Special Forces In World War 2 Podcast

Part 5 of our Operation Market Garden series follows the units already on the ground at Arnhem through Monday, September 18th, 1944, from midnight until midnight. At the northern end of the road bridge, Lieutenant-Colonel John Frost holds on with a mixed force of paratroopers, sappers, anti-tank gunners and glider pilots. Around them, SS-Sturmbannführer Ludwig Spindler builds a blocking line acros...

It has no engine. It is built almost entirely of wood, by furniture makers. It carries 25 soldiers, or a jeep, or a gun, into the dark behind enemy lines. The Airspeed Horsa is Britain’s main assault glider of the Second World War. In this episode, Michael Weyers follows it from the first British reaction to Eben Emael in 1940, through the specification, the design team and the first flight, to th...

The first lift is down. The bridge is eleven kilometres away. And the clock is already running. This episode covers the afternoon and evening of Sunday, September 17th, 1944, as the British 1st Airborne Division sets out for the road bridge at Arnhem. Major Freddie Gough's Reconnaissance Squadron is to get there first, by Jeep, and hold the bridge until the infantry arrive. Instead, his lead v...

Version 1.2 During the editing of this episode, we accidentally duplicated one segment, resulting in approximately 25 minutes of repeated audio. We apologise for the mistake. This has now been corrected in Version 1.2. On Sunday, September 17th, 1944, the largest airborne operation in history begins. This episode follows the first lift of the British 1st Airborne Division from the runways of south...

In Part Two of this opening episode, the ground half of Operation Market Garden takes shape: XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, tasked with breaking out from the bridgehead at Joe's Bridge and driving up a single road to reach the airborne forces at Arnhem, on a timetable that leaves almost no margin for delay. Then come the final days before the operation launches: last b...

September 1944. The Allied armies have shattered the German front in France and driven deep into Belgium, and then, suddenly, they run out of road. Low on fuel, stretched across hundreds of kilometres of supply lines, the advance stalls just short of the Dutch border. Out of that crisis comes Operation Market Garden: the largest airborne operation ever attempted, a daring bid to seize a chain of b...

By mid-1942 the Japanese tide in the Pacific is turning, and the invasion Fiji feared never comes. But the war is not finished with the First Commando Fiji Guerrillas. In this episode, the American forces take over the defence of Fiji, and the New Zealand-led commandos pass under a new command. They become an unexpected thing: a jungle-warfare school for the incoming US Army, running night raids a...

In the dark first months of 1942, the Japanese advance sweeps south across the Pacific, and Fiji lies squarely in its path. The islands guard the sea and air routes that keep Australia and New Zealand supplied, yet the garrison is far too small to hold every shore. The answer is an unusual one. In the least accessible corners of the main island, a handful of New Zealanders are sent to raise small...

June 6th, 1944. The Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade have fought their way off Sword Beach and up to the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne. Now the harder task begins. They must climb onto the high ground beyond the Orne and hold it, whatever the enemy sends against them. This episode widens to the whole Brigade. Number 3 Commando, Number 4 Commando, Number 6 Commando, and Num...

They came ashore into a beach that had not been cleared, and they were still fighting three days later. In our last episode we followed 1st Special Service Brigade as a whole, from the Normandy beaches to the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne. Now we go back and follow the Commandos one unit at a time. First, No. 4 Commando. We land with them on Sword Beach alongside Capitaine de corv...

June 6th, 1944. On the far eastern edge of the greatest invasion in history, the whole enterprise hangs on a single flank. Hold it, and the beachhead is secure. Lose it, and the enemy pours in from the east. https://worldwar2-sof.com/welcome-to-world-war-2-special-forces-com/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-world-war-2/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-1944/which-special-f...

Improved 2 part episode of the Merville assault. In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, the 9th Parachute Battalion drops into chaos. Aircraft scatter six hundred men across the flooded fields of Normandy. A handful find their way to the wire of Batterie de Merville. What follows is one of the most audacious small-unit actions of the Second World War. In this episode we follow Major George Smith&#3...

Improved 2 part episode of the Merville assault. In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, the men of the 9th Parachute Battalion will jump into the darkness over Normandy. Their objective is the Merville Battery, four guns in reinforced concrete, behind wire, mines, and a garrison of one hundred and sixty men. From its emplacements the battery commands the approaches to Sword Beach, where the British...

In the thrilling conclusion of our series on the Coup de Main, we take you to the night of June 6, 1944. Join us as we follow Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork, Major John Howard, and the men of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in their daring glider assault on the Pegasus and Horsa bridges. Experience the tension, bravery, and chaos as these soldiers fight to secure these vital cr...

In this gripping first episode of our series on the Coup de Main, we dive into the meticulous preparations led by Major John Howard and the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Discover how Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's strategic decisions set the stage for one of World War II's most daring missions. Follow the intense training, strategic planning, and rigorous exercises th...

She is forty-eight metres long, flat-bottomed, and built without a keel. She crosses the Atlantic under her own power, carrying two hundred infantry to defended beaches her smaller cousins cannot reach. Her side ramps earn the grim nickname of "bullet magnets" from the soldiers who descend them under fire. Without the Landing Craft, Infantry, Large, there is no Sicily, no Salerno, no Anzio, no Nor...

April to May 1945. As the German front collapses, 1 and 2 Special Air Service race ahead of the British Army to secure key towns, hunt down Nazi officials, and liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. From Celle to the Elbe, and finally to Lübeck and Kiel, the Special Air Service plays a decisive role in the war’s final days. This episode follows their operations in the north German plain as the...

March 1945. As the Allies cross the Rhine, 1 and 2 Special Air Service launch their final campaign in northwest Europe. Operating in fast-moving jeep columns, they strike deep behind enemy lines, linking with airborne forces, sabotaging German movements, and disrupting retreating units ahead of the main advance. This episode follows their actions across the Rhine and into Germany during the openin...

She has no name. She carries only a number on her bow. She is slow, flat-bottomed, and unglamorous. Sailors call her a Large Slow Target. Yet without the Landing Ship, Tank, there is no Operation Torch, no Husky, no Avalanche, no Shingle, no Overlord, no Dragoon, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa. In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, host Michael Weyers tells the story of the v...

On the morning of May 10th, 1940, sixty-two Fallschirmjäger of Sturmgruppe Granit hold the roof of the most modern fortress in Europe. Below them, around twelve hundred Belgian soldiers of Fort Eben Emael are sealed in the tunnels under steel doors and sandbags. Between them, in the stairwells and ascent shafts, a silent division of the battlefield is in place. Their commander, Oberleutnant Rudolf...

On the morning of May 10th, 1940, as German armour rolls west, DFS 230 assault gliders descend on the roof of Fort Eben Emael, the most modern fortress in Europe. Ten Gruppen of Sturmgruppe Granit, under Oberleutnant Rudolf Witzig, set down on the grass of the superstructure with hollow charges of up to fifty kilograms, flamethrowers, MP 38s and grenades. Their objectives are the heavy artillery c...

On May 10th, 1940, 86 Fallschirmjäger combat engineers of Sturmgruppe Granit board eleven DFS 230 assault gliders at Köln-Ostheim and turn west toward the most powerful fortress in Belgium. Their target is Fort Eben-Emael, a self-contained underground city of 1,200 men whose guns dominate every Albert Canal crossing from Maastricht to the south. Without the fort, Fall Gelb stalls. Without the brid...

In part two of our coverage of the battle for the bridge at Kanne, the fighting moves to the Opkanne heights, where the men of Sturmgruppe Eisen and the 2e Régiment de Grenadiers fight a brutal, fragmented battle across twelve strongpoints. The bridge is already gone. Leutnant Schächter is wounded within the first hour. The parachute reinforcement under Oberjäger Nollau is destroyed in the air abo...

In the third of Sturmgruppe Koch's Albert Canal objectives, Gruppe Eisen and its eighty-nine Fallschirmjäger under Leutnant Martin Schächter face a very different fight from the one at Veldwezelt and Vroenhoven. The bridge at Kanne sits in broken terrain on the edge of Fort Eben-Emael's defensive perimeter. The western bank offers no suitable landing ground. The Belgian garrison is alert....

On May 10th, 1940, in the opening minutes of Fall Gelb, the German offensive in the west, a handful of Fallschirmjäger from Sturmgruppe Beton land by glider on the banks of the Albert Canal at Vroenhoven, Belgium. Their objective is the road bridge. Their window is minutes. The Belgian garrison is armed, the demolition charges are primed, and the casemate line along the canal slope is manned and r...