- Contact, bearing 0-9-1,
range indefinite.
- Most likely a U-boat, sir.
- "The Battle of the Atlantic"
is everything that happened
in the Atlantic ocean
from the moment War World II began.
There were thousands of ships that were
operating at any given moment,
trying to make the perilous journey from
the Western Hemisphere to Britain
sending what was needed
to liberate Europe.
- U-boats, starboard bow!
- And they were all would-be targets
of the Nazi submarines.
- Halfdof reports
a German transmission
bearing 0-8-7 degrees,
range 15 to 20 miles.
- These convoys would have to
make long zig-zagging courses
hopefully avoiding the submarines,
but they were reduced to the speed
of the slowest ship in the convoy.
And the Nazi submarines were just as fast
when they were on the surface.
- Conn, Combat.
Looks like our friends
are coming up for fresh air and
to maintain speed with us.
Contact bearing 2-0-7.
Range: three miles.
- Early in the war,
the American ships had radar.
They could see what
was on the surface.
But it was a spotty radar.
It often didn't work very well.
- What's going on?
- I don't know, sir.
I can't get a good read.
- So you're relying on your eyes...
much like a guy
with binoculars on the bridge.
With sonar and hydrophones,
relying on your ears.
- Got 'em. Contact close.
Starboard beam, 0-8-3.
- Now, Mr. Lopez!
- Fire, fire.
- Come on.
- And all those things can play
tricks with you over time.
- Sonar, read anything further?
- Still stationary. Possible decoy.
- Sonar reports contact is
not moving, possible decoy.
- Yet another challenge
was how primitive
communication was between parts
of the ship to the captain.
- Contact bearings.
- Contact read starboard 0-1-2,
range 600 yards sir.
- Mr. Lopez, stand by with
a medium pattern.
- I'm ready, sir.
- It was a guy's job to repeat
what they'd just heard
to the captain, or repeat
what the captain just told them,
to whoever he's talking to.
And it has to be exact.
- Contact now bears
point 0-1-2.
- Contact...
- 1000 yards and closing.
(sneezes)
- You gonna do that again?
- No, sir.
- If so, you will be relieved.
- Aye, aye, sir.
- Ideally, a convoy
goes across the ocean
without ever talking to anybody
but themselves.
Any radio signal going from
the convoy to headquarters,
you didn't want to send those out,
because if anybody was listening,
they'd know where you were.
- Do I break radio silence
with a message to the admiralty?
- Every ship was on their own.
- We are running down a target.
Let us attend our duties well.
This is what we trained for.
There have been movies
about World War II
but we expanded it,
embracing the details,
but at the same time,
tying those details into the human story:
what do we rely on in
order to get us through this?
- We'll bring hell down
from on high.
- Our movie puts
a magnifying glass
on the history of
the battle of the Atlantic.
- Here they come.
