The WW2 Podcast

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...

From September 1941, the Germans surrounded Leningrad, laying siege to the city for 900 days. Over 2 million Russians were trapped, and thousands would die through starvation. As the winter closed in, Lake Ladoga froze, allowing trucks to cross the...

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, over 125,000 Japanese Americans living in the continental United States were incarcerated in prison camps. The majority of these were born in America and US citizens. This was authorised by an Executive Order from...

Few wives of prominent men are more than a footnote in many histories, but they were often central to their husbands' lives. The classic well-known example is the relationship between the wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife...

If you cast your memory back to , Kevin Hymel joined me. We discussed General Patton from the campaigns in Mediteranean in 1942 to just before his activation as commander of third army in 1944. Kevin is back. This time we will discuss Patton’s...

In episode 144, I chatted to Andrew Sangster about Alanbrooke. Earlier this year, I noticed Andrew had a new book, . With his co-author Pier Paolo Battistelli, the book looks at Montgomery, Mark Clark, Patton, Harold Alexander, Albert Kesselring and...

Fought between 8 March and 18 July 1944, the battles of Imphal and Kohima were the turning point of one of the most gruelling campaigns of the Second World War (1939-45). The decisive Japanese defeat in north-east India became the springboard for the...

In public life, Canadian Dr Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports provided the...

With the Second World War slipping from living memory, the University of Oxford has launched . The project aims to empower local communities to digitally preserve these stories and objects before they are lost to posterity.  For this episode, I...

The battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of WWII, it consisted of four separate actions near the Philippines between the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Japanese plan was to disrupt the American landings on the island of...