World War II in Colour TV - The Enemy Below 1957 - The Guns of Navarone 1961 - Fury 2014 - Saving Private Ryan 1998 - Sands of Iwo Jima 1949 - Battle of the Bulge 1965 - Hitler’s Last Year - Anne Frank Remembered 1995 - The Sorrow and the Pity 1969 - Secrets of War TV - Wartime Crime TV - James Holland: Normandy 44: The Battle Beyond D-Day & World War Speed TV - Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain TV - Document: Radio 4 - Wings of War TV - Greatest Events of World War II TV - Presidents at War TV - 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz? TV - Nazi Victory: The Cold-War Plan TV - PQ17: An Arctic Convoy Disaster TV - Spies of War TV - Tim Pigott-Smith: The Other Side of Dunkirk TV - Vladimir Putin - Lost Films of WWII TV - Battle of Britain 80: Allies at War TV - World War II: The Untold Stories TV - Dunkirk 2017 - Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley TV - Apocalypse: Hitler Takes on the West TV - 1940: The Sound of Surrender TV - Hitler’s Attack on America TV - World War II: The Apocalypse TV - Churchill’s Traitors TV - Hitler Stalin and Mr Jones TV - D-Day Remembered: Minute by Minute TV - Seconds from Disaster TV - Rise of the Nazis: Dictators at War TV - Hitler’s Disastrous Desert War TV - Tony Robinson TV - Adam Curtis TV -
September 1st 1939: German troops thrust deep into Poland to win a swift and absolute victory. World War II in Colour/HD e1: The Gathering Storm
Hitler declared himself president. ibid.
London and Paris were scared of setting off a European war. They declared a policy of non-intervention. ibid.
During the afternoon of August 31st 1939 German forces made their final preparations for the invasion of Poland. World War II in Colour/HD e2: Lightning War
The Allies abandoned Norway to its fate. ibid.
On June 22nd 1940 Britain stood alone against the Nazis ... The odds against the RAF were daunting. World War II in Colour/HD e3: Britain at Bay
Cities by night – this was the co-called Blitz. London was attacked every night but one up to November 12th. ibid.
Adolf Hitler had never disguised his belief that the Soviet Union would be his regime’s ultimate aim. He hated communism and saw the vast open spaces and natural resources of Soviet Russia as the prize that would finally enable the German people to become the master race. World War II in Colour/HD e4: Hitler Strikes East
The German army invaded the Balkans ... Greece fell almost as quickly. ibid.
Stalingrad had been a bloody battle. The Germans had been savaged. They had lost some 300,000 of their man. ibid.
At 7:56 on the morning of December 7th 1941 Japanese aircraft swooped down over Hawaii. Their target: the US Pacific fleet at anchor at its base at Pearl Harbor. World War II in Colour/HD e5: Red Sun Rampant
As Hitler marched triumphantly across western Europe in the early summer of 1940, his fellow dictator in Italy, Benito Mussolini, dreamt of a similar campaign further south. World War II in Colour/HD e6: The Mediterranean and North Africa
The Italian army was in poor fighting shape. ibid.
Italy could no longer be depended on to maintain control of the Mediterranean. ibid.
The people of Malta held on. ibid.
The RAF played havoc with the advancing German tanks … It was now Rommel’s turn to dig in. ibid.
For Germany it was another momentous disaster. ibid.
For the western Allies the problem was attacking Germany when there were no Allied troops in mainland Europe. World War II in Colour/HD e7: Turning the Tide
Carpet-bombing: ‘It would destroy the morale of the civilian population’. ibid.
German city after city was hit and devastated. ibid.
By the end of 1943 the Allies dominated the Atlantic. It was a turning point in the war. ibid.
Summer 1943 and on the Eastern front Hitler’s armies were in retreat. Huge Soviet artillery barrages and tank assaults were shredding the German lines. Hitler by now was fighting a war on two fronts. World War II in Colour/HD e8: The Soviet Steamroller
By the spring of 1944 Hitler’s forces were stretched to the limit. All along the Eastern front there was a desperate need for reinforcements. ibid.
Nearly 1,500 tanks and a million men pushed into Romania in late August 1944. ibid.
Overlord: 1944 and on the Eastern Front Hitler’s forces were being pushed back towards the German border. But Germany was about to face a new threat: in the West, Allied forces had been preparing for months to open a new front in north-west France … An attack Hitler had long been expecting …. One of the greatest battles of World War II: D-Day. World War II in Colour/HD e9: Overlord
‘I am the greatest builder of fortifications of all time.’ ibid. Hitler
Operation Overlord – the greatest sea-borne invasion ever – was underway. D-Day had begun. ibid.
A vast armada out of the mist. ibid.
Assault troops headed for the shore. ibid.
The Americans held on to the beach-head. ibid.
By the summer of 1944 Allied troops were racing towards Paris. World War II in Colour/HD: The Battle of the Bulge e10, Closing the Ring
The Battle of the Bulge: The German bulge was slowly pushed back. ibid.
By early 1943 the Japanese empire was at its height. The country had occupied Malaya, Burma, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies. World War II in Colour/HD e11: The Island War
In January 1944 America’s naval offensive in the Pacific moved on to the Marshall Islands. ibid.
Japanese losses had been even greater. ibid.
Stalin’s Red Army in Poland prepared to launch a major offensive on Germany’s eastern border. Hitler’s forces in the region were poorly equipped. World War II in Colour/HD e12: Victory in Europe
There were horrific tales of Russian rape, murder and pillage. ibid.
In Europe the continent lay in ruins. ibid.
In the first months of 1945 Japan was on the run. The Americans had fought their way across the Pacific. US submarines and aircraft had destroyed Japan’s merchant fleet and air power. World War II in Colour/HD e13: Victory in the Pacific
Firestorms engulfed whole areas destroying houses and industrial facilities. ibid.
Bridge – Radar – got a spook. The Enemy Below 1957 starring Robert Mitchum & Curt Jurgens & Theodore Bikel & Al Hedison & Russell Collins & Kurt Kreuger & Ralph Manza & Frank Albertson & Biff Elliot & Doug McClure et al, director Dick Powell, radar bloke
I’m sick of this war. It’s not a good war. ibid. U-boat captain
There’s no end to misery and destruction. ibid. Mitchum
I want something better for them than war, and I think it’s possible. ibid. doctor to captain
I don’t want to know the men I’m trying to destroy. ibid. captain to doctor
Then you’ve got the bloody cliff overhang. We can’t even see the bloody cave let alone the bloody guns. And anyway, we haven’t got a bloody bomb big enough to smash that bloody rock. And that’s the bloody truth, sir. The Guns of Navarone 1961 starring Gregory Peck & David Niven & Anthony Quinn & Stanley Baker & Anthony Quayle & James Darren & Peter Grant & Irene Papas & Gia Scala & James Robertson Justice & Richard Harris & Bryan Forbeset al, director J Lee Thompson, Australian bloke
The only way to win the war is to be just as nasty as the enemy. ibid. Peck
They’ll be a thousand wars. And they’ll be a thousand wars till we all kill each other off completely. ibid. Niven