Saying that The Liberator is animated isn’t completely true; it was shot in live action and then animated using a method called Trioscope Enhanced Hybrid Animation. It was the only way to create the epic battle scenes on the long-gestating series, based on a book by Alex Kershaw. With Mike Rowe narrating, we see a map of the path The Thunderbirds, a diverse platoon that went on a 500-day march in the latter part of World War II to help liberate Nazi-occupied Europe. We open in Italy in September 1943, near the beginning of the Thunderbirds’ march across Europe. Captain Felix Sparks (Bradley James) is with his platoon, led slowly through the fog by his sergeant, Samuel Coldfoot (Martin Sensmeier). The platoon gets trapped by a barrage of tank fire from the Germans, and they retreat back to a farmhouse after about half-dozen soldiers are either killed or captured. There, the platoon finds a boy hiding from the Germans. Corporal Able Gomez (Jose Miguel Vasquez) translates in broken Italian because their translator, Joe Spigliani (Luca Varsalona) has been captured. Sparks makes sure to tell the boy that this squad, a group of proud Americans that have a long history of defending their territories, will not let anything happen to them.

– Compilation