1The steel coffins was the name given to the U-boats of the Kriegsmarine by their own crews. Their fatalistic view of the war was certainly justified; it is estimated that seventy five per cent of the 39,000 men who sailed in the U-boat fleet paid the ultimate price as the tide of war turned inexorably against Hitler's Germany.

This incisive DVD tells the story of the U-boat war from the perspective of the men who sailed in the U-boat fleet. Drawing on extensive newsreel footage and rare war time photographs, this is the definitive story of the U-boat war from the inside.

Drawing heavily on the accounts of the last remaining survivors, 'U-boats At War' traces the grim story of the rise and fall of the grey wolves. The memories of the brief days of the "happy times" of superiority and success were soon replaced by the stark terror of the enfolding nightmare as the realization dawned that the hunters had become the hunted.