Category: WW2 Podcast

US Marine, Lt Alexander Bonnymanlanded on Tarawa in December 1942. He was mortally wounded leading an assault on a Japanese bunker, which was key to defense of the island, and act for which he would posthumously receive the Medal of Honor. In this episode of the podcast Angus talks to his grandson, Clay Bonnyman Evans about the…

At the beginning of WWII Germany invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway, but left neutral Sweden alone. Less than a year later citizens from all three of those Scandinavian nations were volunteering to join the Waffen-SS. By the end of the war in 1945 the number of Scandinavians who had fought in the Waffen-SS had…

Way back in episode fourof the podcast, Angus talked to Andrew Panton about the Lancaster Bomber; Andrew is the pilot of Lancaster ‘Just Jane’ here in the UK. Whilst chatting the role of flight engineer came up, I had no clue what they actually did, I wasn’t aware they worked in tandem with the pilot…

September 2018 marks the 80th anniversary of the Munich agreement, where the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Germany to meet Hitler; in an attempt to avert war. He famously returned with an agreement which he believed would deliver ‘peace in our time’. It got Angus thinking about Hitler’s rise to power, in 1933…

The American built M3 tank was one of the first tanks purchased and supplied in large numbers to the British army in WWII, where it was known as the ‘Grant’ or the ‘Lee’. In this episode Angus is joined by prolific tank writer and former employee of Bovington Tank museum, David Fletcher. With Steven Zaloga,…

Last year Angus talked to Mark Felton about the escape attempts of British VIP prisoners, held by the Italians. That was episode 49 Castle of Eagles, the book is possibly my favourite read of last year. Well Mark is back, with another cracking story he’s managed to turn up in the archives, that of Operation…

Back in episode 7, Angus talked to Alexander Fitzgerald-Black about his MA thesis which focused on the allied air campaign in support of Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Which if you’re interested has now been released as a book ‘Eagles over Husky: The Allied Aire Forces In The Sicilian Campaign, 14 May to 17…

In this episode we’re looking at the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. Returning from delivering the atomic bomb to Tinian, in preparation for it to be dropped, the Indianapolis was hit twice by torpedoes from a Japanese submarine. She sank in less than a quarter of an hour. 800-900 men went in the shark infested…

In the last episode we looked at the development of the world’s navies during the interwar period. To compliment that I thought we’d do something similar with aerial warfare. It is easy to forget in 1939 aviation was still very much in its infancy, and especially aerial warfare. Theorist such as Giulio Douhethad highlighted the…

After WWI there was a series of naval agreements aimed at putting limits on the navies of the world. The 1922 Washington Agreement limited Battleships, the 1930 London Naval Treatylooked at other naval ships and in 1935, Britain made a treaty with Germanylimited the German navy. In this episode I thought we’d investigate these agreements, that…