The War Archive: The Grey Wolves | U-Boats 1939-1941 (Volume 1)

A 1998 Chronos Productions War Documentary narrated by Brian Matthews.

This War Archive programs presents the most comprehensive and definitive archive of Germany's U-boats and their warfare strategies ever compiled as a series. These footage helps us understand the on-going battle between the hunter and the hunted beneath the cold gray waters of the North Atlantic. These programs depict the course of the U-boat's war throughout WW2 from footage taken by German cameramen. We look at the U-boat's important contribution to Germany's war effort, as the menace posed by these silent killers seemed insuperable.

Volume 1: The outbreak of war between Germany and the United Kingdom in September 1939 found the submarine arm of the Kriegsmarine unready for conflict. As a former submariner in the Great War Karl Doenitz was the vocal champion of the building of a large U-boat arm in the new German Navy but had to watch as the bulk of actual and planned naval re-armament after 1933 was directed towards the construction of a large surface fleet. He remained convinced that only a powerful U-boat arm could defeat Great Britain, the numbers available to him to set about this task in 1939 was paltry. In the first part of the war Germany thus conducted its submarine campaign against the UK with a limited number of boats. Nevertheless, Doenitz's 'Grey Wolves' were still able to inflict substantial losses on vessels carrying Britain's lifeblood, especially after May 1940 when occupation of ports on the French Biscay coast transformed Germany's strategic position and gave the submarines direct access to the Atlantic shipping lanes.

This film depicts the course of the U-boat war in it's initial phase in vivid images captured primarily by German cameramen with much being presented to the viewer for the first time. Aces such as Kretschmer, Prien and others are seen both at sea and being feted at home where they accorded the status of national heroes. Naval strategy, intelligence coups, tactics and equipment employed by both hunter and hunted, above and below the waves are examined in detail and also serves as a backdrop to coverage of the much wider U-boat war that emerged from late 1942.

Volume 2: https://rumble.com/v4v6ufb-the-war-archive-the-grey-wolves-u-boats-1942-1943-volume-2.html