Series 6

May 1940 and the Nazi war machine reaches the English Channel. Hitler plans to destroy Britain's air power and land troops in southern England.

Hitler's fight for the skies sees the Reich adopt a policy of 'Total War'. With every man woman and child pushed into producing ever more aircraft and munitions. The result is one of the most effective air defence systems the world has ever seen. One that came very close to destroying the might of the US 8th Army Airforce.

Guadalcanal is the glittering prize of the Pacific. Japan are determined to seize the island and build an airfield on it. But the US have their eyes on it, too. Whoever controls Guadalcanal will dominate the region and, with it, potentially win the Second World War. It's the catalyst for one of the most bloody and brutal episodes of World War Two.

1942, Japan has captured oil rich Burma to secure its growing empire's future. But with its navy decimated at the Battle of Midway it needs a new supply route. The result is a 258 mile railway cut through the toughest terrain known to man. All built using the blood and guts of 200,000 Allied POWs and local laborers. Half of them will die on the tracks or in the terrible camps nearby.

place in the deserts of North Africa. Armed with one of the most famous generals of WWII, Erwin Rommel, Hitler takes on the Allies across Tunisia, Libya and Egypt - in a brutal campaign that pushed the British to their limits and would dictate the course of the war.

When allied spies plant false documents on a corpse, they are carrying out one of the most audacious deceptions of World War II. Operation Mincemeat ensures that the allied invasion of Sicily takes the Nazis totally by surprise. With few reinforcements, German troops must now make clever use of the island's rugged landscape to attempt a fighting retreat to the Italian mainland - and safety.