The WW2 Podcast

We've all see the film Downfall about the Führerbunker in Berlin, in the closing days of the war. And we all know the story of how Adolf Hitler, with his new wife Eva Braun, committed suicide and the body was destroyed. Well, how much of that story do we actually know? Since the end of the war a series of newspaper reports, books and more recently the TV series Hunting Hitler  have all put forward...

The SAS made their name in the North African desert, but less well known is after that they continued to fight in the mediterranean theatre. They carried out raiding missions in advance of the invasion of Sicily, Operation Husky, and then operating behind enemy lines during the Italian Campaign. For this episode I'm joined by Malcolm Tudor. Malcolm's father actually fought in Italy during WWII,  h...

"There are no more than a handful of Second World War Luftwaffe members alive today. Patrick Eriksson had the foresight to record these experiences first-hand before it was too late. Some witnesses ended up as senior fighter controllers. The recollections and views of the veterans are put within the context of the German aerial war history. By no means all the witnesses were from the ranks of the...

In this episode we're going to be looking at the story of Howard Snyder, a B-17 'Flying Fortress' pilot, flying with the US 8th air force from Britain. Through letters Howard wrote to his family, and exhaustive research, his son Steve Snyder has pieced together the remarkable story of his father, and what happened after he was shot down in Belgium. You can find more about Steve Snyder and his fath...

In 1943 allied surveillance picked up the construction of  V1 and V2 rocket sites in France. Without quite knowing the extent of the threat allied planners decided to embark upon a pre-emptive campaign to deny the Germans the use of these sites, the code name was Operation Crossbow. It would be an Anglo-American Operation with ran up until the end of WWII, in 1945. I'm joined by Steven Zaloga. Ste...

In this episode we're going to be looking a Japanese submarine operations in the Pacific in the early part of the war. While I'm sure we're all familiar with the Imperial Japanese surface fleets actions during 1941-42, especially if you've listened to my discussions with Jeff Cox in episode #14 and #63, but there seems to be very little mention of submarines. Which is interesting because if we loo...

At the outbreak of WWII Britain put into motion the strategy of using the Royal Navy to blockade Germany, depriving her of essential goods. When Europe fell the blockade was widened to include all of Europe. This provided a dilemma for the British, the Ministry of Economic Warfare was in favour of depriving all occupied countries of goods, for the Foreign Office depriving occupied countries would...

Long standing listeners will have heard me chat to Walter Zapotoczny before, in episode 57 we looked at Ardennes offensive , and in episode 63 we looked at German penal battalions . Patrons of the podcast might recall on both occasions after I'd finished recording we got to talking about the Italians in North Africa. Well, Walter's book on the topic was released a couple of months ago 'The Italian...

"'Stay low, stay on track, and stay alive' was the motto of the RAF's most secret Station, Tempsford. That's exactly what Geoffrey Rothwell did ‒ DFC & Bar, 1939-45 Star, Aircrew Europe Star with France/Germany Clasp, Defence Medal, Victory Medal, Order of Leopold II & Palme, Croix de Guerre 1940 & Palme, Bomber Command Medal, POW medal, La Légion d'honneur ‒ from Bomber Command via SOE to Stalag...

'On a dark night in 1944, a beautiful stretch of the Devon coast became the scene of desperate horror. Tales began to leak out of night-time explosions and seaborne activity. This was practice for Exercise Tiger, the main rehearsal for the Utah Beach landings…' This is very much an episode in two halves, I start by looking at the disastrous Exercise Tiger which took place in April 1944, at Lyme Ba...

US Marine,  Lt Alexander Bonnyman landed on Tarawa in December 1942. He was mortally wounded leading an assault on a Japanese bunker, which was key to defense of the island, and act for which he would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor. In this episode of the podcast I talk to his grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans about the events surrounding his death and about how his grandfather's remains, alo...

At the beginning of WWII Germany invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway, but left neutral Sweden alone. Less than a year later citizens from all three of those Scandinavian nations were volunteering to join the Waffen-SS. By the end of the war in 1945 the number of Scandinavians who had fought in the Waffen-SS had reached the thousands. Casualties were high, but there were survivors and they retu...

Way back in episode four of the podcast, I talked to Andrew Panton about the Lancaster Bomber; Andrew is the pilot of Lancaster 'Just Jane' here in the UK. Whilst chatting the role of flight engineer came up, I had no clue what they actually did, I wasn't aware they worked in tandem with the pilot to fly the plane. Ever since I've been on the lookout for someone to talk to about the role, if you d...

September 2018 marks the 80th anniversary of the Munich agreement, where the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Germany to meet Hitler; in an attempt to avert war. He famously returned with an agreement which he believed would deliver 'peace in our time'. It got me thinking about Hitler's rise to power, in 1933 he joined the government one of only three Nazi's in it. Five years l...

The American built M3 tank was one of the first tanks purchased and supplied in large numbers to the British army in WWII, where it was known as the 'Grant' or the 'Lee'. It's the first American built tank I became aware of as a child, when I saw 'Monty's' at the Imperial War Museum . In this episode I'm joined by prolific tank writer and former employee of Bovington Tank museum , David Fletcher ....

Last year I talked to Mark Felto n about the escape attempts of British VIP prisoners, held by the Italians. That was episode 49 Castle of Eagles , the book is possibly my favourite read of last year. Well Mark is back, with another cracking story he's managed to turn up in the archives, that of Operation Cowboy; the book is Ghost Riders . It recounts the activities of an American unit which raced...

Back in episode 7 , I talked to Alexander Fitzgerald-Black about his MA thesis which focused on the allied air campaign in support of Operation Husky , the invasion of Sicily. Which if you're interested has now been released as a book ' Eagles over Husky: The Allied Aire Forces In The Sicilian Campaign, 14 May to 17 August 1943 '. Alex and I have kept in touch and always said we should do another...

In this episode we're looking at the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Returning from delivering the atomic bomb to Tinian, in preparation for it to be dropped, the Indianapolis was hit twice by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. She sank in less than a quarter of an hour. 800-900 men went in the shark infested waters, and no one in the US Navy was aware of the unfolding tragedy. The men floated...

In the last episode we looked at the development of the world's navies during the interwar period. To compliment that I thought we'd do something similar with aerial warfare. It is easy to forget in 1939 aviation was still very much in its infancy, and especially aerial warfare. Theorist such as Giulio Douhet had highlighted the importance of controlling airspace, Douhet also advocated that idea t...

Today what I thought we'd investigate the interwar naval treaties which aimed to prevent conflict, but at the same time, what they did was help shape the navies of the world, in the run up to WWII. In this episode I'm talking to Craig Symonds. Craig is the Enest J King Distinguished Professor of Maritime History a the US Naval War College and Professor Emeritus at the US Naval College.  

Hitler when he came to power, had few international connections, and he distrusted elements of his civil service. What he needed was people he could trust, who were connected to the highest echelons of power throughout Europe. These emissaries would be used to sound out opinion, and smooth over incidents when they happened. And that is what we're looking at in this episode, those 'back channels',...

Joining me today is Max Thimmig, Max's grandfather was the German WWII night fighter ace, Wolfgang Thimmig. Wolfgang joined the German Army, the Reichswehr, in 1934, and was one of the early pilots in Hitler's newly created Luftwaffe, in 1935. Incredibly Wolfgang flew with the Luftwaffe throughout the second world war, from Poland right to the end in 1945. Max's book is  Nattens jägare: Ett tyskt...

The P-61 was built in response to the Blitz on Great Britain, in 1940. The RAF were in need of a night fighter and they confirmed with their US counterparts on the specifications. The result was a twin tail plane with a crew of three, it was specifically designed to house a radar to zero the aircraft in, at night on their target. Only four now survive. Joining me is Russell Strine from the Mid Atl...

This episode, is released just after the 75th anniversary of the escape of ten American prisoners of war, and two Filipino convicts, from the Davao Penal Colony. The following year when the story broke, the US War Department would call it the 'greatest story of the war'. The man made famous at the time for escaping, and recounting the story, was Lt. Col. William Edwin Dyess. A fighter pilot who no...

One of my first guests was Jeffrey Cox, we discussed in length the Java Sea campaign in episode 14 . Jeff has been busy for the last couple of years writing his follow up book Morning Star, Midnight Sun – The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War Two . So I asked Jeff back to discuss the campaign. Jeff and I talked for nearly three hours, so whilst the podcast is trimmed to keep us on m...