The Perilous Fight: America's World War II in Color

The third episode focuses on the European theater during the months between D-Day, in June 1944, and V-E Day, in May 1945. Among the many scenes captured by color footage are the seizure, two days before D-Day, of a German U-boat carrying Enigma code machines; the massive Allied assault on the beaches at Normandy; the jubilant welcome received by G.I.s after the liberation of Paris; freed American POWs burning their prison; Red Cross "doughnut girls"; the first Jewish Sabbath service conducted at the just-liberated Dachau concentration camp; and V-E Day celebrations following Germany's surrender.

The series concludes by covering America's efforts to win the war in the Pacific. Among the many scenes captured by color footage are U.S. troops staging a dawn landing on tiny but strategically important Tarawa; the U.S. attack on Iwo Jima and the raising of the American flag on Mount Surabachi; the desperate fight to save the U.S.S. Franklin after the aircraft carrier is hit and set on fire by armor-piercing bombs 50 miles from Japan; U.S. aircraft carriers under attack by kamikaze pilots during the battle for Okinawa; the funeral procession for President Roosevelt following his sudden death in April 1945; the devastation wrought on Hiroshima by the atomic bomb; the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri; and celebrations in the streets of New York marking the end of the war.