Characters

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

Britain's wartime Prime Minister and the man most responsible for keeping the Allied cause alive in its darkest hour. When France fell and pressure mounted for a negotiated peace, Churchill's absolute refusal — backed by his extraordinary oratory — held Britain firm. He built the coalition with Roosevelt and Stalin that won the war.

"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked."

The architect of Allied victory. Roosevelt led the United States from quasi-neutrality through Lend-Lease and into full belligerence after Pearl Harbor. He managed the extraordinary industrial mobilization that outproduced all other combatants combined. He died just weeks before Germany's surrender, never seeing the victory he had done so much to achieve.

"I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker."

The man who caused the war. A failed artist who became the most destructive political leader in history, Hitler combined genuine political talent, strategic recklessness, and murderous racial ideology. His early gambles paid off — convincing him of his own genius. His invasion of the Soviet Union and declaration of war on the US created the alliance that crushed him.

"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

The supreme coalition commander who held the fractious Allied alliance together. Eisenhower had never commanded troops in combat before WWII, but proved a brilliant organizer, coalition manager, and strategic planner. His management of prima donna generals like Patton, Montgomery, and de Gaulle while keeping the alliance focused on the common objective was an extraordinary achievement.

"You will not find it difficult to prove that battles, campaigns, and even wars have been won or lost primarily because of logistics."

The greatest Allied battlefield commander of the war. Zhukov halted the Germans before Moscow in 1941, planned the Stalingrad encirclement, orchestrated the Soviet defense at Kursk, and personally commanded the final assault on Berlin. Stalin feared and relied on him simultaneously.

"In the absence of orders, find something and kill it."

The 'Desert Fox' — the only German general genuinely admired by his enemies. Rommel led the Afrika Korps with audacity and brilliance, advancing further on worse logistics than seemed possible. His defeats at El Alamein ended his African campaign. He commanded the Atlantic Wall before D-Day. Later implicated in the July 20th plot against Hitler, he was forced to commit suicide.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

America's most aggressive and controversial battlefield commander. Patton's Third Army swept across France in 1944 at a pace that astonished Eisenhower. He relieved the siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He was also slapped a soldier he accused of cowardice, nearly ending his career, and had to be muzzled repeatedly by Eisenhower.

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

The architect of Pearl Harbor — and the man who most clearly understood it was a fatal mistake. Yamamoto had studied at Harvard and served as naval attaché in Washington; he knew American industrial capacity would eventually crush Japan. He planned Pearl Harbor as a lightning strike to buy time for a negotiated peace. He was killed when American codebreakers intercepted his flight itinerary.

"Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: do not march on Moscow."

The victor of El Alamein — Britain's first major land victory of the war — and the ground commander for D-Day. Meticulous and cautious by nature, Montgomery infuriated American commanders with his deliberate pace and enormous ego. His Market Garden plan was a bold gamble that failed. Yet he commanded the most complex coalition military operation in history at Normandy.

"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."

Stalin's prewar purge of the Red Army's officer corps contributed to the catastrophic early defeats of Barbarossa. Yet the Soviet Union under his brutal direction fought back, mobilized its enormous resources, and ultimately crushed Germany. 27 million Soviet citizens died. Stalin's postwar territorial demands created the Iron Curtain and set the terms of the Cold War.