This is Coast, or "Bienvenue sur Coast".
Two languages linked by a mighty stretch of water - the Channel.
Funnelling between England and France, the narrow and
surprisingly shallow channel plays a starring role in our island's story.
One sea separating two nations.
I'll be occupying what was once enemy territory -
the shores of France.
From the white cliffs of Normandy to the white cliffs of Dover,
the rest of the team are flying the flag in England.
Mark reveals how the distance between the British
and the French brought us closer together.
I'm in Dover to discover how measuring across the Channel
led to the creation of Britain's most famous map, the Ordnance Survey.
Miranda's mission is to shadow the force that polices
the Channel's fisherman.
The HMS Mersey cruises up and down the Channel
ready to stop and search any fishing vessel she fancies.
And Neil uncovers a forgotten ship of lost souls.
When she sank to the sea bed that cold February night,
she took 647 men with her -
still one of the worst losses the English Channel has ever seen.
This is the Channel Coast.
It narrows to just 21 miles wide,
yet the English Channel is the world's busiest seaway.
Some 400 ships surge past Dover every day.
The Channel has carried both friend and foe,
it's brought opportunity and disaster
and it's been our defensive barrier.
And along its opposing shores, millions make their home.
I'm on French sands to explore our shared story.
My journey begins in Normandy, at Mont Saint-Michel.
Its distinctive outline dominates the land and seascape.
Pilgrims set foot on this holy isle over a thousand years ago,
searching for the sacred.
Legend has it that a warrior archangel who battled Lucifer
appeared here. That archangel, Saint-Michel, gave his name to
this glorious mount, but St Michael, as we know him,
didn't limit his divine presence to this side of the Channel.
Here in Normandy, Mont Saint-Michel stands alone.
But cross the water to Cornwall,
and a feeling of deja vu washes over you.
This is St Michael's Mount.
The Archangel Michael apparently appeared here, too.
Connections across the Channel, two shores divided by a remarkable sea.
I discovered on my last visit to France that only 600,000 years ago,
I could have walked to England over chalk downs.
The downs formed a land bridge, holding back a vast melt-water lake.
When it gave way, the Channel burst into existence...
..in a catastrophic mega-flood.
And the power of this sea can still be experienced today in its tides.
Very soon now, where I'm standing is going to be deep under water.
I can see the leading edge of the tide coming in now,
and that wave is going to push across the lowest points
on these mud and sand flats,
and then the tide behind is just going to completely swamp them.
I'd better move.
Many lives have been claimed out here,
victims tragically unaware of the tide's deceptive danger.
I'm having to run to keep ahead of it.
Only ten minutes ago, I was way out there on land
surrounded by tidal streams and wading sea birds. Now it's just sea.
This tidal surge at Mont Saint-Michel
also impacts our Channel coast.
How do two countries share the power of the sea?
It's easy to think of the tide as something local, a rise
and fall of water at a specific place at a specific time.
In reality the tide is one immense body of water,
a pulsating bulge, and as it moves from west to east, its power
and its influence is felt in turn along the entire Channel.
Right now we're close to high tide here at Mont Saint-Michel,
but this moving hump of high water was felt near the mouth
of the Channel here at Polperro in Cornwall
and at Perros-Guirec in Brittany about 20 minutes ago.
One body of water swirling along two different shores.
The beaches of Brittany's pink granite coast share high tide
with the harbours in rocky Cornish coves.
Ten minutes later, the tidal wave reaches Plymouth,
where the rising waters provide passage
from Western Europe's largest operational naval base.
Next, the high water will hit the Channel Islands
where it turns low-lying land into sea.
Jersey's Seymour Tower is cut off completely as the tide peaks.
In just under two hours' time, the high waters will envelope
the Isle of Wight.
Here the tidal waters circle back on themselves,
creating four tides a day, double the normal number,
which lends a helping hand to deep-hulled cargo ships
entering the port at Southampton.
When the high tide passes Hastings in five hours' time, it will be the
fishermen's friend, allowing them to float their boats off the beach.
Finally, the tide passes the famous ferry ports of Dover
and Calais at the far eastern end of the Channel.
As the sea retreats, the land breathes out.
Sands expand,
until two countries across the Channel can almost hold hands.
No wonder ideas have winged over the water for centuries.
Norman conquerors taught us to construct stone castles.
But the French have made
an even more permanent mark on our landscape.
Our maps of Britain owe much to cross-Channel co-operation at Dover.
Mark's going back over two centuries to the birth of our Ordnance Survey.
Don't tell anybody but the great British institution
the Ordnance Survey only came into existence thanks to
the scientific endeavours of our once-sworn enemy, the French.
Today, our isles are accurately mapped in minute detail.
By comparison, this 18th-century view of Dover
is little more than a sketch.
But back then, remarkable map-makers were busy across the Channel.
During the 1750s, work began on a remarkable project -
to map and survey every corner of France.
It took nearly 40 years, and this is how they completed it -
by drawing triangles all over France.
How did this massive grid of triangles
create more accurate maps than ours?
Using the triangle created by Dover's lighthouses,
let's think like an 18th-century Frenchman.
If they knew the distance between lighthouse B and C,
by simply measuring two angles, map-makers could work out
the distance to lighthouse A.
# Tra-la-la-la, triangle
# My life's in such a tangle... #
Triangles give you angles,
and with angles you can map locations accurately.
Having triangulated their way to the Channel coast, the French
surveyors wanted to extend their mapping over the sea into Britain.
Impossible!
Until 1783, and a brief period of peace.
It was just enough time for scientists on both sides
of the Channel to join forces and to conduct a novel experiment.
Measuring across the Channel,
they wanted to know exactly where Britain was in relation to France.
This great cross-Channel collaboration would use
the French method of triangulation on a hitherto unseen scale.
But which country's surveying equipment
would be trusted to measure the angles?
Mapping historian Daniel Schelstraete
has made the crossing to Dover.
Hi, Daniel!
Hi, Mark, are you all right?
A bit of a climb, I'm afraid.
The French favoured their tried-and-tested instrument,
the repeating circle.
Daniel, this is it!
Yes, this instrument is a new instrument, so the interest is,
it's possible to measure horizontal angle for triangulation.
So where do you actually measure the angle?
Oh, just here, with Vemier.
I can see, I can see the angle measurements.
The repeating circle is positioned between two fixed points.
You set one telescope to look at one landmark
and a second telescope to look at the other.
A scale on the instrument reads out the angle between them,
but you don't just do it once.
Upper, lower, together, etc, ten times, 20 times, 100 times,
and only at the end you have the good angle.
So that is why it's called the repeating circle?
Yes.
French map-makers were well-equipped and ready to go.
But how about us, on the British side of the Channel?
I'm with historian Rachel Hewitt.
Britain did not have an accurate national map at this time.
France had begun their map based on a national triangulation
100 years before the British, and had a much more sophisticated
sense of the use of maps in military defence.
Britain's military couldn't afford to be outdone.
We needed a survey instrument of our own.
King George III provided ?2,000 from the Royal coffers,
and the British spent three years to perfect...this!
The "Great Theodolite" was ready
just weeks before the cross-Channel mapping experiment in 1787.
It was the first survey instrument with a measuring scale
cut by machine, making it incredibly accurate.
The French repeating circle relied on hand-etched measuring scales.
To cancel out human error, repeated measurements had to be made.
Which country's technology would triumph in the challenge
to map across the Channel?
The English surveying team went to Dover Castle
and to Fairlight Head near Hastings.
Right, and where did the French go?
In France it was four stations - Mont Lambert, Cap Blanc Nez,
Calais and Dunkirk.
So they already knew the distance between these stations on land,
so they then had to look across the Channel?
And by measuring the angles between these points
they could then work out the distances.
And the battle between the Great Theodolite
and the repeating circle?
Well, both instruments came up with almost identical measurements.
With the precise distance across the Channel mapped,
the new British theodolite had proved its worth to our military.
It gave them the impetus to create the Ordnance Survey in 1791.
The Ordnance Survey began to map the south coast in great detail.
Ten years later, Napoleon was on the verge of invading Britain.
New, accurate maps helped to plan our defence.
So there's actually a bit of an irony here
that this Anglo-French collaboration actually enabled the British
to create cartography to defend ourselves against a French invasion.
The Ordnance Survey, when it's founded in 1791,
is built on the back of this cross-Channel triangulation.
That was a military map to defend Britain against the French.
HE LAUGHS
Theodolites went on to map Britain's Empire.
Taking on India and the Himalayas.
Even Mount Everest was surveyed.
This experiment in cross-Channel mathematics from here in Dover
helped launch the greatest mapping project that Britain had ever seen.
The Ordnance Survey put us on the global map.
Partners or potential invaders?
Over centuries, the English
and French have looked to their Channel horizon with mixed emotions.
We're looking along the edge for the connections that unite
sea-washed neighbours.
This is the story of two coasts.
Two coasts that sometimes look surprisingly similar.
I'm at Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy,
the spitting image of St Michael's Mount in Cornwall.
These cousins across the Channel have lived parallel lives.
In 1548, Henry VIII put an end to the monks on St Michael's Mount.
Monks remained at Mont Saint-Michel more than two centuries longer,
until revolution rocked France.
Today, life on the islands is very different.
St Michael's Mount is a haven of calm.
Mont Saint-Michel hosts over a million visitors each year.
Yet the Mont also has a secret life.
Amelie Saint James is one of a permanent population
of just 20 living on this holy isle.
So Amelie, how would you characterise Mont Saint-Michel,
how would you describe it, what is it like?
Depends on the time of the year.
If it's summer it's very crowded,
you are hoping winter comes quite quickly,
and when it's winter, it's totally empty
and you're quite wishing the tourist will arrive again.
It's a real tourist throng today.
So Amelie has agreed to take me
to one of Mont Saint-Michel's quieter corners.
Her home.
There are 162 steps to get to my threshold,
so that's quite a job. Then you're rewarded by beauty.
I mean, when I wake up in the morning I have the bay around me.
I have a 14th-century house, I have an Abbey on top. I mean,
this is not given to everybody, so it's definitely worth it.
The main street can be like the metro in Tokyo.
Sometimes people just open the door and they see my panties,
and they ask, "Well, is it private?"
"No, no, of course not."
Privacy is hard to come by on Mont Saint-Michel.
Those pursuing a sacred life on-high compete with crowds below.
After Benedictine monks returned here in 1969,
Father Andre Fournier followed them.
What were the contrasts between life at the top in the abbey
and life down below where humanity mills around?
Modern-day pilgrims who make the climb are rewarded with
a timeless haven, sitting betwixt sea and sky.
This is an ancient scene utterly removed from the commercial hubbub
further down the Mount, a place of calm
and contemplation, suspended above the human ant hill.
Further along Normandy's shore, granite gives way to sand.
And spiritual life makes way for beach life.
England's Channel coast is a playground, too.
But 70 years ago, fun was in short supply.
In a time of war, beaches became battlefields.
As they can't forget at Arromanches.
Mysterious black shadows that mark
the Channel's darkest moment, D-Day.
Memorials to sacrifice.
Artists Jamie Wardley
and Andy Moss are sculpting a tribute in the sand to the fallen.
We have hundreds of people making 9,000 stencils of people
that lost their lives in this area during the D-Day landings.
A visual impression of how many people actually died.
There's a lady who made a stencil that represents her father,
she drew out the stencil and then she wrote
her father's name on the stencil, and then it really was very moving.
After the landings began on June 6, 1944, D-Day's wounded
and dying were treated on both sides of the Channel.
The memory of those who fell is etched in the mind of Andre Heintz,
a resistance fighter who became a stretcher bearer on D-Day.
I was part of the French Resistance. I had been told never to tell anyone
that I was part of it, even my parents.
Across the Channel in Portsmouth, Mary Verrier was a junior nurse,
just 19 years old, treating casualties shipped to Britain.
I was only a young girl then, just an ordinary girl.
Divided by the Channel, united in their struggle,
this is their story of the fallen.
Mary watched the soldiers leave the relative safety of British shores.
Well, we knew something was up, because we were
confined to the hospital a week before, no leave, and I'm sure
quite a few of them knew that they would not be coming back.
On D-Day, I joined the Red Cross.
I had to bring British parachutists to the hospital.
It was full of people that had been wounded
and couldn't be operated yet.
There was hundreds of men pouring in, walking wounded,
stretcher wounded.
You must control your emotions, you must not be shown to be weak,
you must be shown to be positive and caring.
Very difficult to do when your heart is breaking.
You must realise how dreadful it was.
One of my friends called me by my name, he was in bed.
Well, it was not easy because I could not recognise him.
I had to ask him his name.
One of the German boys, about 19, he was terribly burnt.
We shouldn't have had him,
really, he should have gone to the padre cos he was going to die,
and I put my hand on his knee
so that he knew that somebody was there,
and then I suddenly realised that he was going to slip away,
so I stood up and put my arm under the pillow
and put his poor burnt head and face on my shoulder,
and I think he tried to say, "Kiss me, auf wiedersehen."
I kissed him just on the forehead there, all the rest was burnt,
and he died and that was my Achilles heel. Of all I'd been through,
that brought me right down to my knees.
I did all I could for my children,
so that they won't keep the hatred I had,
and I must say that I probably succeeded too well,
because my oldest son married a German girl.
Finally the guns fell silent.
From the ruins of war came a peace which has persisted along this sea.
And at times of peace, the Channel can get to work.
Cargo on the move, holiday-makers in a hurry.
And the sea's hunters stalking their prey.
On both sides of the Channel, fishing boats put to sea.
But when two fleets are pursuing the same prize, tensions can arise.
To explore why fishermen stopped being friends,
I've arrived at Erquy.
The Breton fishing town of Erquy has grown into one of Europe's
most important ports for a delicacy prized on both sides of the Channel.
Right now, this is a picture of tranquillity,
but the tide is coming in, and when the water's deep enough,
a fleet of ships is going to sail into port.
This is the first catch of the season.
They've been waiting five months for this.
At Erquy, scallops are catch of the day,
a favourite for discerning palates in France and the UK.
Restaurants in Paris and London shell out big money for scallops.
It was the pursuit of this much-loved mollusc
that put peace in peril.
Just look at these headlines.
"British fisherman call on Royal Navy."
"Fisherman await the next salvo."
"French attack our boats with rocks in battle over shellfish."
"Scallop Wars."
In 2012, British scallop trawlers were surrounded by French boats.
Insults were traded.
THEY SHOUT IN FRENCH
What provoked the Frenchmen's anger?
Time for me to hit the front line.
I've never seen as many scallops in one place at the same time.
The Entente Cordiale was strained by a high-takes standoff,
and maybe it's not surprising.
Scallops are big business, the appetite for them
seems endless, but the Channel's stocks aren't.
With so much demand
and a limited supply, the scales seemed weighted against the scallop.
Here on the French side of the Channel, they decided to redress
the balance. They put a limit on the length of the fishing season.
For the French fishermen,
scallop fishing was banned from mid-May to October.
Not so for the British,
who used wider EU rules to continue fishing legally all year round.
But when the Brits dropped their nets close to the French coast,
the locals cried foul play.
The Scallop Wars rumbled on for a year before the two sides
finally brokered a deal.
In exchange for agreed fishing days,
the British put restrictions on when and where they catch scallops.
A deal sufficiently complex to keep everyone, and no-one, content.
At close of play on day one of the season,
is there optimism that peace will prevail?
Do you feel a bond with your fellow English fishermen
on the other side of the Channel?
A glimmer of hope, then, that two nations who share a sea
can happily share its bounty.
It's not only the French and the British who fish the Channel.
They're joined by hundreds of vessels from other EU nations.
The rules to protect the Channel's fish stocks come from Brussels.
But the job of ensuring nothing fishy goes on
falls to France and to Britain.
On our side, it's a challenge that's brought Miranda to Shoreham.
Today I'm signing on for a tour of duty with
the Marine Management Organisation, the MMO.
Working together with the Royal Navy,
they're the referees of our seas.
Morning, chaps.
Fishing quotas in the Channel are set by the EU.
In British waters it's the MMO, or Marine Management Organisation,
who enforce them.
But it's no easy task.
Back-up is required in the shape of the Royal Navy and HMS Mersey.
Like a police patrol car, the HMS Mersey cruises up and down
the Channel ready to stop and search any fishing vessel she fancies.
When you get a lift with the Royal Navy,
you aren't winched aboard, the whole boat is!
Ho-ho-ho...that feels pretty weird, we're going up.
HMS Mersey is a nerve centre.
They must monitor every large fishing vessel in the Channel.
Sights are set on a nearby British trawler.
So it's our intention to send a routine inspection team to you,
they'll be with you in the next 30 minutes.
MUFFLED INSTRUCTIONS
Right, last one on.
MMO inspectors have a short time
to ensure fishing methods match complex EU rules.
Does what the skipper says he's caught tally with
what's in the hold?
While his colleagues chase the paperwork,
the MMO's Paul Johnson casts an expert eye on the latest haul.
From an inspection point of view you can see this net is operating
in a reasonable manner, you know, there isn't a lot of juvenile fish,
there's no indications in this catch to me that there's been
any sort of adjustments to the net to decrease the mesh sizes.
So, as the net's been dragged through the water,
the juvenile fish are actually able to escape? Exactly.
So you've got a bit of cod here,
so he's got about 40kg which is about a box, so I'm happy with that.
Inspections must be swift and accurate -
livelihoods are in the balance.
For rule breaches, crews can be ordered to port.
Fines may run into millions.
Everything appears in order,
but there are plenty more trawlers in the Channel.
HMS Mersey is one of three vessels
patrolling 80,000 square miles of British waters.
Isolated at sea, the crew spend their days
looking after fish stocks.
How are they looked after on their floating home?
It's quite cosy.
But you've got to think they're here for maybe four weeks at a time.
Look at this! It's a gym!
Of course you need exercise when you're on a ship,
this is where they work out.
And the Navy can't sail on an empty stomach.
It's Mexican tonight.
But there's very little rest for the team.
Straight after tea, it's back to sea.
Inspections run around the clock.
Now our target's a huge Dutch trawler,
which is more like a floating fish factory.
MUSIC: "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones.
They can look to the documents, and after that they are ready.
Yeah, brilliant.
Boarding team safely embarked, proceeding.
This boat's hold is packed. In just two days at sea
they've caught and sorted nearly five tonnes of fish.
Lots of different species. Cod is required to be stowed
separately, we're in what we call the cod recovery zone.
And if we found cod hidden in there, that would be a problem.
Even in the middle of the night, Paul has to keep alert.
What you'll see is that nearly all these species are non-quota,
apart from the mackerel and the cod.
Right, so they can catch as many as they like? As many as they like.
Are you worried about it?
It's my job to worry about it.
There are caps on the number of days people can fish,
those sort of things, that does keep a lid on things.
Whether it's a big enough lid, that's for scientists to answer and not me.
The team are heading back for some rest, but the Channel never sleeps.
All year round the hunt for fish goes on,
and the sea's police must patrol.
British naval power has always been crucial in the Channel,
where our nearest neighbours haven't always been our closest friends.
But our Navy alone wasn't sufficient guarantee against invasion.
Along the south coast, there's a line of fortifications.
Stony reminders of centuries of suspicion,
when England eyed France nervously.
But fear cut both ways -
the French too looked anxiously across the Channel.
By the close of the 17th century,
they needed their own chain of forts.
I'm in France on a Channel journey that's brought me
to a town that turned fortification into an art form.
Saint-Malo.
Medieval ramparts encircle Saint-Malo,
a salt-stained shield recalling the threat of invasion.
But with the growth of English sea power, walls weren't enough.
To make Saint-Malo impregnable, the French king enlisted
the formidable Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban.
Vauban is revered as one of the greatest military engineers
of all time, and in Saint-Malo he used nature to spectacular effect.
Here in the bay, a network of tiny islands, reefs,
rocky outcrops offered perfect foundations
for an extraordinary network of coastal forts.
Forming a jaw-shaped arch offshore,
Vauban's forts were cleverly designed
so they combined to foil enemy ships.
To discover the secrets of their success,
I'm heading out with one of their custodians, Monsieur Marcel.
For English sailors, these strongholds
must have seemed unassailable.
How many guns in this fort here?
20, and 160 men.
Vauban was a fabulous engineer
and when it was finished it was impossible to catch Saint-Malo.
Sited by the channels into Saint-Malo, Vauban's forts caught
enemy ships in a hail of deadly crossfire, keeping the port secure.
Now it's my chance to venture where our sailors never succeeded.
Time for an English invasion.
Monsieur Marcel has agreed to show me round
one of Vauban's masterpieces, Fort Le Petit B.
Do you have help to re-build the port?
Mm, sometimes, but it's very difficult to find good workers.
This is a beautiful door, is this your door? You made this?
Yes, it's a new door, I make it myself, yes.
Fantastic.
It's like being in a ship.
Exactly like a ship.
It's got a pointed prow pointing out to sea.
Yes. Only this place, 19 guns.
So this is the last line of defence before the land?
The last before the walls of Saint-Malo.
And so if an English ship was the other side of these walls,
would it have been possible to sail past and escape the guns?
It's impossible to pass.
In 1693, an English ship was wrecked by the guns of the Petit B.
It was sunk by the guns from this fort? Yes, yes.
Oh, those poor English soldiers, you must feel very sad for them?
Yes...but, er, perhaps they swim to Saint-Malo.
HE LAUGHS
The defenders' deadly cannon power relied on manpower.
Surrounded by sea water,
lack of fresh water could be the fort's undoing.
Vauban dug deep for a solution.
Ah, so this is a well?
Yes, is a well.
Wow.
'Rainwater was caught, then filtered twice through sand
'before being drawn.'
So this is good water for the soldiers to drink?
Very good water, no problem.
It's crystal clear! Very clear.
Wow!
'Vauban clearly put his men's needs at the heart of his designs.'
That IS good water.
HE LAUGHS
Standing strong, Vauban's stone guardians defied the Royal Navy
and kept Saint-Malo safe.
As Britain looked beyond the Channel to farther-flung territories,
wars with France faded into history.
When a new threat arose at the start of the 20th century,
the two countries joined in a united purpose.
In 1914, the British Empire and France
stood shoulder-to-shoulder across the sea.
For the first time, the world was at war.
And the Channel once more became a battleground.
Now Neil's heading into the fray.
There's a mystery surrounding soldiers from a British dominion
who a century ago sailed here to serve a motherland
they'd never known.
We've crossed our narrow sea once more,
arriving off the Isle of Wight.
In the early hours of 21 February, 1917,
the Channel witnessed a tragedy unfold.
A troop ship was sinking off the Isle of Wight.
Within 25 minutes, the ship and soldiers were beneath the waves.
When she sank to the sea bed that cold February night,
she took 647 men with her -
still one of the worst losses the English Channel has ever seen.
Hidden from view, the troop ship and her story were forgotten.
'Then, in 1974, a local diver was investigating a wreck.'
And then he found this.
Now, it's not the most glamorous or exciting bit of sunken treasure,
you might think, however this saucer is stamped B
That's British African Steam Navigation Company.
That meant that this saucer
had to have come from one ship and one ship only - the SS Mendi.
Over 600 lives lost in the Channel,
yet the Mendi is a name most people in Britain have never heard of.
But 6,000 miles away, there's a country that can't forget her.
Over there on that boat is a film crew from Cape Town.
This South African expedition is diving the wreck of the Mendi,
trying to piece together the events of her fatal sinking.
But why does a wreck in the Channel concern a crew from Cape Town?
The men aboard the Mendi were black South Africans.
In President Mandela's South Africa, the Mendi's mysterious loss
became wove into the new nation's consciousness.
How did Britain's great war touch the heart of South Africa?
When World War I broke out, it wasn't just Britain
that went to war, but her Empire.
One fifth of the world's population
swore allegiance to the British king.
The Empire was expected to do its duty.
For South Africa, that meant providing
nearly 230,000 men for the war effort.
Over 90,000 of these were black troops.
They came from tribal homelands across South Africa.
Why would they choose to travel over 6,000 miles to fight in Europe?
Zwai Mgijima is part of the South African team diving the wreck.
What sort of lives did those men have back in Africa?
To be honest with you, their life then was...was not good at all.
People who volunteered to go to war were the strong men, the young men.
There was an understanding of that if these men go to that war,
in return the British would help us to defeat the Afrikaners.
Oppressed in their homeland by Dutch and British settlers, many black
South Africans saw world war as an opportunity to empower themselves.
But the South African Government insisted none of their black troops
should fight on the front line.
Forbidden from bearing arms, they carried, chopped and cooked.
Was there a dishonour in being in an army
but not expected to take part in the fight?
Men, they took pride in fighting in a war,
it was an honour to them to fight in the war,
but not to come and dig trenches and man the stretchers
and even cook for other men.
Definitely it wasn't an honourable thing to do, but they had to do it.
But the black Africans aboard the SS Mendi would never get to France.
How did over 600 men come to perish in the Channel?
I need to go back to February, 1917.
After nearly a month at sea the Mendi,
laden with South African troops, had just arrived in the Channel.
Archaeologist John Gribble takes up the story.
Her last stop before going to France was in Plymouth,
and she stopped there to pick up an escort.
HMS Brisk was a destroyer that was to escort her across the final leg.
The Channel was a fairly dangerous place at the time.
German U-Boats had wreaked havoc
with British shipping over the last couple of years.
Really, the men ought to have been reassured
because they had cover from an ally.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you'd imagine so.
But it wasn't a U-Boat that would seal the SS Mendi's fate.
As Britain struggled through one of our coldest winters,
the Mendi and her escort the Brisk
were crawling at a snail's pace in a Channel thick with fog.
At the same time, a large British cargo ship, the Darro,
was steaming toward the unsuspecting Mendi at speed.
While more than 800 men slept below, the second officer kept watch,
but the fog was too thick to see any approaching threat.
By the time he could hear a vessel heading their way, it was too late.
The Darro ploughed into the side of the Mendi,
almost carving her in two.
The words of a survivor recount the horror the men faced.
"As soon as I left holding the boat with my hands I went down into
"the sea, I swallowed some water and then came up to the surface."
The Mendi had ample life jackets,
so how could so many men die with other boats nearby?
The Darrow obviously knew she'd been in a collision.
Her captain put her engines into reverse,
pulled away, and then just sat.
Nothing came or was heard from the Darrow for the entire incident.
The captain, a guy by the name of Captain Stump,
was found to be at fault, and in fact, there's a..
this is a copy of part of the Board of Enquiry.
"Summary of Report for the SS Mendi."
So, Ackland, so is he the lawyer investigating,
asking Stump what he's doing? Yes.
So, "What steps did you take to save lives?"
"Stump: I took no immediate steps. Ackland: why not?"
"Stump: I considered my own ship
"was in dangerous of sinking." Was that...?
Not after the first few minutes. She was actually fine,
she wasn't in imminent danger.
"Did you hear anybody singing out?"
"Stump: I heard some shouting out.
"Ackland: It's now being suggested that you wanted to leave
"the men who you knew were in the water to drown."
Is there, I mean, is there malicious intent?
It's so hard to know
because Stump refused to really answer those questions.
There was never a proper answer given by him at that Board
of Trade Enquiry as to why he had not gone out and saved lives.
Is it conceivable that he had a problem with the fact that
the men in the water were black Africans?
It's one of the suggestions that has been made,
but I don't think so, I can't see that as being the real reason.
There was a suggestion that perhaps he was under the influence.
Alcohol? Yes, given his previous actions - he was on the bridge
when it took place, and got people to go forward and check for damage,
it makes you think he was well in control, he knew what was going on.
It's inexplicable that he did not do anything at all.
We'll never know what was in Captain Stump's mind.
Perhaps it was incompetence, perhaps he froze in the moment.
But we do know that his penalty was lenient.
His licence was suspended for just 12 months.
Whatever the reasons for Captain Stump's inaction,
in South Africa the tragedy of the Mendi has come to symbolise
the injustice of racial segregation.
The sinking has become the stuff of legend.
It's said as the Mendi went down, the troops confronted their fate
like warriors. Removing their boots on deck, they performed
a death dance, accompanied by the rousing words of their priest.
"Be quiet and calm, my countrymen.
"For what is taking place now is exactly what you came to do.
"You are going to die.
"We die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa.
"Raise your war cries, brothers,
"for though they made us leave our weapons at our home,
"our voices are left with our bodies."
The hand of history has dealt the Channel its share of human drama.
Now there's time for one last tale.
A story of pillage and booty from the seas, for Saint-Malo is
a city that made heroes of legalised pirates, the notorious corsairs.
This is Saint-Malo's most famous corsair, Robert Surcouf,
celebrated for menacing the English fleet,
and for killing, single-handedly, 11 enemy soldiers in a duel.
Apparently he spared the 12th so that he could live to tell the tale.
That's the story, anyway.
Corsairs were traders turned buccaneers.
In times of war, a letter from the king was all they needed to arm
their ships and take whatever they could, usually from the English.
'Some 200 years ago, Domenique de Beaucoudrey's ancestor was
'a Saint-Malo corsair.'
How was the cargo divided up?
There was something like one-third for the state,
one-third for the ship owner
and the remaining third was shared between the captain and the crew.
Now, trade was more important, though, really, than war.
If trade was more important,
why was your ancestor carrying guns on his ship?
They were only fighting the bloody English
because they were blocking all the harbour...
HE LAUGHS
It was all the English's fault, was it?
Trying to bring back merchandise
was the only way we were fighting them.
The Royal papers carried by Dominique's forebears
sanctioned piracy.
On our side of the Channel, it looks like daylight robbery.
To the French, the corsairs were simply taking care of business.
Do you think any of your ancestors took any English goods?
Yes, he did, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you think the French would give those goods back to the English now?
HE LAUGHS
The French never give back anything.
Domenique isn't alone.
Saint-Malo's corsair descendants
regularly celebrate their pirate heritage with a light luncheon.
'I can't resist entering their lair to pose one last question.'
Were the corsairs perhaps criminals?
No. No.
A letter of marque from his king to make war on behalf of the king...
If you say a corsair is a criminal,
you would say a soldier is a criminal.
Their toast isn't to criminals, but heroes.
Heroes conjured up with a song from the era of raids on English ships.
THEY LAUGH
In Saint-Malo, they still celebrate Channel conflicts
the British have chosen to forget.
From opposing shores, the land reaches out
as if to lay claim to the water.
'But ultimately this narrow sea belongs to no-one and everyone,
'eternally dividing and uniting.'
Over long centuries,
these waters have witnessed many remarkable stories.
But in the ebb and flow of changing times,
the Channel remains awash with possibility.