Warfare

This month marks 75 years since the establishment of the United States Air Force (USAF). So to mark this anniversary, we wanted to follow up on listener Rick Harrison's request for more air power. Well Rick, we hope this will suffice! In this episode James is joined by Lt Col Whit 'Skate' Collins, a current USAF fighter pilot with the 64th aggressor squadron who is responsible for knowing, teachin...

Following the recent death of Mikhail Gorbachev at the age of 91, we've decided to take a look into the beginnings, career and legacy of the last ever leader of the Soviet Union. There was a mix of sadness in the West as well as sorrow, silence and indifference in Russia at the news of Gorbachev's passing on August 30, no surprise given how extraordinary his relatively short time in power would pr...

Chief Joseph W. Pfeifer was the first senior fire chief to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9/11. His actions, along with those of hundreds of other firefighters, helped save tens of thousands of lives on that fateful morning 21 years ago. Joe's key role in organising the emergency response on September 11 2001 was captured on tape by the Naudet brothers in their extraordinary film 9/11 , and t...

As a mark of respect and remembrance to the late Queen Elizabeth II, we've chosen to focus on Her Majesty's personal history as a veteran of the Second World War. For this episode, James is joined by Tessa Dunlop to learn more about how the inspirational, dedicated, and devoted monarch that was Elizabeth II went from a young girl living through the blitz, to serving as a second subaltern in the al...

If Germany's audacious plan to invade Britain - Operation Sea Lion - had succeeded, what exactly would the country's last line of defence have looked like? Well much like the French Resistance, who were backed by the UK's very own Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain had prepared its very own network of brave civilian saboteurs, spies, and assassins - many of whom went to their grave withou...

The Battle of Salamanca was fought in Napoleonic Spain on 22 July 1812, during the Peninsula War. It pitted Lt Gen Arthur Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, against the French military master Marshal Auguste de Marmont. Despite being one of the lesser discussed Napoleonic battles, Salamanca defined Wellington's reputation as a defensive general and shattered French dominance on the I...

Their attacks of September 11 2001 sparked a War on Terror which has a legacy that very much lasts to this day, but where did Al-Qaeda come from, how did their ideologies form and what role do they play in the world today? In this episode James is joined by Dr Afzal Ashraf, an expert on the terror group's ideologies and violent religious extremism. Dr Ashraf spent over 30 years in the UK Armed For...

After the Fall of Singapore in February 1942, the focus of the Pacific War moved closer to Australia. Japanese forces bombed Darwin and began to launch attacks on Papua New Guinea, with a view to capturing its capital Port Moresby. If the Japanese had captured that city, they would have been able to bomb vital Allied bases in northern Australia - potentially turning the tide of the war in their fa...

In 1970, the deadliest storm in modern history ripped Pakistan in two, leading the world to the brink of nuclear war after American and Soviet forces converged in the Bay of Bengal. Over the course of just a few hours, the Great Bhola Cyclone would kill 500,000 people and begin a chain reaction of turmoil, genocide, and war. In this episode James is joined by Scott Carney and Jason Miklian, who ta...

80 years ago today on 19 August 1942, a 6,000 strong combined Allied landing force took part in a raid on Dieppe, Northern France. Tragically, no less than 67% of these fighters - most of them Canadians - became casualties in what has gone down in history as an unmitigated catastrophe conceived chiefly by Lord Mountbatten. In this episode to mark the Dieppe Raid's 80th anniversary, James is joined...

If you were asked what you thought about the Iraq War in Alaska, you'd probably be more than a little confused. But that confusion might turn to shock when you learn about the conflict's controversial legacy of destruction in America's 49th state, of all places. Despite long-held local protests and previous restrictions, the US Department of Defense controversially reopened Eagle River Flats - an...

Today's guest Kitty Baxter was aged just nine when World War II broke out in 1939. One of five children born to a road sweeper and a cleaner, Kitty joined thousands of children being evacuated to the countryside as German bombing raids loomed. This would be the first of three times that she was rehoused far from home over the course of the war. Sometimes treated more like a servant than a small ch...

Warning: The events recounted in this episode may be distressing to some listeners At 11.02 am on August 9 1945, America dropped the world's most powerful atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Japanese port city was flattened to the ground 'as if it had been swept aside by a broom', with over 70,000 people killed.  At that time, hundreds of Allied prisoners of war were working close to the bomb's deto...

Warning: The events recounted in this episode may be distressing to some listeners Keiko Ogura was just eight years old on August 6 1945 when her home city of Hiroshima was destroyed by the US in the first atomic bomb attack in history. Almost 150,000 people lost their lives in that first bombing, which was followed three days later on August 9 by the destruction of Nagasaki, in which around half...

Located just 100 miles off the coast of mainland China, the nation of Taiwan sits in the so-called 'first island chain' - a group of US-friendly territories deemed crucial to American foreign policy. Yet China's president Xi Jinping maintains that Chinese reunification with Taiwan must be fulfilled. He's not ruled out the possible use of military force - and neither has US president Joe Biden. Ten...

With Kim Jong-un having issued a new threat of nuclear war just this week on the anniversary of the Korean War armistice in 1953, we take a look at the origins of the North Korean state and the Kim dynasty that has ruled it with an iron fist since that conflict. From founder Kim Il-sung, to his successors Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, the ruling family of North Korea have lasted remarkably long by...

The war in Ukraine has left many of us aghast that open armed conflict could again erupt on the European continent... except the idea of a peaceful post-WW2 Europe is hardly historically correct. The Kosovo War of 1999 is but one example. Over 78 days NATO aircraft bombarded the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's forces into submission, achieving a swift victory without a single ground troop having...

In July 1945 when Korea was divided by the 38th parallel into North and South, families were suddenly torn apart by a border that would change the course of history. Post World War Two, Korea was of massive strategic importance, a stepping stone to the rest of Asia. After centuries of monarchy and 35 years of brutal colonial rule - many Koreans were unsure which side would provide them with a futu...

18 minutes. That's how much extra time the US Navy Seals had during their raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In that time they managed to secure never seen before correspondence from across the Al-Qaeda network giving US intelligence a new insight into their movements and plans. In this episode, James is joined by Dr Nelly Lahoud, a senior fellow in New America's Internati...

Moored in the River Thames, the HMS Belfast is an important part of the Imperial War Museums and a brilliant learning resource for those who visit. But for veteran Ron Yardley, it was his home for two years while he served in the Korean War. In this episode of our Korean War miniseries, Ron joins James aboard the Belfast to talk about his experiences and memories of those unforgettable years. Reme...

Join James for this special episode as we take an exclusive look at an astonishing discovery made at the Waterloo battlefield in Belgium. Watch History Hit's exclusive documentary on the Waterloo Uncovered discovery here . This episode was edited by Aidan Lonergan. For more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter  here. If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds...

NATO is expanding and enlarging. With the number of rapid response troops set to increase to 300,000, and Sweden & Finland in line to gain membership, the organisation has truly awoken to the evolving threat posed by Russia. In this episode James is joined by Dr Sten Rynning from the University of Southern Denmark to examine the full history of NATO to see when it has expanded and enlarged before....

With the range to sail anywhere in the world and the supplies to facilitate it, HMS Belfast served a crucial role in the Korean War. Once again aboard HMS Belfast, in the second episode of Warfare's miniseries on the Korean War, James is joined by the director of Belfast, Rob Rumble, to answer this question. With post-war Britain on the brink of financial collapse - and the once pre-eminent Royal...

It's exactly 80 years since Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Perhaps the most well-known Jewish victim of the Holocaust, Anne achieved posthumous fame with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl , the journal in which she documented her life in hiding from 1942-1944. But fewer of us know much about what the Netherlands was like under German occupati...

Millions dead. A higher proportion of civilian casualties than in World War Two. America, Britain, Russia & China all involved in a conflict that—technically—remains active to this day. So why is the Korean War of 1950-53 nicknamed The Forgotten War? In this first episode of Warfare’s miniseries on the Korean War, James is joined by Dr Ian Johnson onboard the HMS Belfast—one of six Royal Navy vess...