british prime minister winston churchill famously remarked after the war that the u-boat was the only thing that truly scared him during the entirety of the conflict today just as then the very mention of the u-boats conjures up images of merciless steel killers stalking the oceans hunting unsuspecting merchant ships running the gauntlets laid down before them while the german luftwaffe lacked the power to bomb britain into submission the u-boats on the other hand threatened the country’s survival and by association the future

of europe free of nazi tyranny by strangling the vital supplies needed from north america to keep the country alive but the u-boat was not some near-mythical creature as it was portrayed by the allied media nor even was it a drone built to attack without consciousness it was a weapon platform manned by people who lived and worked inside it some fighting for their homeland some fighting for the fascist ideal itself what was it like for these men what conditions did they experience while on patrols that at times lasted months

in today’s episode we are going to climb inside the pressure hull of these metal sharks of the seas an attempt to better understand the conditions these men experienced welcome to wars of the world [Music] [Music] of all the u-boat classes fielded by the german kriegsmarine during world war ii the type 7c was without doubt the backbone of karl donat’s fleet with 568 examples completed and pressed into service a natural evolution of the earlier type 7b the sea had greater range which was of vital importance to the u-boat fleets if they were to

intercept allied convoys far out into the north atlantic where british canadian and later american aircraft initially struggled to reach them from their land bases these menacing machines displaced just 769 tons of water on the surface less than half that’s of a typical destroyer of the day and were only 67 meters long 6.2 metres wide and 9.

6 meters tall at the conning tower within this space some 50 crew members would have to live work and of course fight the allied navies that were in turn hunting them down but if this were not a tight squeeze already these figures are rather misleading in that they don’t translate into free space for the crew far from it almost every available space was filled up with something be it piping electrical equipments armaments and of course supplies for the long patrols to the main in the u-boat core it must have felt at times as though the

designers only included a crew as an afterthought but the u-boats wasn’t intended for pleasure cruises the u-boat was a ruthless weapon of war and as such comprised an armament of 14 21-inch torpedoes feeding the type 7 seas 5 torpedo tubes 4 forward and 1 in the bow carrying a powerful high-explosive warhead and capable of traveling in excess of 40 knots once a skilled u-boat commander had an enemy ship in its sights chances were that ship would take a hit and only the best protected warships could stand any chance of

surviving and if a single torpedo wasn’t enough no self-respecting u-boat captain would leave without firing a second and finishing the job for the merchant ships carrying the vital supplies to the war zone there was almost no chance of surviving being fired on however in the early days torpedoes weren’t the only weapon used by the u-boats as their crews often found that their quarry was so poorly protected they could use their 88 millimeter deck gun to dispatch them this did not last long however as the royal navy and the royal canadian navy

quickly organized their fleets to protect merchant ships in the proven convoy system facing destroyers with many times the firepower of their u-boats forced them to conduct submerged torpedo attacks almost exclusively save for very rare occasions striking almost without warning and then slipping away from the carnage they had inflicted with equal stealth however the u-boat was not perfect and its biggest weakness and one that would be exploited fully by the allies was that contrary to popular belief at the time they were not true

submarines in fact they spent most of their time on the surface only diving to attack an enemy vessel or to escape allied escorts and aircraft the reason for this was that their batteries which provided power for them to operate underwater had a relatively short lifespan before they drained requiring the u-boat to surface and run on their conventional diesel engines while they recharged but this of course exposed them to detection and attack from ships and aircraft if the u-boat was pursuing a target and required speed this battery life was

even shorter on the surface a u-boat was a poor warship lacking the guns to make a fight of it with the allies while being a poor sea keeper meant that it wasn’t agile enough to bring its torpedoes to bear like a torpedo boats thus while submerged a u-boat was the hunter but on the surface it was the hunted [Music] with every weapon wielded by warriors throughout history one thing has remained a constant and that is that every weapon is only as good as the person using it that person always needs to be strong and healthy and for that they need a

consistent nutritional diet to afford them the strength to be at their best on land the supply chain extends all the way to the front line from its source but for the u-boat crews there is no such luxury they only had what they could store on board before departing and this meant filling every nook and cranny with supplies needed to keep the men on board fed and watered for any period of time between 3 to 12 weeks sometimes longer depending on the operational requirements for their assigned patrol the crease marine

understood the importance of diet and in the typically nazi way enforced a strict regime designed to maintain the health and well-being of its crews they also understood the psychological benefits of their men receiving regular meals of good quality food it providing some comfort to break up the stress of long patrols and helps develop camaraderie as they shared meals together given the small crew size of a u-boat compared to surface ships many crew members had more than one job and so typically it was the u-boats navigator who found himself

doubling up as the quartermaster responsible for making sure the u-boat was well stocked before departure there was limited refrigeration on board for storing fresh foods and so generally these were consumed early into the patrol as was the supply of fresh bread after which the crews resorted to primarily tinned foods a u-boat galley where the food was prepared was seldom big enough for the cook to move from side to side and only ever featured the bare minimum of what was needed such as two to three hot plates an electric oven

a sink and some storage given the blandness of the tinned foods especially any cook who could in some way make the food more palatable was highly prized by u-boat captains typically providing the war didn’t interfere the crews enjoyed three steady meals a day with breakfast consisting of things such as coffee buttermilk soup biscuits hard bread with butter or honey and eggs soup would often make an appearance again at lunch but propped up with potatoes cooked meat and vegetables and a portion of fruit finally dinner or supper would see

sausages or canned fish served with cheese bread if it was available a hot drink and a ration of chocolate given the length of some u-boat patrols it was often impossible to store supplies for the entire duration and so they had to be replenished mid-voyage thus the germans initially employed resupply ships that would rendezvous with the u-boats at sea to restock them these ships at times operating out of spain that was officially neutral in the war but spanish authorities looked the other way when this became too dangerous the

germans employed a fleet of eu tankers designated as the type 14 but known to the u-boat crews as milk cow boats to speed up construction these vessels shared a great deal of commonality with the type 7c and 24 were planned although in the end only 10 were completed and all were lost during the war forcing regular u-boats to be taken off patrols to service the remainder resupply was undertaken on the surface at night with the aim of avoiding detection however by october 1941 allied aircraft were using radar to locate surfaced u-boats making

resupply at any time day or night an extremely dangerous and nerve-wracking experience u-boat crews worked through the day on a three-shift rotation each lasting eight hours with one shift sleeping another on duty and a third undertaking the miscellaneous tasks to maintain the u-boats one of the most important duties was standing watch in the conning tower scouring the area around them and keeping a watch for allied aircraft that were in turn hunting them during the summer months this was generally one of the more preferable tasks as it afforded

the men fresh air and sunshine but during the winter months it was among the most hated u-boats had notoriously poor sea keeping qualities on the surface and were rocked about even in the most mildly unsettled weather sitting low in the water the crews on watch were often drenched by waves that engulfed their u-boats while being swung from side to side at the top of the tower could make all but the most seasoned of sailors violently sick in fact seasickness was for many crews as much a threat as the enemy particularly

early in the war when the fleet was expanding rapidly and was forced to employ recruits straight out of basic naval training the rather raw crew of the u570 for example was so crippled by seasickness and so inexperienced including its captain that when they suffered only light damage from an attacking raf plane they surrendered to it the u-boat then being captured and pressed into royal navy service as hms graf returning from a stormy shift on watch offered little respite the men had almost no change of clothes and no way

to properly dry them meaning they were left to dry out naturally whilst continuing their duties the german navy did provide them with a special soap to try and wash the salt water from their skins but no fresh water could be wasted on cleanliness meaning early into a patrol the u-boat began to stink with the musk of body odour while the men’s faces would quickly sport facial hair as they were unable to shave the image of the u-boat crews in this manner seemed to fly in the face of those serving on surface ships with their immaculately

turned out uniforms and fresh clean shaved faces but they earned enormous respect as a consequence for thriving in such an unclean environment and having an incredible impact on the allied war efforts that far exceeded their size among the crew specialists such as radio men often operated outside of the main cruise shift pattern while those in charge of the torpedoes lived almost entirely in their compartments even sleeping there on bunks or hammocks with so much activity during their working hours sleep was always a cherished

commodity for the crew bunks were squeezed into the few spaces left available on the u-boats these often being around the central corridor meaning that sleep was usually interrupted by the working shift passing from one end of the u-boat to the other privacy was almost non-existent for the crew safe for going to the toilet and even then with only two toilets on board servicing 50 men they rarely enjoyed any piece to undertake this vital bodily function as the next man would soon be waiting his turn some of the most

unpopular crew members were those who took their time this was especially true in the early patrol as at least one toilet was sacrificed for additional storage only being available again when what was stored inside was used up however when stalking your targets flushing the toilet was strictly prohibited as it was feared the sound would be picked up by the hydrophones on board allied escorts that were listening out for u-boat activity this was not the only threat that the toilet presented to u-boat crews as the

men aboard the rather unlucky u1206 discovered not being trained properly in using the sewage system an engineer on board turned the wrong valve causing the toilet to flood and eventually start filling the u-boat with water which made its way to the batteries water getting into the battery compartment was one of the most feared scenarios for a u-boats as this could cause shorts and the creation of chlorine gas which is exactly what happened the choking men of the u1206 were forced to surface off scotland and open their hatches for air

whereupon they were promptly attacked forcing them to abandon their u-boats which quickly sank given these conditions in order to lift the spirits of their men many u-boat captains employed various methods of distraction this included reading singing games such as chess and competitions with prizes often being an additional chocolate ration some of the most committed nazis also used any down time available to help push hitler’s twisted ideology on the men to firm up their resolve to destroy the enemy reading from mein

kampf or playing recordings of some of the fuhrer’s rousing speeches this became especially important later in the war as news of the terrible devastation being wrought on the fatherland by allied bombings reached them in port the thought of loved ones being blasted to oblivion weighed heavily on the minds of the young sailors tucked away in what many of them were by then being referred to as steel coffins while the u-boat threat was anything but gone right up until germany’s surrender their effectiveness had been dramatically curtailed as

allied tactics and technology had eroded the near invulnerability they had previously enjoyed even diving offered little protection any longer with the advent of primitive sonar technology and improved weapons such as the hedgehog anti-submarine mortar system for many an unfortunate young sailor their last moments of life found them hunkered down in their dimly lit u-boats listening to the dull thudding of an allied escort ship’s propeller slicing through the water getting louder and louder as it drew closer splashes would be heard

indicating they were being attacked and then the weapons would detonate the sound was deafening inside the u-boats which would be rocked in every direction throwing the crew around like marbles then there would be the final blast the one that would end it all a loud thump followed almost instantaneously by the eternal darkness of death and there you have the grim reality of life in a german u-boat…