The Battle of Britain
From the Archive
•
21m
In June 1940 Nazi Germany overran France and forced the British army to evacuate at Dunkirk. Severely lacking in military equipment, Britain and her empire now stood alone against Adolf Hitler's forces. Nevertheless Winston Churchill, Britain's new prime minister, refused to come to peace terms, forcing Hitler to plan an invasion - codenamed Operation Sea Lion. To stand any chance of crossing the English Channel, Germany needed to achieve mastery of the skies above Southern England during that summer. The Battle of Britain - the first major battle to be decided entirely by air power - began.
Up Next in From the Archive
-
Mariana Islands: Saipan
Documentary charting the US campaign on the island of Saipan in the Marianas in June and July 1944. The film draws attention to the high number of civilian casualties - sadly a feature of the Pacific island campaigns. Saipan was also among the first occasions where American forces witnessed mass ...
-
Etoa: A Kokoda Track Story
Seventy-five years after the horrors of the Pacific War, the forgotten perspectives of the local people emerge as a crew of archaeologists arrive in remote Papua New Guinea in search of the remains of lost soldiers.
The legacy of the Kokoda campaign contributes an enormous amount to the DNA of c...
-
Peleliu and Iwo Jima
The fourth of five episodes documenting the history of the US Marines in WW2. This episode tells the tale of the Marines during the Peleliu and Iwo Jima campaign of World War Two, in the Pacific.