Special Forces In World War 2 Podcast

Special Forces in World War 2 Team

Welcome to the Special Forces in World War 2 Podcast. This is your gateway to delve into the extraordinary world of specialised forces during World War 2. Here at Special Forces in World War 2, we've created a virtual museum dedicated to uncovering the remarkable stories behind these elite units and specialised forces of the era. Our mission is to provide you with a comprehensive panorama of the units and formations that played pivotal roles in the Second World War. Join us as we uncover the untold stories, strategies, and sacrifices of the elite and specialised forces of World War 2.

  1. Assault on the Merville Battery, Part 1.

    3d ago

    Assault on the Merville Battery, Part 1.

    Improved 2 part episode of the Merville assault. In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, the men of the 9th Parachute Battalion will jump into the darkness over Normandy. Their objective is the Merville Battery, four guns in reinforced concrete, behind wire, mines, and a garrison of one hundred and sixty men. From its emplacements the battery commands the approaches to Sword Beach, where the British infantry will come ashore at dawn. It must be silenced before the landings begin. This is part one of the Merville Battery. We follow Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway and his battalion from the intelligence picture in the spring of 1944, through the plan, the rehearsals on a full-scale replica of the position, the glider pilots and their compressed Rebecca-Eureka course, and the final days in the transit camp. We follow them to the airfields on the evening of June 5th. We follow them across the Channel into a storm of flak, and down into the fields and floodwaters of Normandy. Part one ends as the last men jump from their Dakotas into the night sky over France. In part two, the assault itself. This episode draws on the work of Neil Barber, Carl Shilleto, Jon Cooksey, Stephen Wright, Kevin Shannon and the official war diaries of the 6th Airborne Division. Full sources at worldwar2-sof.com. #DDay #WW2 #WW2History #MervilleBattery #9thParachuteBattalion #OperationTonga #6thAirborneDivision #BritishAirborne #Normandy1944 #SwordBeach #WW2Podcast #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #Paratroopers #June61944 🔗 Stay connected with us: Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF Facebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 35m
  2. Coup de Main. The D-Day Assault on the Pegasus and Horsa Bridge. Part 2

    Jun 7

    Coup de Main. The D-Day Assault on the Pegasus and Horsa Bridge. Part 2

    In the thrilling conclusion of our series on the Coup de Main, we take you to the night of June 6, 1944. Join us as we follow Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork, Major John Howard, and the men of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in their daring glider assault on the Pegasus and Horsa bridges. Experience the tension, bravery, and chaos as these soldiers fight to secure these vital crossings against formidable German defenses. From the precise crash landings to the intense firefights, witness the extraordinary courage and determination that ensured the success of this pivotal mission in the Normandy invasion. Don't miss this action-packed episode as we bring history to life! #WWII #HistoryPodcast #PegasusBridge #DDay #CoupDeMain #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #OxAndBucks #NormandyInvasion #MajorJohnHoward #PodcastSeries #HistoricalEvents #WarStories #HeroicMissions Listen now on Spotify and relive the incredible story of the Coup de Main and the heroes who made history. 🔗 Stay connected with us: Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpecialForcesinWorldWar2 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 5m
  3. Coup de Main. The Preperations for the D-Day Assault on the Pegasus and Horsa Bridge. Part 1

    Jun 7

    Coup de Main. The Preperations for the D-Day Assault on the Pegasus and Horsa Bridge. Part 1

    In this gripping first episode of our series on the Coup de Main, we dive into the meticulous preparations led by Major John Howard and the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Discover how Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's strategic decisions set the stage for one of World War II's most daring missions. Follow the intense training, strategic planning, and rigorous exercises that transformed ordinary soldiers into a formidable force. Learn about the importance of capturing the Pegasus and Horsa bridges to secure the left flank of the Normandy beachhead. This episode sets the stage for the thrilling assault to come. Listen now and uncover the extraordinary efforts behind this critical mission! #WWII #HistoryPodcast #PegasusBridge #DDay #CoupDeMain #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #OxAndBucks #NormandyInvasion #MajorJohnHoward #PodcastSeries #HistoricalEvents #WarStories Tune in on Spotify and stay tuned for the next episode, where we delve into the actual assault and the incredible bravery displayed during the capture of the bridges. 🔗 Stay connected with us: Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpecialForcesinWorldWar2 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    51 min
  4. Landing Craft Infantry, (Large)

    May 21

    Landing Craft Infantry, (Large)

    She is forty-eight metres long, flat-bottomed, and built without a keel. She crosses the Atlantic under her own power, carrying two hundred infantry to defended beaches her smaller cousins cannot reach. Her side ramps earn the grim nickname of "bullet magnets" from the soldiers who descend them under fire. Without the Landing Craft, Infantry, Large, there is no Sicily, no Salerno, no Anzio, no Normandy, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa at the scale the Allies achieve. This episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, tells the story of the seagoing infantry landing craft that fills the gap between the davit-launched assault craft and the great Landing Ship, Tank. From the desperate summer of 1940, when the British Army stands on the wrong side of the Channel without the means to return, the Royal Navy and the United States Bureau of Ships develop the vessel together. The first contracts are signed on June 3rd, 1942. The first hull is afloat by September of the same year. Ten American shipyards, from George Lawley and Son in Massachusetts to Albina Engine and Machine in Oregon, build nine hundred and twenty-three of them in less than three years. We follow the L-C-I-L through her three principal design types, her transfer to the Royal Navy and the Soviet Navy under Lend-Lease, and her conversion into gunboat, mortar boat, rocket ship, flotilla flagship, and minesweeper. We follow her into combat in two theatres of war. We watch Lieutenant Alec Guinness, the future actor, land troops near Cape Passero lighthouse at Sicily. We watch the Coast Guard-manned LCI(L)-85, LCI(L)-91, LCI(L)-92, and LCI(L)-93 destroyed on Easy Red at Omaha Beach. We watch the Royal Canadian Navy's 262nd Flotilla charge through the beach obstacles at Bernières-sur-Mer at thirty kilometres per hour. We watch Group Eight at Iwo Jima, where Lieutenant junior grade Rufus Herring's LCI(G)-449 wins the Medal of Honor and ten Navy Crosses are awarded to her sister ships. This is the story of the unglamorous, slab-sided, flat-bottomed troop carrier that helps put the Allied infantry ashore on every contested beach from Licata to Okinawa. From the Channel to the Mekong, from Bethlehem Hingham to Subic Bay, this is the operational biography of one of the most-produced and least-celebrated Allied vessels of the Second World War. For maps, photographs, original documents, and the full source base behind this episode, visit www.worldwar2-sof.com. #WW2 #WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #LCI #LandingCraftInfantry #LCIL #DDay #Normandy #PacificWar #Anzio #Salerno #Sicily #IwoJima #Okinawa #Walcheren #Dragoon #OperationNeptune #USCoastGuard #USNavy #RoyalNavy #RoyalCanadianNavy #History #Podcast #WW2Podcast #NavalHistory #Amphibious #WW2History #SecondWorldWar #AlliedForces #Mountbatten #BuShips #RufusHerring #AlecGuinness #BeachAssault 🔗 Stay connected with us:Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sofFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOFFacebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sofSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 37m
  5. Operation Archway, Special Air Service, Part 2

    May 20

    Operation Archway, Special Air Service, Part 2

    April to May 1945. As the German front collapses, 1 and 2 Special Air Service race ahead of the British Army to secure key towns, hunt down Nazi officials, and liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. From Celle to the Elbe, and finally to Lübeck and Kiel, the Special Air Service plays a decisive role in the war’s final days. This episode follows their operations in the north German plain as the Third Reich disintegrates. Part One covers the Rhine crossing and the Special Air Service actions in March 1945. #SAS #WWII #OperationArchway #SpecialForces #HistoryPodcast #Belsen #VEday #Frankforce #WorldWar2 🔗 Stay connected with us: Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpecialForcesinWorldWar2 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 2m
  6. Operation Archway, Special Air Service, Part 1

    May 20

    Operation Archway, Special Air Service, Part 1

    March 1945. As the Allies cross the Rhine, 1 and 2 Special Air Service launch their final campaign in northwest Europe. Operating in fast-moving jeep columns, they strike deep behind enemy lines, linking with airborne forces, sabotaging German movements, and disrupting retreating units ahead of the main advance. This episode follows their actions across the Rhine and into Germany during the opening phase of Operation Archway. Part Two will continue the story into April and May 1945, through the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and the final push to the Elbe. #SAS #WWII #OperationArchway #SpecialForces #HistoryPodcast #RhineCrossing #DDay #Frankforce #WorldWar2 🔗 Stay connected with us: Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpecialForcesinWorldWar2 Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    54 min
  7. Landing Ship, Tank

    May 14

    Landing Ship, Tank

    She has no name. She carries only a number on her bow. She is slow, flat-bottomed, and unglamorous. Sailors call her a Large Slow Target. Yet without the Landing Ship, Tank, there is no Operation Torch, no Husky, no Avalanche, no Shingle, no Overlord, no Dragoon, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa. In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, host Michael Weyers tells the story of the vessel that solved a problem the Royal Navy had carried unsolved since the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915. How do you put a thirty-tonne tank ashore on a hostile coast where no port exists, no crane stands ready, and no pier reaches into the surf? The answer arrives, improbably, on the back of an envelope in a Washington office in November 1941. John C. Niedermair sketches the design in a couple of hours. From that sketch flows a programme that builds more than 1,051 ships in inland yards beside the Ohio and Illinois Rivers. The cornfield shipyards employ firms with no prior shipbuilding experience. Reservist crews learn their craft under fire, driving their bows onto hostile beaches in defiance of every instinct trained into a naval officer. This episode follows the L.S.T. from Churchill's first memorandum on July 6th, 1940, through the Maracaibo conversions, the Anglo-American design meetings, the production miracle, the disaster of Exercise Tiger, the cross-Channel shuttle to Normandy, and the kamikaze storms of the Pacific. Twenty-six L.S.T.'s are lost to enemy action. Hundreds of crewmen die by torpedo, mine, and kamikaze. Their story deserves to be told. #WW2 #WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #LST #LandingShipTank #DDay #Normandy #PacificWar #Anzio #Salerno #Sicily #IwoJima #Okinawa #Gallipoli #Churchill #History #Podcast #WW2Podcast #NavalHistory #Amphibious #WW2History #SecondWorldWar #AlliedForces #RoyalNavy #USNavy #Niedermair #ExerciseTiger #OperationOverlord #OperationDragoon 🔗 Stay connected with us:Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sofFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOFFacebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sofSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 27m
  8. Unternehmen Danzig, Sturmgruppe Granit, The Assault on Fort Eben Emael, Part 3

    Apr 30

    Unternehmen Danzig, Sturmgruppe Granit, The Assault on Fort Eben Emael, Part 3

    On the morning of May 10th, 1940, sixty-two Fallschirmjäger of Sturmgruppe Granit hold the roof of the most modern fortress in Europe. Below them, around twelve hundred Belgian soldiers of Fort Eben Emael are sealed in the tunnels under steel doors and sandbags. Between them, in the stairwells and ascent shafts, a silent division of the battlefield is in place. Their commander, Oberleutnant Rudolf Witzig, is still trying to reach his fort. In this final episode of our series on Unternehmen Danzig, we close the story of Sturmgruppe Granit and the assault on Fort Eben Emael. At 08:30 a glider circles over the fort, and the long contest for the fortress begins in earnest. We follow the afternoon on the superstructure under hollow-charge attack, the air resupply by Heinkel He 111, and the Belgian counterattacks that move out from the tunnels into the woods and onto the slopes. We descend into the fort with Chaplain Meesen, Major Van der Auwera, and the wounded. We follow Feldwebel Portsteffen and the 51. Pionier-Bataillon as they fight west to the Albert Canal under fire from Casemate 17, and we wait with them on the dark bank for a chance to cross. What happens in the tunnels, on the canal, and at the gate of Fort Eben Emael in the hours that follow brings the operation, and the series, to its close. For maps, photographs, original documents, and the full source base behind this series, visit www.worldwar2-sof.com. #WorldWarII #SpecialForces #Fallschirmjäger #Airborne #AlbertCanal #FortEbenEmael #FallGelb #SturmgruppeKoch #SturmgruppeGranit #BelgiumCampaign #1940 #MilitaryHistory #WWIIPodcast #GermanAirborne #UnternehmenDanzig #Paratroopers #SpecialOperations #WWII #WarHistory #MilitaryPodcast #DFS230 #HollowCharge #RudolfWitzig #Jottrand #KölnOstheim 🔗 Stay connected with us:Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sofFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOFFacebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sofSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

    1h 38m
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About

Welcome to the Special Forces in World War 2 Podcast. This is your gateway to delve into the extraordinary world of specialised forces during World War 2. Here at Special Forces in World War 2, we've created a virtual museum dedicated to uncovering the remarkable stories behind these elite units and specialised forces of the era. Our mission is to provide you with a comprehensive panorama of the units and formations that played pivotal roles in the Second World War. Join us as we uncover the untold stories, strategies, and sacrifices of the elite and specialised forces of World War 2.

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