A sunken German U-boat off the coast of New Orleans tells the story of Operation Drumbeat. Long before 9/11, a far deadlier, little-known attack from the ocean depths struck our shores, lasting three-and-a-half years and claiming 5,000 lives. Now, famed undersea explorer Bob Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic, investigates the wreck of one of the attack craft, a German submarine that lies at the bottom of the gulf just a few miles off New Orleans. U-166 was part of Operation Drumbeat, a highly successful U-boat operation that caught East Coast cities and shipping almost completely unprepared. With state-of-the-art survey gear Ballard probes the wreck and explores a dramatic mystery in the official story of the sub’s sinking. In the pleasant waters of the Gulf of Mexico, a few miles from New Orleans and a mile beneath the surface is a tomb. It is the seaweed-and-barnacle-encrusted wreck of German submarine U-166, the only enemy submarine sunk in the Gulf during World War II. Controversy has surrounded it ever since it went down and never resurfaced in the summer of 1942. Now, Nazi Attack on America, a new NOVA/National Geographic special set to debut on PBS May 6, tells what is known of the Unterseeboote's fateful voyage and seeks to determine who was responsible for sinking it. The documentary follows Robert Ballad, president of the Ocean Explorer Trust, and his crew as they locate and film the wreckage, and then use that film to answer a question that has cast a shadow across an American naval commander's reputation for over 50 years. To put its story in context, Nazi Attack on America provides background on the German U-boat war that first played out against Atlantic supply convoys before coming to the coastal waters of the United States. Using animated maps, period photos and movies, and a rotating CGI diagram of the inner workings of a U-boat, the documentary does an excellent job of communicating the necessary background information.

• published: 23 May 2015
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