On August 23, 1942, 330,000 men of the German 6th Army smashed through Soviet defenses outside the city of Stalingrad. For 162 terrible days the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad make the Germans pay in blood with savage hand to hand combat.

In November 1942, the largest amphibious assault force the world had yet witnessed assembles. Here, in the harsh terrain of North Africa, the feared German Afrika Korps under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel hand out a brutal lesson.

July 10, 1943. The Allied armies launch the first major attack against Hitler's Fortress in Europe. Over the next thirty-eight days, half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen will fight a bloody battle of attrition.

In the winter of 1943, an allied army of nearly 300,000 men invades Italy. Mussolini has surrendered, but Hitler and his feared paratroop regiments refuse to give up.

July 10, 1944. For six long weeks since D-Day, Allied forces have been caught in a battle trying to breakout of the invasion beachhead at Normandy. In the East, the British and Canadian Armies are fighting to take the city of Caen.

August 2, 1944. The Allies have broken out of Normandy and are preparing to sweep into Central France. The U.S. Army and their British Allies set a trap for the Germans. Seventy miles away in Paris, the French resistance eagerly watch the allies advance.

On December 16, 1945, in the frozen forests of the Ardennes, Belgium, a vast German assault force amassed in secrecy with one aim--to send the Allies back into the sea. It is the blood and guts defense of a small Belgian town called Bastogne.

The Rhine River is a natural barrier that protects Germany from Western invaders. In March 1945, 90 divisions of men and machines stood ready to cross the Rhine, the last major obstacle that stood between the Allies and the road to final victory.