Episode list

Part of Build up to DDay Week. Alex Burnham is one half of the amazing History Tellers who are well known for performing live shows, like miniature plays, about some of the most interesting people and events in history. Within the RAF, the use of unarmed fighters to take aerial photos goes back to 1939. They proposed the use of Spitfires with their armament and radios removed and replaced with extra fuel and cameras. These PR Spitfires proved to be extremely successful in their reconnaissance role and there were many variants built specifically for that purpose. They served initially with what later became No. 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU). Later in the war other aircraft such as the Mosquito, the P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang were adapted for photo-reconnaissance. Such craft were stripped of weaponry, painted in sky camouflage colours to make them difficult to spot in the air, and often had engines modified for higher performance at very high altitudes. Based at RAF Medmenham, the collection and interpretation of such photographs became a considerable enterprise and especially in the planning of Operation Overlord. The British, at their peak, flew over 100 reconnaissance flights a day, yielding 50,000 images per day to interpret.

Part of Build up to DDay Week. Our guest today is frequent WW2TV contributor Ben Mayne, a battlefield guide and military historian who is currently undertaking a Masters degree in Second World War studies. In today's show we examine the training for DDay across the UK in early 1944. We will use contemporary photos and brand new exclusive HD footage. Thank you to Jim Roche for the footage of Sheriffmuir, the Atlantic Wall practice site in Scotland and Nick Lewis for the footage of similar positions at Hankley Common in Surrey.

Part of Build up to DDay Week. Intelligence, MI9 and prisoners of war: How a secret branch of British intelligence prepared the Allies for D-Day. Our guest today is Dr Helen Fry. Helen has written and edited over 25 books. Her works cover the social history of the Second World War: including British Intelligence and the secret war; spies and espionage; and MI9 escape and evasion. She is the leading expert on the 'secret listeners' at special eavesdropping sites by British intelligence in WWII. She has been at the forefront of widespread media coverage and in-depth research of the greatest intelligence deception of the war: the bugging of Hitler's generals at Trent Park in North London, and thousands of prisoners of war at Latimer House and Wilton Park in Buckinghamshire.

Part of Build up to DDay Week. "It can be said without fear of contradiction that minesweeping was the keystone in the arch of this operation. All of the waters were suitable for mining, and plans of unprecedented complexity were required. The performance of the minesweepers can only be described as magnificent." Rear Admiral Alan Kirk USN Our guest today is Nick Stanley who retired after a 40 year career in the Royal Navy in 2017. Nick qualified as a Mine Warfare and Clearance Diving Officer in 1981 and served in MCMVs of the 'Ton', 'Hunt' and 'Sandown' classes (commanding HMS WALNEY of the latter type). He also Commanded the Type 23 Frigate HMS GRAFTON. Quite simply he is exactly the right person to talk about the vital role of clearing the mines ahead of and during DDay. The sea mining of the waters chosen for Operation Neptune was potentially both a lethal and most disruptive weapon available for the German forces. The Neptune routing plan devised involved directing amphibious forces from a large number of ports in southern Britain into Area 'Z' before turning southwards through the 'Spout' and into what would be initially ten channels leading to the lowering positions in the beach assault areas. Nick will explain how this was organised and undertaken and we are thrilled to dedicate a show to this important and overlooked operation.

Part of Build up to DDay Week. Frequent WW2TV guest Matt Bone joins us to talk about the role of the 2nd Tactical Airforce in neutralising the threat of German radar ahead of Operation Overlord. For example RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers of No. 98 and No. 609 Squadrons attacked and destroyed the enemy radar station at Dieppe/Caudecotein. This installation would have given the Germans advance warning of the Allied invasion fleet.

Part of Leaders and Leadership Week Peter Caddick-Adams joins us once again, this time to talk Monty and Rommel. Two men came to personify British and German generalship in the Second World War: Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel. They fought a series of extraordinary duels across several theatres of war which established them as two of the greatest captains of their age. Our understanding of leadership in battle was altered for ever by their electrifying personal qualities. Ever since, historians have assessed their outstanding leadership, personalities and skill.

My guest today is Ollie Heppenstall. Konstantin Rokossovsky was born in northern Russia and was conscripted into the Russian Army in 1914, joining the 5th Kargopol Dragoons. In 1917 he joined the Bolshevik forces during the Russian Revolution and was twice honored with the Order of the Red Banner during the civil war. In 1937 during the Army purges, he was arrested and imprisoned for 3 years. He was accused of being both a Polish and Japanese spy. Among the injuries he sustained during this time was the loss of most of his teeth, which were later replaced with stainless steel dentures, and thus throughout the war Rokossovsky was famous for his steely smile. By July 1941 and Operation Barbarossa. Rokossovsky was commander of the 4th Army at Smolensk. He distinguished himself leading the 16th Army during the defense of Moscow and Stalingrad. At Stalingrad, commanding the Don Front, his troops successfully counterattacked Friedrich Paulus' Sixth Army, marking a strategic victory by stopping the German southern advance. He also contributed much to the counterattack of the German forces at Kursk, again halting a major German offensive. For such feats he became the commander of the central front, directly overseeing the Russian offensive Operation Bagration. In mid-1944 he was given the title Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Part of Leaders and Leadership Week Dr Philip Blood is an independent historian of social, cultural and digital histories. His research has included the study of Luftwaffe war crimes and participation in the Holocaust and his PhD research was in Bandenbekämpfung - Nazi security warfare. In this show Philip will talk about SS leadership: bandit hunting, racial extermination and postwar myths.

Part of Leaders and Leadership Week My guest is Major John Rickard currently serves in the Professional Military Education Section at the Canadian Army Command and Staff College. Major Rickard has a PhD in Military History from the University of New Brunswick, is an adjunct professor at RMC and has taught at American Military University (AMU). He is the author of five books including The Price of Command: Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton and the Canadian Army, 1939-1943 and Advance and Destroy: Patton as Commander in the Bulge which won the 2011 US Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing award for operational/battle history. He is currently completing a study entitled 'Simonds's Lieutenants: A New History of the Normandy Campaign', due for publication in 2021. Lieutenant General Guy Granville Simonds commanded the II Canadian Corps in Normandy in the battles south of Caen such as Totalise and Tractable. He later served as acting commander of the First Canadian Army, leading the Allied forces to victory in the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944. John will talk about Simonds's leadership qualities in Normandy and his still controversial dismissal of Major-General Kitching of the 4th Canadian Armoured Division in August.

Part of Leaders and Leadership Week Kevin Hymel is a good friend of WW2TV having appeared in our Mortain specials in August 2020. He is a renowned military historian, TV talking head, author and battlefield guide. Kevin's first book about Patton complied the photographs taken by the General in WWII. His second and third books will be a two volume study of Patton's War. Kevin Hymel will talk about the new facts he discovered in his research and the long-held myths and legends about the mercurial Patton. Examining not only his relationships with his superiors and fellow generals and colonels, but also with the soldiers of all ranks whom he led.

Part of DDay 2021 - 77th Anniversary 77 years on from DDay we bring you this show live from Sword Beach.Joining us from England is Dominic Butler, author of Fighting Iron: The 1st Battalion South Lancashire Regiment from D-Day to VE-Day. We will explain the landings and talk about some of the incidents that took place in and around La Breche in Hermanville near Strongpoint Cod.

Join us for a live show from Juno Beach - 77 years on for DDay. Our guest is Brad St.Croix and we will talk about the Sherman tanks of the First Hussars assaulting the harbour town of Courseulles in support of the Regina Rifles and Winnipeg Rifles.

77 Years ago today the small hamlet of Vierville between Utah Beach and Carentan was the site of quite a fierce battle between US forces and a German Fallschirmjäger battalion. Tanks from D/70th and A/746th engaged along with paratroops from LTC Robert Strayer's 2/506th. Our guest is Easy Company historian and retired US Marine Joe Muccia.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV Join us for a live show from the area of Buron and Authie 77 years on to the day of an advance by the Canadian 9th Brigade and supporting armour towards Carpiquet airport. Historian Marc Milner is our guest today and will explain how for 4 days beginning on June 7th, the Canadians of the 3rd Division fought to a literal standstill the 1st SS Panzer Corps - which included the Wehrmacht's 21st Panzer Division; its vaunted Panzer Lehr Division; and the rabidly zealous 12th SS Hitler Youth Panzer Division. Often seen as a German victory the battle for Buron, Authie and Gruchy was actually the beginning of the end for Kurt Meyer and the 12th SS.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV Our guest today is Niels Henkemans a Dutch historian currently writing about the German Army in the Cotentin in 1944. In today's show we will examine the action that took place around the intersection of roads now called Dead Man's Corner near Carentan, Normandy.

Part of Leaders and Leadership Week My guest today is Colonel John Antal (U.S. Army, retired) - soldier, TV and radio personality, military historian, leadership expert and author of 14 books, most recently 7 Leadership Lessons of D-Day. In his post-Army career he has fifteen years of corporate leadership experience, working for Microsoft Corporation and then as Executive Director for a mega-selling video game developer.

Our guest today is James Fenelon. James is the paratrooper-turned-author of Four Hours of Fury, the untold story of Operation Varsity, the American 17th Airborne Division's combat jump over the Rhine River in March 1945. Prior to penning the book. He served for over a decade and is a graduate of the US Army's Airborne, Jumpmaster and Pathfinder schools. On the morning of March 24, 1945, more than two thousand Allied aircraft droned through a cloudless sky toward Germany. Escorted by swarms of darting fighters, the armada of transport planes carried 17,000 troops to be dropped, via parachute and glider, on the far banks of the Rhine River. Four hours later, after what was the war's largest airdrop, all major objectives had been seized. The invasion smashed Germany's last line of defense and gutted Hitler's war machine; the war in Europe ended less than two months later. James will talk about this operation and the research process for hos book.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV 77 years ago today a Canadian advance towards Le Mesnil Patry from Norrey en Bessin turned into one of the costliest days for the 3rd Canadian Division in Normandy. From Canada our guest historian is Mike Bechthold, who has written and lectured extensively on the Canadians in WWII.

My guest today is Robert Pike author of Silent Village - Life and Death in Occupied France. On 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer division. Six hundred and forty-three men, women and children were murdered in the nation's worst wartime atrocity. Robert will talk about life in the village before the horrors of June and the aftermath. This is a show about the victims not the perpetrators.

Alina Nowobilska joins us to talk about the first mass transport of prisoners by the Third Reich to the infamous Auschwitz Concentration Camp. 81 years ago this week, this transport departed from the Polish city of Tarnów. She will talk about the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the circumstances leading to the transport.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV In this show we are looking at the experiences of the US 2nd Infantry division over four days of combat in Normandy culminating in a battle across the Elle river 77 years ago today. Geert Van den Bogaert has been a battlefield guide in Normandy for 20 years.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV This action occurred the day after the famous battle in Villers-Bocage. Reeling from the confrontation with Wittmann's Tigers, the British 50th Division launch an attack south on the village of Lingevres. The units were the Durham Light Infantry and 4th/7th Royal Dragoon Guards.

Part of Attrition - Beyond the Beachhead week on WW2TV. Today we look at the 8th Rifle Brigade in Normandy with historian Ronald Jeltes. We cover the unit's landing on Juno Beach and its role in Operations Epsom, Goodwood and Bluecoat as part of the British 11th Armoured Division.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Please note - this show will feature graphic images of combat wounds. Please consider not watching if this may upset you. Bataan, Anzio, Bastogne: names that define the Allied spirit. They are synonymous with courage, resilience, and determination against great odds. At each of these battles American soldiers and Marines weathered desperation and fear to survive, advance, and triumph. Along with these heroes of the battlefield were no less determined and courageous providers of medical care. From the heat and disease-ridden jungles of Bataan, the precarious beachhead of Anzio, the encircled town of Bastogne, doctors and nurses worked under intense conditions with whatever means at hand, to staunch bleeding, repair damage, and resurrect the dying. In so doing they gave a glimmer of hope for the warriors facing possible death or capitulation. Often completely cut off from vital supplies and modern technology, and under the threat of enemy fire, these medical professionals - men and women - never lost sight of their passionate commitment to the sick and wounded. In this show the focus will be on medical care in the Pacific theatre.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Our guest today is Mark Obmascik, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author. His first nonfiction book, The Big Year, was turned into a Hollywood movie. His second, Halfway to Heaven, was winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature. mark will be talking about The Storm on Our Shores, the heart-wrenching but ultimately redemptive story of two WWII soldiers - a Japanese surgeon and an American sergeant - during a brutal Alaskan battle in which the sergeant discovers the medic's revelatory and fascinating diary that changed our war-torn society's perceptions of Japan.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Reg Jans is the premier Battle of the Bulge guide and this show will include footage he took at various aid stations used by the 101st Airborne Division and other units such as 10th Armored. We will talk about the various locations where aid stations were established and talk about some of the medics who worked there.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Lee Mandel is a retired USN Physician In today's show Lee will talk about the damage that can be done to the mental health of men and women in combat and also working in war zones. Commonly known as PTSD today, over the years it has been called many things: Battle Fatigue, Combat Stress, Shell Shock, Mental Exhaustion and War Neurosis. we will talk about the history of its diagnosis and treatment and how it was perceived in WWII.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Military historian Ted Barris once asked his father, "What did you do in the war?" What the former US Army medic then told his son forms the thrust of tonight's show - an exploration of his father's wartime experiences as a medic leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45, along with stories of other medics in combat throughout history. He will explain that this bloodiest of WWII battles was shouldered largely by military medics. Medics in combat evacuated the wounded on foot, scrounged medical supplies where there were seemed to be none, and dodged snipers and booby traps on the most frigid and desolate battlefields of Europe. While retracing his father's wartime experience Ted will also tell other stories of life-and-death struggles of military medical personnel.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Our guest is Niall Cherry who will talk about the British Airborne Medical Services in WW2 including the 1st Airborne Division at Arnhem. He will talk about the equipment used, the evacuation and treatment procedures and of course the men who wore the red cross armbands. He will also dispel some of the myths about Airborne medics.

Part of Medics Week on WW2TV Today I am talking about my own book about an aid station on DDay. Robert Wright and Kenneth More were medics in the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion and used a 12th Century church to treat upwards of 80 wounded men - American and German on June 6th and 7th. Because the telephone signal is poor in Angoville and the weather forecast is not good I am using footage taken last week of the church and village. Although the images won't be live, they will be HQ 1080 quality.

Part of Battles at Sea week Our guest today is American author and retired Army officer Brian E Walter. His book The Longest Campaign came out in May 2020. In this show Brian will talk about the key moments in the Battle of the Atlantic including the first and second German Happy Times.

Part of Battles at Sea week On February 17th, Landing Craft Infantry 449 was among a dozen warships preparing for main invasion of Iwo Jima two days later. The commanders had thought they had weakened Japanese forces in the area so they were not expecting much action From the towering slopes of Mount Suribachi, Japanese forces opened fire, forcing the U.S. commanders to recalculate battlefield plans. They shelled and bombed the newly discovered enemy positions. It was a move that saved countless lives two days later, when tens of thousands of Marines stormed the beach. Author Mitch Weiss will share the previously untold story of the crew of Landing Craft Infantry 449. Based on 130 exclusive interviews with sailors who survived the battle, the families of the men killed in the fight, and more than 1,500 letters the sailors mailed to loved ones during their long months at sea, this is a story of duty, brotherhood, love, and courage.

Part of Battles at Sea week Our guest today is John R McKay. John is the author of several books, the latest of which, Surviving The Arctic Convoys - The Wartime Memoirs of Leading Seaman Charlie Erswell, was released by Pen and Sword in spring 2021. Charlie served in the Royal Navy from December 1941 until 1946 as a turret trainer on HMS Milne and in the ship's director on HMS Savage. He saw action in the North Atlantic, Operation Torch (the invasion of North Africa), the liberation of Norway and D-Day.

Part of Battles at Sea Week PQ 17 was the code name for an Arctic convoy that departed from Hvalfjord, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union On 27 June 1942. The convoy was detected by German forces on 1 July, after which it was shadowed continuously and attacked repeatedly by aircraft and submarines over the course of a week. The German success was possible through signals intelligence (SIGINT), cryptological analysis, and because the Allied escorts were withdrawn to counter a notional German surface threat, supposedly including capital ships. My guest today is Drachinifel, who is is a legend on YouTube with over 250,000 subscribers to his excellent Naval History channel.

Part of Battles at Sea week Joining us is Iain Ballantyne from the UK. The last battle of the German battleship Bismarck took place in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 nautical miles west of Brest, France, on 26-27 May 1941. Iain will talk about this famous action and some of the details still debated and discussed more than 80 years later.

John McManus returns to WW2TV to talk about the battles at Buna-Gona part of the New Guinea campaign that followed the conclusion of the Kokoda Track campaign and lasted from 16 November 1942 until 22 January 1943. The battle was fought by Australian and United States forces against the Japanese beachheads at Buna, Sanananda and Gona. From these, the Japanese had launched an overland attack on Port Moresby. In light of developments in the Solomon Islands campaign, Japanese forces approaching Port Moresby were ordered to withdraw to and secure these bases on the northern coast. Australian forces maintained contact as the Japanese conducted a well-ordered rearguard action. The Allied objective was to eject the Japanese forces from these positions and deny them their further use. The Japanese forces were skillful, well prepared and resolute in their defence. They had developed a strong network of well-concealed defences.

Part of Pacific Week on WW2TV Dead Reckoning is the latest book by today's guest Dick Lehr, and is the epic story of the high-stakes operation undertaken to kill Admiral Yamamoto, the man behind the attack on Pearl Harbor. At Station Hypo on Hawaii U.S. Navy code breakers discovered exactly where and when to find Admiral Yamamoto and on April 18, 1943 a nerve-wracking mission departed to kill him. Dick will talk about Major John W. Mitchell, the ace fighter pilot from the tiny hamlet of Enid, Mississippi who was tasked with conceiving a flight route, literally to the second, for the only U.S. fighter plane on Guadalcanal capable of reaching Yamamoto hundreds of miles away - the new twin-engine P-38 Lightning with its fabled "cone of fire."

In February 1942, the Royal Australian Navy decided that it needed a radio/radar countermeasures section to prevent the Japanese from doing to them what the Germans had done to the Royal Navy when it snuck the fast battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen through the English Channel with the assistance of radio and radar jamming. In June 1943 this "Radio and Radar Countermeasures Division" was taken over by MacArthur's South West Pacific Area General Headquarters (SWPA GHQ) under the direct command of General Spencer Akin, MacArthur's Chief Signals officer and one of the "Bataan Gang." The new Section 22 supported General MacArthur's drive to the Philippines and had a role in mapping Japanese radar networks throughout New Guinea, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, South China, Formosa and the Ryukyus (including Okinawa) and the Japanese home islands. My guests today are Trent Telenko and Craig Bellamy, members of the Section 22 Special interest Group group and are joining us from three continents - hence the time of the show.

Part of Pacific Week on WW2TV Our guest today is photographer and Findlay Kember who has travelled throughout South Asia and spent 4 years documenting the route of the Stilwell Road which starts in the town of Ledo in India's north-eastern state of Assam, crosses northern Myanmar and ends in Kunming in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan. The Stilwell Road was an overland connection between India and China, built during WWII to enable the Western Allies to deliver supplies to China and aid the war effort against Japan. After the Japanese cut off the Burma Road in 1942 an alternative was required, hence the construction of a new road. It was renamed the Stilwell Road, after General Joseph Stilwell of the U.S. Army, in early 1945 at the suggestion of Chiang Kai-shek. It passes through the Burmese towns of Shingbwiyang, Myitkyina and Bhamo in Kachin state.

Part of Pacific Week on WW2TV We are delighted to welcome Saul David to WW2TV. Saul is Professor of Military History at the University of Buckingham and author of numerous books about various aspects of military history of the 19th and 20th Centuries. He has also a prolific TV presenter with an impressive portfolio of series and specials. The amphibious operation to capture Okinawa was the largest of the Pacific War and the greatest air-land-sea battle in history, mobilizing 183,000 troops from Seattle, Leyte in the Philippines, and ports around the world. The campaign lasted for 83 blood-soaked days, as the fighting plumbed depths of savagery. One veteran, struggling to make sense of what he had witnessed, referred to the fighting as the "crucible of Hell." Okinawan civilians died in the tens of thousands: some were mistaken for soldiers by American troops; but as the US Marines spearheading the invasion drove further onto the island and Japanese defeat seemed inevitable, many more civilians took their own lives, some even murdering their own families. In just under three months, the world had changed irrevocably: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died; the war in Europe ended; America's appetite for an invasion of Japan had waned, spurring President Truman to use other means -- ultimately atomic bombs -- to end the war; and more than 250,000 servicemen and civilians on or near the island of Okinawa had lost their lives.

Part of Tragedies and Disasters Week. The Kokoda track is a 60 mile jungle trail through the Owen Stanley Range in Papua New Guinea. Between July and November 1942, a series of battles, afterwards called the Kokoda Track Campaign, were fought between the Japanese and Australian forces. For Australians especially this brutal campaign has become synonymous with Gallipoli in the First World War as a costly, bloody and "tragic" event. Dr Karl James is the Head of the Military History Section at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra and joins us today to talk about this campaign and put it into its proper context. Should it be seen as a tragedy or in fact a vitally important military victory?

Part of Tragedies and Disasters Week Our guest today is James M Scott a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard and author of Rampage, which was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by the editors at Amazon, Kirkus and Military Times and was chosen as a finalist for the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History by the New York Historical Society. American General Douglas MacArthur, driven from the Philippines under the cover of darkness at the beginning of the war, famously vowed to return. Today, James will explain that return and the unfortunate disaster that befell the people of Manila. The twenty-nine day battle to retake Manila resulted in the catastrophic destruction of the city and a rampage by Japanese soldiers and marines that terrorized the civilian population. Landmarks were demolished, houses torched, suspected resistance fighters were tortured and killed, countless women raped, and their husbands and children murdered. An estimated 100,000 civilians were slain in a massacre as heinous as "The Rape of Nanking."

Part of Tragedies and Disasters Week Our guest for this show is Russell Phillips, a military historian from South Yorkshire, England. Lidice was a peaceful and vibrant community in Czechoslovakia with a rich mining heritage. But an act of Nazi revenge saw this village wiped from existence in a horrifying chapter of European history. Disaster struck for Lidice in 1942 when Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated. Described by Hitler as the man with an iron heart, Heydrich was one of the key architects of the Holocaust. His death, after an attack by members of the Czech resistance, left Hitler furious and desperate for vengeance. Looking for a scapegoat to blame for Heydrich's death, he settled on the village of Lidice, which had been falsely linked to the assassination. In a brutal act which shocked the world, Lidice was completely destroyed. The men were shot while the women and children were rounded up and sent to their deaths in Nazi concentration camps. Hitler was determined that by the time he had finished, no one would even remember Lidice, let alone live there. What he hadn't reckoned on was the efforts of a group of campaigners in Britain, who resolved to make sure Lidice would never be forgotten. Today's show covers that story but especially focuses on what happened next. Would the village simply be allowed to become a footnote in history, or would it rise from the ashes and forge a new future? How did a mining community in the north of England respond to this tragedy?

Part of Tragedies and Disasters Week Janet Oakley is a historian and writer of historical fiction and non-fiction. Her undergraduate work started as an intern in the Anthropological Archives at the Smithsonian Institute followed by a year as a volunteer and stipend student after graduation. Over the years she has designed and taught historical curriculum for museums, schools, and national parks. For eleven years she was the curator of education at a county museum. She lives in the Pacific NW. Her interest in Norway in WWII came from her research and interviews for her two novels set in that time. Telavåg played an important role in the secret North Sea boat traffic between Norway and Great Britain. On 26th April 1942, after discovering that some of the inhabitants of were hiding two men from the Linge (Resistance) the Gestapo arrived to arrest the men. Shots were exchanged, and two prominent German Gestapo officers were killed in the incident. What followed became known as the Telavåg Massacre.

Part of South Asia and South East Asia Week on WW2TV K. S. Nair is an aviation historian and the author of The Forgotten Few : The Indian Air Force's Contribution in the Second World War. Over the course of WWII the Indian Airforce grow from a single squadron to ten, and the contribution of these Indian Officers and Airmen towards the Allied victory is often overlooked. Our guest K.S. (Sree) Nair will share some of the formerly lost stories of Indian aviators who built the very foundations of human and physical infrastructure for what is now the world's fourth largest air force.

Part of South Asia and South East Asia Week on WW2TV Dr Ghee Bowman is a historian and author with a special interest in soldiers from South Asia. On 28th May 1940, Major Akbar Khan marched at the head of 299 soldiers along a beach in northern France. They were the only Indians in the British Expeditionary Force at Dunkirk. With Stuka sirens wailing, shells falling in the water and Tommies lining up to be evacuated, these soldiers of the British Indian Army, carrying their disabled imam, found their way to the East Mole and embarked for England in the dead of night. On reaching Dover, they borrowed brass trays and started playing Punjabi folk music, upon which even 'many British spectators joined in the dance'. What journey had brought these men to Europe? What became of them - and of comrades captured by the Germans?

Part of South Asia and South East Asia Week on WW2TV Kiran Sahota is a Heritage and Education Consultant, Project Manager, history researcher and public speaker for South Asian history. She currently works with BAME young people from low social economical areas, educating them on histories that are often not taught in mainstream education. In today's show Kiran will talk about some of the South Asian heroes of WWII including Noor Inayat Khan, GC the famous Special Operations Executive agent. We will also talk about the representation of South Asian forces in regular military history and the work of the Believe in Me project that aims to give a voice to Britain's South Asian forces in two World Wars and beyond. A special focus will be on India's women during the conflict.

Part of South Asia and South East Asia Week on WW2TV Lynette Silver is one of Australia's most renowned historians and writers, her main interest being investigating various aspects of Australian history. In 2019 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the community through historical battlefield tours and commemorative services". On 2nd September 1943, the 68 ton Kofuku Maru, a Chinese made junk crewed by men of the Services Reconnaissance Department, the parent organisation of the famed Z Special Unit left Australia bound for Singapore, deep inside Japanese controlled waters. By the time they returned nearly seven weeks later, the crew of 14 had carried out one of the most famous clandestine raids in Australian history. Much has been written about this raid - codenamed Operation Jaywick and its follow up called Operation Rimau. There was even a mini-series shown around the World in 1989. Much of the information shared about these Singapore raids is either exaggerated or plain wrong. Lynette is here to set the record straight.

Marty Morgan, the eminent American historian joins us to talk about the battle of La Fière from June 6th to 9th. A small stone bridge and causeway over the Merderet River at La Fière in Normandy was a key objective of the 82nd Airborne and re-enforcements from Utah Beach to cut off the Cherbourg peninsula . SLA Marshall described the battle as "probably the bloodiest small unit struggle in the history of American arms.

Part of South Asia and South East Asia Week on WW2TV Allied fleet operations in the Indian Ocean are often overlooked, in today's show we examine Operations Diplomat, Cockpit, Transom and Meridian and look at their context in the wider war.