The Last Days of World War II (2005)
The Last Days of WWII is a twenty-six part historical documentary covering the final six months of combat in weekly segments to discuss the decisions, battles, strategies, and ultimate legacies of the war.
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Atom bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the U.S. Army arrives at Luzon and prepares for the invasion of Japan.
Japanese aircraft factories are targeted by American forces. The U.S. submarine Indianapolis is sunk by the Japanese. The Allied forces decide to suppress the growth of the German economy. The Soviet Union joins the war against Japan.
33,000 Australian troops land in the Great Sundra Islands and win control of Asia's richest oil regions. In Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declares the Philippines free from Japanese occupation. In Berlin, the first U.S. occupation troops arrive as Allied forces hold a victory parade. But another hero of the war suffers a crushing defeat when Churchill loses the General Election. This episode also features a profile of "Old Leather Face" and the campaign against the Japanese in China.
Fighting on Okinawa intensifies as the Japanese begin their retreat. Enemy forces on the island of Borneo send hundreds of Australian and British soldiers on a death march across the island, while US forces continue to wipe out scattered opposition on the Philippines. In Europe, British troops oversee the transfer of thousands of Nazi sympathizers from Russia to Yugoslavia. And the continent's food shortage is now a top priority in Washington.
Okinawa--the last stepping stone on the way to mainland Japan. The Allied High Command deems the island's capture absolutely vital, but the already difficult fight is complicated when the region is hit by torrential rain and the battlefield becomes a quagmire. Meanwhile, U.S. bombers continue to pound mainland Japan and submarines have isolated the country from the outside world. And in the Philippines, Japanese troops try desperately trying to hold the Wawa Dam on the Marikina River.
As the last remnants of the Nazi regime are dismantled, the "Big 3" nations set about the daunting task of rebuilding a continent shattered by nearly six years of war. In the Pacific, while the battle for the Philippines is turning in their favor, U.S. troops have come to a brutal stalemate in Okinawa. And a remarkable discovery on the New Hampshire coast proves pivotal in America's efforts to develop an atomic bomb.
In London, Paris, New York, and Moscow, people take to the streets celebrating victory. Denmark, Norway, and the Channel Islands are liberated. However, in the Pacific Theater there is still heavy fighting on Okinawa and in the Philippines. It's a matter of honor for the Japanese who cannot contemplate the shame of defeat and surrender. U.S. General Simon Buckner is determined to keep up the pressure.
After weeks of battles and political squabbles among the Allies, Berlin finally falls. But Hitler does not live to see his capital overrun, choosing instead to commit suicide in his bunker. While some Nazi forces still fight, the real battle rages in the Pacific, where the Japanese launch a massive counter-offensive at Okinawa. And in a move which shocks residents of the west coast, a balloon bomb kills six people in Oregon.
Berlin has been reduced to rubble, setting the stage for the Red Army's entry. Benito Mussolini's brutal murder forces Hitler to consider that his "Thousand Year Reich" is at an end, even though prisoners are still being marched to the death camps. And in the Pacific, the action at Okinawa comes to a boil as the Americans gradually infiltrate the forbidding Shuri region.
The Red Army launches its assault on the German capital and Ernie Pyle is fatally wounded at Okinawa. As the Red Army's assault on Berlin begins, Hitler passes his 56th birthday in a bunker deep below the city. The Seventh Army captures Nuremburg while the Soviet government starts laying the groundwork for the Cold War in a treaty with Poland. Halfway around the world, the brutal battle for Okinawa rages, and among the victims is Ernie Pyle, one of the War's most distinguished and revered correspondents.
By the first week of April, 1944, tensions among the Allies were heating up. When Eisenhower decided to stop his advance at Elbe River, it let the Soviets take Berlin. In Bavaria, forces headed toward what they thought would be a Nazi final stand. And half a world away, men and machinery geared up for "Operation Iceberg," the Battle for Okinawa. 172,000 troops would meet staunch opposition from the island's fanatical Japanese defenders.
As March of '45 drew to a close, even the most steadfast Germans could see the inevitable end, and thousands of troops surrendered to the Allied forces as they raced from the Rhine to Berlin. Beneath the city, Hitler lived out his final days in delusion while Allied commanders tried to claim as much of the capital for themselves as possible. And in the Pacific, Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest and most brutal battles of the war, and set the stage for Okinawa.
In this episode, Allied forces commanded by generals Montgomery, Bradley, and Devers are poised to make their way across the Rhine and head for Berlin. In the East, German-occupied territories are collapsing under the Red Army. It is a race of armies and egos and the U.S. and the Soviets try to reach Berlin first. And in the Pacific, U.S. forces invade the Philippine Island of Panay.
The B-29s blitz and the U.S. Air Force's new low-level bombing tactics using incendiary bombs prove deadly for the Japanese. General Curtis LeMay hopes to force a Japanese surrender before American ground forces are scheduled to invade the mainland. Meanwhile in Europe, the Allies are closing in. With the Rhine breached, most Nazis realize their days are numbered and the end is inevitable. Hitler leaves the Reich Chancellory for the last time, and 16-year-old Anne Frank succumbs to typhus in the Belsen concentration camp.
In this episode, Operation Lumberjack, the assault into the Rhineland by General Bradley's U.S. 12th Army Group, is in full swing. In Berlin, Hitler announces that all males born in 1929 must be conscripted for military service. To the south, Patton's lead armored division has progressed over 40 miles and taken 5,000 German prisoners. And as Allied Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower deliberates on where to make his main crossing of the Rhine, U.S. forces in the Pacific torch Japan's capital city in a horrific assault from above.
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The Last Days of WWII is a twenty-six part historical documentary covering the final six months of combat in weekly segments to discuss the decisions, battles, strategies, and ultimate legacies of the war.
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