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This six-part series follows the efforts of dedicated enthusiasts committed to restoring retired military planes to their former glory. This episode looks at the PT17 Stearman, a rugged biplane and primary trainer.
Spring 1945. In the Pacific, Americans fight on the island of Okinawa while kamikaze pilots wreak havoc on the fleet offshore. In Europe, allied forces rapidly push across Germany from the east and west, and American and British troops discover the true horrors of the Nazis' industrialised barbarism at Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen and other concentration camps. Finally, on 8 May, with their country in ruins and their Fuhrer dead, the Germans surrender. A series by Ken Burns. Part 13 of 14.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: On 27 November 1950, troops from the US Army’s X Corps were pushing north through the Korean Peninsula at breakneck pace, spearheading a United Nations force sanctioned to drive North Korea’s invading Communist Army out of democratically-held South Korea. If all went according to plan, General McArthur had assured President Truman that US troops would be home by Christmas. But all did not go according to plan. Within days of the assault, 10,000 US Marines - along with units of US Army and UN troops - found themselves completely surrounded by more than 85,000 Chinese soldiers in the rugged Taebaek Mountains encircling the Chosin Reservoir. Over the next two weeks, in temperatures that often plunged to 20 degrees below zero, US troops engaged in intense and bloody combat as they fought their way through mountain passes. The Battle of Chosin recounts the conflict in intimate detail through eyewitness accounts, presenting a harrowing narrative of combat and survival in the first major military clash of the Cold War. Part 2 of 2.
America entered WWII's air war in Europe as an agent of righteousness with the intent not only to win the war but also to assert a moral stand.
Ten characters, ten dramatic stories, ten extraordinary days, all leading to the one historic event: the end of the biggest war the world has ever known. Weaving the stories of ten very different people caught up in the liberation of Europe from the grip of Nazi terror, Ten Days To Victory evokes the climactic last moments of the Second World War. Their diaries, letters and interviews provide unique insight into the dramatic events of some of the most gripping and terrifying days in history. For these individuals, as for millions of others, the German surrender on 8th May 1945 marks the end of everything that has consumed their lives for six long years. Part 2 of 2.
It has been 50 years since two Avro Lancaster Bombers flew side by side. These marvels of mechanical engineering, part of a proud lineage that is credited with bringing an end to WWII, are now preparing for an epic mission to finally meet high above the English countryside. But making that reunion possible is a monumental task. In early August, The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum Avro Lancaster will depart from Hamilton, Ontario to meet her British counterpart, the only other surviving flight worthy Lancaster Bomber, the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) Lancaster in England. It's a mission unlike any other this Lancaster has ever undertaken; flying thousands of miles across the ocean, requiring multiple landings on remote runways from Goosebay to Greenland to make it across the vast Atlantic Ocean, and a crew that will be on their own, far away from any mechanical support or facilities that keep the plane flying.
May to December 1945. In June, the battle on Okinawa ends yet Japan's rulers, despite the agony their people are enduring, resist unconditional surrender. On 6 August 1945, an American plane drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Two days later, Russia declares war against Japan. A second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki and, finally, Japan surrenders. In the following months, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women return home. A series by Ken Burns. Part 14 of 14.
It was one of the bloodiest and most mysterious battles of the Second World War in Italy. In Ortona, a small seaside town in the Abruzzo region, Germans and Canadians literally fought street by street, house by house, even room by room. Why did everyone want to conquer Ortona in December 1943? What was so important about it? Why was it forgotten so quickly afterwards? And what secret does Ortona hide until this day? Amazing library footage, never before heard eyewitness accounts, documents that have remained secret until now, recently found German photographs and moving re-enactments help us to relive not only the political and military climate of the time, but take us back to the narrow alleys of the time, standing side-by-side with the soldiers to discover the embarrassing truth that has remained hidden for over half a century.
