Special Forces In World War 2 Podcast

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...

On the night of May 9th, 1940, a group of specially trained German Fallschirmjäger board DFS 230 assault gliders at Köln-Ostheim airfield and prepare for one of the most audacious airborne operations of the Second World War. Their objective is the bridge at Vroenhoven on the Albert Canal in Belgium, a reinforced concrete crossing guarded by bunkers, casemates, infantry trenches, anti-tank guns, an...

On May 10th, 1940, at 05:20, ten German DFS 230 gliders descend over the Albert Canal in Belgium. Their objective: seize the steel bridge at Veldwezelt before Belgian engineers can detonate the demolition charges. Within minutes, Fallschirmjäger of Sturmabteilung Koch are landing directly on the positions of the 2e Régiment de Carabiniers. Bunker N is assaulted. Trench systems north and south of t...

Most of us know the story of Pegasus Bridge on June 6, 1944. We remember the British coup de main at the Caen Canal and the Orne. We remember the 9th Parachute Battalion at Merville. But four years earlier, in the pre-dawn darkness of May 10, 1940, a similar operation unfolded over Belgium. In this episode, we examine the German airborne assault on the steel bridge at Veldwezelt — one of three Alb...

In the early hours of May 10th, 1940, while German gliders land on Fort Eben-Emael and Fallschirmjäger seize the Albert Canal bridges at Veldwezelt, Vroenhoven, and Kanne, another race begins just to the north. This episode follows the Maastricht Gateway, the critical ground operation designed to reinforce the airborne bridgeheads. Sabotage teams infiltrate the city in civilian clothing. Sonderver...

In the early hours of May 10th, 1940, silent assault gliders land on the roof of Fort Eben-Emael. Within minutes, one of Europe’s most modern fortresses is neutralised, and the world witnesses a new form of warfare. In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, we tell the full story of the DFS 230, the German assault glider that makes these precision landings possible. From its o...

This part three about Unternehmen Danzig. In the winter of 1939, a quiet airfield in Hildesheim, Germany became the unlikely birthplace of one of World War II’s most audacious and closely guarded military experiments. Under the misleading cover name “Propaganda-Ballonzug”, a group of handpicked glider pilots — many of them civilian champions and Olympic-caliber aviators — were assembled for a miss...

In this second episode of our series on Unternehmen Danzig, we turn from the battlefield to the attackers themselves. After examining the Belgian defences along the Albert Canal and Fort Eben-Emael in Episode 1, this episode follows the creation and preparation of Sturmabteilung Koch,the specially formed German airborne assault unit tasked with seizing the canal bridges at Veldwezelt, Vroenhoven,...

At the eastern gateway of Belgium stands one of the most ambitious fortresses ever built. 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-1940/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-may-1940/fall-gelb/belgium-defences-and-defence-strategy/fort-deben-emael/ In this open...

In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, host Michael Weyers explores the remarkable history of the 79th Armoured Division — one of the most innovative and influential Allied formations of the Second World War. Created under Major-General Percy Hobart, the division became the home of the famous “Hobart’s Funnies”: specialised armoured vehicles designed to break through minefi...

In this episode, we explore one of the most ambitious and unlikely armoured innovations of the Second World War: the Duplex Drive (DD) amphibious tank. Developed by engineer Nicholas Straussler and perfected under the 79th Armoured Division, the DD tank combined a standard armoured vehicle with a collapsible flotation screen and propeller system—allowing it to swim from landing craft to shore unde...

In this bonus episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, we return to Normandy to follow the final chapter of the Provisional Ranger Force after D-Day. It is June 9th, 1944. Major Richard Sullivan leads the 5th Ranger Battalion, supported by elements of the 2nd, in a coordinated attack on the powerful German gun positions at Maisy, the twin batteries of Les Perruques and La Martinière....