Blade Runner?

TWAW is the gold standard for not just WW2/war documentaries, but for documentaries across all genres and topics. Kinda like what The Beatles and Led Zeppelin are to music.

Gee it sounds just like the opening of "Yellowstone" Hmm..

First I heard this theme in the 2004-2009 during my High School years and boy this series is amazing and sometimes hard to watch particularly the Geneocide, but man it is an amazing theme to hear.

Reminds me of being at junior school…. 20 odd years ago

Re watched the series many times as a adult but what this music and those opening titles make me think of is me as a 80s kid ,days off school sick,lucozade, soup and the sofa with a blanket because that was when i saw my first episodes of the world at war

RiP Carl Davis

"The Battle of Britain was over. Now, it was Russia's turn".

Als ich den „Main Title“ im TV hörte, spukte mir die Musik andauernd im Kopf herum. Was für ein unglaubliches grossartiges Musikstück. Danke, Mr. Jerry Goldsmith für ihre Genialität…

My father was in the Navy during WWII and we used to watch this as a family. Neither the men nor the officers really knew why they were in a particular zone - he would exclaim ‘so that’s why we were there!’ (N Africa, Port Said, Hong Kong, Australia to name but a few). A food example of educational tv (and ITV to boot!)

Will this be the theme song for our near future??

There couldn't have been better music written for this series, still gives me shivers when I watch re-runs of The World at War. Thank you Carl Davis.

A memorable piece for sure.

RIP Carl Davis

R.I.P. Composer Carl Davis. Thank You for your body of work.

RIP Carl Davis

RIP Carl Davis, great composer

I watched this - with awe and reverence - with my family, who had lived through the War. The music brings me back to those days.

Coming from an American who has WWII veterans as close relatives (*now all passed, unfortunately) and is a major in History, let me tell you with full confidence that "The World at War" is the ONLY documentary on the Second World War truly worth watching. In fact, it's not hyperbole at all to say that it puts most other WWII documentaries (especially those puerile, overproduced modern ones) to pure and utter shame!

We watched every episode when I was growing up. Brilliant theme music. Still makes me shiver.

Always loved this music

Chilling

Stalin wanted the allies to hurry and open the western front. Imagine that now with Stalin killing millions of his own people.

That music sings of wonder, joy and freedom; what those first pilots must have felt. Goldsmith was a genius.

All to relevant at this time … as the world is once again at war

We're here again.. God help us..

I love this instrumental musical theme.

I wholeheartedly agree, what a stirring, emotive piece of music that really captures the profundity of WW2. It always brings tears to my eyes - an extraordinairy composition!

saw this movie when i was 12, peppard a german soldier in the trenches survives a fight in the blood and mud of the dugout and looks up to see a single plane, he dreams of being free of the trenches and this song comes on when he is flying alone escaping, gave me goose pimples then and now 55 years later

Those flying goggles George Peppard have are from ww2, should have a one piece glass.

Haunting melody

Autumn 1940, with the first year of World War 2 beginning to wind down and going on into 1941 a somewhat uneasy calm settled over most of Europe. Despite continuing with the bombings of London, and other population centers, those in the know were all too aware Hitler had ambitions in the East to create "Lebensraum." or living space for the German people. It was around this time he made plans for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile in the Pacific the island nation of Japan had rebuilt and modernised its navy, they had plans to build an empire of their own, their eventual targets would include the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Despite losing the Battle of Britain the Third Reich still dominated most of the continent, Churchill knew Britain was short on allies. With the war clouds darkening over the United States and Russia he saw an opportunity to at last build his Grand Alliance. Though in many ways the war was only just beginning, for it was in 1941 with the conflict widening that it would truly become the most destructive ever fought.

It makes you think of all the people that suffered.whatever you go through you will probably never go through what they went through.

Always puts me in mind of some of the most notable moments of the war: The Battle of Britain, the Holocaust, Stalingrad (Still the bloodiest battle in human history) and the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I hope there is never another war like it. This year we celebrated VE day with street parties when it should have been a time of quiet introspection and reflection on how it affected the people who fought and lived through it.

Perfect theme for a great and unique insight into war 2

This music is how I felt in my younger years when I first went to flight school in the army. I still fly, but as a civilian now. The love and freedom I feel when I fly remains in my heart still..........

my Gran used to cry at this music... I remember as a kid when the World at War was first broadcast. My mother (Born 1939) and my Gran (born 1917) would both watch it addictively. My mother was a war child, and was evacuated, so was only 5 at the end of the war. My Gran however was a 22 year old wife with twins. Her husband Alexander was in the war with the Royal Engineers. He fought all over the middle east, Egypt, Italy and Malta. He died of TB in 1947 just two years after the war. . . he was 31. My Gran raised the girls alone. I remember the tears on her face at the end of most episodes of the World at War. This music takes me back to when I was a young boy, possibly 10 years old...

Gave me the creeps as a child. Also something to note the song ' Diary of a Madman' Ozzy Osbourne was inspired by this theme tune , the guitarist Randy Rhoads was a student of classical guitar saw it on British Tv during 1979-81 when he recorded Ozzy's first two solo albums.

A favourite piece of music for me touching and haunting....x

Superb spine tingling

I imagine this song playing in the background in 20 years when the last veteran falls silent. Forever into history, a generation of hero’s that will walk this earth no more but will live on in the memories and stories of those who knew them.

Reminds me of Indiana Jones

Haunting melody

LOVE THIS MUSIC WHEN I CAN NOT BE FLYING! PERFECTION!

NOTHING CAN COMPARE TO THE JOY OF ACTUALLY FLYING IN A SMALL CRAFT!!!!! DAMN IT I HAVE AN ASTIGMATISM AND COULD NOT GET MY PILOTS LICENSE! IT WOULD BE MY HOBBY.

I have the documentary on DVD and its' great.

Sensational!

The Second World War... changed... forever... the History of the human race

I just noticed that this song also plays in The Godfather. It's the scene where Michael prevents the second attempt on his dad in the hospital.