112 - Four Hours of Fury: Operation Varsity
On the 24th of March 1945, 75 years ago this year, the largest ever airborne operation swung into action. Operation Varsity involved over 16,000 paratroopers and thousands of planes, the objective was...
15 Mars 202051min
111 - An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge
"Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and...
1 Mars 202047min
110 - The P-47 Thunderbolt and 362nd Fighter Group
In this episode we're going to be looking at the P-47 Thunderbolt and the US 362nd Fighter Group. The P-47 was a fighter bomber and very much suited to a ground attack role, with it's eight .50 cal ma...
15 Feb 202038min
109 - The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
At the end of last year aviation historian Mathew Chapman sent me over his MA thesis, which is titled The Evolution of Professional Aviation Culture in Canada, 1939-45. In it he outlines the developme...
1 Feb 202042min
108 - The Battle for Hong Kong, 1941
We're all familiar with the events on that day of 'infamy', the 7th December 1941. The Japanese launch their typhoon in the pacific with the attack on Pearl Harbour. Hours later they would invade Mala...
15 Jan 202055min
107 - The Battle of the Peaks and Long Stop Hill
We're in North Africa for this episode of the podcast. In late 1942 the Allies landed in Morocco and Algeria, this was operation Torch. With them landed elements of what would become First Army, compr...
1 Jan 202057min
106 - Operation Swallow
In this episode we're starting with the US 110th Infantry regiment in the Ardennes and following a small number of GI's who became POW and sent back to Germany, to ultimately work as slave labour on '...
15 Dec 201944min
105 - Case White: The Invasion of Poland, 1939
2019 marked the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by Germany and then a few weeks later, Russia. It was the event that forced Britain and France to finally declare war on Germany. In a five w...
1 Dec 201951min
