Category: WW2 Podcast

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…

Hitler when he came to power, had few international connections, and he distrusted elements of his civil service. What he needed was people he could trust, who were connected to the highest echelons of power throughout Europe. These emissaries would be used to sound out opinion, and smooth over incidents when they happened. And that…

Joining Angus is Max Thimmig, Max’s grandfather was the German WWII night fighter ace, Wolfgang Thimmig. Wolfgang joined the German Army, the Reichswehr, in 1934, and was one of the early pilots in Hitler’s newly created Luftwaffe, in 1935. Incredibly Wolfgang flew with the Luftwaffe throughout the second world war, from Poland right to the…

The P-61 was built in response to the Blitz on Great Britain, in 1940. The RAF were in need of a night fighter and they confirmed with their US counterparts on the specifications. The result was a twin tail plane with a crew of three, it was specifically designed to house a radar to zero…

This episode, is released just after the 75th anniversary of the escape of ten American prisoners of war, and two Filipino convicts, from the Davao Penal Colony. The following year when the story broke, the US War Department would call it the ‘greatest story of the war’. The man made famous at the time for…

One of Angus’s first guests was Jeffrey Cox, they discussed in length the Java Sea campaign in episode 14. Jeff has been busy for the last couple of years writing his follow up book Morning Star, Midnight Sun – The Early Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign of World War Two. So Angus asked Jeff back to discuss the…

In episode 57 Angus talked to Walter Zapotoczny about Ardennes Offensive, chatting with him he mentioned he had a new book out in 2018 looking at German Penal Battalions. That sounded like a topic right up our street, so Angus got him back to talk with us. ‘When war broke out in 1939, Hitler created `Strafbattalion’…