Season 2

Douglas MacArthur leads an army to the heart of the Philippines. Facing them are a quarter of a million Japanese troops. The campaign that follows will be like no other battle of the Pacific War.

In April 1945, 9,000 Soviet guns and more than a million Red Army soldiers unleashed a devastating bombardment on German troops manning the outer defenses of Berlin.

October 23rd, 1942. British and Allied troops face off against the German Afrika Korps. In one of the greatest deceptions of WWI, photo recons fool the Germans into making a catastrophic mistake.

17,000 US Marines hit the beaches of tiny Peleliu. They have been told that this will be a three-day operation, but six days later units are trapped by the island's hidden Japanese defenders.

In September 1944, 20,000 elite troops descend from the skies into Nazi occupied Holland in a massive airborne assault.

In winter 1943, nearly 30,000 Allied forces invade Italy. Mussolini has surrendered, but Hitler and his paratrooper refuse to give up. Will the monastery of Monte Cassino become a casualty of war?

In August 1942, 330,000 men of the German 6th Army smashed through Soviet defenses outside the city of Stalingrad. For 162 days the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad make the Germans pay in blood.

In March 1945, 90 divisions of men and machines stood ready to cross the Rhine, the last major obstacle that stood between the Allies and the road to final victory over Nazi Germany.

During the summer of 1940, the world held its breath and watched, as the British RAF and German Luftwaffe were locked in a 114-day battle to the death that ultimately kills more than 30,000 civilians.

This is the story of one of the least well known, but one of the most important, victories of the war-the ambitious campaign to rid North Africa of Nazi forces.

For weeks after D-Day, Allied forces try to break out of the invasion beachhead at Normandy. In a final throw of the dice, the Allied commanders come up with an audacious plan, operation Cobra.

The Allies have broken out of Normandy and are preparing to sweep into Central France. The race is now on for the Allies to get to Paris and save its citizens from possible slaughter.

On December 16, 1945, in the frozen forests of the Ardennes, a German assault force amassed in secrecy. But the blood-and-guts defense of a town called Bastogne embody the spirit of Allied defiance.

Allied armies launch the first major attack against Hitler's Fortress in Europe. Over 38 days, half a million soldiers, sailors and airmen will fight a battle of attrition against Axis troops.