Hitler's Secret Attack on America (2012)

Hitler’s Secret Attack on America is a documentary film that was shown on the National Geographic Channel in 2012. Here is some basic information about it:

** Directed by Devvon Chivvis

** Written by Bob Goldberg

** Run time: 45 minutes

The title of this program is highly misleading, for two reasons:

# 1. Only a small part (less than half) of this film is an historical account of the German attack on America during World War Two. The major part (more than half) of this film is about a group of divers who are searching for old wrecks along the eastern coast of the US, more specifically along the coast of North Carolina.

The divers hope to locate the wreck of a US cargo ship and the wreck of a German submarine, known as a U-boat. If they can find what they are looking for, they want to send down divers to take a closer look at them. If the wreck is too deep, they plan to use an underwater robot which can take pictures of the wreck.

Most of their plans fail. It is a huge area and they only have a limited time for their search, because the hurricane season is coming up. I wonder why they decided to start their search just before the beginning of the hurricane season. Why not start just after the hurricane season has ended, so you will have plenty of time to search? It seems these divers are not very good at planning their search.

# 2. Hitler’s attack on America was no secret. It was well-known that German submarines were hunting US ships along the eastern coast and in the Atlantic Ocean. In December 1941, when the US entered the war, the US government was not ready to protect the eastern seaboard or the shipping lanes across the Atlantic Ocean.

In 1942, during the first year of the war, the captains of the German submarines could not believe how easy it was to find, attack and sink US cargo ships. Only in 1943, did the US forces begin to retaliate.

The German submarine force was defeated in May 1943. In Germany this month was referred to as the Black May, because they lost so many submarines during that month.

If you are interested in diving, I think you will find this program very interesting. But the title is misleading. The film should be announced as a film about divers who are searching for wrecks from World War Two.

The historical part of the film are quite interesting, but as I have already explained, these parts form less than half of the whole film. If you are looking for a historical account about the German attack on America during World War Two, I think you will be very disappointed.

There is another documentary film about the German attack on the US during the war. The title is Nazi Attack on America. It is an episode of the long-running program NOVA which focuses on the history of science and technology. This program was shown on US television (PBS) in 2015.

In this program we also follow some divers who are searching for a wreck from the war, but in this case the diving scenes do not dominate the film and they are closely related to the historical account about the German submarines and their attack on US shipping. If you ask me, this NOVA program from 2015 is better and more interesting than the National Geographic film from 2012.

Hitler’s Secret War on America is not a bad film, but the title is highly misleading. Therefore I think it cannot get more than three stars.

PS For more information about this topic, see the following books:

** Operation Drumbeat by Michael Gannon (1990, 2009)

** Black May by Michael Gannon (1998, 2010)

** The Burning Shore by Ed Offley (2013)

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