THE WAR
A Ken Burns Film

A seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four American towns. The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history – a world wide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America – and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

Episode 1: A Necessary War
Click here for air dates

(December 1941 - December 1942) – After an overview of the Second World War, which engulfed the world from 1939 to 1945 and cost at least 50 million lives, inhabitants of four towns – Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota – recall their communities on the eve of the conflict. For them, the events overseas seem far away. Their tranquil lives are shattered by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America is thrust into the great cataclysm.

Episode 2: When Things Get Tough
Click here for air dates

(January 1943 - December 1943) – By January 1943, Americans have been at war for more than a year. The Germans still occupy most of Western Europe; the Allies can't agree on a plan or timetable to dislodge them. American troops, including Charles Mann of Luverne, are now ashore in North Africa. At Kasserine Pass, Erwin Rommel's seasoned veterans quickly overwhelm the poorly led and ill-equipped Americans, but after George Patton assumes command, the Americans begin to beat back the Germans. In Europe, thousands of American airmen are asked to brave flak and German fighter planes on daylight bombing missions over enemy territory. All of them, including Earl Burke of Sacramento, know that each time they return to the air their chances of surviving the war diminish. For the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne, things are bound to get tougher still.

Episode 3: A Deadly Calling
Click here for air dates

(November 1943 -June 1944) – Despite American victories in the Solomons and New Guinea, the Japanese empire still stretches 4,000 miles. In November 1943, on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa, the Marines set out to prove that any island can be taken by all-out frontal assault. Back home, the public is devastated by color newsreel footage of the furious battle and grows more determined to do what's necessary to hasten the end of the war.

Episode 4: Pride of Our Nation
Click here for air dates

(June 1944 - August 1944) – By June 1944, there are signs on both sides of the world that the tide of the war is turning. On June 6, 1944 – D-Day – a million and a half Allied troops embark on the invasion of France. In the Pacific, the long climb from island to island toward the Japanese homeland is underway, but the enemy seems increasingly determined to defend to the death every piece of territory they hold. Back at home, Americans try to go about their normal lives, but on doorsteps all across the country, dreaded telegrams from the War Department begin arriving at a rate inconceivable just one year earlier. In late July, Allied forces break out of the hedgerows in Normandy; by mid-August, the Germans are in full retreat out of France. On August 25, after four years of Nazi occupation, Paris is liberated - and the end of the war in Europe seems only a few weeks away.

Episode 5: FUBAR
Click here for air dates

(September 1944 - December 1944) – By September 1944, the Allies seem to be moving steadily toward victory in Europe. “Militarily,” General Dwight Eisenhower's chief of staff tells the press, "this war is over." But in the coming months, on both sides of the world, a generation of young men will learn a lesson as old as war itself – that generals make plans, plans go wrong and soldiers die. On the Western Front, American and British troops massed on the German border are desperately short of fuel. Allied commanders gamble on a risky scheme to drop thousands of airborne troops, including Dwain Luce of Mobile and Harry Schmid of Sacramento, behind enemy lines in Holland, but nothing goes according to plan; it's clear that the war in Europe will not end before winter. In the Pacific, General MacArthur is poised to invade the Philippines at Leyte. The 1st Marine Division, including Eugene Sledge and Willie Rushton of Mobile, is ordered to take the nearby island of Peleliu. The fighting drags on for more than two months in one of the most brutal and unnecessary campaigns in the Pacific.

Episode 6: The Ghost Front
Click here for air dates

(December 1944-March 1945) – By December 1944, Americans have become weary of the war their young men have been fighting for three long years; the stream of newspaper headlines telling of new losses and telegrams bearing bad news from the War Department seem endless and unendurable. In the Pacific, American progress has been slow and costly, with each island more fiercely defended than the last. In Europe, no one is prepared for the massive counterattack Hitler launches on December 16 in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxemburg. Tom Galloway of Mobile, Burnett Miller of Sacramento and Ray Leopold of Waterbury are there, among the Americans caught up in the biggest battle on the Western Front – the Battle of the Bulge. Back home, Katharine Phillips of Mobile and Burt Wilson of Sacramento are shocked to see newspaper headlines showing the Germans on the offensive and begin to wonder, “Are we losing now that we're this close?”

Episode 7: A World Without War
Click here for air dates

 (March 1945-December 1945) – In spring 1945, although the numbers of dead and wounded have more than doubled since D-Day, the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne understand all too well that there will be more bad news from the battlefield before the war can end. In Europe, as Allied forces rapidly push across Germany from the east and west, American and British troops, discover for themselves the true horrors of the Nazis' industrialized barbarism – at hundreds of concentration camps. Finally, on May 8, with their country in ruins and their fuehrer dead by his own hand, the Nazis surrender. The battle on Okinawa grinds on until June, and when it is finally over, 92,000 Japanese soldiers, as well as tens of thousands of Okinawan civilians, have been killed. Okinawa also is the worst battle of the Pacific for the Americans, and as they prepare to move on to Japan itself, still more terrible losses seem inevitable. Then, on August 6, 1945, under orders from President Truman, an American plane drops a single atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, obliterating 40,000 men, women and children in an instant; 100,000 more die of burns and radiation within days (another 100,000 will succumb to radiation poisoning over the next five years). On August 9, a second American atomic bomb destroys the city of Nagasaki, and the rulers of Japan decide at last to give up – and the greatest cataclysm in history comes to an end. In the following months and years, millions of young men return home – to pick up the pieces of their lives and to try to learn how to live in a world without war.

Our Veterans Speak: A VPT Public Square Special
Thursday, September 27th, 8 pm

This special episode of VPT’s Public Square brings discussion of “The War” into the present, gathering Vermont veterans of both past and current conflicts for an in-depth dialogue and comparison of their experiences. Kristin Carlson hosts.

Canada's War in Colour
Monday, October 8th, 8 pm
Sunday, October 14th, 3 pm

A cache of forgotten color film discovered in archives and attics brings to life the story of the Second World War as experienced by our closest neighbors, the Canadians. "Canada's War in Colour" is a unique window on everyday life during a momentous era. On the battlefield, the training grounds and the home front, it was a time of danger and hope; struggle and sacrifice. Personal stories and private letters combined with unseen footage tell poignant stories of ordinary citizens caught in worldwide events. Pre-war footage captures images of the Depression, relief camps and the 1936 Olympic Games in placecountry-regionGermany. From the intimate filming of a baby's first birthday for his father fighting overseas, to stunning scenes on the battlefield, "Canada's War in Colour" is a vivid recollection of the peril and sacrifice of war.

Shooters
Sunday, October 14th, 5:30 pm & 10:30 pm

"Shooters" documents the WWII operations of the Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit, who were the first to cover such major events as the invasion of Sicily, D-Day and the liberation of Paris. Contains original color footage of the D-Day operation, archival newsreel clips and interviews with the cameramen.