Most of us are familiar with the general outines of the war's end, or at least should be. It was an enormous affair that put quite a dent in the world's population -- more than 60 million people died, about 3.2% of living human beings. That's about the equivalent of eight New York Cities.
Briefly, it's now the spring of 1945 and both Germany and Japan are collapsing. Kids as young as twelve are being drafted. In Europe, the industrial heartland has been blasted by bombers, but factories have been moved underground or dispersed. The machines are still being produced but there are fewer people to man them. And in Romania and elsewhere on the eastern front the Russians have captured the oil fields. Japan is no better off.
As with the other episodes in this fine series, about half the program deals with the European theater and the rest with the Pacific war. Mostly we see combat and newsreel footage, with just enough comments from participants and experts to expand the perspective. Little-known incidents get their due -- reprisals against the Dutch resistance, for instance, and the slow progress of starvation in Holland. (Audrey Hepburn lived through it; Anne Frank did not.)
The highlight of the war against Germany is he taking of the bridge at Remagen and the building by combat engineers of two smaller bridges -- one a catwalk across floating rafts for foot soldiers, and the other a marvelously constructed pontoon bridge that could accommodate various vehicles with only slight adjustments. Combat engineers rarely get credit for their skill and bravery. The original iron bridge was saved from destruction and the two new ones built at speed and under constant bombardment from artillery and air. Thirty-five were killed by sniper fire.
Over Japan, the new B-29s first encountered the jet stream, which blew them this way and that. The pressurized bombers could operate at an altitude of 40,000 feet but they couldn't hit anything. The losses among the bombers was horrifying, although we hear little about it for some reason.
Finally, the hard-charging, cigar-chomping General Curtis LeMay stripped the B-29s of anything that added weight, stuffed them full of incendiaries and high explosives, and sent them over Tokyo at an altitude so low that one fourth of the city (mostly made of paper and wood) was flattened by a firestorm. The pilots could smell burning wood and flesh. No attempt was made to hit particular targets. It was area bombing, a ruthless and indiscriminate tactic for which the British Bomber Command had been criticized over Germany. Not so much the fog of war as the smoke.