Secrets of War - The Complete 65 Episode Series

This is an extremely fascinating and excellent 65 episode series lasting over 54 hours on 13 single sided disks that encompasses much more than World War II secrets. It covers secrets from World War 1, 2 and Vietnam and more. This series delves deeply into the little things like spying, breaking codes, secret weapons, clever deceptions etc. It’s not about the battles although there are battle scenes to illustrate different aspects. Charlton Heston is the outstanding narrator in this series. The video quality is excellent too and old B&W war footage seems enhanced compared to many lesser WW2 series.Each of the 13 disks in the series has about 5 episodes. Each disk is housed in its own paper jacket and is well protected in the plastic box. There is no need to follow any order when viewing the series. You can play any disk in any order and watch any episode that you may be interested in. Nothing is really lost if you do that. The series is not available on Amazon or Netflix streaming but if you have Hula plus, the entire series is available for streaming. Even if I used Hula Plus, I would want to own this series. It’s a fantastic bargain. The price seems to fluctuate between $13 and $20. I paid $13 but after watching the series so far, it’s worth more than $20, if you are a ww2 buff.What you learn from the series is that the successful or unsuccessful outcome of battles often resulted from secret knowledge of the enemies’ plan of attack, allocation of resources and in many cases outright deception. All these things are covered in interesting and great detail. One secret I found interesting was Germany’s early development before 1940 of the world’s first jet plane (on display at the Smithsonian), militarily grade rockets, early cruise missiles, and attempts at developing atomic weapons. Luckily their development was put aside for several years as they started their deadly War that no one wanted.They fortunately lost the war before they were able to use their superior technology with much effectiveness. Code breaking which in most war documentaries is glossed over is covered in great detail. Everything is covered and sometimes there is repetition but that is to be expected when covering various facets of the wars. The series are so well done it's hard to stop watching even after finishing an episode. I don’t like to watch any Vietnam War scenes but the secrets show how this war was fought and was unwinnable. An invisible enemy and how it was done.A little known secret found in Churchill’s memoir about World War 1 in the 1920’s divulged England's capturing German code books that led to Germany’s defeat in WW1. The German’s were astonished discover this in his memoir and learned from their mistake and developed the unbreakable Enigma code machine. Was the code unbreakable, absolutely and they believed that to the end of the war and beyond. The biggest secret of WW2 was that the British broke the enigma code using brilliant code breakers, math experts and developed the world’s first working digital computer to accomplish this task. Before Poland was invaded they secretly had access to an Engima Machine for 2 days and Poland secretly shared their information with the British who were allies. This stuff is extremely fascinating.The US broke the easier to break Japanese code even before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The episodes will detail just how this was accomplished and give lots of detail and commentary by experts who were involved with the code breaking. One interesting factoid is that the Soviet Union had the best intelligence in the world and even had high level agents working in the US government. One secret I discovered that changed history is that President Roosevelt was clued that his VP had soviet agents as aids who would have had important positions in government, he dumped his VP and picked Truman as his VP and Roosevelt died 3 months after taking office for the 4th term. How Roosevelt was tipped off is unknown but US history would be very different had this change not have been made.Watching this series will help you understand why war even by superior powers is unpredictable and powerful diplomacy can produce more predictable results without loss of life and useless destruction.What’s on the disksDisc 1… This is a great disk to start with because intelligence is crucial for success in war.German Intelligence In WWII, British Secret Intelligence In WWII, Breaking The Japanese CodeWeapons Of The Shadow War, Women Spies In World War IIDisc 2… The D-Day Deceptions are especially interesting. Disk includesThe Cambridge Five, Stalin s Spies, The O.S.S., Roosevelt s Spymasters, D-Day DeceptionsDisc 3…. I found the secret weapons very interesting.Hitler s Secrets, Secret Weapons of the 3rd Reich, Nazi Propaganda, Nazi Gold, Rommel s EnigmaDisc 4….An interesting mix of subjectsHolocaust Secret, Ultra Enigma, Battle Of The Atlantic, Sitzkrieg: The Phony War, Hitler s Last DaysDisc 5…. Vietnam Disk. If you wondered what went wrong, this disk helps explain it.Vietnam: Alpha Strike, Vietnam: Hidden In Plain Sight, Vietnam: Special OperationsVietnam: Johnson s Battleground, Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh s RevolutionDisc 6 Another fascinating disk, Lots of surprisesSuper Guns, Psychological Warfare, Tools of Deception, Spy Planes, Bio-chemical WeaponsDisc 7The Wizard War, Battlefield Deceptions, Churchill s Gambles, Secret Submarines in WWIIKorea: Stalin s Secret Air WarDisc 8Cold War: Eisenhower s Operative, The Hunt For Atomic Weapons, Cold War: The Strangelove Factor, Cold War: Inside the CIA, Cold War: Inside the KGBDisc 9Cold War: The Kennedy Years, Cold War: Khrushchev s Regime, Cold War: Nixon s SecretsCold War: Castro s Revolution, Cold War: Brezhnev s KremlinDisc 10The French Resistance, Japan: The Invasion That Never Was, The Battle Of BritainHirohito s War, Mussolini s HenchmanDisc 11The Gulf War: Steel Rain, Secrets In The Sand, Architects Of Desert Storm, Iraq s Secrets,The Invasion of PanamaDisc 12Mao s Secrets, Shadows of the Six Day War, Israeli Intelligence, Korea: Behind The Bamboo Curtain, Spies In the SkyDisc 13Prisoners of War:- The Barbed Wire Front, Battle for the Mind, Code of Conduct, The Balkans Tinderbox, WWI: Germany s Secret GamblesI gave this series 5 stars but it deserves an extra star for being an outstanding series and a fantastic buy. It’s a must have DVD series to add to your collection. I am only half way through but look forward to each new episode. Should you buy this series you will too..

Gift that I have not seen

Wow! this is one of the best DVD documentary series I've run across. Excellent material, media, packaging, and lots of it.Narrator Charlton Heston explicates various little-known aspects of all the armed conflicts dating from WWI through the so-called "First Gulf War" (which we really should be calling the Kuwait War of 1990-91). Notable episodes include "Hitler's Secrets" which recounts that Stalin's "Great Purge" of the Red Army officer corps during 1936-38 happened because the Nazi Party intelligence service (the SD headed by Reinhard Heydrich) leaked information that implicated a high-ranking Soviet general (Tukhachevsky) in a fictitious plot to forcibly remove Stalin, and then Stalin went wild with rage. I have not seen this explanation for the Purge anywhere else! This is really outstanding scholarship if it holds up to professional scrutiny (the film series does not cite sources). Also in this SOW episode is a description of Germany's Operation North Pole (in German "Englandspiel" or "England Game") by the German military's intel service, the Abwehr. Its chief, Admiral Canaris, worked against Hitler and the Nazis throughout the war until 1944 (when he was arrested and later hanged). Probably most importantly, Canaris convinced Franco not to align Spain with the Axis, by averring that the Allies were destined to win in the end. Though the documentary fails to mention that Canaris had truck with Franco because he personally conferred with Franco and other Spanish fascists during their civil war in the 1930s. Another little-known scheme was Operation Christmas Tree (or Fir Tree) in which Hitler planned to attack neutral Switzerland, which he is said to have hated for bankrolling the Allies. Again, I have not seen this material anywhere else on DVD.Other little-known historical events in the series include the Iraqi "supergun" invented by Gerald Bull, the JStars ground surveillance radar aircraft first deployed during the Kuwait War, the supersecret RC-135 Rivet Joint elint jets, the Zimmerman telegram incident, and generally unappreciated details of Rommel's intelligence game in North Afrika. They even did an episode on Operation Just Cause, the removal of Noriega from power in Panama. Even the episodes having to do with prisoners of war were interesting, though I did not at first think they would be.About the only little-known historical event of importance I can think of that's absent in this series (if I recall correctly) is the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, which convinced the Japanese high command that they shouldn't try to invade Siberia for resources, and instead look to the South Pacific for the resources for their Co-Prosperity Sphere. So, I hope I have convinced you that you'll be really happy with this set if you appreciate the details of modern warfare that historians overlook.One last thing concerns the build quality of this set. Usually I stay away from these multidisk megasets because invariably not all of them will play correctly in my DVD player. I just want to say that though each disk has more than 4 hours of content, I have played all my disks over and over again for the past 3 years and not a single time did I experience a problem with the show freezing or skipping. Remarkable! The only bad thing here that I must report is that there are no subtitles. But that's not enough to deduct a star, though those who have difficulty hearing will feel otherwise. BTW this set includes the "Hitler" series of episodes ( Secrets of War - Shadows of The Reich  so don't bother with that. THIS is the one you want!

Dont't be scared about buy this series in Region-1. First you notice, the packaging is horrible (hard case but dvd,s comes in poor quality black paper sleeves but no inner tray at all) .The main thing is that you get the whole series and with a narrator who is surpringsily outstanding. Highly recommended.

Very Good Factual DataBase with wide coverage and independent-assessment; and all coming thru with a Really Good Price

As described. Very satisfied.

A thoroughly enjoyable collection. I am well satisfied with its presentation and general approach to showing us this selection harvested from a whole variety of sources.

Received with thanks