Victory at Sea - S1E10: Beneath the Southern Cross
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00:00 [music]
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00:55 And now, beneath the Southern Cross.
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01:06 Somewhere in the South Atlantic, somewhere in the majestic waters which separate the continents of Africa and South America,
01:13 a German submarine keeps a secret rendezvous.
01:16 With supplies exhausted after weeks of preying on Allied shipping,
01:20 the U-boat makes contact with a supply submarine, a milk cow from which it will take on fuel, food, ammunition.
01:29 Fattened and refreshed, fighting submarines range farther, strike oftener, hit harder without having to return to base.
01:37 The South Atlantic is now a battleground.
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02:57 Ready to spread further havoc along the southern sea lanes, the German submarines are not alone.
03:03 Through these waters runs Germany's only link with her Oriental partner.
03:07 The Japanese Empire sends its submarines through the South Atlantic to demonstrate to blockaded Germany its loyalty to the common cause, fascism.
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03:38 Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, the chief of submarine warfare, himself extends Germany's warmest welcome to his Axis comrades in arms from the far Pacific.
03:48 Hitler's Third Reich cordially embraces Hirohito's sailors.
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04:20 For the German Navy, war has come five years too soon.
04:24 Hitler's admirals have long dreamed of a mighty surface fleet capable of sweeping Great Britain from the seas.
04:31 But Adolf Hitler, impatient for his war, has not given his admirals time to build the Navy for which they hoped.
04:38 The German surface ships consist only of two old battleships, ten cruisers, and three pocket battleships, which are the pride of the fleet.
04:48 At the outbreak of war, Hitler summons the captain of his finest pocket battleship, the Graf Spee,
04:54 and orders him to disrupt and destroy enemy merchant shipping by all possible means.
05:00 The Graf Spee is superbly equipped for her mission.
05:03 Brilliantly designed, she combines maximum hitting power with the greatest possible speed.
05:09 With her 33 guns, her eight torpedo tubes, and a crew eager for blood, she heads for the South Atlantic to carry out her Fuhrer's orders.
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05:54 The cruise of the Graf Spee is wildly successful.
05:57 Single-handed, she hunts down and murders 50,000 tons of precious Allied shipping.
06:03 As long as the Graf Spee is on the loose, no freighter within her enormous cruising range is safe.
06:09 Let any merchant ship run afoul of her, and that ship is doomed.
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06:32 Warning to stop is flashed to the helpless freighter.
06:35 To avoid antagonizing neutrals early in the war, the German Navy holds fire until the crew is transferred from the ship marked for destruction.
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07:13 The menace of the Graf Spee overshadows the entire South Atlantic, but the hunter is being hunted.
07:21 British cruisers, Exeter, Ajax, Achilles, after incessant search, bring the pocket battleship to bay.
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08:14 The salvos of the Royal Navy win the day.
08:17 They damage the Graf Spee, but they do not sink her.
08:20 Crippled and far from base, the German runs for cover.
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08:32 In the port of Montevideo, in neutral Uruguay, the battered Graf Spee finds fleeting refuge.
08:38 But two weeks are needed for repairs, and the international laws of neutrality rule she can remain a mere 72 hours.
08:46 Night and day, the British cruisers patrol outside the harbor to prevent the Graf Spee's escape.
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09:05 Ashore, the Uruguayan government imposes the strict neutrality rules on the German crew,
09:10 and rejects the desperate pleas of their captain to extend the time limit.
09:15 The Graf Spee is trapped.
09:17 She cannot remain, cannot escape.
09:21 On Sunday, December 17, 1939, the end comes.
09:26 The queen of the German Navy blows herself up.
09:30 The Graf Spee commits suicide.
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09:48 But Axis warships are not alone in menacing the free world below the Tropic of Cancer.
09:53 German interests, with their own newspapers and business organizations, ally themselves with the fatherland.
09:59 The totalitarian trappings of German fascism are openly worshipped on South American soil.
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10:24 Fascism even threatens the Caribbean.
10:27 At the island of Martinique, important units of the French fleet lie anchored after France surrenders to Germany.
10:33 The United States must prevent the ruling Vichy sympathizers on the island from transferring these ships to the Germans.
10:39 The United States Navy exerts pressure to thwart such a move, keeps the warships neutralized.
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10:48 Strategically located islands like Trinidad, crucial to the defense of the Panama Canal and the Atlantic coast,
10:54 become ramparts which the Navy uses to keep the war from the shores of the Americas.
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11:07 Trinidad's naval operating base begins functioning in August 1941.
11:12 When the United States enters the war, Trinidad is a keystone in the Southern Convoy system and anti-submarine warfare.
11:19 Under Rear Admiral Hoover, commander of the Caribbean sea frontier, the Navy relentlessly polices southern waters.
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12:13 There is another kind of killer loose beneath the Southern Cross.
12:18 Not the U-boat, not a warship, but a German raider disguised as a merchantman, stalking her prey by stealth and fraud.
12:27 Her victims think her an innocent freighter, but this is the Atlantis, a ravager that hits suddenly from ambush,
12:34 showing her true colors only when ready to kill.
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13:04 The Atlantis, a masked assassin of the sea, killer and mufti.
13:10 Already she has slaughtered 20 ships, but she prowls for more.
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13:30 A fat prize, this one, a Greek merchant ship.
13:34 She is brought aboard the raider, and the boarding party is ordered to loot her provisions and cargo before sending her to the bottom.
13:41 The lawlessness to be staged on her deck stems from the days of skull and crossbones, the days of piracy on the high seas.
13:50 First the raider will exact her tribute, then she will destroy.
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15:38 But raiders do not robe the South Atlantic unchallenged.
15:42 His Majesty's cruiser, Devonshire, sweeps far and wide to flush them out of these remote, vital waters,
15:48 which feed the world's major ocean arteries.
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16:05 From the observation plane comes the report of an unidentified ship in the area, and the Devonshire changes course and speed to investigate.
16:12 Is it friend or is it foe?
16:15 The Devonshire must make sure before opening fire.
16:18 The unknown ship maneuvers suspiciously, and the cruiser is alerted for action.
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16:48 Suspicion grows into certainty as a check of intelligence reports indicates the ship may be the German raider known as Number 16.
16:55 Secret recognition signals from the Devonshire bring only evasive response from the mystery ship.
17:01 No doubt remains, this is no friend, no innocent freighter.
17:06 This is the raider at last.
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17:42 End of Atlantis, death of a raider.
17:46 Devonshire cannot stay to rescue survivors, but wherever a German raider is, there also are German submarines.
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18:10 Hoping for combat, but too late to catch the wary Devonshire, the U-boat finds herself faced with a mission far different.
18:17 Rescue at sea.
18:19 For surviving crewmen of the Atlantis and the captured Allied seamen from her victims,
18:24 the providential appearance of the submarine means sudden salvation.
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19:01 With lifeboats in tow, the submarine heads toward a rendezvous with a supply ship, which will take the survivors ashore.
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19:21 Halfway between Africa and South America, midway in the South Atlantic, Ascension Island.
19:28 A barren slab of volcanic rock transformed by a freak of war into a militant center.
19:34 American engineers transform this isolated English possession into a hornet's nest for the enemy, a haven for friends.
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20:02 On Ascension's airfield, short-range American planes pause and refuel on their flights to Africa.
20:08 And from Ascension, patrol planes wing out in both directions,
20:12 where the bulge of Africa and the bulge of Brazil squeeze the ocean together into the South Atlantic Narrows.
20:18 Here, the hunt for U-boats is pursued in a monotonous, unrelenting manner.
20:23 Here, more submarines are destroyed than in any other comparable stretch of ocean.
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20:49 In Brazil, there is a saying, "Deus é brasileiro."
20:53 God is a Brazilian, because he has favored the land so lavishly.
20:58 In August of 1942, Brazil joins the Allies in fighting the aggression that imperils the two Americas alike.
21:05 The navies of Brazil and the United States have long worked together.
21:09 Under the overall direction of Vice Admiral Jonas Ingram, commander of the United States' Fourth Fleet,
21:14 the resources, bases, manpower, and the training of the two great republics
21:19 are pooled into one single, splendid, cooperative effort.
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22:25 Together, the Brazilian and United States navies deny the South Atlantic to the Axis.
22:30 The impact of sea power here is felt afar in the African desert,
22:34 where 500 Sherman tanks convoyed safely through the Narrows
22:38 turn the tide of battle at El Alamein.
22:41 Victory at sea in the South Atlantic means victory across the sea in North Africa.
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23:04 From bases like Natal, Cape San Roque, Recife, Fortaleza, Belém,
23:11 bases on the Bulge of Brazil, the Navy sends up its aircraft
23:15 to scan the aquamarine waters of the Southern Hemisphere.
23:19 The blimps are the first of their kind to cross the equator.
23:23 Their steady, patient patrols add another dimension to convoy protection.
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24:07 The sky over Brazil, the sea off Brazil, and the earth that is Brazil.
24:15 Remote from any front, deep in the valley of the Amazon,
24:19 Brazilians harvest the product without which wars cannot be won.
24:24 Rubber.
24:25 Here in the far-off primeval forests, the first primitive steps are taken
24:29 to shoe the wheels that one day will roll across Italy and France, and then to Germany.
24:35 North America is the arsenal of democracy,
24:38 but South America pours out her wealth to keep the arsenal spotless.
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25:12 And the convoys come through, bearing the wealth of the Southern Hemisphere.
25:17 Refusing to pay one cent for tribute, but willing to spend millions for defense,
25:22 the American republics have swept from the ocean highways of the South Atlantic
25:26 their common foe.
25:28 Spread wide across the sea, guarded by the might of nations which can fight side by side
25:34 because they have learned to live side by side.
25:37 The ships stream toward their goal, allied victory.
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