The Great Ships

The Destroyers (1x20)

Air date: Mar 11, 1998

Knifing through the waves, destroyers are amongst the fastest and most deadly warships ever built. Mounting a powerful arsenal of offensive and defensive weapons, they can serve equally well as escorts for other vessels or as formidable attack ships in their own right. From their humble beginnings as stripped-down vessels designed exclusively to destroy torpedo boats, through the WWII models battling the U-boat 'wolf packs' in the North Atlantic to the most modern versions each now more powerful than a whole squadron of WWI dreadnought, BROADSIDE shows how the destroyer has continued to live up to its name. Rare and exclusive footage captures destroyers in action during both World Wars - in pitched battle at Cape Esperance and the Solomons, supporting the D-Day landings, fending off swarms of kamikazes at Okinawa and much more.