Although he didn't contribute much, the well respected naval historian, Eric Groves, was in the documentary. He featured strongly in a previous Timewatch programme about the Graf Spee, and the Battle of the River Plate. He has an astounding knowledge of this matter and has written a book about it (The Price of Disobedience). He was clearly very impressed by the humanity of Langsdorff. In the same run, there was a programme about the wreck of the Ark Royal, in the Med., and also about the first confederate sub during the American Civil War, and how it came to sink, following it's attack.

What comes through from all these programmes is that seamen have something of a common bond. One of the pilots from the Ark Royal witnessed the sinking Bismark, and the men dying in the water. He felt glad the Bismark was done for, but so very sad for the crew. In tonight's documentary, it was clear that the initial euphoria of killing the u-boat (after a real feeling of apprehension that the u-boat might get them instead) was quickly folowed by the realisation that they knew that they'd just killed fellow submariners, in the most ghastly way.

This isn't the sort of thing you tend to hear much in people recounting their experiences of the ground war.

My dad was a chaplain for The Missions to Seamen (now called The Mission to Seafarers, I think) for 10 years, so I got to go on-board a couple of diesel subs whilst they were still in commission, and talk to the crew. Ghastly machines. Stuffy, cramped and claustrophobic. A very limited supply of water, and hot-bedding sleeping arrangements. During war-time, they must have been horrific places at times. Must take a very special sort of person.

Anyway; if you get the chance to see the programme, it was well worth it.

Cheers,
Martin

Another winner from Time Watch. :rock:

I watched it with a fellow captain of mine and we agreed that we need to see this kind of documentaries more often.

I just watched it and found it fascinating the only thing am puzzled with correct me if am wrong but when the Brit sub fired it's fish at 17.5 seconds intervals I assumed it stayed at the same depth and the u-boat captain avoided the first 3 toprs so how did he turn into the 4 fish as the program explained he "ordered hard to port emergency dive to 40 m" so if he avoid the first 3 wouldn't the 4th one be just as easy to avoid?

Its hard without BBC, mateys..
I dont know if it has any copyright issues, but if someone has a copy i would really like to see this.. If it is legal. :yep:

I thought it was rather poor myself - in the writing. There seemed to be a lot of confusion and mixing of terms - particularly "hydrophones" (passive) and "sonar" and "asdic" (wtf!) when characterising how the venturer managed to acquire the Uboat while both were underwater (and without alerting the U-boat). It never suggested for what purpose the Japs wanted 60 tons of mercury for - which would have been interesting, nor looked in any detail at the Norwegian proposals for sealing the wreck-site - which are very contentious on several grounds.

All in all, worth taping and watching, but could have been done a lot better. IMHO.

Yeah I watched this one, it could have been better... but it was still very intresting to get some idea how HMS Venturer accomplished the nearly impossible.

Makes you realise what we are missing out on in SH3 (and in SH4) :nope:

As regards the 4 torpedoes, my impression was that the captain had made a calculation that the u-boat commander would follow normal evasive procedure, when attacked by torpedoes coming in that direction. It wasn't entirely clear though it was hinted at. The u-boat commander knew he had loud engines, and was zig-zagging to minimize the risk. However, the risks he anticipated were surface vessels. He was also inexperienced, and really had no good idea of what the situation was. He apparently followed a "standard" evasion procedure when the first torpedo missed. This effectively stopped him zig-zagging, in favour of taking evasive manoeuvres. My impression was that the sub captain had guessed that the u-boat would react in this way and accounted for it. His spread and timing of torpedoes, if I understood it right, may have effectively driven the u-boat into his 4th torpedo, because with each torpedo, the u-boat's orientation and depth would have become increasingly predictable.

As to the loose use of terms, I imagine that they sacrificed some consistent terminology in order to tell a smooth story to a wide public. I did find it a bit disorientating when they chopped continually between 1945 and today, but that's quite common in modern documentaries. Timewatch does it much less than some. Another flagship BBC series, Horizon, at one point became so verbose, by attempting to tell a great tale and make it seem "epic", that they took an hour to say what could have been told in 5 minutes. Happily, things have improved.

I may have enjoyed the documentary more than some because I know a lot less about the subject. I'd still highly recommend it to anybody as a great "ripping yarn". :D

Submerged zigzagging is too slow to confuse enemy aircraft and pointless against destroyers at such shallow depth.
The only reason he could have had for zigzagging whilst at periscope depth is that he was worried about torpedoes. Perhaps it was known that British submarines operated in that area or perhaps torpedo boats where expected. :hmm:

Hi Letum,

unfortunately I can only go from the programme, which stated that he was unaware of a threat from another submarine, and the zigg-zag pattern was to confuse surface vessels. You may be right, but I was just recounting the information in the programme. The u-boat was in periodic radio contact and I suspect that the transcripts of these messages were used to confirm that he was not expecting trouble from another sub. I can't tell you any more I'm afraid, as I simply don't know enough about it.

Cheers,

martin

I missed it too unfortunately, if anyone can put it up that would be smashing! Or any other online possiblities for U-boat documentaries for that matter.

I think that, given the genuine audience here, the BBC won't mind too much? :know:

So has anyone got any ideas what the Japs wanted to do with the mercury ? :hmm:

make a bomb out of it?

I would guess that they where using it as a metallic coolant. Perhaps for stationary jet engine recherche. Jets get hot quickly if they are not flying, so you need a effective way to keep them cool if you want to do tests for a few hours on them.
Mercury a very effective coolant when used at high temperature.
(I'm just speculating that they where useing it for that, but it seams likely)

There are myths about "red mercury" being used in nuclear bombs, but there isn't such a thing and mercury is not used in any explosives I know of.

Jets? well, Japan have been bombed by weapons of mass destuction but if Japan recivied that mercury.....

Japan already had examples of working jet engines, but they where a long way from building a production jet. However they did have working rocket planes which was a little action as manned flying bombs.
Even without mercury there are plenty of other ways to cool down primitive jets anyhow.

*edit* Heres a nice article on Japans jets project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakajima_Kikka

I would guess they wanted it for jet engine testing as Letum said



http://www.combinedfleet.com/I-29.htm

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtop...b0926d02fac75e

Was hoping for a few more 'theorists'...but I'm very close to your reply (metallic coolant) Letum ...cheers for that mate :yep:
@BB....nice one mate...qualative as ever :up:

Quote:

Cdr Kinashi travels to Berlin. Adolf Hitler presents him with the Iron Cross, 2nd Class for sinking the USS WASP.

Poor bugger...some kaleuns got the 1st class for lesser achievements :rotfl:

Thanks Wooly
Ive just been reading up on Mercury Radium.
It seams that mercury was used as a primitive way of extracting radium from uranium salts. If the mercury was being used for that, then it would have been a nice toy for scientists, but useless for making nuclear bombs.

I'm starting to doubt that japan or Germany had the technology for using mercury as a coolant in the war years. I know it was used in the 1950s - 1980s as a coolant.
They where probably just playing about with radium tho.

Okha or JW somethang.