Episodes (13)
1. The Doolittle Raid
Aired 1 April 2015 • 60 min
Seeking to hit back at Japan, Col. Jimmy Doolittle puts B-25 bombers on aircraft for a mission that the crews have little chance of surviving.
2. Wingate and the Chindits
Aired 2 April 2015 • 60 min
Surrounded by the Japanese, Orde Wingate led the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade in one of the most imaginative and complex escapes of World War II.
3. The Black Battalion Holds the Line
Aired 3 April 2015 • 60 min
Unsung heroes: the battalion of black soldiers who were surrounded, down to their last ten rounds, and yet who helped win the Battle of the Bulge.
4. Manstein Holds the Line
Aired 5 April 2015 • 60 min
Fleeing from the Russian troops, Erich von Manstein devised one of the most brilliant escapes in military history Â- one that is still studied in military schools.
5. Lucky Laycock's Escape from Crete
Aired 12 April 2015 • 60 min
This is the dramatic story of how Crete was captured by the Germans and how Robert Laycock led a desperate rear guard action against crack German mountain troops.
6. The Amiens Raid
Aired 19 April 2015 • 60 min
In advance of the Allied landings at Normandy, the British plan the aerial bombing of Amiens Prison, where a hundred Resistance fighters await execution.
7. Breakout Through Hell's Gate
Aired 26 April 2015 • 60 min
With 60,000 German soldiers surrounded by the Russian army, this is the story of the heroic rearguard action that allowed thousands of troops to escape.
8. The Road of Bones
Aired 3 May 2015 • 60 min
In 1944, 1500 outnumbered British and Indian troops amazingly hold Japanese forces at the key Burmese town of Kohima. This is their amazing story.
9. Morshead Holds Tobruk
Aired 10 May 2015 • 60 min
By Easter 1941, all that stands between Afrika Korps commander Erwin Rommel and Egypt's Suez Canal is Tobruk. Australia's Gen. Leslie Morshead and his defenders are ordered to hold the Libyan port for eight weeks while the defenses of Egypt can be strengthened. The "Rats of Tobruk" are convinced that if they fail, the war against Germany will be lost.
10. The Real Bridge Too Far
Aired 17 May 2015 • 60 min
Sadly, the Allied Forces did not manage to capture the last bridge near Arnhem. Arnhem quite literally proved to be 'a bridge to far'. More than 1,750 Allied soldiers who were killed during Operation Market Garden lie buried at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek.
11. Evacuation in the Baltic
Aired 24 May 2015 • 60 min
As the war enters its final months, the nearly 2 million Germans living in East Prussia flee an advancing Red Army no longer distinguishing between German soldiers and civilians. Hundreds of thousands make for the Baltic ports--the start of the single biggest evacuation of WWII.
12. Operation Pedestal
Aired 31 May 2015 • 60 min
By 1942, the fight between the Allies and the Axis for control of the Mediterranean is focused on tiny Malta. From there, British aircraft and submarines have been preying on enemy supply ships. When Hitler and Mussolini decide to crush Malta, Churchill dispatches a huge convoy to run the gauntlet of Axis air and naval power to reach the beleaguered island stronghold.
13. Moore's March
Aired 7 June 2015 • 60 min
With the Italians preparing to invade Egypt in the summer of 1940, the British army's Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) causes havoc far behind the front. But after an LRDG patrol is attacked, a tough New Zealander named Ron Moore leads the survivors barefoot through the desert, 300 miles from Allied lines.