In this episode, we turn our attention to the final months of the war in Europe and one of the Allied armies' most famous and controversial commanders, General George S. Patton. At the start of 1945,...

When we think of Allied prisoners of war in German camps, we often picture barbed wire, watchtowers, tunnels, and the constant urge to escape. Stalag Luft III is remembered above all for the Great...

When people think about the secret war in occupied Europe, they often picture agents, resistance fighters, and acts of sabotage carried out behind enemy lines. But those networks depended on a hidden...

In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone. France had fallen, invasion seemed possible, and Winston Churchill faced a grave question: what should be done about the powerful French fleet? Fearing it...

Before he became a familiar face on screen, appearing in over 70 films like 'The Bridge on the River Kwai', 'The Cockleshell Heroes', 'The Guns of Navarone' and 'The Wild Geese', Percy Herbert...

The final battle for Berlin in 1945 was not just the end of the war in Europe, it was the violent collapse of Nazi Germany, and the moment the shape of post-war Europe was decided. As the Red Army...

In the final months of the Second World War, as the Third Reich collapsed in on itself, boys were sent to the front to hold back the Red Army. Among them was fourteen-year-old Willi Langbein. He had...

The partnership between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill was one of the defining relationships of the Second World War. At the heart of the Anglo American alliance, they worked closely to...

Before the Second World War, learning to fly by instruments was one of the most difficult and dangerous skills a pilot had to master. Training had to be done in real aircraft, often in poor weather,...

My guest today is William Hogan, and we are going to be talking about the remarkable story of his father, Sam Hogan, and the men of Task Force Hogan. At just twenty-eight, Sam was one of the youngest...

How does a Canadian end up fighting in the Soviet Red Army during the Second World War? My guest today is Scott Bury, and we're going to tell the remarkable story of his relative, Maurice Bury — a...

James Bond may have Q Branch supplying him with ingenious gadgets, but during the Second World War the agents of the Special Operations Executive had something just as remarkable — the SOE...

In this episode, I am joined by Ian Buruma to talk about life in Berlin during the Second World War. Rather than focusing on the regime at the top or the battles fought far from the city, we look at...

In April 1945, as the Third Reich collapsed around him, Adolf Hitler died in the Führerbunker in Berlin. It is one of the most famous deaths in modern history and yet, in many ways, one of the least...

Pearl Harbor is often remembered as a stunning Japanese success, a perfectly executed surprise attack that changed the course of the Second World War. But what if that familiar story is wrong? In...

For this episode, I am joined by Philip McCarty to discuss his book Point of Failure: British Army Brigadiers in France and Norway, 1940 . It is a study of the brigadiers who served in France and...

In September 1939, during the German invasion of Poland, American photographer and film-maker Julien Bryan became the only foreign journalist to remain inside Warsaw during the Nazi siege. While...

Today, we are heading back to the Burma campaign, but through a slightly different lens. Rather than focusing on a single battle or operation, we examine three men who shaped how the war in Burma was...

This episode looks at a very different side of the Second World War. Not the battlefield, but captivity. It focuses on the experiences of Allied prisoners of war held in German camps and how they...

In this episode, I talk with Erik Kreps about a remarkable family mystery. Erik's grandfather, Colonel Kenneth Ray Kreps, served in the Second World War, and after returning home, he sealed his...