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These new and updated visual accounts of the first world war combine a riveting story line with much newly gathered information and truly devastating pictures of the eerie landscape of war on the grandest scale. It is a compelling exploration of warfare at its most horrific. War Files, The-The History of World War Two, The In the Far East, Japan followed their pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbour with rapid territorial gains before being pushed back from Midway by American might. In Europe, RAF Bomber Command blitzed German cities as the D-Day invasion of Normandy was taking shape. By April 19445, American and Russian forces had Berlin surrounded - the liberation of Europe was complete. These momentous events are portrayed through front-line film footage and carefully researched contemporary accounts. War Files, The-D-Day: Assault on Fortress Europe It was D-Day. Conceived almost on the shores of Dunkirk, four years in the planning, two in the organising and one day in the execution, the landing in Normandy was easily the largest and most extraordinary combined military operation ever attempted. It was also a crucial one. By 1944 it was becoming clear that Germany would lose the war in Europe, who would win it was another matter. Had D-Day failed and at times it came close to it, the western allies would have found it impossible to launch another operation for at least a year, perhaps more and todays map of Europe might have been very different. One of the millions taking part in the landings, Admiral Ramsay, was famous for his dislike of even the mildest exaggeration, as Overlord got under way, he told his officers "Gentlemen, I am sorry about all the superlatives, today they happen to be true." This is that story. War Files, The-Great Sea Battles of World War Two The mid 1930's saw Germany rebuilding her fleets, defying the Versailles Treaty as Hitler planned to encircle Britain with his Kriegsmarine. Within hours of war's declaration, a U-boat had claimed its first victim in an underwater reign of terror that struck merchantman and warship alike. By April 1940, Germany had sunk one million tons of Allied shipping. The entrance of Mussolini's Italy shifted the balance of power in the Mediterranean. However the course of Naval warfare was changed in 1941 when torpedo bombers from HMS Illustrious decimated the Italian fleet at anchor in Taranto, crippling three of their battleships in the first Allied victory since the fall of France. Japan soon learned the lesson - to America's cost. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941 dwarfed Taranto, with 19 warships and 190 aircraft lost and 22,500 dead. Sea power proved crucial in the Pacific. The battle of the Coral Sea was decisive in denying Japan a gateway to Australia and was a naval first - opposing forces, launching air attacks 120 miles apart, were never in sight of each other. After the US strike on Midway, there was no doubting the tide had turned. Leyte Gulf was the last and greatest sea battle of World War II, leaving the Imperial Fleet all but destroyed. The era of the battleship had long gone: the aircraft carrier was now the undisputed master of naval warfare. War Files, The-Battle Of Britain: The Fight For The Sky Having preserved his squadrons, Dowding could now concentrate on his four-point master plan of defence: a fighter strike force of Spitfires and Hurricanes, a superbly flexible radar fighter direction system, a defence shield of anti-aircraft cover and a brilliantly simple defence strategy, disrupting the bomber attacks before they could reach their targets, but ensuring enough air cover for the bases of the squadrons involved in the battle. This documentary, using newly discovered footage, gives full justice to the exceptional Commander, Hugh Dowding, to Keith Park, his second-in-command, and to all the men and women who, during that dark summer of 1940, inflicted the first defeat on German arms.
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