Schedule

August 1942... the Solomon Islands. Heroic, die-hard American pilots of the tiny Cactus Air Force match skills and instincts against top Japanese aces as they battle in the skies above Guadalcanal. Legendary Marine Capt. John Smith and Medal of Honor recipients Jeff De Blanc and Jim Swett pit their tough 4F4 Wildcats against the relentless Japanese Zeros. At stake--the fate of the Pacific War.

Shot on location in San Diego, California at the Strategic Operations Training Center, R. Lee Ermey answers viewer questions about the military with practical demonstrations in the field. Lee gets in a little trigger time training with a group of "insurgents" in an "Iraqi Village" at the most realistic training facility used by the U.S. Marine Corps. Then witness the guns and gear used by the British Red Coats against the American rebels during our War of Independence. Go with Lee on an in-depth tour of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, dedicated to finding and the remains of all missing and unidentified service men and women. Finally, take a trip to Fort MacArthur in Long Beach, California to re-enact the great L.A. Air Raid of 1942.

As the first men of the D-Day invasion force to parachute unsupported into Normandy, the Pathfinders were labeled a "suicide squad". They set up special radar sets and illuminating beacons to lead Allied airborne divisions into their drop zones. We'll examine their role in D-Day, as well as many other pivotal battles of WWII, including North Africa and the Battle of the Bulge.

Former Navy fighter pilot and series host Hunter Ellis explores technology, inventions, techniques, and products born in the military that went on to find useful and exciting applications in civilian life. In this episode, we see how tanks, satellites, and parachutes have been adapted into common usage.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

Informational programming.

Shot on location in San Diego, California at the Strategic Operations Training Center, R. Lee Ermey answers viewer questions about the military with practical demonstrations in the field. Lee gets in a little trigger time training with a group of "insurgents" in an "Iraqi Village" at the most realistic training facility used by the U.S. Marine Corps. Then witness the guns and gear used by the British Red Coats against the American rebels during our War of Independence. Go with Lee on an in-depth tour of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, dedicated to finding and the remains of all missing and unidentified service men and women. Finally, take a trip to Fort MacArthur in Long Beach, California to re-enact the great L.A. Air Raid of 1942.

As the first men of the D-Day invasion force to parachute unsupported into Normandy, the Pathfinders were labeled a "suicide squad". They set up special radar sets and illuminating beacons to lead Allied airborne divisions into their drop zones. We'll examine their role in D-Day, as well as many other pivotal battles of WWII, including North Africa and the Battle of the Bulge.

Former Navy fighter pilot and series host Hunter Ellis explores technology, inventions, techniques, and products born in the military that went on to find useful and exciting applications in civilian life. In this episode, we see how tanks, satellites, and parachutes have been adapted into common usage.

August 1942... the Solomon Islands. Heroic, die-hard American pilots of the tiny Cactus Air Force match skills and instincts against top Japanese aces as they battle in the skies above Guadalcanal. Legendary Marine Capt. John Smith and Medal of Honor recipients Jeff De Blanc and Jim Swett pit their tough 4F4 Wildcats against the relentless Japanese Zeros. At stake--the fate of the Pacific War.

Shot on location in San Diego, California at the Strategic Operations Training Center, R. Lee Ermey answers viewer questions about the military with practical demonstrations in the field. Lee gets in a little trigger time training with a group of "insurgents" in an "Iraqi Village" at the most realistic training facility used by the U.S. Marine Corps. Then witness the guns and gear used by the British Red Coats against the American rebels during our War of Independence. Go with Lee on an in-depth tour of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, dedicated to finding and the remains of all missing and unidentified service men and women. Finally, take a trip to Fort MacArthur in Long Beach, California to re-enact the great L.A. Air Raid of 1942.

As the first men of the D-Day invasion force to parachute unsupported into Normandy, the Pathfinders were labeled a "suicide squad". They set up special radar sets and illuminating beacons to lead Allied airborne divisions into their drop zones. We'll examine their role in D-Day, as well as many other pivotal battles of WWII, including North Africa and the Battle of the Bulge.

Former Navy fighter pilot and series host Hunter Ellis explores technology, inventions, techniques, and products born in the military that went on to find useful and exciting applications in civilian life. In this episode, we see how tanks, satellites, and parachutes have been adapted into common usage.

They are the unsung heroes of the U.S. Navy. With a wrench in one hand and a rifle in the other, they build and fight. For close to 60 years, in war and peace, the Seabees have built the huts, ramps, roads, and runways that allow the Navy to land, the Marines to move, and the Air Force to fly. On the beaches of Normandy, the sands of Iwo Jima, at Inchon and Saigon, Antarctica and Saudi Arabia, the Navy's blue-collar battalion, the Seabees, have made and paved the way to victory.

A revealing look at the untold story of Japan's atomic bomb, and how they may have detonated a nuclear device just two days before surrender. Since the end of WWII, conventional wisdom claimed that Imperial Japan was years away from building an atomic weapon--this special shatters this view. Using once secret Japanese wartime documents, we provide evidence that Japan had world-class nuclear physicists, access to uranium ore, and cyclotrons to process it. They devised an innovative way to deliver the bombs using 400-foot long Sen Toku submarines, capable of carrying and launching airplanes. Most startling--just six days after Hiroshima, Japan tested its own atomic device on a small island 20 miles off the Korean coast. The sobering conclusion is that Japan may have been just weeks behind the US in the race for the bomb.

The submarine USS Bowfin made nine patrol runs during WWII, all packed with hair-raising adventures. In the course of sinking some 175,000 tons of Japanese shipping, the Bowfin faced an increasingly sophisticated Japanese anti-submarine campaign and endured vicious depth bomb and surface attacks. The boat aided guerrillas in the Philippines, hunted in wolfpacks, rescued downed flyers, and scourged the Japanese throughout the war under command of various colorful skippers. The Bowfin has been gorgeously restored and is berthed next to the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. This is her glorious story.

September 17th 1944. 20,000 elite troops descend from the skies into Nazi occupied Holland in a massive airborne assault. In this dramatic race against time, an armored relief force has to fight through sixty miles of enemy defenses and reach the British paratroopers at Arnhem bridge before their 48 hour deadline runs out. The British paratroopers, known as "Red Devils", have orders to hold their positions. This fight would become legendary as they refused to surrender after being surrounded by the German Army. For the first time Aerial reconnaissance photographs taken at the time have now been layered over a 3 dimensional map to create a CGI "model" of the battle allowing the viewer to track the fighting, step by step, from the air. Individual stories of courage and heroism can be placed in the exact location where they took place.

Shot on location at Hurlburt Field, Florida, R. Lee Ermey answers viewer questions about this historic piece of real estate with a focus on Air Force Special Operations and hardware. Lee tours the Air Force Base and gets a taste of what the officer candidates call "Hell Week"; then, Gunny goes to school and trains in car bomb and explosives detection and fires assault rifles used by terrorists. Finally, Lee takes off in the meanest gunship in the Air Force, the AC-130 and squeezes off a few rounds with its 105 mm cannon.