From The Front To The Films: A World War II Podcast

Tim Gray interviews Auschwitz and Holocaust survivor Israel Arbeiter regarding his incredible story during some of the darkest days on World War II. An absolutely amazing story of resilience and courage.

President Ronald Reagan's Famous Normandy Speech: The Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-Day 6/6/84. This famous speech was made at Pointe-du-Hoc in Normandy and focuses on the efforts of the 2nd Ranger Battalion to climb the 100-foot cliffs and take our 6 cannons that were supposed to be located on the Pointe.

NOTE: Speech begins about 16 seconds into the audio file.

A short segment where we hear from two B-17 crewmen about their experiences over Europe in World War II. Narrated by Dan Aykroyd.

Somebody hat to direct all that boat traffic on D-Day! The job fell to those aboard the Primary Control Ships, who had a huge job to do while under constant fire on June 6, 1944.

The NFL's only 6-time Super Bowl-winning head coach, The New England Patriots Bill Belichick, who grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, the home of the United States Naval Academy and whose own father served in World War II, gives his thoughts on the legacy of Pearl Harbor.

Follow 5 D-Day Veterans as they visit with Students in Normandy, France. The veterans are welcomed to local schools, near the locations in which they landed on June 6, 1944, and talk about their experiences. Narrated by Peter Kessler.

Via trailers from our 22 documentary films, listen to those who served, survived and continue to analyze the time-period 1939-1945. A great collection of those who were there and those who continue to preserve the legacy of the WWII generation today.

Camp Toccoa, Georgia is the place where World War II's famous Band of Brothers first trained together. Amongst the Georgia pines, the 101st Airborne started on their journey of becoming paratroopers in World War II. Toccia is trying to preserve its legacy by making sure the past and the future remain so that future generations appreciate the sacrifices of the "Toccoa Men."

David Cram talks about his father's incredible World War II story aboard the bomber Georgia Peach in Europe.

The focus of this film is on the military and civilian survivors of Pearl Harbor, all of whom had totally different experiences on December 7, 1941.

Woven into their stories is the perspective of Daniel Martinez, Chief Historian of the Valor in the Pacific Monument at Pearl Harbor and author of the acclaimed book December 1941, Craig Shirley.

This is not a film about the strategy of the attack and why it happened or assigning blame 75 years later, but rather the personal stories of those who were there and witnessed history being made. It is an impartial documentary chronicling December 7, 1941, in the words of those who actually were there and took part.

Band of Brothers actors and actual Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne veterans join a Holocaust survivor for a panel discussion in Boston. This talk was broadcast by C-Span3. Today, just a few of the original Band of Brothers veterans are still alive. 

Tim Gray Talks World War II and Pearl Harbor at the Annual Surface Navy Association Convention in Washington, DC.

The bottle of 1896 Hennessy Cognac was uncorked in front of hundreds of people.

The surviving World War II veterans from one of history’s greatest military missions were about to raise their silver goblets one last time ending a decade's long tradition.

It was time for the veterans to hold this final toast. They could wait no longer. Their numbers had dwindled to just a few.

Many of the names of the 80 flyers who took part in the April 18, 1942 raid on Japan may not be familiar to most, but collectively they will always be known in history as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders.

Long ago these American flyers, aboard 16 B-25 bombers, had accomplished a daring mission that changed the morale of an entire nation.

The aviators, led by famed commander Lt. Col. James Harold Doolittle, had taken the fight directly to the enemy for the first time in World War II and delivered payback for Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess and The Greatest Story of the War in the Pacific Narrated by Dale Dye (Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, Band of Brothers)

April 4, 1943, ten American prisoners of war and two Filipino convicts executed a daring escape from one of Japan’s most notorious prison camps. The prisoners were survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March and the Fall of Corregidor, and the prison from which they escaped was surrounded by an impenetrable swamp and reputedly escape-proof. Theirs was the only successful group escape from a Japanese POW camp during the Pacific war. Escape from Davao is the story of one of the most remarkable incidents in the Second World War and of what happened when the Americans returned home to tell the world what they had witnessed. 

It was 1944 in the small Luxembourg Town of Wiltz. The war had taken a heavy toll as Wiltz had been a center of resistance and suffered brutal reprisals. People were shot in the town square and men were forced into the German army or sent to concentration camps. The German occupation lasted four years before the Germans pulled out in September 1944. After the town’s liberation, Allied soldiers rotated through Wiltz for R&R (rest and recuperation).

The 112th Regiment, part of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard (known as the Keystone Division), had been sent to relieve troops battling to retake Huertgen Forest. After sustaining heavy casualties they were sent to regroup and rest in Wiltz. The people there had very little and had not been able to celebrate Christmas or anything else during the years of occupation.

A few days before Thanksgiving Corporal Harry Stutz told his buddy, Corporal Richard Brookins, “I think we should give this town a Christmas party, A St. Nicholas Day. For hundreds of years here in Wiltz, they had a celebration on the fifth of December, the eve of St. Nicholas Day. A man dressed as St. Nick paraded through the town and gave candy to the kids. Kids here haven’t celebrated St. Nicholas Day for nearly five years because of the war. Some of them have never seen St. Nick at all.

The NFL's only 6-time Super Bowl-winning head coach, the New England Patriots Bill Belichick, narrates this film focused on some of the heroic stories from June 6, 1944, and D-Day.

War Journal tells the story of one of the most incredible escapes in World War II,“ said the film’s producer, writer and director Tim Gray. Gray is also Founder of the non-profit World War II Foundation and President of Tim Gray Media. “Two Americans, both escapees of Bataan, Damon Gause from Corregidor as well who, in 1942, in a leaky 20-foot fishing boat, escaped and sailed from the Philippines to Australia and freedom,” Gray said.

It took Gause and fellow American William Lloyd Osborne 52 days and 3,200 miles to reach freedom. During the trip, the Americans faced typhoons, constant threats from Japanese ships, submarines and airplanes, lack of water and food and even a visit to a leper colony. When the two Americans arrived at General Douglas MacArthur’s office in Brisbane, Australia the only thing the General could say was “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Survivors of Malmedy: December 1944 tells the story of the World War II massacre of 84 American soldiers in the Malmedy, Belgium area on December 17, 1944, during the opening days of the famous “Battle of the Bulge.”

On December 17, 1944, after a short battle, 150 American GI’s were taken prisoner just outside the Belgian town of Malmedy and herded into a field by an infamous German SS division led by one of the Nazi’s most brutal commanders. The unarmed American POWs were gunned down. It was the largest single massacre of American troops in WWII.

Those still alive after the initial shooting in the brutal cold were killed by SS soldiers ordered into the field to execute any Americans still breathing. Some American soldiers played dead. Some ran. Some escaped to nearby houses. In the end, more than 50 Americans did escape the infamous Malmedy Massacre. Today just a handful remain.

For me the Manhattan Project was personal: One of those assigned to the project was my uncle John Edmund Gray, a University of Rhode Island graduate with a brilliant mind.

John Gray grew up in the industrial city of Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

He had a strong interest in the field of engineering from a young age and not only was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, but would later in life serve as an advisor to several presidents of the United States on the topic of Atomic energy.

John, known to close family as Jack, was one of four children born in Rhode Island in 1922.

After high school, he worked for one year at the Woonsocket Rayon Company, a local firm in the Rhode Island city where he grew up.

In 1943 he earned a B. S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Rhode Island, where he worked several campus jobs to help pay expenses. After college John became a participant in the Manhattan Project.

Hundreds of men were assigned by the government of the United States to lend their minds to producing the first Atomic bombs, but the majority had no idea at the time what their skills were being utilized for since the project was beyond the level of “top secret”.

The eventual goal of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to end World War II, a conflict in which an estimated 50-70 million people were killed during the years 1939-1945.

American Medics Ken Moore and Robert Wright jumped into Normandy, France in the early morning hours of D-Day. In the small village of Angoville they set up an aid station in a centuries-old church. What happens after that is a story of compassion and humanity in a time of utter horror.