Peter and Dan Snow: 20th Century Battlefields - Season 1
Season 1
Episodes
1918 Western Front
The Snows visit the scarred terrain of the Western Front in Northern France to tell the story of the 1918 Battle of Amiens. Peter uses state-of-art graphics to reveal how the British army used new tactics to break the back of the Germans, while Dan describes what it was like to fight in a new age of modern warfare, and as part of the biggest tank battle history had yet seen.
1942 Midway
The Snows fly to the middle of the Pacific Ocean to give a blow-by-blow account of the battle of Midway. It was the birth of a new type of sea warfare where bombers did all the damage, and enemy ships wouldn't even see each other. Peter explains how the US aircraft carriers that had narrowly escaped disaster at Pearl Harbor were all that could stop the carriers of the mighty Imperial Navy of Japan. Dan tells the pilots' stories, and experiences for himself what it would have been like for the sailors.
1942 Stalingrad
Peter and Dan Snow describe battles that transformed the 20th century, here telling the story of one of the most epic battles of World War II. With cutting-edge graphics, Peter describes how the tactics of Hitler and Stalin resulted in tragedy on both sides. Whilst Soviet citizens held on for life in the shattered city, Hitler's army froze to death in the countryside.
They film inside the infamous tractor factory, where Dan recounts one of the vicious clashes that flared up in the battle. And on a training exercise, experts from the British Army teach them how snipers would have operated around the city.
1951 Korea
Peter and Dan Snow, through sophisticated graphics, bring to life the forgotten war of the 20th century - the battle for Korea. The Snows journey to the border between North and South Korea which is a military frontline to this day - there is still no peace treaty more than 50 years after war broke out between the Communist north and Nationalist south.
Peter and Dan tell the story of two key moments in the years of fighting that embroiled soldiers from countries around the world. Peter finds out about the challenges faced by the Americans as they set out on one of the largest amphibious attacks in history, the Inchon landings. On the banks of the Imjin river, Dan recounts how, in 1951, a few hundred British soldiers managed to stem the tide against thousands of attacking Chinese.
1968 Vietnam
Peter and Dan Snow trace the Tet Offensive of 1968, the turning point of the Vietnam War. State of-the-art graphics are used to illustrate how US marines flushed out Communist fighters, some of whom lived in a claustrophobic network of tunnels which were used as a platform for major attacks. Together the Snows join the British Army on an urban clearance operation to experience first hand the chaos and intensity of similar situations.
1973 Middle East
Peter and Dan Snow unpick the complex history of conflict in the Middle East. Known in the West as the Yom Kippur War, the fighting that broke out in 1973 was the biggest military clash between Arabic nations and Israel.
Peter and Dan travel to Israel, the country that found itself in danger of being crushed on two sides when Egypt and Syria launched a massive combined attack. Using state-of-the-art graphics, Peter explains how the Egyptians stunned the Israelis in their surprise attack, when thousands of Egyptian soldiers and hundreds of tanks crossed the Suez Canal and pushed into the Sinai desert. With the help of the British Royal Marines, Dan experiences how small teams of Egyptian foot-soldiers used the latest technology to stop the Israel tanks in their tracks.
1982 Falklands
In 1982, Argentina triggered the last battle on British territory when it invaded the Falkland Islands. Peter and Dan Snow fly 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic to tell the story of how the British Task Force fought back to regain control.
With his high-tech graphic mapcase, Peter shows the challenges faced by the British, thousands of miles from home. Dan feels the force of the Sea Harrier fighter jets, so crucial to the survival of the British fleet in these icy waters, and goes on a night-fighting training exercise under live fire to experience for himself the tactics used by the British ground troops in their fight to dislodge the Argentinians.
1991 Gulf
Dan and Peter Snow go to Kuwait to tell the story of Operation Desert Storm. Dan describes how revolutionary new technology like stealth bombers and precision-guided bombs would make this a battle unlike anything anyone had seen before. The Iraqis may not have had such cutting-edge technology but, back in 1991, they did have weapons of mass destruction - gas attacks were an ever-present fear amongst the Allied soldiers. Dan experiences how just a simple gas mask would have restricted a soldier's ability to fight in such extreme conditions and Peter shows how both sides chose their tactics in a war dominated by cutting-edge technology and ruthless political calculation.
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