The Danger Zone (DZ)

The President of General Motors export arm, James Mooney , stood in his hotel room practising his Nazi salute in front of the mirror. Should his sieg heil show enthusiasm or maybe solemn obedience? Too late for any more practice, it was the afternoon of 1 May 1934. Time to meet Hitler - as his special guest at the giant May Day Parade. General Motors World, the General Motor Corporation’s company...

“America never contributed anything to the world but chewing gum and Coca-Cola” said Otto Dietrich, the Nazi Press Chief and head of propaganda in 1942. But then all of the Nazis fantasies came true with a new amazing drink developed by the Coca Cola company in Nazi Germany called Fanta – it didn’t win the war for them but it made losing a lot easier. Tag Words: General John Clifford Pemberton; Ul...

The last time I told you the story of 19 year old Sergeant Daniel Culler. His B-17 bomber, “Hell’s Kitchen”, had just forced landed in Switzerland. He planned to set the plane on fire by pumping out its fuel and then firing a flare into it to stop it falling into German hands. The rumour going around on the American air bases was that the Swiss were swapping American and British planes that fell i...

In the great 1949 movie, “The Third Man”, set in the immediate post war rubble of the then once great city of Vienna but now reduced to rubble from bombing and combat during World War II, Orson Welles, playing the lead character, Harry Lime, talking to the newspaper man and his friend from the past, Holly Martines, played by Joseph Cotton, gives the briefest and most brutal put down of a country t...

One benefit of being persecuted over a long period of time, since 1572, and not giving up the fight, is that it’s not as easy to be intimidated as people who have always lived a quiet life. The reason these people had been persecuted for so long was because of their religious beliefs. They were Protestant followers of John Calvin in Catholic France. Their beliefs set the framework within which the...

Miss Dior – such a popular and well loved perfume. The very essence of femininity – or is it? Perhaps it’s the very essence of the free spirit too, the free scent of France – maybe even of the world. And what did Dior have to do with melting clocks? But in 1940 France was humming to a different tune. The sounds of German footsteps on the pavements. Shopping in the stores for that legendary French...

In this Danger Zone programme I’m going to tell you about the Spanish fashion designer who met 6 enormous thugs sent to his Paris studios by Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted Berlin to become the fashion capital of the world. He wanted this designer to relocate there from Paris. Balenciaga sent them packing saying to them “tell your boss you might just as well take all the bulls to Berlin and try and tr...

He was like Dick Whittington. In 1835 a young boy of 14 set off walking to Paris looking for a job and to learn a trade. Today his company, Louis Vuitton, is a $42 billion dollar a year brand in a conglomerate with Moët and Hennessey. But what of its past that it doesn’t want to talk about. A past during the dark days when France was occupied by the Nazis. Follow me back to the time when Adolf Hit...

Audrey Hepburn. Princess Diana. Kate Moss. What famous woman style icon isn’t known for her little black dress. For Hepburn, it was her Hubert de Givenchy in 1961, for Princess Diana it was Christina Stambolia in 1994, also known as “The Revenge Dress,” and Kate Moss is always wearing a show-stopping LBDs. So, where’s its power come from? The LBD possesses what so many women want to achieve with t...

It’s 1939 in Germany and the future is looking bright – although there’s just a possibility of war. But in the 6 years since their new and charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler, was elected things have just have been getting better and better (though not so much if you’re a Jew though). Unemployment had been at 30% when Hitler came to power. By 1938 there wasn’t any. German self esteem and pride has re...

Two men. Both lived at the same time. Both did the same thing on the same night, at the same place. Everything they did was the same. One man changed the history of the world. The other man was hardly even noticed, just for the record, his name was William Dawes. That will mean nothing to you – and that is the whole point of this programme. What was it that they did differently from each other tha...

On 12 November 2020 Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced that a 4½ year enquiry had revealed allegations of war crimes said to have been committed by some members of the Australian Defence Forces serving in Afghanistan. Scott Morrison “warned the nation to prepare for allegations of “serious and possibly criminal conduct” by Australia’s defence force in Afghanistan that could see...

A story has broken concerning allegations of Australian Defence Personnel having been involved in war crimes. In the present age it seems that more often than not that an allegation is treated as if it was the sames as a conviction, only without a trial. While that’s acceptable, and normal, in socialist regimes like Communist China and North Korea, the former Soviet Union, it has never been the wa...

This Danger Zone programme’s about how a Russian double agent, Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, fled the Soviet Union using only a plastic Safeways shopping bag and a Mars Bar. And how an American spy got that old South American feeling – I Yi Yi Yi – and married his dream Latino woman, of very expensive tastes and needs, so he became a Russian spy to give her the lifestyle that she needed and that he cou...

In 1982/1983 the world stood at one minute before midnight. Russia was ready to launch an all-out first nuclear strike against the West – because, wrongly, they knew that America was about to launch a surprise nuclear attack on them. How the hell was the world going to avoid this! The key player to avoid this apocalypse was a Russian double-agent - Colonel Oleg Gordievsky. Tag words: World War III...

This programme’s about the man who has undoubtedly been the greatest spy in the history of the world. Every one of you listening right now owes your life to him. If it wasn’t for him World War III would definitely have happened. No “”ifs” or “buts” – the Third World War would definitely have happened and civilisation would have ended. A lot of people know about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. That...

It’s been said that “no other band … is as synonymous with the words party and good times than the B-52’s. Their infectious music is layered with dance grooves galore, that frankly just makes your body move, and has been in high gear for the past 35 years”. Athens Georgia is a university town - the University of Georgia. Athens Georgia is located just 70 kilometres from Atlanta, the capital of Geo...

Nothing much surprises me today but this did. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. There are people out there who are against electricity, modern medicine, hospital, worldwide telecommunications – almost instantaneous (like Skype, Facetime, Zoom – all of that stuff), international travel, cars, highways, plentiful food with virtually no famines, television, live streaming - I co...

This is the final episode in the story of the man who the ANZAC’s Revered – Fighting Mac. Mel Gibson told the story of Desmond Doss – the Seventh Day Adventist who refused to kill, was rejected by the men in his platoon and by the Army but at the Battle of Okinawa, on one day, 5th May 1945, saved the lives of 75 men. This story is about a man who risked his life for 2½ years in the bloodiest fight...

William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie is the most famous man of the ANZACs of World War I that you’ve never heard of. When he returned to Australia in early 1918 he was mobbed wherever he went, by the veterans who had come home, by the families and friends of ANZACs who he had helped – by writing to them about the deaths and the circumstances of the deaths of their loved ones, by helping distribute thou...

The most famous man of the ANZACs of Gallipoli and France, the man who was revered by the men of the ANZACs in World War I and till the day they died, is a man that you’ve probably never heard of. The ANZACs, when they were in the fighting zones, when they were resting, wherever, he was sought out for his company. When he returned to Australia in early 1918, exhausted to the point where he would n...

Fighting Mac was the man who our ANZACs revered. When he returned to Australia, after reaching a state well beyond exhaustion, having served first at Gallipoli, and then on the Western Front all the time with the 4th Battalion, he was ordered home in late 1917 reaching Australia in early 1918. The war was nowhere near won. The Germans had beaten Russia and now over 1 million of their battle harden...

You’d have to be a right bugger to have a go at the Australian Army chaplains in World War I. Why? Well listen to this story of one of them – and he’s not even the chaplain that was a legend to the ANZACs. This is another one. Chaplains weren’t supposed to have been landed with the first troops at Gallipoli, but somehow one was. He didn’t get that memo. He was Roman Catholic chaplain, Father John...

The most famous Australian that you’ve never heard of is William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie. He is known as the man who the ANZAC’s revered. Don’t worry, don’t feel embarrassed that you haven’t heard of him. It’s highly unlikely that you’ve heard of him or that anyone you know has because sadly we’ve let this man’s story be forgotten.  But back in the day, in Australia, between the wars and through t...

At the end of World War I “Fighting Mac” was the most famous ANZAC. Even before the Australians landed at Gallipoli he was a hero to the Australian soldiers. After the ANZAC landings, and right through to the time that he was sent home from the Western Front, exhausted from his super human exertions in the War, he was a legend and the man that the ANZACs revered. For decades after the end of the w...