Battlefields of World War II

Montgomery's victory over Rommel, Germany's commander in North Africa, in October 1942 was a brilliant success but was not without great human cost.

The battle for Cassino in 1944 saw the Allies' attempting to breakthrough a German fortified mountain pass without damaging the world-famous Benedictine monastery that dominated the landscape. The men suffered terribly, as a combination of hostile terrain, atrocious winter weather and poor leadership frustrated every attack.

Archive film footage, dramatised reconstructions and the accounts of aircrew veterans are used in this examination of the terrifying missions undertaken by the men of Bomber Command. Although enemy targets were heavily defended, the bombers became an awesome force, capable of destroying an entire city in a single night.

Professor Richard Holmes revisits the bridges over the Rhine which the Western Allies seized in September 1944 in their daring airborne bid to shorten the Second World War. Featuring archive film footage, eyewitness accounts from veterans of the battle, and dramatised reconstruction.