In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet was at the height of its power, having delivered a crushing blow to the US Navy at Pearl Harbor just months earlier. This fleet spearheaded...

Released in 1977, A Bridge Too Far stands as the last grand-scale WWII film produced by the Hollywood studio system. The film ambitiously sought to bring to life Operation Market-Garden, the bold but...

In this episode, we'll examine the 6th Airborne Division and its combat effectiveness, focusing on how its commanding officer, Richard Gale, meticulously trained and developed the unit. The 6th...

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, it wasn't the Germans who first uprooted Stanislaw Kulik and his family—it was the Russians. Deported to a Siberian Gulag, Stanislaw's fate took a dramatic turn...

When we think of the fighting in the Far East between Britain, her allies, and the Japanese, we often picture thick jungles, impossibly steep hills, and dense terrain. This has led to the common...

I recently attended the We Have Ways Fest, where I ran into Séan Scullion, a friend of the podcast. You might remember him from episode 135, where we discussed Spaniards in the British army. His...

It was only as Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd president of the United States that he was told of the Manhattan Project. In this episode, we embark on a journey through one of the most...

In this episode of the WW2 podcast, we'll explore the Royal Navy from 1918 to the end of the Second World War and one man's career. Not an officer, but a regular sailor: Herbert Leeder, who chalk up...

In March 1941, 40,000 Australian and New Zealand troops were rushed to Greece in a desperate attempt to support the Greeks against the looming threat of a German attack. Although the operation was...

In this episode, we discuss the development of US tanks from the end of the First World War through to the end of the Second World War. I am joined by renowned historian and author Steven Zaloga, who...

Just two days before D-Day, Captain Gallery's US antisubmarine Task Group 22.3 managed to force the German U-boat U-505 to the surface. In a bold move, a boarding party secured the submarine before...

To commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I attended a special event at the Green Howards Museum. We started at the regimental war memorial in Richmond (Yorkshire) at 6.30 a.m., which was when...

More than 132,000 Allied troops landed on the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944. Through their efforts, the tide of the war turned for the final time to favour the Allies. But how did the Allied army...

6th June 1944 saw the largest seaborne assault in human history: D-Day. While much has been written about the operation as a whole, little detailed attention has been paid to the battle for Sword...

As the Allied forces prepared for the monumental invasion of Normandy, concealing the massive build-up of troops in Britain from the Germans became increasingly challenging. To mislead German...

On the morning of May 20, 1941, the Germans launched Operation Mercury. The invasion of Crete was the largest airborne operation yet attempted during the war, with thousands of Fallschirmjäger...

In this podcast episode, we will discuss the different approaches to command and control of the British Army and the German Army. From a management point of view, both organisations developed...

In this podcast episode, I'm looking at the work of LCI's, Landing Craft Infantry. These are not the smaller Higgins Boats we see storming the Normandy beaches in Saving Private Ryan but large...

Operation Jubilee, the Dieppe Raid on the coast of France, was a disaster in 1942. However, it did highlight the need for more reconnaissance before any other amphibious operations were mounted. In...

The Indian Army was the largest volunteer army during the Second World War. Indian Army divisions fought in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy - and went to make up the overwhelming majority of...