'The Avro Lancaster is an aviation icon; revered, romanticised, loved. Without her, and the bravery of those who flew her, the freedom we enjoy today would not exist.' Sir Arthur Harris, the controversial chief of Royal Air Force Bomber Command, described the Lancaster as his 'shining sword' and the 'greatest single factor in winning the war'.RAF bomber squadrons carried out offensive operations from the first day of the Second World War until...

May, 1940. Britain is at war, European democracies are falling rapidly and the public are unaware of this dangerous new world. Just days after his unlikely succession to Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, faces this horror - and a sceptical King and a party plotting against him. He wonders how he can capture the public mood and does so, magnificently, before leading the country to victory. It is this fascinating period that Anthony McCarten captures...

'Woeful Second World War' presents the dire details of a war that affected almost everyone - from old men joining Dad's Army to the 12-year-olds defending Berlin to the bitter end.

Bravery, courage, fear and love in a time of war. Despite their differences, sisters Viann and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Viann finds herself isolated so Isabelle is sent by their father to help her. As the war progresses, the sisters'...

During the Second World War, a young boy witnesses his hometown in Albania fall to a series of invaders: first Italian fascists, then the Greeks, the Italians once again and finally Nazi hordes. Amid floods and bombings, he undergoes another kind of turbulence - growing up. In a seamless mosaic of dreams and games, Kadare's young narrator both reflects and distorts events as his ancient, magical home town and his own innocence and sense of wonder...

Now a multi Oscar-winning film, this is a tale of love and confusion set at end of the Second World War, following a small group of shell-shocked characters thrown together in an Italian villa

But Japan has only begun to fight. . . . In 1945, history has reached a turning point. A terrible new weapon has been unleashed. Japan has no choice but to surrender. But instead, the unthinkable occurs. With their nation burned and shattered, Japanese fanatics set in motion a horrifying endgame-their aim: to take America down with them. In Robert Conroy?s brilliantly imagined epic tale of World War II, Emperor Hirohito?s capitulation is hijacked...

Part of the 'Horrible Histories' series, this book presents some foul food facts about rotten rationing, awful evacuation tales and the terrible truth about London's bloodthirsty blackout murderer.

Would you sacrifice yourself to save thousands of others? In the Summer of 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Poland, an underground operative called Witold Pilecki accepted a mission to uncover the fate of thousands of people being interred at a new concentration camp on the border of the Reich. His mission was to report on Nazi crimes and raise a secret army to stage an uprising. The name of the detention centre -- Auschwitz. It was only after arriving...

As the fighters and bombers of the Luftwaffe amassed on the north west coast of Europe, they had no reason to believe that the heavily outnumbered squadrons of the Royal Air Force (RAF) would prove any more difficult to overcome than their earlier opponents. However, these illusions of invulnerability were soon to be shattered in whirling combats over southern England in the conflict that would be known as the Battle of Britain.