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.
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...
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...
On 29 December 1940 London experienced one of its worst nights of the Blitz. German bombers dropped tens of thousands of bombs, destroying more of London than the city's famous Great Fire of 1666. The following morning, a photographer took a picture through the smoke and fire of Saint Paul’s Cath...
Narrated by Tom Selleck: Sunday, December 7, 1941 was a beautiful morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. A few sailors and soldiers were already up and playing a game of football near Pearl Harbor. Others were sleeping in their barracks or aboard ships after a late night of partying in Honolulu....
It’s 1940. And the world’s first real air battle is being fought in the skies of the UK. This is the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force would triumphantly fight off the threat of the German Luftwaffe. Behind the brave pilots and pioneering technology lies an often-forgotten secret we...
Dan Snow visits Coventry to tell the tale of the infamous bombing raid that struck the city on the evening of 14 November 1940, 80 years ago. Featuring Dr Kristopher Lovell and Victoria Taylor.
A series of films exploring the experiences of children during the Holocaust.
Salisbury Plain is the Ministry of Defence's largest training ground, covering an area the size of the Isle of Wight. Dan Snow is shown around the Plain by MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood, to explore how British, Commonwealth and Allied troops prepared for the two great wars.
After the Great War of 1914-18, European powers were desperate to avoid another conflict of that scale. But just 20 years later, they found themselves plunged into catastrophe on an even greater scale. The outbreak of World War Two has been blamed on the policy of 'appeasement' - with the Great P...
Operation Market Garden was the Allied operation to end the Second World War by Christmas 1944. The brainchild of Bernard Montgomery, it involved the combined use of airborne and armoured divisions carving a path through the Netherlands, securing several vital bridges, bypassing the formidable Si...
At his graduation from the Annapolis Naval Academy, Minter Dial was presented with a ring. When he shipped out to the Far East, shortly before America's entry into the Second World War, the ring went with him. He kept it throughout his harrowing experiences fighting in the Philippines and as a PO...
75 years ago, in the spring of 1945, the aerial assault on Germany was reaching a crescendo as city after city was devastated by British and American bomber fleets. James Holland, leading World War Two historian and bestselling author, joins Dan Snow on the podcast to talk about why and how the b...
It was a moment of mortal peril. Britain reeled from a series of devastating military defeats. Its politicians faced one of the most monumental decisions in 20th century history. Faced with a rampant Germany on the continent led by the fascist dictator Adolf Hitler, should Britain fight? Or make ...
Winston Churchill, wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain and its empire during the Second World War, is one of the most recognisable figures of world history. The man dominated Whitehall and Westminster, but many of his most vital decisions during the war years were taken away from the public e...
In June 1940, the Channel Islands - British Crown Dependencies - were occupied by German forces. On the orders of Adolf Hitler, they were transformed into impregnable fortresses, works that still mark the islands today. Measuring just three square miles, the island of Alderney now found itself on...
This series looks into some of the untold military histories of the 20th century, featuring Historian Dr James Rogers and history teacher Jack Pettitt.
Aviation historian Paul Beaver answers key questions about the strategic bombing campaigns of World War Two. How successful was the Blitz from a German perspective? What was the significance of Big Week? Was Dresden a war crime? And many more...
In the winter of 1941 an alien-seeming object was spotted by an RAF reconnaissance pilot flying a lone unarmed Spitfire across the French coast. Balanced upon the cliffs near Le Havre was what appeared to be a giant convex dish, directed across the Channel at the war-torn British coastline. With ...
