The Last Days of World War II

The battle for Iwo Jima begins - one of the bloodiest of World War II. Follow the action in this series that details, week by week, the last six months of World War II and explores...

In this episode of our series that details, week by week, the last six months of WWII, American daytime bombing and British night raids have devastated Berlin. In the Battle for th...

In this episode, Operation Lumberjack, the assault into the Rhineland by General Bradley's U.S. 12th Army Group, is in full swing. In Berlin, Hitler announces that all males born i...

The B-29s blitz and the U.S. Air Force's new low-level bombing tactics using incendiary bombs prove deadly for the Japanese. General Curtis LeMay hopes to force a Japanese surrende...

In this episode, Allied forces commanded by generals Montgomery, Bradley, and Devers are poised to make their way across the Rhine and head for Berlin. In the East, German-occupied...

As March of '45 drew to a close, even the most steadfast Germans could see the inevitable end, and thousands of troops surrendered to the Allied forces as they raced from the Rhine...

By the first week of April, 1944, tensions among the Allies were heating up. When Eisenhower decided to stop his advance at Elbe River, it let the Soviets take Berlin. In Bavaria,...

Berlin lies in ruins. Nearly 120,000 people are homeless. FDR's sudden death stuns the world. Tension among the Allies builds as the gulf of distrust between Stalin and Churchill w...

The Red Army launches its assault on the German capital and Ernie Pyle is fatally wounded at Okinawa. As the Red Army's assault on Berlin begins, Hitler passes his 56th birthday in...

Berlin has been reduced to rubble, setting the stage for the Red Army's entry. Benito Mussolini's brutal murder forces Hitler to consider that his "Thousand Year Reich" is at an en...

After weeks of battles and political squabbles among the Allies, Berlin finally falls. But Hitler does not live to see his capital overrun, choosing instead to commit suicide in hi...

In London, Paris, New York, and Moscow, people take to the streets celebrating victory. Denmark, Norway, and the Channel Islands are liberated. However, in the Pacific Theater ther...

As the last remnants of the Nazi regime are dismantled, the "Big 3" nations set about the daunting task of rebuilding a continent shattered by nearly six years of war. In the Pacif...

Okinawa--the last stepping stone on the way to mainland Japan. The Allied High Command deems the island's capture absolutely vital, but the already difficult fight is complicated w...

Fighting on Okinawa intensifies as the Japanese begin their retreat. Enemy forces on the island of Borneo send hundreds of Australian and British soldiers on a death march across t...

U.S. forces make further advances in the Philippines while fanatical Japanese troops continue to hold out on the Pacific Island of Okinawa. With the War in Europe over, King Haakon...

On Okinawa, a U.S. victory is now in sight, while in the Philippines, the Japanese are holed up in the Sierra Madre Mountains. In Germany, Marshal Zhukov confers the Soviet Order o...

In the Philippines, Appari, the last port held by the Japanese, falls to U.S. forces, who now make contact with Filipino guerrillas. After three months of some of the most bitter f...

In Moscow, more than 200 captured Nazi banners are ceremonially dragged across a rain-soaked Red Square and thrown to the ground in front of Lenin's tomb to the rumble of hundreds...

33,000 Australian troops land in the Great Sundra Islands and win control of Asia's richest oil regions. In Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declares the Philippines free from Jap...

In Indochina, Chinese forces advance rapidly eastwards and cut the last link between the Japanese army and its garrison, while the U.S. 3rd Fleet joins the attack on Tokyo for the...

In Europe, the war's aftermath is gaining steam: the Municipal Council in Berlin confiscates the property of former Nazi party members while President Truman and Prime Minister Chu...

As the last vestiges of Japanese resistance crumble, Truman announces his intention to drop the atomic bomb. In Burma, 5,000 Japanese troops, trapped in the Pegu Hills, attempt to...

Japanese aircraft factories are targeted by American forces. The U.S. submarine Indianapolis is sunk by the Japanese. The Allied forces decide to suppress the growth of the German...

Atom bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the U.S. Army arrives at Luzon and prepares for the invasion of Japan.

In Tokyo, the Japanese government at last accepts the inevitable and surrenders to the Allies unconditionally. President Truman declares that "this is the day we've been waiting fo...