EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

*Number in parentheses at end of program description is BBCWA library tape number.

1. TO WAR IN IRON COFFINS - By the start of World War One, both Germany and Britain were poised to take an unknown weapon into warfare for the first time. The implications were enormous. Operating on their own initiative, they were writing their own rules. We listen to the diaries of WWI submariners who tell everyday tales of the lack of understanding of pressure - of how flushing the 'heads' in the wrong way could endanger the lives of all aboard. Yet these tin-pot submarines held the watery world to ransom. Battleships were afraid to leave port for fear of this new and yet undetectable menace, and with the introduction of the anti-sub convoy system in 1917, naval history was changed forever. (1)

2. SILENT ASSASINS - This program follows the evolution of the spin-offs from the conventional submarine and how it became effective as a commando craft. The goal was to attack enemy ships in their own port and in 1918 it was the Italians who struck the first blow at Pola harbor. With the invention of underwater breathing apparatus in the 1930's, the underwater 'motorbike' was invented, a torpedo with rudder and propeller that could threaten conventional ships behind the safety of the nets. In Britain, true midget submarines were used to attack Hitler's most threatening battleship, The Tirpitz, while in Japan, a manned suicide torpedo, the 'Kaiten' claimed many pilots' lives for the honor of the Emperor and Japan, but had little effect on World War II. (2)

3. HUNTERS AND THE HUNTED - Episode 3 introduces us to the conventional big submarines that, month in, month out, in any weather, braved the depths of the oceans in search of targets during World War II. Following the fortunes of an American, British and German submarine, we gain a periscope view of war from the submariners who lived through it within those cramped canisters. We learn of the dangers, the boredom, the adrenaline of attack, and the terror of the depth charge, Then, there is the extraordinary story of one Captain's absolute dread of the dried cabbage he is carrying to a besieged Malta. It is sitting in a cramped and very damp hold, and he fears it threatens to expand at any moment. The powerful narrative reveals that endurance was all in the underwater prison that was a submariner's lot in the Second World War. (3)

4. RACE TO DESTRUCTION - Episode 4 finds us in the middle of the Cold War and the race between the Superpowers to launch the first nuclear submarine. Both America and Russia were dogged by huge problems. Russia, with three prototypes in production at the same time, was reduced to scouring Moscow scrap-heaps for engine parts. In 1958 though, America descended the polar ice cap and announced to the world 'Nautilus is at 90 degrees North' beating the East by four years. In 1962 when the Russians returned from their journey to the same unique hide-out, Kruschev had an infamous greeting to his nuclear submariners. "One day I will parade you in Red Square like the cosmonauts," That said it all. The conquest of inner space had attained the same importance as Yuri Gagarin's outer space victory only a year before. These huge underwater fortresses had come of age. (4)

5. VOYAGES TO INNER SPACE - Part five looks beyond the military world. The submarine will always have a world role, but with the end of the Cold War the future of giant nuclear fortresses roaming our oceans is unclear. The civilian submarine is another matter. By the 1930's a handful of adventurers had invented machines to take them to the unexplored depths of the sea. From those dare-devil pioneering dives developed submersibles, first manned and then robotic, that could explore seven miles down, recovering a lost H-Bomb, uncovering the wreck of the Titanic and discovering new forms of life in the ocean depths. And now, with exciting innovations in the development of remote unmanned underwater 'robots' - satellites of the sea can claim inner space as their own - the role of the legendary submariner now seems uncertain. (5)