For educational purposes
The Bismarck and Tirpitz were battleships of record breaking proportions, ultimate status symbols of the Third Reich and hunted by the Allies.
The Bismarck and Tirpitz were battleships of record breaking proportions, ultimate status symbols of the Third Reich and hunted by the Allies.
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00:00A new generation of battleships, ordered by Hitler to destroy the enemy at sea.
00:15They're huge, they're powerful, they're dangerous, they're bad.
00:20Monster ships, larger, faster and deadlier than anything else afloat.
00:26This piece is amazing. This is part of the belt armour of the Bismarck.
00:32Record-breaking vessels, engineered to be virtually unsinkable.
00:42What sort of ship is that that can survive the bomb that makes that? It's something else.
00:49This is the story of the rise and fall of Hitler's megaships.
01:02The biggest construction projects of World War II, ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:09Now they survive as dark reminders of the Führer's fanatical military ambition.
01:15These are the secrets of the Nazi megastructures.
01:26November 1944, the Arctic. The Nazi's single largest weapon, the Tirpitz, is under attack.
01:35Feuer, Anton! Feuer, Bruno!
01:4128 Allied bombers drop their six-ton loads.
01:47Oh, shit! Shit, help!
01:50The 1,700 men on board are relying on the engineering of this enormous ship to save their lives.
02:00The remnants of that mighty battle still litter this Norwegian fjord.
02:05Wow.
02:09Now, that is a hefty chunk of metal. That has got to come from the Tirpitz.
02:16It's quite exciting to touch that.
02:20I'm touching, really, a ship that no longer exists.
02:24It's like cast-iron proof that that mythical beast did exist.
02:30Battlefield archaeologist Dr. Tony Pollard is exploring the final resting place of the Tirpitz.
02:37And for the first time ever, documentary cameras will reveal what remains of Hitler's megaship.
02:44The remains of the Tirpitz still lie on the bottom of this fjord.
02:48It's a massive wreck.
02:51It's a massive wreck.
02:55The remains of the Tirpitz still lie on the bottom of this fjord.
02:59She was the last of Hitler's megaships.
03:02But even as a solitary vessel, she posed a massive threat to the British.
03:06And the Royal Navy made her their number one target and would stop at absolutely nothing to hunt her down.
03:15The story of Hitler's megaships begins over four years before the outbreak of World War II.
03:22In 1935, Nazi Germany is on the rise, and Hitler has plans for world domination.
03:31He's building up all of his armed forces, but the area where he's weakest is at sea.
03:39Hitler's navy is just a fraction of the size of its European rivals.
03:44The limitations on the size of the German navy goes back to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919,
03:49the end of the First World War, when Germany's military machine is massively reduced.
03:54And the whole point about that is to make sure that Germany can never do it again.
03:58But of course, when Hitler comes to power in 1933, he starts to tear that agreement up.
04:04And the Allies are really powerless to do anything about it.
04:09Hitler wants to build a navy to show the world the extreme power of the Third Reich.
04:14But turning his vision into reality will be a Herculean task.
04:20Hitler's understanding of the navy is very limited indeed.
04:22He likes to think of himself as this great military leader, but actually his military training goes so far as what he's achieved in the First World War,
04:29which is rising to the rank of corporal.
04:32Naval matters? No, this is something he's not tuned into at all.
04:36The man Hitler turns to is Admiral Erich Raeder.
04:40A veteran of naval battle strategy, Hitler is relying on him to revolutionize the German navy.
04:49Show me what you have got here and how you've prepared it.
04:52Raeder imagines that any future warfare is going to be much like his experiences of the First World War,
04:57where large numbers of heavily armed, heavily armored capital ships, surface ships, are banging sticks rounds out of each other,
05:05hurtling shells across large mileage of ocean and seeing if you can knock one out of the water.
05:11It's not more complicated than that.
05:14Raeder's master plan requires the biggest battleships the world has ever seen.
05:19He delivers the first blueprints for his fleet.
05:22Two enormous battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz.
05:27To keep up with other navies, these two battleships will be 50,000 tons each.
05:36The mere threat of these ships will be enough to deter the British, should the need arise.
05:48The Tirpitz and the Bismarck, which are the two big battleships that Germany is building in the 1930s,
05:53are larger, longer than anything the British have, and indeed the French.
06:00Bismarck and Tirpitz are so big, very few shipyards have the infrastructure to build them.
06:06One is Blom & Voss in Hamburg.
06:14Military engineering specialist Mike Pavelek is exploring the site, which is still an active shipyard today.
06:23Although it's completely covered over now, this is the exact spot where slipway number nine was,
06:30where Blom & Voss built the Bismarck.
06:33Imagine, if you will, a sloping slipway running from about here to the edge of the water, about 300 meters,
06:41where they laid the keel in 1936.
06:44This is so exciting. This is where they physically built the Bismarck.
06:53A veritable forest of steel girders and cranes lined the slipway.
06:58They acted as sort of a scaffolding as parts and pieces were brought in to build the ship.
07:04It looked a lot like an open hangar.
07:07Both ships will be over 800 feet long, nearly 120 feet wide and 18 stories high.
07:15Remnants left from their construction can still be found today.
07:19This piece is amazing. This is part of the belt armor of the Bismarck,
07:24the armor plating that went outside the hull to protect it in critical areas.
07:29This piece was left over after the war it was found and here it sits today.
07:35That's an enormous hunk of steel.
07:38The Bismarck's armored plating is designed to withstand an explosive charge of 550 pounds of TNT.
07:45It's incredibly well-armored. It's the best armored battleship the world's ever known.
07:50And there is certainly a case that the Germans over-engineered their battleships,
07:55just as they over-engineer everything.
07:58Admiral Rader wants his ships to be unsinkable.
08:01Firstly, his designers create super-strength double-layered hulls.
08:08The double-hull construction means that there's an outer layer of metal
08:11as well as an inner layer of metal.
08:14The outer hull can take damage as long as the inner hull remains intact.
08:19To survive torpedo attacks, shell fire and aerial bombardment,
08:24they each boast 22 watertight compartments to isolate internal flooding.
08:30The watertight compartments are designed so that if the ship takes a hit that penetrates,
08:36that section can be sealed off so that the rest of the ship doesn't flood
08:39and it still stays afloat and viable as a weapons platform.
08:48In February 1939, just as soon as the first hull is finished and the ship can float,
08:54Hitler takes the PR opportunity to launch it.
08:5760,000 spectators turn up to watch the naming of Hitler's first megaship.
09:27The point is, for Hitler, the Bismarck is about prestige. It's a status symbol.
09:42It's saying, I've got the biggest warship in the world.
09:46Just six weeks after the launch of the Bismarck, Hitler launches his second super-weapon, the Tirpitz.
09:58When Hitler looks at the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, what he's seeing is an image of his prestige.
10:09They're kind of huge, they're powerful, they're dangerous, they're bad.
10:13It is a projection of his own power and authority.
10:17Hitler's two new megaships are afloat. Soon, they'll be ready for war.
10:28Hitler is delighted with the progress of his new naval strategy.
10:33But Bismarck and Tirpitz are just the beginning of Raeder's plan for the German navy,
10:38a vision he sets out in a manifesto known as the Z-Plan.
10:45The Z-Plan was a plan to enlarge the German navy massively.
10:52Raeder was thinking about making the German navy into a means of world domination.
11:01The Z-Plan, in terms of battleships, is a series of even bigger, better versions than the Bismarck and Tirpitz.
11:09The first one is the H-39, and that's around 55,000, 60,000 tons and around 265 meters long, with even bigger guns.
11:18Raising the stakes, the H-42 weighs in at over 90,000 tons and stretches to over 1,000 feet in length.
11:27And the final one is the H-44, which is absolutely ginormous.
11:32I mean, it's 155,000 tons, it's getting on for 400 meters long.
11:36It's got guns that are going to be 508 millimeters in diameter.
11:40To put that in some perspective, you know, probably the biggest field gun that the Allies are using is 210 millimeters in the Second World War.
11:47So, you know, you're talking something that's absolutely enormous.
11:51The total cost is estimated at over 33 billion Reichsmarks.
11:55But on completion, Germany would have the most potent navy in the world.
12:01Germany should be the greatest power on Earth, and therefore it simply needed also not only the largest buildings, but also the largest battleships,
12:11as symbols of power, of the sheer might of Germany.
12:18But not even Hitler's biggest shipyards have the infrastructure to accommodate vessels of this size.
12:27This is the biggest dry dock I've ever seen in my life.
12:32The Nazis' solution is to build Elbe 17.
12:36Located a short distance from where the Bismarck is being fitted out in Hamburg, it's one of the largest dry docks ever built.
12:43It's 350 meters long, it's 60 meters wide, and it's 14 and a half meters deep.
12:49The ship behind me is a good example of the size and scale of the battleships that Hitler wanted to build during the Second World War.
12:59Hitler grants Raider unlimited resources to accelerate naval expansion, but on one condition.
13:05He wants his new ships fast.
13:08I can't have them ready before 1948, no earlier, mein Führer.
13:13No, that's not good enough, Admiral. I need them by 1944.
13:17If I can build the Third Reich in six years, then the navy can surely build these six ships in six years.
13:26And the reason for Hitler's impossible demands is soon evident.
13:30In September 1939, Germany invades Poland.
13:38The response from the West is faster than Hitler anticipated, and Raider's plans are in trouble.
13:47Britain and France do declare war, and suddenly the Second World War has started.
13:51And this throws all the plans for the Z-Plan and for future rearmament into some disarray.
13:58So he parks the Z-Plan for a bit, because at the moment the more immediate goal is the defeat of France,
14:04which is predominantly going to be done by air and land power, not by naval power.
14:09With the Z-Plan on hold, the priority for Raider is to get the Bismarck and Tirpitz into battle.
14:28Big ships need big guns.
14:32If the British have 15-inch guns, then the Bismarck has to have them.
14:37We cannot have ships that are smaller in any way.
14:41Hitler's demanding big guns for a very simple reason, that bigger guns means you should always be able to outgun your enemy.
14:48So if your enemy can only fire a shell, say, 12 miles, but you can fire a shell 14 miles,
14:54then you've got a two-mile advantage where they won't be able to hit you.
14:58Summer 1940, and Hitler's land battles are a success.
15:03Nazi Germany has control over most of Western Europe.
15:07It's good news for Raider. Ten months after being put on hold, his Z-Plan can be revived.
15:14There was only one enemy left for Germany in Europe, and that was Britain.
15:19And since Britain was a major naval power, this was the chance for Raider to revive his Z-Plan,
15:28to build up a great, powerful, strong German fleet to press Britain into defeat.
15:38With over 80 battleships and 500 U-boats, we could beat any navy in the world.
15:48America, Great Britain, Japan.
15:52No longer are we talking about eight aircraft carriers, we're talking about 20, we're talking about 80 battleships.
15:57The world seems to be at their feet. They're confident, they're overexcited.
16:03They're basically like kids in a sweet shop.
16:06The Z-Plan is back on, as the first of Hitler's megaships is ready to put to sea.
16:13The battle for the Atlantic is starting to really build momentum,
16:17and finally the Bismarck is ready, this huge battleship, the world's largest battleship,
16:22with all its enormous firepower.
16:23And there is a real sense of confidence and anticipation that it's going to go out into the Atlantic
16:29and really make a huge impact.
16:32On the 18th of May, 1941, the Bismarck sets out on her maiden mission,
16:38under the command of Admiral Lutyens.
16:42Codenamed Exercise Rhine, her task is to attack the Atlantic convoys supplying Britain
16:48with the essential materials it needs to keep fighting.
16:53When a Bismarck goes to sea, the British are absolutely determined to sink it come what may.
17:04And it's not just because they're fearful of its potential as a weapon,
17:11but it's also because they know what a prestigious scalp it'll be if they sink it.
17:16The Bismarck is soon hunted down by ships from the Royal Navy,
17:19spearheaded by HMS Hood, the pride of the British fleet.
17:32The Bismarck and Hood engage in heavy gunfire.
17:36This German footage shows the Bismarck's massive 15-inch guns firing at the Hood
17:42from a distance of nearly 10 miles.
17:50The Bismarck sinks the Hood, with a direct hit.
17:54HMS Hood is possibly the most famous ship in the Royal Navy.
17:58It's one of the most famous battleships in the world.
18:01HMS Hood is possibly the most famous ship in the Royal Navy.
18:05More so than its battleships, more so than its aircraft carriers.
18:09It's the one ship that everybody knows in Britain.
18:13So to sink it with one shell is a terrible, terrible blow for the British,
18:19and a great coup for Raider.
18:22But Bismarck is damaged too.
18:24Now all available ships in the British fleet pursue the Bismarck, seeking revenge.
18:35After two days, planes from the British aircraft carrier Ark Royal intercept Hitler's megaship
18:43and target her with 18-inch torpedoes weighing 1,600 pounds.
18:49One finds its mark.
18:54The torpedo hit the Bismarck's Achilles heel.
18:58It detonated in the steering room at the rear of the vessel,
19:03flooding the steering room, thus locking the Bismarck's rudder,
19:09and this sealed the fate of this giant vessel.
19:15In Germany, Raider gets the news that Bismarck is doomed,
19:19as Lutyens orders his men to fight to the last shell.
19:25Send this to Admiral Lutyens.
19:31All our thoughts are with you and your ship.
19:39We wish you success in your desperate struggle.
19:55Facing the certain loss of the Bismarck,
19:59for Raider it was the best option for that vessel to go down with her flag flying,
20:04because it was simply the only way out, rather than to surrender the vessel to the enemy.
20:12On the 27th of May 1941, after nearly two hours of continuous bombardment,
20:18Hitler's largest battleship sinks on her maiden voyage.
20:22Close to 2,000 sailors are lost.
20:26For Hitler it's a PR disaster,
20:29and he holds Raider, as head of the navy, personally responsible.
20:34It is pointless having such a ship as Bismarck at the bottom of the sea.
20:42What is the point of having a capital ship like this? Tell me!
20:47Are they completely useless?
20:51We can only win the war on the sea by being bold, my Fuhrer.
20:57What do you mean, bold? Who do you think you are talking to?
21:02Hitler has lost faith in Raider and his Z-plan.
21:06The H-class of ships are cancelled, and all materials sent to build U-boats.
21:13But Hitler still has one megaship at his disposal.
21:21He orders the Tirpitz to take up a key strategic position in Norway.
21:35Norway is important to Nazi Germany for a number of reasons.
21:39It's a possible target for Allied invasion,
21:42and that's why the German Atlantic wall stretches all the way from the north of Norway down to the Spanish coast.
21:47But it's also very close to the route of the Arctic convoys,
21:53where the Royal Navy are escorting ships to Russia,
21:57taking vital supplies for the Russian war effort.
22:00And if the Germans are going to disrupt those convoys, they need to be in Norway.
22:05Hitler's plan for the Tirpitz soon starts paying off.
22:09Tirpitz didn't need to leave harbour to be a problem for the Royal Navy.
22:12The very fear of her presence was enough for them to throw extra resources into escorting convoys.
22:21And they were ships that could have been used elsewhere.
22:24This suits Hitler.
22:26He doesn't want to engage with the Allies.
22:29He can't afford to lose any more of the fleet.
22:32But on New Year's Eve 1942, against Hitler's orders,
22:36a German naval task force attacks an Allied convoy off Norway.
22:41Hitler is furious.
22:43His orders have been disobeyed.
23:10Your attack commercial convoys is strictly against my orders.
23:15My orders, Admiral!
23:21All capital ships will now be scrapped.
23:24Their guns and crews will immediately be sent to Norway to support coastal defence.
23:34Hitler's outburst is the final straw for Raeder.
23:37Humiliated by the scrapping of the Z-Plan and now faced with the dismantling of his naval fleet,
23:43he resigns.
23:46His ships are dismantled and their guns sent to bolster the Atlantic wall.
23:51But one ship is made an exception.
23:54The Tirpitz.
23:57Hitler has plans for his prized battleship.
24:01In March 1943, he sends it even further north.
24:05To lurk in an Arctic fjord.
24:08The Tirpitz spent 18 months anchored in Carfjord, just behind me here.
24:12And there are a number of reasons for that.
24:14One is that she's a huge ship and takes a lot of fuel to move.
24:18And there's not a lot of that going around.
24:20So she needs to conserve that.
24:22So she gets parked up.
24:24A fresh crew is posted to man the anchored megaship.
24:27One of more than 2,500 on board is 18-year-old Willibald Volzing.
24:35A newly trained gunnery officer, he has a vital role in protecting the ship.
24:46In Carfjord, Tirpitz now lurks.
24:50Like a dragon in her lair, she waits to take on her predators.
24:54And she won't have to wait long.
24:59In the summer of 1944,
25:02following the liberation of Leningrad and the successful D-Day invasions,
25:06the momentum of the war is firmly with the Allies.
25:11Unnervingly for the crew of the Tirpitz,
25:14the British now have her firmly in their sights.
25:18For Churchill, the British Prime Minister,
25:20the Tirpitz takes on a sort of huge importance to him.
25:24He calls it the beast.
25:26And it's not just a case of knocking it out because it's a dangerous weapon.
25:31It's a case of knocking it out because it's a huge psychological victory to do so as well.
25:35And he becomes absolutely determined that come what may,
25:38like the Bismarck, the Tirpitz has to be sunk.
25:43The Tirpitz is so well defended, the best way to attack it is from the air.
25:47But the Nazis come up with a revolutionary defensive tactic.
25:52Look at these things. They're amazing.
25:55Looks like some sort of prehistoric campsite.
25:59But these are the bases of the smoke-generating machines.
26:06And these are the cans in which there's some sort of propellant,
26:10all this white stuff, here it's burned,
26:12that pumps out clouds of very thick white smoke.
26:18And the idea is that it fills up the void of the fjord
26:22and hides the ship beneath it from enemy bombers.
26:26And it can fill that space down there, which is absolutely immense,
26:31in less than ten minutes.
26:33But there's a problem.
26:35It's all very well using these huge smoke canisters
26:38and surrounding yourself in a huge grey cloud so the enemy can't see you,
26:40but the flip side of that, of course, is that you then can't see your enemy either.
26:45To avoid being blinded by their own smoke,
26:48the Nazis exploit the location's rugged terrain.
26:52So what the Germans did was to emplace anti-aircraft guns
26:57on the tops of the cliffs, above the smoke,
27:00so that they can see the enemy aircraft.
27:02And here's one, very roughly made out of local stone,
27:05circular wall, but on top you can see that there is concrete.
27:13So these guns are set into a mount, and there's, look, can you see that?
27:18There's been some sort of mounting in there, in that circular recess.
27:22But these are ideally situated.
27:26You've got an incredible view in that direction and in that direction,
27:30so you'd see the enemy bombers coming from miles away.
27:33And there are several of these.
27:35There's one here, there's one just back there, and one even further back.
27:39So there's like a little fortress of them.
27:41This place is really heavily defended, protecting the ship down below.
27:50In September 1944, two squadrons of Lancasters,
27:55including the elite Dambusters,
27:57famed for their legendary raids on Germany a year earlier,
27:59set out from a refueling base in northwest Russia.
28:0421 of them are armed with a brand new weapon.
28:08The Tallboy was a bomb designed by the British
28:11to penetrate hardened targets,
28:14like concrete bunkers or ship's decks.
28:18When it was used, it could be dropped,
28:21and it would reach near supersonic speeds
28:24by the time it impacted on the ground.
28:25The 12,000 pound bomb was absolutely devastating.
28:33It was the perfect weapon to use against the Tirpitz.
28:46Oh boy.
28:48There's no mistaking this.
28:50This has got to be a bomb crater.
28:52Vast.
28:53I'm amazed at the size of it.
28:56You can see where the bomb has just driven itself
28:59into the mountainside
29:01and thrown up these massive splinters of rock.
29:09Oh wow.
29:19This is a bomb fragment,
29:20and it's by far the biggest bomb fragment I've ever seen.
29:24It's phenomenal.
29:29That is stunning.
29:31Look at the size of it.
29:36Solid steel.
29:38Look at it.
29:40It's curving away under the rock.
29:43And the thickness of it,
29:45it's the length of my fingers thick.
29:47This is from a Tallboy.
29:49It tells us that this crater was created by a Tallboy,
29:53and Tallboys were only dropped on one occasion here
29:56during Operation Paravane on the 15th of September 1944.
30:00That's incredible.
30:06On the Tirpitz,
30:08air raid sirens signal the approaching bombers.
30:18Young officer Willibald Wollsing recalled the moment in his memoirs.
30:23It was announced that 25 Lancaster bombers were heading directly for us.
30:28We took aim with our 15-inch guns and waited until they were in range.
30:33Fire, Anton!
30:35Fire, Bruno!
30:48Smoke from the defensive canisters fills the fjord
30:52and begins to cover the ship.
30:55From the deck of the Tirpitz,
30:57her guns unleash a barrage of fire
31:00as the first wave of Lancasters deploy their deadly cargo.
31:18Fire!
31:24One of 16 Tallboy bombs makes a direct hit on the Tirpitz.
31:29Willibald Wollsing recalls the impact.
31:32The bomb went through the entire front of the ship,
31:35but she was still afloat.
31:43Imagine the devastation it must have caused.
31:45It drove itself through the top deck all the way down to the bottom.
31:49It ripped a 40-foot wide hole in her side.
31:53Water spouting everywhere, dead men everywhere.
31:56But the thing is, it didn't sink her.
31:59It just wounded her badly.
32:01What sort of ship is that that can survive the bomb that makes that?
32:05It's something else.
32:07The incredible engineering of the megaship saves her.
32:11The watertight compartments and double hulls stop her sinking.
32:16But internally, the damage is catastrophic.
32:21It can't be repaired again. It's no longer seaworthy.
32:25All it's good for is being a kind of floating gun platform and nothing else.
32:30Its seafaring days are over.
32:32But the British don't know Tirpitz is out of action.
32:35To them, she's still a huge threat.
32:39And for the Nazis, that makes her worth saving.
32:42Engineers patch up the giant hole in the hull.
32:45And with the war going badly for the Nazis,
32:48Tirpitz sails south to protect the strategic port of Tromso.
32:53The Germans, in order to protect the ship,
32:56build up the sandbank underneath the ship to keep it safe
33:01so that if it is hit again, it will just simply settle rather than sink outright.
33:06The Tirpitz, by default, becomes part of the Atlantic wall.
33:11The Nazis might think Tirpitz is now unsinkable.
33:15But they've made a critical error.
33:17She's sailed straight into range of the RAF bombers operating from Scotland.
33:22And the Nazi mega-weapon is still their number one target.
33:26Determined to finish what they started,
33:29the British squadron set off for another attack on the Tirpitz.
33:55In Norway, the incoming bombers are detected.
33:59And the crew of the Tirpitz prepare to fight back.
34:09Evacuation of the Tirpitz.
34:12The Tirpitz is the largest ship in the world.
34:15It's the largest ship in the world.
34:18It's the largest ship in the world.
34:21It's the largest ship in the world.
34:24Everyone was in position when the bombers arrived overhead.
34:28But there was a problem with the automatic firing system.
34:32We couldn't track the planes with the guns and completely overshot.
34:36We didn't shoot one aircraft down.
34:43This is the actual footage of the Tallboy raid on the Tirpitz.
34:48The first bomb to drop is a direct hit.
34:52It rocks the ship.
34:55Within 90 seconds, nine 6-ton bombs explode on and around the vessel.
35:02On board it was total chaos.
35:05There were explosions going off all around us.
35:10Shockwaves from the exploding bombs in the fjord
35:13caused the Tirpitz to lurch to one side,
35:16dislodging her from the protective sandbank.
35:19Water rushes in,
35:22and the Tirpitz capsizes with 1,700 men on board.
35:28Lieutenant Volzing is one of hundreds of sailors trapped inside.
35:39We're on the exact spot where the Tirpitz capsized in 1944.
35:44If you'd been here 70 years ago,
35:46you'd have seen her huge hull stretching out in front of us
35:50like a massive whale on the surface.
35:53So all of this is material from the ship?
35:55Yes, all over here.
35:57She's turned over onto her side and onto her back,
36:00so a lot of the stuff that would have been high up in the superstructure
36:03would be pushed down into the mud.
36:05Into the seabed.
36:07Despite a salvage operation in the 1950s,
36:10close to 20% of the Tirpitz is still scattered across the bottom of the fjord.
36:16Now, for the first time,
36:18documentary cameras will reveal what remains of Hitler's single biggest weapon.
36:28This team of highly experienced divers specialize in wreck exploration.
36:41Today, nothing will be removed from what remains of the Tirpitz.
36:47Incredible.
36:49These mounds of wreckage are really incredible.
36:52It's just like some giant has taken the battleship and shaken it,
36:56and everything inside it has fallen to the bottom of the fjord.
37:00And that's what we're looking at now.
37:03There's loads of stuff there.
37:05Visibility is pretty good, actually.
37:08This is the 20mm anti-air grunt gun.
37:14These are shells with fuses on them. Look at it.
37:22Amazing.
37:24That's the pointy end of one of the projectiles
37:26that the big guns on the ship would have fired,
37:28in this case, from a long-range gun.
37:31And that's the pointy end of one of the projectiles
37:33that the big guns on the ship would have fired,
37:34in this case, 15-inch guns.
37:36Massive.
37:38They could fire between 20 and 30 miles.
37:40Incredible weapons.
37:42The ship had eight of them.
37:46Oh, here's cordite. Look.
37:48These are all cordite strips.
37:50This is explosive from the shells.
37:52This is the way it comes.
37:54It's almost like big thick sticks of spaghetti.
37:57And if you pulled that out of the water today and lit it,
38:01it would go off.
38:02It would ignite.
38:06In 1944,
38:08the situation was looking bleak
38:10for Volsing and the other survivors.
38:12We were clinging on to anything we could find,
38:15just to keep above the freezing water
38:17which was flooding in through every gap.
38:20It was soon up to our waists,
38:22and we knew there was now little chance
38:24of escaping the upturned ship with our lives.
38:27The heavy armor plating and thick steel hull
38:30that made the Tirpitz so fragile
38:32and so impregnable
38:34now trapped those still alive inside.
38:3930 minutes after the Tirpitz had capsized,
38:42only the upturned hull remained
38:44above the surface of the fjord,
38:46and the tide was rising.
38:49It's no use.
38:51We can't get out.
38:53We've tried everywhere.
38:57Most of the men are trapped alive on board,
38:59and a huge rescue operation
39:01gets under way immediately,
39:03and they're on the hull with blowtorches
39:05trying to get holes,
39:07and they can hear the men tapping on the metal.
39:18I had no idea
39:20there was that much material down there.
39:25Endless.
39:27The Tirpitz contained over 4,500 tons
39:30of cables, piping and machinery.
39:34Much of it was discarded during the salvage.
39:37It now litters the fjord,
39:39along with massive chunks of heavy armor.
39:43Wow, it's armor plating
39:45that's been cut up in the salvage operation
39:47but just dumped on the bottom.
39:49They've not taken it away.
39:51Look at it.
39:53Really thick steel plates.
39:57Wow.
40:01Cutting through this armor
40:03presented the only chance
40:05of rescuing the hundreds trapped inside.
40:10Hey!
40:12We're in here!
40:14Can you hear us?
40:16Desperately, they tried to give signal
40:18to the comrades outside
40:20that were smashing, hammering
40:22against the walls of the ship.
40:27Of the 1,700 crew members
40:29on board the Tirpitz,
40:31close to 1,000 perished.
40:44We've just found a book.
40:47That's phenomenal.
40:49Absolutely unbelievable.
40:51You can read the writing just perfectly.
40:53It looks like it's been down here
40:54for two days.
41:03You can actually see the word war.
41:05War?
41:07How fitting.
41:09I've just found
41:11what looks like part of a belt
41:13or a medal or something here.
41:16You can see now it's actually a button.
41:20I can see that.
41:22That's amazing.
41:25OK, put her gently back down
41:27and let's leave it there.
41:29It's really moving
41:31to see something that's personal
41:33and brings to light
41:35the human side of the story.
41:37I think it's very easy
41:39to get carried away
41:41with the mechanics
41:43and the engineering
41:45and the scale of this weapon.
41:47It's what the ship is.
41:49But there's a human side to this story.
41:51It's about men, individuals,
41:52and I think we need to respect that.
41:54This wreck needs to be preserved
41:56and remembered
41:58because it's a grave and it's a memorial.
42:00On the 12th of November 1944,
42:02the rescue mission continued into the night.
42:05Hurry! The water's rising!
42:20Thank God!
42:22Lieutenant Willibald Volzing
42:24was one of only 87 sailors
42:26rescued from the ship.
42:30The sinking of the Tirpitz
42:32marks the end of Hitler's naval aspirations
42:34forever.
42:36By the end of 1944,
42:38in the West,
42:40the Allies are advancing through Europe.
42:42In the East,
42:44the Soviets are pushing towards Berlin.
42:46And now both of Hitler's megaships,
42:48status symbols for the Third Reich,
42:50are underwater.
42:52Unfortunately, Hitler's megaships fail
42:54because there's just not enough of them
42:56and they're not supported
42:58either by other warships
43:00and, more importantly, by airpower.
43:02There's no aircraft carriers.
43:04And in the Second World War,
43:06you need battleships with airpower.
43:08That's something that the Nazis
43:10never, ever developed.
43:12Big ships are a thing of the past.
43:14War has been overtaken
43:16by airpower, by submarines.
43:18And it's no coincidence
43:20that aircraft played a key role
43:22in Hitler's success.
43:24After the war,
43:26Grand Admiral Raeder is sentenced
43:28to life imprisonment
43:30at the Nuremberg Trials
43:32for violating the Treaty of Versailles.
43:34Released early on grounds of ill health,
43:36he dies in 1960.
43:39Willibald Volzing returns
43:41to civilian life in Germany.
43:43The sinking of the Tirpitz
43:45draws to a close
43:47the era of Nazi megaships
43:49once and for all.
43:50When will such battleships
43:52rule the seas?