Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00♪♪♪
00:10♪♪♪
00:20♪♪♪
00:30♪♪♪
00:40♪♪♪
00:50♪♪♪
00:55And now, beneath the Southern Cross.
01:00♪♪♪
01:06Somewhere in the South Atlantic.
01:09Somewhere in the majestic waters which separate the continents of Africa and South America,
01:13a German submarine keeps a secret rendezvous.
01:17With supplies exhausted after weeks of preying on Allied shipping,
01:21the U-Boat makes contact with a supply submarine.
01:24A milk cow, from which it will take on fuel, food, ammunition.
01:29Fattened and refreshed, fighting submarines range farther,
01:33strike oftener, hit harder without having to return to base.
01:37The South Atlantic is now a battleground.
01:41♪♪♪
01:51♪♪♪
02:01♪♪♪
02:11♪♪♪
02:21♪♪♪
02:31♪♪♪
02:41♪♪♪
02:51♪♪♪
02:58Ready to spread further havoc along the southern sea lanes,
03:01the German submarines are not alone.
03:04Through these waters runs Germany's only link with her Oriental partner.
03:08The Japanese Empire sends its submarines through the South Atlantic
03:12to demonstrate to blockaded Germany its loyalty to the common cause.
03:16Fascism.
03:18♪♪♪
03:38Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, the Chief of Submarine Warfare,
03:42himself extends Germany's warmest welcome
03:45to his Axis comrades in arms from the far Pacific.
03:48Hitler's Third Reich cordially embraces Hirohito's sailors.
03:53♪♪♪
04:20For the German Navy, war has come five years too soon.
04:25Hitler's admirals have long dreamed of a mighty surface fleet
04:28capable of sweeping Great Britain from the seas.
04:31But Adolf Hitler, impatient for his war,
04:34has not given his admirals time to build the Navy for which they hoped.
04:39The German surface ships consist only of two old battleships,
04:43ten cruisers, and three pocket battleships,
04:46which are the pride of the fleet.
04:49On the eve of the outbreak of war,
04:51Hitler summons the captain of his finest pocket battleship,
04:54the Graf Spee, and orders him to disrupt and destroy
04:57enemy merchant shipping by all possible means.
05:01The Graf Spee is superbly equipped for her mission.
05:04Brilliantly designed, she combines maximum hitting power
05:07with the greatest possible speed.
05:10With her 33 guns, her eight torpedo tubes,
05:13and a crew eager for blood,
05:15she heads for the South Atlantic to carry out her Fuhrer's orders.
05:20© BF-WATCH TV 2021
05:51© BF-WATCH TV 2021
05:54The cruise of the Graf Spee is wildly successful.
05:57Single-handed, she hunts down and murders
06:0050,000 tons of precious Allied shipping.
06:03As long as the Graf Spee is on the loose,
06:06no freighter within her enormous cruising range is safe.
06:09Let any merchant ship run afoul of her,
06:12and that ship is doomed.
06:21© BF-WATCH TV 2021
06:32Warning to stop is flashed to the helpless freighter.
06:35To avoid antagonizing neutrals early in the war,
06:39the German Navy holds fire until the crew is transferred
06:42from the ship marked for destruction.
06:50© BF-WATCH TV 2021
06:55© BF-WATCH TV 2021
07:16The menace of the Graf Spee overshadows the entire South Atlantic.
07:20But the hunter is being hunted.
07:22British cruisers, Exeter, Ajax, Achilles.
07:27After incessant search, bring the pocket battleship to bay.
07:53© BF-WATCH TV 2021
08:14The salvos of the Royal Navy win the day.
08:17They damage the Graf Spee, but they do not sink her.
08:21Crippled and far from base, the German runs for cover.
08:33In the port of Montevideo, in neutral Uruguay,
08:36the battered Graf Spee finds fleeting refuge.
08:39But two weeks are needed for repairs,
08:41and the international laws of neutrality
08:43rule she can remain a mere 72 hours.
08:46Night and day, the British cruisers patrol outside the harbor
08:49to prevent the Graf Spee's escape.
09:05Ashore, the Uruguayan government
09:07imposes the strict neutrality rules on the German crew
09:10and rejects the desperate pleas of their captain
09:12to extend the time limit.
09:15The Graf Spee is trapped.
09:17She cannot remain, cannot escape.
09:21On Sunday, December 17, 1939, the end comes.
09:26The Queen of the German Navy blows herself up.
09:30The Graf Spee commits suicide.
09:48But Axis warships are not alone in menacing the free world
09:51below the Tropic of Cancer.
09:53German interests, with their own newspapers
09:55and business organizations,
09:57ally themselves with the fatherland.
10:00The totalitarian trappings of German fascism
10:02are openly worshipped on South American soil.
10:18Fascism even threatens the Caribbean.
10:21At the island of Martinique,
10:23important units of the French fleet
10:25lie anchored after France surrenders to Germany.
10:28The United States must prevent the ruling Vichy sympathizers
10:31on the island from transferring these ships to the Germans.
10:34The United States Navy exerts pressure to thwart such a move,
10:38keeps the warships neutralized.
10:42Strategically located islands like Trinidad,
10:44crucial to the defense of the Panama Canal
10:46and the Atlantic coast,
10:48become ramparts which the Navy uses
10:50to keep the war from the shores of the Americas.
11:01Trinidad's naval operating base begins functioning in August 1941.
11:06When the United States enters the war,
11:08Trinidad is a keystone in the southern convoy system
11:11and anti-submarine warfare.
11:13Under Rear Admiral Hoover,
11:15commander of the Caribbean sea frontier,
11:17the Navy relentlessly polices southern waters.
11:21Trinidad is a keystone in the defense system
11:23and anti-submarine warfare.
11:25Under Rear Admiral Hoover,
11:27commander of the Caribbean sea frontier,
11:29the Navy relentlessly polices southern waters.
11:50♪
12:13There is another kind of killer loose
12:15beneath the southern cross.
12:17It is not the U-boat,
12:19not a warship,
12:21but a German raider disguised as a merchantman,
12:24stalking her prey by stealth and fraud.
12:27Her victims think her an innocent freighter,
12:30but this is the Atlantis,
12:32a ravager that hits suddenly from ambush,
12:34showing her true colors only when ready to kill.
12:37♪
13:04The Atlantis,
13:06a masked assassin of the sea,
13:08killer and mufti.
13:10Already she has slaughtered 20 ships,
13:12but she prowls for more.
13:14♪
13:29A fat prize, this one,
13:31a Greek merchant ship,
13:33her crew is brought aboard the raider
13:35and the boarding party is ordered to loot her provisions and cargo
13:38before sending her to the bottom.
13:40The lawlessness to be staged on her deck
13:43stems from the days of skull and crossbones,
13:46the days of piracy on the high seas.
13:49First the raider will exact her tribute,
13:52then she will destroy.
13:54♪
14:24♪
14:49♪
15:03♪
15:32♪
15:39But raiders do not robe the South Atlantic unchallenged.
15:42His Majesty's cruiser, Devonshire,
15:44sweeps far and wide to flush them out of these remote,
15:47vital waters which feed the world's major ocean arteries.
15:51♪
16:04From the observation plane comes the report
16:06of an unidentified ship in the area
16:08and the Devonshire changes course and speed to investigate.
16:12Is it friend or is it foe?
16:15The Devonshire must make sure before opening fire.
16:18The unknown ship maneuvers suspiciously
16:20and the cruiser is alerted for action.
16:22♪
16:47Suspicion grows into certainty
16:49as a check of intelligence reports indicates
16:51the ship may be the German raider known as Number 16.
16:55Secret recognition signals from the Devonshire
16:57bring only evasive response from the mystery ship.
17:00No doubt remains.
17:02This is no friend, no innocent freighter.
17:05This is the raider at last.
17:08♪
17:36♪
17:42End of Atlantis.
17:44Death of a raider.
17:46Devonshire cannot stay to rescue survivors.
17:49But wherever a German raider is,
17:51there also are German submarines.
17:54♪
18:10Hoping for combat but too late to catch the wary Devonshire,
18:13the U-boat finds herself faced with a mission far different.
18:17Rescue at sea.
18:19For surviving crewmen of the Atlantis
18:21and the captured Allied seamen from her victims,
18:23the providential appearance of the submarine means sudden salvation.
18:27♪
18:43♪
19:01With lifeboats in tow,
19:03the submarine heads toward a rendezvous with a supply ship
19:06which will take the survivors ashore.
19:08♪
19:21Halfway between Africa and South America,
19:24midway in the South Atlantic,
19:26Ascension Island,
19:28a barren slab of volcanic rock
19:30transformed by a freak of war into a militant center.
19:34American engineers transformed this isolated English possession
19:37into a hornet's nest for the enemy,
19:40a haven for friends.
19:42♪
20:02On Ascension's airfield,
20:04short-range American planes pause and refuel on their flights to Africa.
20:08And from Ascension, patrol planes wing out in both directions
20:12where the bulge of Africa and the bulge of Brazil
20:15squeeze the ocean together into the South Atlantic narrows.
20:18Here the hunt for U-boats is pursued in a monotonous, unrelenting manner.
20:23Here more submarines are destroyed than in any other comparable stretch of ocean.
20:28♪
20:49In Brazil there is a saying,
20:51Deus é Brasileiro.
20:53God is a Brazilian.
20:55Because he has favored the land so lavishly.
20:58In August of 1942,
21:00Brazil joins the Allies in fighting the aggression
21:03that imperils the two Americas alike.
21:05The navies of Brazil and the United States have long worked together.
21:09Under the overall direction of Vice Admiral Jonas Ingram,
21:12commander of the United States' Fourth Fleet,
21:15the resources, bases, manpower, and the training of the two great republics
21:19are pooled into one single, splendid, cooperative effort.
21:23♪
21:52♪
22:10♪
22:25Together the Brazilian and United States navies deny the South Atlantic to the Axis.
22:30The impact of sea power here is felt afar in the African desert,
22:34where 500 Sherman tanks convoyed safely through the narrows
22:38turn the tide of battle at El Alamein.
22:41Victory at sea in the South Atlantic means victory across the sea in North Africa.
22:47♪
23:04From bases like Natal, Cape San Roque, Recife, Fortaleza, Belém,
23:11bases on the bulge of Brazil,
23:13the Navy sends up its aircraft to scan the aquamarine waters of the Southern Hemisphere.
23:19The blimps are the first of their kind to cross the equator.
23:23Their steady, patient patrols add another dimension to convoy protection.
23:28♪
23:54♪
24:07The sky over Brazil, the sea off Brazil, and the earth that is Brazil.
24:15Remote from any front, deep in the valley of the Amazon,
24:19Brazilians harvest the product without which wars cannot be won.
24:23Rubber.
24:25Here in the far-off primeval forests,
24:27the first primitive steps are taken to shoe the wheels
24:30that one day will roll across Italy and France, and then to Germany.
24:35North America is the arsenal of democracy,
24:38but South America pours out her wealth to keep the arsenal spotless.
24:42♪
25:12And the convoys come through,
25:15bearing the wealth of the Southern Hemisphere.
25:18Refusing to pay one cent for tribute,
25:20but willing to spend millions for defense,
25:23the American republics have swept from the ocean highways of the South Atlantic their common foe.
25:29Spread wide across the sea,
25:31guarded by the might of nations which can fight side by side
25:34because they have learned to live side by side,
25:37the ships stream toward their goal.
25:40Allied victory.
26:10♪