Season 1

For weeks after the D-Day Iandings, AIlied troops were pinned down in the dense Normandy 'bocage', the small fields, narrow lanes, and high hedgerows where German anti-tank ambushes and snipers inflicted mounting casualties. Their resistance would only be broken by a spectacular breakout action, and this vital task was entrusted to the flamboyant, hard-driving George Patton. Once his armoured units had been unleashed on the Allied right wing, and were swinging round behind the German defences there was little that Guenther Hans von Kluge's battle-weary troops could do to hold the line.

The 1944 Battle of the Bulge, which pitted U.S. Gen. Omar Bradley against German Field Marshall Walter Model, is recalled.

When the Allies captured the airfield at Myitkyina in May 1944 it brought together two determined and ruthless commanders, General Joseph Vinegar Joe Stilwell and Lt. General Masaki Honda, in an uncompromising face off.

Erwin Rommel made his name as one of the outstanding commanders of World War 2 Ieading the German Afrika Korps in a series of sweeping victories which took his forces almost to the banks of the Suez Canal. But at an obscure railway halt in the desert, he came up against his nemesis. Cautious and methodical, Bernard Montgomery was a very different sort of leader, but one ideally suited to the costly and desperate slogging match that was needed to penetrate the formidable Axis defence lines and begin the Iong advance across North Africa.

Following the Allies success at El Alamein, the war in the desert became the retreat of the Afrika Korps and Italian forces and also the first joint Anglo-American land operation of the war. In April 1943, the Allies began offensive with a series of battles in Tunisia that were fought not only treacherous mountainous terrain, but also on the narrow coastal plains. It was the climax of campaign that allies began from the Suez Canal and ended up on the Atlantic coast. It was also the signal of the end for the German campaign in North Africa, especially for its unfortunate Commander General Hans von Arnim. General Harold Alexander was going to be his opponent in the last onslaught of the Allies to push the Axis forces out of Africa.

In October 1944, US tropps invaded Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. What followed was the largest clash of naval arms in history: 216 US and 64 Japanese warships in a series of dramatic battles.

Operation Citadel, Hitlers attempt to 'pinch out' the Kursk salient, was his last great offensive on the Eastern Front. It became the greatest clash of armour the world had ever seen, and both armies knew that this was a pivotal battle of World War 2. If the German Panzer armies under Erich von Manstein - reinforced with the latest Tiger tanks - could break through, more than half a million Soviet troops would be cut off. If Nikolai Vatutin's men could hurl them back, then a resurgent Red Army could seize the initiative for a series of relentless offensives.

The fight between two battle-hardened commanders, US marine Alaxander Vandegrift and Japanese general Haruyoshi Hyakutake, to hold Guadalcanal became a monumental face-off that raged for four months.

When Arthur Harris was appointed commander-in-chief of RAF Bomber Command, he was convinced that a strategic bombing offensive could win the war on the German industrial heartland. One man stood in his way.

As he was forced to withdraw from the Philippines in the dark days of spring 1942, Dougias MacArthur vowed 'I wiII retum'. Almost three years later he did, at the head of a massive US invasion force. Between October 1944 and August 1945, General Douglas MacArthur and his men recaptured the Phillipines from the Japanese, led by General Tomoyuki Yamashita, in the largest single US campaign in the Pacific War. Knowing that he could not hope to successfully fight this force on the beaches, the Japanese commander Tomoyuki Yamashita planned a final stand in the mountains to tie down as many US troops as possible. The campaign went very much as he intended with fierce fighting continuing until the end of the war.

In early June 1967 the signs of an imminent Arab assault on Israel finally to eliminate the hated enemy were unmistakeable. But the Israelis did not sit around waiting. In a brilliantly-executed preemptive air strike the Egyptian air force was destroyed on the ground in minutes. Then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan co-ordinated a lightning armoured assault on the Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula. Faced with the speed and aggression of the Israeli troops, there was little that the Egyptian commander Abdel Hakim Amer could do. It was all over in just six days.

The AIIied invasion of Europe on 6 June 1944 was the greatest all-arms combined operation in military history. Allied Supreme Commander, Dwight D Eisenhower, had an armada ol 6,000 ships, almost 1 million men, and a bewildering array of weapons and equipment for Operation Overlord. They faced a German enemy that was battle-hardened, formidable in defence, and commanded by one of the Wehrmacht's most experienced leaders, Gerd von Rundstedt. D-Day was a huge gamble, and its success or failure would decide the war in the West.

In late August 1914, at Tannenberg, in today's Poland, took place one of the most momentous battles of World War I between Germany and Russia. The fate of the entire eastern front would be decided in this small town, where the German General Paul von Hindenburg met with Grand Duke Nicholas, uncle of Tsar Nicholas II. The Eighth German army had fewer than 250,000 men, while the Grand Duke had two armies which in total amounted to 500,000 troops, but the rivalry and lack of support among the generals who commanded each of the Russian armies, would be decisive causes of defeat. Tannenberg meant a tremendous psychological blow to the Tsarist Russia, from which he never recovered, encouraging shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

As 1918 dawned, Germany's commander on the Western Front, Erich von Ludendorff, Iaunched a desperate gamble to win the war before the growing flood of American troops being deployed against hirn Ied to certain defeat. Using specially-trained stormtroops and the most concentrated artillery barrage yet known, his troops burst through the British lines and seemed to be threatening Paris. But the nerve of the British and their commander Douglas Haig held. Despite repeated attempts, the Iast great German oftensive was ground down. The battles were notable for the first tank against tank engagement in history, and this is brought to life in a carefully-researched four-colour graphic.

Desperate to break the stalemate on the Western Front in 1916, Germany's army chief-of-staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, conceived a diabolical plan — by attacking one of France's most symbolic towns, he would draw her army into a bloodbath, and bleed it to death. At first this seemed to be working all too well, for more than six months the battle raged, with more than three-quarters of the French army going in to defend Verdun and suffering dreadfully. But the Germans had not allowed for the courage of the ordinary French soldlers, or the steadfastness of their commander, Philippe Petain.

After the Allied invasion in September 1943 and Italy's Surrender, General Mark Clark's US Fifth Army pursued the German forces of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring into the Apennine mountains.

By the beginning of December 1941, German troops were within sight of the Kremlin. The Panzers of Fedor von Bock seemed poised to capture the capital ot the Soviet Union and complete the triumph of Operation Barbarossa. But they had reckoned without the heroic resistance of the Russian people and the nerve of Georgi Zhukov. As ferocious conditions slowed their advance, the Germans were struck and hurled back by fresh Red Army divisions which had been brought up secretly for a surpise offensive. Rarely-seen archive film and four-colour graphics bring alive one of the most critical moments of World War 2.

The German defeat at Stalingrad was a defining moment in Hitler's dream of world domination. For the first time in World War 2, a German Field Marshal, Friedrich Paulus, was forced to surrender with his devastated army. Under the savage leadership of Vasili Chuikov, the Red Army had clung on to prove that it cou!d defeat its implacable enemy and that ultimate victory was possible. Unique footage from both sides and detailed computer graphics show how both armies were drawn into an horrific and titanic struggle.

When Saddam Hussein, dictator of lraq, sent his forces to occupy oil-rich Kuwait, he could hardly have anticipated the response. Within days, a massive international force, sanctioned by the UN and led by the US, but including a wide range of Arab allies, was pouring into Saudi Arabia. It was under the sometimes abrasive, but PR-friendly command of Norman Schwarzkopf, a veteran of Vietnam and acknowledged expert in mobile warfare. What followed was the first high tech war in history - specialIy developed computer graphics supplement action footage to show how an air campaign using cruise missiles and other precision weaponry preceded a massive armoured assault. The liberation of Kuwait was achieved in less than four days.

With Allied Merchant ships transporting vital supplies and It was the longest campaign in World War 2, and the one which came closest to gaining outright victory for Hitler. Had the German U-boat fieet of Karl Doenitz succeeded in throttling Britain's supply lines, all effective resistance in the West would have been at an end. For both sides it was an epic contest not just against a brave enemy, but against the perils of the Atlantic Ocean and crucial advances in technology. The critical moment came in April 1943 when the Germans hoped to strike a critical blow at one convoy - ONS-5. Graphics and action footage combine to show how they were defeated by the skill ot Max Horton, C-in-C of Western Approaches, and the courage and tenacity of his crews.

Gen. Edmund “Bull” Allenby faces Gen. Otto Liman von Sanders in the 1918 Battle of Megiddo during World War I.

Lt. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner faces Lt. Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

By the beginning of 1968, the war in Vietnam had reached stalemate. The US had deployed half a million men, massive firepower, and every hightech weapon in its armoury, but the Vietcong guerrillas and their North Vietnamese backers did not seem to realise that they should have been beaten. Then on 31 January, as the Tet Festival began, Communist forces co-ordinated by the legendary Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap launched a major offensive against every major city and military base in South Vietnam. At last the commander William Westmoreland had an enemy he could see and fight conventionally. He won the campaign, but the US lost the war. Popular opposition escalated, Westmoreland was replaced, and peace talks began a few months later.

Few batties have been so decisive or decided so swiftly. In only four minutes the elite of Japan's naval airpower was devastated by a surprise US divebomber attack. Japan's legendary naval commander-in-chief, Isoroku Yamamoto, had hoped to settle the future ot the war in the Pacific in one decisive operation. His over-complex plan did - but not in the way he had intended; for the briIliance of US Naval codebreakers, the courage of its naval pilots, and the daring of Chester Nimitz brought the apparenty unstoppable Japanese offensive of the previous six months to a sudden halt. Four-colour graphics and action footage explain the battle at which the tide turned inexorably in favour of the United States.

In the summer of 1940 Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany. Much of Europe had been defeated, and the triumphant Luftwaffe under its flamboyant leader Hermann Goering was poised to seize control of the air and allow an invasion of this Iast bastion of freedom. Only Royal Air Force Fighter Command stood in the way - and the Germans had no doubt that this could swiftly be annihilated. But this reserved and unassuming commander Hugh Dowding was determined that his massively outnumbered force could save his country. Action footage and specially-developed computer graphics combine to tell the story of a unique confrontation - the only battle which has ever been decided by air power alone.

At times, warfare comes down to a duel between two great commanders. In the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives the first full-scale American actions on World War I s Western Front two brilliant military leaders faced off in what would become an epic struggle.At times, warfare comes down to a duel between two great commanders. In the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives the first full-scale American actions on World War I s Western Front two brilliant military leaders faced off in what would become an epic struggle.