MAN [over radio]: The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the War.
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1940 a vast aerial armada is
sent by the Nazis to bomb Great Britain into submission.
HOLLAND: The Battle ofBritain is completelydifferent to all air battles
that have happened up to that point in world history.
NARRATOR: The German Air Force, the Luftwaffe,
is many times the size of the British defenders,
the Royal Air Force.
As British losses mount, the rest of the world looks on in fear.
JAMES: The future of America and the free world
depends on Britain surviving.
NARRATOR: So why is it that the British emerged triumphant...
and not the Nazis?
Hundreds of miles apart, four mysterious wrecks are
transforming our understanding of the Battle of Britain.
Revealing that the real story lies as much in the sea,
as in the air.
This beach on the Southeast coast of England is quiet now
but 80 years ago it echoed to the sound of a life or death struggle...
as gun batteries tried to shoot down incoming Nazi war planes...
and British and German pilots dueled for control of the skis above.
In 1940 the small seaside town of Walton-on-the-Naze is less
than 70 miles from German air bases in occupied Europe.
Historian, Andy Saunders, has made a special study of
beaches just like this and the many relics of
The Battle of Britain left on them.
But the Holy Grail of researchers like him
is to find a plane.
ANDY: In this particular area during The Battle of Britain
there were a number of aircraft that we know crashed hereabouts.
Either on land, on the mud, just out into the sea.
NARRATOR: Andy's come here to try to learn more about one of them.
A British fighter he hopes will reveal how close the
Nazis came to victory...
and deepen our understanding of a momentous day.
On August 31st, 1940...
39 British fighter planes are shot out of the skies.
More than in any other day in the Battle of Britain.
And on that day an eye-witness in Walton-on-the-Naze
sees one British fighter hurtling from the skies
and powering deep into the soft tidal mud.
For over 30 years it lies hidden,
protected from the elements.
ANDY: When an aircraft impactsthe sea it's pretty much like
hitting concrete and the aircraft will disintegrate.
Anything that remains sinks to the bottom will be badly
corroded by salt water.
Whereas anything that comes down in this sort of terrain,
onto mud, lessens the damage to the aircraft and it
protects it from oxygen and corrosion.
NARRATOR: In 1973, it's uncovered and excavated by a
team led by local enthusiast, Geoff Raynor.
But it's remains are so fragile,
they're now locked away in protective storage in a museum
along with its many secrets.
Andy has managed to gain access to just a few of the
precious remnants...
and they leave him in no doubt about what type of plane he's studying.
ANDY: What we've got here are very large pieces of wreckage.
This is an engine a lower enginecowling panel and it's got
the very typical Hawker engine cowling fastener here.
This is a piece of upper wing.
The important thing is that it tells us absolutely
categorically this is a Hurricane.
NARRATOR: With a top speed of over 300 miles per hour,
the Hurricane is one of the most agile fighter planes of its time...
and its hollow metal skeleton is designed to take the sort
of direct fire that would cripple other fighters.
ERIC: They were short range but that didn't matter because
they were built to defend the United Kingdom against enemy
air attack and for that it was hard to find a better design.
NARRATOR: To understand what happened,
Andy needs to study what was left of the plane after it
plunged into the mud.
And now we can help...
using the extensive archaeological evidence collected
during dig to drain the Essex coastline.
As the soft mud retreats from the beach,
the shell of one of the most iconic planes ever built
emerges once again.
As daylight strikes the Hurricane,
it's obvious she is badly damaged...
and that she entered the mud upside down at a 30 degree angle...
where her rear fuselage used to be is now just an empty space.
But using the many detailed photographs taken during the dig,
we can reassemble her.
And as we turn her the right way up there's a revelation.
She's peppered with cannon fire.
ANDY: We can see that there are a number of 20 millimeter
canon strikes that have come through from the bottom of the
wing and punched out the top of the wing.
They've literally come through,
directly from underneath.
NARRATOR: How could one of the RAF's best fighter planes end
up ripped open from below?
And, might her demise help explain why so many other
fighters also fall victim on this tragic day?
To try to understand what happened,
Andy travels to a bunker deep underground...
to what was, in 1940,
the nerve center of the RAF's Fighter Command.
From this very room, its top commanders modeled and
controlled the Battle of Britain 24 hours a day.
ANDY: There were plotters around the table who would
change the counters on the table and it told the controller
which enemy aircraft were coming in at what height.
NARRATOR: By recreating on the map,
the hundreds of different plane movements on the 31st of August,
Andy can begin to get a picture of what may have
taken place that day.
At 8:15 AM,
reports reached the Control Room of a huge formation
of German bombers heading towards the English coast.
Armed with this information, Andy can turn to official
RAF battle reports.
These reveal that a small squadron of Hurricanes
flies out of a base near Walton-on-the-Naze
ten minutes later.
As its pilots close in on the Germans they realize the
bombers are being protected by around 50 fighter planes,
planes the RAF had come to fear.
Almost as fast as the Hurricane,
the Messerschmitt 110 lacks the British plane's agility.
But two powerful 20 millimeter cannons in its nose cone
are a deadly threat to anything that strays in front of it.
It can land such a devastating punch that its German nickname
is simply 'The Destroyer'.
From the records, Andy discovers only one Hurricane
was shot down that day over Walton-on-the-Naze.
It must be our Hurricane on the beach and that gives him a
name for its pilot.
24-year-old Gerard Maffett, who's been flying Hurricanes
for less than two months.
What happened to this young, English pilot and can his fate
explain why the British came so close to losing
the Battle of Britain?
NARRATOR: The drained wreckage of the Hurricane on the beach
reveals it has been torn by cannon fire along its underside.
Hidden away in the Royal Air Force's records,
Andy Saunders uncovers a blow by blow account of its fateful battle.
As the Hurricanes catapult forward at 300 miles per hour
they find themselves below the German Messerschmitts.
The problem that they and many other British pilots face that day
is that the German's have recently adopted a protective tactic.
When attacked, they form tight defensive formations
that can only be broken up by a highly dangerous head on attac.
Gerard Maffett hurtles up towards the target plane.
ANDY: The whole squadron attacked a formation of about
50 ME 110s.
The pilots broke up the enemy's defensive circles in a
series of head on attacks.
NARRATOR: Maffett fires on the German plane for no more than
a few seconds and then must bank to the side.
Just enough time for an ME 110 to catch the
British fighter in its sights.
ANDY: Pilot Maffett turned away from the German aircraft
and as he did so the aircraft that he was turning away
from opened fire.
NARRATOR: From the guns in its nose cone the Messerschmitt
launches a spread of 20 millimeter canon shells...
that tear into Maffett's undercarriage.
If Andy's right, it's this that leaves the unmistakable
shredding pattern visible in the drained wreck.
Maffett tries to bail out but from a Hurricane that's never easy.
HOLLAND: What you've gotta do if you're trying to get out is
you've got to invert your plane upside down.
You've gotta remove your oxygen leads.
You've gotta remove your Sutton harness.
You've gotta take out your radio leads,
open the canopy and drop out.
If you can't get out quick enough,
what happens is you bail out at 400 feet and not at 4000.
NARRATOR: Maffett opens his parachute too close to the ground
and the young Englishman is killed instantly.
It's the shifting German tactics and sheer numbers of
Luftwaffe fighters that help explain why Maffett and so
many other pilots are lost on the 31st of August.
But why did the fate of Britain and the entire free
world come to depend on this battle in the skies?
Strangely, the answer to that may lie deep underwater many
miles from Britain...
in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Off the coast of Belgium, a diving team is trying to solve
an enduring mystery of World War II.
The team is headed by Sven Van Haelst,
who's long been fascinated by the story of a warship that
sank somewhere here in 1940.
Disappearing under the waves in an astonishing 15 seconds.
SVEN: When I started as a Maritime Archaeologist here
and I found out about this wreck,
that there were so many casualties that was really
intriguing for me.
It was like how could this happen so fast and
so many people killed.
NARRATOR: The ship Sven is looking for plays a vital role
in a moment of unprecedented crisis.
At the end of May 1940, the eyes of the world are on the
beaches of Dunkirk in France...
Where a struggle for survival becomes one of
history's great turning points.
JAMES: It's Dunkirk that explains why the Battle of
Britain is so critical.
NARRATOR: The Nazis surround and bombard a third of a
million troops including the cream of the British Army
trapped on the shore.
HOLLAND: The British were braced for kind of total defeat.
They were looking at the complete destruction of the British Army.
NARRATOR: To try to rescue as many soldiers as possible,
the Royal Navy sends all the ships it can muster...
including one powerful destroyer.
The four inch guns of HMS Wakeful make her a deadly opponent.
She's over 300 feet long and can reach speeds of up to 34 knots.
On the evening of the 28th of May and under intense bombardment,
640 British soldiers managed to climb on board...
to what they hope is safety.
So why just an hour after leaving France...
[explosion].
does she sink in less than a minute...
killing almost everyone on board?
Sven thinks the Wakeful went down 15 miles from
the Belgian port of Ostend.
Where many vessels have been lost over the centuries.
Visibility in these waters is poor...
and the divers are constantly being pulled by strong currents.
100 feet down they see glimpses of what could be
a wartime wreck.
But there are so many shipwrecks here it's
hard to be certain.
And then...
a four inch Royal Navy gun!
They've found HMS Wakeful.
SVEN: You can see also the remnants of the machinery and
stuff like that.
NARRATOR: But covered in weed and mud,
there's no obvious clue to explain why it sank so quickly.
The only way to work out what happened to her for sure is to
empty the North Sea.
As it's turbulent and grimy waters are sucked away...
an astonishing scene looms into view.
The stricken warship's stern bears the marks of a violent assault.
And it's clear something truly shocking has happened here...
because her other half is no longer connected at all.
SVEN: So, what we found outnow is that the wreck is broken
in two large pieces, lying perpendicular to each other.
NARRATOR: The Wakeful looks as if she's been torn apart by
giant hands.
What could have caused such devastating damage?
NARRATOR: The fate of this British destroyer could help
explain the origins of the Battle of Britain.
But there's one question in particular that's been
troubling Sven.
Why the wreck of HMS Wakeful is here,
off the coast of Belgium, at all?
Why would a ship, evacuating British troops from Dunkirk,
sail in the opposite direction from the British coast?
Sven turns to official Royal Navy reports and uncovers a
little-known fact about Dunkirk.
The British rescue ships off the French coast are being so
relentlessly attacked that the Royal Navy decides to send the
Wakeful on an indirect route...
to Belgium.
Where the plan is that she'll then turn West to England.
SVEN: So, we now know why it is here but we don't know what
happened and we have to find out.
NARRATOR: In May 1940, the waters of Belgium should be safe.
All the deadly action is now miles away at Dunkirk.
The last thing the Germans expect is a ship laden with
troops heading this way.
Perhaps the Wakeful was the victim of a German air patrol.
But returning to her wreck,
it's clear that she's been torn apart...
sliced in two.
That does not suggest a bombing attack.
It seems like the destruction that might result from torpedoes.
Who or what could've attacked the Wakeful in what were
supposed to be safe waters?
Sven studies German Naval records and discovers that the
Wakeful was not hunted down by a submarine but something else.
A German surface vessel that gets dangerously close to the
British destroyer during the night...
an E-boat.
E-boats are small, agile and fast.
But they should be no match for a big destroyer in any
head to head battle.
And if an E-boat was tracking her then surely the British
look-outs would spot her.
So, what went wrong?
Below deck the 640 soldiers are asleep as Wakeful closes
in on the buoy that marks the point where she is to turn and
head for England.
Just a minute later she'll explode...and sink.
But how?
The answer to this maritime puzzle has been staring Sven
in the face all along.
The spot where his team has been diving is marked today by
a 15 foot structure, the Kwinte Buoy.
Sven has discovered that in 1940 there was a similarly
sized buoy in the vicinity with a nightlight that's
piercingly bright.
Perfect cover for a lurking predator.
SVEN: It was in the middle of the night,
it was pitch black...
and the E-boat was hiding.
NARRATOR: As the Wakeful gets ready to turn her crew doesn't
know she's been spotted.
The blinding light of the buoy masks anything behind it and it's there,
the lone E-boat is waiting, ready to strike.
On the bridge of the Wakeful, a look-out spots the wakes of
two torpedoes in the water and his Captain orders her
to change direction.
But it's too late.
For while the first torpedo misses,
the second one heads straight for the destroyer.
[explosion].
SVEN: Once the torpedo hit,
it broke up immediately into two big parts.
The water could run in very fast and the broken parts
were sink to the bottom.
NARRATOR: Only 27 men from the more than 700 on board
managed to survive.
SVEN: And all the soldiers that were below decks they
had no chance at all.
NARRATOR: The Wakeful's brave rescue mission
ends in tragedy.
On the other routes home, things are even worse.
Nearly 200 allied ships are sunk at Dunkirk,
including 25 destroyers.
And while in a miracle of logistics and courage more
than 300,000 troops are rescued all their armaments,
tanks and vehicles lie abandoned in France.
Britain is in peril as never before.
HOLLAND: The week of the Dunkirk evacuation is the most
tumultuous week in British history, ever.
NARRATOR: So why doesn't Hitler invade while he has a chance?
And why does smashing the British Air Force become such
a German obsession when Britain is already on her knees?
The answer to that may lie over 1000 miles from Dunkirk.
Far above the Arctic Circle...
in the spectacular and forbidding landscape of Norway.
Where an epic and little-known battle
transforms the course of the entire War.
Over 600 miles from the capital Oslo,
Narvik has long been an important port...
and the waters of its fjord conceal an archaeological secret.
A collection of German military shipwrecks from 1940...
at least a dozen of them.
What happened here and just how important it was has been
argued about for decades.
FREDRIK: This harbor is literally littered with
shipwrecks from the Second World War so I'm really keen
on looking into that.
What actually happened here?
NARRATOR: Archaeologist, Fredrik Soreide,
is here to study one wreck in particular.
A symbol of pride for Hitler's new Navy,
the destroyer Erich Giese enters service just months
before the outbreak of war, 390 feet long.
Her giant propellers thrust her forward at 37 knots.
FREDRIK: So, the Erich Giese was obviously a
state-of-the-art German destroyer.
So, the fact that it now sits in 70 meters in Narvik harbor
it makes me wonder what actually happened to it here.
NARRATOR: On April 9th, 1940, the Erich Giese is part of a
huge Nazi invasion force sent to conquer Norway.
But the very next day a surprise attack by Britain's
Royal Navy sends six German ships to the bottom of the fjord.
FREDRIK: So, the British came in with their destroyers and
they fired torpedoes from the outskirts of
the fjord into the harbor.
This was very successful.
NARRATOR: The Erich Giese survives that battle unscathed.
So why, three days later, does she too plummet to the bottom?
And how does her demise in Norwegian waters eventually
lead Hitler to launch the Battle of Britain?
NARRATOR: To discover how the Erich Giese was sunk,
Fredrik Soreide's team sends down a remotely operated vehicle.
FREDRIK: Okay, good, so we're ready to dive?
MAN: Yes, we're ready to dive.
FREDRIK: Okay, let's go then.
NARRATOR: As it descends through the cold water,
the drone's on-board light picks out shapes.
FREDRIK: It's very interesting, look at that.
Let's go over and have a look at this times.
MAN: Yeah.
FREDRIK: This is definitely a warship, isn't it?
MAN: Yeah.
FREDRIK: So what's the shadow over there?
MAN: It looks like another structure.
FREDRIK: Is it? That must be another wreck there.
NARRATOR: Astonishingly all of these shattered and haunting
wrecks are German warships.
Not one though is big enough to be the almost 400 foot long
Erich Giese.
They head farther out into the fjord.
FREDRIK: Yeah.
NARRATOR: The waters here are much deeper.
FREDRIK: So how deep are we now?
MAN: Eight.
FREDRIK: Eight meters alright.
MAN: No, it still some distance to go.
FREDRIK: Two meters left.
MAN: Yeah.
NARRATOR: As the ROV descends the light fades.
FREDRIK: There's something coming here.
MAN: Okay.
NARRATOR: Finally, on the fjord bed,
200 feet below something recognizable looms into view.
MAN: There we go.
FREDRIK: That's the propeller.
MAN: Yes.
FREDRIK: Its, it doesn't seem to have taken any damage at all.
NARRATOR: They've located the Erich Giese.
MAN: Yeah.
FREDRIK: Let's just try to move off in this direction.
NARRATOR: But they can only see small sections.
FREDRIK: Cause really it's so big,
it's difficult to get a really good bearing.
NARRATOR: The only way to see the Giese in her entirety is
to use scans gathered by Fredrik and other researchers
to drain the fjord.
As the waters recede the mighty shell of a
state-of-the-art German destroyer is exposed to the
cold air for the first time in eight decades...
and it's immediately obvious that she's been damaged by
some massive force.
A giant crack along her bow suggests she was hit and hit hard.
So much so that she appears to have collapsed onto one side.
FREDRIK: We see that this ship has been involved in a big
fight and there is a lot of shell damage.
NARRATOR: What happened to one of Hitler's most advanced
warships days after she survived a deadly assault?
Fredrik heads to the museum in Narvik to research its
detailed historical records,
and uncovers a story that's long been overshadowed by
more famous events in 1940.
He learns that for three days after the Royal Navy's surprise attack,
what's left of the German fleet lick their wounds.
Then, disaster!
The Royal Navy comes back in even greater numbers.
Nine destroyers, and HMS Warspite, a giant battleship.
Using all the latest research we can now lift up the
Erich Giese and turn her around...
discovering that her guns are at battle stations.
It's clear to Fredrik, in her final moments the Erich Giese
must have fought back bravely.
At around 1:00 PM on the 13th of April,
two of the British destroyers launch a barrage of torpedoes.
The Giese responds instantly, firing her guns and damaging
her two main attackers.
Until, out of ammunition and completely outgunned,
she sits helpless as British shells smash into her hull.
The Erich Giese sinks below the fjord's waves
where she rolls onto her side.
Her guns now silenced.
But all this leaves one final mystery,
why did the Giese remain for three days
in such a dangerous place?
Why didn't her captain take her to safety somewhere else?
There is one wreck miles from the Giese that may be the answer.
FREDRIK: During the first attack the British fleet
managed to sink the only German fuel tanker in the harbor.
So, this effectively made the German fleet stranded
in Narvik harbor.
It was fair to say the Germans were sitting ducks at this stage.
NARRATOR: For three days, the Giese's crew hopes
another fuel ship will arrive.
It never does.
They cannot flee and instead decide to stand and fight.
The destruction of the Giese and nine other German
destroyers at Narvik is a much-needed propaganda coup
for the embattled British.
More importantly it fatally undermines German naval plans
for an invasion of Britain.
ERIC: The Battle of Narvik crippled the German destroyer force,
half of them were sunk.
NARRATOR: Hitler knows that his much-reduced invasion
force could be wiped out by the Royal Navy and the RAF
before it even reaches land.
JAMES: It's obvious now that he can't invade,
not unless he can obliterate the threat of the RAF planes
above the few ships he has left.
NARRATOR: It's this British victory in Narvik that
explains why Hitler is so determined to destroy the
Royal Air Force but he fails spectacularly.
Can the newly discovered wreck of one of his bombers reveal why?
NARRATOR: On the South coast of England,
Maritime Archaeologist, Graham Scott, and dive specialist,
Glenn Skelton are on the hunt for lost planes.
Their target lies in one of the strangest features in the
English Channel.
The Goodwin sands are six miles from the coast of Kent.
They stretch just under water for an astonishing ten miles
and archaeologists have long been drawn here.
GRAHAM: This area has always been known as "the ship swallower"
and that's because it's an area with very big mobile sandbanks.
NARRATOR: These layers, 50 feet deep are a danger to shipping.
But in 1940 they become a life-saver for German pilots who can,
if they're lucky, skim along the surface and
climb out into waist high water,
leaving their planes to slowly disappear into the deep sands.
GRAHAM: If they're covered in sand they're protected and
they don't deteriorate.
And of course, for archaeologists that's gold.
NARRATOR: The team is here to help shed light on one of the
rarest and most extraordinary plane wrecks ever discovered.
The only intact example in the world of a legendary German bomber.
When the Dornier 17 is developed in the 1930's
she is so long and elegant she's nicknamed "The Flying Pencil".
With each plane able to carry 16 bombs,
Dornier's leave a path of destruction across Britain.
But they have a fatal flaw.
JAMES: The Dornier's an incredible piece of engineering but it's slow.
NARRATOR: All the Dorniers ever built have disappeared.
But in 2013 a team, including Glenn,
locate the wreck of a Dornier in the Goodwin sands.
GLENN: The first time we had visual on the Dornier it was
amazing, absolutely amazing.
This particular aircraft was almost 100% intact.
NARRATOR: The team lifts the twisted metal carcass...
and takes it to a museum for restoration.
But how did this fearsome killer crash and yet remain so intact?
And might her story help explain how Britain beat
Germany in the great battle to control her skies.
To answer that question, Graham and Glenn explore the
site where she plunged into the water.
Using the latest sonar and an ROV to study the interaction
of currents and drifting sands.
But now that the Dornier has been moved,
the only way to see the wreck as she was when she crashed...
is to put her back in the English Channel.
Using the data collected by the team we can now drain
millions of gallons of water,
and vast quantities of silt and mud.
As the misty light above the English Channel illuminates
the Goodwin sands, it reveals a startling sight.
The hulk of a deadly bomber lying upside down.
The fact that her wingtips are missing and her nose is gone
suggests she may have been attacked.
But could that be just the effects of impact?
Then, tell-tale clues.
Bullet holes in one of her propellers.
GRAHAM: I think the most likely explanation is this
aircraft is ditched.
In other words, it's been damaged and the pilot has
tried to make a forced landing on the surface of the water.
NARRATOR: Using data from the drained wreck as well as
German Air Force records, Graham discovers that a
Dornier was lost near the site of the wreck on a daylight
raid on the 26th of August, 1940.
And this allows him to piece together the events of that day.
At around midday, Dorniers begin to take off from
occupied Belgium, just over the English Channel.
The RAF quickly scrambles fighter to intercept them.
At 11,000 feet the British pounce.
One of the Dorniers is strafed in the attack,
hitting a propeller and both engines.
Without power the pilot desperately heads for the
Goodwin sands and glides down to the shallow water.
His plane survives intact as it comes to a halt above the sands.
How could the British manage to get their fighters into the
sky long before they could possibly see the Dorniers?
ERIC: Britain had invested heavily in the late 1930's in
what was by far the finest air defense system in the world.
This was a system that nobody else had.
The Germans didn't, nobody else did.
NARRATOR: And the British then go one further.
At the beginning of the War, Britain creates a complete
network of radar stations all along its Southern coast.
Each feeding information in real time to Fighter Command.
It's radar that explains how the Dornier ends up crashed on
Goodwin sands...
and why even the elite of the German Air Force found the RAF
such a tough opponent.
HOLLAND: There are 138 RAF airfields in Britain during
the Battle of Britain and only one is knocked out for more
than 48 hours, in the entire battle.
Now that is a pretty low return when you're stated aim
is to destroy their RAF.
NARRATOR: The Battle of Britain is partly won by
Britain's radar-based air defense.
But the Royal Navy's overwhelming power also deters
a Nazi invasion at the moment of greatest British weakness.
Allowing the brave young pilots of the Royal Air Force
to defend their nation... and keep alive the hope
that Hitler could yet be beate.
JAMES: The Battle of Britain is one of the epic battles of history.
This determines the fate of a nation and the fate of the world.
And so, the world owes a debt of gratitude to the RAF.
Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.