Category: WW2 Podcast
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Escape from Greece
Shanghai born John Robin Greaves, ‘Jack’, emigrated to Australia in 1939 and volunteered for the Australian Imperial Force to serve overseas. The army would send Jack to the Middle East then to Greece, where he would be captured Germans. Australian ABC journalist Stephen Hucheon has researched his uncle’s story and produced a fantastic article for ABC available on…
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Eisenhower’s Broad Front Strategy
Angus recently read David Colley’s The Folly of Generals: How Eisenhower’s Broad Front Strategy Lengthened World War II.David has analysed some of the missed opportunities the allies had in 1944-45 in Europe. He argues that had Eisenhower been more adept at taking advantage of several potential breakthroughs in the Siegfried Line in the autmun of…
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Australia’s war with France
The Australians fought across the world on the land, sea and in the air air; notably in the Pacific and the Middle East, which is what we’ll be discussing in this episode. With the fall of France, her overseas territories predominantly remained loyal to the French Vichy regime. This was true for Syria and Lebanon.…
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Luftwaffe Special Weapons
As the course of the second world war turned against the Third Reich some radical proposals and inventive designs, were put forward by armaments manufacturers, scientists, technicians, aircrew and even private individuals to the German Air Ministry for consideration as weapons to be utilised by the Luftwaffe. Some proposals were destined never to leave the…
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Operation Barbarossa
Buoyed by their victories over Poland and France, on the 22 June 1941 the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, and over 3 millions men advanced over the border to attack Russia. The opening of the Eastern Front would be one of Hilter’s most momentous decisions of WWII. Having only signed a nonaggression pact with German in…
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Stop Lines
In Britain, after the fall of France, there was the fear that the Germans may attempt a channel crossing and invade in 1940. If the Wehrmacht got shore in the south of England, facing them would have been a series of ‘Stop Lines’. These were defensives which comprised a series of pillboxes and anti-tank obstacles.…
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Bomb Aimers
On the heavy bombers the role of the crew members was symbiotic. The pilot needed the flight engineer to fly; the navigator got the plane to the target, and it was the bomb aimer that delivered the ordinance. Wartime films give the impression of the bomb aimer’s job being simply to look through the bombsight…
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Alan Brooke: Churchill’s Right-Hand Critic
Alan Brooke would take over as the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff in December 1941. For the rest of the war Brooke would organise and coordinate the British military effort, in such a role acted as Winston Churchill’s senior military advisor. Brooke’s relationship with Churchill could be tempestuous. Brooke was not a ‘yes…
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The Battle for Madagascar
When France capitulated in 1940 and the Vichy government came to power many of the French colonial possessions remained loyal to the new regime. The same was true for the Island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. In this episode Angus is joined by Russell Phillips. Russell’s book A Strange Campaign narrates the story of the…
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Mackenzie King
Everyone remembers the role of Churchill and Roosevelt throughout the war, but there was a third man key to their relationship and of the three of them the only one to remain in power at the end of the war in August 1945. Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister of Canada, the largest British Dominion…