Over the course of seven episodes, we spend a great deal of time in battle -- on the ground, in the air and at sea, in Europe and the Pacific -- examining in countless ways and from many perspectives what one of our witnesses, Paul Fussell, described as “the real war."

“The rest of it,” he told us, “is just the show-biz war. The real war involves getting down there and killing people. And being killed yourself or just barely escaping it. And it gives you attitudes about life and death that are unobtainable anywhere else.”

Throughout the series, one theme has stayed constant, one idea has continually emerged as we have gotten to know the brave men and women whose stories it has been our privilege to tell: in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

The Second World War was fought in thousands of places, too many for any one accounting. This is the story of four American towns and how their citizens experienced that war.

 

For more information on this program go to.www.pbs.org/thewar/.