Churchill and the Cabinet War Rooms

In 1941 Hitler deported over 2000 British men, women and children from the Channel Islands to the heart of Nazi Germany. It was a terrifying journey into the unknown and some killed themselves rather than go. Others had just hours to pack one bag, destroy their pets and leave. However, the initial horror of the camps and the struggle to survive in the primitive conditions was replaced with a determination not just to survive, but to thrive, as Hitler's crime created one of the most bizarre episodes of the war.

In 1940 the Channel Islands became the only part of Britain to fall under Nazi rule. Now in this film Islanders speak from the heart about one of the most extraordinary periods in our history. Reliving in their own words the horror of the first air raids, the shock of occupation and the islands' gradual five year long decent into privation and starvation before experiencing the capitulation of the German forces and the joy of liberation.

As soon as Hitler's forces occupied the Channel Islands in 1940 he ordered a series of fortifications to defend the only British territory he ever conquered. The problem was he never stopped - pouring men, concrete and weapons into the islands. By 1944 his officers talked of the Fuehrer's inselwahn - his 'island madness' and the Channel Islands had become the most fortified place on earth.

In 1940, carried on a wave of rumour and panic, thirty thousand Channel Islanders fled their homes, their livelihoods and the islands for five long years in exile. Arriving in England with just one small case and only twenty pounds in cash, they were sent by rail across the country from Oldham to Glasgow. Children separated from parents, all cast adrift in an alien culture. Homeless and jobless, the adventures that befell them helped forge friendships the length and breadth of Great Britain which survive to this day. This is their story.

On June 4, 1944 Captain Daniel Gallery and his men of the U.S. Naval Task Force 22.3 did the nearly impossible - they captured a German U-boat. It was the first enemy vessel-of-war captured in battle on the high seas by the U.S. Navy since 1815. Climb aboard the historic U-505 and relive its journey from a powerhouse of the German fleet to a display at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Witness archival footage and rare interviews with both German and American crew members involved in the capture of the U-505. And view even rarer footage of Captains Daniel Gallery and Harold Lange, captain of the 505 at the time of its capture..