The WW2 Grognard

ROD INOJOSA

The WW2 Grognard is a documentary podcast for people who already know the war — and know that most of what they've been told about it is incomplete. Each episode is narrated by Charles Mercer, a voice that doesn't perform history. It inhabits it. The research is deep, the judgments are earned, and the stories chosen are the ones that don't fit cleanly into the standard narrative: the commanders history celebrated without asking what they cost, the decisions that won battles and killed men for the wrong reasons, the figures on both sides who understood exactly what was happening and went forward anyway. This is not a podcast about dates and campaigns. It is a podcast about character under extreme pressure — about what war does to the people who fight it, command it, survive it, and can't survive it. About the gap between the monument and the man. About the price of the photograph. The host is not a journalist or an entertainer. He is someone who has read the primary sources, argued with the historians, and come to conclusions he is willing to defend. He is grumpy about myth. He is careful about facts. He is not interested in heroes. If you've ever watched a WW2 documentary and felt it was telling you what to think instead of showing you what happened — this is the antidote.

  1. 3d ago

    FDR Rejected Japan's Peace Offer in 1942. Was He Right?

    Cordell Hull rejected Japan's peace offer 10 days before Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt said no at Casablanca. Truman had proof Japan would surrender — and stayed silent. Six days later: Hiroshima. Four times Japan tried to end the war. Four times America said no. This episode asks the question historians still argue: was America right? The protagonist is Cordell Hull — the man who triggered Pearl Harbor with a memo, served longer as Secretary of State than anyone in American history, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945. This is the third episode in the Pearl Harbor trilogy. The first two told the Japanese side. This one tells the American side — the documents that existed and were never sent, the decisions that shaped the end of the war. CHAPTERS 00:00 — Introduction: The Nobel Prize and the Man Who Triggered Pearl Harbor 02:35 — Cordell Hull: The Tennessee Lawyer Who Ran American Diplomacy 05:17 — November 1941: The Document Hull Never Sent 11:17 — Casablanca 1943: Roosevelt's Two Words That Closed Every Door 15:31 — February 1945: The Prince Who Told Hirohito the War Was Lost 20:18 — Potsdam 1945: Truman Knew Japan Would Surrender. He Said Nothing. 27:02 — The Case For and Against: Historians Still Disagree 31:44 — Cordell Hull's Nobel Peace Prize — and His 1,500-Page Defense 33:58 — Epilogue: The Modus Vivendi That Was Never Sent ========== THE WW2 GROGNARD COMPANION SERIES Most histories tell you what happened. This series explains why it happened. These are long-form companion guides built from the same foundation as the channel — but taken further. Doctrine. Intelligence. Decisions. Outcomes. Each volume explores a different dimension of war — naval, land, and command — forming a complete understanding of the conflict. https://theww2grognard.gumroad.com ========== No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: Hull Note — Cordell Hull to Kichisaburo Nomura, November 26, 1941 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1941, Volume IV: The Far East U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1956 Konoe Memorial to Emperor Hirohito — February 1945 Reproduced and analyzed in: Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins, 2000) Potsdam Declaration — July 26, 1945 U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam), 1945, Volume II Kido Koichi Diary — Wartime record of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Primary source for Hirohito's response to Konoe and surrender deliberations Analyzed in: Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins, 2000) Henry L. Stimson — Memorandum to President Truman, July 2, 1945 Stimson Papers, Yale University Library Secondary: Cordell Hull The Memoirs of Cordell Hull, Volumes I and II Macmillan, New York, 1948 Waldo Heinrichs Threshold of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Entry into World War II Oxford University Press, New York, 1988 Tsuyoshi Hasegawa Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005 Gar Alperovitz The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb Knopf, New York, 1995 Herbert Feis The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1966 Herbert P. Bix Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan HarperCollins, New York, 2000 Kazuo Kawai "Mokusatsu: Japan's Response to the Potsdam Declaration" Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 4, 1950 Note: This documentary covers historical events from November 1941 through August 1945 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    38 min

  2. 3d ago

    After Pearl Harbor: How the Perfect Attack Destroyed Japan

    Pearl Harbor 1941: Japan's perfect attack destroyed the Pacific Fleet — and destroyed Japan. Here's how a masterpiece became a catastrophe. In December 1941, Japan executed a tactically flawless operation: six carriers, 353 aircraft, complete surprise, 2,400 Americans killed, the Pacific Fleet crippled in ninety minutes. By every military measure, it was a masterpiece. And it was a catastrophe. Not because of what Japan destroyed at Pearl Harbor — but because of what it didn't destroy. The fuel tanks. The dry docks. The aircraft carriers that were at sea that morning. And something harder to measure: the political unity of a country that had been divided over the war for years, unified in a single morning into something that would not stop until Japan was ash. This episode follows the arc from December 7th, 1941 to September 2nd, 1945 — through Midway, Guadalcanal, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the closed room where Japan's leaders finally said the word they had been unable to say for four years. Along the way it asks a question that historians still argue about: did Japan ever have a way out? And if so, when did it close? #PearlHarbor #Yamamoto #WW2 #PacificWar #WorldWarII #WW2Documentary #NavalHistory #JapaneseNavy #Midway #historydocumentary CHAPTERS 00:00 — The Decision That Sealed Japan's Fate 02:15 — Chapter 1: The Man Who Warned Them 07:01 — Chapter 2: The Assumption 10:25 — Chapter 3: The Private Man on the Flagship 13:56 — Chapter 4: The Victories That Changed Nothing 17:38 — Chapter 5: Midway — The Mask Comes Off 22:24 — Chapter 6: The War With No End State 25:35 — Chapter 7: Yamamoto's End 27:27 — Chapter 8: The Emperor's Questions 29:37 — Chapter 9: The End of the Calculation 32:35 — Epilogue: The Sleeping Giant and the Closed Room ========== THE WW2 GROGNARD COMPANION SERIES Most histories tell you what happened. This series explains why it happened. These are long-form companion guides built from the same foundation as the channel — but taken further. Doctrine. Intelligence. Decisions. Outcomes. Each volume explores a different dimension of war — naval, land, and command — forming a complete understanding of the conflict. https://theww2grognard.gumroad.com ========== No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: Yamamoto Isoroku — Statement to Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe, September 1940 "I shall run wild for the first six months or a year, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years." Reproduced in: Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept (McGraw-Hill, 1981) Yamamoto Isoroku — Letter to a friend, Autumn 1941 "I find my present position extremely odd, obliged to make up my mind to pursue a course precisely the opposite of my personal views." Reproduced in: Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept (McGraw-Hill, 1981) Kido Koichi Diary — Wartime record of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Primary source for Hirohito's private questions to advisers, 1944–1945 Analyzed in: Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (HarperCollins, 2000) Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack — Report of the Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1946 Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1941, Volume IV: The Far East U.S. Department of State, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1956 Secondary: Gordon W. Prange, with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor McGraw-Hill, New York, 1981 Gordon W. Prange, with Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon Pearl Harbor: The Verdict of History McGraw-Hill, New York, 1986 Herbert P. Bix Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan HarperCollins, New York, 2000 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 2001 Roberta Wohlstetter Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision Stanford University Press John Toland The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 Random House, New York, 1970 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, 1971 Samuel Eliot Morison History of United States Naval Operations in World War II Vol. III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific, 1931–April 1942 Little, Brown, Boston, 1948 MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ American Frontiers - Aaron Kenny Loss - Kevin MacLeod Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    36 min

  3. 5d ago

    Burke’s Doctrine: The Night Attacks That Won the Pacific War

    Arleigh Burke sank more Japanese destroyers than any officer in the Pacific War. The Navy named 74 ships after him. Almost no one knows what he did. He arrived in the Solomon Islands in October 1943 with a doctrine no one had approved. Eight weeks later, he had fought three major night engagements — and won all of them without losing a single American ship. The Battle of Cape St. George is still taught at the Naval War College as a model of destroyer warfare. Zero American casualties. Three Japanese destroyers sunk in the dark, by radar, at ranges the official doctrine said were impossible. This is also the story of what came after the war. The nuclear program he built against everyone's resistance. The political fights he chose to lose. The word on his headstone — just one word — that he specifically requested. The Navy honored him completely. And in doing so, stopped telling the story of what he'd done. #ww2 #arleighburke #navalwarfare #pacificwar #ww2documentary #destroyers #usnavy #worldwar2 #ww2history #militaryhistory — CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: Cape St. George, November 25th 1943 — The Night Attack 02:42 — Chapter 1: Boulder, Colorado 1901 — The Farmer's Son Who Went to Sea 06:49 — Chapter 2: Savo Island & Tassafaronga 1942 — Why the Navy Was Losing 11:21 — Chapter 3: The Heretic's Doctrine — Burke Rewrites the Rules 13:17 — Chapter 4: The Little Beavers — DesRon 23, October 1943 15:25 — Chapter 5: Empress Augusta Bay — First Test 19:57 — Chapter 6: Cape St. George — The Perfect Battle 25:03 — Chapter 7: The Impossible Jump — CNO, 1955 27:38 — Chapter 8: Polaris — Building the Nuclear Shield 35:05 — Chapter 9: The Slow Defeats — Cuba, McNamara, Retirement 38:08 — Chapter 10: The Ship — DDG-51, 1991 40:06 — Epilogue: Sailor ========== THE WW2 GROGNARD COMPANION SERIES Most histories tell you what happened. This series explains why it happened. These are long-form companion guides built from the same foundation as the channel — but taken further. Doctrine. Intelligence. Decisions. Outcomes. Each volume explores a different dimension of war — naval, land, and command — forming a complete understanding of the conflict. https://theww2grognard.gumroad.com ========== No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard — IMAGE CREDITS Historical photographs used in this documentary were sourced from the U.S. National Archives (NARA), the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) and Wikimedia Commons. All images are in the public domain. Archival footage sourced from the National Archives (NPC-1157, NPC-7931, NPC-10880) — public domain U.S. government works. RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: E.B. Potter — Admiral Arleigh Burke (Naval Institute Press, 1990) David Alan Rosenberg — Arleigh Burke: The Last CNO (U.S. Naval Institute, 1994) U.S. Navy — Action Report: Battle of Cape St. George, November 25, 1943 (National Archives, RG 38) Norman Friedman — The Fifty-Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War (Naval Institute Press, 2000) Secondary: Naval History and Heritage Command — Destroyer Squadron 23 records Naval War College Review — Cape St. George as a case study in destroyer tactics National WWII Museum — Pacific Theater Naval Operations Wikipedia — Arleigh Burke, Battle of Cape St. George, USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51), Polaris missile Note: This documentary covers historical events from 1901 to 1996 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ Piano No. 4 by Esther Abrami Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain — Charles

    44 min
  4. Ōnishi: He Created the Kamikaze. Then Left a Note Asking the Survivors Not to Follow Him.

    Apr 27

    Ōnishi: He Created the Kamikaze. Then Left a Note Asking the Survivors Not to Follow Him.

    He invented the kamikaze. He sent four thousand young men to die in it. And on the night the second world war ended, he sat alone in a room, refused help, and chose a death that lasted fifteen hours. This is the story of Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi — the Japanese naval officer who created the Tokkō special attack corps in October 1944, in a small airfield north of Manila, with six days to spare before the American invasion. He believed in what he was building. Then, somewhere in the spring of 1945, he stopped believing. And couldn't stop the machine he had started. The note he left for the survivors asked them not to follow him. It asked them to live. It asked them to build Japan in peace. Some pilots who were planning collective suicide read that note and didn't go through with it. We don't know the total. We know the number is greater than zero. This documentary is not about fanaticism. It is about a man who was capable of seeing clearly, obeyed when his clarity was overruled, and spent the last hours of his life trying to understand what that had cost. CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: Fifteen Hours 04:06 — The Japanese Admiral Who Opposed Pearl Harbor 08:22 — Why Japan Was Losing the Air War by 1944 10:35 — The Night the Kamikaze Was Born: Mabalacat, October 1944 12:30 — The First Kamikaze Mission: USS St. Lo, October 25, 1944 15:51 — How the Kamikaze Program Killed 4,000 Japanese Pilots 16:35 — Did Ōnishi Believe in What He Built? 22:00 — The Day Japan Surrendered: August 15, 1945 23:17 — The Death Ōnishi Chose: Fifteen Hours Without Help 26:44 — The Note That Saved Kamikaze Survivors From Suicide 30:23 — What Ōnishi Left Behind — and What He Could Not Undo — If this is the kind of history you're looking for — SUBSCRIBE. There's always another story waiting. — — No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard — For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: Rikihei Inoguchi & Tadashi Nakajima — The Divine Wind: Japan's Kamikaze Force in World War II (Naval Institute Press, 1958) https://amzn.to/4u60zJX Denis Warner & Peggy Warner — The Sacred Warriors: Japan's Suicide Legions (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982) https://amzn.to/4echtSD Albert Axell & Hideaki Kase — Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Gods (Longman, 2002) https://amzn.to/48ZmWsv U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey — The Campaigns of the Pacific War, Appendix: Kamikaze Operations (1946) https://amzn.to/4cPwcRh Secondary: Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney — Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers (University of Chicago Press, 2006) https://amzn.to/4tCLQqj Max Hastings — Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (Knopf, 2008) https://amzn.to/4vUrSsx Naval History and Heritage Command — Kamikaze Attacks of World War II: A Complete History HistoryNet — The First Kamikaze: Yukio Seki and the Shikishima Unit Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus — Ōnishi Takijirō and the Ethics of the Special Attack Wikipedia — Takijirō Ōnishi, Kamikaze, Tokubetsu Kōgekitai, Battle of Leyte Gulf, USS St. Lo National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org Note: This documentary covers historical events of World War II and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ Loss by Kevin MacLeod Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, Japanese National Diet Library, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    34 min
  5. Halsey Got the Fifth Star. Spruance Won the War. The Admiral America Forgot.

    Apr 26

    Halsey Got the Fifth Star. Spruance Won the War. The Admiral America Forgot.

    Admiral Raymond Spruance won the Battle of Midway, commanded the Fifth Fleet, and refused to be a hero. While Halsey got the fifth star and the headlines, Spruance got Pebble Beach, a garden, and a schnauzer named Peter. This is the story of the U.S. Navy's most underrated commander of World War II — the admiral who out-thought the Imperial Japanese Navy at Midway and the Philippine Sea, then walked away from the spotlight he never wanted. In June 1942, with William Halsey hospitalized, Admiral Chester Nimitz chose Spruance to command Task Force 16 against four Japanese aircraft carriers near Midway Atoll. Spruance had no carrier command experience. He won anyway. Four Japanese fleet carriers — Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu — were destroyed in a single morning. The Pacific War turned on his decision to launch at maximum range. Two years later at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Spruance made the most controversial call of his career: he refused to chase Admiral Ozawa's retreating fleet, choosing instead to protect the Saipan landings. His own carrier admirals — Mitscher, Burke, Towers — believed he had let the war's greatest opportunity slip. He never publicly defended himself. Not in 1944. Not in 1969 when he died. He simply went home to Pebble Beach, gardened, and walked ten miles a day until the end. — CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: The Night He Didn't Celebrate 02:45 — Chapter 1: The Child Who Was Given Away 05:06 — Chapter 2: The Silent Cadet 07:06 — Chapter 3: Seven Years of Silence 08:34 — Chapter 4: Between Two Wars 11:04 — Chapter 5: Halsey's Rash That Changed the War 13:13 — Chapter 6: The Morning of June 4 — Midway 16:23 — Chapter 7: The Admiral Who Walked Alone 19:00 — Chapter 8: The Night He Said No — Philippine Sea 23:15 — Chapter 9: The Fifth Star That Never Came 25:29 — Chapter 10: The Embassy in Manila 27:32 — Chapter 11: The Garden at Pebble Beach 29:51 — Chapter 12: The Friends Buried Together 31:55 — Chapter 13: December 13, 1969 33:39 — Epilogue: The Man the Camera Never Liked — If this is the kind of history you're looking for — SUBSCRIBE. There's always another story waiting. — No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard —  For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: Thomas B. Buell — The Quiet Warrior: A Biography of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance (Naval Institute Press, 1974) https://amzn.to/3OKSVWn E.B. Potter — Nimitz (Naval Institute Press, 1976) https://amzn.to/4vOCr06 Samuel Eliot Morison — History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vols. IV & VIII (Little, Brown) https://amzn.to/4sYulQa https://amzn.to/4sWQeiD John B. Lundstrom — Black Shoe Carrier Admiral: Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway, and Guadalcanal (Naval Institute Press, 2006) https://amzn.to/41VbKta Secondary: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command — Raymond A. Spruance Papers Naval War College Review — Vol. 62, No. 4 (Autumn 2009) Andrew K. Blackley — Wielding the Trident: Admiral Raymond A. Spruance and America’s Victory in the Pacific https://amzn.to/3QtBWZn HistoryNet — The Quiet Admiral Who Won at Midway Warfare History Network — Spruance vs. Halsey: The Two Faces of American Naval Command Wikipedia — Raymond A. Spruance, Battle of Midway, Battle of the Philippine Sea, Marianas Turkey Shoot, Fifth Fleet National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org Note: This documentary covers historical events of 1942–1969 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ Loss by Kevin MacLeod Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    36 min
  6. The Unknown Hero Who Charged a Battleship With a Destroyer — and Saluted by the Enemy

    Apr 26

    The Unknown Hero Who Charged a Battleship With a Destroyer — and Saluted by the Enemy

    The unknown captain who charged a Japanese battleship fleet with a single American destroyer. Ernest E. Evans, USS Johnston, Battle off Samar, October 25, 1944 — and the enemy salute that ended his fight. Off the island of Samar. A half-Cherokee captain from Pawnee, Oklahoma stands on the bridge of a single Fletcher-class destroyer and sees twenty-three Japanese warships — including four battleships — coming straight at him. He has three minutes to decide. He turns toward them. This is the story of Ernest Edwin Evans, the first Native American naval officer to receive the Medal of Honor, and the destroyer USS Johnston (DD-557) — found in 2021 four miles deep at the bottom of the Philippine Sea, with her guns still pointed toward where the Japanese fleet once was. -- CHAPTERS 00:00 — Cold Open: Off Samar, October 25, 1944 02:39 — Chapter 1: The Boy from Pawnee 04:35— Chapter 2: The Quiet Decade 06:59 — Chapter 3: "I Intend to Go in Harm's Way" 08:06 — Chapter 4: The Training Year 09:28 — Chapter 5: The Night the Door Was Left Open 11:31 — Chapter 6: Many Masts 14:02 — Chapter 7: Ten Torpedoes 16:14 — Chapter 8: Small Boys, Attack 17:37 — Chapter 9: Between the Battleship and the Carrier 18:48 — Chapter 10: The Destroyers That Turned Away 19:32 — Chapter 11: The Circle 21:29 — Chapter 12: The Salute 22:45 — Chapter 13: What Happened Next 24:27 — Chapter 14: San Pedro, 1945 26:03 — Chapter 15: Four Miles Down 28:06 — Chapter 16: Epilogue: Still on Station — If this is the kind of history you're looking for — SUBSCRIBE. There's always another story waiting. — No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard —  For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command — Johnston (DD-557) Official Page https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/ships/modern-ships/johnston.html USS Johnston (DD-557) Action Report — 14 November 1944, Lt. Robert C. Hagen, Senior Surviving Officer Robert C. Hagen — "We Asked for the Jap Fleet — and Got It" (The Saturday Evening Post, May 1945) Medal of Honor Citation — Commander Ernest Edwin Evans (presented 28 September 1945) Samuel Eliot Morison — History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XII: Leyte, June 1944–January 1945 (Little, Brown, 1958) https://amzn.to/4sXM5eu NHHC Wreckage Confirmation — USS Johnston (DD-557) (April 2021) https://www.history.navy.mil/news-and-events/news/2021/wreckage-confirmed-as-heroic-uss-johnston--dd-557-.html Secondary: James D. Hornfischer — The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (Bantam, 2004) https://amzn.to/3P1INZB Thomas J. Cutler — The Battle of Leyte Gulf: 23–26 October 1944 (HarperCollins, 1994) https://amzn.to/3R0xqBD The National WWII Museum — Eyewitness to the Battle off Samar and the Loss of the USS St. Lo USNI News — Wreck of Famed WWII Destroyer USS Johnston May Have Been Found (October 2019) Destroyer History Foundation — USS Johnston (DD-557), Fletcher-class destroyer in World War II https://destroyerhistory.org/fletcherclass/ussjohnston/ NHHC The Sextant Blog — Surface Warrior: Remembering Ernest Evans U.S. Naval Academy Virtual Memorial Hall — Ernest E. Evans, Cmdr., USN Wikipedia — USS Johnston (DD-557), Battle off Samar, Ernest E. Evans, Battle of Leyte Gulf, Clifton Sprague, Taffy 3 National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org Note: This documentary covers historical events of October 1944 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ No. 4 Piano Journey by Esther Abrami Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain — FOR HISTORY ENTHUSIASTS — The WW2 Grognard delivers cinematic Pacific War documentaries — history told without Hollywood myths. Subscribe for new episodes every week. #WW2 #PacificWar #USNavy #BattleOffSamar #USSJohnston

    30 min
  7. Leyte: He Declared Victory While His Men Were Still Dying — The Ground War

    Apr 26

    Leyte: He Declared Victory While His Men Were Still Dying — The Ground War

    MacArthur declared victory on December 26th, 1944. His men were still dying in those mountains five months later. Three men. One island. A battle history buried under the naval legend. The general who conquered Singapore in 70 days — exiled for being too popular, then executed for crimes he didn't order. The American commander who actually won Leyte — whose name you've never heard. And the Japanese general left behind by his own army in those mountains, still fighting long after Tokyo had written him off. This is the ground war at Leyte. The one MacArthur said was over before it was. — CHAPTERS 00:00 — The Battle That Decided the Pacific 02:35 — Chapter 1: The Tiger In Exile - Yamashita 06:25 — Chapter 2: Walter Krueger - The Man Who Won The Battle And Disappeared 11:31 — Chapter 3: Into The Valleys - The First Weeks 12:55 — Chapter 4: Breakneck Ridge 15:35 — Chapter 5: Ormoc Beach 17:48 — Chapter 6: The General´s Last Battle - Suzuki 20:00 — Chapter 7: The Filipinos 22:17 — Chapter 8: The Tigers Trial - Yamashita 25:44 — Epilogue: The Announced Victory And The Unannounced War — If this is the kind of history you're looking for — SUBSCRIBE. There's always another story waiting. — No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard —  For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: U.S. Army Center of Military History — Leyte: The Return to the Philippines https://amzn.to/4cAU62E Nathan N. Prefer — Leyte 1944: The Soldiers' Battle (Casemate, 2012) https://amzn.to/4cH8AxY Kevin Holzimmer — General Walter Krueger: Unsung Hero of the Pacific War (University Press of Kansas, 2004) https://amzn.to/3OWuLIH U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey — Interrogation of General Tomoyuki Yamashita (October 1945) https://amzn.to/4sTWxUe Secondary: Warfare History Network — The Liberation of the Philippines Warfare History Network — Doughboy White: The Lost Battalion of Leyte Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus — Last Words of the Tiger of Malaya (Yuki Tanaka) HistoryNet — Translating for Yamashita: The Tiger's Trial EBSCO Research — Japanese General Yamashita Convicted of War Crimes Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Walter Krueger, Sosaku Suzuki, Battle of Manila National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org Note: This documentary covers historical events of October 1944 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ Loss by Kevin MacLeod Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    29 min
  8. Leyte: The Largest Naval Battle in History — And the Decision Nobody Can Explain

    Apr 26

    Leyte: The Largest Naval Battle in History — And the Decision Nobody Can Explain

    Leyte Gulf - The largest naval battle in history was decided not by firepower — but by a single decision no one can fully explain. October 1944. Four Japanese fleets are converging on the Philippines from different directions. MacArthur's invasion force is on the beach. The only thing standing between the landing fleet and the most powerful surface force Japan ever assembled is a handful of escort carriers and destroyer escorts — ships that were never meant to fight battleships. And the admiral who was supposed to protect them just took the entire Third Fleet and disappeared over the horizon. This is the story of Leyte Gulf: the admirals who knew they were sailing to their deaths, the fleet commander who took the bait, the tiny ships that faced the impossible — and the decision at the center of it all that history still cannot explain. — CHAPTERS 00:00 — The Battle That Decided the Pacific 02:46 — Chapter 1: Japan's Last Gamble 05:15 — Chapter 2: The Admiral Who Sailed to His Own Death 11:17 — Chapter 3: The Most Powerful Fleet in History — Under Attack 15:09 — Chapter 4: Halsey Chases the Bait 18:32 — Chapter 5: The Southern Force — Sailing Into a Trap 19:55 — Chapter 6: Tiny Ships Against a Battleship Fleet 26:13 — Chapter 7: Why Did Kurita Turn Back? 29:50 — Chapter 8: The Decoy That Worked 32:22 — Chapter 9: What Leyte Gulf Changed Forever 35:34 — Epilogue: Three Admirals, One Morning, Three Fates — If this is the kind of history you're looking for — SUBSCRIBE. There's always another story waiting. — No ads. No sponsors. Just research and a lot of coffee (and beer): https://buymeacoffee.com/theww2grognard —  For the full cinematic experience — with historical photographs and archival footage — watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheWW2Grognard — RESEARCH SOURCES Primary: Thomas J. Cutler — The Battle of Leyte Gulf (Naval Institute Press) https://amzn.to/4cCrLZN C. Vann Woodward — The Battle for Leyte Gulf (Macmillan, 1947) https://amzn.to/3OCcobK Samuel Eliot Morison — History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol. XII https://amzn.to/4cAw1ZJ Secondary: James D. Hornfischer — The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors (Bantam, 2004) https://amzn.to/4tZ1kVb Anthony Tully & Jon Parshall — Shattered Sword (Potomac Books, 2005) https://amzn.to/494ps0z National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org Wikipedia — Battle of Leyte Gulf, Halsey, Kurita, Taffy 3 Note: This documentary covers historical events of October 1944 and does not address current events. MUSIC Almost in F — Tranquillity by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Source: http://incompetech.com/ American Frontiers by Aaron Kenny Source: YouTube Audio Library No.4 Piano Journey by Esther Abrami Source: YouTube Audio Library PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY Script & Research: Human-authored | Narration: AI-generated (ElevenLabs v3) | Narrator: Charles Mercer | Images: U.S. National Archives, NHHC, Wikimedia Commons — public domain

    39 min
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About

The WW2 Grognard is a documentary podcast for people who already know the war — and know that most of what they've been told about it is incomplete. Each episode is narrated by Charles Mercer, a voice that doesn't perform history. It inhabits it. The research is deep, the judgments are earned, and the stories chosen are the ones that don't fit cleanly into the standard narrative: the commanders history celebrated without asking what they cost, the decisions that won battles and killed men for the wrong reasons, the figures on both sides who understood exactly what was happening and went forward anyway. This is not a podcast about dates and campaigns. It is a podcast about character under extreme pressure — about what war does to the people who fight it, command it, survive it, and can't survive it. About the gap between the monument and the man. About the price of the photograph. The host is not a journalist or an entertainer. He is someone who has read the primary sources, argued with the historians, and come to conclusions he is willing to defend. He is grumpy about myth. He is careful about facts. He is not interested in heroes. If you've ever watched a WW2 documentary and felt it was telling you what to think instead of showing you what happened — this is the antidote.

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  • Creator
    ROD INOJOSA
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    16
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    The WW2 Grognard