The War

How ordinary Americans began to fear the worst when U-boats were found patrolling the United States' east coast and few encouraging reports came through from overseas

The documentary series examining American communities during the Second World War continues, focusing on events that occurred one year after the US became involved in the conflict

Recalling the American airmen who took on daylight bombing missions over the heart of Hitler's Germany

Recalling how US Marines took the tiny Pacific atoll of Tarawa in November 1943 after three days of intense fighting - and at a terrible cost to human life

Examination of the Allied campaign in Italy during early 1944. Unable to break through Nazi lines, troops were stalled in the mountains below Rome during the long winter months

Servicemen from four American communities recall their experiences of D-Day, in which more than 150,000 men took part in the invasion of France

The Allies make slow progress through Europe during the summer of 1944, losing pace in the Normandy countryside. Meanwhile, American forces fight their costliest battle

The plan to end the war in Europe by winter 1944 founders as Allied forces massed on the German border find themselves short of fuel, leading commanders to take a risky gamble

General MacArthur's campaign to liberate the Philippines and his resultant popularity back home in America - which belied the scale of the bloodshed necessary for victory

Hitler takes an enormous gamble as Nazi forces fight the war on two fronts, braving the worst winter in memory to tackle the Allies to the west as the Russians get closer to Berlin

The violence in the Pacific in 1945, when Japanese soldiers were ordered to kill as many Americans as possible before their own deaths, while in Europe two armies headed for Berlin

The Allies discover the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthausen-Gusen as they close in on Berlin, while Hitler realises the scale of his defeat

The final stages of the Second World War as Japan's rulers refused to concede defeat despite the agony of their people, culminating in atomic bombs being dropped