By the autumn of 1944 the Allied advance across western Europe had stalled. Ken Burns, The War: Life’s Accidents
By December of 1944 Americans were growing weary of the war their men had been fighting for three long years. In Europe it was supposed to be over by now. Ken Burns, The War: The Ghost Front
Hitler’s enormous gamble had ended in disaster. He had lost some 100,000 men and virtually all his tanks and aircraft, and now had no way of replacing them. ibid.
Vast American and British armies were probing enemy defences, seeking a way across the Rhine and into the German heartland. Ken Burns, The War: Terrible Choices
German and Japanese cities were disappearing in flames. ibid.
The battle for Manila would go on for a month. ibid.
Americans had been fighting for more than three years now ... The Nazis seemed at last to be on the verge of collapse. Ken Burns, The War: A Long Tough Road
Hitler called on his people to resist to the end. ibid.
On April 25th American and Soviet forces linked up ... Germany had been cut in half. ibid.
More than a hundred camps and sub-camps would be liberated. ibid.
The hard-won Allied victory in Europe had delighted Americans back home ... The war was far from over. Ken Burns, The War: A World Without War
Many historians believe this well-intentioned [Versailles] Treaty actually did more to cause the Second World War than to prevent it … The Treaty added insult to injury. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e1: The Road to War, 2014
He attempted a military coup in a Munich beer hall which was a disaster. Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison … [and] served thirteen months. ibid.
September 17th: HMS Courageous was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a retaliatory U-boat claiming the lives of 500. ibid.
Their determination to defend Finland was fiercely patriotic. The winter of 1939 was one of the worst ever known in Finland. ibid.
These few months really were the lull before the storm. ibid.
In the autumn of 1939 the relative tranquillity that Europe had enjoyed since the end of the First World War was shattered as the leader of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland on September 1st. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e2: Battle Lines Drawn
On the Russian agenda, Stalin was carefully constructing a buffer zone between his country and the West. ibid.
Food stocks were beginning to run low in Britain. ibid.
Hitler ordered the conquest of the low countries. ibid.
The spring and early summer of 1940 proved to be a very eventful few months in the history of the Second World War which until this point had seen acts of Nazi aggression followed by periods of watching and waiting on the part of Great Britain and the Allies. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e3: First Blood
Allied soldiers were finally sent fully into battle … The phoney war had come to an end. ibid.
Thousands of Allied troops were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk … One of the most inspiring moments of the entire war. ibid.
The Dutch fought bravely and efficiently against the modern tanks and weapons of the German army. ibid.
As the winds of change blew through Europe, by June 1940 Nazi Germany had invaded almost every country to the north, south, east and west of its borders, terrorising civilians, obliterating cities and driving back the Allied troops that tried to halt their advance. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e4: Britain Under Attack
There was one country that refused to capitulate to German domination: across the channel Great Britain was simply not prepared to contemplate peace with Nazi Germany. And as the planes of the Third Reich began to swarm towards British air space, Adolf Hitler was about to discover that he faced an entire population determined its defend its beaches, towns and cities no matter what the cost. ibid.
What would later became known as radar gave British controllers early warning of Luftwaffe raids. ibid.
1940 was a year of dramatic change. At the outside people watched and waited to see what Adolf Hitler would do next … Hitler turned his attention towards Britain and as summer turned to autumn the island-nation quite literally had to fight for its survival. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e5: Fighting Further Afield
It’s estimated that up to half a million gypsies were killed during the war. ibid.
The Spanish helped build observation posts around Gibraltar. ibid.
On September 3rd 1940 Congress agreed to amend the Neutrality Act to allow munition sales to the British and French. ibid.
As the old year of 1940 came to a close, on the eve of 1941 the air-raid siren sounded once more across the British Isles. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e6: On Land, In the Air & All at Sea
Those still living in occupied countries were forming resistance groups. ibid.
Fighting alongside the British troops were forces from all around the commonwealth. ibid.
Hitler was now greedily surveying Russian territory. ibid.
Romania was forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest with the Central Powers. ibid.
Japan at this time was in the midst of a long and brutal war with China. ibid.
By April Germany had changed tactics resorting to the bombing of British sea-ports rather than targeting the nation’s towns and cities. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e7: The Blitz, Bismarck & Barbarossa
A difficult time for the Allies in north Africa. ibid.
Hitler quickly made a pact with the Japanese. ibid.
Hitler’s second-in-command Rudolph Hess was discovered with a broken ankle in a Scottish field. ibid.
Hitler’s aerial attacks against his enemies using a blanket of firebombs to cripple industry and destroy housing. ibid.
Barbarossa: some three million German troops went into action. ibid.
Adolf Hitler after failing to invade the British Isle turned his attention eastwards. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e8: Russian Roulette
Japan had been at war with China since 1937. ibid.
Churchill was in no position to help the Soviets fight their battles. ibid.
By the winter of 1941 war had been raging across Europe, Asia and Africa for over two years. Millions were living in fear throughout occupied Europe. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e9: America at War
The action from Washington was swift. And the empire of the rising sun had woken a sleeping giant opening a new chapter in the history of the Second World War. ibid.
The Second World War had truly gone global. ibid.
In the early weeks of 1942 as battle raged in western Europe and north Africa, the Japanese threat to invade Malaya and Singapore became a reality. It was unthinkable to the British that the islands they’d nicknamed the Gibraltar of the east could fall, and yet fall it did with dire and terrible consequences. Some 80,000 prisoners of war were taken in Singapore, 50,000 more in Malaya. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e10: The Fall of Singapore
The British garrison of Hong Kong fell … Burma took much longer. ibid.
As 1942 progressed, the Second World War was taking on global proportions. Events in the Pacific theatre of war were escalating as the Empire of the Rising Sun extended its reach further south expanding its defensive perimeter towards Australia. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e11: The Battle of Midway and Beyond
5,200 Yank Prisoners Killed by Jap Torture in Philippines; Cruel ‘March of Death’ Described. ibid. newspaper article
Midway would further extend the Japanese defensive perimeter and even provide a useful base to launch attacks on the west coast of America. ibid.
Italian and German troops were now posing a very real threat to British interests in Africa. WWII: Countdown to Victory s1e12: Alamein to Stalingrad
By July 1942 the Battle of Stalingrad was well under way. ibid.
Rommel’s men were exhausted and running out of supplies. ibid.