The essential episodes of Battlefield
Watch these 14 in order and you've got Battlefield — each pick states its reason.
- 01
The Nazi German Blitzkrieg's most astonishing triumph, sweeping into the heart of Paris in a few short days, and establishing Hitler's supremacy over Continental Europe.
- 02
The two mightiest air fleets in the world clashed in tumultuous combat over the skies of Britain and the English Channel. The very survival of the English depended on the bravery of the Royal Air Force, of whom Churchill said, " Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
- 03
In a classic naval engagement, the American and Japanese Navies squared off in the carrier-to-carrier Battle of Midway. Both sides knew that the victor would rule the Pacific for decades to come.
- 04
The annihilation of an entire army amidst the charred and frozen ruins of Stalingrad was catastrophe for Nazi arms. Thereafter, the colossus of the Red Army was never to lose the initiative in the East.
- 05
In August 1944, with the battle for the beaches won, Allied troops were advancing through Normandy. The Falaise Gap, southeast of Caen, represented the only remaining escape route for the Germans. In danger of being overrun, the Germans were determined to extract their forces before becoming completely encircled. The subsequent fighting in the hedgerows and fields was intense, as the Allies battled to overcome 150,000 determined Germans. The Gap was finally closed on August 19. Approximately 50,000 trapped German soldiers surrendered. Germans losses, especially of heavy guns and tanks, were catastrophic.
- 06
The furious, climatic last battle of Hitler’s war. Over half a million lives were lost as the Red Army finally crushed the last Nazi citadel.
- 07
- 08
The longest continuous military campaign of WWII, The Battle of the Atlantic raged across the ocean from 1939 till 1945, pitting feared U-boats and other German naval warships against Allied shipping and troop convoys.
- 09
Hitler's plan for the conquest of Russia called for a classic Blitzkrieg offensive, which would be pressed ruthlessly to its conclusion within the course of a single season's campaign.
- 10
When victory in North Africa seemed assured, Allied Planners turned their attention to Italy. The objective was to seize Rome, knock Italy out of the war and push north towards Austria.
- 11
To restore American prestige in the Pacific, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized an invasion of the Philippines, a former American Territory and the scene of a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Japanese in 1942.
- 12
During the last months of 1944, the British and Americans pressed steadily through France and Belgium to the western frontiers of the Third Reich.
- 13
In 1953 the French and Viet Minh forces had been at war for seven years. The climactic encounter of the war occurred at Dien Bien Phu, a small hamlet in northwestern Vietnam, in a battle that neither side could afford to lose
- 14
The Battle for the Mediterranean
This is the story of the crucial battles for control of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the irreplaceable oil fields of the Middle East. The program covers the great battles between the Italian Navy and British Navy, the land campaigns in the North African desert between Rommel's Afrika Korp and the British 8th Army, and Britain's struggle to retain its control of Malta. Additionally featured is the war for control of the skies between the German Luftwaffe and the RAF, eventually joined by the US Army Air Force, and the story of the war in Greece.