German POWs Were Told America's Ports Were Empty. Then They Docked at Norfolk

They had been told the U-boats had won. German propaganda — and the men's own service newspapers — said America's ports were bombed out or idle, its merchant fleet sunk, its shipyards silent. The wolfpacks, they believed, had strangled the United States before its armies could ever reach Europe. Then their prison transport crossed the Atlantic, and at first light they came up on deck at Hampton Roads. What waited for them off Norfolk and Newport News was one of the busiest stretches of water on Earth: Liberty ships at anchor in rows too long to count, cranes swinging through the night, shipyards launching hull after hull. Prisoner Reinhold Pabel arrived at Norfolk on New Year's Day 1944 and recorded the harbour in his memoir. He was one of thousands of captured men who stood at those rails doing the same arithmetic — if this was a strangled country, why did the cranes never stop? This episode follows the lie and the harbour that destroyed it: Black May 1943, when the U-boats lost 41 boats and Dönitz pulled the wolfpacks back; the shipbuilding flood that answered them — 2,710 Liberty ships, with build times collapsing from some 230 days to about 42; and the processing lines, first meals and waiting trains at the dock that turned a harbour view into the first lesson of captivity. Chapters: 00:00 The Empty Ports 00:55 Told the Ports Were Empty 01:45 Captured — May 1943 02:38 Black May 03:24 The Crossing 04:19 First Light Over Hampton Roads 05:17 Counting the Ships 06:11 The Busiest Water in the World 07:16 Processing 08:19 The Shipyards 09:15 Forty-Two Days 10:07 The Trains at the Dock 10:59 Reinhold Pabel — New Year's Day 12:05 It Could Not Be Staged 12:50 The Numbers 13:58 The Verdict Sources: U.S. Maritime Commission — Liberty ship production records (2,710 ships, 1941–45); Blair, "Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942–1945" (Black May 1943: 41 U-boats lost); Pabel, "Enemies Are Human" (1955); Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation historical records; U.S. Provost Marshal General — POW reception and processing records. #WWII #UBoat #WorldWar2 #LibertyShips #Norfolk #HistoryDocumentary Keywords: german pows arrive norfolk, liberty ships built 2710, black may 1943, hampton roads pow, reinhold pabel enemies are human, newport news shipbuilding, german prisoners america arrival, battle of the atlantic, ww2 documentary Displaying desc11.txt.