Robert Powell narrates the story of the British Navy in World War II, and the narrative is even handed. No question of who we're rooting for, but British mistakes are described candidly The fate of Convoy P17 was emblematic.
The convoy included both American and British ships bound for Russia. First Sea Lord Admiral Dudley Pound, acting on information that German surface units, including the German battleship Tirpitz, were moving to intercept, ordered the covering force away from the convoy and told the convoy to scatter. However, due to vacillation by the German high command, the Tirpitz raid never materialized.
As the close escort and the covering cruiser forces withdrew westward to intercept the presumed German raiders, the individual merchant ships were left without their escorting destroyers. In their ensuing attempts to reach the appointed Russian ports, the merchant ships were repeatedly attacked by Luftwaffe airplanes and submarines, picked off one by one. Of the initial 35 ships, only 11 reached their destination.
The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest battle of the war. There were German surface raiders, some of which served to pin down part of the Home Fleet simply by staying in port and being a threat. But the greater threat was from U-boats, which almost succeeded in strangling Britain's lifeline to America. They were defeated by advances in Allied technology and tactics, and by an immense production of ships in the US. Towards the end of the war, a U-boat patrol was almost suicidal. And what deaths the German sailors must have suffered, encased in a dark steel tube that imploded on them.
Much of the footage is devoted to the conflict in the Mediterranean. It was rather complicated so I won't explain it in detail except to say that British losses early in the war were heavy and included several aircraft carriers. No mention of the British bombardment of the French fleet. Americans rarely hear about these naval battles because we had no hand in them. Nor do we hear much about the Royal Navy's participation in the invasion of Okinawa, although its carriers played an important role in suppressing air attacks and several carriers were hit by Kamikazes.
A good overview in a good series.