Hell Below is an event-based series charting the stealth game of sub sea warfare, tracking the dramatic narrative from contact to attack of the greatest submarine patrols of World War II. The Rudeltaktik aka wolfpack tactic was made famous by Admiral Karl Dönitz, Hitler's mastermind of submariners. His strategy: to send teams of U-boats to bear against the convoys of ships heading from Canada to Britain, cut maritime lifelines, and starve the enemy into defeat. Take a deep dive into the North Atlantic as we go above and below sea level to relive one of the first attacks of Dönitz's lethal subs in 1940, headed by leader of the pack Commander Otto Kretschmer. Then follow Britain's war strategists as they race to combat this new deadly attack.
I remember submarine documentaries from my childhood with interviews with Otto Kretschmer in them. In the older docos he spoke very good English, in later ones, he spoke German, as he got older. He was always a gentleman, always spoke in respectful terms of his former adversaries. It is well worth watching interviews with him.
My grandfather, a WW II battleship sailor, was close friends with his neighbor, who was a German WW2 U-Boat sailor, and he was the friendliest, kindest, man I remember knowing as a kid. Albert was his name.
Most the individual soldiers be it japs or Germans or any are just doing their jobs and caught up in the moment. Many American soldiers have also perpetrated many evils under such pretense. I am absolutely positively anti war. Unfortunately that seems quite impossible as long as this world turns.
That's kinda cool I would have loved to hear the stories from Big bolth of them it's funny that two people who where out to kill each other where friends
@@raganusmc it's unfunny that war is between government's old farts who send soldiers to kill each other. They lean back and don't have to pull the trigger
Why he wouldn't be friendly, kind man... Wars are started by country leadership. For huge majority of people 1st choice would be always peace. That German was drafted without anyone asking him if he really wants to do it.
My sailing instructor in West Germany had been a seamen on a u-boat during WWII. His wounds were such that he was sent to a rehabilitation hospital in Bavaria. He told me if he had not been wounded so severely, he would have been sent back and probably died in combat. At that time, circa 1972, I was not aware of the very high casualty rates of the Germany submarines.
Excellent documentary! Having served on a ballistic missile sub, I can only imagine the living conditions on u-boats and diesel subs. Nothing compares. 😲 THANK YOU so much for this bit of history and for giving me a different perspective.
Going by what American WWII sub vets said, the main differences were that you got to wash once a week (clean water was at a premium), and the boats perpetually stank of sweat and diesel. In the tropics, things got pretty ripe pretty quickly.
My wife's Grampa was a cook on a Uboat because he was a baker in Germany. The Uboat was captured and my wife's grampa was interned in a POW camp in Arkansas. THEY LET HIM OUT of the camp on weekends to work in a local Bakery. RIP Fritz Otto.
A great salute to all soldiers, no matter they are German, British, French, US, Japanese,or whatsoever .... They all are brave men, heroes and patriots. They risk their lives, give up their ideals and dreams, fight for their country and their beliefs. Many of them ultimately died in the battlefields. 😢😢😭😭 Peace and no more wars.🤝🤝🙏🙏
Well done, but one comment from a retired Navy Chief Submariner- Depth Charges do NOT have to hit the submarine's hull to sink it (although BONUS if you do!). The point of Depth Charges is to generate an explosion of pressure that will damage or overcome what the submarine's hull pressure can withstand. So if a Type VIIC U-boat's hull would be able to withstand about 3,300 Pounds per Square Inch (PSI). If you get an average WW II Depth Charge to go off within 10 feet of her hull, the Depth Charge's explosion would generate about 10,000 PSI, and therefore, damage and perhaps even breach her hull. Just sayin....
The bouncing bombs of Dambusters fame were designed to function somewhat like a depth charge, meant to go off right next to the dam wall underwater, to make use of the tamping effect of the water, as Barnes Wallis put it. What you say is quite right, even a near miss could be enough to loosen the riveted plates of a U-boat and cause flooding the crew couldn't control. A contact explosion would very likely cave the pressure hull in. Not nice. An American submarine veteran of WWII likened being under depth charges as being shut in a tin can while some burly character hammered on the outside with a sledgehammer.
Cunning plus far ruthless come terror, plus the stouth fullness is key. British slang terms the U-boats need to be recharged with above the surface of the ocean. The full force is the key provided the main battery keep the wolf pack submerged for hours the sub will sink or be discharged an destroyed....
@@desertdetroiter428 Back then, most of our relatives would strongly disagree with you. Winston Churchill and many Allied leaders feared that Germany would reach 300 U-boats during WW2 to finally choke the British Isles. The same fearless warriors from Battleship Bismark to the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper were also in the surface fleet. Germany's naval power went beyond Europe and did have some ships in Australia that did hurt Allied shipping
They absolutely were, extremely brave men. It was only due to the actions of America during the Laconia incident that they were ordered to cease assisting survivors.
Wolfpacks required extensive radio communication to coordinate the attacks. This left the U-boats vulnerable to a device called the High Frequency Direction Finder (HF/DF or Huff-Duff), which allowed Allied naval forces to determine the location of the enemy boats transmitting and attack them.
Yeah, thatshow the Germans found the convoys as well. That circle shaped thing on the conning tower was a directional finding antenna. But they monitored radio traffic in antennas all around the Atlantic coast as well. If two of those towers catched the transmission of a convoy ship they could find its position, and since they made their tranmission periodically, they could determine the convoy's speed and course as well. Then they sent out a U boat to investigate, which generally submerged and listened for the propeller noises, which could be catched sometimes 100 km afar, so he could calculate the exact position and course of the convoy. Then after chasing it down and identified tit the U boot called in the wolfpack. Then the sub generally shadowed the convoy for a few hours till the other subs got into position. During the attack phase one sub launched its torps which got the attention of the escorts who moved away hunting for it, then the other subs teared apart the remaining merchant ships. As of Kretchmer, he didnt sink his prey at first shot, but damaged it enough that since it was slower it had to move out of the convoy, then he simply finished it off with his deckgun.
I really like this program.I have a huge interest in submarines, regardless of when or whom the boats originally come from,this program starts off with German Uboats and it's early aces.Thank you for this show!!!
I served 2 years on board the USS Toledo SSN-769, 96 - 98..i cant imagine what it was like to serve on those old disel boats undwr those conditions and stress
Did you enjoy your time serving on USS Toledo? Thanks for your service. SmarterEveryDay did a great video series of a day onboard that submarine that I found fascinating to watch. The meals especially look very good quality.
My grandfather, Earl Lee Bradner, was Chief Mate on the S.S. Margaret, a Merchant ship that was torpedoed off of Cape Hatteras by U571, Captained by Helmut Mohlmann, on April 14, 1942. None of the 29 crew members were ever found. They were carrying a cargo of sugar. This happened way before I was even a thought to my parents, so I never met him.
I served 3 years on Canadian Oberon class diesel boats hunting Russian submarines during the cold war. One major attribute of the O-boat was their stealth capabilities. So quiet that you didn’t know we were there until you heard the torpedo coming at you. During exercises, we would play the theme to Jaws over the underwater telephone when doing our attack run against the surface ships. It scared the bejeezus out of many a sonar operator. We also invented what became to be known as the “Dolphin Code”. Dolphin:49.
Used to have an Oberon Class as a museum ship relatively locally (HMS Onxy), apparently it was originally built for the Royal Canadian Navy, but the order was cancelled, and it ended up in the British Royal Navy instead. It was the first submarine that I ever went onboard age about 6, and I remember being incredibly impressed by the compactness and organisation of everything onboard. Sadly it was scrapped a few years ago.
Being stuck in a sub so deep that youd be crushed by the weight immediately upon the sub being ripped open is one of the scariest situations i can imagine being in.
I’m conflicted on Uboat warfare strategy. On the one hand, I find the engineering and stories of their missions very interesting and for sure those crews must’ve been in some incredibly horrible situations at times. But on the flip side, they killed innocent defenceless merchant sailors and were for a long time fighting on a completely uneven playing field (which I think is very dishonourable and perhaps even cowardly).
Well, the US navy had orders to fire on German naval vessels while the US was still officially neutral How does fire bombing of women and children sound to you? That was the specialty of the allies. Before sinking a merchant vessel German naval vessel would take off the crew and passengers then sink that vessel. Churchill had the bright idea to put armament onto those merchant ships and guess what???
I had a work colleague in the 70s he told me he was sunk three times he was in the merchant Navy in WW11 as a cook once you took to the lifeboat. His pay was stopped his mother knew something was wrong when her allotment stopped ,
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent reenactments along with guest speakers contributing to accurate historical information-!!!🤗. Had Admiral Doenitz had 50 more U-boats. Perhaps Britain would have been starved into submission-???🤔. Excellent motion photography pictures of a actual ship sinkings-!!!😉.
I have read a lot about German submariner they were very courageous and faught brilliant . My salute for those who died fighting for their country. Under the water and face. Hell.
Submarine-ers , I made the mistake of calling ww2 sub guys submariners twice in my years and got chastised both times. The first time the guy said something like , Aqua-man is a submariner , we are Sub Mariners. They weren’t kidding either.
The problem with U-boats is that they were surface vessels that had the ability to dive, but they were very slow underwater. This made it easier to hit with depth charges when they knew the sub wasn't too far from where it dived. The Germans needed a sub that was designed for undersea - without the deck and with a more undersea oriented propeller, and more capable electric motors.
At least when they wake up, they will know where all their friends are. *Hope you get this reference because of the title of the video P.S. great video this is
Idk why it bothered me so much that he said "Death Charges" also a Depth charge kills mainly with Hydraulic shock and violent vibrations that can even snap the keel of a vessel. It does not need to hit its target to kill it. The idea behind the shock factor is that an explosion close to a ship generates a shock wave that can impart sudden vertical motions to a ship's hull and internal systems. Many of the internal mechanical systems (e.g. engine coupling to prop) require precise alignment in order to operate. These vibrations upset these critical alignments and render these systems inoperative. The vibrations can also destroy lighting and electrical components, such as relays. The explosion also generates a gas bubble that undergoes expansion and contraction cycles. These cycles can introduce violent vibrations into a hull, generating structural damage, even to the point of breaking the ship's keel. In fact, this is a goal of many undersea weapon systems.
Unbeknownst to most, what accelerated the demise of U- boats was the invention of airborne radar. The minute the U- boats surfaced they were spotted . The subs surfaced to recharge batteries and they couldn't submerge.
The Rudeltaktik aka wolfpack tactic was made famous by Admiral Karl Dönitz, a WW II battleship sailor, was close friends with his neighbor, who was a German WW2 U-Boat sailor
Here’s a few books that I can recommend.. the U-boat Flotilla book set by Lawrence Paterson, U-boat Ace, the story of Wolfgang Lüth by Jordan Vause and The Real Cruel Sea by Richard Woodman.
The U-boats weren't designed to go very deep, in fact their design was pretty outdated. A newer model was being built towards the end of the war, but by then it was too late. The shipyards got heavily bombed and even the U-boat pens made of reinforced concrete could be holed with a 'tallboy'.
not called "death charges" they are called depth charges since they are set to explode at a given depth. these became the most terrifying weapon for soliders onboard subs in WW2 since they couldnt do anything about them. imagine being underwater and just waiting to see if your sub gets ripped apart by an explosive you have no idea where or if it will happen.
Talk about a terrible way to die. Being in a sub that gets hit with depth charges... they say it would be almost instant but I dunno, I've always thought being two, three hundred feet beneath the surface and the sub just ripping open from a depth charge, all that seawater all at once... that's the stuff of pure nightmares and only human beings could get so creative with the methods which we kill each other. Subs, surface ships, infantry, tank crews, bomber crews, fighter pilots...each had to face the terrifying and grim reality that they could die in uniquely horrific ways
It really is that. fast.....when the pressure is that high, its not that water comes in so fast in a crack. The entire boat literally implodes. Is so fast, it takes longer to feel pain ( it takes time for your brain to receive the pain impulses when you re hurt) than for the implosion to occur. The moments before it happens must be terrifying though. Also, its known that they could take suicide pills if there was no way of salvation.
@@mikealvarez2322 That is an interesting detail. When you think about it, of course it makes sense but that too must have made it just that bit harder doing the job.
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory I'm 77 so my childhood memories are a bit foggy. Domingo, my father's friend, used to come over to sit on our front porch on some evenings just to chat and catch a breeze on hot Miami nights. As a kid I was fascinated with WW2 and Korea was just wrapping up, I was glued to any conversation regarding the war. There were quite a few Vets in our neighborhood (I was a Miami News delivery boy in the late 50s and got to know some of them. Looking back on those times now, I do believe those Vets appreciated my interest in their War. One of my first book reports in 6th grade was GUADALCANAL DIARY. My interest in both wars was wanting to know what these men went through. I learned more from them than what I learned in school. They generated in me a love of history. My generation's war was Vietnam. I had a best friend and hunting buddy that was 3 years older than me. He did 2 tours of duty as a combat Marine in Vietnam. He wrote me a letter during his second tour telling me that whatever I do I must avoid going over there. I was close to volunteering but decided to wait. Lucky for me that my draft number turned out to be 353 (no chance I'd be drafted). My friend died an early death in 1997 a victim of Agent Orange. I am thankful to all the Vets I got to know, even those that were not in combat, because they all impressed upon me how horrible war is and how frightened they were but still had a job to do. One man that never saw combat dealt with the horrors of combat every day. He was part of a crew that repaired tanks that had been hit but still salvageable. He always wondered how the US could send young men in tanks that didn't stand a chance against a Panther. Too bad so many people today are clueless about the sacrifices men and women have made to secure our freedom. Domingo's ship was torpedoed once and hit by bombs from a plane on another occasion. Both times they saved the ship. The last thing he wanted to do was go in the water.
U-Boats had a 75% loss rate. The highest of any German service. 30k submariners died, and 5k were captured out of 41k submariners. Do the math. One other thought, Donald McIntyre returned Otto Kretschmer's binoculars in 1955.
Sinking unarmed merchant shipping is not a glorious means of waging warfare but was seen as necessary at the time, thankfully Britain developed Asdic, now called sonar as well as short wave Radar which eventually allowed them to find just the periscope of a submerged Uboat. Having developed depth charges in the First world wat they went on to invent the Hedgehog which could fire a salvo of smaller but very powerful charges ahead of the ship, gather than dropping the off of the stern or sides of the ship, all of these technical inventions were given to the United States which used them with great success.
I love that older white beard commentator / historian. What an enthusiastic Guy and awesome narrative style. Also knows alot, hes Been elsewhere. Awesome dude.
IF YOU WANNA SEE WHAT LIFE WAS REALLY LIKE ON A GERMAN U BOAT 🚢...YOU SHOULD WATCH THE MOVIE TITLE D DAS BOOT...DIRECTED BY WOLFGANG PETERSON AND STARRING JURGEN PRACHNOW...GREAT FILM 🎥
Later on in the war the allies had support groups to help the convoy escort beat off attacking U Boats. By 1943 a U Boat in Kretschmer’s situation in 1940 would have been toast? The allies had the strength to spare ships to pin down a U Boat until it either ran out of air, which would force it to surface, or until it was hunted to death.
@@asullivan4047 That's not quite right. When the 'happy time' as the Germans called it came to an end, Dônitz did in fact have a hunch that his codes had been cracked, and they did try to change them. He went back to the those who had set up the enigma system to check with them that their system was still absolutely foolproof. They assured him that it was. For a short period of time the Germans also managed to crack the British Naval secret codes, but the Royal Navy realised what had happened and rectified it. A Royal Navy ship managed to recuperate an enigma machine and the codebooks from a surrendered U-boat without the Germans knowing. It was sent to Bletchley Park, but they had to be very careful about how they used the new information as of course they didn't want to give the game away.
Post war count says 2 of 3 U boat men died in service. Have not found a higher loss ratio yet , of any force in WW 2 . Prove me wrong if you have proof.
I understand that the budget for these documentaries is always extremely low, but how much would it cost to give the actors a period haircut? Some students would probably do it for free. Maybe I'm asking too much. Even the movie Dunkirk had the actors with 21st century haircuts, which immediately didn't feel right. The characters have period uniforms, period weapons, period accessories, but just happen to visit modern barbers.
My granpa was born in WW1 uboat and become great uboat ace in WW2. He was in depth charge attack and boat was about to sink but he escaped with few sailors out of aft torpedo tube. They ckimb up stationary hunter destroyer and taked it under control with pistoles and loundry sacks. They send message to kriegsmarine, scutled the ship and escaped with lifeboat and rowed bqck to Germany. He just watched this dokUment and tell it was really accurated before he went to brothel yesterday.
Murphy's War is an 1971 film starring Peter O'Toole and Siân Phillips. It was directed by Peter Yates based on the 1969 novel by Max Catto. The film is set in Orinoco river actual Venezuela during World War II and focuses on a stubborn survivor of a sunken merchant ship who is consumed in his quest for revenge and retribution against the German submarine that sank his ship.
I know that Winston Churchill feared one thing the most and it was the U Boats. They are deadly to the enemy but also to the crew of the U Boats especially when most get destroyed and many sailors were killed. They are floating coffins!
Sorry but i'm a lil bit confused with the last sentence you wrote bc i don't know who do you mean with," They're deadly to the enemy but also to the crew of the U Boats especialy when most get destroyer & many sailors were killed" That's just not making sence to me. 👍🙏
It means it killed just as many germans as they did the enemy because the uboats by the end of the war were basically sitting ducks@@raymondtorres-gy8uj
The crew called them 'iron coffins' - I'm I'm sure you know that. My father-in-law was a stoker on a convoy ship. He went above to get some fresh air and they were torpedoed. He was one of six people from his ship picked up. He was 19 and lived into his 90s - the need for a break and luck meant he survived. Many people were left in the sea because ships were now allowed to stop for survivors due to the risk of being torpedoed.
Great series only hindered by the constant musak, if only we could torpedo that part. America does that in all their documentaries they make. Recommended is the 1980s German Das Boot tv drama in German with subtitles. Forget the film which only shows about 20% of the series & remakes.
The German submarines were basically primitive submersibles. Donitz was correct that Germany would need at least 300 submarines at the beginning of the war. Probably 400-500 supported by long range, high altitude naval reconnaissance aircraft, secure communications. Would have a limited time to blockade Britain and force an armistice. Speed was important. Germany had no staying power.
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What are those triangular "teeth" on front of the U 99 for, was that standard equipment for a (German) submarine ? And what happened to Kretchmer's special binoculars, are they on display in a museum ?
They were "net cutters" designed to allow the submarine to pass through underwater anti submarine netting. They were mostly removed early war as the chance of using them was negligible. Apart from U-47s attack on Scapa Flow in Oct 1939 that is.
Imagine it's the dead of night in the middle of the Atlantic in a convoy and your sitting there smoking a cigarette, eating, sleeping or whatever having 0 idea about the wolfpack of U-Boats lurking beneath you. Absolutely not.
Yeah ASDIC was pretty shtty equipment. Although Germans didnt know about the existence of thermal layers which simply reflects the soundwaves back to the surface, but they knew if the go deep enough they have a chance they wont be spotted on ASDIC, and it generally worked. Later in the cold war the thermoclines were utilized extensively by skippers to hide. And German submarines were fully aware if they were radared, their radio operators actually monitored the frequencies on which allied radars operated. The problem was that they couldnt shadow the convoy anymore on the surface to collect a wolfpack, because a radar would simply pick them up. On the other hand, if they would complete the snorkel ships in numbers and remain submerged, radar would have remained useless against them. Today the most effective weapon against a sub is another sub, surface shipping is almost powereless, they dont even know they are in the crosshairs until its too late.
Hell Below is an event-based series charting the stealth game of sub sea warfare, tracking the dramatic narrative from contact to attack of the greatest submarine patrols of World War II.
The Rudeltaktik aka wolfpack tactic was made famous by Admiral Karl Dönitz, Hitler's mastermind of submariners. His strategy: to send teams of U-boats to bear against the convoys of ships heading from Canada to Britain, cut maritime lifelines, and starve the enemy into defeat. Take a deep dive into the North Atlantic as we go above and below sea level to relive one of the first attacks of Dönitz's lethal subs in 1940, headed by leader of the pack Commander Otto Kretschmer. Then follow Britain's war strategists as they race to combat this new deadly attack.
There is not a lot of use in putting a link to part two while making part two a "private" video.
@@MasterCedar Yes there is. hehehe.
Give the Credit for this series to Smithsonian Channel. Come on give credit where credit is due. Not once was that mentioned.
@@lawrenceleverton7426 credits roll
❤❤
I remember submarine documentaries from my childhood with interviews with Otto Kretschmer in them. In the older docos he spoke very good English, in later ones, he spoke German, as he got older. He was always a gentleman, always spoke in respectful terms of his former adversaries. It is well worth watching interviews with him.
My grandfather, a WW II battleship sailor, was close friends with his neighbor, who was a German WW2 U-Boat sailor, and he was the friendliest, kindest, man I remember knowing as a kid. Albert was his name.
Most the individual soldiers be it japs or Germans or any are just doing their jobs and caught up in the moment. Many American soldiers have also perpetrated many evils under such pretense. I am absolutely positively anti war. Unfortunately that seems quite impossible as long as this world turns.
That's kinda cool I would have loved to hear the stories from Big bolth of them it's funny that two people who where out to kill each other where friends
@@raganusmc it's unfunny that war is between government's old farts who send soldiers to kill each other. They lean back and don't have to pull the trigger
Why he wouldn't be friendly, kind man... Wars are started by country leadership. For huge majority of people 1st choice would be always peace. That German was drafted without anyone asking him if he really wants to do it.
Just wait until you find out why we're taught a specific version of history from that time. Heil Victory.
My sailing instructor in West Germany had been a seamen on a u-boat during WWII. His wounds were such that he was sent to a rehabilitation hospital in Bavaria. He told me if he had not been wounded so severely, he would have been sent back and probably died in combat. At that time, circa 1972, I was not aware of the very high casualty rates of the Germany submarines.
Excellent documentary! Having served on a ballistic missile sub, I can only imagine the living conditions on u-boats and diesel subs. Nothing compares. 😲
THANK YOU so much for this bit of history and for giving me a different perspective.
Going by what American WWII sub vets said, the main differences were that you got to wash once a week (clean water was at a premium), and the boats perpetually stank of sweat and diesel. In the tropics, things got pretty ripe pretty quickly.
My wife's Grampa was a cook on a Uboat because he was a baker in Germany. The Uboat was captured and my wife's grampa was interned in a POW camp in Arkansas. THEY LET HIM OUT of the camp on weekends to work in a local Bakery. RIP Fritz Otto.
Great story
HH brother.
Please ignore the lewd comment above from someone. I respect your Grampa
He was baking more than bread
@@kkloikok
I am half German and a Trump supporter. I find your reply very offensive.
A great salute to all soldiers, no matter they are German, British, French, US, Japanese,or whatsoever .... They all are brave men, heroes and patriots. They risk their lives, give up their ideals and dreams, fight for their country and their beliefs. Many of them ultimately died in the battlefields. 😢😢😭😭
Peace and no more wars.🤝🤝🙏🙏
Well done, but one comment from a retired Navy Chief Submariner- Depth Charges do NOT have to hit the submarine's hull to sink it (although BONUS if you do!). The point of Depth Charges is to generate an explosion of pressure that will damage or overcome what the submarine's hull pressure can withstand. So if a Type VIIC U-boat's hull would be able to withstand about 3,300 Pounds per Square Inch (PSI). If you get an average WW II Depth Charge to go off within 10 feet of her hull, the Depth Charge's explosion would generate about 10,000 PSI, and therefore, damage and perhaps even breach her hull. Just sayin....
The bouncing bombs of Dambusters fame were designed to function somewhat like a depth charge, meant to go off right next to the dam wall underwater, to make use of the tamping effect of the water, as Barnes Wallis put it.
What you say is quite right, even a near miss could be enough to loosen the riveted plates of a U-boat and cause flooding the crew couldn't control. A contact explosion would very likely cave the pressure hull in. Not nice. An American submarine veteran of WWII likened being under depth charges as being shut in a tin can while some burly character hammered on the outside with a sledgehammer.
the best spot for a depth charge to explode was slightly below the sub.
Thank you for your service! Even with modern technology, it couldn’t have been easy
Thank you for your service Sir and the information
I’d say based off the design of the depth charge, if you get within 10 feet it’s a hit.
Those U Boat captains and crews were fearless warriors for sure and deadly opponents .
Not really.
Cunning plus far ruthless come terror, plus the stouth fullness is key. British slang terms the U-boats need to be recharged with above the surface of the ocean. The full force is the key provided the main battery keep the wolf pack submerged for hours the sub will sink or be discharged an destroyed....
@@desertdetroiter428 Back then, most of our relatives would strongly disagree with you. Winston Churchill and many Allied leaders feared that Germany would reach 300 U-boats during WW2 to finally choke the British Isles. The same fearless warriors from Battleship Bismark to the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper were also in the surface fleet. Germany's naval power went beyond Europe and did have some ships in Australia that did hurt Allied shipping
They absolutely were, extremely brave men. It was only due to the actions of America during the Laconia incident that they were ordered to cease assisting survivors.
@@martcon6757 Lol…”brave men.”
Wolfpacks required extensive radio communication to coordinate the attacks. This left the U-boats vulnerable to a device called the High Frequency Direction Finder (HF/DF or Huff-Duff), which allowed Allied naval forces to determine the location of the enemy boats transmitting and attack them.
Yeah, thatshow the Germans found the convoys as well. That circle shaped thing on the conning tower was a directional finding antenna. But they monitored radio traffic in antennas all around the Atlantic coast as well. If two of those towers catched the transmission of a convoy ship they could find its position, and since they made their tranmission periodically, they could determine the convoy's speed and course as well. Then they sent out a U boat to investigate, which generally submerged and listened for the propeller noises, which could be catched sometimes 100 km afar, so he could calculate the exact position and course of the convoy. Then after chasing it down and identified tit the U boot called in the wolfpack. Then the sub generally shadowed the convoy for a few hours till the other subs got into position. During the attack phase one sub launched its torps which got the attention of the escorts who moved away hunting for it, then the other subs teared apart the remaining merchant ships. As of Kretchmer, he didnt sink his prey at first shot, but damaged it enough that since it was slower it had to move out of the convoy, then he simply finished it off with his deckgun.
I have been searching for this series for sooooo long. Thank you so much and keep posting. 👍
Thank you for uploading this amazing documentary
I really like this program.I have a huge interest in submarines, regardless of when or whom the boats originally come from,this program starts off with German Uboats and it's early aces.Thank you for this show!!!
Great documentary! Thank you so much! 🙏 I'm glad this channel found me.
I served 2 years on board the USS Toledo SSN-769, 96 - 98..i cant imagine what it was like to serve on those old disel boats undwr those conditions and stress
Did you enjoy your time serving on USS Toledo? Thanks for your service. SmarterEveryDay did a great video series of a day onboard that submarine that I found fascinating to watch. The meals especially look very good quality.
@@beeman2075
Looking back i wouldnt trade it for anything.
@@Medrun Thanks for replying, and glad to hear you enjoyed your time on board Toledo.
What fuel did the Sub you was on used?
@@ddtrahan nuclear energy
And diesel
best Uboat war documentary
Really enjoyed this documentary.
Thank you for uploading this.
Well done, thank you.
Great documentary. Thank you LOVE it.
Excellent.Thanks for upload.
Playing a game called UBOAT , and actually this documentary helped with figuring out the game.
My grandfather, Earl Lee Bradner, was Chief Mate on the S.S. Margaret, a Merchant ship that was torpedoed off of Cape Hatteras by U571, Captained by Helmut Mohlmann, on April 14, 1942. None of the 29 crew members were ever found. They were carrying a cargo of sugar. This happened way before I was even a thought to my parents, so I never met him.
I'm sorry you lost your grandma. I miss mine too.🎉
I served 3 years on Canadian Oberon class diesel boats hunting Russian submarines during the cold war. One major attribute of the O-boat was their stealth capabilities. So quiet that you didn’t know we were there until you heard the torpedo coming at you. During exercises, we would play the theme to Jaws over the underwater telephone when doing our attack run against the surface ships. It scared the bejeezus out of many a sonar operator. We also invented what became to be known as the “Dolphin Code”. Dolphin:49.
just like out of the movies. Thanks for sharing that!
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory God i thought only the rn sub personel were mad
Hú de irigyellek!❤❤❤
Used to have an Oberon Class as a museum ship relatively locally (HMS Onxy), apparently it was originally built for the Royal Canadian Navy, but the order was cancelled, and it ended up in the British Royal Navy instead. It was the first submarine that I ever went onboard age about 6, and I remember being incredibly impressed by the compactness and organisation of everything onboard. Sadly it was scrapped a few years ago.
I’ve been on board HMS Ocelot preserved at Chatham Dockyard. Based on the advanced late war German type XXl ‘electroboot.’
Being stuck in a sub so deep that youd be crushed by the weight immediately upon the sub being ripped open is one of the scariest situations i can imagine being in.
It would be over so fast.. no fear
Very interesting documentary, thanks for sharing.
I’m conflicted on Uboat warfare strategy. On the one hand, I find the engineering and stories of their missions very interesting and for sure those crews must’ve been in some incredibly horrible situations at times. But on the flip side, they killed innocent defenceless merchant sailors and were for a long time fighting on a completely uneven playing field (which I think is very dishonourable and perhaps even cowardly).
Well, the US navy had orders to fire on German naval vessels while the US was still officially neutral
How does fire bombing of women and children sound to you? That was the specialty of the allies.
Before sinking a merchant vessel German naval vessel would take off the crew and passengers then sink that vessel.
Churchill had the bright idea to put armament onto those merchant ships and guess what???
Superb! History comes alive in this episode!
Yes, it was like watching the action through the computer.
Excellent doccie! Thank you from Somerset West, South Africa. Esp. on D-Day..and I'm german. ☝️🇿🇦🇩🇪
Heart of gold,clear horizon
What a good series!
Very good presentation of the facts.
I do agreee
Great video!
All these guys have gigantic balls
UBOAT is an awesome game.
I had a work colleague in the 70s he told me he was sunk three times he was in the merchant Navy in WW11 as a cook once you took to the lifeboat. His pay was stopped his mother knew something was wrong when her allotment stopped ,
How miserable is that, stopping a blokes pay because his ship was sunk.
Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent reenactments along with guest speakers contributing to accurate historical information-!!!🤗. Had Admiral Doenitz had 50 more U-boats. Perhaps Britain would have been starved into submission-???🤔. Excellent motion photography pictures of a actual ship sinkings-!!!😉.
impressive documentary. Character acting was actually great as were the historians.
I have read a lot about German submariner they were very courageous and faught brilliant . My salute for those who died fighting for their country. Under the water and face. Hell.
Submarine-ers , I made the mistake of calling ww2 sub guys submariners twice in my years and got chastised both times.
The first time the guy said something like , Aqua-man is a submariner , we are Sub Mariners. They weren’t kidding either.
Otto is a real legend….!!!
His legacy will continue as long as life exists on earth.What a Commander..!!!
The problem with U-boats is that they were surface vessels that had the ability to dive, but they were very slow underwater. This made it easier to hit with depth charges when they knew the sub wasn't too far from where it dived.
The Germans needed a sub that was designed for undersea - without the deck and with a more undersea oriented propeller, and more capable electric motors.
I was searching for this thank you🌹
At least when they wake up, they will know where all their friends are.
*Hope you get this reference because of the title of the video
P.S. great video this is
Idk why it bothered me so much that he said "Death Charges" also a Depth charge kills mainly with Hydraulic shock and violent vibrations that can even snap the keel of a vessel. It does not need to hit its target to kill it. The idea behind the shock factor is that an explosion close to a ship generates a shock wave that can impart sudden vertical motions to a ship's hull and internal systems. Many of the internal mechanical systems (e.g. engine coupling to prop) require precise alignment in order to operate. These vibrations upset these critical alignments and render these systems inoperative. The vibrations can also destroy lighting and electrical components, such as relays. The explosion also generates a gas bubble that undergoes expansion and contraction cycles. These cycles can introduce violent vibrations into a hull, generating structural damage, even to the point of breaking the ship's keel. In fact, this is a goal of many undersea weapon systems.
Depth charges arebine of the most ingenious inventions of necessity.
To anyone liking this doc; I seriously recommend the game U-boat. it really mimmicks the tension of being chased well, its a great game.
Unbeknownst to most, what accelerated the demise of U- boats was the invention of airborne radar. The minute the U- boats surfaced they were spotted . The subs surfaced to recharge batteries and they couldn't submerge.
The Rudeltaktik aka wolfpack tactic was made famous by Admiral Karl Dönitz, a WW II battleship sailor, was close friends with his neighbor, who was a German WW2 U-Boat sailor
The struggle was real, I could just imagine what was going on through their mind and gut....damn
존경합니다 !!!!!!
I was obsessed with submarines for a year.
Yes - they are pretty phallistick and slick
Don't give up
Superb video. Really informative 😊
Here’s a few books that I can recommend.. the U-boat Flotilla book set by Lawrence Paterson, U-boat Ace, the story of Wolfgang Lüth by Jordan Vause and The Real Cruel Sea by Richard Woodman.
Thank you. Book recos are always welcome!
Kretchmer's book is called "The Golden Horseshoe", which was U99s emblem.
Steel Boat Iron Hearts by Hans Goebeler is fantastic too. It's also free on Audible if you have a membership
Running silent running deep
The U-boats weren't designed to go very deep, in fact their design was pretty outdated. A newer model was being built towards the end of the war, but by then it was too late. The shipyards got heavily bombed and even the U-boat pens made of reinforced concrete could be holed with a 'tallboy'.
not called "death charges" they are called depth charges since they are set to explode at a given depth. these became the most terrifying weapon for soliders onboard subs in WW2 since they couldnt do anything about them. imagine being underwater and just waiting to see if your sub gets ripped apart by an explosive you have no idea where or if it will happen.
Talk about a terrible way to die. Being in a sub that gets hit with depth charges... they say it would be almost instant but I dunno, I've always thought being two, three hundred feet beneath the surface and the sub just ripping open from a depth charge, all that seawater all at once... that's the stuff of pure nightmares and only human beings could get so creative with the methods which we kill each other. Subs, surface ships, infantry, tank crews, bomber crews, fighter pilots...each had to face the terrifying and grim reality that they could die in uniquely horrific ways
It really is that. fast.....when the pressure is that high, its not that water comes in so fast in a crack. The entire boat literally implodes. Is so fast, it takes longer to feel pain ( it takes time for your brain to receive the pain impulses when you re hurt) than for the implosion to occur. The moments before it happens must be terrifying though. Also, its known that they could take suicide pills if there was no way of salvation.
There is a "Karl's Donuts" in Los Angeles and Miami 😂
One of my father's friends was in the Merchant Marine. At night, he could not smoke a cigarette outside and on his ship no cigarettes PERIOD at dusk.
@@mikealvarez2322 That is an interesting detail. When you think about it, of course it makes sense but that too must have made it just that bit harder doing the job.
@@FreeDocumentaryHistory I'm 77 so my childhood memories are a bit foggy. Domingo, my father's friend, used to come over to sit on our front porch on some evenings just to chat and catch a breeze on hot Miami nights. As a kid I was fascinated with WW2 and Korea was just wrapping up, I was glued to any conversation regarding the war. There were quite a few Vets in our neighborhood (I was a Miami News delivery boy in the late 50s and got to know some of them. Looking back on those times now, I do believe those Vets appreciated my interest in their War. One of my first book reports in 6th grade was GUADALCANAL DIARY. My interest in both wars was wanting to know what these men went through. I learned more from them than what I learned in school. They generated in me a love of history. My generation's war was Vietnam. I had a best friend and hunting buddy that was 3 years older than me. He did 2 tours of duty as a combat Marine in Vietnam. He wrote me a letter during his second tour telling me that whatever I do I must avoid going over there. I was close to volunteering but decided to wait. Lucky for me that my draft number turned out to be 353 (no chance I'd be drafted). My friend died an early death in 1997 a victim of Agent Orange. I am thankful to all the Vets I got to know, even those that were not in combat, because they all impressed upon me how horrible war is and how frightened they were but still had a job to do. One man that never saw combat dealt with the horrors of combat every day. He was part of a crew that repaired tanks that had been hit but still salvageable. He always wondered how the US could send young men in tanks that didn't stand a chance against a Panther. Too bad so many people today are clueless about the sacrifices men and women have made to secure our freedom. Domingo's ship was torpedoed once and hit by bombs from a plane on another occasion. Both times they saved the ship. The last thing he wanted to do was go in the water.
U-571 was ahead of its time.
It was also possibly the most pathetic sub. movie ever made. Although very comedic, perhaps unintentionally.
U-Boats had a 75% loss rate. The highest of any German service. 30k submariners died, and 5k were captured out of 41k submariners. Do the math. One other thought, Donald McIntyre returned Otto Kretschmer's binoculars in 1955.
Yeah, that sucks.
how many total U boat had been build ?
@@Haziq19921100
A great gesture to an erstwhile deadly enemy!
It’s almost as if we watched the same documentary
Salve a Grande Alemanha Ocultista e Esoterica
Oh the old war days before bunker busters and drones
Bought this series off of i-tunes. Great series.
The Great Germans. Our Salute.
You know you are an elite U-boat captain when you are as cold as a cucumber. lol
😂😂😂
The both of you make my anatomy pop
Sinking unarmed merchant shipping is not a glorious means of waging warfare but was seen as necessary at the time, thankfully Britain developed Asdic, now called sonar as well as short wave Radar which eventually allowed them to find just the periscope of a submerged Uboat. Having developed depth charges in the First world wat they went on to invent the Hedgehog which could fire a salvo of smaller but very powerful charges ahead of the ship, gather than dropping the off of the stern or sides of the ship, all of these technical inventions were given to the United States which used them with great success.
Best to fall asleep to
In what unit is the scale in the periscope graded? Radiant? Miliradiant?
Always love to think about what the sub crews go through when sunk and smile.
35:00 Captain said ; "LOL, get rekt noob"
Subtitulado en español por favor .gracias
Saludos
I love that older white beard commentator / historian. What an enthusiastic Guy and awesome narrative style. Also knows alot, hes Been elsewhere. Awesome dude.
IF YOU WANNA SEE WHAT LIFE WAS REALLY LIKE ON A GERMAN U BOAT 🚢...YOU SHOULD WATCH THE MOVIE TITLE D DAS BOOT...DIRECTED BY WOLFGANG PETERSON AND STARRING JURGEN PRACHNOW...GREAT FILM 🎥
yep
You know what we hate to go go down to the last when bolts go.
Later on in the war the allies had support groups to help the convoy escort beat off attacking U Boats. By 1943 a U Boat in Kretschmer’s situation in 1940 would have been toast? The allies had the strength to spare ships to pin down a U Boat until it either ran out of air, which would force it to surface, or until it was hunted to death.
3/4s of all German submariners died in their submarines.
The British Merchant Navy lost a higher percentage of its men than did the Royal Navy, the Royal Airforce or the Army
Because Donitz refused to come to grips that the British broke the enigma code-!!!😉. It's called arrogant state of mind-!!!😳
@@asullivan4047 That's not quite right. When the 'happy time' as the Germans called it came to an end, Dônitz did in fact have a hunch that his codes had been cracked, and they did try to change them. He went back to the those who had set up the enigma system to check with them that their system was still absolutely foolproof. They assured him that it was. For a short period of time the Germans also managed to crack the British Naval secret codes, but the Royal Navy realised what had happened and rectified it. A Royal Navy ship managed to recuperate an enigma machine and the codebooks from a surrendered U-boat without the Germans knowing. It was sent to Bletchley Park, but they had to be very careful about how they used the new information as of course they didn't want to give the game away.
Most of these numbers where in late 43/44
Post war count says 2 of 3 U boat men died in service. Have not found a higher loss ratio yet , of any force in WW 2 . Prove me wrong if you have proof.
I understand that the budget for these documentaries is always extremely low, but how much would it cost to give the actors a period haircut? Some students would probably do it for free.
Maybe I'm asking too much. Even the movie Dunkirk had the actors with 21st century haircuts, which immediately didn't feel right. The characters have period uniforms, period weapons, period accessories, but just happen to visit modern barbers.
My granpa was born in WW1 uboat and become great uboat ace in WW2. He was in depth charge attack and boat was about to sink but he escaped with few sailors out of aft torpedo tube. They ckimb up stationary hunter destroyer and taked it under control with pistoles and loundry sacks. They send message to kriegsmarine, scutled the ship and escaped with lifeboat and rowed bqck to Germany.
He just watched this dokUment and tell it was really accurated before he went to brothel yesterday.
Murphy's War is an 1971 film starring Peter O'Toole and Siân Phillips. It was directed by Peter Yates based on the 1969 novel by Max Catto.
The film is set in Orinoco river actual Venezuela during World War II and focuses on a stubborn survivor of a sunken merchant ship who is consumed in his quest for revenge and retribution against the German submarine that sank his ship.
German U boats crew and captain serves their dutys like Japanese Kamakazi fighters, fearless and ambush enemy line.
Amazeing!!!
I know that Winston Churchill feared one thing the most and it was the U Boats. They are deadly to the enemy but also to the crew of the U Boats especially when most get destroyed and many sailors were killed. They are floating coffins!
Sorry but i'm a lil bit confused with the last sentence you wrote bc i don't know who do you mean with," They're deadly to the enemy but also to the crew of the U Boats especialy when most get destroyer & many sailors were killed" That's just not making sence to me. 👍🙏
It means it killed just as many germans as they did the enemy because the uboats by the end of the war were basically sitting ducks@@raymondtorres-gy8uj
The crew called them 'iron coffins' - I'm I'm sure you know that. My father-in-law was a stoker on a convoy ship. He went above to get some fresh air and they were torpedoed. He was one of six people from his ship picked up. He was 19 and lived into his 90s - the need for a break and luck meant he survived. Many people were left in the sea because ships were now allowed to stop for survivors due to the risk of being torpedoed.
@@davidc3839 I've always somehow knew smoke break is very healthy
Forgot to mention Prien, lost 10 days prior to Kretschmer and Schepke, those were the big 3, all lost in 10 days
Ww2 .. crazy time
Great series only hindered by the constant musak, if only we could torpedo that part. America does that in all their documentaries they make. Recommended is the 1980s German Das Boot tv drama in German with subtitles. Forget the film which only shows about 20% of the series & remakes.
The German submarines were basically primitive submersibles. Donitz was correct that Germany would need at least 300 submarines at the beginning of the war. Probably 400-500 supported by long range, high altitude naval reconnaissance aircraft, secure communications. Would have a limited time to blockade Britain and force an armistice. Speed was important. Germany had no staying power.
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Women Are The great Work Force of WW ll!! PT BOATS AND VICTORY SHIPS. 👩🏼🏭🧑🏻🔧👷🏽♀️👷🏼⛑🥾👓⛓⚙️⚒🔨🔧🪛🧰🪜🪜⏱📲⚓️⚓️⚓️🚢⛴🛳😮🏆🍻🌊🌊🌊🌚🌝👁👁
I sunk several boats in my lifetime, BF1 really made me a real man.
Cool
This same depiction was on black lagoon ❤
Kretshmer sealed the fate of his fellow sub commander
Highly recommend the movie Greyhound featuring Tom Hanks. It's a great movie depicting the battles between war ships and u boats.
Yep. I've seen it. Excellent reco.
The man in the picture is admiral donitz
Commander in chief i think first name karl Donitz
Built the U-boat up and strategy 🐺 wolf pack
What are those triangular "teeth" on front of the U 99 for, was that standard equipment for a (German) submarine ? And what happened to Kretchmer's special binoculars, are they on display in a museum ?
They were "net cutters" designed to allow the submarine to pass through underwater anti submarine netting.
They were mostly removed early war as the chance of using them was negligible. Apart from U-47s attack on Scapa Flow in Oct 1939 that is.
The British capt. Met up with the German commander in the 1950's and returned them to him!!
Imagine it's the dead of night in the middle of the Atlantic in a convoy and your sitting there smoking a cigarette, eating, sleeping or whatever having 0 idea about the wolfpack of U-Boats lurking beneath you. Absolutely not.
In my opinion these submariners were the bravest of all german soldiers ...
恐れ入ります。日本語表示をお願い出来ませんでしょうか？何卒よろしくお願い致します。
Yeah ASDIC was pretty shtty equipment. Although Germans didnt know about the existence of thermal layers which simply reflects the soundwaves back to the surface, but they knew if the go deep enough they have a chance they wont be spotted on ASDIC, and it generally worked. Later in the cold war the thermoclines were utilized extensively by skippers to hide. And German submarines were fully aware if they were radared, their radio operators actually monitored the frequencies on which allied radars operated. The problem was that they couldnt shadow the convoy anymore on the surface to collect a wolfpack, because a radar would simply pick them up. On the other hand, if they would complete the snorkel ships in numbers and remain submerged, radar would have remained useless against them. Today the most effective weapon against a sub is another sub, surface shipping is almost powereless, they dont even know they are in the crosshairs until its too late.