The WW2 Podcast

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 Escape, one of the most famous prison breaks of the Second World War.

But captivity was not only a story of tunnels and wire.

Inside the camp, prisoners built theatres, staged plays, organised concerts, and, for a few hours, transformed t...

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 air bridge that carried agents and supplies into occupied territory and brought people back out again.

Flying alone at night, Special Duties pilots crossed occupied Europe guided only by moonlight and improvised navigation. Their missi...

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 might fall under German control, Britain launched Operation Catapult. At Mers el Kébir on 3 July 1940, the Royal Navy opened fire on its former ally, killing nearly 1,300 French sailors in one of the war's most painful and controversial...

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 survived one of the most brutal chapters of the Second World War.

Captured during the fall of Singapore in 1942, he endured life as a prisoner of war, facing starvation, violence, and witnessing events like the Alexandra Hospital massacre. Th...

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 advanced from the River Oder, they faced one last major obstacle in the Seelow Heights. What followed was a brutal and costly assault that opened the road to Berlin, and then a savage fight through the city itself, street by street, build...

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 grown up under Nazism, saluting Hitler at school, joining the Jungvolk at ten, and the Hitler Youth soon after. By March 1945, he was fighting Soviet tanks at close range on the Eastern Front. He was wounded, decorated, and survived the...

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 plan major operations, manage coalition warfare, and steer the Allies towards victory.

In ...

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, and accidents were common.

In the late 1920s, an American inventor named Edwin Albert Link came up with an ingenious solution. His Link Trainer, sometimes called the "Blue Box," allowed pilots to practise instrument flying safely on the...

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 lieutenant colonels in the US Army, commanding a battalion of Sherman tanks in the Normandy Campaign only weeks after D-Day. From the hedgerows of France through to the Battle of the Bulge and on into Germany, his unit fought at the sh...

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 Canadian citizen who found himself caught in Eastern Europe when war broke out. Drafted into the Red Army in 1941, he fought against the German invasion, survived a brutal POW camp, escaped, joined the resistance in Nazi-occupied Uk...

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 Camouflage Section.

This secret unit developed ingenious ways to hide weapons, radios, explosives and documents inside everyday objects, from oil cans and firewood to record players and tubes of toothpaste, helping agents operate behind ene...

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 how ordinary people experienced daily life as war, repression, bombing, and fear increasingly shaped everything around them.

Our conversation centres on what it meant to survive in wartime Berlin, how behaviour and attitudes changed ove...

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 securely witnessed. There was no public body, no official announcement at the moment it happened, and no single, uncontested account. What followed was confusion, rumour, investigation, and decades of speculation.

Today I am joined by h...

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 this episode, I am joined by now regular of the podcast Mark Stille to rethink one of the most famous events of the war. His book Pearl Harbor: Japan's Greatest Disaster argues that the attack was not a masterstroke at all, but a tactical...

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 Norway in 1940. Rather than focusing on campaign narratives, Philip examines the men who held this rank. Their backgrounds. Their training. The influence of networks, regimental culture and staff college upon their careers. And what happe...

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 other correspondents fled, Bryan stayed in the city, documenting the Siege of Warsaw from the streets, hospitals and civilian shelters as German bombs fell.

Bryan's photographs and film captured the impact of the S...

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 fought and ultimately won.

When people think of British commanders in the Far East, one name usually stands out: Bill Slim. His leadership of the Fourteenth Army and the victories at Imphal, Kohima and the advance into Burma rightly se...

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 tried to survive, adapt, and maintain a sense of purpose behind barbed wire.

I am joined by Midge Gillies, author of The Barbed Wire University. A newly revised edition was released in 2025. Her book explores the lives Allied POWs led in ...

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 wartime belongings in a chest with the instruction that it was not to be opened until after his death. For decades, the chest remained closed, and no one in the family knew what it contained.

After Colonel Kreps died, the chest was put into ...