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Hanks has dedicated decades himself to WWII history – from ‘Saving Private Ryan’ to producing ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific’. — Photo from pexels.com
THE ‘World War II with Tom Hanks’ is an important 20-part documentary series and companion podcast that premiered on the History Channel on May 25 this year.
I am halfway through, having just watched the ninth episode ‘Secrets and Lies’.
The final episode will air this July 27, with details of the end of the Second World War (WWII) and the beginning of the Nuclear Age.
Narrated and guided by Hanks, and developed in collaboration with the National WWII Museum, the project serves as a comprehensive history lesson designed for a modern Internet-savvy audience.
It re-examines the full arc of the war – from the rise of fascism to the atomic bomb – by brilliantly blending historical data with very personal human stories.
Unlike most similar documentaries that might normally bore an average viewer, the stories are told with many engrossing human interest elements and fresh viewpoints with countless new insights and varying differences in political opinions.
To be completely truthful, I was enthralled, engrossed and amazed with this extremely well-crafted, exhaustively-researched and beautifully-shot series.
Even with the knowledge of how everything’s going to turn out at the end, I could not wait for each new episode to drop – it’s that great!
Hanks himself, of course, needs no introduction. He has won two Oscars, been personally responsible for 216 other nominations for his films and productions, and also won 99 other major awards over the years.
Hanks has dedicated decades himself to WWII history – from ‘Saving Private Ryan’ to producing ‘Band of Brothers’ and ‘The Pacific’.
His personal interest began as a child when he overheard his father, a war veteran, talking to another survivor.
His projects focus on ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances, rather than just generals and politicians.
I have already seen the lessons that can be gleaned from the first nine episodes of History Channel’s new series, and I am appreciative of the core history lessons that they have expounded, which could serve well for our future generations to ponder upon.
I am considered a ‘Baby Boomer’, born in 1950 right after the end of WWII.
We are all presently living in precarious times and if there were to erupt a Third World War, it would certainly also be our last.
The series meticulously breaks down the global conflict into specially-themed episodes exploring many overlooked aspects of the war, alongside its more famous battles and events.
In its premiere episode ‘The Beginning’, it details the 1939 invasion of Poland – showing how a major European nation could be systematically dismantled in less than a month due to Hitler’s military might, which had outgunned even a determined Polish army.
Following up were the twin episodes of ‘Blitz’ and ‘Barbarossa’ – highlighting how European nations fell like dominos; and England’s Winston Churchill’s desperate and strategic campaign to pull in a very reluctant United States’ Theodore Roosevelt into the war.
I found Episode 4 extremely exciting with the bombing of Pearl Harbour, covering Japan’s escalation of the war with China and its campaigns across Southeast Asia.
The three episodes: ‘Pearl Harbour’, ‘The War at Sea’ and ‘Guadalcanal’, brought the war closer to home in Asia.
Many of the events highlighted in these segments were real eye-openers and spoke about lesser-known historical events, which I found extremely insightful.
Episodes 7 and 8 were more European-based as they followed Hitler’s reach as he extended his control over Europe in ‘Darkness Falls’, and in ‘Operation Torch’, which detailed the German occupation of northern Africa.
Episode 9, ‘Secrets and Lies’, was most compelling as it involved the hidden war of double agents, spies and code-breaking.
It also featured Ian Fleming, who was a real life hero – he only wrote the James Bond novels after his ‘secret services’ rendered during the war.
You’d be amazed to find out what he was involved in during the WWII period of his swashbuckling life.
Episode 10, to be aired this June 22, is entitled ‘Stalingrad’. Thereafter there will be another 10 episodes.
The definitive, highest-rated television show based on WWII is ‘Band of Brothers’ – a 10-part HBO series that premiered Sept 9, 2001 and won six Emmys.
It holds a 9.3/10 rating on the Internet Movie Database (the bible of the industry) and is widely considered to be the gold standard of war dramas.
It follows the journey of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the USA, from training day through D-Day to the end of the war.
It is celebrated for its deep sense of brotherhood and visceral realism.
There are two other series that completes the so-called Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks ‘trilogy’: ‘The Pacific’ (2010), and ‘Masters of the Air’ (2024).
In 1974 in the small seaside town of Kuala Belait in Brunei, I had watched over many weeks and months the brilliant 26-part documentary series tracing WWII – from the rise of Nazi Germany through the conflict’s major campaigns and home fronts, using archival footage and first-hand interviews, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier.
It was produced by Thames Television and the Imperial War Museum and shown over BBC, and TV Brunei had it broadcast in colour.
The amazing series is called ‘The World at War’ – a multi-volume documentary mini-series.
It covers the entire history of WWII from the causes of the 1920s to the aftermath of the Cold War in the 1950s.
Emphasis is also placed on several inside story episodes, where events are covered that occurred inside Germany and Japan such as resistance to Hitler, life in general under a dictatorial regime, and particular emphasis is focused on the Holocaust.
Then in 2019, came a new series called ‘World on Fire’ – a seven-part BBC British production, dramatised and fictionalised, that looked at the early war years through the interconnected lives of ordinary citizens of Britain, Poland, Germany and France.
A second season had appeared in 2023, with six new episodes.
Events of our recent history should interest us all in the sense that we must learn more of what trials, errors, challenges as well as successes and achievements that our forefathers and all those who came before us had endured, encountered and experienced, so that we can learn to either not repeat the mistakes or to continue doing the good that they had done.
May the Good Lord guide and bless you as we all journey onwards, ever grateful for our lives on earth.
May peace, love and contentment be ours.
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