Wars of The World

Early October 1993, as Americans went about their daily business, many were stunned to hear of the dramatic events that had taken place thousands of miles away in the impoverished, war-torn country of Somalia involving their own troops in a city few of them had ever heard of. Fought on the streets of the Somali capital, the Battle of Mogadishu, as American history books refer to it, took place on the afternoon of October 3rd 1993, through the night and into the next morning. For American forces, it would prove one of the most intense urban battles since the Vietnam War two decades earlier. Consequently, they suffered more dead and wounded in a matter of hours than in recent years of operations combined, culminating in the shootdown of two US Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. Yet, despite these factors, the battle itself is considered a tactical success for the US forces involved, for despite daunting odds, political restrictions in the planning stage, and unforeseen mishaps, a force of less than 100 US troops held off more than 10 times their own number of heavily armed hostiles who poured streams of bullets and rocket-propelled grenades at their positions in an intense, coordinated ambush. In today's episode, we will examine the events leading up to the battle, the battle itself and the fallout from the whole affair, known around the world as the Black Hawk Down Incident.Support the show

War Thunder is a highly detailed vehicle combat game containing over 2000 playable tanks, aircrafts and ships spanning over 100 years of development. Immerse yourself completely in dynamic battles with unparalleled realism and approachability.Support the show

By 1942, the war was no longer another great European conflict. It was now a firmly global affair enveloping all of the world's great powers as the Allies squared off against the tyranny and aggression of the Axis nations. Against such colossal forces, no one country could stand alone and events that affected one combatant would ultimately have consequences for the other further down the road.To that end, while the western Allies and the Soviet Union were effectively fighting separate wars against the same enemy, there needed to be cooperation between the two fronts in order to squeeze the life out of Nazi Germany and insure victory against Fascism. However, the relationship was often a strained one as both Allied power blocks were suspicious of the other's intentions once the war was over. Thus, we come to the subject of today's episode and a story of the war that is still the subject of much debate today. It was an operation with no specific military objective other than to experiment with conducting division-sized amphibious landings against a fortified beach and as a gesture to the Soviet Union who were starting to feel abandoned by their Allies. It is an operation that has become seared into the hearts and minds of the Canadian people for the sacrifice they were asked to make for it.Support the show

The Wounded Knee Massacre was a massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army. This is their story.

As the drive for equality between the sexes gathered unprecedented momentum in the 1950s and 60s, historians began to reassess the importance women have played in many of the most pivotal events. Who were some of the most important women alongside the men responsible for some of the most heinous acts recorded within the pages of the Human story? In the case of Nazi Germany, Eva Braun is often cited as being equivalent to the wives of Allied leaders and rightly so for she stood by Hitler until the very last moment of his life. However, she was by no means the only woman to occupy a significant place beside the Fuhrer. In this episode, we are going to look at the story of Magda Goebbels, wife of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, close and personal friend of the Fuhrer and the woman who was once labelled as the First Lady of the Third Reich.

Dive into the gripping story of the Battle of Midway, a pivotal moment in World War II that changed the course of history. In this video, we'll explore the strategies, key players, and decisive moments that led to the stunning victory of the United States against the Japanese Empire. Witness how the bravery and determination of the Allied forces turned the tide of the war in the Pacific, and learn about the lasting impact of this monumental battle on the outcome of World War II. Join us here on 'Wars of The World' as we uncover the secrets, sacrifices, and heroism of the Battle of Midway. 

It was a place few expected to be fighting in when war broke out in 1939. It was a conflict Hitler never wanted. It was a fight on terrain that at times was as hostile as the enemy. It was a battlefield that relied on chariots of steel and wings of vengeance and one that could only be won through cunning, ruthlessness and above all – an effective supply chain. For many, the battle for control of North Africa is seen as something of a side show to the war in Europe but this conceals the truth that if North Africa had fallen to the Axis powers of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy then the whole course of the war could have been completely changed. In this episode, we are going to explore the events surrounding the most pivotal battles for control of North Africa – the battles for El Alamein in Egypt – and examine the cost of both success and failure to both sides. Welcome to Wars of the World.

It would be too simplified an explanation for the motivation of Adolf Hitler to merely state that he desired conquest and power. Nazi Germany, including the lands to which its power reached, was to be a society unlike any other. Purged of those with attributes deemed undesirable in his new order, the new German people would be pure and united in their goal of achieving their country's destiny; to become the greatest nation on Earth. Technologically. Militarily. Scientifically. Germany was to be the envy of all, untouchable by the old foreign powers who would squabble for the scraps left in its wake as Hitler's hand as leader - the Fuhrer - stretched across the globe to every continent. At the heart of this new Germany would be its capital. Berlin, which was to be renamed Germania, would become the most developed and prosperous city not just in the world but in all of history, its magnificence leaving the famed capitals of empires of old such as Rome and Athens a mere shadow in comparison. And dominating this new supercity would be the immense Grand Hall or Hall of the People. Conceived of by Hitler and designed by Albert Speer, this immense, domed structure would dwarf any that was in existence at that time, aptly demonstrating Nazi Germany's power and capability. Being able to seat 180,000 Nazi German citizens, it would be 16 times larger than St. Peter's Basilica in Rome whose design it aped and would be filled with devoted followers all of whom would come to see the Fuhrer in person and hear him speak of the bright future for the Third Reich, a reich which Hitler promised would last a thousand years. And yet just twelve years after Hitler came to power, that dream of the greatest city in history was smashed under the tracks of Soviet T-34 tanks, the Nazi leadership having to recruit children and the elderly to try and stave off the Red Army that had encircled the city which already had been battered by Allied bombing raids for five years, looking to deliver the death blow to the Nazi tyranny. 

No war – won or lost – is ever waged without sacrifice. Those sacrifices can be material in the loss of equipment or infrastructure, monetary in the cost to a nation's economy of waging a war but always it is in blood. Death is at the very nature of war and while armies going back to antiquity have sought to limit their own casualties whenever they could, the threat of death is forever present. However, death is not always a matter of the unfortunate circumstance a combatant may find themselves in during their final moments. Throughout history, there are those who have engaged the enemy knowing that while they will almost certainly die, their sacrifice may have meaning for their comrades for as it is written in the Holy Bible in John Chapter 15 verse 13, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” Often the decision to make such sacrifices are made in the heat of battle however as the Second World War entered its final phase, the demand for sacrifice in order to help turn the tide against an increasingly hopeless situation led to an almost industrial scale undertaking to throw Human lives at the enemy in the hope of deflecting the inevitable. This is the story of the Divine Wind, Japan's Kamikazes. Welcome to Wars of the World.

In 1916, France was a nation cut in two by a string of trenches cut into the Earth running from north to south, separating two vast opposing military forces who fielded weapons that seemed the stuff of science fiction just a generation earlier. So confident in these weapons were both sides that they expected the fighting to be a short and sharp affair, both expecting victory but, in the end, it was nothing more than bloody, senseless stalemate.Britain had gone to war in honour of a treaty it had signed with Belgium which German Kaiser Wilhelm II disregarded when his troops invaded the small neutral country, looking to bypass the main French line. At the time the British Empire was the most powerful in history, but that strength largely lay in its navy. On the continent, professional troops used to putting down uprisings by tribesmen in remote parts of the Empire, struggled to get to grips with the realities of modern warfare. The result was a bloodbath and would eventually lead to the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The Vietnam War would see the realisation of the Vietnamese dream of a single unified, independent country taking its place in the world free of outside oppression and rule. It is the type of story that has been told throughout history and had it occurred at any other point in history then it would have likely been largely forgotten outside of the small South East Asian country as so many wars of independence are. But because of events elsewhere in the world, the battlefields of Vietnam became one of the most important in the world at that time for it was here that two ideological superpowers, the democratic west and the communist east, would throw their weight in. Not being able to fight one another directly because they would destroy themselves in a nuclear fire, they instead fought through the Vietnamese people. This is the story of the Vietnam War. 

On the morning of August 9th 1945, air raid sirens began to ring out in the Japanese city of Nagasaki. However, a short while later the sirens rang out again indicating that there was no danger and people began to climb out of their shelters to carry on about their daily business. Japanese spotters had only identified two United States Army Air Force B-29 bombers and they had previously flown to the city of Kokura without dropping any weapons so Japanese authorities presumed they were merely on a reconnaissance mission. Six days after the attack, Japan surrendered to the Allies bringing to a close the most destructive conflict in recorded history that ended with the first two – and so far, only - nuclear attacks in history. It was the Second World War. In this, the first of a two-part special, we are going to examine some of the key elements and incidents of what is probably the single most influential conflict in the course of Human history. Welcome to Wars of the World.

With the onset of Spring 1942, the war in the east was ready to begin again but the problem of supplies particularly of oil was forever a worry for the German High Command and so they planned for an offensive that if successful would not only alleviate their fuel shortage but also deny the Soviets their own fuel stocks. Part of that plan involved a city on the edge of the Volga River in eastern Ukraine. This city formerly known as Volgagrad had since been bestowed with the name of the Soviet leader himself and while few people before the war knew it even existed, in the decades since its name has adorned almost every history book as an example of what occurs when two powerful forces clash and refuse to submit to the other. This is the story of the Battle for Stalingrad. Welcome to Wars of the World.

In part 2 of our Battle of Britain documentary, we explored how after Germany had swept over continental Europe, Britain under Prime Minister Winston Churchill refused to give in to Hitler's will but while the British have spirit to spare, fighters and pilots to fly them were becoming increasingly scarce and unless things changed dramatically, Fighter Command would be whittled down into defeat. It was just a matter of time. In this episode we are going to explore the climax of the Battle of Britain and how Fighter Command was able to bounce back seemingly from the dead to achieve victory. Welcome to Wars of the World.

Fuelled by the euphoria of his successes thus far, Hitler was certain that the recently appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have no choice but to sue for peace. He was wrong. Churchill made it abundantly clear that Great Britain would never surrender to the Nazi tyranny. That Hitler's troops were going to have to fight for every square inch of the British Isles for in Churchill's mind and the free world itself, surrender was simply not an option. In this, the first of a two-part special we are going to examine the story of the Battle of Britain.

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time" So remarked the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, as the European continent geared up for war in the summer of 1914. Although at first glance his words appear somewhat fatalistic the fact is that what would transpire over the following four years would so dramatically change the world that the consequences of which would not be fully resolved until the end of the century when all the key figures involved had long died including Grey. Even today the consequences of that summer are still being felt in some way and we all live in the shadow of the aptly named Great War. The First World War. Welcome to Wars of the World.

At 8:46am on September 11th, 2001 - the world changed forever...A hijacked airliner was flown deliberately into the north tower of the World Trade Center followed seventeen minutes later by another plane which hit the south tower. A third airliner was flown into the Pentagon from where the US directed its global military operations while a fourth was brought down by courageous passengers who wrestled for control of the aircraft with the hijackers.For decades, the US had believed that it existed behind an armoured shield comprised of its enormous military might. That belief was now shattered. With so many people killed not just from the United States but from across the globe, it was truly an attack on the free world and the cry went out for justice. For revenge.Very quickly, it was concluded that the attack was authorized by Osama Bin Laden, the head of the al-Qaeda terrorist network who had long dreamed of a spectacular attack on the US mainland. Known to be hiding out in Afghanistan under the umbrella of the ideologically driven Taliban regime, the US and its Allies geared up for war. On September 10th, only a small proportion of Americans knew where Afghanistan was on a map. On September 12th, nearly the entire population were focused on this rural, landlocked country as the hunt for the most wanted man on Earth began.In this, the second episode of a two-part special on the violent history of Afghanistan, we are going to examine the American-led invasion of Afghanistan; America's longest war.

The United States of America was born out of the yearning of the many people who had traveled there from the old world of Europe to be free of the imperial powers that had dominated them for centuries. To have democracy, liberty, justice for all and to take command of their own destiny. The birth of the American nation was a painful one, first by having to fight against the forces of the British and then against the indigenous people of North America, within and from outside of the new borders they had declared. In between the many conflicts, the new nation had to establish its own laws, political system and even its own culture none of which developed overnight. Obviously, there would not always be a consensus. Over the century after 1776 when the United States of America was born, while growing under a political union of the states that it was composed of, it also saw the widening of a cultural divide between the industrious northern states and the agricultural southern states. Perhaps more than anything else, the two sides of this divide found themselves at odds over the question of slavery.The ethics of owning a person as property became a legal battle between those in support of the practice and those opposed in American courts and halls of power. Eventually, the dispute of course became a real battlefield. More Americans died in the American Civil War that raged on the North American continent between 1861 and 1865 than in any other war in which Americans have fought throughout its history.And while the battles have long ended, the ramifications of the civil war continue to be felt to this very day in America over issues such as culture and of course race. So, let us delve into the history of this dark chapter of American history.

On a sleepy Sunday morning in 1941, the Hawaiian island of Oahu couldn't have looked anymore idyllic. Even with the fairly recent arrival of the United States Pacific Fleet which had deployed to the island from San Diego to their new main base at Pearl Harbor only seemed to harbinger nothing more than a display of US naval prestige. Arranged off Ford Island in a line were seven of America's mightiest battleships. This part of the harbor had become known appropriately as Battleship Row and the sight of these seemingly invulnerable battlewagons must have convinced all that America's might was unquestionable.And yet the sun was rising literally and figuratively, shining a spotlight on a vast fleet of aircraft that buzzed through the morning sky and into history. This is the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Welcome to Wars of the World. The Lowcountry Gullah PodcastTheculture, history and traditions podcast where Gullah Geechee culture lives!Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

On Sunday 15th August 2021, after an almost 20 year-long absence, the Taliban recaptured the Afghan capital city of Kabul. As the US-led coalition withdrew, the Taliban regrouped and began expanding outward once again. Facing little opposition from the Afghan National Army that had been trained and equipped by western forces, they only grew bolder and began an almost Blitzkrieg-style campaign to retake villages, towns, cities and then entire provinces until they were once again in near-total control of a land that has seemingly only known bloodshed for the better part of fifty years.The story of the Taliban is the story of Afghanistan in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Cloaked in Islamic ideology that even many of the most prominent Muslim countries have largely moved on from, Afghanistan under the Taliban was always a land that resisted the influence of outsiders with tenacity, ferocity and always in blood. The attempts by the great powers of the world to bring Afghanistan more in-line culturally with the wider world perspective particularly concerning the treatment of women and the application of science and technology has presented an arena where the tools of the modern world have waged battles with the determination of the old. Yet almost every foreign power that has gotten involved with Afghanistan has ultimately failed in its mission there hence, Afghanistan becoming known as the graveyard of empires.In this the first part of a two-part special, we are going to examine the modern history of Afghanistan, investigate the origins and ideology of the Taliban and chart their rise and fall and then return to power. This is the Taliban's Story. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The end of the Second World War was met with riotous jubilation at the victory over the Axis powers and with the establishment of the United Nations there was the dream of a new world order of freedom, prosperity and above all peace. Even the advent of the Atom Bomb, the decisive weapon that ended the war was celebrated for it was believed it was so powerful it would render warfare obsolete.And yet even before the guns fell silent, concerned whispers were being shared in the halls of power regarding the capitalist Allies of the west and the communists in the east who hitherto had been united against Fascism. With there no longer being a common enemy to unite them, age-old rivalries and fears began to re-emerge. The western Allies of America, Britain, Canada and France had not forgotten that the Soviet leader Stalin had worked with the Nazis to carve up eastern Europe before Germany invaded Poland in 1939. They were also concerned about Stalin's refusal to surrender his grip on territories in eastern Europe which the Red Army had liberated and his land grab in Asia during his last-minute intervention in the Pacific theatre against Japan.Stalin himself, as paranoid as ever, was convinced that the western allies deliberately delayed the D-Day landings in order to bleed the Soviet Union of its people in an effort to weaken the vast country. The fact that American soldiers had fought in the Russian Civil War against the Communists in 1919 only helped fuel his belief that after Napoleon and Hitler, the next leader to take a massive army into the Soviet Union would be American.With both America and the Soviet Union having suffered devastating surprise attacks in the war, they were both determined that it would never happen again. They readied their armies to fight what would prove to be one of the most abstract conflicts in history – the Cold War.

Between 1939 and 1941, the forces of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany blazed a path of destruction, oppression and murder across the map of Europe and beyond and it seemed his ambition could never be satisfied. The world was his goal. Death was his tool. Only a badly beaten and barely holding-on Britain managed to hold back the tide long enough to guarantee that all of Europe wouldn't be draped in a flag bearing the Swastika. And yet within three years Britain, Canada and the United States along with survivors from the fallen nations would amalgamate into a single force and in one swift move, drive a dagger into the side of Hitler's dreams of total, European and ultimately global supremacy. That dagger was driven in on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 and it would be twisted into a wound that would never close. This is the story of Operation Overlord. This is the story of D-Day…My Love Letter Time Machine - Victorian HistorySerialising 200 charming + often funny love letters left by Fred & Janie courting in 1878 Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

War! The Human race never seems to fail in finding reasons for which to wage war upon itself. When we look back at the history of war and try to understand why they have broken out, we tend to see some causes appear over and over again as if we as a species are determined to repeat past mistakes rather than learn from them. Resources. Religion. Ideology. Border disputes. A hunger for power and conquest or simply good old-fashioned hatred of another. These are the reasons we have come to expect but if we examine history more closely, there are numerous conflicts that seemed to have been sparked by less obvious causes. In this episode, we are going to examine five wars sparked for reasons that perhaps you wouldn't expect to see written in a history book. So, from a case of a stolen bucket to a war started over a game of football, here are five unlikely causes of real wars throughout history. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The cost of war can be measured in many ways. Financially, materially, politically or of course in blood. However, there is a fifth cost that often gets overlooked in the history books and yet is arguably even more painful for the families back home, for it leaves them with no body to bury, no grave to visit and only questions that seem to never go answered as the world moves on. This is the cost of war for the families of those who disappear in the chaos of armed conflict. In this episode, we are going to look at three cases surrounding the US involvement in the war in southeast Asia where entire groups of Americans vanished. Here are three cases of mass disappearances of American service personnel and civilians related to the struggle for Vietnam. Welcome to Wars of the World. 

The modern supercarriers of the US Navy. More than 80,000 tons of moving American foreign policy. Each one of these incredible ships carries more firepower than most nations on Earth and are thus the ultimate expression of US military might. It is said that whenever there has been a crisis anywhere in the world in the last 80 years, the first question the sitting US President has asked is, “Where is the nearest carrier?” The first true supercarrier was the USS Kitty Hawk CV-63 commissioned into US service on April 29th 1961 at a time when a large number of World War II-era carriers were still serving in the fleet. During the later stages of the war there was one carrier in service, albeit briefly, that in terms of scale at least could be considered a direct forerunner to the revolutionary 1961 ship. In this episode we are going to look at the background, conception and ultimately the fate of the Imperial Japanese Navy's Shinano, World War II's ill-fated supercarrier.

The battle for the skies over war torn Europe was one of, if not the most crucial theatre of the war against Nazi Germany. The strategic bombing campaign carried out by the Allies grew in strength with every passing year until literally thousands of  four-engined heavy bombers like the American B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator blotted out the sun at day while at night an British and Canadian planes turned the black of night into an orange glow of flame as their bombs ignited below. However, an often-overlooked part of this story is the small but intriguing contribution of the Soviet Union in the story of the overall bombing campaign. Not possessing a vast armada of four engined heavy bombers with which to hit cities like Berlin, the Soviet story is instead one of symbolic retribution, for as Germany's armies seemed unstoppable in the opening months of Operation Barbarossa, Soviet aircraft battled the odds to prove to their people that the Fascists were not invincible. This is the story of Stalin's dramatic 1941 bombing campaign against the Nazi capital as his own capital was increasingly under threat from being overrun by German troops. Welcome to Wars of the World.  

The story of the Lancaster actually begins with the downfall of an earlier Avro aircraft that failed to live up to the high expectations that birthed it. Even in aviation circles, the Avro Manchester is an almost forgotten aircraft, making such a relatively small impact on the war it is completely overshadowed by its younger brother's many accomplishments. And yet without the Manchester there would have been no Lancaster and one can only speculate how differently the Allied war effort would have been conducted without the Lancaster's special abilities. In today's episode  we are going to look at one of those truly great, forgotten aircraft whose real contribution to history was to provide a step-up for the legend that was to come. This is the story of the Avro Manchester. Welcome to Wars of the World. 

 On May 11th 2020, an important historical discovery concerning the United States' military history was announced that went largely unnoticed by the wider public because of the Covid-19 pandemic that is wreaking havoc across the globe. SEARCH Inc, the largest underwater and terrestrial archaeology firm in the United States working in collaboration with underwater robotics company Ocean Infinity, announced the discovery of the wreck of the American battleship USS Nevada BB-36 almost 72 years after the warship was sunk as a target. However, no one should mistake such an inglorious end to the ship's life as a reflection on its time in service with the US Navy. On the contrary, few ships can claim to have had such a glorious career rising to the challenges put before it and playing an instrumental role in helping the US Navy modernise to meet the challenges of 20th century naval combat. This is the story of the legend of the ship the enemy simply could not sink.

An often overlooked part of the ME 262's story is that like many weapons from World War II, the Stormbird's life didn't end with the death of Hitler and the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 7th 1945. In this episode we are going to look at the Me262's life in the post-war period and how it impacted the victorious Allies moving forward as they turned on one another in the early days of the Cold War. Welcome to Wars of the World.

 Like any shooting war, a bloodless war can take on many forms and is not always declared by one side or the other. It simply comes into being as two sides with two opposing views clash often regarding territory and resources. Often, bloodless wars are seen as an alternative to actual shooting wars and are conducted as such with either side engaging in acts of vandalism or in some way inhibiting the affairs of the other short of firing weapons. Some bloodless wars are predominantly fought by countries and states at the negotiating table while backed up with some show of force designed to warn an opponent that they are prepared to defend themselves. In this episode we are going to examine three bloodless conflicts throughout history, explore their origins and examine how they were conducted and prevented from escalating further for it is true to say that every war in history was bloodless until the first shot was fired. Welcome to Wars of the World.

In this episode, we are going to examine just a handful of peculiar Allied prototype planes that bucked the trend of warplane design in the early 1940s and while we may not remember them in the same breath as the Spitfire, Mustang, Bf109 or the Zero, they have nonetheless carved themselves a niche place in the annals of military aviation history. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The famous Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands was preceded and arguably inspired by a dramatic and largely forgotten event that took place almost 20 years earlier, when the sleepy Falkland Islanders awoke to the news that armed Argentinians had landed on their islands claiming them for Buenos Aires. This is the story of the 1966 Condor Operation.Welcome to Wars of the World.

Throughout the history of naval warfare, it has been common practice to absorb captured enemy vessels into one's own fleet, bolstering numbers and replacing losses. A common occurrence in the days of great sailing vessels firing cannonballs at one another, with the invention of high explosive shells, often captured enemy vessels became too damaged during a fight to be of use to anyone however there have of course been many exceptions.In this episode, we are going to examine the story of how a German U-boat, the terror of the Allied convoys, found itself hoisting the white ensign of the Royal Navy and joining in the campaign against Nazi ambitions at sea. This is the story of the Royal Navy's U-boat.Welcome to Wars of the World.

The Soviet Union was probably the most enthusiastic of the Allies when it came to heavy tanks, not just from a tactical standpoint but from a psychological perspective also. In today's episode, we are going to look at the tanks that bore the name of the Soviet leader Josef Stalin, known to his followers as the Man of Steel. This is the story of the Stalin heavy tanks and how they helped the Soviets blunt German armoured superiority and push the Fascists back to final defeat. Welcome to Wars of the World.

It has long been a tradition amongst fighter pilots to display their prowess in the air with markings on their aircraft denoting their victories over enemy planes. Often these markings have taken the form of flags representing the country of which their defeated opponent hailed from. A prime example of this would be a North American P-51D Mustang flown by 1st Lieutenant Curdes. Having served in both theatres of the war where he proved himself supremely skilled in the art of air warfare, Curdes' aircraft displayed seven German Swastikas, a single Italian roundel, a Japanese Hinomaru and strangely, one US flag. This is the incredible true story of how one US pilot deliberately shot down an American C-47 Skytrain transport in order to save the lives of all of those onboard. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The conflict in Vietnam seemed to encompass all aspects of modern combat in the 1960s and 70s. From guerrilla fighting to armoured warfare. From technologically advanced air power to small four-man boats with machine guns. There seemed no end of dangerous assignments for the forces of the United States committed to repelling the communist Viet Cong insurgents from South Vietnam and their supporters in the north. However, some jobs will always stand out a little more than others when it comes to the risk involved. In this episode, we are going to look at just three of some of the most dangerous jobs undertaken in the Vietnam War – one each involving the US Army, Navy and Air Force. Welcome to Wars of the World. 

On July 27th 1929, many of the world's powers signed an agreement in Geneva that dictated the treatment of enemy soldiers captured during wartime. The Geneva Convention was seen as a revolution in international law, putting the world on a more civilised path for the future in the wake of the horrors of the First World War. However, as Shakespeare put it, “The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose,” and while the promise of Humane treatment at the hands of his captors might encourage a soldier with no hope of escape to surrender rather than die needlessly, the convention is also little more than ink on a piece of paper if the enemy decides not to abide by it, as was tragically proven time and time again during the fight against the Axis powers. In todays episode, we are going to examine three notorious prisoner of war camps that demonstrate just what imprisonment by the enemy can bring and the lengths some will go to in order to escape and get back into the fight against tyranny. Welcome to Wars of the World.

War is a complex business. It only takes one simple error to be made for total disaster, even the killing of one's own troops and allies. Known today as “friendly fire”, these tragic and fatal mistakes go all back to the dawn of history and despite advancements in technology still occur today. In today's episode, we are going to examine five cases of “friendly fire” during one of the most devastating periods of history – the Second World War. Welcome to Wars of the World.

In today's episode, we are going to look at three cases where US nukes have not only been declared as Broken Arrows but in part or in whole remain missing to this very day. Nuclear Weapons unaccounted for. Welcome to Wars of the World.

Given the immense amount of shipping sunk by submarines during the Second World War, it is incredible to remind ourselves that as of mid-2021 only three ships have been sunk in combat by a submarine since 1945. Meanwhile, numerous old vessels have been expended as targets to help hone the skills of submarine crews should they ever be called upon to wage their undersea war for real ever again. However, between the modern history training and actual combat sits an unusual event that occurred in 1967 when a British submarine was ordered to remove a rather unexpected threat to ships out in the Atlantic Ocean using weapons that were designed for war. This is the story of the torpedoing of the tanker Essberger Chemist when the Royal Navy sank half a ship. Welcome to Wars of the World.  

The Battle of Lissa is seldom remembered outside of naval circles or even amongst the peoples of the respective combatants involved but it was an engagement that seemed to show that traditional naval warfare was being turned on its head thanks to new technologies that somewhat ironically, forced naval commanders to revert to the ancient tactic of ramming enemy ships. In this episode of Wars of the World, we will examine this influential battle and study the impact it had on warship design and operational doctrine. This is the story of the Battle of Lissa and the legacy it left which can still be seen to a degree to this very day.

SOE agents could expect merciless treatment if captured and thus the psychological strain of being constantly on their guard meant only the strongest and toughest of people would do. Because they needed the very best of the best, the SOE didn't have room to discriminate based on gender. What mattered most to them was that any prospective agent was intelligent, resourceful, tenacious, courageous and above all dedicated to eradicating Nazism. In today's episode, we are going to look at three of the incredible women who served with the SOE, working to, as Churchill instructed, set Europe ablaze.

The narrative of the air campaign during World War II centres around huge formations of bombers dropping hundreds – sometimes thousands – of tons of bombs on the ground below in an effort to pummel the enemy into oblivion. Despite the best efforts of the crews involved, dropping bombs from around 15,000ft meant that a great number of them missed their intended targets meaning they were fighting and dying often for nothing. Military commanders got around this by instead targeting entire cities but when it came to targeting ships, it was nigh-on impossible to achieve success in this manner. However, a brilliant young engineer in Germany looked to take away control of the bomb from fate and give Germany a weapon of great power and unprecedented precision all the while keeping the valuable aircrew at a safe distance where enemy guns could not reach them. This is the story of the sinking of the battleship Roma and the birth of precision guided weapons, known more commonly today as smart bombs. Welcome to Wars of the World.  

As Germany found its forces split to fight the British Commonwealth in North Africa and Greece and the vast Soviet front in 1941, the Luftwaffe found that even with its proven fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf109 and the Focke Wulf 190, they simply didn't have enough to meet all the requirements Hitler asked of them effectively. What they needed was a new weapon which would leap-frog German fighter technology far beyond what the Allies possessed. A weapon that was not only deadly but simply unstoppable. They needed a Wunderwaffen and they believed they had one on the drawing board already. The Messerschmitt Me262. The first operational jet fighter in the world. With a level speed of 560mph, an altitude ceiling of 37,750ft and a rate of climb recorded at 3,900ft a minute, the Allies simply had nothing like it in their inventory. It could blast through fighter escorts and wreak havoc on Allied bombers with its four cannons mounted in its nose that could almost saw their way through a bomber's fuselage. But despite the promise, one fact has remained undeniable throughout the history of warfare and that is that any weapon ever fielded has only been as good as the person using it. Therefore, in this episode we are going to examine some of Germany's top jet fighter aces of World War II. The first jet aces. Welcome to Wars of the World.

The 1930s and 40s were time a of great pain for the Chinese people. Exploited by nearly all of the great foreign powers for decades, its vast population were largely impoverished and with the  collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 which had ruled the country since the mid-17th century, political instability broke the country up into factions. Then of course came the second world war, the Japanese occupation of China saw acts of brutality against the Chinese population that would be considered barbaric even by the standards of the dark ages. Then came Civil War, ending in 1949 when Mao Zedong emerged victorious and communism ruled the country. The newly founded People's Republic of China found itself in a precarious position, however. Sapped by years of warfare and strife, the country was now at odds with an increasingly hostile United States that was dominated by an anti-communist mania. Remembering how the US defeated their great enemy Japan with atom bombs, Chairman Mao and the communists knew they needed an answer to America's superweapons which were soon coming not just from the air but under the sea. In today's episode of Wars of the World, we are going to look at the history of China's efforts to develop the ultimate weapon. This is the story of China's undersea dragons; its pursuit force of nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines or SSBNs. Welcome to Wars of the World.

In the 1930s, with the black clouds of war gathering over the skies of Europe once more, the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin pushed to demonstrate its technical prowess to the rest of the world, particularly in the air, where the Soviets established a number of endurance records for aircraft. To demonstrate how far the Soviet Union had come culturally, a number of these record-breaking efforts included female pilots and aircrew, and none were more famous than Marina Raskova. Often credited as the Soviet Union's Amelia Earhart, Raskova was the first woman to qualify as a navigator in the Soviet Air Force in 1933 and was part of a record-breaking attempt for female aviators that saw her crew fly over 4,000 miles in a converted DB-2 long range bomber. This earned her celebrity status in the Soviet Union and crucially, influence over Stalin himself. For when war would finally break out between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, Raskova would come to Stalin with a plan for women to join the men in the fight against fascist tyranny. This plan would result in one of the most famous flying units of World War II – the Night Witches. Welcome to Wars of the World. 

If the trenches were the defining combat element of the First World War, then surely air power was the defining element in Second. Previously, air power primarily served to support the army and navy, but now it was of vital importance to the war effort in its own right. The battle for the skies was bloody and brutal where no quarter was ever given for to own the skies was to command the battlefield below. Between 1939 and 1945, the primary combatants built an estimated 810,000 aircraft of varying types and roles and with such large numbers of aircraft in action, there were bound to be stories that emerged which we still don't know the whole truth of, as all the facts get blurred in the fog of war. From missing pilots to a phantom bomber to the mystery of the luminous objects seen by crews across the world, here we are going to examine four aviation mysteries of World War II. Welcome to Wars of the World. 

As opposed to the fighting in North Africa or the brutal Eastern Front, prior to 1944 the German soldiers stationed in the west enjoyed good food, wine and the company of the local women. All the while they were unaware that they were often being lured in by those brave men and women who refused to submit to Hitler's tyranny. In Holland, three young women would wage a secret war against their occupiers using their innocent and youthful looks to lower their enemy's guard before they struck out like a deadly Black Widow spider. They did not embrace leading their lives this way. They had no blood lust, rather they simply did what had to be done in the cause of freedom. This is their story. Welcome to Wars of the World.

Few nations in history garner as much interest as Nazi Germany. When looking at this Fascist superpower we are left asking ourselves many, many questions with the most common beginning with the word “Why?” The reality is there are still endless questions surrounding the Nazis we do not, and may never know the answers to. In today's episode we will explore some of these Mysteries of Nazi Germany. Welcome to Wars of the World.

When we tell the stories of the grand military campaigns throughout history, they are dominated by operations to charge through the enemy's main lines, pushing the enemy back, and driving them to ultimate defeat. However, another form of attack has long been a staple of military campaigns, but it doesn't seek to hold territory it captures. Instead, a raid aims to achieve an objective such as destroying vital supplies or an enemy's headquarters before retreating back to friendly lines. A raiding force often has to be aggressive, well-equipped to be able to defend itself for often they lack support from other units and above all have to be mobile in order to reach their objectives and then escape. It is without question, a terrifyingly risky endeavour and, as a result, there are many that ended in tragedy, and disaster.In today's episode, we are going to look at three of the raids from World War II that for a variety of reasons went horribly wrong. Welcome to Wars of the World.

Be they trundling through the mud of Western Europe, kicking up dust on the plains of North Africa or forging a path through the snow of the Eastern Front; the tank defined the war on land between 1939 and 1945.  When the war ended and all sides began to disarm they found themselves with literally tens of thousands of now-surplus tanks in their inventories. Many of these war machines inevitably found themselves on the business end of a scrapper's torch as they were broken up, melted down and remade in to the trinkets of peacetime but equally, huge numbers of these proven, modern and widely available machines were now being eyed by other armies around the world as a way of quickly and relatively cheaply modernising their own tank units. As a result, for many of these tanks, combat was far from over. This is the story of how two of the most iconic tanks of World War II went back into the fray with owners old and new, time and time again, long after they should have been confined to the history books. They were the American M-4 Sherman and the Soviet Union's T-34, and this is their incredible story. Welcome to Wars of the World.