Drain The Ocean: WWII (2016)

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR:

These are the wrecks of World w*r II.

Some of its greatest mysteries

lie beneath the sea.

Imagine if we could empty oceans,

letting water drain away

to reveal secrets from the deep.

Now, using the latest

undersea scanning technology,

we can drain the oceans.

For the first time,

we can catch sight of answers

to long-standing questions.

Pearl Harbor. Who fired the first shot?

Who sank the German super ship, Bismarck?

D-Day. Why is there a tank battalion

underwater, off the coast of France?

Discover a world of drowned mysteries

as never seen before...

in Drain The Ocean, WWII.

[hull creaking]

New underwater scientific surveys

pierce the deep oceans.

Powerful computers turn accurate data

into 3-D images.

Now we can examine sunken wrecks

in detail from any angle.

Draining the oceans

throws new light on World w*r II.

The Pacific Ocean,

scene of a devastating surprise attack

on a Hawaiian island

and its key American naval base,

Pearl Harbor.

JAMES DELGADO:

Pearl Harbor was ground zero.

The Japanese attack changed everything.

NARRATOR: Imagine if we could pull a plug

to let the waters of Pearl Harbor

drain away.

For the first time,

we can construct a precise picture

of the mighty battleship USS Arizona,

the most infamous sinking on that day.

Most ships sunk in the attack

were brought to the surface again.

Why not the Arizona?

[birds squawking]

Early Sunday morning, December 7th, 1941.

Ships of the US Pacific fleet

are in harbor.

America is not at w*r.

Unexpectedly...

Japanese bombers attack.

There is no warning.

[explosions]

That Sunday morning

I heard a very loud expl*si*n.

I turned the radio on

to see what was the cause of it.

They said the Japanese

have attacked Pearl Harbor.

NARRATOR: In under two hours,

Japanese bombing claims 2,400 lives...

and destroys or damages

over 300 planes and 20 ships.

The battleship Arizona explodes

with a deafening bang.

People said if you heard that expl*si*n,

you'd never forget it.

[loud expl*si*n]

[siren wails]

NARRATOR: Nearly half the casualties

that day were on the Arizona.

WEATHERWAX: Water was on fire,

and the whole area

was just black with smoke.

1,177 k*lled.

These are all young people.

They went to bed and never got up.

NARRATOR: Most of the fleet was salvaged

and repaired to fight in the w*r.

The Arizona remains where she sank...

a memorial for visitors standing over her.

She lies in shallow water.

A w*r grave.

HANS VAN TILBURG: The way

the ship is settling into the mud...

There are bubbles coming up,

the ship is creaking and groaning.

It's a little bit spooky at times.

NARRATOR: After the attack,

the US Navy attempted to recover

all the other ships.

But not the Arizona.

If we could drain the sea

from Pearl Harbor,

would we discover why they

didn't refloat this great battleship?

Now, using the most recent survey data,

we can drain Pearl Harbor.

For the first time,

we will see the drowned vessel

as she is today,

but this time, high and dry.

The fact-based,

high-resolution visualization

takes us to the crumpled bow...

and leads us to the answer.

An armor-piercing b*mb hit Arizona's

forward ammunition store.

It set off more than

a million pounds of gunpowder.

The damage is extraordinary.

The force sliced her hull in two.

PAWLOWSKI: Down by the forecastle, where

the blast literally blew the bow off,

there's a crack about as wide as my fist

that starts on the edge of the vessel

and goes clear down to the keel.

TILBURG: The crack that runs

through the entire ship

and down the sides of the hull,

that's major structural damage

to the vessel,

which is why they gave up

the thought of bringing that ship up.

NARRATOR: Now Pearl Harbor is drained

of water, it's clear for all to see.

USS Arizona remains on the bottom

because the break in her hull is too big

for her to be repaired or floated.

As the ocean rushes away

outside the harbor,

the sight of another, bigger mystery

is about to be uncovered...

one that was poised to rewrite history.

Did the Japanese really fire

the first shot on December 7th, 1941?

[g*n blast]

Over an hour before

Japan's surprise attack,

an American destroyer claims

it fired on a Japanese submarine

and sank it.

If true, then the United States,

not Japan, fired first in the Pacific w*r.

The submarine vanishes.

No general alarm is raised.

The authorities think the crew

of the USS Ward must be mistaken.

The men cannot prove they hit anything.

TILBURG: In those days,

right before this impending conflict,

there had likely been

a number of false sightings.

The report that the Ward made

went as another potential sighting

that they couldn't follow up on.

NARRATOR:

Did the Ward sink an enemy submarine

over an hour before the shock attack?

The only way to be sure

is to find that sub.

NARRATOR:

In the '90s, submersible pilot Terry Kerby

set out to find the submarine.

TERRY KERBY: There it is.

NARRATOR: For his team

from the Hawaii Undersea Research Lab,

the mission turned into a marathon.

Luckily, their high-tech craft

can dive deep.

KERBY: Pisces V is capable

of diving to 2,000 meters

and a normal dive

usually lasts about eight hours.

You usually launch at 8:00 in the morning

and it's back on deck by 5:00 p.m.

NARRATOR: The hunt for a Japanese sub

supposedly sunk over an hour before

the air attack on Pearl Harbor

proved harder than expected.

CHRISTOPHER KELLEY:

What we found was that there was

a great deal of objects

that could have been the submarine.

We actually wound up with something

like 37 different possible targets

that could be the Ward m*dget sub.

[indistinct radio chatter]

NARRATOR: Terry had

no accurate position data from 1941,

but w*r records confirm

two-man Japanese mini subs

were secretly trying

to sneak into Pearl Harbor.

DELGADO: The idea was to launch them

as if they were tiny, little hornets

buzzing out of a nest.

Carrying two torpedoes, they could

dart in and out of a main battle line,

fire their torpedoes, come back,

recharge their batteries, be reloaded

and go and fight again.

NARRATOR: Months turned into years.

Did USS Ward truly hit

a Japanese submarine?

Eventually, evidence looms into sight.

[inaudible radio chatter]

About 30 meters north of the target.

KERBY: That was an exciting day.

After ten years, finally coming across

and in perfect condition.

It just connects you with that history.

KELLEY:

When we found it, it was just elation

and then the next part was

there's two people inside of it.

Then it became a little bit...

more emotional,

just thinking about what had happened

and what their final moments were like.

NARRATOR:

Is this the sub they've been looking for?

Silt on the sea floor is easily disturbed.

Only glimpses of the sub are seen.

If we could drain the sea

outside Pearl Harbor...

could we see the submarine

in precise detail

and cast light on evidence

confirming the Ward's claim?

Now, combining the very latest

visual video and sonar data...

we can pull the plug on the Pacific Ocean.

We can view Terry's find from any angle.

We can examine it in unexpected detail.

After decades on the bottom,

the Japanese m*dget sub

is amazingly intact.

And on its right side,

there's a four-inch hole...

exactly where the American destroyer Ward

reported hitting her.

This remarkable discovery

settles the argument.

KELLEY:

We could confirm to the Ward survivors

that they did indeed sink that submarine,

which was very, very important.

That submarine would have probably

gotten into the harbor

if they hadn't sunk it.

That was the first shot fired in anger

by the United States in the Pacific w*r

and it sank that m*dget sub

in more than 1,000 feet of water.

NARRATOR:

The US Navy did engage a hostile sub

off Pearl Harbor over an hour

before the first bombs fell.

Yet no alarm was raised on the island.

After the w*r, the US Congress

found the attack on the sub

should have been recognized as

the immediate basis for an all-out alert.

DELGADO: To what extent would

the United States Armed Forces

have been able to respond is hard to say.

People would hope they would.

NARRATOR:

Japan's shock as*ault on Pearl Harbor

changes the direction of World w*r II.

Its ally, Germany,

declares w*r on the USA.

More ships are sunk.

If we were able to peel back

the layers of water

and drain the Atlantic Ocean,

we would discover

the German battleship, Bismarck,

built to be unsinkable.

ERIC GROVE:

Bismarck was designed to take hits,

but sinking her

was another matter altogether.

NARRATOR:

Draining Bismarck for the first time

sheds light on the question,

"What sank Germany's largest battleship?"

At launch, Bismarck is

Germany's biggest ever warship.

Her crew numbers over 2,000 men.

Eight massive, 15-inch g*ns

can fire shells weighing almost a ton

24 miles.

Her first mission,

destroy British convoys in the Atlantic.

[horn blows]

May 24th, 1941...

HMS Hood, pride of Britain's Royal Navy,

launches an attack on the Bismarck.

Western Approaches Command,

Britain's secret naval center,

plots the battle.

GROVE: This took place

in the Denmark Strait here,

as the German ships were

coming out of this passage

between Greenland and Iceland.

Bismarck fires very accurately,

the Hood is hit in one

of her Achilles' heel areas,

her magazine blows up...

In fact, she blows up

virtually from end to end.

NARRATOR: Hood's crew of 1,418 men

are all k*lled, save three.

The loss

of the Royal Navy's iconic warship

reaches British Prime Minister Churchill.

His order goes out...

"Sink the Bismarck."

The Royal Navy would not let her get away.

NARRATOR:

Over 50 British warships race after her.

Bismarck finishes almost 16,000 feet down.

She was hit many, many times.

If you look at the wreck today,

the number of holes in that wreck

is quite remarkable.

NARRATOR: If we could drain the ocean,

would we see what finally sank the ship

that was meant to be unsinkable?

NARRATOR:

Today, state-of-the-art underwater surveys

allow us to pull the plug on the ocean

and drain the Atlantic itself.

Trillions of gallons of seawater disappear

to reveal long-hidden secrets.

For the first time, we expose Bismarck

lying three miles down.

Seeing her in this unique light

uncovers an astonishing question.

Did the British send her to the sea floor?

Or did the Germans sink their own ship?

May 26th, 1941.

The British have been

desperately searching for Bismarck.

Finally, planes from

aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal

get her in their sights.

They attack with torpedoes.

One makes a lucky strike.

GROVE: It hit on the stern,

the very weak point of even

the most powerfully apt battleship.

NARRATOR:

Now Bismarck's wreck is plain to see,

we can examine in forensic detail

the torpedoes' crippling blow.

One of Bismarck's two rudders is buckled,

damaging the steering gear.

The other rudder is blown off altogether.

Unable to steer, there is no escape

as the British fleet close in

for the k*ll.

JURENS::

The captain knew within five minutes,

if he didn't have rudders,

he was in big trouble.

GROVE: She was very much a sitting duck.

The British are able to open fire on her

and they just keep hitting her.

NARRATOR: In the clear light of day,

for the first time in over 70 years,

Bismarck's damage can be seen by all.

Relentless British shelling

destroys her g*ns and crew.

More torpedoes hit...

tearing into sections of the hull.

Parts of the ship begin

to fill with water.

JURENS: The ones that really hurt were

the larger ones from the surface ships.

They made fairly substantial holes

and probably significant flooding in.

[g*n blast]

NARRATOR:

After constant attack from dusk till dawn,

the unsinkable Bismarck goes down.

Her sinking starts a controversy.

GROVE: The classic question about

the sinking of the Bismarck is,

did British sink her

or did her own crew sink her?

Was she scuttled or was she sunk?

NARRATOR: If Bismarck was sunk

solely by British shells,

water would only flood the areas they hit.

As Bismarck went down,

undamaged sections full of air

would collapse under pressure.

Her hull would soon crush.

But the true-to-life

data-based visualization

shows Bismarck isn't crushed.

There were no large pockets of air.

Careful examination reveals

torpedo damage weakened some hull plates.

Water inside the ship

burst more plates outwards

when she hit the sea floor.

Evidence Bismarck was completely flooded.

Her crew had deliberately let in water.

They helped sink their own ship.

JURENS: The crew really had

no choice whatsoever.

They were going to be faced with an action

where they were going to be

sunk by the Royal Navy.

GROVE: They knew they were going to die.

The only thing they could do honorably,

other than surrender

which wasn't honorable,

was to sink themselves,

so they completed the process.

Both sides can take a certain amount

of pride, I think, in this.

She was scuttled

and she was sunk, together.

NARRATOR: The Germans turn

to more secret operations.

World w*r II's battle of the Atlantic

grows fiercer.

Along America's east coast,

hundreds of American wrecks

sunk by Germany scatter the seabed.

JOE HOYT:

This is an American b*ttlefield.

It's right in our backyard

and it's really not well-known.

NARRATOR:

How did the enemy mount secret attacks

3,000 miles from German bases?

To answer this,

we drain the seas off North Carolina.

Cape Hatteras,

on the USA's Eastern Seaboard.

Coastal merchantmen travel along

shipping lanes close to shore.

In early 1942, this area attracted

n*zi U-boats in search of easy targets.

DELGADO:

It was a spot where, because of shoals,

ships would have to slow down

and, as large amounts of traffic moved

during World w*r II,

it was a point well-known to the Germans,

where they could congregate,

wait and just start sh**ting.

NARRATOR:

Today, maritime archaeologist Joe Hoyt

searches for the many ships

the U-boats sank.

His side-scan sonar maps the seabed.

Overhead one time.

HOYT: Basically, what this is,

is there's two channels on either side.

These are transducers that are sending out

an active sonar sound wave

and creating an image of the bottom.

Right now,

we're gonna go off the back deck,

we're gonna deploy it in the water,

pay it out,

let it settle out behind the boat

so it can actually start

running the survey.

All right, let's start paying out,

pay out.

NARRATOR: The survey is searching

for evidence over 70 years old.

The sonar penetrates right to the bottom

of the shipping lanes.

Now we're set up, it's collecting data.

So right now we're seeing

this is an actual image of the seabed

and as you can, there's not much here.

It can be tedious, but it all pays off

when you come across something

that you've never seen before.

Rudder at midships.

NARRATOR: Joe's detailed survey

will allow us to peel back the water,

revealing how U-boats sank

so many ships without being caught.

Imagine pulling the plug on the ocean.

The waves of the US East Coast drain away.

Vanishing waters expose a ship

sunk by a German U-boat.

After more than 70 years on the seabed,

she is brought into the light of day.

This is the Dixie Arrow,

an unarmed merchant vessel.

Her cargo, 86,000 barrels of oil.

A crew of 33.

This unique photograph shows her

after being torpedoed.

Eleven men died.

Dixie Arrow was one of many.

In six months,

German U-boats sank nearly 400 ships

off the east coast of the US.

[explosions]

Twenty-five off Cape Hatteras alone.

They took roughly 5,000 lives.

HOYT: The first ships started sinking

in January of 1942.

There was a large,

four-month window period

where it was just annihilation.

NARRATOR: Accurate sonar data allows

draining to continue along the coast.

It exposes a German submarine...

U-701.

We can see her as she is

on the seabed for the first time.

This sub alone sank or damaged

nine ships in under two weeks.

How did U-boats manage

to attack so many vessels

without being caught?

Most Americans weren't even aware

of the fact that the enemy

was literally just off the beach.

NARRATOR: To prevent panic,

authorities banned news of attacks

on America's doorstep.

They didn't order blackouts.

At night, lighthouses and town lights

gave U-boats a clear view of ships.

DELGADO: The Germans remarked

they could see the ships silhouetted

in the offshore lights,

making it very easy to just

simply start mowing them down.

NARRATOR: For six months,

the U-boats continued their attacks.

HOYT:

You've got oil washing up on the beach.

In some instances, there's actual bodies.

It really had an enormous impact,

not only on the materials

that were being moved,

but in the psyche of the Americans

on the home front.

NARRATOR:

Only by luck were U-boats ever found

and sunk in the shallow

coastal waters by day.

The disappearing waters

reveal the U-boat's secret.

They used the geography of America itself.

Off Cape Hatteras, the sea bottom

drops away sharply, close to the coast.

Germans could quickly run to hide

in the deeper ocean.

HOYT: The U-boats would hunt all night,

and as sunrise came,

they would move out into deeper water,

where they could remain safe

from counterattack during the day.

NARRATOR: Eventually, the US Navy

mobilized coastal air patrols,

ending the threat to merchant shipping.

On July 7th, 1942,

U-701 was attacked by a plane.

Of its 43-man crew, only seven survived.

World w*r II escalates as the US joins

the fight to liberate mainland Europe

in the largest amphibious invasion

in history.

DELGADO: The fierce fighting

left an incredible record on the bottom.

It is a vast b*ttlefield

lying just off those beaches.

NARRATOR: Three miles off the coast

of Northern France,

our data-based visualization

of the sea floor

uncovers tanks ready for battle.

Why are tanks out at sea?

By June 1944,

Southwick House in England

is the scene of intense planning.

The Royal Navy's lead historian

studies the most ambitious invasion

of World w*r II,

known as D-Day,

masterminded within these walls.

STEPHEN PRINCE:

That is the actual map that was looked at

by Eisenhower

and all the Allied commanders

in this very room,

the operations room for D-Day.

There are five channels

and that is the channels

that are safe for the invasion forces

to go through.

[siren wails]

NARRATOR: 5,000 Allied ships carry men

and machines towards Normandy.

It's the biggest armada in history.

To defeat the Germans in Europe,

the invasion must have access to France.

Seas are rough.

Beaches are heavily defended.

[explosions and automatic g*nf*re]

Since World w*r II,

the sea of the D-Day landing beaches

has attracted marine archaeologists.

Chris Howlett is the former head

of the UK's Seabed Data Center.

Specialists in underwater mapping.

He took part in a survey

of 50 miles of Normandy coastline.

The results were more than he expected.

[electronic beeping]

HOWLETT: Within that area,

we found about 600 targets, if you like.

600 objects on the sea floor.

600 targets is probably ten times

what you would kind of expect

on a normal coast.

NARRATOR: Most surprisingly,

they discovered a tank battalion.

Why are there tanks on the seabed

off the coast of France?

NARRATOR:

Today's latest scientific surveys

uncover secrets beneath the sea

in a totally new way.

Processing data from two-and-a-half miles

off D-Day invasion zone, Omaha Beach,

the water is peeled back...

to reveal a most unexpected wreck...

an American tank.

A Sherman from

the US 741st Tank Battalion.

Its 75-millimeter g*n faces forward,

ready to fire.

This tank never joined the battle

for the beach.

And it's not alone.

Other tanks lie in a cluster nearby.

HOWLETT: The cluster's

probably about a kilometer across.

To find 20 or 30 tanks

in such a confined area

is actually quite an amazing event.

NARRATOR: Most of the tanks are upright.

None seem to have been hit by shells.

Tanks were sent to help infantry

take the beach.

Why are these out at sea?

Close examination of the images

shows these are no ordinary Sherman tanks.

They have a surprising modification.

Between the tracks are two propellers.

These tanks can swim.

PRINCE:

You've got these two strange propellers

driving off a cog system at the back

and they also have a large canvas screen

that is put around the tank

and that traps enough air to just

about give the tank positive buoyancy.

NARRATOR: Mechanical arms support

a waterproof screen,

or skirt, around the tank.

Now, this 33-ton tank can float.

Footage of secret trials

proves the amphibious Shermans

can cross smooth water.

They will travel over the English Channel

on special ships like this one,

a tank landing craft.

Unusually, the tanks were to deploy

two miles out at sea.

PRINCE: The captain of the ship

would attempt to turn his stern

into the weather,

so that he was trying

to create a small patch of

as calm as possible water

in front of the ramp.

The ramp would have to be lowered

and then the first tank would

have to drive off into the water.

ROBERT NEYLAND:

Just the craziest idea that you could

all of a sudden put a big skirt

around a tank

and propellers on it and it could

make its way like a boat to shore.

NARRATOR: So what goes wrong?

Now the sea has been digitally removed,

we find the amphibious tanks in a line,

stretching from their launch position

towards Omaha Beach.

It was not g*nf*re that sank these tanks.

It was high waves.

PRINCE:

Effectively, they've got roughly around

two feet's worth of clearance.

The waves on D-Day, anything up to

sometimes three or four feet.

NARRATOR: Water floods the tanks.

Twenty-seven out of 29 sink.

PRINCE: That's where you end up

with the pattern of wrecks

that we see on the seabed,

where the tanks have been lost,

either at launch

or as they foundered on their way in.

NARRATOR:

The loss of the tanks contributes

to the over 3,700 casualties

on Omaha Beach that day.

D-Day itself is a triumph.

The Allied forces seize the beaches.

Now they need to advance inland.

Reinforcements are ferried

from Britain to Europe.

Draining the sea further along the coast

reveals the tragic story

of one of the troop ships.

DELGADO: In a big ship full of guys,

when something bad happens, it's epic.

NARRATOR: 400 American soldiers drown

as this ship sinks.

With the water gone, a question arises.

Was there anything

that could have saved them?

NARRATOR: Winter, 1944.

Six months after D-Day.

The Belgian troopship, Leopoldville,

leaves Southampton, England.

She's carrying over 2,200

young American soldiers to France.

PRINCE: These are troops of a division

that hasn't fought before.

The majority of them would be

in their early 20s,

so the absolute vast majority of them

will have had no experience of combat.

NARRATOR: The Leopoldville never made it.

Around a third of those onboard died.

Today, her wreck lies

just north of Cherbourg,

Leopoldville's destination.

400 US soldiers drowned

only five miles from shore.

Why weren't more saved?

Early evening, December 24th.

The Belgian captain and crew

have Leopoldville within sight of land.

[expl*si*n]

A German U-boat torpedoes the ship,

k*lling at least 300 men.

The remaining 1,800 US soldiers

scramble on deck to await orders.

A British escort ship rescues

about half the survivors.

The rest wait for help

from the harbor nearby.

WILLIAM BOGGS:

We expected somebody to come out

and take the thing into tow.

We just stood there in our ranks,

waiting for somebody

to tell us to do something.

[expl*si*n]

NARRATOR:

A second expl*si*n rocks the ship.

It begins to sink.

The captain orders "Abandon ship."

His Belgian crew board the lifeboats.

The US soldiers

do not understand what to do.

PRINCE: There definitely is a level

of confusion amongst the crew

and the US troops

about the decision to abandon ship.

JOHN VITALI:

We had no instructions aboard ship.

Nothing that would aid in survival.

NARRATOR: As the Leopoldville sinks,

the young American soldiers have no choice

but to leap into the freezing water.

400 men drown before rescue arrives.

Survivors claim many died needlessly.

Will draining the sea

from the Leopoldville

shed light on their story?

As the waters disappear,

a dark secret is revealed.

The crew took the lifeboats,

but now, exposed for all to see,

unused life rafts called Carley floats.

Each simple float could take a dozen men

as soon as they're released.

Few were released.

The soldiers didn't know how to use them.

Still attached to the ship,

they couldn't save anyone.

BOGGS:

300 to 350 were k*lled by the torpedo.

The rest didn't have to die.

DELGADO: Sometimes what you see

on the bottom... is heartbreaking.

NARRATOR: Their sacrifice is not in vain.

Others finished their mission.

In May 1945, World w*r II in Europe ends.

Freedom returns.

Today, thousands of wrecks

remain beneath the waves...

silent witness to the struggle

and slaughter of the past.

Memorials to a generation

that gave us their lives.