Witness History: World War Two history

In December 1945, one of America's most famous miltary commanders, General George S Patton, died from injuries sustained in a car crash, just months after the end of the Second World War. Witness talks to his grandson, George Patton Waters, about his memories of this colourful and often unorthodox man. Photo: General George Patton in Paris in August 1945 to celebrate the first anniversary of the c...

On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen died in a raid which brought their country into World War Two. Former Navy mechanic, Adolph Kuhn, tells Witness how he survived. (Photo: The USS Arizona sinking at Pearl Harbor. Credit: Getty Images)

How a devastating air raid on the Italian port of Bari during World War Two led to the deadly release of mustard gas. Winston Churchill ordered the incident to be kept secret for years. We hear from Peter Bickmore BEM, who was injured during the raid. (Photo: Seventeen Allied ships go up in flames in Bari, Italy, after a raid by German bombers on 2 December 1943. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

In November 1938, the SS commander Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction in Nazi Germany of the only concentration camp built specifically for women. It would be called Ravensbruck. Selma van der Perre tells Witness about the horrors of life in Ravensbruck, including experiments on women and children, and how she survived. Photograph: women at Ravensbruck concentration camp (Credit: Das Bundes...

In October and November 1942, the Allies fought a famous battle against German and Italian troops close to the small Egyptian village of El Alamein. General Bernard Montgomery, the British commander, knew that victory was crucial. But his offensive was in danger of stalling almost as soon as it began. Witness speaks to Len Burritt who was then a 24 year old wireless operator with the British Seven...

In an act of defiance during World War Two, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's new Seventh Symphony. The piece was composed especially for the city, which had been cut off and surrounded by invading Nazi troops. During the siege an estimated one million civilians died from starvation, exposure, and the bombardment by German forces. Hear archive recordings...

In 1943, the cellist, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She expected to be killed in the gas chambers, but survived because she was recruited to play in an orchestra set up by the women prisoners. Anita Lasker-Wallfisch talks to Witness about her experience and the power of music in the darkest moments in history. PICTURE: Anita Lasker-Wallfisch in 1938 (Private...

In the early hours of 19th August 1942, a convoy of Allied ships approached the port of Dieppe carrying more than 6,000 troops. The mainly Canadian force was supposed to carry out a hit and run raid that would help the Allies learn and plan for the real invasion of occupied France later in the war. But almost immediately things started to go wrong. Ronald Miles, then aged 20, was a crew member on...

On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation of Poland began. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting and Poland's capital was almost completely destroyed. Among the underground fighters were children, many of them members of the Scout movement. Andrzej Slawinsky was one of them. (Photo: Insurgents on the streets of Warsaw, 1944. Credit: HO/AFP/Getty Images)

In the 1930s Hitler began to rebuild Germany's armed forces. When WW1 ended Germany had been banned from having an air force under the Treaty of Versailles. Hear from Eric 'Winkle' Brown who as a very young man was invited to see the new planes and helicopters that had been developed for the Luftwaffe. He later went on to become a flying ace in Britain's RAF. Photo: September 1938: Giant bombers o...

In June 1944 the International Red Cross was allowed by the Nazis into the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The Nazis tried to use the visit to project a positive image of their treatment of the Jews. Hear from Ela Weissberger, who was an 11-year-old prisoner in the camp. (Audio archive courtesy of The National Centre for Jewish Film at Brandeis University) (Photo: Children in Theresienstadt, ta...

The Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann recorded hours of interview about his involvement in the Holocaust, before his capture in 1960 by Israeli agents. Witness talks to the daughter of the Dutch journalist, Willem Sassen, who recorded the Eichmann interviews in Argentina. Saskia Sassen talks about the tapes, her memories of their secret visitor and the night the Israelis snatched Eichmann off the s...

In February 1941, a ship carrying nearly 30,000 cases of whisky was wrecked off the Scottish island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides. The islanders began to salvage the bottles from the wreck - and the incident later became the inspiration for the film "Whisky Galore". Photo: An assortment of bottled whisky is displayed at Glenkinchie distillery March 13, 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In 1939 tension was growing in Europe, over Nazi Germany's expansionist plans. One young British camerman headed to Danzig (now Gdansk) to film what happened next. His name was Douglas Slocombe and he is now 101 years old. Hear his story. (Photo: Hitler Youth marching over a bridge in Danzig in 1939. Copyright: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

In February 1946 the first 'war brides' ship sailed from the UK to Canada reuniting women with the foreign husbands they'd married while serving in the UK during World War Two. Witness speaks to two women who sailed on the Mauretania. (Photo: Arnie and Grace Shewan's wedding day 1944. Courtesy of Grace Shewan)

In February 1944, the world's first electronic computer began attacking encrypted Nazi messages, from the secret British codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park. Hear from one of the engineers tasked with building and maintaining Colossus during World War Two.

In 1943, Rome's Jewish citizens were promised that if they gave gold to the Nazis, they would escape deportation. Despite handing over 50kg of gold - more than 1,500 of the city's Jews were rounded up and sent to the death camps. Alan Johnston reports from Rome. Photo: Survivor Settimia Spizzichino (far right)

During World War Two conscientious objectors could volunteer for medical experiments. Hear the story of one young American who had refused to fight, but was prepared to starve for his country. Marshall Sutton is now 95 - he took part in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in 1944 in an attempt to help scientists understand how best to look after starving civilians in war-torn Europe. (Photo: Marsh...

On the 3rd of January 1946 Britain's most famous wartime traitor was hanged. His name was William Joyce but he was better known as Lord Haw Haw. Throughout WW2 he broadcast Nazi propaganda from Germany to Britain. At the end of the war he was hated by much of Britain, but we hear from the son of one man who tried to save him from execution.

Thousands of foreign civilians were interned in camps when Japanese troops occupied the Philippines in World War II. Many of the inmates suffered from acute malnutrition. We hear the story of one boy, Desmond Malone, who was interned at the Santo Tomas camp in Manila. Photo: American inmates of the Santo Tomas internment camp after liberation by US forces in February 1945 (AP Photo/Pool)

In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill all met together for the first time to discuss the progress of World War Two. The meeting was held in Tehran over four days. (Photo: Joseph Stalin (left), Franklin Roosevelt (centre), Winston Churchill (right). Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1937, Hitler and the Nazi party organised a huge exhibition of modern art in Munich. It was designed to ridicule works of art which they disapproved of - they called it Degenerate Art. It went on to be one of the best attended modern art exhibitions of all time. Picture: Two men prepare to hang German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann's triptych 'Temptation' at the 20th Century German Art Exhi...

In 1949, Iva Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, was wrongly convicted for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Japan during the Second World War. She was accused of being the infamous radio presenter known to American servicemen as "Tokyo Rose". Witness speaks to Ron Yates, a reporter whose investigation helped to clear Iva Toguri's name. PHOTO: Iva Toguri in the 1940s (US National Archives)

Hundreds of Jewish slave labourers in a Nazi death camp staged a revolt and escaped in October 1943. Many were caught and shot. Around 50 made it to the end of the war. Listen to the story of Thomas Blatt, one of the survivors. Photo: Sobibor Death Camp (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

In October 1943, at the height of the Second World War, most of the Jews in Denmark evaded Nazi plans to send them to death camps. They were warned about a planned roundup by a German diplomat. Hear the story of Bent Melchior who was 14 years old when his family made the journey to safety in neutral Sweden. (Photo: Bent, aged 15 and living in Sweden)