Many Allied political leaders and generals delivered remarkable speeches on D-Day, here are 5 of the greatest.

Having been defeated by Nazi Germany in the Battle for France of April and May 1940, French resistance fighters carried on the underground struggle, causing difficulty for the German occupiers, and supplying the Allies in Britain with much needed intelligence in the build up to D-Day. An archive ...

Before the masses arrived by sea on D-Day, the brave few came from the air. This archive documentary follows the operations of the US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, who landed behind enemy lines to prepare the way for the D-Day landings.

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 disco...

On the night of the 16th May, 1943, Operation Chastise commenced - 133 RAF airmen in their iconic Lancaster bombers took off from England, bound for Germany. Armed with specially designed 'bouncing bombs', the highly trained crews were tasked with destroying key installations in Germany's industr...

80 Years ago the armies of Hitler and Stalin went head to head in the bloodiest battle of the Second World War.

Fought over five months through the bitter Russian Winter, the Battle for Stalingrad would serve as a turning point in the course of the Second World War and would mark a drastic chang...

Of all the air raids carried out during World War Two, none are as enduringly famous as the attack by Lancaster Bombers against the dams of Germany’s industrial heartland. Commemorated in literature and film throughout the decades, the mission – which was codenamed Operation ‘Chastise’ – has come...

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 ...

In the second episode of Traces of War - James continues his journey across Europe. This time he will be visiting the site of some of the biggest military engineering projects undertaken during the Second World War.

His journey starts in Belgium where James explores the enormous super fortress E...

The traces of war are everywhere - if you know where to look.

Dr James Rogers, Assistant Professor of War Studies, is fascinated by these remains and exactly what they can tell us about not just the changing nature of war through time - but the stories of the people who lived through those event...

Part 4 of 4. James Holland visits the ubiquitous US M4 Sherman Tank.

Part 3 of 4. James Holland takes a closer look at the British A27M Cromwell Tank.

In the deadly skies over war torn Europe, one unit led America's fight with Hitler. Daring aerial warriors who sacrificed all to destroy the Nazi war machine. Relentlessly attacking deep into the heart of the Reich, no matter the odds or cost. They were the 8th US Army Airforce - the Mighty Eighth.

Throughout World War Two, one unit came to define elite military excellence in the American Army. Superb warriors, pushed to the limits in the most difficult missions ever conceived. From assaulting African beaches, to clearing the mountains of Italy and scaling French cliffs, they were the US Ar...

During World War Two, when things looked at their worst, an elite American Airbourne Unit was created for the most extreme combat missions. They were the first US soldiers to set foot in Nazi-occupied France, who took part in the biggest airbourne assault in history and stood firm in Hitler's las...

During the Second World War, a British Unit won fame as pioneers of armoured warfare. They were one of Churchill's favoured divisions, who tackled Hitler's most feared commanders and his worst war machines... at great cost.

Fighting all the way from the baking sands of the desert, to the hedger...

Re-join Leutnant Friedrich Sander, a Panzer officer in the German Wehrmacht as he continues his journey into the heart of the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa.

In Part two, we pick up with Sander as the Russian weather starts to turns, the German advance begins to stutter and the So...

In Britain's Darkest Hour, a new force of crack troops was founded. Trained for combat behind enemy lines, they descended from the skies to take part in some of the most daring raids of the Second World War.

From the deadly deserts of North Africa to a heroic stand at Arnhem, they established t...

In 1945, as the Red Army arrived at the edge of Warsaw, it was confronted by a sea of destruction, rubble, ash and misery. Arriving as "liberators", the shadow of the Soviet Union would soon loom large over a population brutalised by five long years of Nazi occupation - a population that had los...

During the Second World War, one US Army Infantry Division repeatedly proved itself as America's finest. Leading the way into action in Africa, Italy and on to bloody Omaha Beach, lightly armed G.I.s who stood their ground against Hitler's best SS Panzers.

They are the 1st Infantry Division - t...

Part 1 of 4. James Holland explores the T-34 tank, the pride and joy of the Soviet Union in WWII.

Part 2 of 4. James Holland investigates the mighty 'Jagdpanther', a German tank destroyer of WWII.

Between 1943 and 1945, two U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, USS Wolverine and USS Sable, stationed at Navy Pier in Chicago functioned as a training platform for about 17,000 pilots, signal officers and other personnel. Former U.S. President, George H.W. Bush was among the pilots who learned to take o...

Follow the path of Leutnant Friedrich Sander, a Panzer officer in the German Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa, the attack on the Soviet Union.

In the first part of a two-part film, we follow Leutnant Sander on the strenuous, and costly race towards Leningrad and learn about the murderous a...