← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.
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When the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter Spice flavor Fusion Sprite Winter Spice Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sippin season and only for a limited time. Sprite obey your thirst. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move. Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto Bund. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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Limu Emu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
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Cut the camera.
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They see us.
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Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
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Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. Affiliates excludes Massachusetts Merry Christmas everyone. Ah, the little drummer boy. Everyone's favorite at this seasonal time of year. It's me, Al Murray, co host of the WW2 pod. We have ways of making you talk the world's finest Second World War podcast. And you know what? At this time of year, it's important to think about what's important, isn't it? Spending time with loved ones, looking to the year ahead, enjoying the finer things in life. And of course, the most important thing of all, the question that irks so many at this seasonal time of season. What exactly is a pocket Battleship? Now, we all like to say, of course, that it's just the thought that counts when it comes to gift giving. But actually, why not have a good thought, right? It can't just be a thought. Go for a thoughtful gift. And the best gift, of course, is a subscription to WW2 pod. We have ways of making you talk. With a subscription to, we have ways you know what your loved one, your loved one, or even someone you only like a bit, could enjoy Ad Free listening priority, access to new series and ticketed events, regular live streams, a weekly newsletter with book and model discounts. Oh, yes. You know, the kind you glue together. And bonus episodes. In fact, why not give yourself a membership this year? Go on, you deserve it. Santa says you should. Ho, ho, ho. So head over to we havewayspod.co.uk and you too can present the very best gift that they'll ever get this year or any other year. Even as you remember on the way to dinner that you forgot to get them anything. Yeah, exactly. You can do this just like that. Go to the website we havewayspod.co.uk and put that in your Christmas string bag. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year, Meine Lieblingen. Auf Wiedersen Untrussy. Truss. Hello and welcome to our series of Family Stories, the podcast written by you, the listeners. This episode's family stories feature a festive theme. Surprise. Oranges, Fishy Goose, Christmas dinner, Revelations and remembering. And this week, we're starting with a story from Robert Horn.
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Robert writes. I thought this little story from the home front might be appropriate. This story was relayed to us by my father, Frank Horne, at a family Christmas party a couple of years before he passed away. It involves his father, also called Frank, and an unexpected Christmas treat. Frank Sr. Had been a junior Territorial before the First World War and to the best of our knowledge, spent the whole war on the Western Front. The only thing he ever said about that time was spending the first day of the Somme trapped up to his neck in the mud and being there when tanks were first used. When peace came, he returned to his job as a farm labourer near the village of Radlett in Hertfordshire. And he was still in that role when the last Christmas of the Second World War approached. He was married to Rose, had three children, Doreen, Kathleen and my father, the Youngest child, aged 12. Late one December afternoon, as Frank Sr. Walked back from work across the fields to the family home, darkness was falling when he saw a car pull up in a little country lane ahead of him. There were two men in the car who didn't see him in the fading light and he remained still to avoid being noticed. He then saw the passenger get out of the car and take something out of the boot and leave it hidden in the hedgerow. He waited until the car had departed, then went to investigate. And there, hidden in the undergrowth, was a large crate of fresh oranges. Needless to say, the Horne family had a very happy and indeed healthy Christmas that year. And some black marketeer had a lot of explaining to do and that story was from Robert Horne.
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Our next story is from Damien. Hello. We have ways of making you talk. Growing up, my only real knowledge of the Second World War was the standard movie fare, such as A Bridge Too Far and the Battle of Britain. Nothing wrong with that. In my immediate family, I was sorry to find out there were no war heroes to speak of. But I knew my Uncle Joe was a hero, as he was a paratrooper and I had heard he'd been at Arnhem. I was far too young to talk or even ask my Uncle Joe about the war. He died when I was about 8 or 9. My everlasting memory of him was one from Remembrance Sunday when he took me to the park, to the memorial, and just before 11am, from inside his best jacket, he brought out a maroon beret, which he quickly donned, only to take off moments later. A few minutes afterwards, it went back into his jacket. I had never seen it before and I have never seen it since. My other story is one of Christmas family dinner, where I was thrilled to find out that not only was my Uncle Joe there, but also another Uncle Jim. It's worth pointing out that Joe was from my mother's side of the family and Jim was from my father's. Joe's name was Joseph Skilke, a very unusual name, and only later in life did I realize that he was Polish. Jim's name was James Dias. Although the two men must have met, they didn't socialise together or count each other as family, as they were both blow ins. Jim, unlike Joe, though, was a real joker, always making jokes and telling tales. So imagine my initial joy when his wife started to tease him about the war. Tell him about what you did in the war, Jim. Jim was a bit cagey and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for some heroics. I was quite taken aback when Jim said I was in the back of a lorry for most of the war. More teasing followed. Why were you in the back of a lorry? Jimmy pushed his wife. It turns out Jimmy was always on a charge and the lorry trips were when unit after UNIT had finally had enough of Jimmy and shipped him onto another unit as quickly as they could. I was quite disappointed, but before the end of the meal, the following facts were revealed. Jimmy was shipped from unit to unit until eventually he ended up in the Black Watch in what he termed a penal unit. While in that unit, he saw at a distance his one piece of real action. And guess where it was. Barnum, he'd been in the relief column that never quite got to the town. He said he had a good vantage point over the river and could see the bridge and the fires and that it was by far the sorriest thing he had ever experienced. Joe, on the other hand, had been in the thick of it. I learned he had been captured but left alone with his mates in the back of a lorry and they had simply decided to leg it. They escaped by stealing a boat and crossing the river. It was made to sound simple, but no doubt was extremely sanitised for me and for others. But the short of it was both my uncles before marrying into my family had been at Arnhem on opposite sides of the river. And that story was from Damien.
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And our next story is from Neil. And Neil writes. Hi James and Al, thanks so much for all you do on the pod and at the festival. You've gotten me through many dull and some difficult days. Well, you're very welcome, Neil. I've been a listener since at the very beginning, but I'm finally getting around to telling you my grandfather's story. It's because of him and my grandmother that I'm such a Second World War nut. Growing up with them, living only down the road meant I was always surrounded with tales of the war on the home front. My grandfather Sidney Walker was born in Sunderland on Horatio street, just near the old Roka park football stadium. He volunteered for the army on the day the Dunkirk evacuation began, he always told me, and ended up in the Royal Signals. He never went out to North Africa nor Italy as far as I can work out, but remained in the UK until D day as a wireless operator. He was assigned to an ammunition supply convoy attached to the Guards Armored and landed in Normandy on D1. I remember him telling me, I think it was a Canadian built Chevrolet truck and that they called it the Gin Palace. Drove it off a landing craft and into deep water, stopping on the beach to strip off the waterproofing gear from the truck. Looking back on my time growing up with him, I now realized that Sid only told me one or two actual stories and it was clear that he didn't want to dwell on a lot of what he experienced. Occasionally he would let things slip, such as the terrible smell from the fighting in the valet's pocket. But mostly he would only recount the same relatively safe stories. Stories those included going into action while firing his Lee Enfield rifle from the roof of the truck, the only time he ever fired the weapon apparently, or camping up one night in A field during Operation Market Garden, thinking they were in a quiet spot, only to wake to German mortars screaming over their heads from one direction, followed by Allied rocket firing aircraft letting loose over their heads. In reply, he claimed that his small supply unit accidentally liberated Brussels, having gotten unwittingly ahead of their tanks and driving into what seemed a deserted city. Not sure if that's true, but it's a darn good tale. Then there was his driver, a small Scottish man who would go out after battles and scavenge watches etc from killed Germans, until one day he came back white as a sheet. He'd lifted the wrist of a dead soldier to get the watch, only for the soldier's head to fall off. Apparently he never scavenged again after that. While all this was going on, my grandmother, who worked as a civil servant with the Royal Army Medical Corps, was still in London and was blown backwards through a hedge while out walking her gorgeous collie dog called George, when a V1 fell nearby. Thankfully, both of them survived the war and became wonderful grandparents, although on sunny days when Sid would sunbathe, you could still see the livid purple streaks on his side, a legacy of a brush with German mortar shrapnel. He always said his piano playing saved his life, as he was called back from close to the front lines to play at a regimental Christmas party just before the infamous German counterattack through the Ardennes in the winter of 19. When I lived in London in my early 20s, I would almost obsessively visit the Imperial War Museum at weekends, and one such weekend my grandparents came to visit, saying that they'd love to see the famous museum. We walked in through the grand atrium entrance, something I'd done dozens of times in the past, and started into the museum proper until I suddenly realized that my grandfather wasn't with us anymore. Retracing our steps, we found him almost dumbstruck, standing in front of the Sherman tank, which used to be at the left rear of the main atrium. He had spotted that it wore the divisional badge of the Guards Armored, something I'd never spotted. He'd followed that tank across Normandy, through France and Belgium, and on into the hall of Market Garden. And here they were, reunited by chance. As I say, Sid clearly kept the darker memories locked carefully away. But not long before he passed away at the age of 82, he borrowed my video copy of Saving Private Ryan. A couple of days later, he handed it back to me and simply said, yes, that's what it was like. He and my grandmother traveled often to Europe on holidays in later life, but he never returned to Normandy. I finally talked my family into going just after the 70th anniversary of D Day and we went to Arromanche. There, amid the hulks of the Mulberry, children played and yelled while tourists ate their ice creams and someone was even flying a kite on the beach. I felt sorry that he'd never gone back to see the beautiful place that this had become, full of happiness and at peace, thanks to the dreadful things he and his comrades had had to endure. Thanks again for everything, guys. See you at we have Waysfest 2026. Thank you, Neil. That's a great story and appreciate the sentiments.
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Yes. Right, well, our next story is from John Pilkington. I love the idea that our family stories don't necessarily have to involve our family members single handedly winning the war, but can also involve quieter, more everyday stories. My father was in the Second World War and both of my grandfathers were in the First World War. Grandpa Jack worked at the Times newspaper and at night during the Blitz served as a fire marshal on the roof of the building. It was amazingly dangerous work and my mother said that every morning Nanner would sit by the phone and wait for the call. That meant he had survived the night. He survived the war, but died before I was born in 1955. Mum was convinced that the war had shortened his life. Jack had been in the coach building trade before the war and knew a few people who knew a few people. One Christmas he did a deal with petrol coupons and produced an enormous goose for the meal. Unfortunately, it had been fed on black market fish and they knew something was wrong as they roasted it. Mum said it was disgusting, but of course they ate up every last morsel. Dad was a mechanic on hurricanes in Libya and didn't talk much about it. His only two anecdotes that I can remember were how he almost got thrown out of the tent by his mates because of the extreme stinkiness of his socks and how they didn't get on with the Afrikaans speaking South Africans they were stationed with. On his 70th birthday we went on a walking tour of Normandy, visiting the D Day museum at Arromanche. He was asked by the ticket guy, are you a veteran, sir? With much respect, no, replied my father and then dutifully paid for admission. I then asked him where he had been during D Day and he replied that he'd been posted to Scotland for training. I'd always thought it was a stroke of luck. He went on until I saw the museum's prices but my main reason for contacting you is my mother's experiences living next to a U.S. army base in Buckinghamshire. I hope you find this interesting. She and her older sister were evacuated from London at the start of the war, where my Nana and grandpa stayed with their two sons who were too young to be evacuated. Her stories of unhappiness during the evacuation would fill several emails. But the one I most remember is that at first she was separated from her older sister and the lady that she was evacuated to didn't want her around. She was made to sit for ages on end wearing her gas mask as was required, but not for great lengths of time. For the rest of her life, she couldn't bear the smell of rubber and had a dread of anything covering her face. In due course, the family moved out to rural Buckinghamshire to get away from London and to bring my mother and aunt home. They moved to a house right next to an American army base, and certain things stick in my mind from her memories. One was that the Germans tried to bomb the base, catching my mother and aunt out in the open, and the terrified girls had to cower in a ditch. They had pinched cigarettes from their mother's pack and were illicitly smoking when the raid began. My mother never smoked again in her whole life. My uncle Alan, aged around seven, slept peacefully one night as the bombs rained down and blew the windows out. His bed was covered in broken glass. I suppose that they had thought themselves safe in the bombs and had not protected the windows. The best story was about the American quartermaster visiting with a huge block of butter and asking Nana if he could use her fridge as there was a problem with theirs. Either way, my mother was horrified as Nana calmly took slices of butter for the family's own use. Of course, they had hardly seen butter for years, but Mum was terrified that Nana would be shot for stealing army supplies. The story got better and better over the years, embellished by my Nana. But certainly the quartermaster returned to a greatly reduced block of butter and then happily cut it in two and gave half the Nana as thanks for use of the fridge. The final story was how she and my aunt helped out on the army base as the Americans fed refugees who arrived from Europe. She talked the emaciated faces and extreme politeness of the refugees and the generosity of the Americans. They doled out huge portions of food to the refugees, who, when offered more politely, said thank you, meaning no thank you in the European way. And the Americans misunderstanding piled more food on. She said the poor refugees were so starved that they couldn't possibly eat so much and that many threw up afterwards as their systems couldn't cope. My mum and dad finally met in the early 1950s and married in 1955. It didn't occur to me until later that my father was quite old to be having children by the standards of the time. Of course he was older. There had been a war to fight first. And a huge thank you to John Pilkington for that. Thank you.
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Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast.
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And breath, breathe.
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Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order.
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1-800-Contacts.
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Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan are back in Disney's Freakier Friday, now streaming on Disney.
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We switched bodies.
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I am freaking out right now.
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I think I just peed a little.
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It's an absolute riot and the only move that can be described as so.
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Much weirder than the last time. What last time?
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It's the Frequel.
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You ready?
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We've been waiting for that absolutely slays Disney's Freakier Friday now streaming on Disney. Rated pg.
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And this story is from Mike Griffin. Hey guys. Love the show. Thank you very much Mike. I have two stories to share. He writes in about 1995, I was in the retirement community of Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas with my airport clients. Every one of the seven member airport board was a World War II veteran and they took me to the country club for lunch. The chairman was an Ohio native named Eck Schatzman. Eck was a B17 navigator in Europe and he related this story. We were on a mission to bomb a bridge later in the war, I remember there wasn't much flak or fighter opposition. Our bombardier pickled off the load and we began a sharp turn to the left for home. Evidently our bomb string went long and we hit a German ammunition dun we didn't even know was there. The resulting explosion nearly flipped us on our back. But the pilot righted the ship and we made it back, made it home to Ohio safety. And the next year I was in Dayton, Ohio, training for my new job as a snap on tool salesman. They had candidates from all over the world at the factory showing us how the tools were fabricated. Then off we'll go to sell tools and conquer the world. At our lunch break in the cafeteria, I struck up a conversation with a gentleman from Germany. I asked if he'd been in the war and he said yes. For a while I was on guard at a facility west of Berlin and the air raid sirens began. I got on my bicycle and fled as fast as possible as I did not want to be near the ammo dump I was guarding during a bomber run. The Americans hit the dump and the explosion threw me into a ditch. Wounded, my comrades pulled me from under the debris and I was evacuated. The valve is over for me, Eck replied. I dropped that bomb on you. They compared dates and locations and it was indeed Eck's squadron over the bridge and dump that very day. Well, that is a coincidence and my next story for you. It's December 24, 1994 and my friend and I, both pilots, are at a family Christmas party. We corner Doc McLaren, who was a B26 pilot in the European theater. Doc, what were you doing 50 years ago, right this minute? His eyes unfocused and we could see he was back in time. We were doing nothing. The weather had been bad since the bulge started and we'd been grounded. But the next day we flew three sorties and dropped not one bomb. It was all supplies to Bastogne and other holdouts in the Ardennes. We, of course, pressed him for more stories later. In About February of 45, we were to go on a semi milk run over the Ruhr. We lined up for takeoff on a just cleared snowy Runway, fully loaded almost to rotation speed and the right main gear collapsed. We went swerving off the Runway into a snow covered field. Our right wing spar snapped and the fuselage broke open. The co pilot and I exited the aircraft through our cockpit escape hatches and hurried to the hole in the plane to help evacuate the crew. I'll never forget the side of the cracked fuel line on the number two engine big as my wrist, just pumping, pulsing out fuel like a broken artery. One man was injured and we cleared him and the rest of the crew safely away from the wreckage, but one of our gunners panicked and sprinted away from the site in a dead run. The next day we were assigned another aircraft and while taxiing, the co pilot and I examined the cockpit escape hatches. I opened mine and couldn't even get my head out. But the day before we both squeezed through head, shoulders, body and all. Motivation is a wonderful thing. So fast forward to after the war and that running gunner called me every year around Christmas drunk, apologizing for his actions. I finally told him to stop worrying. He was a solid crew member and there was nothing to be ashamed about. Never heard from him again. Doc went on to be the state veterinarian of his home state, Arkansas and lived a wonderful long full life. And that was from Mike Griffin.
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Wow, what a tale. Right, well, this story is from Chris Wheel. Hi Alan James, I've become a regular listener to your podcast and I'm gradually working my way through the back catalogue. My mother was on Beachy Head as a radar operator. I think you'll find it's RDF and before she died she wrote a handwritten autobiography. On more than one occasion she said that the war was the best time of her life and made lifelong friends, which she was in contact with well into her 80s. She gradually succumbed to Alzheimer's, but could still recall those years and a number of other stories she told me. In 1941 I had my father's permission which was required to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force at the age of 17. After enlisting at the Air Ministry as a would be radar operator, I changed my mind at the induction centre of Innsworth and decided to go for the delights of being a clerk, special duties, that is A plotter. Gloucestershire in a bitterly cold November was a horrible culture shock. The totally strange life to anything I had ever known. But I survived without any bitter memories. From there I was Posted to Debton, an 11 Group Fighter Command station in Essex. Plotters were employed in the operations rooms and when these became selected targets for the German bombers during the Battle of Britain, the ops rooms were dispersed away from the aerodromes. As a result of a fractured hand, I was sent off to a GCI ground controlled interception station at Martlesham Heath near Felixstowe on a radar course. In spite of the appalling weather off the east coast in December, I enjoyed the work very much and I then had a permanent posting to the GCI station at East Hill near Dunstable. The Waffs lived in a very old house which used to belong to Gary Cooper's aunt. And as a boy he had spent some time living with them. As the war progressed, so did I, and in company with a lot of my friends, we were posted to Beachy head type 2A radar in preparation for D Day and the invasion of Europe. In my WAF career I was fortunate enough to be involved in two momentous operations. The first was that whilst at Debden, I was actually working on the plotting table on the night of the first thousand bomber raid on Cologne. The second operation was that I was on the skeleton night crew at Beechey. Fighters started at first light and finished at last light and we were able to plot the Dam Busters well on their way to and from Germany. And our quite small hut ops room was full of the hierarchy from Bomber Command. On the subject of interesting experiences, some of us were sunbathing during a break and sitting on natural chalky ledges on the cliff top. When we realized that a doodle bug was heading straight for the cliff below us. A very speedy departure inland was made. And I don't know who were more frightened, the outsiders or the ones who were inside the ops room watching the object advancing straight for type 2A. Fortunately it nosed its way harmlessly into the soft chalk of the cliffside. Megan also went on to work in the Records office, Gloucester as a clerk and in the Air Ministry, London in Air Intelligence, where she learned the works of a cartographical draftsman. Right before her 22nd birthday, she was offered a civilian job by the Air Ministry doing what she'd been doing as a waf, which she accepted. All in all, I enjoyed my service life and have never regretted those four plus years out of my life. I hope you can perhaps use her story as it will shine a light on the thousands of Waffs who did so much in the background during the war. Thank you Chris. It certainly did. That was from Chris Wheel. Well, that's it Jim, that's all for this episode. If you've got a family story you'd like to be considered for the show, please email it to wehavewaysgoalhanger.com and if you have any photos or images alongside these stories we can have your permission to use too, please include them with your submission. And don't forget forget to label the email family stories so we don't miss it.
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Cuz we love getting these, don't we?
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Oh God, it's the best thing, coloring in the black and white picture. It's an amazing thing. Thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone, and cheerio. Cheerio.
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Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry.
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And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment, completely uninvited.
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We are not going to stay too long. Unless you want us to, of course.
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We're here to tell you about our brand new show. The rest is science.
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Every episode is going to start with something that feels initially familiar, and then we're going to unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at all.
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Yeah.
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Banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas.
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Yeah, what is that about?
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So it is supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a bananapocalypse, and now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires.
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Wow.
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Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana.
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So if you like scratching the side.
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Surface, thinking a little bit deeper or weirder.
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Yes, definitely.
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That too.
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You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.