The WW2 Podcast

Few wives of prominent men are more than a footnote in many histories, but they were often central to their husbands' lives. The classic well-known example is the relationship between the wartime Brit...

10 Aug 20231h 1min

If you cast your memory back to episode 157, Kevin Hymel joined me. We discussed General Patton from the campaigns in Mediteranean in 1942 to just before his activation as commander of third army in 1...

1 Aug 202347min

In episode 144, I chatted to Andrew Sangster about Alanbrooke. Earlier this year, I noticed Andrew had a new book, Flawed Commanders and Strategy in the Battle for Italy, 1943-45. With his co-author ...

15 Jul 202337min

Fought between 8 March and 18 July 1944, the battles of Imphal and Kohima were the turning point of one of the most gruelling campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). The decisive Japanese defeat ...

1 Jul 20231h 11min

In public life, Canadian Dr Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi ...

15 Jun 202357min

With the Second World War slipping from living memory, the University of Oxford has launched Their Finest Hour. The project aims to empower local communities to digitally preserve these stories and ob...

7 Jun 202352min

The battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of WWII, it consisted of four separate actions near the Philippines between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese plan was to d...

1 Jun 20231h 5min

As attacks on London by the Luftwaffe became a reality in the summer of 1940, Londoners needed somewhere to shelter from the air raids. And so during the Blitz and through to the end of the war, deep-...

15 Mai 202359min