The first of six episodes documenting the history of the US Marines. This episode tells the tale of the Marines during the Guam and Bougainville campaigns of World War Two, in the Pacific.

Combat America is a colourised 1945 documentary film produced in World War Two, narrated by Clark Gable.

Max Eisen was only 15 when he and his family were taken from their Hungarian home to the infamous Auschwitz Concentration Camp during the Second World War. All of his relatives were killed; only Max survived to see VE Day and eventual liberation. 74 years on from being liberated, he talks about t...

Last summer, we were lucky enough to interview Wing Commander Tom Neil, one of the last of 'the Few' who fought in the Battle of Britain. During the Battle he shot down at least 13 enemy aircraft; he saw over half his squadron shot down within 5 minutes; he is also credited with the longest fligh...

Happy Birthday Victor Gregg - he has turned 100 this week. Victor volunteered to join the army before the Second World War and he fought all the way through - from clashes with the Italians in North Africa in 1940 to being captured 75 years ago this autumn at Arnhem. He was a Prisoner of War in D...

During the years of World War Two, a short lived, but remarkable, organisation existed. The Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) was a civilian service that was tasked with the delivery of aircraft from factories to the squadrons of the RAF and Royal Navy, and the delivery of supplies. Featuring pilots ...

Of all the clubs in the world, perhaps the most extraordinary is the Guinea Pig Club, a group of Second World War veterans that suffered terrible injuries and were then treated by pioneering surgeon Archibald McIndoe. Today there are only a handful left. Dan visits Jan Stangreciuk, one of the few...

Over 55,500 men died flying with Bomber Command during World War Two; more than the number who serve in the Royal Air Force today. Flying at night over occupied Europe and battling German night fighters, anti-aircraft fire and mid-air collisions, they showed astonishing courage and resilience in ...

March 1944: 76 Allied airmen escaped through a tunnel from their prisoner of war camp deep in occupied Poland. Their aim was not only to get back to Britain and rejoin the war, but also to cause as much inconvenience for the German war machine as possible. Within a few days, all but 3 had been re...

Over the course of his 106 years, Doctor William Frankland has experienced more than most. He served with the Royal Medical Corps during World War Two, spending more than three years as a prisoner of war of the Japanese following the fall of Singapore. After the war, his medical career focused on...

He is a German Luftwaffe ace with 81 confirmed victories on the Eastern front. Now a 95-year-old veteran, his talent and courage remain legendary throughout the world. It is the most iconic British fighter ever built. The hum of its Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the wonderful elliptical wing, and th...

German forces seized control of the Channel Islands on 30 June 1940. By-passed by the Allies as they pushed east they remained under Nazi rule for almost 5 years, until the end of World War Two. This is the story of the British men and women who lived under the German occupation.

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.

At the end of World War Two the British public wanted to get back to ‘normal’. The gay men who had served their King and country found themselves subjected to a vigorous enforcement of the draconian law that would put them into prison if they were found guilty of indecency. But servicemen living ...

At the end of May and the beginning of June 1940, over 370,000 Allied soldiers found themselves at great risk, surrounded by German forces on all sides & with their backs to the Channel. The eyes of the World fixed their gaze on the small Allied perimeter that remained, around the beaches of Dunk...

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....

For over 100 years, the Royal Air Force has defended the skies of Britain and projected the country’s power and influence around the world. As the world’s oldest independent air force, it also has a rich and often astonishing history – one that is filled with the stories of extraordinary men and ...

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 ...

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...

A new statue has just been unveiled in Saffron Walden, an unassuming town in Essex, England. Five children are held, with limbs outstretched or shoulders hunched, in life-size bronze. One carries a tattered lifejacket, which hangs uselessly below him. The statue, titled Unaccompanied Children of ...

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...

The Battles of Imphal and Kohima was a crucial turning point in the attempted Japanese invasion of India during World War Two. By October 1942 Singapore, Hong-Kong, Malaysia and Burma had all fallen to the Japanese; the Imperial army looked unbeatable. Yet it was then, when morale was at its lowe...

The German invasion of Poland in September 1939 is often seen as a contest between the might of Hitler's war machine and an antiquated Polish military. But this perception of a modern, German force sweeping aside a fragile, backward enemy is far from the truth. Dan sat down with Roger Moorhouse t...

On 8 May 1945 Karl Donitz authorised the formal, final surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of World War Two in Europe. This archive footage from 1945, retells the major events of the Second World War and how complete victory in Europe was finally achieved. A British Movietone film first re...