World War II with Tom Hanks

Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt

are navy men.

They understand that World War II will be won

by the side that controls the seas.

Early in the war, Germany dominates the Atlantic

and threatens Great Britain,

while Japan is attempting to build an empire

across the Asia-Pacific theatre.

The attack on Pearl Harbor

and Germany's declaration of war

brings America directly into the conflict,

a global struggle that will range across many seas

and many oceans.

But the US Navy has a new weapon -

the aircraft carrier - which extends its reach

and allows it to challenge an enemy thousands of miles away.

All wars change the world.

But none of them changed the world like the Second World War did.

Japan's on the march, Germany's on the march.

No one can imagine the nightmare

they're about to unleash.

The most destructive war in human history.

Suddenly, the world is turned upside down,

and all hell is let loose.

The West is stunned by the speed of the advance.

You get the Allies led by the big three -

Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin.

Men who were dealing with immensely complicated questions.

It's the biggest military operation of human history.

The Allies have to come together

not just militarily, but industrial scale -

it's a global perspective.

They have to fight in every climate

from the Arctic, to the jungles of the Pacific,

to the deserts of Africa and the depths of the ocean.

But there was no certainty of victory.

It was going to be a horrific bloodbath.

We see humans at their absolute worst,

how they treat other human beings.

And we see them at their absolute best,

willing to give their lives that others might live.

World War II was a struggle in which there could be

one victor and one vanquished.

In late 1940,

British cities are pounded from the air

by the German Luftwaffe

almost every night.

Led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill,

the people of Great Britain show no sign of surrender.

But most of the food and material

the island nation needs to survive

must be brought from abroad...

...in British ships.

And Nazi U-boats threaten every one of them.

More than two-thirds of Britain's food comes in by ship.

Over 90% of Britain's oil comes by ship.

Britain also needs raw materials.

You can't build a Lancaster bomber

or a Spitfire out of steel.

You need aluminium.

Britain has no aluminium,

so it needs to ship it all across the Atlantic.

Most of what Britain needs comes from one source -

America.

President Franklin D Roosevelt

has declared the United States an arsenal of democracy.

A lifeline is established -

American resources carried by British convoys.

But it's a perilous journey.

In 1940 alone,

over 500 British merchant ships are lost.

The Germans are able to sink three million tons of British shipping

between the summer of 1940 and the end of the year.

That's unsustainable.

If Churchill can't keep up the flow of supplies to Britain,

well, you're in existential trouble.

The man directing Germany's U-boat campaign

is Admiral Karl Doenitz,

a World War I U-boat commander himself.

Throughout the Great War,

the Germans used unrestricted submarine warfare

to attempt to choke Britain into submission.

Doenitz's mind is pure mathematics.

You sink more merchant ships than can be built...

to starve the British,

to deprive Britain of the raw materials

and the calories needed to fight the war.

In 1940, Doenitz devises a new tactic.

He groups up to 20 U-boats

and orders them to hunt British convoys.

They're called "wolfpacks".

The moment one U-boat finds a convoy,

it radios back to Doenitz.

Doenitz then looks at where all his U-boats are.

Doenitz then vectors all other U-boats

in and around those waters

onto the same target.

The wolfpack tactic requires good communication...

...good coordination.

Nobody attacks until they're all present...

...and then they pounce.

Imagine what it's like to be in a convoy under attack.

Even if your ship doesn't get hit,

you cannot stop to pick up survivors.

You hear them screaming.

You want to help them, but you cannot stop.

Because if you do,

you know a submarine is waiting to sink you.

Through 1940, the wolfpacks are so successful,

their crews refer to it as the "Happy Time".

Doenitz's plan to strangle Great Britain is working.

Attacked by sea and by air,

Britain's survival falls largely on the shoulders of one man -

Winston Churchill.

In November 1940, Churchill is told in no uncertain terms

by government officials that there are simply

not enough supplies getting into Britain.

Britain is not going to be able to continue the war.

He said it gnawed at his bowels.

He said it's the only thing that kept him up at night

in the Second World War...

was the German threat in the Atlantic.

Desperate, Prime Minister Churchill

writes to President Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy

during the First World War.

He understood the role of sea power.

In early December, Roosevelt sets aside

the burdens of office for a few days in the Caribbean.

And a seaplane brings a letter from Churchill.

And Churchill says, this is the most important letter

I will ever write.

Churchill is terrified.

He's coming closer to losing than he ever has.

He says, "I need help."

"I need planes, ships, guns, and money."

Roosevelt has long understood

the threat Nazi Germany poses to the United States.

But he's been constrained from offering direct aid to the British

because of Americans' anxiety

over getting involved in another world war.

Roosevelt had read Mein Kampf in German.

He understood, in a way that not many Americans did,

what Hitler was about.

But 80% or 90% of the country had no interest

in being involved in any way

in military conflict in the Old World.

FDR understands that if the United States

is to take its place as a leader of the world,

he's got to do it very, very carefully.

Roosevelt returns to Washington with a plan.

He calls it Lend-Lease.

I ask this Congress for authority and for funds

sufficient to manufacture additional munitions

and war supplies of many kinds

to be turned over to those nations

which are now in actual war

with aggressor nations.

Churchill's letter has been answered.

As he put it, if my neighbour's house is on fire,

I lend him the hose.

I don't make him pay for it.

I just ask for it back afterward.

Churchill had been thrown a lifeline.

Lend-Lease would keep Britain alive.

President Roosevelt shepherds

the Lend-Lease legislation, designated HR-1776,

through Congress.

American weapons, including tanks and planes,

are headed for Great Britain.

But these convoys will move through hazardous waters.

Spring, 1941.

American ships carrying Lend-Lease supplies to Britain

are threatened by Doenitz's wolfpacks.

Roosevelt understands the risk.

But because he knows what's at stake,

it's a risk he believes worth taking.

He writes to Prime Minister Churchill.

"I believe that the outcome of this struggle

is going to be decided in the Atlantic.

And unless Hitler can win there,

he cannot win anywhere in the world."

FDR extends the US maritime security zone

to 26 degrees west.

A significant part of the Atlantic

is now patrolled by the US Navy.

He takes over more than half of the Atlantic

and turns it into an American lake.

Roosevelt is now saying,

we will attack anyone who goes to war in those areas,

knowing the only people who are going to make attacks

in that area is the Germans in submarines.

As American and British interests align,

President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill

agree to a summit to discuss strategy...

...not just for the battle in the Atlantic,

but for the whole war.

They will meet in a bay just off Newfoundland

on the eastern edge of Canada.

Roosevelt tells the Washington press