Combat Ships

The first half of the twentieth century was in many ways the golden era of the modern warship escorting convoys, bombarding invasion beaches and engaging in sea battles. The Battle of Jutland, the greatest sea battle of the First World War was bloody but inconclusive. We tell the story of the clash though the only surviving warship from that battle, HMS Caroline.

This episode tell the story of a new arms race underwater. The brave early attempts to build a submarine included Ezra Lee in his barrel shaped submersible the Turtle, attempting to blow up HMS Eagle in New York harbour during the War of Independence, and the Confederate crew of the Hunley successfully sinking the USS Housatonic but perishing in the process.

A chronological telling of the dramatic D Day story focussing on the vessels that made the landings possible. From the tiny British X Craft lying at the bottom of the seabed in the days before the invasion waiting to guide the fleet in, to the battleships such as USS Texas and HMS Belfast who bombarded the Normandy beaches.

To modern eyes wooden warships can look slow and ineffective, but this episode will be a reappraisal of these vessels, revealing them to be sophisticated machines of war, constantly adapting to new technologies. The programme will show that although the sinking of Henry VIII's pride and joy the Mary Rose was a disaster, she represented the future.

The nineteenth century was an era of great technological change, and maritime designers were swift in adapting to the new age. The episode opens with the bizarre tug of war in the eighteenth century between HMS Rattler and HMS Alecto to test which was better, the paddle or propeller.

History has shown that combat ships don't have to be large to change the course of a war. This episode tells the stories of those small vessels that made a big impact. The Smithsonian in Washington has a wooden gunboat that is only fifty three feet long, and is called the Philadelphia.

As the Cold War spilled into the Far East, America's deployment of aircraft carriers is explored, by talking to a veteran on USS Intrepid, now moored in New York Harbour, and by telling the remarkable story of USS Midway whose captain in April ordered over million worth of Huey helicopters to be pushed into the sea so a civilian aircraft fleeing Saigon could land.

Torpedo boats soon became some of the fastest vessels ever built and they inspired fear amongst their prey as well as devotion amongst their crews. The episode begins in the tranquil setting of Chiswick on the River Thames where the very first torpedo boat was constructed at the Thorneycroft shipyard.

During the First World War hospital ships ran the gauntlet of U-Boats. Violet Jessop was a stewardess who survived the sinking of the Titanic, four years later she was on her sister ship the Britannic which was operating as a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, when it hit a mine.

She was equipped with fake funnels and her sailors dressed as women pushing prams to fool Allied merchant ships into thinking that she was a neutral Japanese ship. The Germans learned the art of maritime deception from the British.