World War II was the single most destructive conflict in world history, fought from the icy seas of the North Atlantic to the deserts of North Africa and the jungles of the Far East. I saw German bombers fly up the Thames to set London0s Docklands ablaze and US Marines ensure the grimmest of battles to seize tiny specks in the Pacific Ocean from their fanatical Japanese defenders.

This spectacular pictorial record of the years 1939 to 1945, and its accompanying text, cover all the principal theatres of war and many of its most significant themes: the roles of strategic bombing and propaganda, the part played by women in the war effort, the characters of the warlords Hitler, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, and the unfolding tragedy of the Holocaust.