Turning Points: The Key Battles That Decided WWII | Parts 1-4 | War Stories

hello i'm james holland and i'm a historian of the second world war history hit is a bit like netflix but purely for history we've got hundreds of hours of historical documentaries going all the way back to classical times right through to the cold war and beyond use the word war stories all one word for a massive discount when you join up every battle is both a victory and a defeat it depends which flag you fly in every theater of the second world war battles won and lost determined possession of territory of resources and of the strength to go on fighting for some of the battles it was the victory that most influenced the future course of the war for others it was the defeat this is the story of the battles won and lost that decided the outcome of the greatest conflict in history the battles of the first world war were battles of attrition opposing armies hardly moving between lines of trenches the battles of the second world war were different in this episode we study tank battles blitz creek commando raids amphibious landings and mobile warfare in the desert [Music] in august 1914 germany attacked through belgium the attack failed and the conflict turned into a war of attrition which germany was never going to win in may 1940 hitler gambled the war in the west would end quickly or he would follow the kaiser into oblivion hitler is very interested in invading very rapidly it's his generals and the vermont army that is very reluctant to invade france quickly because of course they're thinking of the first world war and this is likely to take four to five years so there's a lot of emotional attachment to the idea that this is the first world war but this time germany will win plan yellow had designed a german thrust along the lines of the opening offensive of the first world war but plan yellow had fallen into the hands of the allies which created the opportunity for general eric von manstein yes france was ready to be plucked the whole force of the nazi might was turned toward the west how would they strike this time through al sasso reigns in 1870 through the long countries as in 1914 what was the 1940 model conquest manstein's plan proposed an alternative route out flanking the french defensive maginot line not by marching through belgium but by crashing through the forest of the ardennes the french are expecting germany to come in much the same direction as they did in the first world war and this means that they're in a quandary relatively quickly because they haven't actually planned or prepared for an attack through the ardennes forest first army group under general biat and including the british expeditionary force faced the belgian border second army group general pretala stood on the murs behind the maginot line and centered on the old battlefield of verdon between them in a rear position was the sixth army general tushan the defensive alignment of the allies clearly revealed the gap that the german assault would exploit the french military philosophy that they're taking into this war is really concentrating on holding a defensive line creating a stalemate on the northeastern front and not turning to a fence which is really what they retrospectively probably should have done facing them was army group a general von roonstedt the two sides were evenly matched the allies had 3 000 tanks to germany's 2500 but the germans had an advantage in aircraft and troops on the ground were very similar in number but the german victory turned that apparent parity upside down it was crushing the battle began on may 10th when german parachute troops secured dutch bridgeheads and glider-borne commandos took the belgian fortress at ebon ahmad the 12th and 16th armies built around armor crashed through the forest of the ardennes and the french ninth shifting south to meet the threat disintegrated on may 12th the leading german unit crossed the murs and stood on french soil within a day the dutch army was being ordered to fall back on the line amsterdam rotterdam utrecht the netherlands was soon out of the war and the german 12th and 16th armies having crossed the murs were threatening the allied rear and for the second time in 25 years the allies rushed to belgium's aid movietown cameramen shot these vivid impressions on the eve of what may well be the greatest battle in history within four days the allies were falling back from belgium on the 17th the french were defeated at sedon [Music] and their prime minister telephoned his british counterpart to say we are beaten it can't have happened so soon churchill said but it had the germans were into open country sweeping up behind the allies the main criticism you can really make of the french army is that they're slow at reacting to a new situation and this is one area where it seems the german army is faster some of the tank groups which move to the channel go well beyond what they're supposed to do they're getting orders to halt they're getting orders to stop to let the rest of the troops come catch up but they don't do it a young commander named irvin rommel pretended to have lost radio contact so that he did not have to check the forward surge of his seventh panzer division on may 18th he reached comrade before being ordered to halt when the attack resumed three commanders rommel in the north reinhardt in the center guderian in the south smashed through to the coast the allied force had been divided and with the sixth and eighteenth german armies moving forward the allies were being pressed on two fronts once the germans do break through the french don't really counter attack mainly because they're in a defensive mentality whereby their idea is that the best thing to do is to plug the holes in whatever line they have fall back and act defensively and this also creates further problems and if they're creating a defensive line they tend to spread out their tanks whereas if you're going to have offensive counter attack you bunch them together and once you've spread them out it's actually difficult to get them back together in time to to counter attack on may 25th boulogne fell calais two days later the day after the british had begun to evacuate the forces trapped at dunkirk [Music] and the day that king leopold offered the belgian surrender at the beginning of june the germans turned south smashing through allied resistance on the song the following day june 10th italy entered the war as an ally of germany [Music] three days later german troops entered paris this had been the dream of the kaiser in the last war hitler achieved it on june the 16th less than six weeks after the offensive had been launched france sought an armistice the french government has capitulated 22 years ago a great marshal of france received the surrender of the german army now his former colleague another marshal signs abject terms of surrender for france [Music] we left france in june 1940 when france collapsed now i went to england and then i heard that the goal was carrying the war beside the british we decided to run the world though hitler himself rejected the description as a silly word the world of warfare had learned a new term blitzkrieg hitler sent large contingents vastly superior in training and equipment a country about the size of maryland affords a new test tube for the accelerated nazi warfare blitzkrieg is a really interesting tactic because it doesn't just work tactically it works psychologically so for example everyone has this impression that the germans had invaded france in panzers in powerful tanks in fact most of the german tanks were a little better than bulldozers they weren't nearly as powerful as the french tanks that oppose them but those tanks weren't just fueled by by benzene they were fueled by by some sort of weird psychic projection and it said we will defeat you the tactics that facilitated rapid advance were not ad hoc they were systematic and carefully calculated artillery and aircraft went in first to prepare the ground for the assault and aircraft worked in close support of the advancing columns spotter aircraft the fiesla store the junckers 88 dive bomber and morale busting stuka stukas dive bombed the french positions the screaming sound they made didn't just destroy the french tolls bodies it destroyed their minds it said we're targeting you and these stukas driving very horrible screaming noise and we dashed amongst the sand dunes and clawed at the earth trying to get underground you just the fear is just overpowering and i knew then that was war the commanders of the anglo-french force made mistakes and they worked with inherited mistakes that had failed to anticipate mobile mechanized warfare in france the french army manned the maginot line and waited impatient by nature the frenchman persuaded himself that hitler never meant to attack said hitler the french army ratted on its feet the fall of france has to be seen above all as a victory it was a victory for a bold strategic plan grand in concept efficient in detail and effective in deployment for initiative at all levels of command and for effective weapons designed for their coordinated roles in such an offensive the invasion of france may have been the most decisive victory ever to fail to win a war after the fall of france with most of western europe under nazi control hitler turned east invading the soviet union by 1943 he faced a dilemma the invasion of italy was imminent the second front would follow but the greatest part of his force was still deep inside soviet territory hitler looked for a decisive action that would allow him to withdraw troops to face the threat in the west the battle of course basically arises out of the last stages of the battle of stalingrad when the soviet winter offensive began in 1941 1942 stalin is really overextending his reach he's attempting to do too much and that's exactly what happens at stalingrad yes the sixth army has been destroyed yes the soviet forces have driven into the caucasus and into the eastern part of the ukraine but as they keep trying to attack munstein the commander of army group south is falling back on his centers of supply and resources he is able to build an operational reserve and then he is actually able to strike back against over-extended soviet forces if the red army could be dealt a hammer blow then and only then could hitler consider transferring divisions from the eastern front to meet the threat in the west the urban flow of the fighting had created a bulge in the russian line a salient the kursk island is essentially named because the city of kursk is in the middle of this bulge and to understand it it's a very large bulge it's 250 kilometers north to south and it's about 160 kilometers in depth and the basic idea that munstein has is after this success this counter-offensive against the soviets he sees an operational opportunity if we could pinch off that silence there would be an operational success there but the window of opportunity is quite short and so operation citadel took shape it's clear too that hitler has masked his tanks and planes and men and thrown into this sudden onslaught just about the heaviest weight of material and manpower of any battle on the eastern front von manstein's army group south would carry the battle von manstein planned for volta model's ninth army with a thousand tanks to attack from the north and hermann hoth's fourth panzer army 1200 tanks to swing from the south they would meet at kursk but pinching out the kursk salient was an obvious option the soviet hasn't been taken by surprise for weeks to judge by their air raids in the neighborhood of aurel and elsewhere they've been expecting a german push on the cursed sailing in anticipation of the attack stalin placed central and varnish fronts under two able commanders batuten and rokosovsky at the mouth of the salient hitler delayed the kursk offensive scheduled for may the fourth he had an increasingly passionate possibly desperate belief that the war would be won by the wonder weapons and wanted more of the new heavy tanks sent to join the battle his commanders knew that as they waited the soviets too were increasing their strength stalin's decision had been to stand on the defensive some 300 000 soviet civilians are being mobilized to build these defenses they will dig some 9 000 kilometers of trenches they will have anti-tank ditches and anti-tank traps they will have underground bunkers they will have thousands of mines per square kilometer and they're building them on the shoulders in the north and the south anticipating that the germans will attack into this the great battle opened on july the 4th a huge coming together of armor 900 000 german troops with two and a half thousand tanks faced one million three hundred thousand russians with three thousand tanks twenty thousand pieces of artillery six thousand anti-tank guns and a thousand katusha rocket launchers commando [Music] a bombardment by air and artillery began the german offensive engineers moved forward at night to clear minefields after smashing through the soviet lines the two great german armies would power on join up and trap a huge russian force in the nipped off salient but that didn't happen after 48 hours the germans had penetrated a little over 10 kilometers in three sections of the soviet front hoth's formations made a strong push forcing the russians to send reinforcements to hold the advance but progress slowed by the 9th hoth had advanced at best little over 30 kilometers with significant losses on the 10th he was obliged to bring up his reserves in the north modal was less successful than hoth his furthest advance being barely 20 kilometers and on the 11th zhukov and vasilevskiy counter-attacked russia's reply to the opening of the attack was powerful and front on the 12th the soviets brought their armoured reserve the fifth and sixth guard's tank armies to prokhorovka what followed was a massive clash of mechanized forces prokhorovskoye the russians call it the slaughter at prokhorovka it is really a material battle and a successful one again but the soviets are going to lose 330 totally destroyed in pukarovka and another 200 made non-operational these are phenomenal losses and the germans suffer a tiny fraction of that and why is that partly it is the story of the tiger tank and the panther tank these new tanks have much thicker armor they have much more powerful main armaments and for example the tiger can engage the t-34 the standard soviet tank at far greater ranges therefore it can destroy them before they're even in range it's in some ways a battle in some ways it's a massacre for soviet armour in istanbul foreign 75 of the red army's armor and 40 percent of its manpower was committed to the battle as the tanks had crashed into prokhorovka the soviet west and brian's fronts north of that battlefield had also moved threatening the rear the next day facing a growing crisis with allied landings in sicily demanding reinforcement hitler called off citadel germans were wiped out in tens of thousands tanks in hundreds yet the figures in the soviet communique is still monty it's very costly to the germans even more costly to the soviets so in that sense it's a tactical victory you could say for the germans but these things don't equal the one thing the germans need which is extremely high operational successes to balance out the superior soviet production and access to manpower by now only one side could rebound from such a contest rather than free divisions for transfer to the west hitler's gamble had sacrificed men and armor that he could not easily replace panzer general heinz guderian said that for germany kursk was a decisive defeat kusk is important and korsk is the end of the german initiative on the eastern front but in some ways it's the end of the german initiative on the eastern front because the soviets themselves realize it's in their interests to let the germans exhaust themselves on fixed defenses before they begin a much larger counter-offensive that will carry through the rest of the summer right into the autumn seas enormous tracks of german territory and destroy a lot of german equipment by july the 15th the central front began to move two days later the south west front advanced and by mid-august the battle was over the russians were at the outskirts of kharkov and the last german offensive of the eastern front had come to nothing from now on germany would be on the defensive all the way to berlin the rapidity with which the third reich swept over and imposed the rule of occupation on such a vast part of europe encouraged a form of warfare that had been little practiced operations behind the lines [Music] but the second world war gave a real impetus to the formal organization of special operations units formed and trained specifically for such actions [Music] churchill as a young man had been a war correspondent and a soldier in the anglo-ball war in south africa he'd been very impressed with the highly mobile forces of the boer opposition he wanted something along those lines small raiding forces that could strike at the germans but without requiring massive forces and so he ordered that these units be created he gave them the name of the boy units in the ball war and he called them commandos [Music] it was such units commando units that carried out the raid on san nazir it was called operation chariot concern for the safety of merchant shipping was behind the raid britain so long in receipt of the bounty of its vast maritime empire was despite vigorous wartime efforts dependent on imports for much of its essentials there were two main threats to the atlantic convoys one were the u-boats that was the biggest threat anti-submarine devices have improved and increased but so have submarines and the allies can never have too many escort ships to hunt them and destroy them but behind them was the german surface fleet and particularly their four major battleships they operated out of bases on the french coast and importantly from one base with one very significant feature on the night of the 27th of march an obsolete naval destroyer hms campbelltown and a specially created commando force attacked the naval base at san mazir their objective the dry dock the normandy dock which could accommodate even the largest of german battleships if they could decommission the facility any access vessel in need of repair would be forced to make the much longer journey north the location was problematic not on an open stretch of coast but tucked into the estuary of the loire with narrow channels confined by shoals making the approach to the dock easily defensible but british intelligence learned that the most powerful german capital ship tirpitz was about to join the creeks marine [Music] the plan was to ram campbelltown into the dock gates and detonate the time-delayed explosives hidden on board to render the dock it was an enormously risky plan the port itself was heavily defended the attackers were outnumbered something like eight to one the defenders had heavy coastal artillery even on the way there it was risky the task force faced danger of u-boats and in fact at one point the escorts had to pull away from the campbelltown in order to chase away a u-boat they were also at risk from the air from the luftwaffe so it was highly risky and surprise was absolutely essential [Music] but the strong and clearly alert german defenses rendered useless all of the small boats that had been the commandos intended means of escape they were forced to fight and they did they managed to blow up the dock but it came at an incredible cost almost two-thirds of the force that carried out the raid were either killed or captured so it was an enormously costly operation it did however have the intended effect tirpitz never did relocate from her base in norway and so the atlantic convoys were protected from that potential threat almost one in four of the raiders received some form of gallantry award and the highest such award in the british army the victoria cross was awarded to five many rewards for gallantry were presented by the king at a recent buckingham palace investigator commander ryder received the award for exceptional valor and devotion in the raid on san jose apart from achieving the immediate goals the raid had other important effects on the war one of which was simply to massively boost british morale it came at a particularly dark time when singapore had just fallen and so it was really important from that aspect as well but also it outraged hitler he was enraged by by the audacity of this attack and he ordered the construction of 15 000 heavily armed and heavily fortified bunkers along the atlantic coast to prevent raids of this kind in the future which of course had the effect of drawing resources away from the eastern front which was very important at that time the success of san nazaire added to confidence gained from amphibious actions off norway particularly the vargzo raid and the british were encouraged they planned more ambitious raids an amphibious assault on dieppe was approved and code named jubilee yesterday morning at 2 41 am general joel the representative of the german high command and of grand admiral dernitz signed the act of unconditional surrender to the allied expeditionary forces and simultaneously to the soviet high command the war in europe was over everyone realized perfectly well that although the german war was over the japanese war was not there was only one possible outcome in the east but the fighting continued [Music] on the asian mainland a great japanese offensive in china had been checked and japanese troops had evacuated burma in the pacific the steady island by island approach to japan itself was continuing it had been decided by the allies that there be a sustained bombing campaign of japan before an invasion for obvious reasons this is essentially the an extension of the strategy in europe to do that okinawa and iwo jima had to be taken they were forward staging bases b-29s while they had been in a position to fly over japan before but they could now be concentrated and most importantly p-51s long-range fighters could escort the bombers so by getting that close to japan that would not multiply the effect of the allied air offensive the jabs had spent years fortifying iwo jima for as distance goes in the pacific it lies right on japan's doorstep more than 1200 kilometers south of tokyo one of the volcano group of islands iwo jima has an area of just over 20 square kilometers [Music] in early 1944 major general taramichi kuribayashi and the men of the 109th division had been sent to turn iwo jima into an impregnable fortress and to defend it kuribayashi was seen off by the emperor in person he was not expected to return to japan on the morning of february 19th the first wave of the men of the third fourth and fifth marine divisions landed on iwo jima if their losses were too great the pacific strategy may have been thrown into doubt the japanese had a way of making underwater swimmers strap a bomb on their head swim underwater and bounce their head into the ship and we had to stand over the rail with rifles to shoot them as they were coming towards the ship marines of the fourth and fifth divisions went in towards the beaches under covering fire from their own ships but also under heavy fire from japanese batteries in well concealed rocky positions on the volcanic island [Applause] kuribayashi's plan was to hold fire until the beach was congested with marines and all their equipment yabashi decided that he would dig in he would not contest the landings so in that sense it was a different sort of battle he only had 22 000 troops and most of those were to die but it was highly effective the marines were ready for suicide banzai attacks but these did not come kuribayashi who believed them to be wasteful had forbidden them iwo jima was a tough battle because of mount suribaki they were bombarding it but they weren't making any progress because of the tunnels that were dug there as the battle ground on the japanese grew short of food water and ammunition on february 23rd marines reached the top of mount suribachi and six of them hoisted the flag and joe rosenthal took one of the war's most famous photographs taking mount suribashi of course is now the symbol of an american flag raised so close to japan at such great loss so it plays well in the american narrative the flag rising over iwo jima is really the american flag rising over the asia pacific the taking of suribachi was not the end of the fight japanese positions held out in the north of iwo jima and it went on for a month on 22 000 on a pinpoint island so three marine divisions virtually the entire marine corps and then they had to grind their way to the other end of the island so that was a fight from got away in the end the japanese did resort to the banzai charge finally closing the battle for iwo jima on march 25th [Music] through the slit of attack one of the cameramen recorded this picture of the attack on motoyama airfield there goes a [ __ ] crawling to cover for the last time on the 27th general kuribayashi committed suicide taking the island had cost the americans 6 800 dead more than a third of the marine corps dead for the whole war [Music] 216 japanese had been captured from a garrison of 22 000 the others were killed in battle committed suicide or hid in the caves from which they were painstakingly prized in the years ahead the last surrendering in 1949 when they were finally persuaded that the war was over we got to a place directly up to brook place called situation what would you expect to find there that one [Music] there was that stone not a bully nothing el adam where bush backpack all these things are part of the desert but there was nothing there just like a probably stunned with number one to brook mattered it was the best port for miles in either direction and it was a key to the supply of the armies in north africa so if you're thinking about the vast coastline of the mediterranean so brooke is important because it has a deep water harbour by possessing to brooke it meant that a military force freed itself up from having to transport its supplies its ammunition that's fueled all the way from tripoli going back the other way it meant that if you were advancing westward from the direction of egypt that you could bring troops supplies ammunition forward so it really lessened the reliance upon the roads as a means of conveying logistics the first phase of the war in north africa had gone badly for the italians but things changed after they were reinforced by their allies the germans landed the africa corps under the command of ervin rommel de brook was held by the ninth australian division general leslie moore's head meanwhile a new flag was hosted by the aussies making it perfectly clear as to whom the place now belongs [Music] moore's head was ordered to hold the port for eight weeks he held on for five months at the end of march rommel began to move the africa corps engaged and drove back the british second armoured at merzobrega the italian brescia division advanced on the left flank through benghazi the german 54th supported on the right by the italian ariete moved south of the jebel akhtar for makili where on april 6th the chaotic nature of the british withdrawal was highlighted by the capture of two generals neem and o'connor on april 11th rommel began to attack to brook [Music] which had been reinforced by sea with the dispatch of an australian infantry brigade and a few tanks churchill's decision to support the defense of greece had weakened the allied position in north africa forced w four divisions strong had been dispatched from alexandria in march but moore's head had organized his command effectively and rommel's first assaults onto brooke were repelled if moore's head and his garrison could hold out that would be a victory holding to brook was key to the outcome of the war in the desert in 1941 it split rommel's force he had to fight on two fronts besieging the garrison as well as pushing towards the egyptian frontier so long as the royal navy controlled the mediterranean to brooke could be resupplied and defended forces rotated the australian ninth was relieved while the city was still besieged rommel was inclined to ignore to brook and drive on to the canal but because the port could be resupplied and reinforced leaving it in his rear was hardly an option but his attack failed at great cost the key to the successful defense to brooke was really down in many ways to the aggressive attitude of its defenders particularly major general leslie moore's head in addition to having a very strong outer line he also pursued a policy of defence and depth and what that really means is the soldiers went out every day digging trenches laying minefields placing barbed wire so you could build up the internal defenses although tobruk has had a pretty good bashing it still holds out more than that it's a real thorn in the enemy's side major general paulus who would find unwanted fame as the defeated general at stalingrad arrived to review rommel's actions and initially allowed further attempts to break through [Music] although moore's head proved adept at swinging his limited forces to meet threats the axis had by early may overrun his first line perimeter defense to a depth of almost five kilometers despite the success palace refused requests for the attack onto brook to be renewed the defenders didn't know it at the time but they had had a victory the german decision to step back from to brook and create a defensive position at gazala was one of those orders intercepted by ultra and decoded at bletchley park it encouraged churchill to order wavel commanding the allied force onto the offensive but his forces were not yet strong enough thrust to solemn and her fire met counter thrust and the british were pushed back over the egyptian border to brooke remained besieged under air and ground bombardment for 200 241 days the measures they came in the perfect bushy gun and of course we started running like settle down lie down don't drive them pressure the gun just say that but right now you make yourself a target and you kept the guardian to brook held out the allies knew that axis troops would halt at gazala so they began planning for the relief of the port [Music] the first to brook relief operation codenamed brevity was launched in mid-may it failed the second operation battle axe followed in june it also failed which led to a change in north african command the new british commanders began planning for a new campaign operation crusader [Music] one of the outcomes of the experience of brevity of battle hacks was the british start to look at the way that their forces are structured they start to learn particularly from their enemy from the germans the way that they combine armor and artillery you see the concept of the brigade group becoming the standard mid-level organisation for the british and commonwealth forces in in north africa and that brigade group has formed around three battalions of infantry with attached armour with its own artillery support so that you have a much more balanced combined arms force by november 41 the allied force reorganized as the eighth army outnumbered the axis with more men more tanks and a three to one superiority in air power the eighth moved from its defensive position in two core 30th which had most of the armor and would draw the africa core into battle and 13th which would move to and along the coast the garrison into brook was ordered to effect a breakout to coordinate and link up with the advancing troops whilst these british plans were being formulated rommel was planning a new assault onto brook by chance the british moved first launching crusader at 0.600 on november 18th the brook breakout was to follow on the 21st leading the 30th corps the seventh armored brigade advanced north west footerbrook 22nd armoured brigade covering their left flank followed by the first south africans second new zealand division of the 13th corps made its advance with the indian fifth covering the right advancing to bardia rommel believed that bardio would be enveloped and initially sent africa corps to meet the challenge but he soon realized where the threat lay and turned them to the relief of siddhi rosay where the airfield had already formed [Music] british armor now started to suffer badly from the panzers and particularly from one of the most effective weapons of the war the germans in particular were well served by the 88 millimeter anti-aircraft gun it wasn't originally designed for use against tanks but it was a high velocity gun which was found to be very effective once dug in at destroying the the bridge tanks i remember they were losing tanks like mad to the 88s in fact i watched the german 88 it fired six shots and burned up five tanks the toll on the allied force was tremendous by late on the 20th fourth armored that had advanced in support of 13th corps was below two-thirds of its original strength but rommel was also faltering he was starting to run short of fuel and ammunition the next day 70th division inside besieged to brooke made the breakout when our big push in libya began the two brokers broke out too now they set out to join up with their comrades of the eighth army to raise the sea to cut off rommel and his cancer to clear the germans out the seventh armored scheduled to move up in support of the breakout had reports from patrols of enemy armor and was obliged to meet this threat by the end of the day the seventh had lost 130 of its 160 tanks rommel now switched his attack this maneuver became the famous dash to the wire the wire being the libya egypt border what we need to remember at this point in time that rommel is a very long way from his main source of supplies so his drive to the wire really taxed his his forces he didn't manage to achieve what he wanted to do but then given that he was now short on fuel he was now short on ammunition he was starting to lose tank strength through maintenance issues he then had to start falling back by now the 70th out of to brooke had linked up with the new zealand division advancing parallel with the coast at al duda [Music] failing to deal with this rommel was obliged to fall back on the defensive line he had established at gazala tabruk had been relieved and though it was ultimately an inconclusive victory it was one that the british were happy to trumpet their first land victory against the axis since the war had begun it shows british and the commonwealth forces are still fighting against the germans we're not giving up and this is important to show to the americans that hey don't write us off we're still in this war against hitler and mussolini don't forget us we're not a spent force just yet rommel continued his withdrawal and the operation ended when bardia fell to the eighth army on january 17th while all this was happening the war was changing in far more significant ways japanese aircraft had attacked pearl harbor the war had become global and britain now had a new and very powerful ally [Music] every battle is both a victory and a defeat it depends which flag you fly in every theater of the second world war battles won and lost determined possession of territory of resources and of the strength to go on fighting for some of the battles it was the victory that most influenced the future course of the war for others it was the defeat this is the story of the battles won and lost that decided the outcome of the greatest conflict in history the second world war was conflict on an unprecedented scale its battles set new marks for the sheer size of forces deployed and for the power of their weapons in this episode we include the story of the first battle at sea in which enemy ships never sighted each other and we start with the largest army ever to march when germany launched its invasion of the soviet union it is one of the questions that puzzles people about the second world war why did hitler attack the soviet union but the answer is fairly obvious because he thought he could win this was not just some war for him this was the war for him he said that the uh enslavement of slavic population the this lebensraum in austin uh living space in the east is uh crucial for the german nation because we do not have any resources he is aware that he is in a long war with the western allies there's no real view to how that can be concluded and then at the same time if you're hitler you're looking at your great ideological enemy in the east bolshevism so he thinks if i bring this forward and if i can destroy them in a short sharp operation i eliminate my last ideological rival in europe and i am able to access all of the raw materials i need to go on fighting this conceived of global war as hitler said this is a colossus on clay feet we will just have to kick in the door and the whole building falls down well that never happened the german assault on russia by every measure was an astonishing success until it stalled from june 1941 until it was gripped by the russian winter the german offensive operation barbarossa was a long and victorious forward search and it was mighty this is the largest invasion in history and it is the single most important war germany has in the second world war from the 22nd of june 1941 there is never less than 75 percent of the german army employed anywhere but fighting in the east the invasion consisted of 3 million men 600 000 vehicles and about the same number of horses it seems extraordinary that such an offensive could come as a surprise but it did not to many people but to the one who mattered joseph stalin refused to believe that germany would default on the non-aggression pact until the artillery opened fire he believes also that before there's any kind of invasion of the soviet union it will be first preempted by some kind of offer from hitler and since no offer has ever been made he believes he's still got time this is a fool's errand and he's going to receive something like 90 warnings of this impending invasion and he will dismiss all of them the front more than 2 000 kilometers of moving military would extend to over 3 000 as the attack progressed 151 german divisions moved 40 divisions from axis partners including finland romania italy hungary slovakia and even a spanish volunteer division completed the order of battle the storm broke austin the thrust to the east on june 22 1941 these are some of the 180 million people against whom hitler had just turned his war machine and they fully understood what that meant the same as for britain and her other allies blood toil tears and sweat soviet army groups were known as fronts seven fronts faced west three german army groups carried the main weight of the assault group north von lib group center fondbok and group south von roonsteit [Music] soviet command and control was in disarray bridges were left intact in 24 hours spearhead armor units had pushed the front line 80 kilometers into soviet territory the german plan was not particularly original or unpredictable group north thrust for leningrad group center with half the german armor drove on minsk aiming for moscow and group south pushed through the fertile ukraine [Music] which was the living space the lebenshrom that hitler had promised the german people the basic barbarossa plan is predicated on border battles they have set up the german army into what is essentially two armies we have on the one hand panzer groups mobile highly maneuverable very aggressive given the lion's share of the logistic and luftwaffe support and then we have the rest of the german army the objectives of the panzer groups are to break through the soviet front to enact large-scale encirclements and then crush those soviet armies defending the border this is the western military districts with some 2.7 million men the idea is if we destroy that number of men and all the associated equipment with it we must be able then to just advance into the rest of the country guderian's second panzer army led the charge out of army group center in front of the priyansk front marshal yaramenko the force split units swung north to meet third panzer army units general hoth hooking south the maneuver encircled soviet troops and formed the bialystok and minsk pockets trapping the third and tenth armies which surrendered on june 30th this was blitzkrieg at its best the world gave russia another six weeks [Music] 290 000 prisoners 2 500 tanks and 1500 guns fell into german hands third and second panzer army units pressed on in a parallel advance that encircled an even larger force creating the smolensk pocket which held out until august 9th 310 000 prisoners first panzer army and the 11th army both from army group south had meanwhile surged together crossing the river bug creating the uman pocket which fell on august 8th one hundred thousand prisoners [Music] [Music] the advance was remorseless when kiev fell on september 19th 600 000 prisoners 2500 tanks and a thousand guns fell into german hands and guderian could now rejoin group center in the drive on moscow by the beginning of december these victorious battles had seen almost two million soviet soldiers taken into captivity their armor and their air fleet destroyed part of the secret to german success in 1941 is not their superior operational capabilities it's the fact that the soviets and themselves making catastrophic mistakes so for example we have these two battles at the beginning we have the battle of minsk we have the battle of smolensk and these are crushing defeats for the soviets but they are costly to the germans they are costly to the germans in the single most important area germany and her allies had lost dead wounded or missing almost 400 000 men and 40 of her armor that means the one thing that the german army has to end the war in the east the panzer groups are suffering so many losses as to preclude the possibility of enacting the single thing they must do they can win battles they can seize ground and capture prisoners of war but they can't break soviet resistance the determination of the russian soldier to defend his homeland never faltered the immense resources of the great land empire meant that despite huge losses the number of red army divisions increased and a new general took over command of the front his name was gyorgy zhukov the result the germans conquered land and lost the campaign but the russian tactics kept the main bulk of their armies intact and made a long war inevitable instead of that quick decision the germans sought barbarossa was planned to be a quick war but the truth is that the germans could never reach what they had in mind so that meant that they're trapped in the east the german schedule had slipped because infantry could not keep pace with the tanks and vehicles could not advance as they wished on the bad russian roads now winter joined the battle the chance of victory had passed [Music] every battle is both a victory and a defeat in a way the battle of the coral sea was different it was a battle that both sides could argue they had won the japanese by pointing out that the american fleet had been forced to retire the americans by observing that the battle had forced japan to indefinitely postpone its proposed invasion of new guinea it was also a battle that is indelibly written into the history of naval warfare the first battle between carius the aircraft carrier kingpin of the pacific naval war a war in which aircraft whether land-based or carrier-borne have dominated the scene the dutch east indies had surrendered on march 9th the day after the first japanese troops had landed on new guinea their intention of reaching the capital port moresby over land had been frustrated by stubborn australian resistance japanese success in their advance on port mosby would have brought the wall right up to and almost certainly into australia so these boys who have beaten the japs and driven them right back across the mountains and down to buna have done very well indeed intercepted japanese cables made it clear that the plan was now to take moresby from the sea sailing from rabal to approach the target from the south they had broken the japanese coats they knew the japanese were moving towards port moresby they knew the intention was to capture port moresby and they knew that the japanese transport ships would be accompanied by carriers they didn't know how many they didn't know which carriers but they rightly assumed that the japanese wouldn't just send transport ships unescorted and the americans moved to counter that by shifting carriers of their own into the area admiral frank j fletcher flying his flag aboard the carrier yorktown was ordered by the man with overall command of the pacific theater admiral chester nimitz to rendezvous with the carrier lexington and assume command of both carriers and their task forces nimitz had a much smaller fleet than the enemy and he was determined to use it where the coral sea the rendezvous happened on may first 1942 [Music] on may the 4th the port moresby invasion force sailed from rabaul the main japanese strike force assembled round the carriers shokaku and zuikaku entered the coral sea on may 5th sailing towards the invasion fleet whose escort included the carrier shoho warfare with which no one was familiar for no one had experienced it now entered the pages of military history one of the important things in the pre-war period was the americans had really throughout the 1930s done a lot of experimentation at sea with their carrier aircraft and their aircraft carriers to really understand the capabilities that they could unleash and they had developed techniques for long-range surveillance long range attack this was mirrored to a lesser extent by the japanese as well so that was an important element battle of the coral sea is a battle that contains a lot of firsts in terms of the first battle where ships hadn't seen each other in the conduct of that battle though ship-borne radar could register incoming aircraft it was not effective in scanning distances across the sea without such projected vision or any of the other technologies of today to reveal the position and purpose of an opposing fleet both japanese and american forces were obliged to rely on reconnaissance aircraft spotting the quarry and reporting its position it's a vast area they had very limited reconnaissance ability it was basically aircraft searching for the enemy and then when you've worked out where they were having the available resources to strike at them this was before the days of gps so the aircraft was estimating positions cloud cover could obscure formations the weather was worsening apparently flying in concentrated formation on a general daring line it appears the japanese flames on their outward flight passed over the allied carriers without seeing them b-17s flying out of australia located shoho on the sixth but failed to hit their target but the sighting was enough to convince fletcher that the invasion fleet was making for the jumaad passage a channel between new guinea and the small louisiana archipelago he set course admiral enuyii in overall command of the japanese fourth fleet countered by ordering the invasion force to turn away from the jummah passage until admiral takagi's strike force could deal with fletcher on may 7th aircraft from takagi's strike force scored the first hit crippling the oiler neoshock fletcher sent a mixed american australian cruiser squadron to meet the invasion fleet at the passage which distracted enuge from what fletcher was doing with his carriers aircraft from one of them lexington spotted the carrier shoho and sank her late in the afternoon japanese aircraft launched against the american carriers but failed to find them on their return they were attacked by tf-17 and was shot down 27 went on the sore tee only six returned by midnight inui's situation one carrier sunk more than 20 aircraft lost forced him to postpone the invasion for two days on the morning of the eighth the decisive phase of the battle arrived the two carrier forces located each other within six minutes the u.s reporting the japanese at 0815 the japanese citing their enemy at 0 8 22. the thing to bear in mind about the battle of the coral sea was that both admirals were faced with often the requirement to make a split-second decision about when to launch a carrier strike package in which direction and so on really on the base of incomplete information incomplete data about where the location is and composition the first american attack was launched just before 11 and succeeded in the first wave in damaging shokaku which unable to launch or recover her planes was forced to withdraw the japanese attack on lexington and yorktown went in about 20 minutes after the americans had first launched [Music] japanese aircraft located and torpedoed the lexington which was forced to withdraw and was later abandoned admiral sherman was reported to be the last man to leave the lexington before she sank our country can well be proud of the performance of the officers and men of the lexington this is an air war and there's nothing that will stop a determined air attack the traditions of the lexington will live on she was a grand ship those of our men who fail to return the world will not forget at the end of the battle the americans had lost the lexicon had the yorktown damage and so admiral fletcher signaled to general macarthur that he had to withdraw at the same time the japanese which had lost one small carrier and another damage had decided to do exactly the same thing in many respects that could be seen as a draw but it was firmly a victory for the americans for the first time the japanese juggernaut had been stopped and that was a huge thing [Music] on the 20th of january 1942 japanese troops entering from neutral and then forcibly allied thailand invaded burma now myanmar which was part of the british empire and stood on the road to that empire's brightest jewel india by may 20th british forces had been pushed back across the border into india and nationalist chinese troops operating in support of the british had withdrawn across their frontier the british retreat was agonizing it was carried out over hundreds of miles of largely difficult terrain in often terrible weather on roads clogged with hordes of refugees and most of the equipment had to be left behind so at the end of 1942 which is the eve of the arakan campaign the japanese are occupying most of burma the japanese would continue to occupy burma until august 1945 and this first offensive the arakan offensive would not turn the tide this was a battle that the japanese won war report from burma where after a fresh japanese attack our troops have been grimly holding on to their new positions on the arakan front war on the arakan front is on a comparatively small scale at present and he may not assume bigger proportions till after the monsoon but it's of very great importance just the same the 14th indian division the longest serving unit of any in the british army in the entire war would advance into the arakan now rakhine state across the border with india this was principally diversionary the main attack would be an amphibious assault on icap but no sooner had they started to prepare for the plan they had to abandon it there were not enough landing craft while the british developed a new strategy the japanese abandoned theirs they had been instructed by tokyo to prepare a three-pronged advance into india but consideration of the terrain and their resources caused them to reject the order by november general irwin commanding the british forces had a new plan he had built up a supply depot at cox's bazar from which the indian 14th was to advance down the thinly defended mayu peninsula what he wanted to do was carry out a limited advance of about 150 kilometers down the mayu peninsula to the island of akyab in the coastal province of arakan which have buttered india and therefore the lines of communication would be short for the british and long for the japanese akkab was important because there was an airfield there from which british bombers could reach rangoon and that figured in british plans for the re-conquest of burma rain held up the start of the offensive and the 14th did not begin its advance until mid-december three months after the first proposed start date the japanese fell back to a defensive position the long door buttidong line it fell after only a day and the indian division advanced in two columns one brigade following the east bank of the maiu river this brigade was checked at ratadong and across the mouth of the mayu assaults on dunbike were similarly repulsed here the attackers encountered a well-prepared defense with bunkers that withstood mortar and artillery fire the british called up tanks to deal with the bunkers but the japanese knew that their 55th division was all route to reinforce and relieve them attacks supported by the newly arrived tanks went in at the start of february but these failed in the face of stubborn defense that held on until the new troops entered the battle the japanese 55th under general roga began its attack on march 7th first targeting the brigade facing ratadong which was obliged to retire the 55th crossed the mayu on march 24 and was now pressing on all elements of the british force which began to pull back another dispiriting retreat in which a lot of the equipment had to be left behind and this arakan offensive which was intended in part to raise morale after the catastrophic retreat in 1942 from burma really didn't do anything at all if anything morale plummeted further on april 15 the man who would ultimately lead his troops to victory in burma bill slim assumed command of all troops in the arakan the japanese is a tough enemy and much must be done before he will admit defeat by mid-may the mangdor bhutidong line was back in japanese hands and shortly afterwards the british were virtually back at their start points the campaign cost the british about five thousand men japanese about three thousand but a lot of those were lost to disease it showed the need for better training and above all the need to create a spree morale a sense of optimism and confidence and these things happen in large part when general slim takes over what is the 14th army in august 1943. we knew that we cannot sit on the frontier all the time we have to go this feeling of the withdrawal from burma was taken as a personal uh touching point and the feeling was that he must get a chance to at least settle with the japanese that they are no better than us arakan may have been a failed campaign but the appointment of slim and reorganization of the army that resulted would finally turn the tide removing the japanese threat to india and ultimately driving them out of burma with huge forces involved on the eastern front after barbarossa it is easy to class the fighting in north africa as a sideshow it was not control of the north african literal meant control of the mediterranean and ultimately the sewers canal the persian gulf and oil at the beginning of 1942 in order to secure this important asset irwin rommel was on the move on january 19th two transports had landed 45 tanks at benghazi this gave him almost 230 tanks he was facing 150 british but as usual british armor was widely dispersed the fourth indian was holding benghazi which rommel had evacuated as soon as the freighter had unloaded and the british seventh armored was refitting into brook rommel was falling back on his supply lines so as he withdrew his ability to supply himself got better that his forces were reinforced and so once he felt himself there then able to recommence the offensive the british were not in a particularly strong position they now were at the far end of their own supply line their forces were strung out the overall position for the british forces in north africa was quite weak the war in the desert has been a heartbreaking business for commander and troops the end of the story remains yet to be tough on january 21st rommel attacked he had three africa corps and seven italian divisions [Music] mercer breger quickly fell to the 21st panzer division with 15th panzer on its right sweeping the british out of wadi faraig the two divisions converged on aguidabia which fell on the 22nd with part of the british first armored trapped at antalat and losing 70 of its tanks by the 25th the offensive had taken misuse and first armoured had lost more tanks rommel now turned towards benghazi [Music] on the 27th of january rommel ordered part of his force to hook towards mkhilly british forces counted by moving forces to support mckele but rommel's action had been a faked which the british had swallowed exposing benghazi at the time rommel served in some ways as an excuse for the british forces why are we getting defeated it's because we're fighting a superman not because our tactics are poor our equipment's poor our leadership hasn't quite got its act together benghazi fell on the 29th the indian fourth doing well to extricate itself from the trap and take part in the withdrawal to the ghazala line that those involved dubbed the gazala gallop that is every man for himself there was no way to give orders you have to think for yourself you know we were there to take control we were in absolute disarray the eighth army developed a strong defensive position at the ghazala line where rommel almost out of fuel and now facing the british in numbers called a halt [Music] because we're talking not quite acceptable australian fights police new zealanders australians south africans indians free french that was our lioness guitar rommel's dash his tactics his self-belief had produced a smashing victory the german forces were again rampant the british had been forced to fall back and rommel now was reinforced had greater strength than he had previously and there's almost a sense of desperation in some regard but a new british commander general montgomery did not panic rommel's dash had cost him dearly in material and fuel and when montgomery would substantially built up forces launched his offensive it was clear that the balance in north africa had tipped decisively [Music] montgomery launched his offensive in north africa in october and the first american troops landed there in november when the two forces linked north africa was secured and allied planning turned to the european continent i cannot go farther today than to say that it is very probable there will be heavy fighting in the mediterranean and elsewhere before the leaves of autumn fall at the casablanca conference it was decided to take sicily before advancing on to the italian peninsula and further on to the mainland of europe it was to be called operation husky it was agreed that two armies patton's u.s seventh and montgomery's british eighth under eisenhower as supreme commander would land side by side on the south and southeast coasts of sicily the island was defended by the italian sixth army under general gutsoni the sixth included two cracked german divisions a garrison of 230 000 men to be opposed by 115 000 british and empire and 66 000 american troops in the original landings in north africa more than 500 transports were convoyed for the invasion of sicily the number is unknown but the landing craft were on time to the minute on the 10th of july troops began to land british forces along the south eastern corner of the island and west of them on the southern coast the americans the landings were preceded by an airborne force but that went poorly with parachute troops scattered and unable to consolidate positions and those of the glider force 69 released too soon fell into the sea the amphibious landings went well partly because gutsoni planned to allow the landings draw the invaders into sicily's difficult terrain and then counter-attack while some men waded ashore others had the pleasure of landing in ducks ducks of course are the famous amphibians half landing craft half lorry the american first and 45th came under counter-attack from a force that included the hermann goring panzer division [Music] but beat this off and the move inland began the british were to move up the east coast for messina to cut off axis retreat patton would move west and north protecting montgomery's flank [Music] but the advance through the island turned into an undeclared race between the two forces to be first to reach messina by the 23rd patton had reached masala on the western point of the island and was driving for the capital palermo which fell the same day time after town had quickly fallen not only to the eight but to the canadians and the americans on the left flank as well the overrunning of sicily was rapidly becoming an accomplished fact two days after the fall of palermo the fascist grand council in rome arrested il ducey benito mussolini who had been leading italy since 1922. german paratroops rescued him from captivity in italy and a german plane flew into hitler's headquarters the main weight of axis resistance was now being felt in the east as the defenders became compressed falling back on messina and escaping to the mainland on august 3rd italian formations began their evacuation the german divisions being deployed as the rear guard in front of messina american forces now executed two hooking operations to leapfrog along the north coast after the second on august 11th the germans began to embark from messina british troops had by now bypassed mount aetna and were also closing on the vital port american troops entered messina on august 17th it had taken a little over five weeks for the island to fall and that was a battle won hitler in response to mussolini's fall had ordered new divisions into northern italy and joining them in the fight for the peninsula would be the divisions from sicily for by the time the americans entered messina the town was empty of enemy troops they had escaped and that too was a sort of victory finally let's look across with the allied troops to italy the german so-called dunkirk was made across only two or three miles of sea by the same token that's all that separates our forces in sicily from axis main man a point worth noting by the axis there have been countless battles but those in the category of truly decisive are relatively few those that can be said to have held history on the battlefield and watched it pivot on the outcome by 1944 the axis powers so manifestly unable to compete with the industrial output and manpower resources of the allies were bound to lose the war but how and when they lost was in dispute planning for the second front had been underway since april 1943. the germans were waiting and the allies were trying to be sure they had the resources and they could achieve the surprise they needed the big question for both sides was where were they going to land and how are the germans going to deal with the landing yes these are the principal allied leaders responsible for planning and directing that grand assault by british and american forces which everyone hopes may prove to be the knockout blow their work involved masses of men and material and depended on secrecy all sorts of deceptions were employed to encourage german belief that the invasion would attack the channel ports or the somme estuary for every bomb dropped on normandy three were dropped elsewhere [Music] there were more than one choice for the landings in france normandy in fact wasn't the nearest place to the united kingdom ports but it had certain advantages the peninsula was viewed as being something that could be taken over there was the port of cherbourg which was viewed as being potentially able to be used as a major port for bringing in supplies so it was a whole raft of factors which combined to make it the best place to go the greater part of the south coast region of england to a depth of 16 kilometers was declared a military zone villages were evacuated and the assault formations practiced for the this is invasion one incident in recent united states army invasion exercises stern preparations for the grand assault upon europe behind them the follow-up assault forces were encamped we were just waiting and unloading when we started to load tanks is when we said this is it there wasn't anything mentioned as far as going for an invasion but there was a lot of ships [Music] i was amazed at the efficiency of it all we were told which number landing craft we would be on so we were going down hundreds and hundreds of vehicles they said you know you're on landcraft 59 i have no hope of that in fact ever we got there in comes randy craft 59 it was quite extraordinarily efficient eisenhower in supreme command had an anglo-american team of meteorologists to advise him and they warned against the fifth of june the original date but gave the go-ahead for the sixth so eisenhower gave the order for the invasion the order was headed the tide has turned i hope to god eisenhower said i know what i'm doing facing the invasion in overall command was von roenstedt in command of the forces opposing the landing army group b was irvin ronal though on d-day itself rommel was absent on leave it was his wife's birthday the germans had less tanks for the defense of france in 1944 than they had marshaled for its conquest in 1940 but they had the fortified atlantic wall which had been hitler's idea and which extended over two thousand kilometers and boasted twelve thousand bunkers ronald and von brunsted disagreed about how to use these emplacements nobody knows who won the argument but we do know the result the invasion armada comprised 700 warships their role was both air defense and shore bombardment [Music] 2700 ships supported the landing they carried the supplies the reinforcements and the infrastructure that would make the landing sustainable above them the allied air forces flew thousands of aircraft the operational radius of the spitfire had been a decisive factor in picking the landing zone the germans could meet the allied aircraft with only 170 serviceable machines if you have air superiority and you're conducting a battle on land you have a tremendous advantage over your opponent 21st army group general montgomery sailed from ports along the british coast assembling an immense armada from departure points scattered from cardiff in the west to felix stowe in the east 5000 ships all gathering together to make the invasion into normandy it was a sight to see you know on the horizon seeing all these ships they look like little dots getting bigger and bigger and then merging into normandy beach the invaders landed on a 90 kilometer plus stretch of five beaches along the normandy coast the us first army general bradley landing on utah and omaha beaches the british second army general dempsey landing on gold juno and sword the us 82nd and 101st airborne landed behind utah the british sixth airborne behind sword guard the exposed eastern flank of the british it was calculated that of the airborne troops dropped on the night of june 6 up to 75 landing at the wrong locations took no part in the early fighting lesson was driven home but more navigation aids were badly needed but gliders must be landed at slow speeds but some type of air brake was necessary to decrease the rate of descent of gliders going into small fields the germans in anticipation of an airborne landing had flooded fields into which the paratroopers splashed rommel had 34 divisions opposing the landing but many were facing the wrong way most were under strength and some were feeble units comprising exclusively men with stomach complaints from dawn five allied divisions came ashore the first the us fourth infantry division landed eighteen hundred meters from its target due to a strong current but fortuitously that swept it to a weakly defended position the fourth landed 23 000 men on d-day and took only 196 casualties it was a different story on omar and we couldn't hit omaha beach in its entirety so we had to lower the ramp as much as we can and everybody had to go into the water a lot of the people with gear went down and some of them perished omaha beach was dominated by cliffs from which for much of the day the us first and 29th divisions were pinned by intense fire the swimming tanks had been launched prematurely and many founded and were swamped leaving the infantry without cover by day's end 55 000 had been landed but at a cost of more than 4 600 casualties the third beach left to right was gold where the british 50th division landed supported by the eighth armored brigade third canadian division landed on juno where it met particular difficulty with underwater obstacles and rough water by nightfall it had made contact with the british 50th on its right the final beach was soared where the british third division landed successfully the perhaps inevitable general confusion the mass of men and machines and the contrasting levels of success created an opportunity for the defenders initially wrong-footed and slow to respond to redeploy the germans were caught by surprise by the actual timing of their tank and bear in mind that they weren't sure where the allies would come ashore or whether they would let the allies come ashore in sufficient numbers and then attempt to have a mass attack particularly using their concentrated armor the 21st panzer division took a firm grip on khan denying it to the allies for whom it had been a d-day objective as june 6 wore on units began to extend the perimeter away from the beaches short and in some places well short of the proposed target line but beginning to move into the villages on or behind the coast the advance continues it means hard fighting as the germans are desperately trying to delay the advance while they bring up adequate reinforcements every day brings news of fresh nazi troop concentrations but every day our strength is being built up too this is only a beginning it was late afternoon before hitler gave permission for the deployment of two panzer divisions that had been held in reserve at the end of june the sixth he was still not fully convinced that the normandy landing was a real invasion rather than a faint but it was no faint within 24 hours it was clear that they had got ashore got far enough inland consolidated sufficiently that they had a basis to keep going the battle was not yet won but it was beyond doubt a battle that could not now be lost d-day meant that the germans days were absolutely numbered every battle is both a victory and a defeat it depends which flag you fly in every theater of the second world war battles won and lost determined possession of territory of resources and of the strength to go on fighting for some of the battles it was the victory that most influenced the future course of the war for others it was the defeat this is the story of the battles won and lost that decided the outcome of the greatest conflict in history a war that reached every continent and touched every sort of terrain demanded every sort of strategy in this episode we examine battles fought at sea and in the jungle in city streets in invasions from the air and retreats from the land spring in paris over the eiffel tower over the cities and towns of europe hangs a pawl of fear and death the german invasion of france could hardly have gone better for the germans the german blitzkrieg against western europe opens on the 10th of may 1940 and within a fortnight the british and french and belgian armies are defeated they're withdrawing to the channel coast it looks as if the second world war in the west will be over literally within weeks the vermont advance was remorseless army group a in the center of the offensive wheeled towards the coast pushing the french first army and the british expeditionary force towards the sea with the finesse of a sheepdog pressing from the north fondbox army group b further penned the allied force and soon three german armies font kluge's fourth von kucler's 18th and von reikenau's sixth were moving in for what must have been the coup de grasse on the fourth of june german troops entered the port of dunkirk but they did not defeat and imprison the hundreds of thousands of troops that they had penned there and though there are solid reasons why they did not what happened between may 23rd and june 4th must albeit with hindsight be classed as a german mistake with quite significant consequences by the 23rd of may the belgian army had been isolated and the british and first french forced against the sea von rundstedt commanding army group a issued what has famously become known as the stop order the germans have been fighting for three weeks invading western europe that their forces are exhausted [Music] so the german generals and not as many people think hitler ordered them to stop on the perimeter of the dunkirk beaches so in effect the germans hand the western allies a few days grace so why did von roonstead and hitler halt their smashing offensive the panzer divisions had been reduced by 30 percent in the blitzkrieg that had brought them to the channel and the bulk of the french military machine lay undefeated as indeed did the greater part of france the germans were concerned about the the potential for an allied counterattack and they're fighting an army which basically won the first world war so the germans are concerned that their enemy is giving in too easily so yeah there was a very very uh sensible prudence on the part of the german commanders who also knew that their own troops were disorganized by success when hitler visited von rundstedt his acceptance of the stop order was made easier by the assurances of reich's marshal hermann goering who agitated for and guaranteed the success of leaving it to his luftwaffe to finish off the trapped allied troops the country around dunkirk is not suitable for armored warfare it's it's flat but it's cut up by canals and drainage ditches in fact it's a it's very similar to the fighting in the first world war in flanders which the senior commanders on both sides including hitler remembered from 20 years before on the day that hitler and guring made their plans the british commander lord gort took a unilateral decision he would not risk losing his entire command by participating in general wagons proposed and wildly optimistic offensive which imagined a breakout to link up with forces further south gort decided instead to withdraw the british expeditionary force on dunkirk from which they could be evacuated to fight another day that evacuation operation dynamo would begin on may 26th gortz was not the only unilateral decision of the unraveling alliance on may 27th without consulting his allies king leopold of belgium offered his surrender to the germans admiral bertram ramsey who had been alerted as early as may 20th of the possible need for an evacuation had brought together a large and decidedly motley collection of vessels with which to carry off the troops assembling at dunkirk british ships cruisers destroyers yachts paddle boats anything that could float for the british were determined to save their men the shortest route had to be abandoned when calais fell and ships would have been within range of the calais shore batteries the second route x was vulnerable to unswept mines and so the longest passage north to the quinte boy west to the goodwin sands lightship and south to dover a journey of 160 kilometers was chosen of necessity as it became clear what was happening the luftwaffe's action against the evacuation intensified which spread the panic to the civilian population a man woman and children with bags dragging little trucks the children weren't talking or playing all with vacant vacant expressions just looking straight ahead the pullback on dunkirk was not a route beginning on the 26th the forces conducted an orderly phased withdrawal to a 25 kilometer perimeter defining a pocket 10 to 12 kilometers deep the bef disabled its equipment spiked and abandoned its guns and fell back had it not been for this discipline had there been panic what happened at dunkirk would not have been possible there the efficient evacuation was underway 25 000 men had been taken off by the end of the second day of the operation by may 31st the day of the largest total taken off the figure had risen to 68 0014 the harbor's full of sunken ships and at the key side i could see somebody's running in front of me i see him running and he was running and i thought oh that ship's got smoke coming out of the funnel so i ran like mad as well and they were just pulling away from the key side and i managed to get the board i just jumped aboard thank god [Music] the effectiveness of the luftwaffe was restricted the bombers could not operate at night visibility was limited by frequent mists although calm seas favored the evacuation fleet and the royal air force could sufficiently harass german aircraft to restrict their effect by the end of operation dynamo the raf had lost 177 aircraft the germans 240 had the germans not halted on the 23rd it is unlikely that such an evacuation could have been conducted the evacuation of dunkirk means several things i mean in sheer practical terms it means that the british have literally hundreds of thousands of men to continue the fight secondly they've got not just british troops but french troops especially so there's a free french army created in britain because of of the evacuation of dunkirk though the british troops had lost their equipment they had boosted morale and the will to resist anyway the bef has come back and whatever the disasters that have led to their return we at home are mighty glad to have them here and when on their return churchill made his defiant we shall fight on the beaches we shall never surrender speech he spoke for the nation it's an enormous psychological boost and we still talk about the dunkirk spirit because although it was a massive defeat it was a psychological victory which the british drew on for the rest of the war in 1937 japan launched a full-scale invasion of china it did not go to plan progress was slow resistance more stubborn than had been anticipated in 1939 japanese colonial ambitions suffered a further check on the mongolian border where soviet troops inflicted a decisive defeat it all strengthened the hand of that faction in the military which argued that japan's expansion should be south to japan it was the southern resources area and dressed up as the greater east asia co-prosperity sphere it would give japan all of the living space and raw material that she needed what we need to remember here is that this is an age largely before synthetic products that japan had been fighting a very costly war in china the way that it saw finishing that war was it needed more resources the japanese leadership saw that they had no choice but to seize the resources of the netherlands east indies not only are the dutch east indies of great strategic value but also they contain great material wealth oil for instance their aims were to do it quickly so they could release the troops needed to send them back to fight the war in china so that they could grab those resources in the netherlands east indies and start shipping them back to japan before the united states started to gear up for war december 7th 1941 as japanese aircraft were approaching pearl harbor japanese forces under general tamayuki yamashita were already going ashore on the malay peninsula at kotabaru some of their early successes were all about simultaneous operations across broad swathe of asia and the pacific so the british and american forces in the asia pacific they were spread out trying to react to the japanese a lot of these places were very weakly garrisoned as well so the japanese were very quickly seizing them and then moving on because part of their battle plans were that troops required for one operation were then moved relatively quickly on to the next so they didn't have time to do that at the end of 1941 hardly more than three weeks after the code words torah torah torah had sent in the raid on pearl harbor the japanese were now poised for a full-scale invasion of burma the conquest of the philippines the assault on singapore and the defeat of the dutch in the resource-rich dutch east indies as churchill said of the fall of france how could it have happened so quickly the reasons for victory can be seen in the campaign in malaya they were repeated through the co-prosperity sphere and were fundamental to japan's early success [Music] when japanese transports more than 20 of them brought yamashita's army group ashore at seven sites on december 8th they were virtually unopposed british forces were in their habitual deployment particularly in strength around the butterworth base and had not been moved despite the growing threat of japanese militarism and the presence of the japanese force across the gulf of siam the fifth infantry division quickly secured the air bases at pattani and singura taking sengora where the peninsula narrows made possible the movement of japanese forces across to the west coast and that meant that yamashita could advance on two fronts dividing the defenders the japanese maintained flexibility in action the east coast thinly defended was little more than a march southwest the west coast required different tactics and they got them hook actions either left strong defensive positions impotent in the wake of troops that had bypassed them or more usually encircled and smashed them in places these hooks meant moving through jungle that the british had deemed impossible an echo of the french mistake that was exposed by the advanced through the ardennes the terrain is exploited by the japanese in a way that is not by the british they never quite managed to work out how to prevent the japanese outflanking both using the forested areas but also what the japanese do in malaya as well as make use of small craft to outflank british positions on the land by outflanking movements using the sea [Music] all the early reports from malaya spoke of heavy and confused fighting with the japanese gaining grass this is typical malayan country almost the only place in which troops can deploy being the plantation the japanese had been specifically trained in jungle warfare the british and commonwealth forces had not their strategy had suffered from traditional textbook planning planning which had in a way suffered from imperial hubris there's a lot of racial prejudice underlies the allies initial reading of what the japanese military is capable of and so it underestimates its ability to maneuver it underestimates its ability to fight it underestimates its willingness to utilize the terrain to its advantages it underestimates the capabilities of its aircraft and thus the japanese are able to rest control the skies in areas that they're fighting very quickly speed was fundamental to japanese military thinking so it was engineered into every aspect of the operation troops not only in the malay campaign but everywhere and throughout the war traveled with very little in the way of support when by the 21st of december british formations received the order to concentrate on a line behind the barak river it was too late japan would continue to record victories pushing and pushing faster than their opponents could recover so that singapore the philippines and the east indies would all fall if there was a true blitzkrieg in the second world war it was this one in a matter of weeks japan had gained for itself one-sixth of the surface of the planet it seems for a while that you have this superhuman enemy this this soldier who can keep going and going who fights like the devil who doesn't fight the way that western forces expect to fight it also means that there's a vast amount of territory that if the allies are going to win the war that they have to recapture from the japanese but after six months the seeming invincibility of japan was stopped in a great naval battle in a place called midway [Music] the united kingdom's position has a great power which she possessed at the start of the second world war was not a consequence of the wealth or weather or natural resources of the british isles it rested on her empire a vast maritime empire the greatest the world had known and the integrity of that empire rested not on a large standing army it depended on the royal navy royal navy facing only germany before the fall of france was a dominant force and continued to have the strategic advantage of effectively sitting astride germany's exits to the globe it had eight major groups located in the atlantic at the time that the germans could barely deploy two battle cruisers and a number of submarines before the war began the german pocket battleship admiral graf spay sailed for the south atlantic and there she waited chief interest of course attaches to the famous pocket battleships which are only ten thousand tons but mount six 11 inch guns and have a speed of 26 knots once war had started the graf spay began her operations between the end of september and the end of october she sank six vessels in an area that straddled a major sea lane for ships traveling around the cape of good hope the grass bay was in the south atlantic as part of a deliberate campaign to interrupt to destroy the global shipping movements to slow and interrupt the movement of resources to and from the united kingdom by november the royal navy had formed six task forces to find and sink the battleship in early december graffspay claimed two more victims but they did not go down without sending radio signals that influenced commodore harwood commanding force g to concentrate his forces on the falkland islands [Music] captain langsdorff commanding graf spay made two blunders the first was that spotting the smoke of four of harwood's cruisers and mistaking them for destroyers on escort duty [Music] closed to the attack what followed history knows as the battle of the river plate captain langsdorff at graf's bay it was his duty not to engage british warships it was his duty to preserve that ship undamaged as soon as he detected british ships he should have tried to go in the opposite direction langsdorff engaged exeter and ajax royal navy and achilles royal navy new zealand division as soon as he realized his mistake he sped towards the enemy to prevent them from outpacing him graf spay had diesel engines the british vessels steam which could not accelerate rapidly graf spay engaged exeter at 17 000 meters at 0-6-18 she had turned north-west against the germans approach kyle would actually split the cruises so they came out lang's door from two directions which unnerved him a bit ajax and achilles turning together northeast forced langsdorf to spread his fire after two minutes exeter was returning fire but graf spay had far superior weaponry in fact it inflicted quite significant damage on the three british cruisers which were undergone compared to the 11 inch guns that he had i had 8 and 6 inch guns by 0630 ajax and achilles had closed to 12 000 meters forcing the german gunners to divide their main armament after nearly an hour admiral graf spay was finished far from out of the fight still sailing and seaworthy but done for because a shell from exeter herself badly damaged and soon to retire from the battle had damaged the battleship's fuel plant graf spay now had fuel for only 16 hours sailing which meant she could not get home neither could the damage be repaired at sea langsdorff consulted the charts he would head for the nearest neutral port and that was montevideo at the mouth of the river plate there she is the admiral graf spey in montevideo harbour where she took refuge after the hammering she received from her small adversary in montevideo langsdorff released the 61 british merchant seaman he had taken on board as survivors of vessels he had sunk and sought permission to remain in port long enough to make repairs the british had only one further vessel close enough to blockade graf spay but that's not what they broadcast false intelligence painted a picture of force h a large british force including the aircraft carrier arc royal assembling to finish the german the moment she sailed from port langsdorf committed his second blunder he believed the false intelligence he did have an idea that there were stronger forces waiting for him than were in fact the case but it is true given the damage he'd already had in the first action that the grass bay immediately leaving montevideo would have been forced into another action and would have received further damage which would have left her in my view absolutely open to being hunted down and destroyed by the much more powerful forces that were concentrating on the river plate at that time on december 17th facing limited choices he sailed his ship into the estuary and ordered it scuttled tremendous explosions aft have wrecked the vessel and there she lies abandoned to the flames by captain and crew not to be sunk in open fight by the enemy not to go down with her colors flying like the royal findings but to be blown up abandoned scuttled in an act of defeatism which has rightly earned the contempt of all decent people two days later hans langsdorff shot himself even as an army marches to certain victory a wrong step can lead to a setback a defeat the allies had been grinding on from their normandy beachhead moving north and east pushing the germans back and approaching slowly against resistance towards the rhine and the moment when they would set foot on german soil market garden is a bizarre battle because it arises from field marshall bernard montgomery's desire to bolt into germany phil marshall montgomery the british commander and dwight eisenhower the american supreme commander had a very uneasy relationship they had fundamentally different ways of commanding and projecting themselves and they disagreed about the strategy for the allied advance into germany which they had to do in order to defeat the third reich eisenhower i think sensibly wanted to advance on a broad front montgomery had a bizarre idea to punch a hole in the german defenses to break into the north german plane montgomery hoped his plan might also answer those critics of his conduct following d-day when some had thought him overly cautious operation market garden was not a cautious plan and following eisenhower's approval he received the troops and resources that he needed the new move was shaping up and everybody knew it would be another of those combined operations and it was going to be that knockout punch we'd all been sweating out market gardens basically two operations market is the airborne operation where they drop airborne troops beyond the bridges garden is the land advance to join up with those avon forces and it sounds like a sensible idea except as the phrase goes it was a bridge too far for montgomery's plan to work it was essential that every phase of the operation was a success every bridge secured douglas c-47 aircraft dakotas to the british were the workhorses of the operation they carried the first allied airborne army and they towed the gliders about 2 000 aircraft of various types were involved troops dropped in by glider or chute were to grasp and secure the bridges following them would be the british 30th corps under general brian horrocks if horrocks could bring his men up in time if the airborne divisions could take and hold the bridges until 30th corps got through the german flank would be turned on the rhine if on september 17th the operation was launched then we were over the dz and it was read on stand up hook up green on go and now we went feet together head down shoulders around feet together watch the ground bump that's it 101st airborne quickly secured the canal bridges 82nd took graver but was forced back from nijmegen by a strong counter-attack [Music] but on the 18th 30th corps linked with the 101st and the next day supporting the 82nd renewed pressure on the bridge at nijmegen the bridge fell to them and operation market had succeeded the british first airborne had achieved its initial objective on the first day the 17th both paratroop and glider units were well grouped and after a hard fight the bridge over the rhine was secured three battalions made north centre and southerly advances but only second battalion in the south had reached its final objective on the northern approaches of the bridge and there it stuck the bridge was a long way ahead of 30th corps a bridge too far in fact unless german resistance was moderate it wasn't by this stage of the war the western allies have got almost total command of the german secret intelligence they're reading german messages virtually as soon as they're sent what they did know but what wasn't passed on to the troops who were responsible for actually carrying out this operation was that in exactly the place where the paratroops were to be dropped there was a german panzer division resting and re-equipping so they literally dropped the first allied airborne army onto the top of a german ss panzer division and that's where things started to unravel for they were strong units they were the 9th and 10th ss panzer divisions and they pressed on the british bridgehead with superior numbers and weaponry on the 21st the polish brigade was dropped south of the rhine they had been delayed in joining the battle by bad weather and poor intelligence dropped them into strong german positions where instead of being able to force a way through to reinforce first airborne they were cut to pieces airborne troops are comparatively speaking only lightly are and landing behind the enemy's lines they face the prospect of engaging fully equipped heavily armed forces thus all the hazards of an isolated operation further compounding first airborne situation was the loss of their drop zones malfunctioning radios made it almost impossible to advise the raf of this and consequently vital resupply fell into the wrong hands of 390 tons of supplies dropped only 31 tons were received by the british division we went in there on sunday and fought from there until wednesday afternoon while there weren't many of us left then and ammunition was pretty well non-existent general ercart commanding first airborne made the decision to pull his men to a defensible position to await relief by the overdue 30th call this meant abandoning 2nd battalion which had reached the northern end of the bridge german troops meanwhile cut across the british line of advance south of uden further slowing the relieving column on the 26th nine days after the drop thirtieth finally linked up with first airborne but it was too late to affect a battle that had been lost market garden is an absurd allied defeat at the very moment where the allies are gloriously advancing through france and belgium liberating the country as they go it should never have happened the allies are massively well equipped they've got more weapons more equipment more intelligence than the germans but they fail to use it of ten thousand who had landed at arnhem two thousand marched out with thirtieth corps most of the rest saw out the remainder of the war as prisoners of the germans market garden certainly doesn't do montgomery's reputation any good eisenhower already knows that he's a hard man to work with and market garden puts the cap on it it has another effect of course and that is is that the allies are not going to get to the mars and certainly knock it across the rhine in 1944 and of course it means that eisenhower's actually right that you can't simply drive your column into north germany expect to win you've got to advance on a broad front and that's exactly what the allies do in 1945 and that's what gets the germans defeated in the west the overwhelming size of significant actions like the landings at normandy or japan's epic sweep through the asia-pacific region dominate our view of war distracting us from campaigns unfairly referred to as sideshows but some sideshows have real strategic significance and all of them involve real fighting real destruction real death in the wash up from the first world war britain and france then the possessors of the world's two great maritime empires had divided the middle east between them with the fall of france the collaborationist government was allowed to retain control of french colonies so it was that opposing forces faced each other across the desert frontier french standards symbolic of the nation's honor sailed for safekeeping in french african territory france had carved out lebanon and syria both guarding the eastern mediterranean and syrian astride routes into iran then persia a major source of vital oil and neighboring the british sphere of influence in iraq where rebellion against the british had only been curbed in may on june 8 a joint british commonwealth and free french force moved into lebanon and syria with the expectation that the 45 000 strong vichy french garrison would surrender and march over to the allied course but it did not and six weeks of fierce fighting ensued before the vichy french lost the battle and 6 000 were counted as casualties the vichy french resisted skillfully along all three of the allied routes of advance on the coastal sector fierce fighting occurred at the liutani river on the 9th of june and on the 12th of june it was decided to transfer the bulk of the forces to the coastal advance where good progress was being made by the 10th indian division and free french forces [Music] much of the vichy force comprised french colonial troops the dc troops dug themselves in well at all points often holding fire to point blank range but this only made our fellows all the more determined to finish off the job when australian james heather gordon charged a machine gun and placement during the battle of jazeem an action for which he was awarded the victoria cross he found that he had been fighting not frenchmen but senegalese the allied advance stalled on jebel abua trees where a flanking move by free french tanks was stopped by heavy shelling from vichy artillery and troops holding kanetra on the other main road to damascus reported the approach of a strong vichy force from the north two companies of free french troops were sent to reinforce defensive positions across the road by 0.900 on the 15th of june indian troops were pushing forward into the hills and within an hour had captured by 11 30 three french marines had secured the village of monkel bay in the second phase of the attack free french were fighting vichy french the very tragedy that general de gaulle had wanted to avoid at dhaka what a comment on the so-called honor of the vc leaders that they should have ordered their men to fight not only their former british allies but even the free french their own countrymen during the night of the 15th of june indian troops took our twos on the canetra to damascus road cutting the communications of the vichy force advancing on canetra but their approach was too slow on the afternoon of the 16th of june the allies at konetra outnumbered three to one and facing tanks against which they had no effective counter surrendered but by the 18th of june the situation had been restored allied focus switched to damascus which fell on the 21st of june on that day a mixed force of british troops including those of the arab legion entered syria from iraq and advanced on palmyra which was attacked on the 25th of june the vichy forces held out for nine days before surrendering [Music] finally the entry into damascus you could hardly say the population looked gloomy about our arrival could you after the capture of damascus the drive on beirut chiefly the australian 7th division became the main allied focus on the 10th of july the australians were within 10 kilometers of the british fourth cavalry brigade was closing on homs and the 10th indian division was advancing into northern syria of course the importance of our occupation of syria hardly needs stressing success in syria justifies us in joking one more mark against hitler the vichy french commander general henry dents sought an armistice he had lost the battle and his command of 38 000 surviving troops was given the option to be returned to vichy france or to join the free french forces less than 6 000 elected to join the free french that mattered less than the control that britain now had in the middle east the eastern mediterranean the sewers canal and the arab oil fields were all more defensible because of the sideshow in syria [Music] on the 25th of april 1945 american and soviet troops made contact the link up between the americans and the russians of the river elba near tolkau marked the climax of the two great advances into the heart of germany from west and east it was colossal news on the same day the red army completed its encirclement of berlin berlin at the same time became a fortress city that was the especially concept meaning that the city was to be defended at all costs to the last cartridge to the last bullet the last man defensive preparations were made in depth but resources were far from elite the numbers in berlin well there are no concrete numbers it mostly it was a mishmash of units so police units hitler youth units and folk storm units just people's militia made of those who were not able to serve in the regular army because they were either too young or too old or had sicknesses health issues pretty much everything they could get the 12th army west of the city comprised 12 divisions that were a grab bag of raw recruits fun man teufel's third panzer army north of the city comprised nine divisions none of which was panzer the total deployed in defense of the capital was some 50 in different divisions coming towards them were almost 200 divisions of the red army and as they came they scorched the earth the soviet offensive was designed to ensure the fall of berlin no later than may day may the first soviet forces began to move on april the 12th air raids continued to pummel the city the berliners they built tram barricades piles of rubble to block the streets but how could that help really because seven soviet armies were advancing exactly on berlin and and the berlin garrison had less than a hundred thousand men this is less than a core against seven soviet full able-bodied armies so their situation was dire to say the least zhukov's first belarusian front in the center conef's first ukrainian front to his south rokosovsky's second belarusian to his north would race each other for the prize on april 16th zhukov's offensive began when three red flares shot skywards and 140 searchlights were turned on in the eyes of the enemy then three green flares signaled the start of a ground-shattering bombardment literally so shocking that entire villages collapsed and whole forests exploded as 8983 soviet guns opened up the bombardment lasted for 35 minutes then abruptly neatly it stopped and the red army moved forward more than six million men and women with one thing in mind zhukov advancing from his bridgehead on the oda was aiming for the heart of the city the germans mostly the uss units they were tough in battle but nothing could save them this is obvious so because the soviet soldiers they were so close to the victory that they were waiting for fighting for hoping for for four years now there is a moment of revenge especially for those who lost their loved ones or who went through the occupied territories in the soviet union and sold horrible massacres and all the outcomes of the genocidal policy that the german state was executing in the occupied eastern territories so now they were fighting with even more rage more anger is incidental in the course of military operations but certainly here in berlin there was all the evidence of it retribution for the havoc caused by hitler's hands in leningrad and warsaw london coventry rotterdam and all the devastated cities of vienna [Music] on the 26th the city center was ringed and soviet forces advancing house to house room to room moved in [Music] m berlin was hell pretty much this was hell a number of those who fought they remember that it was hard to tell if it was night or day because thick black smoke was covering the sunlight the smoke that was lit by the fires of knocked out tanks and buildings screams in the air screams of those wounded because berlin was full of civilians that of course were dying during the course of the battle and dust from the destroyed buildings was always in the air it was hard to breathe all the time cracked on the teeth of those who fought on april 30th after first successfully testing the poison on his beloved dog blondie hitler and his new bride bit down on cyanide capsules at which point hitler to be certain shot himself in the temple the red army was 200 meters away [Music] the next day the reichstag fell and the red flag was famously hoisted on its roof general helmut weidling commanding the military garrison surrendered the city berlin as a capital as a city even was dead this was what remained of the reichstag the building which gained worldwide notoriety when the nazis seized path good [Music] the battle for the capital had cost more than 300 000 soviet casualties perhaps a similar number of german casualties and in addition 480 000 german prisoners who had failed in their attempt to break out west to surrender to the american british and french forces from whom they expected kinder treatment the capital has fallen but the resistance still was going in the north some troops were still fighting for the third empire that did not exist that lasted for only 12 years the last of the last they just decided to give themselves in late may 1945 this was the end of the ride every battle is both a victory and a defeat it depends which flag you fly in every theater of the second world war battles won and lost determined possession of territory of resources and of the strength to go on fighting for some of the battles it was the victory that most influenced the future course of the war for others it was the defeat this is the story of the battles won and lost that decided the outcome of the greatest conflict in history battles are almost always about territory advancing the front line seizing the port the city the oil field the fate of nations in the second world war rose and fell on battles that took territory singapore monte casino and even more on battles that failed to capture their objectives in the skies over britain or before the walls of stalingrad operation barbarossa had surged across the great russian plains almost to the gates of moscow south into the caucasus and into the crimea winter stalled the offensive which resumed with the spring hitler detached the sixth army tasked with the capture of stalingrad stalin determined to fight for the city that carried his name put everything into its defense stalingrad named for russia's present leader the pride of this generation of russians for it was their city built in their time with the capture of stalingrad the nazis would have a base from which to launch a flanking attack on moscow stalingrad sprawled for about 40 kilometers on both sides of the volga and at a point where that river was 1300 metres wide on august 23rd font paulus commanding the sixth army at the time the largest single formation in the wehrmacht had reached the river volga just north of stalingrad we shall take stalingrad you may be sure of that that burst was made by hitler weeks ago and no doubt the germans believed it frontal assaults heavy shelling colossal air raids all have been tried all have failed the truth is that the germans they captured like around 90 of stalingrad right so the 10 on the embankment they could never make it there but what they captured was just ruins of the city that they destroyed themselves and this city will be their mass grave as the first ice appeared on the volga marshall zhukov and the rest of the soviet high command began planning their counter-stroke operation uranus designed to trap the german sixth army general vatutan's southwest front would attack from the north the stalingrad front general yeremenko south of the city would drive north linking with vatuten at kalash the don front konstantin rokosovsky would apply pressure to paulus preventing him from responding to the maneuvering in his rear on the 11th of november 1942 the german assault on stalingrad was renewed a week later the south west and dawn fronts began their attacks the stalingrad front moved the next day by the end of november the 20th batutan had advanced 40 kilometers zhukov had sent a million men nearly a thousand tanks and more than a thousand aircraft against the enemy 330 000 axis troops were now trapped in their castle the cauldron 55 kilometers by 30. there was an attempt to relieve the sixth army which is called operation vintage or operation winter storm hitler said you have to break through the encirclement secure this corridor and that's it that's how we will supply them that's how we will pour in new reinforcements into this cauldron because we have uh ames in 1943 so the original idea of hitler was not relieving the army per se just helping them you know lift lifting off this encirclement and that's it but people inside were thinking that hitler is coming to save them [Music] on november 27th hitler created army group dom ordering it to relieve the encircled palace but at the end of november the red army launched new attacks forcing its commander von manstein to postpone the offensive when winter storm did launch it met fierce resistance and von manstein recognized that his rescue mission had failed by the time of the failure of this operation winter gevita the german soldiers in the front line and the sixth army were getting maybe 100 or 120 grams of bread per day so they were eating their horses the worst thing was that at a certain point they were hoping that yes we will have to make a corresponding strike so munchdown is attacking and we're uh breaking through within circleman so so they burned uh all the rest of the resources that they had food they destroyed the tanks the vehicles the german soldiers were still believing in their leader hitler is a man of his word he said that he will relieve us there you go he's relieving us that never happened on december the 16th the soviets launched little saturn against the italian eighth army which was wiped out tatsinskaya the main airfield used by the germans for resupply was now in soviet hands the scene at a captured german airfield northwest of stalingrad it looks as if a hun retreated according to plan doesn't it like hell it does on the 10th of january 1943 the decisive soviet assault began the perimeter formed of six soviet armies drew in like a dragnet on the west bank in these the latest newsreel pictures from this front the stories of street fighting of the bitter struggles for every yard and for every vantage point come to life the germans had a name for the sort of fighting that knocked down the city's buildings rotten creek they called it rat war stalingrad was the first battle uh where modern tactics of this you know small units were used because the city was destroyed by bombardment prior to the germans actually entering the city they were defending these half destroyed houses and piles of rubble it was like a mishmash you know like on the ground floor it could be germans on the second floor but it could be russians then germans again so prior to entering the house throning grenade then a few bursts then you're entering the house a lot of hand-to-hand combat a lot of sniping it produced legends like the fighting at the tractor factory the grain silo the main railway station which had changed hands 15 times and pavlov's house where sergeant pavlov and his unit had held out for 59 days until relieved here [Music] when the tractor plant was subjected to a bombardment by artillery masked at a density of 300 guns per kilometer it surrendered and the battle of stalingrad was over on january the 31st 1943 general field marshal friedrich von paulus surrendered his command to chuikov's 62nd army [Music] [Music] the fall of the city and declared four days of mourning northwest and southwest the story was the same when hitler suddenly had his second thoughts about stalingrad when he decided not to capture it after all but to leave the sixth army to its fate and shorten his line according to plan the official communique announced that the entire sixth army had been wiped out to the last man and the last bullet in fact 91 000 prisoners of war had been taken the german generals they were shocked this was a catastrophe pretty much for the for the vmart the whole army lost in no time so this was a very very heavy blow [Music] the battle fought at stalingrad was of an epic scale few other set pieces of the second world war got close and as a battle lost in which an entire german army marched into captivity it has broadly agreed to be one of the definitive turning points of the second world war in 1939 winston churchill speaking of the major british base in the east singapore offered the assurance that there will be no attack in any period which our foresight can measure what churchill perhaps instinctively knew was that if the union jack were to be lowered at singapore it would be a blow to british prestige from which the empire might never recover but by 1942 the british empire in the east was crumbling british troops were falling back concentrating their strength on the island fortress of singapore singapore had been created by the british as a strategic base in order to defend its imperial possessions in asia for 20 years the british have been building a naval base and everything that goes with it in order to provide a bastion to protect against what threat the japanese threat in late 1941 the japanese entered the war singapore is is at peril and the british strategy proves to be completely worthless because the singapore strategy depends not just on the existence of a naval base but upon the existence of a fleet to be based in that naval base they don't have the fleet because they're fighting the germans in the north sea and the atlantic and the mediterranean so singapore this imperial bastion is to be defended from the land by an army their resistance would last less than two months general hueville the overall commander in the far east had warned churchill in mid-january that singapore could not be held churchill's words expressed both determination and desperation no question of surrender must be entertained he said until after protracted fighting in the ruins of singapore city but churchill also admitted that the possibility of singapore having no land with defenses no more entered my mind than a battleship being launched without a bottom on the 1st of february the equivalent of four divisions stood in singapore they had blown the causeway to the mainland but the japanese had boats on the sixth a japanese landing on the island of pulau ubin was a faint the main invasion of the island followed a day later when three japanese divisions crossed the johor strait their beachheads well established by the ninth they began their advance across the island towards singapore city to which the island's 1 million civilian population had withdrawn on the 10th hueville made his last visit to the island leaving it in the command of lieutenant general arthur percival officer commanding malaya general wavel ordered singapore to hold on for help was on the way percival's defeat in singapore and just as much his appearance have caused him to be cast unfairly as the villain of the peace the british commander in singapore arthur percival is not a charismatic commander he's cautious he tries to defend the entire perimeter of the island even though the japanese won't land on the entire perimeter they only land in one place he won't move sufficient troops to meet that landing because he fears they'll land somewhere else a reasonable fear but not as it turns out true so arthur percival is both well regarded as incompetent but he's certainly unfortunate percival's forces had no tanks he had received aircraft but many of these were destroyed on the ground by japanese bombers and much of his command comprised poorly trained troops some australian units had been shipped out after two weeks basic training and had never fired their rifles and here's quite another story one that i wouldn't advise anyone to doubt the departure of troops from australia on their way to reinforce singapore [Applause] [Music] they're in high spirits and very tough strong british forces were concentrated at the great naval base in the south east on the johor strait on the eastern tip at changi and between those strong points at celatar the japanese simply ignored and bypassed the positions 16 assault battalions with five in reserve found themselves facing three battalions of the australian 22nd brigade the attack struck which for the central column meant following the railway line into the heart of the city had a siege been established it would not have lasted long the japanese now had 440 artillery pieces trained on the island and in their advance would capture the reservoirs that supplied the island's water supply but a siege was not necessary in two days fierce initial resistance having been overcome the japanese advance was established on a line that ringed the city it was february the 11th by the 13th the perimeter had shrunk to a 40 kilometer line around the city with troops pulled back into its defense from changi and along the beaches the japanese were outnumbered by almost three to one yamashita knew that he would need to not just conceal that fact but make the opposite appear to be true the japanese strategy to conquer southeast asia in 1941-42 looks extremely dodgy because they send relatively small lightly equipped forces to a range of places simultaneously and tell them to get on with it so it's a it's an act of confidence and in fact it's a confidence trick because in most cases the japanese forces are smaller more lightly equipped and less powerful than their adversaries the japanese win at singapore not because they're stronger but because they're bolder so successful were yamashita's tactics that the surrender which was to furnish images that have become a staple of stories about the fall of the british empire was only four days away yamashita ordered his artillery to fire as though their supply of ammunition was inexhaustible despite the bombardment which softened the landing positions and disrupted communications there was no counter because the british command continued to think that the attack would fall in the northeast the city came under attack from bombers and japanese engineers having patched the causeway yamashita was bringing his tanks across by the 14th the british had no tanks in malaya the british empire forces fighting the japanese make a lot of mistakes their confidence is eroded and the troops that they meet on the northwest coast of the island although they think they can defeat the japanese they withdraw very rapidly and it's symbolic that these troops expected to be defeated the japanese by contrast expected to win even though on paper they should have lost percival was deeply concerned for the lives of the civilian population the water supply was gone and food was running out the same was true for yamashita bluff and double bluff yamashita with his supplies running low made the bluff explicit on the 11th calling on percival to surrender on the 14th saint valentine's day the japanese advance reached the alexandra hospital a british officer advancing under a white flag was bayoneted patients and staff about 250 were taken and most of them were killed over the next 24 hours now percival placed the choice before his commanders counter-attack in order to regain the reservoirs and the food supply depot at bukit timah or surrender ironically the japanese are about to run out of ammunition their guns had a few shells left in each battery so if he'd held out for a bit longer then perhaps it would have all turned out differently on the 15th of february the british surrendered and the garrison went into captivity what sort of captivity percival was not to know his surrender of about 80 000 troops under his command was the greatest in the history of british arms this nightmare that they've all entertained for decades that the japanese will conquer southeast asia looks like it's coming true and indeed it is so the fall of singapore is both a disaster on the spot and it's a psychological disaster for the western allies following the successful invasion of sicily allied troops moved to the invasion of the italian peninsula but as they were to discover in the long and draining campaign ahead italy is a very defensible place mussolini may have gone but the germans were not and in strength they prepared to defend the country allied forces operating from both sicily and north africa landed south of naples the british eighth army at toronto on the instep and the us fifth at salerno under cover of smoke men and vehicles went steadily ashore the most difficult the most bloody phase of any combined operation now lay immediately ahead of these men with standing fierce german counter-attacks particularly on the salono beachhead the two armies linked up on september 16th and kessel ring commanding german forces in italy ordered his troops to withdraw northwards and north between naples and rome was the defensive position known as the gustaf line the british eighth began its assault on the line in late november the us fifth continued its advance finally forcing the german tenth army to withdraw to gustaf at the beginning of december a plan to speed the conquest of italy by hooking past the gustav line was developed this was operation shingle operation shingle on the surface was a really good idea and this of course attracted politicians such as winston churchill who pushed for it very hard and it's one of those examples of the military idea that was driven more by politics than military sense it was from the start compromised by priority being given to the planning for overlord the invasion of europe that would happen in june on d-day despite reservations the operation went ahead on january 22nd allied troops would land at a place called anzio less than 20 kilometers from rome it should have been a success two divisions the british first and american third landed and quickly established a substantial bridgehead 24 kilometers long by 12 deep they were opposed by the only german forces in the area two battalions [Music] the germans were completely surprised i mean on day one there was virtually no opposition but what of course the germans did do was they reacted very quickly and very effectively within three days there were several german divisions blocking all the exit routes from the landing site and these only built up in number very quickly but us general john p lucas remained on the beach building and strengthening the bridgehead i had hoped said winston churchill that we were hurling a wildcat on the shore but all we got was a beached whale as lucas held his ground kessel ring acted swiftly ordering the 14th army south of the road to confront the invader [Music] as a result anzio instead of a landing place would become a battlefield [Applause] and within a month of landing general lucas would be replaced by general truscott over the next few weeks anzio was transformed into one of the busiest ports in the world yet defeat for the allies was staved off only by overwhelming air superiority boston's among other types flew in over the beaches to bomb the germans and their communications further inland our control of the air was virtually complete the first major german counter-blow was struck on the 12th of february and drove the exposed british first division back towards the sea they underestimated them they had assumed that the german army which had been fighting on the gustav line for quite some time would be exhausted and that the troops would not be up to reacting quickly so in effect they didn't really appreciate what they would be up against within 10 days the british first division had been pushed back almost to its start line but german casualties were high and they were unable to press the attack resuming after four days with ten divisions that were pitched against only five allied this was an attempt to split the beach head and divide the occupying force which only air and artillery power was able to defeat the land forces advanced six and a half kilometers in two days it was air superiority which again decided the issue when the germans returned to the attack on february 29th this time the us third division bore the brunt and was driven back towards the sea but allied aircraft outnumbered german planes by about ten to one and allied action was supported by warships close in as at salerno so here at anzio close naval support has been invaluable indeed throughout these critical days all services british and american have worked as one the battle turned into basically a contest of attack and counter-attack [Music] but in the end neither side could prevail against the other and it turned into basically a contest with no outcome although the superior firepower and command of the skies prevented the germans from expelling the allies from anzio the landing was still a battle lost overall the outcome of operation shingle was a failure it didn't achieve what its objective was which was to turn the flank of the gustav line it didn't capture rome and it allowed the german army to escape to the north sixth corps did not break out of its anzio bridgehead until may the 24th the breakout linked up with the units moving in the general offensive operation diadem indecision and inaction defeated shingle which in a rare case of complete surprise being achieved had caught the germans flat-footed [Music] this failure had promoted insignificance a battle that was being fought at the same time high in the hills above the coast at a place called monte casino [Music] the failure to break out at anzio threw the emphasis back on breaking through on the gustaf line the defensive position that cut across italy from the mediterranean to the adriatic and the key to the gustav line was a high point that commanded the critical approaches to the liri valley [Music] this was monte casino and control of monte casino lay with those who occupied the summit it's perfectly true of course that the monastery founded by saint benedict in the 6th century on the site of the roman temple of apollo was a building of tremendous historic and material value it had been a center of culture and learning for hundreds of years monday casino by itself has no strategic significance whatsoever it was a perfect observation point now the germans said it's a benedictine monastery it's a lovely old building kessel ring said i'm not going to defend this monastery i'm not going to use it for military purposes the allies believed that the germans were using it as an observation post and maybe they were from february the 2nd to may the 17th the allies launched five offensives against casino's benedictine monastery monty casino becomes a kind of a symbol of the inability of the allies to make good in a campaign that they expected to go much more smoothly you know that churchill had talked about the soft underbelly of europe well they turned out not to be so soft the allied attack was held up until the last moment even then warning leaflets were conveyed to all the civilians concerned benedictine monks and italians who might be in or near the monastery this is how the leaflets were conveyed [Music] the american 34th division went in first on january 24th it secured high ground at great cost and was forced to withdraw on february 12 by the german first parachute division commanding the heights but not occupying the monastery [Music] by an irony their commander general fonzenga und etlin was himself a lay member of the benedictine order from the 16th to the 18th the new zealand corps comprising second new zealand and fourth indian divisions went in and they too had to withdraw despite support from 135 u.s flying fortresses which reduced the monastery to virtual rubble absolute military necessity could permit no further reprieve so the bombers came over mitchells marauders and fortresses [Music] [Music] the u.s air force came over and destroyed the monastery to no effect because they turned it into a pile of rubble that to german paratroops were able to defend superbly and in fact the allies made it harder for themselves to advance because they had turned this hill into a fortress the battle for monte casino resumed as part of a coordinated offensive diadem on march 11th finally general alphonse joy's free french led by moroccan irregulars skilled in mountain warfare opened the way for the polish second corps to carry monte cassino and here are some of the first poles to enter the top the captain leads his patrol up an apparently deserted street while a tummy gunner gives covering fire on may the 17th they were repulsed but returned to the attack the next day on may the 18th the polish flag flew above the ruins as the germans finally withdrew with my friend i explored the area at night and we found german helmets and with german helmets we pretended to be sermons and there were 12 cement bunkers with one window each from which they were shooting and we managed to disable them by throwing grenades into the bunkers and that that's why we managed to destroy them the allies won through a casino by sheer bloody determination by making one attack after another and eventually getting a a strategy to to break through that that blockage monte casino is partly a symbol of the united nations that there's so many nations involved in trying to break through this this german bastion that that might be its biggest significance despite tenacious resistance the german defenders had lost the battle and were forced to withdraw and monte casino founded in 526 by saint benedict and numbering saint thomas aquinas among its early monks was demolished in what is probably the greatest cultural loss of the war the ruins unnecessarily created formed a superb defensive position from which the germans claimed too many allied lives before the monastery finally fell so this was an engagement in which even those who obtained their objective could hardly claim a victory it's a battle that eventually succeeds but at massive cost what 40 000 allied lives it's a massive cost for a relatively minor obstacle [Music] the asia pacific theater in 1944 was characterized by the advance of the american island hopping strategy the marshals and the gilbert islands had been captured and secured so allied planning turned towards the marianas and beyond that the philippines the americans could now take the marianas and once they did japan would be within range of long-range heavy bombers based in the marianas the japanese knew this they'd always wanted to engage the americans in a decisive sea battle their losses starting at midway particularly in carriers and ships and aircraft had limited them [Music] the japanese planned to respond to the expected american assault by deploying a strong fleet in combination with aircraft based on the marianas [Music] together the plan proposed they would destroy the american carrier force that carrier force was the largest naval force yet to assemble in the pacific for the marianas invasion the american third fleet was based on task force 58 which had 15 carriers seven fast battleships 21 cruisers 58 destroyers and almost 30 submarines and in task force 52 which was supporting the invasion there were more carriers and battleships the japanese had just nine carriers five battleships about 19 cruisers and less than 30 destroyers and this was virtually all that was left at the imperial japanese navy the air power shipped including 900 aircraft gave the americans a two to one advantage over japan in the skies among the carriers were the lexington the wasp and the hornet namesakes of those previously sunk by the japs out for revenge when his force came under japanese attack admiral spruance commanding fifth fleet chose to use his aircraft in defense of his group rather than carry the attack [Music] and so on the 19th and 20th of june the largest carrier battle in history was fought with radar protecting the fleet the incoming attackers were picked off but flying into a hail of flack and a storm of cannon fire they suffered extremely heavy losses japan lost 219 aircraft the americans 29. the american air crews averaged over 500 hours the japanese had less than 150 so they were no match for the americans in the air in an equally devastating blow two japanese carriers were sent down by american submarines and still the main american fleet which had suffered no losses had not joined the battle spruance's opposite number admiral ozawa commanding the mobile fleet was ill-informed or possibly to save face his officers deliberately misinformed him he was led to believe that his air attacks had met with success and that the missing aircraft had landed safely on guam he waited for their return and by the time he realized they were not coming was under overwhelming attack from american carrier-based forces with little air cover himself warships and freighters took what evasive action they could but they didn't escape the japanese pilots took a long time to form up that gave the american combat air patrols plenty of time to position themselves ready to meet the japanese head-on the japanese didn't attack in formation to take advantage of mass firepower they attacked either singly or in small groups which the americans easily picked off [Music] many japanese pilots veered away before they were within bombing range the japanese couldn't even execute the most basic maneuvers a further carrier was sunk other ships were damaged and 65 more aircraft were destroyed this was the action that the americans dubbed the great marianas turkey shoot and it was a complete and unambiguous victory [Music] in the final tally the japanese had lost three carriers and 480 aircraft the americans had lost no ships and 29 aircraft the critical point was those american losses were replaced overnight the japanese couldn't replace theirs the marianas were secured in august and before the end of the year b-29 superfortresses flying from them were bombing the japanese home islands the losses to materiel but most significantly to trained air crew permanently and fatally weakened japan a novel solution to her shortage of skilled pilots would be found and named for the divine wind that had twice in the 13th century destroyed mongol invasion fleets saving japan that wind was called kamikaze [Music] churchill said the battle of france is over i expect that the battle of britain is about to begin he went on to say that the whole fury and might of the enemy must soon be turned on us which makes it clear that he expected an invasion well they were certainly talking about invasion it was called operation sea lion with the fall of europe and germany sitting on the doorstep so to speak britain was the only thing that stood in the way of total german conquest of europe with britain isolated hermann goering relished the idea of unleashing his luftwaffe on the united kingdom to soften up the target strategically the most important outcome would be control of the skies over the channel to invade they were going to come by water so obviously if you've got landing craft and you have a viable air force that is going to attack it they weren't going to take that risk they had to knock out the air force phase 1 of the nazi plan called for the raf to be knocked out of the air but the men of the raf hadn't read the nazi plan the story of why the royal air force won the battle of britain can be told by focusing on one decisive day adler attack eagle day the first day of what goering boasted would be the decisive phase of the whole air campaign until [Music] operation eagle attack the fall of france and its division into occupied and collaborationist vichy areas gifted germany coastal airfields within range of british targets these were soon crowded parking areas and the squadrons were ready on august 13 1940 the luftwaffe flew 1786 sorties its main target was british airfields its intention was to so permanently damage the royal air force that its effectiveness as a defensive weapon would be neutralized the skies would belong to germany [Music] here comes the luftwaffe in thousands of flights hundreds of planes bombers fighters dive bombers across that 21 miles of channel that eight short minutes of water they sent a long very very large formations and some groups were were 200 or 300 at a time bombers escorted by a large number of a fighter aircraft the measurement 109 110s it really was designed to bring the raf down as quickly as they could these aircraft already placed the luftwaffe at a disadvantage german aircraft had been designed for other uses the junkers 88 the stuka dive bomber so lethal in a ground support role in france did not prove as valuable in the battle of britain they realized too that the best way to knock out a a measure smith for instance was a close quarter front on attack so we always hear about you know looking at them staring the whites of their eyes but this is what was happening they flew as close as they could and they they fired head on really dangerous really risky but very effective the attritional nature of the battle also weighed against germany british aircraft forced to make emergency landings could be repaired [Music] german aircraft were lost because the raf was operating on its home territory it had its aircraft factories it had more pilots coming through training so continual reinforcements if a squadron lost four pilots in the morning they would be replaced by the afternoon radar and the command and control system that responded to intelligence weather from radar or from the network of spotters and watchers on rooftops and in churches around the country tipped the balance by mid-afternoon on the 18th the battle was on all over southern england an attack on detling airfield in kent was devastating but pointless german intelligence had got it wrong detling was not a fighter base on advertac the luftwaffe destroyed 47 aircraft on the ground but only one was a fighter he bombed the airfield and the fields were hit but the planes were saved for britain unlike poland in the low countries didn't make the mistake of bunching its planes on the runways the planes of the raf were scattered and hidden only a few on any one field and those in the far corners over middle wallop nine stukas were shot down by spitfires after their me-109 escort had been forced to turn back due to shortage of fuel the actual cost of adl attack was not decisive but the momentum shift and gain in confidence was they were very good at continuous assessment so they they knew when things were working they knew when things weren't working if germany changed their tactics the raf responded two days after adler tuck radar reported a large formation attacking the north the controller of 13 group felt instinctively that this would be the only attack on the north and risked throwing everything in the path of the incoming fleet he scrambled every squadron from cataract in yorkshire to dream east of edinburgh if he was wrong the skies were open but he was right 15 enemy aircraft were shot down for the loss of one raf fighter and so by initiative in command better equipment planes and radar and individual skill the battle of britain was won on august the 20th one week after adletak winston churchill rose in parliament to famously praise the few with the battle of britain and with churchill and his superb propaganda in bringing the people into the battle they were part of the fight they were willing to put up with everything that was happening and they knew too that britain was not going to lose britain would become victorious let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the british empire and its commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say this was their final tower [Music] [Music] you

Channel: War Stories

Views: 6,137,528

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, wwii, ww2, world war two, battles won and lost, full length documentaries, history documentary, history channel, ww2 documentary, documentary history, invasion of france, hitler, stalin, churchill ww2, eisenhower wwii, 3 hour long documentaries, battle of kursk, operation barbarossa, monte cassino, Normandy Landings, Dunkirk Evacuation, Stalingrad, Battle Of Berlin, Battle Of Britain

Id: -gwJ8Y1XoSs

Length: 197min 21sec (11841 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2022