Generals at War

This aircraft carrier battle was to set the future course of all American naval battles, but for now the two commanders were making it up as they went along. American Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher was only fighting from an aircraft carrier because the American battleships in the Pacific had been destroyed at Pearl Harbour. Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo had missed blowing up the US carriers. It was his personal mission to seek them out and destroy them. Their long-distance battle was fought using fighter planes, torpedoes and bombers. The Americans had better intelligence, the Japanese better equipment. But a fatal decision was to cost Nagumo the battle.

In 1941, the British totally underestimated the fighting ability of the Japanese - an underestimation that was to lose them the critical colonies of Malaya and Singapore, and undermine the foundation of the entire British Empire. General Arthur Percival was the British general tasked with the defence of Singapore. General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, lead the 'driving charge' to oust him. The Japanese were outnumbered from the start, but with the help of bluff, speed and bicycles they managed to put the British to rout.

In 1942, the German blitzkrieg into the Soviet Union looked unstoppable, until it ground to a halt at Stalingrad. Two generals fought tooth and claw for control of the city, in what was to be one of the bloodiest battles of all time. For one, the story ended in triumph, for the other, defeat and disgrace. The refined and meticulous German general, Friedrich Paulus, relied on tanks and planes to smash the enemy, tactics that were to prove far less effective fighting in the city than out in the open Steppe. His hot-tempered Soviet counterpart General Vasily Chuikov's strategy was to buy time with blood. He poured thousands of soldiers into the battle, urging them to throw their heavy weapons away and fight with spades, grenades and bayonets, using the bombed out city as cover.

The Ardennes' offensive caught the Allies totally by surprise in December 1944. They had no idea that Hitler's forces, lead by Field Marshall Walther Model, were about to attack. The monocle-wearing Model had earned a reputation as Hitler's firefighter. He was coarse and crude, nicknamed 'the frontline pig'. His American counterpart, General Omar Bradley, was gentle, polite and cultured. They were to face off in freezing conditions in what was to be the bloodiest American engagement of the war, with over 80,000 casualties.

In 1942, two of the most charismatic generals of all time, General Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, and General Bernard Montgomery fought over a barren stretch of rocky desert in the Egyptian desert. The battle was to turn Rommel's fortunes in North Africa and give the British their first decisive win of the war. The Battle of El Alamein became a personal duel, with each man determined to outwit the other.

An epic tank battle between the Soviets and the Germans that turned the tide of the war on the Eastern Front. Aristocratic Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, Hitler's arch tactician, was eventually outwitted and out-fought by a rough and ready Soviet general from peasant stock, Marshal Georgy Zhukov. The Germans fought with the most powerful tanks of the war-- Tigers and Panthers backed up by the fearsome Elefant tank destroyer. But they were trapped in Soviet-built honeycomb of defences 150kms deep. Hitler's intervention finally determined the outcome.