The WW2 Podcast

When President McKinley turned down Benjamin Oliver Davis for a place at West Point due to the colour of his skin, Davis joined the army as a private. Davis soon worked his way through the ranks to receive his second lieutenant commission in 1901. It...

The convoy HG-76 sailed from Gibraltar to Britain in December 1941. The Royal Navy commander in charge was 'Johnnie' Walker, an anti-submarine expert who had developed new, aggressive U-boat hunting tactics. Accompanying the escorts was HMS Audacity,...

Hot on the heels of victory in Sicily, the Allies crossed into Southern Italy in September 1943. They expected to drive the Axis forces north and be in Rome by Christmas. Although Italy surrendered, the German forces resisted fiercely, and the swift,...

From the middle of the 19th century, the railways had an integral role in warfare. Trains brought food, ammunition and essential supplies. They also transported troops into the combat zone, and then trains would be used to bring men home. Hospital...

David Stirling is the name synonymous with the wartime SAS, but the real brains behind the operation was, in fact, Bill Stirling, David’s eldest brother. Having originally joined the SOE in March 1940, Bill Stirling sailed for Cairo in 1941 and...

If you cast your mind back to episode 187, I discussed the war in the North African desert in 1940-41 with Robert Forczyk. The war in the North African desert was pure mechanised warfare and, in many respects, the most technologically advanced theatre...

Journalist Wallace Carroll had a career that spanned 45 years as a journalist. His first foreign posting, in 1929, was to London with the United Press newswire service. Throughout the 1930s, he covered the major events in Europe and witnessed the...

As some of you may know, I am also a First World War historian, and the academic history of the war can be very different from the public perspective, which dwells on the first two years of the war.  Forgetting the victories of 1917 and 1918 is...

We do not think of armour being widely used in the Pacific campaign, and compared to other theatres, that is a reasonable assumption. However, it was utilised by both the Japanese and Americans from the island campaigns, such as Tarawa and...

In this episode, I’m joined by Patrick Eriksson. If you cast your memory back, Patrick has previously joined us to talk about the Luftwaffe and his Alarmstart trilogy of books (episodes , and ). This time, he is back to discuss the opening few...