An epic documentary series about
naval warfare during
World War 2. Told from the allied perspective through 26 half-hour episodes.
Funded by NBC and RCA (who owned NBC at the time), the series was aired every Sunday afternoon from October, 1952 through May, 1953. The series covered all of the major naval battles of the war and used archival footage taken by the navies themselves. Over 60 million feet of film was compiled by the production crew, lead by Henry Solomon. The footage was edited down to 61,000 feet of film and carefuly pieced together in order to add as much drama to the battles as possible.
Narrated by Leonard Graves, the series is today noted as much for the quality of the historical material as it is for its tremendous musical score, which was composed by Richard Rogers of Rogers and Hammerstein fame. The score was marketed by RCA and sold over 4 million copies. Pieces of the score can often be heard being performed in concert today.