Selection of documentaries, interviews and podcasts about World War Two. From the Rise of the Hitler to the Liberation of Europe and the Atom Bomb.
Documentary telling the story of Britain's most famous fighter aircraft from its earliest radical design on the drawing board to its eventual status as the symbol of Britain's determination to fight to victory in World War Two.
During the Second World War, the City of London was a major target for both naval and aerial bombardment. In 1943, numerous towers were built in the Thames Estuary as anti-aircraft defences to protect the capital. Known as the Red Sands Forts, these Star Wars Walker-like constructions were initia...
Archival footage and interviews with Flt. Lt. Rupert "Tiny" Cooling distinguish this fascinating documentary special on the preeminent British bomber of the Second World War: the Wellington.
On 6 June 1944, Allied forces undertook the largest air, land and sea invasion in history. On D-Day, more than 150,000 allied troops stormed five assault beaches in Normandy, attempting to break through Hitler's Atlantic Wall.
Whilst the remnants of the D-Day landings can be seen all around No...
Documentary, produced in the 1990s, using personal anecdotes, memoirs, photographs and archive footage to tell the stories of the men and women involved in the D-Day operations.
A definitive account of the hunt for and sinking of the flagship of the German Kriegsmarine, Bismarck. Featuring Andrew Choong, curator at the National Maritime Museum, naval historian Nick Hewitt and Angus Konstam, author of 'Hunt the Bismarck'. Presented by Dan Snow.
Series, produced in the 1990s, about the run up to D-Day. Featuring some remarkable interviews from those who were there.
In late April 2021, a team of volunteers from the Crowland Buffalo LVT group in Lincolnshire spent five days digging up and excavating a World War Two amphibious vehicle which has been buried 30 feet underground for the past 74 years. The Buffalo LVT was brought in to the area in 1947 to provide ...
A people destroyed. A landscape changed by war. From the streets of Warsaw to the titanic tank battles around the fields of Radzymin, and the horrors of Treblinka. Join Professor Alexandra Richie as she explores the brutal and bloodied history of Poland during the Second World War.
David Reynolds explores the reasoning behind the Second World War battles that took place in North Africa and Italy - an area labelled Hitler's `soft underbelly' by Winston Churchill.
In 1942, Hitler ordered the construction of an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom during the Second World War. The Atlanti...
By 1944, a third of the civilian population in Britain was engaged in war work, including over 7 million women. From compiling weather reports, maintaining aircraft, serving on airfields or working in intelligence, the work of women was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany. Alice Loxton trac...
In February 1942, the Second World War came to Australia. The same Japanese fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbor only ten weeks before had set its sights on a new target. The harbour town of Darwin. In two separate attacks on February 19 1942, nearly 250 Japanese aircraft wreaked havoc on the lig...
6th June, 1944, the Allies embark on the liberation of Europe. Explore the events of Operation Overlord with our specially selected documentaries.
In this poignant interview, Lord Saye and Sele shares his unique story from the Second World War, which began on D-Day, 6 June 1944.
During the Second World War a storm of fire and steel was unleashed. Not just on front line troops, but on enemy society itself. All sides in the Second World War believed that aerial bombardment could decisively affect the strategic outcome of the conflict. But did the unprecedented onslaught fr...
In this short film, Chris Lloyd looks into the story behind the Spitfire that crashed into a Welsh mountain outside the town of Caerphilly during a training flight on 7 November 1941. Lloyd explores how the community of the town came together to remember a man, Canadian pilot Sergeant Ivan Raymon...
A look behind the scenes of Philip Stevens' short film on the Lancaster Bomber. This includes an extended cut of an interview with Les Rutherford, a World War Two and RAF veteran who served as a bomb aimer aboard a Lancaster Bomber.
Guernsey and its neighbouring islands have a unique distinction which sets them apart from the rest of the British Isles. Together with the rest of the Channel Islands, they were the only part of the British Isles to fall to Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In this documentary, Dan Snow disc...
On the 73rd anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden, Dan Snow accompanies British veteran Victor Gregg, a POW in Dresden during the raid, as he returns to the city for a historic meeting with Irene Uhlendorf, who was just 4 years old on the night of the bombing. Together they are able to talk a...
Aviation historian Victoria Taylor answers key questions about the air war of World War Two: from the significance of the Dambusters raid to how we should remember "Bomber" Harris.
80 years ago Wing Commander Joseph Watts was killed when his RAF Hampden Bomber crashed, as it returned from a bombing raid in Occupied Europe. He left behind a daughter, and also an unborn son. John Watts, born 8 months later, would never meet his father. But recently he discovered that at the R...
Just before dawn on 10 May 1940 the largest concentration of motorised vehicles in history roared into action. After months of quiet it was the start of Hitler’s invasion of the West. What followed was a stunning combination of new tactics and new technologies that left Britain and France – two w...
