Autumn to Winter 1939 - 1940 to Spring to Summer 1940. The start of the German invasion of Poland, and the segregation of Jews into ghettos. Mussolini joins Hitler in his fight against the Allies, while Winston Churchill is appointed British Prime Minister on the day of the Blitzkrieg, the German invasion of France.

Autumn to Winter 1940 - 1941 to Spring to Summer 1941. Germany continues to build its empire in Europe, occupying Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands and Belgium. France is conquered and divided as Churchill rejects any attempt at an armistice. The Fuhrer aims to crush Britain with the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

Autumn to Winter 1941 - 1942. The United Kingdom is isolated as German forces occupy Europe. 17,000 Trains carry German armies towards the Soviet Union. With Operation Barbarossa Hitler launches Vernichtungskrieg, a war of annihilation. At the end of the year, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States of America enters the war.

Spring to Summer 1942. After Pearl Harbour and their triumphant sweep across South-East Asia, Japanese armies celebrate their victory. But Japanese confidence is shaken four months later at the Battle of the Coral Sea. In Europe the German attack on the Soviet Union is literally bogged-down with staggering losses and Britain’s survival is imperilled by German U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic

Summer to Autumn 1942 to Winter to Spring 1942 - 1943. The war enters its third year with battlefields in Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Asia/Pacific. The Battle of Midway, a battle with irreversible consequences, is a victory for the USA. Slaughtering minorities with gunfire is proving too slow, so from across Europe and from ghettos throughout Nazi-occupied territory countless Jews, Roma and other minorities begin their journeys to the concentration camps

Summer to Autumn 1943 to Winter to Spring 1943 - 1944. From the Indian border in Burma to China, which has been at war with Japan since 1937, the war grows more savage. In Europe, despite having less resources than when he first made the attempt, Hitler renews his assault on the Soviet Union. When the Red Army collapses in the South Hitler divides his forces, sending his largest army group to Stalingrad.

Spring to Summer 1944. Facing a Soviet Army that grows stronger and pushes German forces back across the lands they occupied, and facing devastation of German cities by Allied bombers, Goebbels issues a call for “Total War”. At the Casablanca Conference President Roosevelt insists on unconditional surrender. In the Asia-Pacific theatre the tide is turning against Japan in Burma, New Guinea and with American bombers beginning their destruction of the Japanese home islands.

Summer to Winter 1944 - 1945 to Spring to Summer 1945. No surrender before defeat. The bloodiest months of the war are still ahead. A Soviet surge pushes German forces back to within 30 kilometres of the Polish Border. The siege at Leningrad is lifted after 900 days and Operation Overlord, D-Day, opens a second front in Europe. On August 6th 1945, ‘Little Boy’ was dropped and detonated at 1,885 feet over Hiroshima, a few days later Soviet troops enter the war against Japan and on the 17th Emperor Hirohito announces defeat to his people.