Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
6 Episodes 2014 - 2014
Episode 1
The Dieppe assault of 19 August 1942 is the worst day in Canadian military history. In just 8 hours, 907 Canadians were killed and nearly 2,000 taken prisoner of war; Dieppe Survived is the story of their trials. In 1942, the Allies resolved to test the vaunted Atlantic Wall imprisoning occupied Europe. Both the Americans and Soviets desired a second front as soon as possible and Canadian troops wanted action. The result: an audacious amphibious raid on Dieppe, a Norman port along the English Channel coast. Although Dieppe was strongly garrisoned, a frontal assault with minimal preliminary bombardment supposedly ensured surprise and augured success for the attackers, mainly from the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. The Germans, using a network of pre-sited machine guns, mortars, and artillery covering the main landing beaches at Dieppe, Puys, and Pourville, pinned down those attackers who were not killed outright. For most of the survivors, including five of the six Canadian veterans featured in this episode, nearly three years of incarceration in German prison camps followed. The attack helped the Allies conduct better amphibious assaults, but at tremendous cost. The 2nd Canadian Infantry Division returned to triumphantly liberate the city on 1 September 1944, 70 years ago, forever cementing the bond between Canada and Dieppe.
Episode 2
The Canadian stand against the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend immediately after D-Day was crucial to the success of the Normandy Campaign. On the morning of 7 June 1944, the Canadians had made the furthest penetration inland from the landing beaches, but fresh Nazi armoured troops determined to throw the "little fish" back into the sea. Events initially went the Germans' way. The British failed to keep pace with the Canadian advance and the 12th SS, zealous Hitler Youth commanded by Eastern Front veterans, repulsed the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade in the early hours of D+1. Concurrently, the 7th Canadian Infantry Brigade established a "fortress" in the villages of Putot-en-Bessin, Bretteville-l'Orgueilleuse, and Norrey-en-Bessin, astride the highway and railway lines between Bayeux and Caen. From 7-11 June, in a serious of vicious close quarters battles - and the subsequent murder of 158 Canadian prisoners of war by the 12th SS - the Canadians cut apart the Nazis and held the line. If the 12th SS had broken through, German tanks would have been able to directly assault the Anglo-Canadian beachhead. The Canadian stand allowed the Allies to switch to the offensive and truly begin the liberation of Europe. In D-Day Plus One, Canadian veterans, a veteran of the 12th SS, and a French civilian revisit the desperate summer of 70 years ago.
Episode 3
From D-Day, 6 June 1944, Tactical Air Force fighter-bombers played a pivotal role in Allied battlefield success. Through the initial fraught days of the Normandy bridgehead, the titanic struggle to close the Falaise Gap, the muddy polders of the Scheldt Estuary, and the final euphoric liberation of the Netherlands, Canadian soldiers in need of aerial support knew they could always "whistle for a Tiffy". Canadian pilots served with distinction in both the RCAF and multinational RAF squadrons of the renowned 2nd Tactical Air Force. Buttressed by an infectious joy of flying and incredible camaraderie, the Tactical Air Force took full advantage of their hard-won aerial superiority in Normandy and Northwest Europe. Whistle for a Tiffy takes viewers through the thrills and the consequences of a tactical strike sortie. As soon as the army located a target, Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers - along with Supermarine Spitfires and other aircraft converted to ground support roles - dive-bombed, rocketed, and strafed German tanks, transport, and troop concentrations. Through emotional interview testimony and exceptional high-definition gun camera footage, four Canadian fighter pilots share their experiences of diving through curtains of anti-aircraft fire, striking German targets at low-level, abruptly pulling out - with the g-force accelerating fast enough to prompt blackouts - and returning to makeshift steel mesh runways in farmer's fields. The young men on both sides suffered heavy casualties. The Germans lost tens of thousands of troops and vehicles to Typhoons, while Fighter Command endured 2,500 losses in the final 16 months of the war, including 151 Typhoon pilots killed in Normandy alone. The memories of these events - and their accompanying losses - are particularly poignant on this, the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Campaign.
Episode 4
From 12-22 August 1944, the Canadian army played the pivotal role in closing the Falaise Gap and ensuring Allied victory in the Normandy Campaign. The battle destroyed the bulk of the German forces in Normandy - 60,000 troops - and their vehicles. Controversy over why it took so long to close the Gap, and why so many Germans still escaped to fight another day, has raged ever since. The Anglo-Canadian liberation of the ruined city of Caen on 20 July 1944 and the American Cobra offensive that followed finally definitively broke the Normandy stalemate. Presented with a chance to envelop the German army, the Canadians, using innovations like tactical heavy bombers and armoured personnel carriers, drove south from Caen against determined opposition. The fiercest fighting occurred on 19-21 August between the villages of Trun and Chambois, with every major German escape route in that less than 10 kilometre corridor of death. Canadian and Polish units struggled to contain desperate German soldiers at St. Lambert-sur-Dives, directly between Trun and Chambois, and Mont Ormel, finally closing the Falaise Gap on the morning of 22 August. The closing of the Gap was a great victory - especially as Paris was liberated on 25 August and the hot pursuit of the remaining German forces began - but it was not as decisive as the Allies desired, as the Leopold Canal and the Scheldt Campaign would demonstrate.
Episode 5
With the German retreat from the Falaise Gap at the end of August 1944, the Belgian and Dutch populations anticipated their long-awaited liberation, but the German occupation proved persistent. First Canadian Army reached the far western Netherlands in early October, following the hand-to-hand fighting to cross the Leopold Canal. The Allies, still being supplied from the Normandy bridgehead, desperately needed a large port. The British liberated Antwerp on 4 September, but the enormous deep-water port could only be accessed via the Scheldt Estuary, the perfect place for the Germans to make a stand. Hitler ordered the 15th German Army to hold the Scheldt at all costs. To do so, the Germans created two fortress positions. Each fortress was held by a full division, supplemented by paratroop units, dug-in with extensive ammunition reserves, protected by water obstacles, and armed with coastal guns. The Germans further consolidated their Scheldt defensive positions while the British and Americans focused on Operation Market Garden, fought from 17-25 September; thus 90,000 German defenders faced just 60,000 Allied attackers. From 2 October to 8 November, the Canadians, and multinational formations under their command, fought a vicious, waterlogged campaign to clear the Scheldt and open Antwerp. The Germans used flooding to force the Canadians into amphibious assaults and disastrous attacks over narrow causeways and wide-open ground. The Allies suffered 12,873 fatalities, including 6,367 Canadians, in the fighting. While nearly half of the German defenders, over 50,000 men, were killed or captured, the campaign was criticized for its slow pace. The first Allied vessel entered Antwerp on 29 November 1944, but the liberation of the Netherlands awaited the new year.
Episode 6
In April and May 1945, the long-suffering Dutch people enthusiastically welcomed their Canadian liberators, establishing an intense connection that has sustained for 70 years. Following victory in the Scheldt Campaign, the First Canadian Army spent November 1944 to February 1945 holding the Nijmegen salient. Throughout, the largest Dutch cities remained under Nazi control, as the Allies, apprehensive of friendly civilian casualties, instead attacked Germany directly. The Dutch would have preferred a more robust strategy. In response to a national railway strike in September 1944, the Nazis shut off millions of urban Dutch from the farms that supplied their food, leading to the Hongerwinter (Hunger Winter). The famine killed over 20,000 people and reduced hundreds of thousands to subsisting on vermin, refuse, and tulip bulbs. After the successes of the Rhineland Campaign in February-March, First Canadian Army - reinforced by the arrival of 1st Canadian Division and 5th Canadian Armoured Division from Italy - re-entered the Netherlands in early April and finally liberated the country. It was a difficult, emotional experience. The Canadians knew the war would soon end and no one wanted to be killed, much as they wished to help the Dutch. During the liberation of Arnhem, Apeldoorn, Groningen, and other centres, resistance from the SS and Dutch collaborators - despite the courageous efforts of the Dutch Resistance, the Netherlands was sharply divided - never slackened and over 100 Canadians were killed from 1 to 5 May, when the Germans finally capitulated.