The World War 2 Radio Podcast · Brick Pickle Media LLC

Battle of the Atlantic Part 2

·31 min·2 clips

A submarine locator picks up a contact at 500 yards, then depth charges explode over a hidden U-boat.

1. The World War II Radio Podcast presents “Battle of the Atlantic Part 2” as a U.S. Navy and NBC wartime program about convoy fighting in the Atlantic. 2. The broadcast is introduced by NBC’s Department of Special Events, the United States Navy, and the series title Battle Stations, which makes the Navy’s anti-submarine campaign the central focus. 3. The episode asks how the Battle of the Atlantic has gone after Germany’s U-boat challenge and uses monthly shipping losses to answer that question. 4. It cites January losses of 32 ships, February 1943 losses of 20 ships, and March losses of 25 ships to show how severe the campaign remained. 5. A captured U-boat crewman, Manfred Holtz, is interviewed in English and German about his seven years in the service and his experience in the Atlantic. 6. Holtz points to attacks off Cape Cod, mentions plane patrols and coastwise convoys, and refuses to estimate how many U-boats are left. 7. The narration says unofficial April estimates put Nazi losses at 12,000 trained officers and men lost or taken prisoner. 8. The script says Admiral Dönitz controlled the U-boat force from a camouflaged headquarters in France, which the Allies believed was often overflown by bombers. 9. German radio announces Karl Dönitz’s promotion to Grand Admiral and his pledge to put the entire German Navy into 'inexorable U-boat warfare.' 10. Allied attacks on submarine bases at Saint-Nazaire and Lorient are presented as part of the response, alongside new convoy escort vessels coming off the ways. 11. April is described as the showdown month, with a sound detector contact at 500 yards and a destroyer escort dropping depth charges on a suspected submarine. 12. The episode then describes a U-boat breaking water, deck guns firing, and the submarine diving after the escort’s shells and 20-millimeter fire hit its deck. 13. The narration rejects 'secret weapons' and says the real upper-case X in the Navy’s equation is 'trained men.' 14. A staged sequence of darkness, dusk, moonlight, and dawn illustrates training that teaches sailors to see and fight in low light. 15. Seaman First Class Joseph K. Brainerd of Wycliffe, Ohio explains that general quarters means reaching battle stations in seconds, dressed or not. 16. Brainerd describes four hours on watch and eight off, false alarms, and the need to keep a constant eye on the water for barrels, porpoises, waves, or submarines. 17. The tone mixes newsreel narration, dramatized combat scenes, and staged interviews, with repeated phrases and formal wartime rhetoric. 18. The pacing moves between statistics, enemy boasts, convoy action, and a studio conversation with Brainerd, giving the episode a documentary-montage feel. 19. Listeners interested in WWII naval warfare, convoy escorts, and wartime radio. 20. Listeners expecting a character-driven story or a modern conversational podcast.

As heard by us

A brisk Navy-produced portrait of the Atlantic war in wartime radio style.

Battle of the Atlantic Part 2 is a U.S. Navy-produced Battle Stations episode that aired on NBC and first broadcast on August 12, 1943. It is meant to explain the Navy's role to American listeners, and it does that with wartime radio confidence and a tight, practical focus.

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Want the Atlantic war told as an official wartime radio bulletin?

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