Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain In the spring of 1940, Holland, Belgium, and France fell to the juggernaut of Hitler's army. The Soviet Union was Germany's ally, and America stood on the sidelines. At this time of great peril it was Britain alone that faced the Nazi army, and a nation's darkest hour became its finest. Battle of the Bulge In mid-1944, it looked as if the war in Europe was coming to an end. Hitler was on the run and the Allies had triumphantly regained Paris, as well as Casablanca and Tripoli, Naples, and Rome. However, Hitler had one final card to play, and in December he struck back with a brutal counterattack. The Battle of the Bulge was the single biggest and bloodiest battle U.S. soldiers have ever fought, and it ultimately ended with a hard-won victory for the Allies. Iwo Jima: Red Blood, Black Sand The US campaign to take Iwo Jima -- a tiny island 660 miles from Tokyo, defended by 21,000 Japanese soldiers -- began on February 19, 1945. It was expected to last only a few days. Instead it raged for over a month and became the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history.