

Season 1
Six years in the making, this epic 15-hour film focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns - Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minnesota. The four communities stand in for - and could represent - any town in the United States that went through the war's four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite often harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come.
Cast & Crew

Keith David
Narrator (voice)

Samuel L. Jackson
Narrator (voice)

Tom Hanks
Narrator / Al McIntosh (voice)

Josh Lucas
Narrator (voice)

Bobby Cannavale
Narrator / Babe Ciarlo (voice)

Eli Wallach
Narrator (voice)
Robert Wahlberg
Narrator / James A. Fahey (voice)

Adam Arkin
Reader (voice)

Carolyn McCormick
Reader (voice)
Paul Fussell
Self
Quentin Aanenson
Self
Sascha Weinzheimer
Self
Katharine Phillips
Self
Olga Ciarlo
Self
Robert Kashiwagi
Self
Anne DeVico
Self
Joe Medicine Crow
Self
Sam Hynes
Self - Marine Pilot

Ken Burns
-

Lynn Novick
-
Episode Guide
December 1941 - December 1942: The tranquil lives of the citizens of Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota are shattered on December 7, 1941, as they, along with the rest of America, are thrust into the greatest cataclysm in history.