Combat Ships Season 4 Episodes

Episode 1

Courageous Captains

Fri, Mar 24, 2023

This episode features four stories of brave captains who went beyond the call of duty. They include Captain Larry Chambers, who during the final hours of the Vietnam War gives a remarkable command; to push millions of dollars worth of helicopters into the sea to clear space on his aircraft carrier's runway and allow an escaping South Vietnamese officer and his family to land on the safety of his ship. We also tell the story of the enslaved sailor Robert Smalls, who during the Civil War made a daring escape to freedom on a stolen Confederate steamer - and later becomes the first African American to captain a US Navy vessel.

Episode 2

Explosion!

Fri, Mar 31, 2023

This episode features some of the most spectacular maritime explosions of all time. During the First World War, the huge ice-free Canadian harbour of Halifax was vital to the war effort. On Thursday December 6th, 1917, one of the cargo ships waiting to enter the harbour was the steamer, SS Mont Blanc with a lethal cargo destined for Europe - She was carrying 500 tons of TNT, 10 tons of highly flammable gun cotton, 2,500 tons of picric acid and barrels of Benzoyl below deck. At the same time a Norwegian freighter, the SS Imo was cleared to exit the harbour. But on her way out, Imo is forced over onto the wrong side of the Harbour - right into the path of the explosive-filled Mont Blanc. Neither ship gives way and the Imo ripped into the starboard side of the Mont Blanc. The captain ordered his crew to abandon ship. Then at 9.05 am Mont Blanc blew up. The huge blast killed 2,000 people and over 9,000 were injured by flying glass and debris. On November 24th two convoys from Italy were reported heading for Libya. British Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham ordered a large task force to set sail from Malta to intercept them. The fleet included the elderly but formidable battleship HMS Barham. On November 25th HMS Barham and the rest of the British task force are 50 miles off the coast of Egypt, on the lookout for the Italian convoys. But a German submarine, U-331 spots the Barham and fires four torpedoes. Three pierce Barham's port side. Fires break out down below. It quickly spreads to the ammunition stores which caught fire. What happened next was caught on camera by a British News cameraman John Turner who was on board the battleship HMS Valiant. A massive explosion ripped the HMS Barham to shreds. The mighty battleship rolls over and sunk in less than five minutes. Eight hundred British sailors died that day Two years after the end of the Second World War, the British had huge stockpiles of lethal unexploded ordinance. In all 7,000 tons of bombs, torpedoes, shells, and depth charges. In 1947 they came up with a spectacular plan to get rid of it. The British would use the explosives to blow up three huge Nazi U-Boat pens on Heligoland, a German Island in the North Sea. It took engineers eight months to lay some 7,400 tons of explosives under and over the entire island. Then on April 18th, 1947, at precisely one clock the charges are set off. The gigantic explosion obliterates the U-boat pens and the island's coastal batteries. The effects were felt 70 miles away Cliffs were levelled. In October 1968, the Landing Ship Tank or LST named USS Westchester was deployed to the Mekong Delta to act as a base for the Army and Navy's joint mobile riverine forces. Below deck are more than 350 tons of arms and ammunition. If she blew, the explosion would be equal to the power of small nuclear bomb. November 1st,1968: Just after 3am Viet Cong frogmen have placed and primed two limpet mines on the hull of the LST. At precisely 3.22am a massive explosion. Two sets of limpet mines blew a roughly 10-foot diameter hole in tandem on the starboard side of the ship. The Wesco listed dangerously to starboard. If the ship were to tip over the 350 tonnes of explosives in the hold might ignite and blow them all sky high. Commander Branin steered the LST onto a riverbank and he and the crew right the ship in less than thirty minutes. They then got her deadly cargo out and safely onto the beach. The explosion was the U.S. Navy's greatest single-incident combat loss of life of the Vietnam War. In all 26 servicemen lost their lives that night. In the months after the first Atom bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities, United States scientists were eager to test their new nuclear arsenal, so they devised an astonishing experiment - Codenamed Operation Crossroads. The plan was to assemble a fleet of 95 redundant vessels known as Target Ships at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and detonate three Atomic bombs close to them. One from the air, one in shallow water and the third deep beneath the waves. Just past 8.30 am on July 1st, 1946. the first stage codenamed Able began. At precisely 9am the Fat Man Atomic bomb is dropped and detonates. But it missed its target by about 600 yards. Nonetheless, the results provide vital intel. July 25th, after a few weeks of collecting data from Able, the second test -Codenamed Baker began. At 8.35am on the July 25th, 1946, the second bomb was detonated. Eight ships had their hulls ripped open by the blast and sink. Navy scientists determined that even if a warship survived a nuclear explosion - it was impossible to decontaminate. The third test in the series is cancelled and Operation Crossroads is terminated due to radiation concerns. According to some estimates, almost all the 42,000 men stationed at Bikini Atoll died prematurely. The contamination led Operation Crossroads to be labelled as the world's first nuclear disaster.

Episode 4

Heroes of Guadalcanal

Sun, Apr 16, 2023

American troops' determination to secure a vital airfield and preserve communications lines with Australia leads to a chaotic and deadly night battle in the Pacific theater of World War II.

Episode 5

Mutiny

A look at how technological advances over the centuries have led to bigger and faster combat ships and transformed maritime warfare.