Category: WW2 Podcast

We are back in the Pacific, this time looking at the air war primarily over Guadalcanal. US Marine aviators landed on the island shortly after the Marine ground forces. As Japanese troops held out on Guadalcanal, the skies over the island were heavily contested. In this episode, we are focusing on the top-scoring marine pilots…

At the end WWII 473 men had been honoured by the United States for their bravery and sacrifice by receiving the Medal of Honor. The Medal was awarded to men of all ranks – from Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at the top all the way down to 18-year-old Private Joseph Merrell. Although 1 million African…

When we think of the allied war effort it is all too easy to overlook some of the junior partners. In this episode, we are going to be looking at Mexico’s commitment to the Second World War. The Mexican Expeditionary Airforce would serve in the Philippines as the 201st Fighter Squadron known as the ‘Aztec…

In September 1944 a young Marine name Eugene Sledge landed on the Pacific Island of Peleliu. As a mortarman, stretcher-bearer and rifleman Sledge would fight his way across Peleliu then the Japanese island of Okinawa, arguably two of the fiercest and filthiest battles of the Pacific campaign. After the war, Eugene Sledge became a professor…

George S Patton Junior starred as an Olympic athlete in the 1912 Stockholm games. In 1916 under John J. Pershing Patton joined the Mexican Expedition against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa. When the US entered the First World War Patton joined the new Tank Corps and commanded the U.S. tank school…

From his earliest days, Winston Churchill was a risk-taker. As a young Lieutenant in the army he charged with the cavalry at the battle of Omdurman, he saw action on the North-West Frontier and took a trip to Cuba to observe the war there. As a journalist, he covered the Boer War putting himself in…

7th December 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States of America into the Second World War. On the morning of 7th December 1941, just before 8am the Japanese launched their attack on the US naval base of Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Japanese planned the attack as a first…

In this episode Angus is discussing chemical weapons. It might seem like an odd topic, unlike the First World War which saw the deployment of gas, chemical weapons were not used in WWII. But there was a fear of them being used; everyone carried a gas mask and the belligerent nations had huge chemical weapons…

One lesson the allies learned from the fall of France in 1940 was that civilian populations needed managing, to keep them away from military operations. As the allied troops came-a-shore after D-Day in June 1944, with them would be Civil Affairs units. These units were to act as liaisons between the allied combat troops and…

Before the outbreak of war, the US Navy and the Marines had put considerable effort into developing a doctrine to support amphibious operations from ship to shore gunfire. When the marines landed on Tarawa in November 1943, it would be the first serious test of this doctrine. In this episode, Angus is joined by Donald…