I don't. I live in Sweden. I just listened at 5:16 and I say Preen. And Räder is not pronounced like straight up "raider" in English, that would be anglicizing the Ä too simply to ai.
@@Southsideindy I don't think I corrected your pronunciation of Raeder. You do say Pre-ehn, not so terribly obviously but yep you barely turn it into 2 syllables. It's a personal name he might have pronounced it as you did though I expect he didn't. Priehen (h is silent) is what you pronounced fwiw.
Good to know and keep in mind then.
I don’t know, I think we have better submarines
Jeez can you imagine how deadly the Kreigsmarine would've been if they had the IJNs toys.
The key speed that needed to be reached to provide a great deal of protection to merchant ships was 13 knots or greater. Ships that could maintain such a pace were at a very low risk of being sunk, even if completely without protection. It was estimated that independents were three times safer if they could travel at 14 knots rather than at 12 knots.
@Fransen Part of reason for the large troop ships not being in danger was due to careful routing thanks to the work of the Submarine Tracking Room at Liverpool and their careful plotting of each U-Boats location.
When you do the opposite story about Allied anti-submarine tactics, in addition to new weapons like the hedgehog depth charge launching system, can you please spend some time about Operations Research and the role it played in improving convoy tactics?
For that matter, while the Battle of the Atlantic is in play, could please you do a spotlight on British Admiral Gilbert Stephenson? He was a pioneer in anti-submarine warfare and a training commandant who may be eccentric and the trainees called him "The Terror of Tobermory" and "The Monkey", but he was so effective in training sailors in his own way that some historians consider him a factor in the Allied victory in the battle.
Don't forget to mention the playing of The Game at The Citadel, Western Approaches Command, Liverpool
The hedgehog was quite important, but I'd say that centimetric radar (which allowed the easy-ish spotting of those low-profile surfaced boats) and huffduff were probably more so. Can't kill 'em if you can't find 'em.
Even aside from that, just forcing them to travel submerged through the Bay of Biscay effectively put dozens of U-Boats out of commission at any given time by making it take far longer to get to and from the operational theater.
the most interesting ORG story is when they were trying to figure out which parts of A/C were the most vulnerable to enemy fire and then also noticed that their most valuable samples of weakpoints were all downed on enemy territory. i think this is also where markov chains come from. i'm unsure how they resolved this problem but they claim to have done so statistically "these got hit here and survived so i guess the armor is good enough" as opposed to "we know those spots are vulnerable yet strangely we have No returned a/c damaged in those very spots".
Priorities, priorities, priorities
Look on the map, Germany is a medium sized European nation who has a few lucky victories against its immediate neighbours.
Great Britain is a worldwide empire with vast manpower and resources. Their fabulous navy hasn’t been defeated in 250 years.
Does Germany combine its resources in defeating Great Britain with submarines?
Or does it try to combine its resources to defeat the Soviet Union, world’s biggest country with newly declared industrial and military greatness.
Make one choice.
U boat aces sinking old ships, that’s a joke.
Size doesn't always matter, it is more about the ressources in your territory. And as Germany aquired the Elsass very early in the war, coal, iron and other minerals were not that difficult to come by. Well Soviets are something else as they just threw millions of men against the german war machine without really caring for the casulties, and they were extraordinarily high compared to german losses, even in soviet victories... It is estimated that at least 10 soviets died for 1 german soldier, infamous Stalingrad it was about 20-30 russian soldiers per german soldier.
For former wars: The Elsass was german territory as was South Germany with its riches of gas and coal at that time, not forgetting the close alliance with Austria and their ressources all over the Alpen as goes for Italy in WW2. Nowadays almost every part but the brown coal is exhausted since decades.
You could call former victories "lucky", but for example the brother wars against the French were simply won by technological edge (backloader rifles against muskets, more efficient cannons with less use of powder, faster modernizing of troop tactics, not fighting in collums and stretched lines like during the industrial revolution or napoleonic wars, but more loose troop deployment, etc) . WW1 was close to a loss for the allies, if not for thousands of american and canadian soldiers getting pumped into the bloodpress too. Almost any war Germany really lost in Europe was due to outer intervention. And thank god it is that way, I for my part with my mindset wouldve been dead in the first years of my youth under Nazi rule... Would be a horrendous world to live in if the Nazis had won and the system would still be alive...
@Horatio Nelson And later they won the whole war after uniting with Bavaria and other south german kingdoms to be the first Alliance of Germany.
@@SmokeJam while the USSR had way higher losses than Germany, those numbers are absurdly off. Soviet military casualties total were 14 million, while German casualties were 5 million.
@@bezahltersystemtroll5055 that is not correct. 5 million total for Germany on all fronts. 14 Millions for soviets on one front. There were never even 5 Million german soldiers on the eastern front, you are mixing up the numbers here^^
@@SmokeJam 80% died on the eastern front.
I got the chance to board the fully intact, captured German sub U-505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago!
It's an incredibly fascinating tour! Highly recommend seeing!
Keep up the great videos!
I hope you were there the day I toured it. My wife and kids were laughing as I went right into docent mode explaining many of the submarine's features to anyone who would listen. After all these decades of studying WWII, I usually know more than the docents and even taught a P-51 pilot some things about his aircraft at an air show.
Strange fact. Three battleships (Royal Oak, Barham, and Kongo) were sunk by submarines in WW2 and they were all British made.
carriers too. iirc Glorious Courageous Hermes, Ark Royal was also sunk but not by a submarine iirc. Just about all the British pre war carrier did not survive the war (just like the U.S. ones)
Fuck the Washington Treaty. Peace of shit wishful thinking .
@@QuizmasterLaw AR, Eagle, Audacity, and Courageous were sunk by U-boat but Glorious was by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and Hermes was by IJN carrier planes.
IJN also lost a lot of CV by subs... they made Pacific a hell hole for IJN...
@@victorskwrxsti7899 thank you. my point wasn't so much about which ships were sunk but how and so many. it contrasts nicely with Japan, because German doctrine was anti-freighters, whereas Japanese was anti-warships. Yet, germany wound up sinking more surface combatants and more freight. so German doctrine was more correct. Japans submarines weren't totally ineffective but mostly so.
It’s Amazing how the intelligence & Technological innovations directly impacted the battle of the Atlantic.
I love these supplementary episodes that focus on tactics or important people of WW2.
For anyone curious about how miserable life is in a U-Boat, the podcast "Lions Led by Donkeys" did a recent episode talking about this. It features getting gassed, flammable soap, walls covered in sweaty moss, and an overly complicated toilet with fatal results.
you forgot the stench.
@@QuizmasterLaw I'd imagine they'd get used to it after spending months on patrol.
"Das Boot" has them eating meat which still has the animal's hair on it, and onboard flatulence caused by eating Brussels sprouts.
U-Boat crews were casually dressed, there was no room for spit and polish in their lives.
U505 - on your way back from Hawaii to Europe, stop through Chicago and check with the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry if you can talk with someone there about the U505. I know, it would be a long way home, but I think that would be a pretty neet exhibit for you to go through!
I will use this information while playing U-Boat.
Every time I think of U-boats, I think of the book The Cay
The British Royal Navy captured the first German U-boat 'U-110' on May 9, 1941 and bagged ourselves an Enigma Machine six months before America even entered the war. We'd already cracked the codes via the genius of Alan Turing and by the time Uncle Sam showed up we'd done the hard work.....
Wait, Indy, you mention Enigma, but didn't you in earlier episodes mentioned that German Kriegsmarine had most complicated Enigma code that wasn't entirely or at all decoded? I remember you saying Luftwaffe had the easiest one to break or decode.
I hope that when the time comes that we get a special about the US Navy's submarine war against Japan which unlike the U-Boats was a success.
Also not nearly as challenging
for further reading on the subject of U-boats I would recommend these books: Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939-1942 (1996) and Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942-1945 (1998).
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I'm proud that Lithuanian Zenonas Lukosius was one of the crew, sealing valves and preventing German submarine to sink, who captured Enigma machine from U-505.
Thank you for saying Donitz correctly. So many documentaries screw it up saying Doughnits, Doonits, or Durnits.
For its part it played in the Battle of the Atlantic, at the end of the war the U Boats in the North Atlantic were ordered to surrender at Derry, Northern Ireland. At Lisahally they were lined up in rows at the dock.
Derry was very busy with merchant traffic throughout the war
Thanks for your excellent films. But, please don;t repeat the British crap about ENIGMA. The German coding device was offered on the trade fears in Europe before WWII and purchased by the Poles. Crucial was the breaking of codes in Bletchley Park, GB by three Polish mathematicians. Or if you prefer the MICKEY MOUSE of the interpretation, then go on with your version.
To they’re own shore came the world war
Das boot. Never forget an awesome film... which depicts all this most authentically.
Standing orders number 1 from Western Approaches Command Instructions were that the top priority for escorts was to get the convoy to its destination. Everything was subordinate to this instruction.
7:18 - You've got the wrong caption there. He was actually urging those cadets to keep fighting, even if the Kriegsmarine was reduced to that boat right in front of him ;)
Thanks for the tips on submarine warfare, I was wondering what I was doing wrong
Also, always remember to close the windows before submerging.
@@KeithHearnPlus I've been trying to solve the problem of stuffy air for a while now, my screen door experiment went poorly. 😰
Thanks for this, apart from the weekly grind of panzer divisions in Russia, WW2 involved rapid deployment of innovative ideas, especially in the battle of the Atlantic
The US may be supporting the allies in Europe, but they have no intention of ever entering the war. The only way the US might enter the war is if they were suddenly attacked at an outpost somewhere. But what are the chances of that happening, am I right?
@Mars Attacks I know, right? It would be like waking up a sleeping giant!
US escorting convoys as far as Greenland? I thought it was Iceland, where the USS Reuben James was sunk two months before the Pearl Harbor attack. The Reuben James was even based in Iceland.
As far as I know Iceland was the first turning point but after the casulties stacked, they stayed between iceland and greenland. I mean they are not that far off each other, so it doesn't really change a lot in the grand scheme of things.
The US Neutrality Patrol/Zone was expanded from inception on 5 September 1939 to 27 May 1941. By May it covered most of the Atlantic.
United States Neutrality Patrol 5 Sep 1939 - 11 Dec 1941 (with map)
ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=336
much larger map
ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=26612
It's a few years off, but J Walker should make a good episode "...must be made to realise that the royal Navy considers the Bay of Biscay a happy hunting ground and will stamp out any attempt to restrict the free and rightful passage of Allied shipping. When we meet him we will destroy him " although, that is from 1943.
Hi, any chance of creating a WWII year-by-year DVDs? I think they will make a good buy, as well as another source of income for you guys. You really do a great job. Thank you!
I’m wonder why the did not use Air craft carriers in the Atlantic. Both America and The UK had them?
They had a few fleet Carriers early in the war and needed them for other work but later the USA produced a lot of Escort carriers for ASWarfare and the Brits had the Audacity in service in 1941
give em a bit time ;) and they will produce Escort carriers (in quantity) for ASW equippet with TBM/TBF Avengers and Wildcat/FMs for Anti Sub warfare
I know its shitty engl sry
The US was also fighting a two front war, and Japan was the much more formidable foe when it came to naval power. It actually had a surface fleet of note, unlike Germany, and for a time early in the war could field more carriers than the US navy. In short US carriers were needed elsewhere.
Full size fleet carriers were expensive and in high demand. As the war progressed the concept of the escort carrier was developed, often converted merchantmen with a few aircraft on board. You didn't need much for convoy escort, a few fighters to knock down Luftwaffe long range reconnaissance aircraft, a few anti-submarine warfare aircraft later in the war to kill the U-boats before they got close. It was a numbers game, I can afford to loose a cheap merchant ship conversion with half a dozen or so aircraft on it, I can't afford to loose a vary expensive fleet carrier with a fifty plus sized strike wing. Look up HMS Audacious and learn from there :-)
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 HMS Audacious was in WW1, funfact HMS Audacity was an escort Carrier in WW2 a converted captured german Merchant vessel
@@Sturminfantrist Correct, HMS Audacity, not Audacious. It would seem my memory is somewhat fallible!
In the book the struggle for Europe by Chester wilmot he says by mid 1943 the germans gave up submarine raids on shipping in the Atlantic because of much improved tactics by the allies.
Great little episode, but please pleae just say "U-boat" when referring to a U-Boot, the pronounciation of boat/boot in English and German is exactly the same. Kaythanksbye!
Triangulating incoming radio traffic would not be of much value to HFDF. They already knew where Wilhelmshaven or Lorient is.
8. Fire one torpedo per target, not fanned salvoes.
That point was Kretschmer's personal preference. The German Submarine Handbook clearly emphasizes to use as many torpedoes as possible to ensure the ship is sunk. Convoys merchants, tankers, troop transports and ammunition ships were priority targets that might take more than one torpedo to sink. Kretschmer was also one lucky SOB, because early war torpedoes were vulnerable to be duds or be deep-runners.
Soy admirador de los U-boat pero no entiendo más que español,portugués e italiano.¡Que pena!PorteñoNaires
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It must have been equally terrifying to be a sailor in a supply convoy waiting night after night for a torpedo attack as it would be for a submariner waiting deep and silent for a depth charge attack to come. Either way, your demise would be just a short time away. Knowing that convoy ships would not stop to pick up casualties and U Boat survivors after an attack are rare would only increase the mental strain.
Had Hitler waited and given Admiral Doenitz the 300 boats he needed the war very easily could have ended quickly in a defeat of the British and Europe. As it turned out they almost succeeded in spite of Hitler who was, himself, one of the best assets the Allies had.
If the Nazis would of made a pact with Russia and had Russia as a Alliance? That would have been a big difference in the amount of supplies the Nazis had and they would not have started to running low on supplies. The war would have been way different.
In their own track came the Wolfpack, Gleaves led the convoy into the hornet's nest!
Mornin' Indy
There are two awesome websites for anyone interested in this subject: uboat.net and uboatarchive.net. Uboatarchive contains hundreds of actual U-boat war diaries and I have been absolutely addicted to them.
Being on a sub would scare me so completely nobody would let in one! Send me to the Moon, sure, 10 meters down? NO WAY!