Warfare

On the night of 14 November 1940, a Luftwaffe air raid devastated the city of Coventry. Over 500 people were killed, more than 4,300 homes were destroyed and around two-thirds of the city's buildings suffered damages. David McGrory is a local historian based in Coventry, he joined Dan to discuss the bombings, and their impact on Coventry. © Bundesarchiv Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

During the Second World War, Bletchley Park was the home of a top-secret code breaking centre. Only in the 1970s did people begin to discuss what had occurred there. In the intervening years, however, three quarters of the workforce would rarely have been asked to describe their experiences during the war: because they were women. Dr Tessa Dunlop has spoken with fifteen of these veterans, and in t...

‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.’ These words - spoken by Winston Churchill on 5 March 1946 to an audience including President Truman in Fulton, Missouri - can be seen as both a symptom and a catalyst of the collapse of relations between the western allies and the Soviet Union. But what drove Churchill to make this speech?...

As many as 10,000 members of the Nazi party and the SS are estimated to have moved to the United States after the Second World War, legally and illegally. In the intervening years, around 150 of them have been subject to investigations reaching the stage of deportation or criminal proceedings. This includes Friedrich Karl Berger, who was deported from Tennessee to Germany on 21 February 2021 to fa...

During the Second World War, Luftwaffe fighter pilot Hugo Broch claimed 81 victories in 324 missions on the Eastern Front. At Chalke Valley History Festival, the Iron Cross recipient spoke to Paul Beaver and Rob Schäfer about his experiences fighting for Germany. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In February 1945, the ‘Big Three’ met for arguably the most important and controversial of the conferences of the Second World War. At the Yalta Conference, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin discussed the post-war reorganisation of Europe. The British and American leaders had come a long way to cooperate with Stalin, but they had not come alone. Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna,...

In 15 September 1940, the Luftwaffe made a gigantic aerial assault on London in the belief that the Royal Air Force was down to its last few fighters. They had hoped to finish the RAF and force Britain to the negotiating table, but this was not to be the case. In this episode, Dan is at Bentley Priory, the HQ of RAF Fighter Command, with historian Stephen Bungay. Stephen describes how a combinatio...

At the end of World War One, the Allies seized the German fleet and held it at Scapa Flow, in Orkney, until the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced. At least, that was the plan. The German navy covertly scuttled their own boats under the noses of their captors, rendering the fleet useless, until one firm set out on a massive salvage operation to recover usable material from the boats....

Henry Hemming talks to Dan Snow about the life of William Stephenson, a British operative who worked hard to pressure Roosevelt into declaring war on Nazi Germany, and ensuring that American troops were directed against German forces in mainland Europe. The tactics adopted were akin to those used today by troll farms in St Petersburg, and involved duplicitous and aggressive use of misinformation....

After the Second World War, societies across the world struggled under a mass of social and political change. This disjointed period serves as the backdrop for Tara Moss’ new novel, in which her protagonist, female war reporter turned private inquiry agent pushes against the workforce prejudices of 1946 Australia. Through this lens, Tara explores post-war attitudes towards gender, race, disability...

In 1943, Grimsby was hit by a new type of weapon: butterfly bombs, also know as cluster bombs. This episode from Dan Snow's History Hit features the World Wars' very own James Rogers, telling Dan all about the terrifying experience of being attacked by cluster bombs, and how they've been used around the world since. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alderney, like the rest of the Channel Islands, was occupied by German forces from 1940 to 1945. On Hitler's orders it was turned into a fortress, covered in concrete and steel fortifications. After liberation British forces dumped a vast amount of military hardware into a quarry which was then flooded. For 70 years it has remained there, hidden, forgotten..... Until Dan Snow joined a team of dive...

During the first year of the First World War, Vera Brittain went from studying English Literature at Oxford to nursing for the war effort. By the end of the war she had lost two male friends, her fiance and her brother, Edward. By this time, she had also evolved from the sister who encouraged her brother to sign up for duty to the ‘outstanding feminist pacifist of her generation.' In this episode,...

It was the first truly industrial battle, and yet veterans recall hearing skylarks singing just before the whistles blew at the Battle of the Somme. A century later, these birds remain, singing long after the carnage came to an end. Paul Reed is a military historian and author specialising in the First and Second World Wars. He has been conducting battlefield tours for over a quarter of a cen...

Dan talks to Richard van Emden about his book - Missing: the need for closure after the Great War, in this episode from the History Hit archive. The backbone of the book is based on the best single story of World War One that he has found in 35 years of research. It is the story of one woman’s relentless search for her missing son’s body. A story with incredible twists and turns. Against the odds...

How do you test a weapon of mass destruction? A weapon whose potential you can only estimate. Since 1945, countries with nuclear capabilities have been coming up with solutions to this problem, but they are not without pitfalls. Traces of the fallout from nuclear testing are found across the world, and testing has directly impacted a plethora of communities. From the original inhabitants of the ch...

Gary Lineker's grandfather was one of the 'D-Day Dodgers': men who fought in the Italian campaign, who were accused of missing the supposedly harder fighting in Normandy. Of course, this wasn't true. The Italian campaign was one of the hardest military campaigns of World War Two, and Dan talks to Gary about his grandfather who fought in in that theatre of war. They also, unsurprisingly, talk about...

Born in Budapest in July 1944, Agnes Grunwald-Spier resided in the Ghetto with her mother from November 1944 to January 1945. For this week's Holocaust Memorial Day, we have brought her interview out of the archives. Having gained degrees in History & Politics and Holocaust Studies, Agnes spoke to James about her family's experiences during the Holocaust. This personal history includes her mother'...

For International Holocaust Memorial Day 2021, James spoke to Professor Eve Rosenhaft about the experiences of Black and Roma peoples during the Third Reich. Eve is a historian at the University of Liverpool. She has been looking into how the persecution of these groups occured under the Nazis; how much of it was a continuation of existing prejudices, and who prompted its escalation. Image: Franci...

King George V played a critical role in Britain's war effort during World War One, from the outbreak of war in 1914, until the King's Pilgrimage in May 1922, to visit cemeteries and memorials being constructed by the Imperial War Graves Commission. Alexandra Churchill has combed the Royal Archives to fully understand George's role in the war, including his frequent disputes with David Lloyd George...

For this incredible episode, Dan spoke to the late Colonel John Waddy OBE. John was the last surviving veteran of the battle for Arnhem, Operation Market Garden, in which three quarters of his battalion were killed or, as in John's case, captured. During the Second World War John also served in North Africa and Italy. He was later stationed in Palestine and Malaya, before taking on advisory posts...

This episode is all about Robert Griesinger. ‘Who?’ you ask. The name means nothing to most, yet his was a life which impacted upon so many, and was mirrored by many more. Robert Griesinger was a German lawyer, senior civil servant and SS officer. Like many of his rank, his life and contribution to the horrifying events of 1930s and ‘40s Europe had been lost to time and to the destruction of files...

In the spring of 1945, the aerial assault on Germany was reaching a crescendo as city after city was devastated by British and American bomber fleets. James Holland, leading World War Two historian and bestselling author, joins Dan Snow on the podcast to talk about why and how the bombing reached such catastrophic levels and whether it actually shortened the Second World War. Hosted on Acast. See...

On 17 January 1991, an operation to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait began. Codenamed Desert Storm, the air offensive continued for 43 days under US leadership. Lt Gen David Deptula was a principal air attack planner, making calls on strategic targets and operations. For this special episode on the 30th anniversary of this operation, he describes the months and then days leading up to the operation,...

On 11 November 1920, the Unknown Warrior, a common soldier and an unidentified casualty of war, was buried in Westminster Abbey with all the pomp and ceremony of an empire at its zenith. King George V looked on as 100 Victoria Cross bearers formed a guard of honour and the unknown solider was laid to rest. To discuss the backstory of the Unknown Warrior, Dan was joined by author and historian Juli...