Wendepunkte des Zweiten Weltkriegs

The segment "The Island War" treats the liberation of the Phillipines as an unnecessary and overly costly (and therefore ill-advised) operation. However, that totally fails to recognize that in war, there are both military and political concerns and that grand strategy requires the consideration of both. War is, quite simply, foreign policy pursued by other means. Therefore, foreign policy has to be considered in the strategy of the war.

Because the USA had a commitment to the Phillipine people as a protectorate, it was politically necessary to return as soon as was humanly possible. MacArthur may have left, but Phillipine guerrillas had been fighting and dying against the Japanese with US supplies and coordination from the very beginning. To ignore a chance to liberate the Phillipines would have been no different than leaving Paris in German hands while liberating Holland and Belgium. It was politically imperative! Likewise, the episode maintained that the "Northern arm" of the Japanese pincer had "only pretended to retreat and under cover of darkness had reversed course..." both Japanese and American accounts, much closer to the event when interviews with actual participants were available, indicated that the Northern force actually intended to retreat and only reversed course following critical comments from the high command.

Halsey had every reason to have believed that the Northern force was less a threat than Ozawa's aircraft carrier force which had just been spotted. Every previous naval victory in WWII had come at the hands of the aircraft carriers, NOT the battleships. When confronted by two enemies... one with a knife and the other with a machine gun, only the fool deals with the knife first! There were American POWs held in the Phillipines. Many were saved during this operation. The civilian casualties were indeed great, but that was the choice of the Japanese occupiers and how many would've died, either of brutality or starvation had the islands been bypassed? The further we get from WWII, the less accurate do the "documentaries" become. You can tell a good story with the films, but unless you have spent years studying the contemporary histories, from both sides... false conclusions will run rampant. As the last of the participants pass from this life, there can be no more "factual" accounts. The eyewitnesses are silent now. Don't just watch, READ, READ, READ the books that were published before 1960.

Recently I watched this documentary series about World War II in (HD) color on Netflix and really liked it. In 14 episodes you get to see a well documented overview of WW2, starting with the events leading up to WW2 in both Europe and Sout-East Asia, the beginning stages with the fast advances both Germany and Italy made in Europe, and Japan in Asia, the mistakes made by the aggressors, the fighting back by the allied forces on different theatres, and ultimately the victories over Germany , Italy and Japan.

The interesting part about this series is that the original black & white footage has been coloured by advanced colouring techniques. While you can occasionally spot the clearly artificial colouring, most of the times it is unobtrusive and hardly noticeable. Watching these scenes in colour definitely add an aspect of realism to them, compared to the same scenes in black & white.

There are many documentaries about World War II, and this documentary deserves a good place between them.

Short and not overwhelming. Great for anyone that's interested in the second World War.

For the first time you can actually view footage from the war in color

Spectacular for anyone ages 13-100

some violent footage is in it so if you're sensitive you might have to reconsider.

Maps are really fascinating and well done.

Robert Powell also does a fantastic job. His accent makes everything simple to understand.

IS IT GOOD FOR EDUCATION?

Yes. It's amazing for education since the episodes cover everything from A-Z.

My favorite segment is the "battle of the islands" where they talk about America vs Japan. Probably my favorite segment because it has tons of footage in it.

The video quality has been brought up to a near 1970's quality and after a while you start taking it for granted.

This is an educational series with narration all the way through, in near chronological order with clear maps showing how the front line of the battles moved around europe, Africa and asia.

There has been unfair reviews saying that the series favours the British efforts of the war and perhaps it does as the series was probably compiled in Britain. You have to remember though that they are only covering the footage that they have from the war and Britain was fighting the war in Europe single handedly for a couple of years, whilst fighting in Africa and Asia. The red army probably played a bigger part towards defeating Germany and to be fair this series does cover this quite well in 2 whole episodes.

History buffs will enjoy the footage but criticise small details that are incorrect. However, if you have limited knowledge of the war and the order of some of the main events then this is a good place to start to understand the history.

Documentary series on World War 2. Covers each of the major campaigns in detail and uses colourised archival footage.

An excellent documentary series. I've watched all the best WW2 documentaries, including the pinnacle of the genre, The World at War, and this is among the best.

Cynically I thought the series' selling point would be the fact that the footage is colourised and that it would rely heavily on this feature to get by. I needn't have worried: the series does not rest on the fact that it has colourised footage and other than the title of the series, no attention is drawn to this.

It's simply a great all-round documentary series: good detail without being tedious, great, relevant video material, superb, stirring, gravitas-filled narration by Robert Powell. It doesn't quite measure up to The World at War but nothing does.