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In the telling of the story of the Second World War, | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
Ireland is rarely mentioned. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
But scattered across this landscape | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
and hidden in the waters of these shores | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
are relics and reminders | 0:00:18 | 0:00:19 | |
of the greatest conflict in modern history. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
Here, there is an unique archaeological record | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
which holds the key to unlocking the forgotten story | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
of one of the most important battles of World War II. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:34 | |
As a military historian, World War II is a story I thought I knew. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:45 | |
But now I've come to Northern Ireland, | 0:00:45 | 0:00:47 | |
where I'm discovering all sorts of incredible stories - | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
secrets, heroism, suffering and valour. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
It was here, off the coast of Northern Ireland, | 0:00:55 | 0:00:58 | |
that the Battle of the Atlantic was won...and lost. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:03 | |
In these waters, German U-boats and British merchant ships | 0:01:06 | 0:01:10 | |
played a deadly game of cat and mouse. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
There was very heavy loss of life. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
And the end game of this titanic struggle | 0:01:18 | 0:01:20 | |
would see the symbolic surrender of the U-boats | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
into a Northern Irish port. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
The records alone can only tell us part of the story. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:32 | |
Archaeology can fill in the missing pieces. | 0:01:32 | 0:01:35 | |
Along the way, we'll reveal the story | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
of a Spitfire that never made it home... | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
It's still got air in the tyre. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
"Instructions for use." | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
What we have out so far is six Browning .303 machine guns. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
..and the flying boats built in Belfast's factories | 0:01:56 | 0:02:00 | |
return to the skies with the airmen who flew them. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
What's it like flying in one of these after 65 years? | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
It's marvellous. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
It seems like yesterday. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
During the Battle of the Atlantic, | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
Northern Ireland found itself at the heart of this bitter struggle. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:17 | |
And untouched, and amazingly preserved, | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
the clues to this forgotten story are hidden here, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:24 | |
just waiting to be discovered. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
The waters around Northern Ireland | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
are littered with shipwrecks from the Second World War. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
-Hello. Good to see you. -Hi. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
Many are the victims of German U-boats, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
sunk whilst bringing food and war materials from North America | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
as part of the Atlantic convoys. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
Early in the war, the Allied navies | 0:02:56 | 0:02:58 | |
began guarding large groups of unarmed merchant ships. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
The supplies they carried stopped Britain | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
being starved into submission | 0:03:06 | 0:03:08 | |
and would later fuel the Allied armies invading Europe after D-day. | 0:03:08 | 0:03:13 | |
In this six-year battle, over 75,000 Allied seamen lost their lives, | 0:03:16 | 0:03:21 | |
as well as nearly 30,000 U-boatmen. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
Initially, the Atlantic convoys reached the United Kingdom | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
by the relative safety of the south-western approaches. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
But with the fall of France in June 1940, | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
the Atlantic convoys were rerouted around the top of Ireland, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
and so Northern Ireland and her coastal waters | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
were thrust into the heart of the action. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
I'm heading out to some of the clearest diving waters in the world, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
where World War II wrecks litter the seabed. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
There's one wreck in particular here that encapsulates | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
these six years of bitter struggle | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
played out just off Northern Ireland's coast. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
In the late summer of 1944, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
around 100 ships that had left Halifax in Canada 10 days before | 0:04:17 | 0:04:22 | |
arrived here, off the north coast of Ireland. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
It had been an uneventful Atlantic crossing. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
Now they were in home waters, a few miles from their base at Derry | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
and well within range of the protective aircraft | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
of the RAF Coastal Command. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
But convoy HXF 305 | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
was about to feel the full might of Hitler's U-boats. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
On 30th August, 1944, the Jacksonville, | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
an American tanker carrying 14,000 tons of petrol | 0:05:02 | 0:05:07 | |
from New York to London, was hit by a torpedo. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
It exploded in flame. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:13 | |
The sea was alight, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:18 | |
and flames from the petroleum were leaping 300 ft into the air. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
Of her crew of 73, | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
just two were picked up alive. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:30 | |
For naval rating John Cumming, it was an all-too-familiar tale. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
I remember one occasion an oil tanker going up | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
and the sea covered in this thick black oil, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
and men swimming through it. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:46 | |
And we couldn't stop to rescue them. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:48 | |
As a matter-of-fact... | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
It's one of the worst memories I have, ploughing your way | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
through men who are already swimming in this black oil, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
and the ship, the destroyer, just ploughs its way through | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
to get back to the convoys. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:04 | |
So, you're leaving folk... | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
..to drown, there's nothing you can do about it, you know? | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
A bit harrowing. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:15 | |
36 hours later, the very near to where the Jacksonville was sunk, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
the British corvette HMS Hurst Castle was torpedoed. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
She'd been commissioned just two months before. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:29 | |
She sank in three minutes, taking 17 Royal Navy sailors with her. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:34 | |
Reg Mason served on corvettes like the Hurst Castle | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
on convoy escort duties. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
I will say this, that each time, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
particularly if there was any... | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
ships and that going down, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
I always... | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
remembering just to say my prayers while I was in my hammock. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:53 | |
And I knew, each time, that if the ship was torpedoed | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
and probably blown up, the magazine, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
I knew that there would be no pain, | 0:07:01 | 0:07:03 | |
you wouldn't know anything about it, so. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
In the early years of the war, the Allies' convoy system | 0:07:08 | 0:07:12 | |
had offered safe passage for the cargo ships crossing the Atlantic. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
The naval warships were there to beat off any attempted U-boat attacks. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:22 | |
The U-boats responded to this by attacking en masse | 0:07:22 | 0:07:25 | |
in big groups called wolf packs. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
These wolf packs initially caused chaos, | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
and thousands of tons of vital supplies | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
were sent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
But, by 1944, the U-boats were forced to change their tactics, | 0:07:44 | 0:07:49 | |
as the Allies once again gained the upper hand through new weapons | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
and technologies, like sonar. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
Lone German submarines now lurked in the coastal waters off Ireland, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
where rocks, currents and wrecks hampered their detection. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
These new tactics saw great success, as our dive is about to demonstrate. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
There are a couple of pictures here - HMS Hurst Castle... | 0:08:19 | 0:08:23 | |
'Maritime historian Ian Wilson has brought me here | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
'to this U-boat killing zone.' | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
There you go! Big stride out! | 0:08:29 | 0:08:30 | |
This was the work of one U-boat using new tactics, | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
and the first and most successful of the skippers | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
employing these was the skipper from U-482, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:44 | |
a German count, von Matuschka. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:45 | |
And he was a U-boat captain of some experience? | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
No, this was his first patrol. | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
He managed to sink three ships... | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
And a fourth, and that's the one we're actually right above now, | 0:08:52 | 0:08:57 | |
a huge ship called the Empire Heritage. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
Wow, she's vast, isn't she? And that's below us now? | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
That's below us, and her huge cargo, as well, on the seabed. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
70 metres below us lies the wreck of the Empire Heritage. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:14 | |
As well as her 16,000 tons of fuel oil, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
she was carrying nearly 2,000 tons of cargo, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:21 | |
most of which was military vehicles, and you can see... | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
Is that what I think... That looks like a... | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
-Is that a tank? -It's a Sherman tank. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:27 | |
That's unbelievable! | 0:09:27 | 0:09:28 | |
The closer you look at that, the more obvious it is. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:31 | |
These are scattered across the seabed. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
You can see the tracks there and the huge numbers of wheels. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:37 | |
Tyres, wheels, other types of military vehicle, | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
and it's a little bit like a child's toy box | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
that has been scattered across the seabed. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:47 | |
I didn't imagine this existed off the British and Irish coast, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
I'd never imagined it. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
It's the way the Sherman tanks are scattered like that. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
And notice, also, if you look carefully at the tyres, | 0:10:12 | 0:10:16 | |
-they seem to be in perfect condition. -They're in great condition. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:21 | |
This is a huge military blow. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
D-Day just happened, the battle for Normandy, the battle for France is going on - | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
I mean, these tanks are needed on the beaches, and beyond. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
Yes, the Allies were advancing through Normandy, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
so, obviously, the Empire Heritage's cargo of Sherman tanks | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
and other military vehicles was destined for there. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
So, how did she sink? | 0:10:54 | 0:10:55 | |
Von Matuschka put his periscope up into the middle of a convoy. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
The first ship he saw happened to be the Empire Heritage. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
The torpedo struck her after 42 seconds | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
and she went down in about three minutes. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:07 | |
She was one of the 20 biggest merchant ships sunk in the war. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:11 | |
The Chief Officer, Mr Gibson, was the senior surviving officer | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
and made a statement afterwards. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
He said he came on deck after two minutes after the explosion, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:20 | |
and by the end of the third minute, by his reckoning, | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
he was being swept off his feet by the water | 0:11:23 | 0:11:25 | |
and the funnels were disappearing. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
Clearly, one of the officers survived, | 0:11:28 | 0:11:29 | |
how many of the others managed to get off the ship? | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
I'm afraid there was very heavy loss of life. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
About 110 people went down with the Empire Heritage. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
And how many survived? | 0:11:37 | 0:11:38 | |
About 40. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
-So the vast majority of people on board died. -They did, indeed. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
But the Empire Heritage wasn't the last of Matuschka's victims. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
The SS Pinto, rescuing survivors from the Empire Heritage, | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
was sunk with the loss of 21 men. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
In just nine days, Matuschka had sunk two freighters, | 0:12:04 | 0:12:09 | |
two tankers, and one Royal Navy corvette. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
In doing so, U-482 had caused the death of 250 Allied sailors. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:18 | |
It was one of the most successful patrols of any U-boat that year. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:23 | |
Matuschka arrived back at his base in Norway three weeks later a hero. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:29 | |
He'd heard via radio signals on the journey | 0:12:30 | 0:12:32 | |
that he'd been awarded the Iron Cross and the German Cross in gold. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
One hardened U-boat captain described Matuschka's achievements as beginner's luck. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:43 | |
We'll never know if this was true or not, | 0:12:43 | 0:12:45 | |
because whatever luck he did have was about to run out. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:49 | |
Eight days into his second patrol, Count Herman von Matuschka | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
and his crew of 47 were lost when U-482 was depth charged | 0:12:55 | 0:13:00 | |
and destroyed to the west of the Shetland Islands. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:04 | |
Matuschka's mission was almost the last hurrah of the U-boat threat | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
that had reigned during the Battle of the Atlantic. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
It had seen Londonderry transformed from a small Irish port | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
to the centre of operations for this critical front. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
At the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
up to 140 naval escort vessels were moored along the banks of the River Foyle. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:31 | |
Alongside this naval power, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
28 new military airfields would spring up, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
housing the planes that would seek and destroy the U-boats in the mid-Atlantic. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:41 | |
Uniquely preserved, a derelict but intact Second World War airbase. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:52 | |
These hangars once held the sub killers of Coastal Command. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:58 | |
But it wasn't just U-boats that were sinking British ships. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
With the fall of France, the German air force | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
was close enough to attack the merchant fleet at will. | 0:14:18 | 0:14:21 | |
Therefore, squadrons of fighter aircraft were also needed | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
to defend the ships off the Northern Irish coast. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
In 1941, just such a plane was returning to base | 0:14:33 | 0:14:38 | |
when it met difficulties and crashed into a peat bog. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
The pilot, a young American flying with the RAF, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
had a lucky escape and bailed out just in time. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
But the Spitfire he was flying was never found. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
Aviation expert Johnny Macnee | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
has been looking for this plane for 10 years, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:00 | |
and now he thinks he might have found | 0:15:00 | 0:15:03 | |
the final resting place of this lost Spitfire. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
The ground-penetrating radar survey that we did in February | 0:15:07 | 0:15:12 | |
showed at least ten metres of peat... | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
'He's enlisted the help of World War II aviation experts | 0:15:14 | 0:15:18 | |
'Steve Vizard and Gareth Jones.' | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
We think they might be the undercarriage legs. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
-It's inboard of the...guns. -Uh-huh. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:26 | |
Nice, isn't it? It's like a blancmange! | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
'Because the ground is soft, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:32 | |
'it means that hopefully the aircraft will have survived | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
'much better than if it had hit hard ground. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
'I'm aware that the downside is that soft ground means | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
'that it's extremely difficult for the 20-tonne digger to operate | 0:15:41 | 0:15:45 | |
'without sinking into the bog itself.' | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
-Right, thumbs up, then. -Thumbs up. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:51 | |
The pilot of our missing Spitfire | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
was 23-year-old Bud Wolfe from Nebraska in America. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
He'd been in Northern Ireland with his squadron for just over a month. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:09 | |
Our pilot is out flying top cover | 0:16:11 | 0:16:12 | |
over the convoys that are coming from America, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
bringing military supplies into the UK. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:17 | |
Derry Port, very important in supplies, | 0:16:17 | 0:16:19 | |
so they need protection. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:21 | |
While he was out flying, | 0:16:21 | 0:16:22 | |
he noticed that his engine was rapidly overheating, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
temperature about to boil over and his engine seize up, | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
so he said, "I'm heading for home, folks." | 0:16:28 | 0:16:30 | |
And his last reported words were, "I'm going over the side." | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
And away he went. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:37 | |
So he managed to bail out. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
He managed to pull his chute and landed there, did he? | 0:16:42 | 0:16:44 | |
We know that it was about half-twelve on a Sunday, a very foggy Sunday. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:48 | |
People coming out of Mass heard the aircraft, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:50 | |
you know, screeching down through the skies, | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
couldn't see anything, because it was very foggy, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:54 | |
and he landed about three-quarters of a mile away. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:56 | |
'But the plane itself was never recovered.' | 0:16:56 | 0:17:01 | |
We've got our first bit of wreckage now, | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
just little bits of aluminium from the airframe. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:06 | |
They've gone into the bucket. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:07 | |
Now the rest of the team are going to sift through that | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
and make sure that they don't miss a single piece. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
That's just a piece of wing skinning there, Dan. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
Is that the original paint there? | 0:17:16 | 0:17:17 | |
That's the original paint, yeah. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:19 | |
-That's the camouflage. -No way! | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
Every single scoop is like opening a Christmas present, it's so exciting. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
You've no idea what you're going to find, no idea what it uncovers. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
-Right, guys, what have we got here? -That's a Browning. -That's a Browning? | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
-That is one of how many machine guns on board? -One of eight. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
One of eight machine guns, look at that, that's extraordinary! | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
Good grief. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
That is... That is the original colouring. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
This was the weapon that gave the Spitfire its teeth. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
Oh, well done. Now, look. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:53 | |
This is the recoil buffer at the back of the Browning, with the safety. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
-Look at that! -After 70 years. -That's in working condition. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
Look at the quality of that paint and that metalwork after 70 years. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:04 | |
That is staggering. And we've been digging for five minutes. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:07 | |
We have, yeah, and there should be another six of these. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:09 | |
Each of the Browning machine guns in Bud Wolfe's Spitfire | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
would have been loaded with 350 rounds of ammunition. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:20 | |
So rapid were the guns' rate of fire | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
that the pilots had just 15 seconds of ammunition to hit their target. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:28 | |
BROWNINGS FIRE | 0:18:30 | 0:18:31 | |
Oh, my goodness. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:38 | |
'The lack of oxygen in the peat | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
'means that our finds are uniquely well-preserved after 70 years.' | 0:18:40 | 0:18:46 | |
Extraordinary, I've never seen anything like that. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:48 | |
I haven't got my glasses on, Dan, what are the dates? | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
-1941. -1941. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:54 | |
-I've never seen anything like this. -Yeah, 1941. -Yeah. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
I mean, it's like this was put underground yesterday. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:00 | |
'The army has been called in | 0:19:00 | 0:19:02 | |
'because of the danger of uncovering live ammunition. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
'With the machine guns in such good condition, | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
'they're taking no chances. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
'Each gun will be carefully checked | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
'before being removed for deactivation.' | 0:19:14 | 0:19:18 | |
'Even though Bud Wolfe's Spitfire | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
'ploughed into the bog at over 300mph, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
'as the wreckage is prised apart, it's still possible | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
'to identify individual pieces of the wartime fighter.' | 0:19:37 | 0:19:41 | |
-That's incredible! -See the Dunlop? | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
It's still got air in the tyre. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
Still got air in the tyre, that survived, that's incredible. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
Here you go. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
"Type... Type Spitfire." | 0:19:54 | 0:19:56 | |
'And there, in tiny letters, | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
'one of the most famous names in aviation history.' | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
So just between "Type" and "Serial number" here, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
you can see etched "Spitfire" there. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
We know we dug up the right plane! | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
Oh, wait, you've got documents here! | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
'Even in the ferocity of the crash, | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
'something as delicate as paper has survived.' | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
You can just see "period of use" there. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
Easy to distinguish. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:27 | |
Look at this - "instructions for use". | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
One of the reasons today has been an exciting, celebratory event | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
is because this, of course, was a Spitfire crash in which no-one died. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
The young Nebraskan managed to bail out of his plane, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
and he landed about three-quarters of a mile away. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
As he landed on his parachute, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
he heard the plane crash into this hillside. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:51 | |
But his troubles weren't at an end, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:53 | |
because even though he was just a few miles from his base, | 0:20:53 | 0:20:56 | |
just over in Derry, he'd actually landed in a different country. | 0:20:56 | 0:21:00 | |
Rather than being in the UK, | 0:21:00 | 0:21:02 | |
he was in neutral Republic of Ireland. | 0:21:02 | 0:21:04 | |
It should have taken Bud Wolfe less than an hour | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
to drive the 26-odd miles back to his squadron at Eglinton, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
but by landing on the wrong side of the border, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
Wolfe was now an internee. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:21 | |
He was also at the start | 0:21:21 | 0:21:22 | |
of a 220-mile journey, | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
south to internment | 0:21:24 | 0:21:26 | |
at a place called the Curragh, | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
not far from Dublin, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:28 | |
where he joined other RAF airmen | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
who had accidentally come down in neutral Ireland. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
These rather cosy-looking cottages | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
are, in fact, all that's left of the internment camp | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
that Bud Wolfe and his RAF compatriots were sent to. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
With the corrugated-iron huts, | 0:21:50 | 0:21:52 | |
it was effectively a prisoner-of-war camp. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
But it wasn't your average prisoner-of-war camp. | 0:21:55 | 0:21:58 | |
To start with, there were the fellow inmates. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
Right next door to the RAF contingent were the Germans, | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
sailors and airmen from the German Navy and Luftwaffe | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
who had also strayed onto neutral Irish territory. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:13 | |
Then there was the security. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
Now, the Irish guards did have rifles, | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
but they were loaded with blanks. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:23 | |
And the inmates were allowed to come and go as they pleased. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:27 | |
The town of Naas is about ten miles from the camp. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
It was here that both Allied and German prisoners | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
often came for the day. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
Some of the conditions in which the internees were kept | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
seem so far-fetched that it's hard to believe. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
-Hello. -Hello there. -How are you doing? | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
'I've come to one of the oldest pubs in Naas | 0:22:49 | 0:22:51 | |
'to meet Sergeant Charlie Walsh of the Irish Army.' | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
So what was life like in this internment camp? | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
The conditions inside the camp weren't too bad. | 0:22:57 | 0:22:59 | |
In the officers' mess they actually had their own private bar. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:02 | |
They would have had beer, Irish whiskies, French wine, liqueurs, | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
Scotch, stuff like that and port. | 0:23:06 | 0:23:09 | |
The Irish Guinness and Irish whiskey was actually free. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
So as long as you were drinking local stuff, it was free booze? | 0:23:13 | 0:23:16 | |
That's correct, yes. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:17 | |
Quite a number of marriages between the internees and local people as well. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:21 | |
There was actually one wedding in the Curragh Camp itself, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
in the local church there. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:25 | |
-Was there trouble between the Allies and the German prisoners? -There was. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
The Germans would actually cycle six abreast on their bicycles | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
on the roads, so everyone would have to get out of their way | 0:23:32 | 0:23:35 | |
and the Allies, if they were out, they wouldn't wish to move off the road either, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:39 | |
so there were some fisticuffs on that there. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
Despite the obvious comfort of being interned, | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
Bud Wolfe had no intention of sticking around. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
As far as he was concerned | 0:23:48 | 0:23:50 | |
he was heading back to join his squadron and fight. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
This is the old guard house at Curragh Camp and it was here | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
on 13th December 1941 that Bud came and signed a parole, which was basically a piece of paper | 0:23:58 | 0:24:03 | |
promising he was going to pop out to town but that he would come back. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
Then he returned to the camp on the pretext | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
he'd forgotten his gloves and checked himself back in. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
Later though, he snuck out without signing a parole. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
Bud Wolfe had no intention of going back to Curragh Camp that night. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:24 | |
He was now on the run. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
'He went first to Dublin, where he caught the train north to Belfast. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:32 | |
'And then back to the RAF airfield where he and his ill-fated Spitfire | 0:24:32 | 0:24:37 | |
'had taken off two weeks early.' | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
You could just imagine the excitement of Bud Wolfe's fellow pilots | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
when the 23-year-old Nebraskan arrived back here at RAF Eglinton. | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
But that excitement was to be short-lived. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
In one of the most truly bizarre episodes of the Second World War | 0:24:52 | 0:24:56 | |
the British Government decided that rather than antagonise the neutral Irish, | 0:24:56 | 0:25:01 | |
that they would send Bud Wolfe back to the Curragh and internment. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
'In the Donegal hills the final pieces of Bud's Spitfire | 0:25:07 | 0:25:11 | |
'are being unearthed after 70 years.' | 0:25:11 | 0:25:14 | |
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:17 | |
the massive beast that is the engine is coming out. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:19 | |
It's actually too big for the bucket, vast. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
You can put it over there. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 | |
What state is this in? | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
It's actually in quite good condition. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
It's well-preserved. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:32 | |
This is fuel running out of the engine down here. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
Look at that. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:38 | |
That's fuel running out of the engine, it's been there 70 years. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
This is the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, | 0:25:42 | 0:25:43 | |
one of the classic bits of British engineering history. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
It powered the Spitfire, it powered the Lancaster bomber. | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
We worried it might have shattered as it went through the bog and hit the clay | 0:25:49 | 0:25:52 | |
but actually it's in pretty good condition. | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
Almost perfect, as good as the day it went in 70 years ago. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:59 | |
On here you'll have... | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
.."Merlin". | 0:26:03 | 0:26:04 | |
'But some artefacts provide an even closer connection to Bud Wolfe, | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
'a young American pilot who flew our Spitfire.' | 0:26:10 | 0:26:15 | |
This is my favourite find so far. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
This is one of the harnesses from the cockpit and Bud Wolfe | 0:26:18 | 0:26:22 | |
would have pulled this bit here seconds before he ejected. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
Absolutely incredible. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:28 | |
This here, I think you'll find we've got a lovely flying helmet. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
No way! | 0:26:35 | 0:26:36 | |
That is about as good as it gets, really. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
That's extraordinary. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:40 | |
This is something I never believed that we would find, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:44 | |
Bud Wolfe's original flying helmet, worn by him on that sortie, | 0:26:44 | 0:26:48 | |
still attached to the original oxygen mask. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:50 | |
It's survived underground for 70 years, | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
removed by him just before he bailed out - | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
just speechless. | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
Hey, grand slam. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:12 | |
Thanks very much. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
It's unbelievable, that is unbelievable. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
When you come to a hillside like this and dig these objects out of the ground - | 0:27:20 | 0:27:24 | |
the straps that held the terrified pilot into his cockpit | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
as his plane failed, | 0:27:28 | 0:27:29 | |
the engine that overheated and forced him to bail out, | 0:27:29 | 0:27:33 | |
those things take you back to a moment in time. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:36 | |
They allow you to touch the past, they allow you to smell the past, | 0:27:36 | 0:27:41 | |
even though that event happened 70 years ago. | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
'On the day he crashed, Bud Wolfe had been providing cover | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
'for convoys steaming along the north coast. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
'But Coastal Command could also | 0:27:53 | 0:27:55 | |
'call upon planes that would patrol long and far into the Atlantic, | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
'using Northern Ireland's geography to tilt the battle | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
'in the Allies' favour. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:04 | |
'But to do this would take a particular kind of plane.' | 0:28:04 | 0:28:08 | |
This is Lough Erne in Fermanagh. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
This is about as far west as you can get in the United Kingdom. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
The Atlantic is just a few miles that way | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
beyond the end of the lough, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
so with the Battle of the Atlantic raging out there | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
it was clearly vitally important to use this area as a base. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
The trouble is, at the outbreak of war | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
there were no airfields around here, | 0:28:25 | 0:28:27 | |
but what there was, though, was water - | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
lots of water. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
'In 1941, it was a very different kind of boat which was moored here. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:37 | |
'Perfectly adapted to the terrain | 0:28:37 | 0:28:39 | |
'and in some cases built here, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:40 | |
'a brilliant solution to the problem.' | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
NEWSREEL: Northern Ireland factories are making Sunderland flying boats, | 0:28:43 | 0:28:47 | |
those magnificent aircraft which have done | 0:28:47 | 0:28:49 | |
so much to prevent the U-boats being victorious. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
It's not permissible to say how many flying boats have been | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
manufactured in Ulster, but the output has been highly creditable. | 0:28:55 | 0:29:00 | |
'Lough Erne was the home to the Sunderlands and Catalinas, | 0:29:02 | 0:29:06 | |
'operated here by airmen from RAF Coastal Command.' | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
'Because of a secret deal with the Irish Republic, | 0:29:12 | 0:29:16 | |
'the flying boats based at Castle Archdale and Killadeas on Lough Erne | 0:29:16 | 0:29:20 | |
'could fly a route which became known as the Donegal Corridor, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
'a shortcut to the Atlantic over neutral Ireland.' | 0:29:23 | 0:29:27 | |
'This extended their range, enabling the aircraft to get further into the Atlantic | 0:29:30 | 0:29:35 | |
'to protect the convoys from marauding U-boats.' | 0:29:35 | 0:29:38 | |
This is a genuine Second World War Catalina flying boat, | 0:29:44 | 0:29:48 | |
an aircraft perfectly designed to take off and land on the water. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:53 | |
Actually just look at the fuselage here, | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
it's shaped exactly like the hull of a ship. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
These wheels wouldn't actually have been there during the Second World War, | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
so it could only operate from the water. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
For me, it's one of the most distinctive aircraft of World War II. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:05 | |
There's a huge bubble-shaped canopy, known as a blister at the back there. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:10 | |
That allowed an observer to have an unimpeded view, | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
and that's the job of these aircraft, | 0:30:13 | 0:30:15 | |
to go out and act as observers, scouring the Atlantic | 0:30:15 | 0:30:19 | |
for enemy ships and U-boats. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:21 | |
If they did spot a U-boat, there were depth charges | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
arrayed along the wings so they could swoop down and drop depth charges | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
on the U-boat and try and sink it. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:31 | |
Seven decades later, this wartime Catalina, one of only a few left | 0:30:40 | 0:30:45 | |
flying in Europe, has returned to the Fermanagh and Lough Erne. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
It was about 66, 67 years ago when I last flew in a Catalina. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:56 | |
'On board are two veterans, Ted Jones and Chuck Singer. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
'Both flew with Coastal Command from Lough Erne during the war.' | 0:31:04 | 0:31:08 | |
-Is it all coming back? Do you recognise it all? -Oh, yes. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:13 | |
What's it like flying in one of these after 65 years? | 0:31:19 | 0:31:23 | |
It's marvellous. It seems like yesterday. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
I was made a captain of a Catalina two days after my 20th birthday, | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
so I was young. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
Ted Jones joined RAF Coastal Command in 1942. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:06 | |
He flew 55 anti-U-boat patrols. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:10 | |
They flew like an old cow, but they were lovely aircraft. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
They were built like a tank - | 0:32:14 | 0:32:16 | |
solid, you know, but a bit heavy on the controls. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
We had a marvellous automatic pilot | 0:32:19 | 0:32:21 | |
because we went out for 18-hour patrols | 0:32:21 | 0:32:24 | |
and it wouldn't have been possible to fly one for that time. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
Chuck Singer was a crew member in the much larger Sunderland flying boat, | 0:32:27 | 0:32:32 | |
which operated out of RAF Castle Archdale. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:36 | |
While Chuck flew for the RAF, | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
he was just one of an estimated 100,000 US and Canadian servicemen | 0:32:38 | 0:32:42 | |
who'd flooded into Northern Ireland | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
to bolster Coastal Command and the naval convoys. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
I was gunner in the mid-aperture. That was my position. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:55 | |
Your flying boats did an extraordinary job during the war | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
because it was just endless patrolling and looking out. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
It must have been exhausting. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:03 | |
It was, you're awful tired when you got back. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
You had to be on the alert all that time. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:08 | |
How long were you up in the air for? | 0:33:08 | 0:33:10 | |
10 to 12 hours. It was quite a while. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
You must have been exhausted because you're constantly looking at everything in the sky. | 0:33:13 | 0:33:18 | |
Yes, for the first five or six hours, it's very interesting, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:22 | |
and after that your eyes start getting sore and you're imagining things. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
You say that's an aircraft, | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
later you find out it's just a flock of gulls or something. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:31 | |
But you had to... be on the ball every second. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:35 | |
We were really shattered. And it was basically the noise | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
because we had no ear protectors, | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
we just had the ordinary earphones and a helmet on. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
But it didn't bother us, we were too young. | 0:33:46 | 0:33:50 | |
Nothing can happen to you when you're 19, can it? You know? | 0:33:50 | 0:33:55 | |
The seaplanes built and flown in Northern Ireland | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
played a significant role in the battle of the Atlantic. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:04 | |
And across Britain, the realities of total war | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
meant everyone ended up doing their bit, and in places like Belfast, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:12 | |
this happened on a vast scale. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:15 | |
Peacetime factories were turned over to the war effort, | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
producing huge numbers of parachutes as well as uniforms. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
They also produced massive quantities of armaments. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:31 | |
14,000 gun barrels, | 0:34:32 | 0:34:34 | |
75 million shells | 0:34:34 | 0:34:37 | |
and 180 million incendiary bullets. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:40 | |
NEWSREEL: 'Incendiary bullets that have shot down many a Nazi plane have come from this place.' | 0:34:40 | 0:34:45 | |
There was one key contribution that would come to embody | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
the Northern Irish war effort. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
In the summer of 1940, at the height of the invasion threat, | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
while German troops were storming their way through France, in Belfast, | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
shipbuilders Harland and Wolff were putting the finishing touches | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
to a non-maritime project. | 0:35:04 | 0:35:06 | |
Harland and Wolff were asked to design a tank. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
They came up with one which they called the rather unglamorous name the A-20. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:15 | |
But this tank would go on to become | 0:35:15 | 0:35:17 | |
one of the most successful British tanks of the Second World War. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
The A-20 would evolve into the Churchill tank. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
I've come to Dunmore Park in Belfast, | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
the home of the North Irish Horse, a regiment which during World War II | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
would become closely associated | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
with the Churchill. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:43 | |
The North Irish Horse, as the name suggests, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
was at cavalry regiment raised from the northern counties of Ireland. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:48 | |
By the Second World War, they'd swapped their horses for the Churchill tank, | 0:35:48 | 0:35:52 | |
and the men served with huge gallantry through North Africa and Italy. | 0:35:52 | 0:35:56 | |
The trouble with the Churchill tank at Dunmore Park | 0:36:00 | 0:36:04 | |
is that it's a bit static - a bit of a museum piece. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
Nigel. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
-Welcome. -What an extraordinary thing to have in your shed. -I know. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
'Belfast-born Nigel Montgomery knows quite a lot about Churchills. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:25 | |
'Not only was his father in the North Irish Horse in World War II, | 0:36:25 | 0:36:29 | |
'but he actually owns the only working Churchill tank of its kind | 0:36:29 | 0:36:33 | |
'anywhere in the world.' | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
So this is the turret here. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:39 | |
There are scars here. Is this battle damage? | 0:36:39 | 0:36:41 | |
This is battle damage and we don't know for sure where it came from. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
It's probably shell splinters or mortar fire that burst on the deck. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
How many crew would have served in his tank? | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
Five in total - three in the turret and two at the front. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
The three in the turret were divided between the guy here, | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
the loader and operator, so he did the radio | 0:36:57 | 0:36:59 | |
and loaded the main gun. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:01 | |
And in here, amazingly, two people - | 0:37:01 | 0:37:03 | |
front...way down there, a gunner, and in here, the commander. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:07 | |
Gerry Chester joined the North Irish Horse in 1942. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:12 | |
He was a driver/operator in Churchill tanks. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:16 | |
The Churchill tank was the best British tank of World War II, | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
no question about it. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:20 | |
We felt safe in it, which was important. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:29 | |
It was a great tank to be aboard. | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
My role as driver/operator was to take charge of the radio | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
and also to load the heavy gun. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
That's it. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:41 | |
Slide in. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
I don't fancy getting out of here in a hurry. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:46 | |
I'm not sure it's designed for a tall person. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:50 | |
Wow! | 0:37:50 | 0:37:51 | |
The Churchill tank was not as tight as ones | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
we did training in at the tank regiment. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
It was more roomy, but still it was a tight fit, that's for sure. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
And driving-wise, obviously a nice big window here, | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
but unfortunately it's facing towards the enemy, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
you'd want this closed, wouldn't you? | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
Yes, if there's a chance of battle, that closes, | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
and once it closes, you're reliant | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
on that single periscope, that tiny letterbox of vision. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:16 | |
-This thing here? -Yes. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
Oh! | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
So I'm in the turret now. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
So this is the commander's position? | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
The man in charge, the man who made all the decisions. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
It's a great view, but you do feel quite exposed, it's quite nice being down there. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
I had my head out sometimes, but it depended on the circumstances. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:40 | |
If there was a lot of shelling going on, | 0:38:40 | 0:38:42 | |
of course you put your head down! | 0:38:42 | 0:38:44 | |
If you move forward a little bit, | 0:38:44 | 0:38:46 | |
you'll be sitting where the gunner would be, | 0:38:46 | 0:38:48 | |
just in front of your commander's position you were in a moment ago. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
So you're really close to the commander? | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
Literally, by his kneecaps. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:56 | |
But the best thing about Nigel's tank is that it actually works. | 0:39:00 | 0:39:04 | |
It was in Churchill tanks like this one that men like Gerry Chester | 0:39:16 | 0:39:20 | |
and his comrades in the North Irish Horse | 0:39:20 | 0:39:22 | |
were to go into action in the Battle of the Hitler Line in Italy, in May 1944. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:28 | |
Being in this tank is really an assault on the senses. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:47 | |
The sound and smell of the engine | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
and being jolted around is like being at sea. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
It's a strange feeling. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
On the one hand, you feel very secure and protected, | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
but you also feel that you're in a lumbering, | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
slow machine that would attract lots of enemy fire. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:05 | |
And that day attacking the Hitler Line, | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
the tanks took terrible casualties. | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
The battle for the Hitler Line would prove the mettle of the Churchill tank | 0:40:13 | 0:40:18 | |
and the fighting men of Ulster, here in the fields of central Italy. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:23 | |
In 1943, Allied troops invaded Sicily and Italy | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
and began heading north towards the Italian capital of Rome. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
If Rome fell, it would be a huge boost to Allied morale. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:42 | |
But they would become bogged down 75 miles south of the capital, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:49 | |
at a place called Monte Cassino. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
There, at the foot of the Benedictine monastery, | 0:40:51 | 0:40:55 | |
in five months of bitter fighting, the Allies would try | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
to dislodge the Germans who controlled the higher ground. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
In so doing, the monastery was reduced to a pile of rubble. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
Having taken Monte Cassino, only one obstacle lay in their way - | 0:41:13 | 0:41:18 | |
the Hitler Line - a massive fortification | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
which blocked the road to Rome. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:23 | |
And it's here that the North Irish Horse would face the toughest battle in their history. | 0:41:25 | 0:41:30 | |
From up here, it's easy to see what was going on in 1944. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
This is the Liri Valley. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
If you want to march an army up from the south of Italy towards Rome, | 0:41:37 | 0:41:40 | |
just up there, you've got to bring them up this nice, flat valley. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:44 | |
And that's why the Germans built | 0:41:44 | 0:41:46 | |
what they hoped would be an impregnable line of steel and concrete, | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
which stretched from this side of the valley right across there, | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
to that great big mountain. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:55 | |
The Hitler Line, they had all sorts of stuff in there. | 0:41:55 | 0:41:59 | |
All sorts, not only dug-in Panzers, | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
they had machine-gun nests, mobile anti-tank guns and also Panzers running around, | 0:42:03 | 0:42:08 | |
so a lot of opposition, | 0:42:08 | 0:42:09 | |
a lot of opposition. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:12 | |
STRIMMER ENGINE WHIRRS | 0:42:12 | 0:42:14 | |
A group of Italian historians has been investigating the remains | 0:42:19 | 0:42:24 | |
of the bunkers and emplacements which make up the Hitler Line - | 0:42:24 | 0:42:28 | |
bunkers which have been swallowed up by the undergrowth | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
in the years following the Second World War. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:34 | |
The Churchill tanks of the North Irish Horse, | 0:42:38 | 0:42:41 | |
along with other British units, | 0:42:41 | 0:42:43 | |
would support the Canadian infantry, who were leading | 0:42:43 | 0:42:46 | |
the assault on the German bunkers and machine-gun nests. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:48 | |
The actual battle started off at six o'clock on May 23rd. | 0:42:50 | 0:42:54 | |
HEAVY ARMS FIRE | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
Of course, there was a constant barrage going on | 0:42:58 | 0:43:00 | |
but at eight o'clock a huge bang | 0:43:00 | 0:43:02 | |
cos the whole Canadian artillery - | 0:43:02 | 0:43:05 | |
a lot of Eighth Army artillery - | 0:43:05 | 0:43:06 | |
loading down a tremendous barrage | 0:43:06 | 0:43:09 | |
and we advanced in behind that. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:11 | |
CONSTANT EXPLOSIONS | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
We were working through this wood and, in there, | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
the Germans had snipers in trees | 0:43:18 | 0:43:20 | |
and we lost a few fellows - tank commanders - | 0:43:20 | 0:43:23 | |
who were killed by these snipers. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:25 | |
MACHINERY WHIRRS | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
Va bene! > | 0:43:27 | 0:43:29 | |
So this group believe that, just behind all this foliage, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:32 | |
there is a concrete bunker built by the Germans in World War II, | 0:43:32 | 0:43:36 | |
and you can see the outline of it as they start to thin it all out. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
And, of course, this was just one of hundreds of bunkers, | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
gun emplacements, concrete-and-steel structures and machine-gun pits | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
that spread right the way across this valley here - | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
the so-called Hitler Line. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
The Germans built this line | 0:43:51 | 0:43:52 | |
intending it to be absolutely impregnable. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
They'd lost Monte Cassino | 0:43:55 | 0:43:57 | |
but they were not going to give this up without one heck of a fight. | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
When we first went in to action, most of us - well, I was - dead scared. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
What was going to happen, you know? 18, well, I was 19, you know? | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:44:07 | 0:44:08 | |
There was so much gunfire and things that we couldn't see | 0:44:10 | 0:44:13 | |
because there was dust everywhere. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:15 | |
Now, our visibility was estimated | 0:44:15 | 0:44:18 | |
at no more than ten yards. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:20 | |
We didn't see that Panzer turret. We didn't see it. | 0:44:20 | 0:44:23 | |
I mean, it ran so close to us. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:25 | |
Walking across this fairly flat, wide open, lush Liri Valley, | 0:44:30 | 0:44:33 | |
the troops would have felt very, very exposed | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
to the German machine-gunners just there. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:38 | |
And they would have been cut down instantly, | 0:44:38 | 0:44:40 | |
were it not for the fact they weren't alone. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:42 | |
They had the support of their tanks. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:44 | |
The tanks were behind them, blasting high-explosive shells | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
towards those German positions, | 0:44:47 | 0:44:49 | |
forcing the Germans to keep their heads down. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:51 | |
And there's shrapnel all over these fields, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:53 | |
like these pieces of shell-casing here. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
It allowed the infantry to get nice and close to this German bunker. | 0:44:56 | 0:44:59 | |
'At the time of the assault, the bunker would have been | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
'surrounded by minefields and barbed wire. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
'Now uncovered by the team, it's possible to climb up inside it.' | 0:45:07 | 0:45:12 | |
Wow! That's pretty cosy. | 0:45:12 | 0:45:14 | |
And another bunker like this, maybe just a few hundred metres? | 0:45:14 | 0:45:17 | |
Yes, yes, yes. Very close. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:19 | |
-Very strong position. -Very strong position. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:22 | |
'Excavating the ground in front of the bunker, | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
'what the historians are finding is evidence of a robust defence | 0:45:28 | 0:45:32 | |
'by its German occupants.' | 0:45:32 | 0:45:33 | |
-German? -German. Yes. German. -Machine gun? -Yes, machine gun. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:37 | |
-It's German machine gun round. -OK! Another one. -That's fine. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:40 | |
These were fired in the heat of battle, | 0:45:40 | 0:45:44 | |
on that one day at the end of May 1944. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
RAPID MACHINE GUN FIRE | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
MAN SPEAKS EXCITEDLY IN ITALIAN | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
That was the belt on which all the bullets would have been stored. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:56 | |
Incredible, eh? | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
You can not believe this was fired 70 years ago. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:01 | |
-Yes, yes. -70, yes. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:03 | |
METAL DETECTOR BEEPS | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
'As tanks and infantry closed in on the prize of the Hitler Line, | 0:46:07 | 0:46:11 | |
'many fell in the fighting | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
'and the evidence is still there to be found.' | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
No way! Is that a German shape? | 0:46:16 | 0:46:18 | |
Hmm. No. From the shape, no. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:20 | |
Early to say but there's a jagged hole and it could be a helmet | 0:46:20 | 0:46:23 | |
of a Canadian Infantryman | 0:46:23 | 0:46:24 | |
who was killed in the assault on this bunker. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
MEN CONVERSE IN ITALIAN | 0:46:27 | 0:46:28 | |
-Fantastic. -All go. My God! | 0:46:35 | 0:46:38 | |
-It's definitely a Canadian... a Canadian helmet? -Yes. -Yes. | 0:46:38 | 0:46:42 | |
-Absolutely. -Wow! | 0:46:42 | 0:46:43 | |
We advanced through all this smoke and dust | 0:46:47 | 0:46:50 | |
and then we got hit on the starboard side three times. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:54 | |
CONSTANT EXPLOSIONS | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
Skipper gave the order to bail out. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:59 | |
We got out. My driver was badly cut - | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
almost in two - and he died. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
Er...a further shot hit the turret, | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
which shot fragments of red hot... all over, | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
o e of which seriously wounded the tank commander, Gordon Russell. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:18 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:47:18 | 0:47:19 | |
It was a tough day for the regiment - | 0:47:19 | 0:47:21 | |
the toughest we'd had in either war. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:24 | |
It was a... | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
It was the... catastrophic, as far as losses. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:31 | |
More than 70 men from the North Irish Horse | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
were killed or wounded that day. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:45 | |
With the dead buried here, below the monastery of Monte Cassino. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:49 | |
The Canadian infantry, who they'd supported, | 0:47:54 | 0:47:57 | |
had also suffered heavy losses. | 0:47:57 | 0:48:00 | |
After the battle, the dead of the Canadians | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
and the North Irish Horse were buried alongside each other. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:08 | |
This was entirely fitting for men who had fought and fallen together - | 0:48:08 | 0:48:12 | |
men who had broken the Hitler Line. | 0:48:12 | 0:48:15 | |
Was I feeling proud when I took part? | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
In a way, yes. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:23 | |
In a way, er... | 0:48:24 | 0:48:27 | |
Most of us thought, during the war, that the war was worthwhile. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:31 | |
You know? It was a war that we felt had to be won and it was a right war. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:37 | |
There was an inward pride that we'd fought a good battle and we'd won. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
As simple as that. | 0:48:48 | 0:48:49 | |
Simple as that. | 0:48:50 | 0:48:51 | |
In our story of Northern Ireland's role in the Second World War, | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
I've got one last trip to make. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
Back in Ireland, | 0:49:13 | 0:49:14 | |
there's a post-script to the story of our crashed Spitfire | 0:49:14 | 0:49:17 | |
and the brave, young American pilot | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
who was interned as a prisoner of war for over a year. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:22 | |
It's been six months since we dug up Bud Wolfe's Spitfire | 0:49:22 | 0:49:25 | |
from the bogs of Donegal. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:27 | |
In the meantime, something remarkable has been happening. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
The machine guns from the crashed Spitfire were taken away | 0:49:32 | 0:49:36 | |
by the Irish Army to be stripped down before being deactivated. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:40 | |
'But when they were dismantled, | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
'they were found to be in much better condition than anyone had imagined... | 0:49:44 | 0:49:49 | |
'..and that raised an interesting possibility.' | 0:49:54 | 0:49:58 | |
-Hi, there. -Hi, Dan. | 0:49:58 | 0:49:59 | |
How are you doing? Good to see you. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
'So I've come to meet Lieutenant Dave Sexton, | 0:50:02 | 0:50:04 | |
'Ordinance Officer in the Irish Army, | 0:50:04 | 0:50:06 | |
'and hopefully, actually fire the machine gun.' | 0:50:06 | 0:50:10 | |
So the last time I saw that machine gun, | 0:50:10 | 0:50:12 | |
I was pulling it with my hands out of a bog in Donegal. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:15 | |
What have you done to it since? | 0:50:15 | 0:50:16 | |
Well, we've been doing a lot of work on them, | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
but basically, the work has been 95% | 0:50:19 | 0:50:21 | |
just cleaning up the weapons, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:23 | |
stripping them down, | 0:50:23 | 0:50:24 | |
cleaning them out, checking them, measuring them, | 0:50:24 | 0:50:26 | |
and adjusting them for firing. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:28 | |
But no repairs. No repairs at all, really. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:30 | |
These machine guns hit the ground at well over 300mph. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:34 | |
Why weren't they all bent and twisted and unusable? | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
Well, the short answer is, we don't really know! | 0:50:37 | 0:50:41 | |
We had assumed that we'd be picking up bits and pieces | 0:50:41 | 0:50:44 | |
and collecting up the ammunition, etc. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:46 | |
So when we took them out of the bog, | 0:50:46 | 0:50:49 | |
I got a call on that day to say | 0:50:49 | 0:50:51 | |
that they were actually in one piece. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:54 | |
And, of course, that set the cogs in motion, | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
as regards, "Well, how far can we go with this?" | 0:50:57 | 0:50:59 | |
If they're in one piece, you know, could they actually fire? | 0:50:59 | 0:51:03 | |
So you're telling me that every single part of that weapon | 0:51:03 | 0:51:06 | |
over there was recovered from that aircraft wreck? | 0:51:06 | 0:51:08 | |
Yes, I am, yes. Absolutely. | 0:51:08 | 0:51:11 | |
Every single piece. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:13 | |
-Protection. -Ah. Protect the good bits! | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
-Protection. -That fits. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:25 | |
I'm extremely excited. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:29 | |
It's been 70 years to the month | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
since Bud Wolfe's plane crashed into Donegal. | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
And now we are going to try and fire that machine gun again. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
-OK? -OK? That's your charge at the front. In your own time. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:42 | |
OK. Here we go. 70 years on. | 0:51:42 | 0:51:44 | |
-HE SHOUTS -Stand by! Firing! | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
RAPID MACHINE GUN FIRE | 0:51:48 | 0:51:51 | |
THAT was the sound of a Spitfire! | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
It's a testament to the engineers | 0:52:00 | 0:52:02 | |
that put that weapon together more than 70 years ago, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:05 | |
that, after decades under a bog, | 0:52:05 | 0:52:07 | |
having hit the ground at over 300mph, | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
that weapon is working like the day was made. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:13 | |
RAPID MACHINE GUN FIRE | 0:52:13 | 0:52:16 | |
But what happened to the RAF pilot | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
who flew the Spitfire where the guns had come from? | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
Bud Wolfe was eventually released from Curragh Camp, | 0:52:25 | 0:52:29 | |
and got back in the cockpit, | 0:52:29 | 0:52:31 | |
this time with the American Air Force, | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
in time to see service at the end of World War II. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
To tell the final chapter of this country's role | 0:52:40 | 0:52:43 | |
in what was a global conflict, | 0:52:43 | 0:52:46 | |
we're heading back underwater, to the hunting grounds | 0:52:46 | 0:52:50 | |
of one of the most feared German war machines, the U-Boat. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:53 | |
The hidden menace that tried to starve us into submission. | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
Just off the north coast lies a submarine graveyard, | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
where over 100 of the vessels that formed Germany's backbone | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
during the Battle of the Atlantic, | 0:53:06 | 0:53:08 | |
now lie broken, and in ruin. | 0:53:08 | 0:53:10 | |
The Battle of the Atlantic | 0:53:13 | 0:53:14 | |
was the longest continuous battle of World War II. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
It stretched from the earliest days of September, 1939 | 0:53:17 | 0:53:20 | |
right up until early May, 1945, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
just before the final German surrender. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
Throughout this battle, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:28 | |
Allied convoys feared U-boats like no other weapons system. | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
Hunting alone, or in dreaded 'wolf packs', | 0:53:32 | 0:53:35 | |
they would prey on Allied shipping | 0:53:35 | 0:53:36 | |
and sent numerous vessels to the bottom. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
But, by the spring of 1945, the Nazis were on their knees, | 0:53:48 | 0:53:52 | |
and as the noose tightened around Berlin, | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
the German High Command had no choice | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
but to put an end to its naval campaign. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:00 | |
For the U- boats, it ended here in Northern Ireland. | 0:54:01 | 0:54:05 | |
On May 5th, 1945, | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
just five days after Hitler had died in his bunker in Berlin, | 0:54:10 | 0:54:13 | |
Grossadmiral Karl Donitz, who was now the supreme commander | 0:54:13 | 0:54:18 | |
of the German Armed Forces, issued the following order. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:21 | |
"All U-boats cease fire immediately. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:26 | |
"Stop all offensive actions against Allied shipping." | 0:54:26 | 0:54:30 | |
This was total defeat. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:35 | |
The German fleet was made to surrender formally in Londonderry, | 0:54:35 | 0:54:39 | |
the city that had played such a huge part in the battle against them. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:44 | |
Able Seaman Tex Beasley was among those who were tasked | 0:54:44 | 0:54:48 | |
with ensuring that all enemy crews yielded without incident. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:52 | |
We went out in early May | 0:54:52 | 0:54:54 | |
to meet up with the U-boats that were surrendering. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:59 | |
Behind her were many, many other U-boats. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:02 | |
I don't know how many, but quite a few. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:04 | |
So the skipper said, | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
"Right, you're in action now. Over." | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
So I jumped from our boat onto the U-boat. | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
I said to the...who I presumed was the commander...I said, | 0:55:13 | 0:55:17 | |
"Guten Morgen, sprechen Sie English?" | 0:55:17 | 0:55:21 | |
And he said, "Yes, rather well, I think." | 0:55:21 | 0:55:23 | |
The other guy that came up had an American accent, but... | 0:55:26 | 0:55:29 | |
HE ADOPTS ACCENT: ..mit a German American accent, you know what I mean? | 0:55:29 | 0:55:34 | |
That sort of thing. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:37 | |
And he said, "What would you do if I just did a crash dive?" | 0:55:37 | 0:55:43 | |
I said, "I'd shoot you right between the eyes." | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
This remarkable structure is all that's left | 0:56:01 | 0:56:04 | |
of the naval escort base built at Lisahally during the war, | 0:56:04 | 0:56:08 | |
just a few miles north of Derry. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:09 | |
It was here that the U-boats were moored alongside. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:12 | |
And here, on 14th May, 1945, | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
the German Navy ceremonially signed its final surrender. | 0:56:15 | 0:56:19 | |
Over the next few months, more than 50 U-boats | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
came up the River Foyle, | 0:56:24 | 0:56:25 | |
where they were stripped of anything valuable still on board. | 0:56:25 | 0:56:29 | |
Locals came from miles around | 0:56:29 | 0:56:31 | |
to have a look at the world's most famous submarines. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:34 | |
Once the U-boats were alongside here, the crews were marched off. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
They were taken along the pier and put on waiting trains | 0:56:38 | 0:56:41 | |
and then transferred to POW camps. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
For the commanders, it must have been a terrible humiliation. | 0:56:44 | 0:56:47 | |
And for the locals, | 0:56:47 | 0:56:48 | |
watching these men as they shuffled off into captivity, | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
it must have been hard to believe | 0:56:51 | 0:56:53 | |
that this was the force that, just a few years earlier, | 0:56:53 | 0:56:55 | |
had almost brought the Allied navies to their knees. | 0:56:55 | 0:56:59 | |
For the U-boats that remained tied up in Derry, | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
their fate was swift and deliberate. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
As part of Operation Deadlight, 116 surrendered U-boats | 0:57:07 | 0:57:11 | |
were towed into the North Atlantic, off Malin Head. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:14 | |
Some of them didn't even make it. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:15 | |
They were barely seaworthy after such a long war. | 0:57:15 | 0:57:18 | |
But those that did were then used for target practice | 0:57:18 | 0:57:22 | |
by Allied ships and aircraft. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
The task of dragging them out to sea took three months. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:29 | |
One by one, 116 of these once-proud members of the wolf packs | 0:57:29 | 0:57:34 | |
were systematically destroyed. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:36 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:57:36 | 0:57:39 | |
The sinking of the U-boats, as part of Operation Deadlight, | 0:57:48 | 0:57:52 | |
marked the end of the Battle of the Atlantic. | 0:57:52 | 0:57:56 | |
It was a campaign which had thrust Northern Ireland | 0:57:56 | 0:57:59 | |
to the heart of the action, | 0:57:59 | 0:58:01 | |
defending the convoys at sea and from the air. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
It's some 70 years | 0:58:08 | 0:58:11 | |
since one of the key battles of the world's greatest war | 0:58:11 | 0:58:15 | |
was fought and won here, off the rugged coast of Northern Ireland. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:19 | |
And the evidence for that struggle is still with us - | 0:58:22 | 0:58:25 | |
at least, for now. | 0:58:25 | 0:58:27 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:51 | 0:58:54 |