(narrator) September 1939.

(explosions) Adolf Hitler sends his troops into Poland.

In response, Britain and France declare war.

Hitler has to deal with the British and French before he can turn to his real war aims: Drang nach Osten, the drive to the East.

But how?

For six months known as the Phony War, the world waits.

(dramatic music) Then, in May 1940, a hundred days sees the most dramatic victory and collapse in modern history.

(Gary) The fall of France in six weeks is one of the greatest upsets in military history.

(Richard E.) They took everybody by surprise.

It was a huge gamble.

(aircraft engine humming) (crowd cheering) (Martin Luther King, Jr.) No man is free... (Winston Churchill) We shall fight on the beaches.

-...if he fears death.

-A hundred days can change everything.

From major military upsets... (George Bush) Iraq's army is defeated.

(narrator) ...and global crisis... (Winston Churchill) We shall never surrender.

(narrator) ...to moments of hope.

(Ronald Reagan) Tear down this wall.

(cheering) (narrator) These 100 days provide a window into the events that defined modern history.

(soft, tense music) ♪ May 10th, 1940.

4:30 a.m. (aircraft engine humming) German aircraft fly west carrying paratroopers.

(aircraft engine humming) In the first light of day, they drop into the Netherlands.

♪ Dozens more land silently on the great Belgian fortress Eben-Emael.

(explosion) German panzer divisions occupy Luxembourg, and by daylight, German forces have taken vital Dutch bridges.

(aircraft engine humming) Within hours, the Dutch air force is eliminated.

(bombs whistling, exploding) ♪ By the end of the 100 days, France will have fallen and Britain will be fighting for survival against Hitler's seemingly unstoppable German forces.

A campaign of expansion that began eight months ago with the conquest of Poland.

(Steven) When that is over relatively quickly, Hitler is very anxious to turn right around and invade Western Europe.

He's talked out of this, and he waits until the spring 1940.

(narrator) Convinced that the time is now right, the German Army marches into Belgium.

(Steven) Belgium, in particular, is a pathway to the main enemy, France.

(announcer) Scenes are tense.

Gendarmes on guard.

A sense of fateful decision among the people.

(narrator) General Maurice Gamelin, the French commander of the Allied forces, is confident that France is safe from German attack.

His confidence stems from the series of fortifications along the German-French border, the Maginot Line.

(Jonathon) The Maginot Line protected the Franco-German frontier and was the French response to the horrible conditions and causalities of the First World War.

(Julian) There was a massive physical devastation.

There was no major European power that's lost as many people in the war as France.

♪ (narrator) Named after War Minister André Maginot, the 450-kilometer line of gun turrets... (gunfire) ...concrete bunkers, and minefields were thought to be impervious to aerial bombings and tank fire.

It is often said that armies tend to refight the last war and not fight the next war.

(Richard E.) So, here they were again preparing for a full-frontal assault by essentially creating a kind of super trench with massive defensive emplacements.

♪ The problem was, however, that this was old-fashioned and outdated because technology had progressed in the interwar years, and now the Germans with the tanks and the armored forces were able to bring back the element of maneuver onto the battlefield.

(soft, tense music) (narrator) General Gamelin moved his best divisions, along with the British Expeditionary Force, into the defensive positions to meet the oncoming German troops.

But Gamelin is marching his troops into a trap.

This German force is merely Hitler's decoy.

The original German plan for the invasion of France in 1940, consisted of a large strike through the Netherlands, Belgium, and then into Northern France.

It was a plan that was fairly similar to the one used by the Germans in 1914.

♪ (Richard E.) And the Germans were gonna do that until, accidentally, a German plane had to make a forced landing.

(aircraft engine humming) They had the plans for the invasion.

And so the Germans had to go back to the drawing board when they realized this.

And then, some clever generals persuaded Hitler that it would be a much better idea to take the French and the British by surprise and go through the hilly and wooded area of the Ardennes.

♪ (Julian) So the French, obviously they have forces defending the Ardennes.

(gunfire) But they're not their top troops, who had been sent to Belgium.

♪ (narrator) Just as Hitler's armies are invading the Netherlands and Northern Belgium, another German force of 134,000 men and 1,222 tanks begins advancing through the Ardennes forest, believed to be impossible.

French intelligence doesn't see what's going on, it doesn't realize, actually, there's a huge traffic jam of tanks in the Ardennes.

(tank engine rumbling) As to the size of the army group coming through the Ardennes, it's three armies.

(explosions) A total of 10 armored and mechanized divisions.

So, most of the fighting punch, in terms of the armored the mechanized spearhead of the German army.

♪ (soft, tense music) ♪ (narrator) Throughout the Phony War, Britain has been led by Neville Chamberlain.

As evening falls on the first day of the German offensive, Chamberlain resigns and is replaced as prime minister by the more pugnacious and more determined Winston Churchill.

(Winston Churchill) The fate of Holland and Belgium, like that of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria, will be decided by the victory of the British Empire and the French Republic.

♪ (narrator) May 11th.

As dawn breaks, German troops have taken control of Eben-Emael, the linchpin of the Belgium defense system, and enter Liège, forcing the Belgian army back.

♪ French troops cross into the Netherlands to find that the Dutch Army has already retreated too far to create a common defensive front.

♪ Hitler's 18th Army strikes across the southern part of the Netherlands.

The Dutch are unable to resist the unstoppable German advance.

(gunfire) Meanwhile, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, are wreaking havoc across Belgium, the Netherlands, and Northeastern France.

(gunfire) The Germans used their airpower in a very flexible way as a kind of flying artillery on the battlefield, so in a tactical role.

(explosion) When the German ground troops met resistance at some point, they asked to support the Luftwaffe, which could bombard enemy strong points with quite a close precision.

♪ (narrator) The Luftwaffe, its ground support role spearheaded by the Stuka dive bomber, destroys bridges, airfields, and train stations.

(debris falling) The Allies are facing the reality of modern warfare, a blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg means lightning war.

(flames crackling) (Adrian) Blitzkrieg was essentially a return to the maneuver style of warfare that the Germans had pioneered in the 19th century, but this time using tanks, aircraft, motorized artillery, and the use of radios as a vital means of communication.

What the blitzkrieg consisted of was first of all an air attack on the enemy airfields behind the lines.

(explosions) Secondly, punching through the enemy lines with massive columns of tanks and armor.

♪ And then you follow that with masked infantry and pour through, and then engage the enemy.

(explosions) (narrator) After just two days of conflict, the first German units arrive in Sedan.

They have reached French soil.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (energetic music) ♪ May 14th.

In London, new Prime Minister Winston Churchill is gravely worried.

(Winston Churchill) We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.

We have before us many long months of struggle and of suffering.

(narrator) He has sworn that he will do everything in his power to defeat Nazi Germany.

(Winston Churchill) I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

(narrator) Despite his resolve, the magnitude of the crisis grows with every hour.

♪ Britain's closest ally, France, is in serious danger.

Hitler's troops, having taken Sedan, are pouring across the Meuse.

♪ (Jonathon) The Germans were not aiming to fight in the Ardennes, they were aiming to fight beyond the Ardennes.

So what they wanted to do was get through it and across the Meuse River as rapidly as possible.

And then beyond that they would be able to deploy.

(narrator) Once across the river, the German juggernaut accelerates.

The troops, the drivers, in particular, of the armored vehicles, tanks and supply vehicles, were fed with stimulants, with drugs, to keep them awake three days and three nights.

(narrator) French commander Gamelin is taken aback.

Hitler's tanks are in open country, threatening the rear of the troops sent to the Belgian border and aiming for the English Channel.

(Peter) The Germans used their armored formations independently, not as a support weapon for the infantry but as an independent formation that could fight the battles independently and quite often gave their junior commanders quite a certain freedom of action in their military decisions.

(narrator) At dusk, the Netherlands capitulates, exposing the Allies' northwest flag.

(soft, tense music) The British Royal Air Force has lost 100 aircraft.

And the French Air Force is equally depleted.

Hitler's blitzkrieg is working better than even he had thought it would.

(soft, somber music) ♪ May 16th.

Churchill arrives in Paris for crisis meetings with the French government.

That six days after the Germans launched their offensive, the Prime Minister Reynaud rings up Churchill in London and says, "It's all over.

I don't know what to do, I think it's finished."

Churchill desperately flies over to France.

(narrator) By the time he lands, German forces are almost 100 kilometers west of Sedan, rolling through open country.

Nothing stands between them and Paris, or the English Channel.

♪ When Churchill asks where the French Armed Reserve is, General Gamelin tells him that there is none.

They have totally committed themselves in Belgium.

(Gary) Now the reason for the French deciding to advance into Belgium, there was all sorts of reasons behind it, but, fundamentally, the French do not want to fight another war on their territory.

They prefer to fight it on somebody else's.

(soft, tense music) (narrator) Churchill is dumbfounded.

Less than a week after taking office, he faces the total collapse of his only ally.

♪ There is little alternative now but for the British to withdraw, abandoning Belgium.

♪ With the fate of France hanging in the balance, Churchill asks the American President, Franklin Roosevelt, for the loan of aircraft and destroyers.

♪ Roosevelt refuses.

(Richard E.) The American government did not see a danger in the Nazis, it didn't think that it was anything other than a European quarrel.

There was no larger threat.

(narrator) The President also has domestic public opinion to consider.

At this time, 83% percent of Americans favor staying out of the war.

Let Europe fight their own battles.

I think we should stay out of it entirely.

This time, America should keep out and I know I will.

(narrator) Without American aid, Churchill may soon face the German war machine alone.

♪ (eerie music) ♪ May the 24th.

Hitler is triumphant.

German tanks have reached the English Channel.

The Allied armies in Belgium and Northern France, now under the command of World War I hero General Maxime Weygand, are in serious trouble.

(soft, tense music) (gunfire) (explosions) Almost the entire British Expeditionary Force and most of the French troops have fallen back on Dunkirk.

(Julian) The German plan is to get to the Channel to cut off the British and French who are in Belgium, to basically decimate their armies and then to move south to Paris.

(narrator) By nightfall, more than a quarter of a million demoralized Allied troops are caught in the tightening German vice.

♪ Believing the Allies have no escape route, Hitler approves an order for his panzers to halt.

♪ So people ask why did the German panzers stop just at the point when the Allies were at their most vulnerable?

There were several reasons for this.

The first and most important of these reasons was the need for the German panzer forces to refit and rearm and reorganize themselves after the 15 days of hard fighting.

The war was still far from over.

The French to the south still had to be defeated.

♪ Many people, not least Hitler, feared that the French would counter-attack and the German advance would have a sticky end.

Of course, in the end, that did not happen.

(intense music) (narrator) May 26th.

400,000 British and French soldiers cram onto Dunkirk's beaches.

They hold a rectangular perimeter 32 kilometers long and 10 kilometers deep.

With no reserves to replace the British Expeditionary Force, its loss will render Britain almost defenseless.

(Adrian) At first sight, the British Expeditionary Force seemed doomed as the Germans closed in on the port of Dunkirk.

The British now prepared for evacuation.

The Senior Naval Commander, Admiral Ramsay, had been ordered to try and evacuate as many as 45,000 men, if at all possible.

(narrator) Just before 7:00 p.m., Vice Admiral Ramsay signals the start of Operation Dynamo, the attempt to evacuate the British Expeditionary Force.

(soft, tense music) An armada of 850 vessels of all shapes and sizes, many of them manned by civilian volunteers, begin to leave the English coast, heading for Dunkirk.

(Adrian) So there was no hope of taking out men through the port facilities as would be the normal case.

So, a lot of the evacuation would have to come off the beaches themselves, which was a very unsatisfactory way of evacuating large numbers of men.

(aircraft engines humming) (narrator) For two weeks, the Germans have made easy progress across Belgium and France, but combat now becomes brutal as the Allied troops fight for their lives.

(gunfire) (intense music) ♪ May 28th.

In the early hours, King Leopold III surrenders Belgium to the Germans, leaving the British and French troops at Dunkirk dangerously exposed.

Their perimeter defense is shrinking by the minute.

(aircraft engine humming) As Royal Air Force Spitfires fight to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, against all odds, deliverance comes for the Britain Expeditionary Force.

(soft music) ♪ June 4th.

Dunkirk, still stubbornly defended by 40,000 French soldiers, finally falls to the Germans.

218,000 British and 120,000 French troops have been evacuated.

Some British soldiers fear that as survivors of one of the worst military defeats Britain has ever suffered, they will receive a poor reception.

But they are welcomed home as heroes by cheering crowds.

♪ (man) Are you glad to be back, boys?

-Sure!

-Yeah!

(Adrian) Although most of the BEF, in terms of its soldiers, have managed to escape, the force had left behind most of its heavy equipment, including guns, tanks, artillery.

(narrator) 76,000 tons of ammunition, 2,500 guns, and almost all of the 445 tanks that the British had taken to France have been left behind.

Despite the Allies' escape, German high command celebrates Dunkirk as a victory, calling it "the greatest annihilation battle of all time."

This is Hitler's greatest single military victory, and it also marks the high point of his popularity in Germany.

(soft, grim music) (narrator) They now focus on the conquest of France.

♪ After the capture of Dunkirk, the German forces had to turn around and advance south.

They spent several days doing this, in part to refit and rejig their forces, but also to redeploy them in an appropriate manner to break through the French defensive line that had extended along the River Somme and was designed to protect Paris.

(narrator) French soldiers rescued at Dunkirk return home for a final attempt to defend their country.

(soft music) British troops have returned to a country threatened as never before.

Its army is in tatters.

The British Air Force has suffered huge losses in France.

♪ The Navy remains in fighting shape, but is vulnerable to the Luftwaffe, who now have bases along the northern coast of France, just five minutes' flight away.

♪ Hitler expects Churchill to ask for peace.

Hitler hoped Britain would stay out of the war.

He never understood why it was that Winston Churchill kept Britain in war.

(narrator) Roosevelt, too, holds little hope for British survival.

If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continent.

(narrator) Churchill, however, is determined to fight on.

He intends to show his own people, Hitler, and, most importantly, the United States, that Britain remains a force to be reckoned with.

He rises in the House of Commons and delivers a proclamation of Britain's defiance.

♪ (Winston Churchill) We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.

We shall fight on the beaches.

We shall fight on the landing grounds.

We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

We shall never surrender.

(Richard E.) Churchill struck the right note.

It was real leadership.

And I think he convinced a great majority of British people that it was right to breed defiance and to continue fighting rather than try and sue for a compromised separate peace with the Germans.

(crowd chanting) (soft, tense music) ♪ (narrator) Despite Churchill's speech, Hitler remains convinced that Britain will agree to peace terms once France has fallen.

With that in mind, Hitler renews his assault.

The final battle for the fate of France has begun.

♪ (crowd cheering) (soft, tense music) June 10th.

In evening sunlight, Italians gather at Palazzo Venezia in Rome to hear their leader, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, declare war on Great Britain and France.

(plodding footsteps) Hitler is delighted by Mussolini's declaration, believing that it will deal the Allies a staggering blow.

Churchill is deeply troubled by the development.

Italy's entry into the war imposes even greater burdens on Britain's resources.

♪ (Franklin D. Roosevelt) The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.

(narrator) President Roosevelt, too, is appalled by Mussolini's announcement.

We will extend to the opponents of force the material resources of this nation.

(narrator) Within weeks, 50 American destroyers are in the hands of the British.

♪ This marks the end of the United States' policy of neutrality towards the war in Europe.

(soft, somber music) (gunfire) Despite pockets of French resistance, Premier Paul Reynaud is in despair.

His government has fled Paris, his armies are overwhelmed, and Germans are rapidly approaching the French capital.

♪ The French population was fleeing from Northern France, particularly from Paris.

♪ Mass migration to the south, which people thought was safe.

It's old men, women, children take to the roads with prams and wheelbarrows and cars if they've got cars, or tractors.

They put a few possessions on there.

♪ (narrator) Paris, the City of Lights, is now a ghost town.

♪ June 14th.

Daybreak.

The Germans march into the undefended streets of Paris.

♪ A giant swastika, the emblem of the Nazis, flutters from the Eiffel Tower.

(flag flapping) German troops spread rapidly across Northern France.

Once a formidable force, the French Army is in ruins.

(Gary) The French Army suffered a defeat which no one had saw coming.

Not because the French Army fought particularly badly, that's a myth, but rather the Germans seized the advantage from which the French were never able to recover.

♪ (narrator) June 15th.

As the eyes of the world are fixed on France, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin exploits the chaos of the moment to order his troops to occupy the Baltic states.

It is not only Hitler who is interested in making territorial gains in Europe.

♪ June 16th.

The French government debates whether to sign an armistice with Germany.

Once the French military have been defeated, the question is what to do next.

There were some people in the government, including the Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, who thought, "Right, clearly we've lost in France.

We've been defeated, that's clear.

But that doesn't mean the war's over."

(narrator) In London, Winston Churchill also wishes to see France continue the fight.

He meets with French Undersecretary of Defense Charles de Gaulle for last minute talks.

So somebody who refuses to accept the idea of an armistice is General de Gaulle.

And de Gaulle was a relatively junior military figure, he was the youngest general in France, but he simply refused to believe that the war was over for France.

(narrator) The crisis has driven the proudly patriotic Churchill to desperate measures.

He proposes that Britain and France be united into a single country called the Franco-British Union.

♪ At 4:30 p.m., de Gaulle telephones Reynaud to put the proposal to him.

Reynaud's deputy, Marshall Philippe Pétain, dismisses the idea.

Britain, like France, is doomed, he says.

A union will be a fusion with a corpse.

In the end, the armistice faction of the government prevail over those like Reynaud who want to go on fighting from abroad.

♪ And so on the 16th of June, 1940, Pétain becomes the new head of the government.

(Richard V.) And it is Pétain who then says, "We must case fighting with the Germans."

So he approaches the Germans, talks about the possibility of an armistice.

(announcer) 100,000 men who marched away under the tricolor are back from Nazi prison camps.

But the soul of France must seem strangely changed.

Stares, not cheers, on this summer day in a stale new France.

(narrator) France is resigned to her fate.

Britain is now alone.

♪ June 18th.

♪ Such is the fear of imminent German invasion that the War Office orders all signposts and the names of streets, railway stations, and villages to be torn down.

(announcer) The citizen makes his preparation.

Windows are darkened to render blackouts complete.

Anderson shelters are stocked, first aid kit is assembled and gone over, and gas masks are tested once again to make sure they're in good order.

(bells tolling) (soft, grim music) (narrator) As Big Ben strikes 4:00 p.m., Churchill addresses the House of Commons.

(Winston Churchill) The battle of France is over.

The battle of Britain is about to begin.

(soft, tense music) ♪ (narrator) June 22nd, 3:15 p.m. ♪ Hitler arrives at a clearing in the Forest of Compiègne to witness the French signing of the armistice.

He has never forgiven the French for the terms they imposed on Germany two decades before.

♪ June 1919.

Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, France.

Representatives from Germany, France, America, Britain, and Italy sign the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I.

♪ Under the terms of the treaty, the German Army was restricted so that it could never threaten the peace of Europe again.

They were only allowed to have 100,000 men in the army, maximum.

No combat planes.

No combat ships.

Arms limited in all kinds of ways.

♪ (narrator) Article 231, the War Guilt Clause, forced Germany to accept complete responsibility for starting the war, and to pay the victorious Allies vast sums in reparations.

The French, in particular, insisted that Germany pay a heavy price for war.

Hitler, a soldier in the First War, had made much of the myth that Germany had been defeated in 1918 not on the battlefield but by a stab in the back.

(Peter) After 1918, after the end of the First World War, there is in Germany a widespread feeling that we could have almost won this war.

And it was socialists that, in the end, revolted against us in the homeland, and this is why our undefeated army had to withdraw.

♪ (narrator) Hitler relishes victory.

He makes a defeated France sign an armistice in the same location that Germany had signed theirs in 1918.

A symbol of how far France had fallen.

And it's crucial to say that this is an armistice, not a peace settlement.

So the very bizarre situation that France has with Germany is that for four years after 1940, she's existing in this permanent kind of suspended animation where she signed a deal to stop fighting but not signed a permanent peace treaty.

(narrator) According to the terms of the armistice, all north and western France, on a line running from Geneva to Bayonne, will be occupied by Germans.

The French government, under German control, is moved to Vichy.

(soft, grim music) Hitler enjoys a day of sightseeing in the French capital, his revenge complete.

He turns his attention towards Britain.

♪ June 30th.

The first Luftwaffe plane lands at Guernsey Airport.

German troops swiftly occupy Guernsey, Jersey, and Alderney.

These tiny islands in the English Channel are the first part of the British Empire to be under German control.

Hitler sees the islands as stepping stones towards the invasion of Britain.

♪ Britain did have this one great advantage in having its own bespoke moat, the English Channel.

In order to get to Britain, the Germans would have to defeat both the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, and this quite a tall order.

(narrator) Hitler is torn between total war with Britain and the expectation that Churchill will accept peace.

(Richard E.) There's no question of any kind of compromised peace however bad the situation was after Dunkirk.

The famous "We shall fight on the beaches."

In any kind of compromise, peace with the Nazis would be tantamount to a surrender.

♪ (narrator) An air of uncertainty hangs over Britain.

No one knows when, how, or even if the German onslaught will come.

(soft, tense music) ♪ July 6th.

Vast crowds line Berlin's streets in a victory parade for Hitler.

Victory in France has resulted in a wave of euphoria across Germany.

As war fever grips the country, the German Armed Forces prepare to invade -the British Isles.

-In order to do that, Hitler has to knock the Royal Air Force out of action.

Because there's no hope of launching an invasion fleet across the Channel, across the sea, if it's gonna be at risk from arrow bombardment and attack.

So, the hope is to eliminate the RAF as a threat.

(narrator) German High Command are confident.

They believe that the fight for air supremacy over Britain will be over within weeks.

(Adrian) The Germans went into the Battle of Britain with two fairly obvious advantages.

The first of these was the greater experience of their air crew.

(narrator) Goering's Luftwaffe have already defeated the Polish, Belgian, Dutch, and French air forces.

The Germans also had a second advantage in possessing the strategic initiative, which enabled them to attack Britain where and when they wanted.

♪ (narrator) Britain and Germany ready themselves.

The Battle for Britain is about to begin.

(aircraft engine humming) (soft, tense music) ♪ July 10th.

Before dawn, across airfields in Southern England, pilots prepare their planes.

They suspect a German attack.

The RAF's fighter command, led by Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding, is the only force that can prevent total Nazi victory.

♪ The average age of RAF fighter pilots is just 20.

♪ In Britain, only people age 21 or over can vote, so many pilots are risking their lives in defense of a democracy they are too young to participate in.

♪ The Luftwaffe have a front line strength of 3,000 aircraft.

The RAF: 1200.

But these are made up of Hurricanes and Spitfires, the equal of any single-engine fighters in the world.

The Germans were already very familiar with the Hawker Hurricane, they'd already seen it at international air shows in 1939, and so they weren't too worried about this.

They thought that their Bf 109 was pretty much going to best it.

But the Supermarine Spitfire was different.

They came up against this aircraft that suddenly was a bit faster than the Bf 109, it was a bit more agile, it was a bit more maneuverable.

(narrator) Luftwaffe aircraft are dispersed on airfields surrounding Britain.

At 3:45 a.m., they begin their attack.

(bombs whistling) (dramatic music) ♪ A Spitfire squadron on dawn patrol spots an enemy formation over the Channel, and the battle begins.

♪ German attacks continue throughout the day.

(bell clanging) The skies above Southern England are crisscrossed by the vapor trails of aerial dog fights.

♪ (aircraft engine humming) ♪ Besides her armed forces, Britain is protected by Chain Home.

(soft, tense music) (Sarah-Louise) Chain Home was a network or a system of radar stations and they're at regular intervals around the coast.

(beeping) (Adrian) Both sides were aware of radar.

It was a technology that had been developed only a few years previously.

(soft music) But, unknown the the Germans, the British had extended the technological side to an extremely complex and efficient administrative system to enable British aircraft to get up into the air with the minimum amount of delay.

(narrator) Chain Home immediately proves to be effective.

Oncoming German aircraft are detected, and defending RAF planes are in the air well before enemy attackers arrive.

♪ For now at least, the Germans are being kept at bay.

(soft, tense music) ♪ July 19th.

Hitler decides to give Britain one last chance.

In a speech delivered at the Reichstag in Berlin, he appeals to what he calls British reason and common sense and asks Churchill to agree to peace terms.

(Victoria) This idea of attacking the RAF's radar, its installations, its aircraft, and, of course, the aircraft factories, is that it's going to terrorize Britain into wanting to seek that peace deal and make things a lot easier for Nazi Germany.

(clock ticking) (narrator) Within the hour, word comes from London.

Churchill's answer to Hitler's offer is a resounding no.

There will be no negotiations.

♪ Hitler denounces the response as "crazy."

Britain, he believes, is about to be destroyed.

♪ German High Command sets a date for the invasion of Britain.

September 15th.

Detailed plans were being drawn up for the invasion, but at the center of it, Hitler seemed less than keen to carry out this invasion.

The only senior commander who had much belief in the invasion of Britain was the leader of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering.

And Hitler gave Goering his lead and told him to gain air supremacy over Britain, which would be the first step in the invasion plan.

(narrator) Everything rests on the battle for the skies.

(aircraft engine rumbling) (soft, tense music) August 3rd.

13 German divisions intended as the initial striking force in the invasion of Britain complete their deployment along the northern French coast.

(aircraft engine humming) But still, the Luftwaffe has failed to defeat the RAF.

(gunfire) Hitler is anxious.

Autumn is on its way, and with it will come Channel fogs, making flying hazardous.

(aircraft engine humming) Time is running out.

He orders the Luftwaffe to escalate its efforts.

(dramatic music) In response, Goering plans a huge assault for 10 days' time.

(soft, tense music) He names the operation Eagle Attack.

♪ (Victoria) Unternehmen Adlerangriff, or Operation Eagle Attack, was this intensification of the Luftwaffe's offensive against Britain.

So it had started, of course, with attacking the shipping and the convoys.

(aircraft engine roaring) ♪ But it knew that in order to actually really scare the mainland, it needed to attack the mainland.

So, Operation Eagle Attack was this all-out armada against the British Isles in terms of going straight for the heart of the enemy, going for the RAF, going for its airfields, going for its radar installations.

(narrator) Once the RAF has been nullified, the Luftwaffe can concentrate their full force on supporting the landing of the army on English soil.

(aircraft engine humming) (soft, tense music) August 13th, 2:00 p.m. Operation Eagle Attack is launched.

German aircraft take off, hoping to deliver the knockout blow to the RAF.

(aircraft engines humming) ♪ But across the Channel, the incoming Luftwaffe formations have already been picked up by radar.

(aircraft engines humming) The RAF are waiting.

There is fierce fighting.

The Luftwaffe is harassed at every turn by British planes.

♪ The German effort disintegrates into a series of poorly coordinated attacks.

(aircraft engine humming) (gunfire) Another problem for the Germans was that their range of their fighter planes was quite limited.

They could operate over the skies of Southern England only for 15 minutes or half an hour sometimes.

In contrast, the Royal Air Force could operate much longer, so their planes were much longer in the sky than the German ones.

♪ (narrator) German casualties are heavy, and Luftwaffe fighters are forced back across the Channel.

(flames crackling) Despite Goering's best efforts, Operation Eagle Attack has failed.

(soft, somber music) ♪ August 18th.

100 days after the invasion of France, after the failure of Eagle Attack, Goering must try again.

The Luftwaffe's plans have been thwarted by a combination of factors, including the tenacity of the RAF.

(aircraft engine humming) Other issues for the Luftwaffe include, of course, the famous British weather.

(aircraft engine humming) They also have issues with the psychological aspect of attacking the British Isles, because so many Luftwaffe personnel were terrified of the Channel.

They had the issue of if they have to bail out they're over enemy territory, so they're taken immediately as prisoners of war.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) Today, the skies are clear.

♪ Perfect flying conditions.

Goering launches another aerial offensive.

(suspenseful music) German aircraft are dispatched to deliver a final crushing blow to Fighter Command.

♪ Waves of German bombers cross the Channel.

♪ The attacks are relentless.

(gunfire) Time and again, both RAF and Luftwaffe fighters are refueled, rearmed, and return to battle.

The Luftwaffe flying 850 sorties, the RAF: 927.

(aircraft engine humming) The British lose 68 aircraft while the Germans lose 69 in the deadliest day of the aerial conflict so far.

(gunfire) This is the climax of the battle for the skies and becomes known as the Hardest Day.

(dramatic music) ♪ (soft music) As night falls, and both sides retreat temporarily to their bases, Goering and Hitler face the fact that Britain remains unbowed.

For the first time in the war, Hitler has failed to defeat his enemy.

(Winston Churchill) Every trace of Hitler's footsteps, every stain of his infected and corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and, if need be, blasted from the surface of the earth.

(Adrian) Germany's failure to force Britain to surrender in 1940 came from two main sources.

Winston Churchill's defiant refusal to come to any terms with the Germans.

The second reason lay in the failure of Germany to gain air supremacy over Southern England.

(aircraft engines humming) (soft music) ♪ (narrator) Hitler has achieved a military victory over Western Europe the scale of which has never been seen before.

(Richard E.) He conquers Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium.

He imposed an occupation on Northern France and a collaborationist government in the Vichy.

And we mustn't forget Eastern Europe either.

Hitler had already occupied incorporated Austria, Czechoslovakia was occupied, and the Nazis had conquered Poland.

(narrator) But Britain is still in the war.

(Sarah-Louise) Germany hasn't really accomplished its aims.

It hasn't been able to invade Britain.

Tactics now need to change.

(Winston Churchill) Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

(narrator) British resistance changes the course of the Second World War.

Unable to force Churchill into surrender, Hitler now turns his sights eastwards towards the Soviet Union.

(announcer) These are some of the 180 million people against whom Hitler had just turned his war machine.

(narrator) Soon, he will be fighting a war on two fronts.

And when Japanese aggression brings the United States into the conflict... (bombs whistling, exploding) ...the European war becomes a global one.

Britain becomes a base for Allied Forces.

And before long, plans begin to take shape to liberate all that Hitler and his allies have conquered.

(gunfire, water splashing) (majestic music) ♪ (bright music)