"Director: Tim Saunders"

• Special Forces: Bletchley Park and the Ultra Secret | DVD | (30/05/2014) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

• The Waterloo Collection DVD Part 4 | DVD | (14/11/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The climax of the battle is covered in the fourth and final disc in the series, with programmes on the final attack and defeat of the Imperial Guard and the Pursuit by the Prussians in the immediate aftermath of the battle to Genappe. The final programme in the collection covers the last battle of the Napoleonic era fought at Wavre, the day after Waterloo and the Allied pursuit to Paris. This disc also contains programmes that detail the clothing and equipment of a Highlander and a soldier of the 95th Rifles.

• The Waterloo Collection DVD Part 3 | DVD | (29/08/2011) from £35.99   |  Saving you £-20.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This series of documentaries is a major project that will chart the entire 1815 Waterloo Campaign in detail from Napoleon s return to France through the various battles and engagements to the pursuit to Paris and Napoleon s final abdication. The whole suite will total over five hours of programmes. Each of the four disks will contain three separate programmes that concentrates on aspects of the campaign or phases of the great battle itself. Each programme is filmed on the ground where the particular phase of battle was fought making this a unique project that fuses tactics and ground in a readily understood way with re-enactment and lavish use of both maps and diagrams.Vignettes provided by living historians illustrate the life of the Napoleonic soldier, along with his weapons and tactics. The period from mid afternoon until early evening on that terrible Sunday was the time, as Wellington described it, of hard pounding. The three programmes on this disc cover the Massed French Cavalry Attacks led by Marshal Ney, the battle fought by the Kings German Legion and the 95th Rifles to hold La Haie Sainte and the adjacent sand pit. The Prussian march to Plancenoit and the bloody battle fought in and around the village is the subject of the third programme.

• Market Garden Collection - Arnhem Part 1 | DVD | (02/04/2012) from £12.16   |  Saving you £4.83 (39.72%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The Battle of Arnhem, fought in the early autumn of 1944, remains without a doubt the most hotly debated battle of the North West European Campaign, both then and now. From its inception in the sixteen cancelled airborne operations during August, we will chart the problems, many of which were ignored by men desperate to get into battle, the compromises and mistakes that pitched lightly armed and ill equipped paratroopers and glider infantry into an unequal struggle against an SS panzer troops. We follow the eight mile route that 2 Para took to reach the bridge at Arnhem, slipping through the German defences.

• Assault on Normandy: Sword Beach | DVD | (20/10/2011) from £12.67   |  Saving you £3.32 (26.20%)   |  RRP £15.99

  In 1940 3rd Division, then commanded by a little known major, General Bernard Montgomery, were unceremoniously evacuated from Dunkirk but four long years later they were to return to France in the van of the D Day assault force; the greatest invasion of all time. Their task was to break through Hitler's Atlantic Wall on a stretch of Normandy beach codenamed SWORD. With the assistance of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force they would blast their way through the concrete and steel defences that lined the beach. Once ashore their problems were only just beginning!

• The Germans in Normandy - 12th Hitlerjugend | DVD | (17/11/2011) from £10.74   |  Saving you £6.25 (58.19%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The most implacable opponents of the British and Canadians fighting in Normandy were the largely teenage soldiers of the Hitlerjugend. From D+1 through to attacking back into the Falaise Pocket, this unique division constantly thwarted Montgomery's plans and exacted a terrible price on the Allies for every mile gained. Formed from 'volunteers' (many weren't) from the Hitler Youth Movement in the aftermath of Stalingrad, this division of boys aged 17 on recruitment into the SS, came of age and were declared fully operational just before D Day. Coming from a highly militarised society they made exceptional and highly committed soldiers but with officers and non-commissioned officers from the Leibstandarte commanding them, they were inculcated with Nazi brutality and the standards of the Eastern Front from the outset.

• Wittmann vs Ekins - The Death of a Panzer Ace | DVD | (01/05/2010) from £18.63   |  Saving you £4.35 (27.81%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The story of two men destined to face each other on the battlefields of Normandy is told in this programme. Michael Wittmann was a knight of the Nazi empire a natural and accomplished soldier and highly decorated. Like Wittmann Trooper Joe Ekins a shoemaker from Northamptonshire was a volunteer for military service but there the similarities ended. Joe was a reluctant soldier in a county yeomanry armoured regiment while Wittmann served in the Waffen SS s elite Tiger Battalion. Panzer ace Wittmann had 138 tank kills to his name including an impressive score against 7th Armoured Division at Villers Bocage early in the Normandy Campaign but by August 1944 the Allied breakout was gaining momentum and I SS Panzer Corps were struggling to contain the British and Canadians as they fought towards Falaise. In the fields south of Caen Wittmann s Tiger and Joe Ekins s Sherman Firefly were pitted against each other but how was the Panzer Ace finally knocked out? Joe Ekins Veteran of the Battle of Normandy and the North West European Campaign Joe Ekins fought with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry and during Operation Totalise the British and Canadian breakout from the Normandy Beachhead he was a gunner in a Sherman Firefly. This was the only Allied tank that could knock out the much feared mighty German Tiger tank at anything other than the closest of ranges. During the desperate battle he knocked out three Tigers and a Panzer Mark IV. At the end of the war preferring the anonymity of being a shoemaker in civi-street Joe attempted to keep a low profile but over the years his achievement of knocking out the vaunted German SS panzer ace Michael Wittmann denied him obscurity. Stung by some wilful misrepresentation of facts and his views Joe has for the first time told his story for this DVD in full and in detail.

• The Germans in Normandy - 1st Leibstandarte: Adolf Hitler SS Panzer Division | DVD | (19/07/2012) from £13.71   |  Saving you £3.28 (23.92%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Possibly the most famous of Hitler s SS panzer divisions was the Leibstandarte; it bore his name and shared his fanaticism. The Leibstandarte had proved itself to be highly effective in battle and had fought in virtually all of Germany s campaigns since 1939 justifiably earning the label elite . However constantly called back to the front to stem the advance of the Red Army on the Eastern Front the division was much reduced in power through loss of manpower and a paucity of equipment. In the spring of 1944 the Leibstandarte was again refitting in Belgium a process that was still under way when the Allies stormed ashore in Normandy. The effectiveness of Allied deception measures however kept them fixed awaiting the landing of Patton s phantom army in the Pas de Calais area. Consequently it wasn t until the second half of June 44 that the Division began its nightmare march to Normandy harried all the way by fighter bombers. Arriving at the front elements of the division were thrown into the battle piecemeal to prop up the crumbling German Army as Montgomery launched blow after blow on them. The Leibstandarte s first battle was to choke off Operation Epsom fighting the Scots and the West Countrymen of the Wessex Division in the dense hedgerow country of the Odon Valley. But perhaps their greatest achievement was halting the Great British armoured advance Operation Goodwood; a battle that has been characterised as The death ride of the British armoured divisions . As the Allied breakout gained momentum on the US flank Hitler ordered the Mortain Counter Attack against the advice of his Generals and the Leibstandarte marched west to cut the vulnerable American advance. Under cover of mist the battle started well for the Germans and desperate fighting with isolated GIs resulted but as the weather cleared the fighter bombers lashed the panzers who were forced back. The exhausted German Army fought its way back towards Falaise and seeming destruction by the encircling Allies. Forcing their way through the Corridor of Death a much higher proportion of the Leibstandarte escaped and the Division lived to fight another day. Production notes: The elite Leibstandarte is the subject of considerable fascination and study. This film written and presented by established historians and battlefield tour guides will strip away layers of myth and take the viewers to the places where the SS fought the British Americans and Canadians in one of the most costly battles of the Second World War.

• The Waterloo Collection DVD Part 2 | DVD | (15/08/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Hougoumont & D'Erlon's Attack is the second part in the explosive four part series, The Waterloo Collection, which covers the entire Waterloo Campaign from Napoleon's return to France and ensuing battles to his final pursuit and eventual surrender to the British. Following on from Ligny and Quatre Bras, Part II starts by focusing on the concentration of the Allies on the ridge of Mont St Jean and the plans of the opposing armies. While the guns of the Grand Battery thundered in the centre, French columns bore down on the Hougoumont chateau and farm complex, which protected Wellington's flank held by the Guards and their German allies. Thus began an epic 'battle within a battle' that sucked away valuable troops from Napoleon's main attack, causing Wellington to declare that 'the battle turned on the closing of the gates at Hougoumont'.

• Arnhem: Battle of the Woods - Market Garden Collection | DVD | (31/08/2012) from £19.76   |  Saving you £-2.77 (-16.30%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Jumping in to Drop Zones eight to ten miles from Arnhem on the second day of Operation Market Garden was always going to be difficult for Brigadier Shan Hackett's 4th British Parachute Brigade. With little information on how 1 Para Brigade's battle went the day before or what faced them on the ground the stage was set for an epic battle. Author John Waddy, veteran company commander in 156 Para Battalion and a team of some of the best Arnhem experts take the viewer to the ground where 4 Para Brigade tangled with the SS troopers of the Hohenstaufen Panzer Division in the woods to the west of Arnhem in what was to be an unequal but heroic battle; the result of a flawed concept and plan.

• The Dark Ages: The 1066 Hastings Campaign | DVD | (20/10/2011) from £9.98   |  Saving you £6.01 (60.22%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Battle of Hastings in 1066 is with out a doubt one of the most significant events in English history. In the aftermath of the battle, King Harold's Saxon England was brutally swept away by the Conqueror to be replaced by Norman Feudalism. With the decisive nature of the battle, it is often forgotten just how narrowly Duke William succeeded. This DVD identifies and examines those turning points in the 1066 Campaign and explains why Harold lost. Not only is Hastings covered in detail but also the first battle of the campaign against Harold Hardrarder's victorious Vikings at Fulford, Williams landing at Pevensy, along with Harold's march north to victory over the Vikings at Stamford Bridge.

• Market Garden Collection - Hell's Highway | DVD | (21/06/2012) from £20.85   |  Saving you £-3.86 (-22.70%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Montgomery’s brainchild, Operation Market Garden, was designed to end the war by Christmas 1944 and clear away Hitler’s V weapons from the North Sea Coast. Following the collapse of the German Army in Normandy and its flight back across northern France, it seemed that a bold move to seize the three major and numerous other waterways across Holland would place the Second British Army beyond the Rhine. This would deliver Germany’s powerhouse the Ruhr, put the Allies on the North German Plain and the road to Berlin. The Allies had, however, outran their supplies and the Germans were staging an amazing strategic recovery. The BHTV team, made up of leading historians and battlefield guides, probe the controversial background to Operation Market Garden. Early afternoon on 17 September 1944 the 101st US Airborne Division (Screaming Eagles), who parachuted onto Drop Zones dictated by the air planners wish to avoid ‘unnecessary casualties from flak’ around Eindhoven, had been denied a coup de main against the first significant canal bridge at Son. With plenty of warning of the approach of the US paratroopers, the Germans blew the bridge arguably dealing Market Garden a potentially mortal blow. Meanwhile, XXX Corps were having trouble of their own after a start at 1430 hours. A mixture of SS and Fallschirmjger troops despite a bombardment halted the breakout of the Guards Armoured Division in its tracks! However, by nightfall the Irish Guards were through the German defences and had reached Valkensward 10 miles along the 60 mile route to Arnhem. The delay in reaching and bridging the canal at Son was significant but German resistance was hardening as troops were rushed to attack the airborne carpet and single route the British intended to use across Holland. With the bridging operation complete the Grenadier Guards Group covered the next 30 miles to Nijmegen in little over three hour. Market Garden looked as if it were back on schedule despite the setbacks and Arnhem was only ten miles further on. It was one thing to reach Nijmegen in forty hours but for the American Paratroopers holding the route open proved to be a different matter! The road north across Holland quickly earned the well deserved nick name ‘Hell’s Highway’. The paratroopers had to constantly fend of the growing number of enemy troops who were mounting increasingly strong attacks from east and west. Lacking numbers on the ground and transport it was an unequal battle to keep the road open. The Germans only had to get within firing range of the road elevated across the surrounding flat terrain to effectively close the vital highway and starve the troops fighting to reach Arnhem of all kinds of combat supplies. The team will examine successes and failures on Hell’s Highway to find out whether the reasons for failure can be found on here or was it soldiers of two nations fighting alongside each other to execute a fatally flawed plan?

• Le Cateau | DVD | (30/05/2014) from £11.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (29.40%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Having temporarily checked the Germans at Mons the BEF had no alternative but to withdraw as they were outnumbered by the enemy and Lanrezac's Fifth French Army was falling back. The Germans however were soon in hot pursuit sensing the BEF were at their mercy. In a series of rear guard actions the BEF managed to hold – just. Despite Field Marshal French's instructions General Smith-Dorrien knew that he had to turn and fight on the open chalk hills above the town of Le Cateau. Here II Corps stood as the German pressure mounted and a desperate battle resulted as more and more German troops came into action; men fell guns were lost and saved but again the BEF were able to escape. The retreat now began in earnest and repeated torturous marches followed with little food and rest testing even the sternest of constitutions; blisters burst and blood oozed from the boot. The Germans found the march equally challenging and at Nery once again the British Cavalry turned on the enemy and checked them. The retreat continued ever closer to Paris. Little did the Allies know that the German Schlieffen Plan was unraveling … The BHTV team again take the viewers to the heart of the action to examine weapons tactics and raw heroism as they tell the story. Illustrated with maps and location scenes they make this most complicated of British battles easily understandable.