Secret History

In the early 1940s, 33 British servicemen stationed in Russia fell in love and married Russian women. They were called home very soon afterwards and the British Government in 1942 legislated that if a British serviceman married a Russian woman he would have to leave the Soviet Union immediately.

For nearly 40 years, a clandestine operation, based in the heart of London, provided secret but crucial support for the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Founded by Canon Collins of St Paul's Cathedral, the Inter- national Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) outwitted every move of the South African security services (BOSS) while still managing to smuggle in more than a hundred million pounds to the victims and opponents of apartheid. For the first time, people involved with IDAF explain exactly how they managed to defy BOSS, and agents of BOSS reveal how they tried to infiltrate and discredit IDAF.

The demolishing of two dams in northern Germany by Lancaster bombers in 1943, was remembered as one of the war's triumphs. But historians are now questioning whether it had any military value, and using film never seen before, the untold story of the Dambusters Raid is finally revealed, including the allegations that details of the bomb fell into enemy hands and the intended breaching of the Moehne and Sorpe dams was not as extensive as newspapers claimed. Includes an interview with pilot Ken Brown, who led the Sorpe raid and who is reunited with his crew.

The aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 left almost 2,000 people missing. Bitter recriminations from the relatives of the missing has divided the island further. This programmes reveals the existence of previously unknown mass graves, the possible last resting place of the missing people.

A report on the Lynchburg Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded in Virginia where, in the 1930s and 1940s, children were the victims of a `pioneering social policy' which sterilised people in order to prevent heredity defects.

When US Marines invaded the Pacific island of Saipan in 1944, they were astonished to discover hundreds of Japanese civilians committing suicide by jumping from a high cliff into the sea. The programme has uncovered colour film of the episode and traces survivors.