April to June 1945: Focus shifts to the Pacific theater, where the Battle of Okinawa is underway. As America considers an invasion of Japan, efforts to build the atomic bomb are reaching climatic stages.

Hosts Kirk Saduski and Donald Miller speak with historian Richard Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire.

Academy Award nominee Gary Sinise reads an excerpt from American war correspondent Ernie Pyle.

April 1945: Western Allies and Soviets are closing-in on Nazi Germany from both sides. The deaths of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler occur within weeks of each other. Harry S. Truman becomes President of the United States, as American generals and journalists witness the horrors of the concentration camps.

Guests include historian John McManus, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and historian Rebecca Erbelding.

Academy Award nominee Patricia Clarkson reads an excerpt from Paris After the Liberation: 1944-1949.

January to March 1945: In a period marked by intense military campaigns and high-stakes diplomatic efforts, significant questions emerge over how World War II will end.

Hosts Kirk Saduski and Donald Miller speak with historian Richard Frank, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and historian Rebecca Erbelding.

Academy Award nominee Gary Sinise reads an excerpt from With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge.