Europe is under Hitler's Blitzkireg. To keep France free, 400,000 English soldiers have manned the battlefields. Germany's strength is too great and pushes the British to the coast town of Dunkirk where they are trapped. With the Germany army massing to surround them, an armada of every kind of boat forms to transport them back to England against all odds. The dramatic rescue of 338,000 will be known as the miracle of Dunkirk.
Early in the war, the Germans decide they need to guarantee access to the Norwegian port of Narvik to ensure their supplies of Swedish iron ore. The British, however, send destroyers to up-end the German plan. Fierce sea battles result in the loss of many ships and soldiers. One German who was there tells his story.
After invading France, Hitler is planning to cross the Channel. his only obstacle is the Royal Air Force. Determined to decimate British air strength, the luftwaffe forces the RAF into the air. Throughout the summer of 1940, both sides lose an incredible number of daring flyers in what becomes one of the most important battles of the war.
In 1941, Mussolini desperately wants to wrest the tiny island of Malta from the British for control of the Mediterranean. When his inadequate air force fails to bomb the Maltese into submission, Hitler's Luftwaffe joins the campaign. Malta becomes the most bombed target of the war but the British and the Maltese refuse to surrender.
In the North African desert in 1942, American fighting forces encounter the dreaded Rommel for the first time to stop the German war machine. It's a desert battle in which Rommel's tanks are able to cut off the British and American armies. But Germany's inability to supply Rommel allows the allies to force him back.
As the allies make their way into Italy, they encounter tremendous resistance at German defensive positions along the Gustav line. one of these locations is an ancient monastery called Monte Cassino. The U.S. army h as to make a controversial decision to bomb the religiously significant monastery where the Germans are entrenched.
D-Day, the 6th of June--one of the most pivotal moments in world history. In a massive armada of thousands of ships, 3,000,000 allied troops land at Three Beaches in Normandy, France--one of the most incredibly co-ordinated military operations ever. Scaling the impregnable "Atlantic Wall," constructed by the Germans, turns out to be one of the most difficult and constly battles of World War II.
Six weeks after the D-Day invasion of the Beaches of Normandy, the allied forces are pushing the Germans back through the French countryside. Town by town is won back as Panzer divisions retreat back to the Meuse River. Finally, the Red Ball Express makes the difference and daringly gets supplies through General George Patton's 3rd army, allowing the Americans to crush the Germans.
Before the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese initiate the Pacific War by firing on the British in Malaya. Their route to the rubber-rich nation takes them into Singapore, the World's most armed fortress. The ultimate surrender of Singapore becomes the British Army's first major loss of the War.
During a two-hour surprise attack on the American Pacific fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Japanese navy pilots score a near-complete victory. Almost 85% of the American fleet is either damaged or destroyed. Air bases are strafed and 2,500 Americans are killed. it is one of the most devastating losses in the history of the United States navy.
Only one isolated atoll prevents an enemy invasion of Hawaii. Midway Island is where the Japanese fleet converges on a tiny American base with a massive strafing and bombing attack. The Japanese expect to wipe out American defenses and keep the U.S. out of the Pacific. But, because of advance intelligence, U.S. navy pilots are able to locate the Japanese carriers and destroy them in one of the most decisive Pacific battles of World War II.
For the first time since Americans entered the war, Marines face Japanese infantrymen at Guadalcanal. In the jungles, two powerful armies clash in a six month battle that claims nearly 30,000 lives. In their attempt to retake the Island's landing field, the Japanese are outnumbered four to one. Nearly 1,000 of them are cut down in a matter of hours.
Bloody fighting erupts on a group of tiny Pacific islands in November 1943. In November 1943, a group of island in the Pacific would become the scene of some of the most brutal combat of World War II. The Japanese would fight furiously, almost to the last man. On the tiny atoll of Tarawa, the Japanese cut down landing marines with vicious precision. Military blunders by American commanders add to the losses in taking the Island of Tarawa. Through sheer numbers, Americans finally take hold and firebomb the final Japanese resistance.
The Japanese meet resistance from British forces as they advance through Burma to take India in 1944.
As the United States prepared for the invasion of the Philippines, scheduled for late 1944, the tiny Palau Islands had to be taken first. The well-entrenched Japanese were ready to fight to the last man. It was a bloody campaign with heavy losses on both sides.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur's return to the Philippines, and the final push to retake the islands after two years of Japanese occupation.
The Allies break into France and push the Germans back to their own border.
The December 1944 battle pitting American forces against German Panzer divisions in the Ardennes Forest. By the end of 1944, the allied armies are within striking distance of Germany. In a last-ditch effort, Hitler orders 65,000 of his finest soldiers to cut off the American units in the Ardennes forest and force them back to the Meuse River. In forming their bulge, they surround the town of Bastogne but an allied bombing and Patton's third Army save the Americans and push the Germans back.
American B-29 high-altitude bomber attacks Japan near the end of World War II.
American forces landing on the shores of Iwo Jima encounter Japanese combatants willing to fight to the death.
After British forces withdrew in defeat from Greece to the island of Crete in early 1941, they were soon fighting German invasion armies again. This time, 5,000 of Hitler's elite paratroopers landed to complete their conquest in the Mediterranean. This was the largest and most ambitious airborne operation to date. It was a dangerous campaign for both the British and the Germans.
Heavily armed vessels disguised as ordinary cargo ships patrolled allied waters, sinking supply boats and commandeering their cargo.
The Battle of the Gothic Line in 1944.
In 1945, Soviet and American troops press Hitler's armies from the west and the east, culminating in the fall of Berlin.
The development of the B-17 bomber, which allowed American planes to reach inside Germany and bomb its cities. By the end of the war, American B-17's are pounding Germany in the thousand bomber raids. The remains of the Luftwaffe does its best but cannot match against the numbers. Germans suffer through the deprivation that war has brought them and the bombing brings them closer to a final defeat.
U-boats posed the deadliest threat to Allied convoys traveling the Atlantic.
German tanks roll into Poland in September 1939.
German field marshal Erwin Rommel scores a major victory at the Libyan seaport of Tobruk.
As the U.S. makes its way through the pacific towards Japan, the final invasion is on the island of Okinawa. Although the landing is simple, the Japanese commander has decided to meet the Americans in the steeper inland terrain of the island. It is a brutal and violent final pacific battle of the war. Kamikaze fighters strike back in a last-ditch effort to keep the Americans away.
German forces encounter Russian resistance.
Examining the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December 1941.
The Allies launch an attack designed to push the Germans back to the Rhine River.
The Allies launch an ill-fated attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe, France. By the middle of 1942, the allies are anxious to attack the Germans in Normandy but they are not prepared for a full-scaled invasion. Instead, a raiding party of 6,000 troops, including 5,000 Canadians, makes an ill-fated attempt to land at Dieppe, France. The heavily fortified German emplacements make it impossible for the forces to accomplish their mission. More than half of the force become casualties or are taken prisoner.
Allied armies encounter German resistance in the Italian fishing town of Anzio. A succession of attacks resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, though no budge in the stalemate. After a four-month stalemate during which British and American losses totaled seven thousand killed, thirty-six thousand wounded or missing, and forty-four thousand hospitalized from various nonbattle injuries and sickness, the siege of Anzio finally ended on May 23, 1944, when the Allies launched a breakout offensive.
Erwin Rommel battles Allied forces in North Africa in 1942.
German forces retreat across the Rhine on the Remagen bridge near the close of the war.
Examining the battle at the Kwajelein Atoll in the South Pacific during 1944. Included: operations by the Seabees. To avoid the catastrophic losses experienced in taking Guadalcanal and Tarawa, American forces assemble 42,000-man army to invade the tiny atoll of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. Part of the island's value is in setting up an advance base to bomb Japanese targets. While the fighting continues, the navy construction battalion builds an entire base camp on the tiny atoll in just a matter of days.
American bombers target a Romanian oil refinery in a daring 1943 mission.
Fresh from victory in North Africa, the Allies successfully invade the island of Sicily, staging an eventual Italian withdrawal from the war.
Both political and military expediency were factors in the return of the French capital to its people.
Various WWII newsreels and propaganda pieces from Russian sources.
