War Factories
War Factories is a TV show on Yesterday. The untold secret story of war production that shaped the Second World War. The program has been available since 2025. A total of 14 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in June 2025.
Last episode
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1:00:00War Factories
Hiram Maxim developed the world's first fully automatic machine gun, but it weighed a whopping 136 lbs - until British company Vickers adapted the design.
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1:00:00The story of the GM Opel Blitz and the American-owned war factories that would produce them, putting business before country.
1:00:00The Story of how car designer Ferdinand Porsche became one of the most influential engineers in all Nazi Germany.
1:00:00The story of how Skoda's Czech factory became the cover for espionage, sabotage and the liberation of Jews from all over Europe in the 1930's.
1:00:00The story of the rise of the aircraft carrier and how it changed the tactics of sea warfare.
1:00:00The Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Lancaster and Wellington Bombers, and the P51 Mustang were all powered by the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.
Series 2
1:00:00
1:00:00The First World War led to a number of astounding war factories, which laid the foundations and paved the way for modern factories of today.
1:00:00Long before Henry Ford, Samuel Colt is the true father of mass production. Ironically, it was the inadequacy of Soviet factory production which made the AK47 so effective.
1:00:00How the Lancaster factory, one of the biggest buildings in Europe at the time, helped to create a truly war-winning weapon.
1:00:00Japan would create arguably the greatest fighter in WW2 - the Mitsubishi Zero. But their failed War Factories would ultimately reduce the Zero to a Kamikaze plane.
1:00:00The incredible story of the arms race to create America's nuclear arms factories.
1:00:00While America had Ford or Chrysler or Buick, Hitler also wanted a car that would transform his nation: the 'people's car'- a Volkswagen.
1:00:00Find out how Fiat didn't just make cars: they made trains, they made planes, and like modern-day kingmakers, they made and broke governments too.
1:00:00The story of the discovery and exploitation of the Baku Oilfields in the Russian Caucasus, which forced Stalin and Hitler to face-off in the battle of Stalingrad.