¡achtung!

H and I are finding an unlimited stream of documentaries on Justin.tv and the latest saga that we are engrossed with is the history of submarine warfare during WWII, endearingly produced by the Royal Spain Marine.

There's a lot of in depth knowledge presented in the series, that makes good use of a wealth of historic footage--clips are never repeated nor the soundtrack of incidental music which is always different too. The documentary has a charming A/V class feel to it sometimes (translated from Spanish to English, then dubbed in German), but certainly not in quality of in scholarship. Although we have watched a lot of programs on this theme and been to the U-Boot yards and docks along the Atlantic, it never really registered to me that submarines were taking advantage of more than a niche in the battlefield. The documentary took the time to people the culture of the submariners and impress what a really big piece of the war that front was, and not the planes and rockets that garner more attention. Similarly, WWI some contend that the Empires fell for the want of horses. One of the most significant denouements of the war was perpetrated by sloppy manufacturing of torpedos, which led to a reversal of power and untold lives and supplies not lost. The Italian war-time navy even produced little one-man vehicles that zipped around the Mediterranean like under water Vespas. One architect of the Kriegsmarine's submarine campaign, Otto Kretschmer, surrendered and was taken as a prisoner-of-war to Canada. Afterwards, he joined the German civil naval forces and rose to the admiralty of the NATO navy. Like the German engineers who became darlings of the American space agency during the Space Race, many apparently could transition into such careers. The components of peace and war are quite complex affairs to unravel.