Jungle War

The series begins in the Second World War, in jungles of the Pacific. As Japan shocks the world with the speed of its advance, the Allies scramble to halt what seems to be an unstoppable force. Amidst it all, the men on the ground struggle with another far more formidable opponent – the jungle itself. They endure energy sapping heat, diseases and starvation.

By the end of 1942 the tide of the war in the Pacific is turning. Guadalcanal and the island hopping campaigns shift the balance as the Allies advance toward victory over Japan. We explore the aftershocks of the Second World War as new leaders applied jungle warfare tactics to new struggles for independence in the Malayan Emergency and the First Indochina War.

Episode Three begins with Konfrontasi - a conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia which centres on fighting in the jungles of Borneo. We then turn to what was arguably the most televised jungle war in history, the Second Indochina War, known in Vietnam as the American War. A war in which the US sought to stand as the ‘guardians at the gate’ against the spread of communism in South East Asia.

In this episode we explore the final years of the war in Vietnam, which saw the United States and her Allies confront the realities of loss and withdrawal from a jungle war. The series concludes with the revolutions that began in the jungles of Cuba and Colombia and changed the course of both nations’ history.