The World at War

The Americans fight their way across the Pacific towards Japan and the Philippines. Perhaps the bloodiest campaign of all, each island has to be taken by storm and the Japanese fight to the last man. Gen. MacArthur sweeps upward from the Solomons and New Guinea, as rival Adm. Nimitz begins an offensive in the Gilberts.

Western scientists have developed a new, immensely powerful weapon - the atomic bomb. A B-29, the Enola Gay, drops the first uranium bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, a second bomb hits Nagasaki. The world would be forever altered.

The war ends slowly and messily. Britain is victorious but exhausted and the super-powers confront each other as they decide the fate of Europe. At Yalta, the four armies of occupation agree to supervise Germany's recovery and divide the country into different zones.

For many the Second World War was the most significant experience of their lives. Survivors relate memories of World War II and remember the millions of combatants and civilians killed. Heartbreaking first hand remembrances from a vast array of survivors on both sides of the war.