← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Loading summary
Transcript105 lines
- [00:02]
A
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 we haveways. Achtung. Achtung. Welcome to. We have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray, and him, James Holland, your Second World War podcast for all your Second World War needs. And we're war waffling today, aren't we, Jim?
- [00:48]
B
Well, we are. We haven't done one for a while and they're always good fun. And we've been doing all sorts of war stuff outside of the podcast, haven't we? So there's much to discuss. You've been firing rifles and machine guns and Vickers machine guns. I've been to Norway. We've been into the belly of. Of HMS Belfast. I've been looking at ludicrous German coastal guns in the Arctic Circle in Northern Norway. And we've just been. Just before this, we've been reading out extraordinary stories of women in the Second World War.
- [01:21]
A
Is there any other kind of German coastal emplacement that isn't. They're all ludicrous, right?
- [01:25]
B
Yeah. Yeah, but this one's got an extra dollop of ludicrousness. This is hubris writ large. I mean, you know, we often wang on about sort of the wastefulness of. Of Hitler's Atlantic Wall, and we marveled, didn't we, when we went to. Did we go to Jersey or Guernsey? I can't remember. But anyway, which one? The Channel Island.
- [01:45]
A
You swerved that very. You swerved that very well, James.
- [01:48]
B
So anyway, the Channel Islands, for those who are from Guernsey and don't like the Jerseyans, apologies and vice versa. Anyway, but when we were there, we were saying how bad all the, you know, how insane all the huge concrete towers were and bunkers and underground hospitals and all the rest of it. But this gun battery, I mean, it's really interesting because it is a fully intact German battery. So the bunker bit, all the concrete stuff. And as you all know, I've been into a little bit of German concrete in my life and so have you. And we all know what the ones look like when they've been abandoned. They're dank and they're grey and there's not much paint left. And occasionally you see a little sign in German Gothic writing that's faded and peeling that says Vasseur or something, or verboten this or whatever it might be. Awesome graffiti. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or whatever. And there's usually puddles on the floor somewhere and it's all a bit dank and horrible and cold and you can see your breath and blah blah, blah. This place is fully functioning, so it is completely as it was. It hasn't really changed at all. So you really get a very, very good impression of what a, what a bunker like. But it's absolutely huge and you can only go and visit one of the four and each one has this sort of huge circuit, kind of pretty much circular concrete bunker with this truly massive 406 millimeter gun on top. And, and you remember that just yesterday we were on HMS Belfast and we were going, God, these six inch guns, they're quite big, aren't they? Not compared to the 406 millimeter they're not. Which is what, like a 19 inch or something? I don't know. It's absolutely enormous. I mean truly, truly enormous. So because the gun is enormous, everything around it has to be enormous too. So you go downstairs, you know, you go down, you go down the stairs, you go with the kind of, you know, you know, airtight gas proof doors of all that kind of, you know, weighing a ton just to kind of open it. And you go down the steps and there's the, there's the generator room and there is these massive engines in there, huge diesel engines. And then there's a, which is a generator for the electricity, but then there's a backup one in case that doesn't work. And then there's, then there's an air conditioning thing and they're all on kind of rubber because the engine obviously rocks when it, when it moves. There's a huge great hole in the, in the ceiling which has been covered up with sort of metal planks and yet more concrete through which they had to lower it in the first place because it's too big to kind of bring down the stairs. It has to be kind of put in by a kind of a crane. And so very quickly you're starting to think, wow, just for this one position, this is quite a big enterprise. And then you get to the gun itself which is just ginormous. I mean it is so huge. Each of the shells weighs over a ton, 1.3 tonnes just for one shell. So they also require lots of, so they require railway tracks going into the bunker so that you can deliver the shells on these sort of wagons. Then there's a kind of like a huge great metal rail hanging from the ceiling on which there are incredibly heavy Chains with a really enormous hook, which you can then manhandle the shells onto more wagons, onto little trolleys which then curve and slot like a giant slot machine, and into another bit, which is the inner circle of the bunker, which has more train tracks and more wagons. You then take it round to a hoist, not a lift, and you take it into the hoist and then you actually go up into the turret, which is again, I mean, the breech block is a meter and a bit wide and a meter and a bit, you know, just a solid steel. The whole thing is hydraulically and electronically controlled, and you've just never seen anything like it. And you're just thinking, this is a seriously, seriously remote part of Northern Norway. I mean, Harstadt is not easy to get to. So they had to create, I mean, incredibly big trains to get it there. Then they had to create these wagons with something like 36 wheels to be able to carry this, the weight of this stuff. And of course, because it's a gun placement looking out to sea, it's on a high ground, so you've got to climb up the hill out of harsh fat. I mean, all done by Russian slave labor. So there's a huge cemetery nearby full of dead Russians. That's one of four. And then as you go into the bunkers, there's this huge map, which I think I sent you, of Norway.
- [06:43]
A
Yeah, yeah, okay.
- [06:45]
B
Just there's this huge map of Norway. And. And it's just this. I mean, anyone who's looked at the Norwegian coast, it's just a sort of litany of. Of crags and headlands and islands. Literally, on every single one is some bunker, a bit of concrete and gun position for the Atlantic Wall. And. And you know, it. Norway tied down. Best part of half a million men at its peak. So let's think how many people actually pass through. Probably a million and a half. Would you say something like that? To maintain 350, 450,000 people? 300,000 aren't there by the end of the war, but there's 450,000 at kind of peak, plus the slave labor and prisoners of war, plus the policing of it, plus the defenses, plus the airfields, plus the port facilities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think the best thing the Allies could have done was give up Norway. I mean, it's. It's so mad.
- [07:47]
A
The thing is, Jim, we've often talked about, you know, what war's about is about waste and redundancy if you're going to win it, right? And so let's Say you make, what is it, 45,000 Sherman chassis. You're going to use 20,000, but you need to make 45,000 to be able to have 20,000 to deploy or whatever. You know what I mean? Right. Or you've got to make 10,000 Spitfires to be able to use 5,000. Waste is a fundamental part of how you go about war and how you win it. But not like that. Yeah, yeah, it's like they got, it's like they got the memo, they got the memo about waste, they got the memo about spend, spend, spend, but they're just wasting, they're literally wasting the waste rather than, you know, you cut, you trim your cloth. So maybe you need a cheaper rifle so that you can afford other things, you know, but the other things should not be gigantic gun batteries somewhere that's, it's basically impossible to do amphibious operations. So there's just no, no one's ever coming. There is no point.
- [08:50]
B
Right.
- [08:50]
A
Not that kind of waste. And I think that's a, that's a, that's a really interesting thing because we do, you know, we talk about the Germans being inefficient in the way they go about the war, right. But the Allies have enough, have inefficiency built in because that's the only way to do it. You know, the only way to make sure there are enough rations is to, is to commission far too much, you know? You know what I mean? Right. So it's this very weird, but it's
- [09:18]
B
not as if, you know, Norway and Guernsey are just little indicators of truly grotesque rates. Because then you start thinking, okay, well, this gun is the one out of the four that I looked at was incomprehensibly big. I mean, you know, everything about it was scale. And of course, because the moment you sort of think, right, I'm gonna have a really massive gun that can fire a shell 30 miles out to sea.
- [09:45]
A
Yeah.
- [09:46]
B
You're then thinking, okay, well what does that actually mean? Well, that means I've got to have huge generators. That means I've got to have huge equipment to transport it. I've got to have huge, this, I've got to have a huge everything, you know, so the kind of, you know, the knock on effects are absolutely huge. Then you start sort of thinking about some of the other large scale projects that the Germans had and you think about the schwerer Gustav, the 31.5-inch railway gun. Okay, so just, again, just go back to kind of how we were thinking. Well, these six inch guns are quite big. Four inch guns are quite big. We were a man handling a 4 inch gun shell yesterday and sort of slightly staggering under the weight of it because we weren't sort of sinewy like they were in the 1940s. And then you think of his 31 1/2 inch railway gun, which is double the size of the gun that I was looking at in Norway, which was truly ginormous and you think this weighs 1350 tons and they managed to get it to the Crimea.
- [10:49]
A
Yeah, but Jim, how. Jim, they're short. They're short of oil. They're short of oil. They're desperately short of oil. They're desperately short of steel. The desperate sword of manpower. Let's build a really, really great big effing gun that, that burns up those resources. It's, it's, it's, it's interesting though, isn't it? Because for instance, in at Sydney, on the headland Manly, there's the Manly Head gun battery. The, the North Head sanctuary in Manly, right, where There's a night 9.2 inch guns. And I've been, I've been to that emplacement and you would know your way around it, you know, and it's got some camouflage on it, it's concrete, it's got tracks, it's got the telephone station and all that. Right, but those are 9.2-inch guns, right? So they're not the biggest guns money can buy. Right, and also you're defending. No, no, no. But also you're defending a harbour that is of strategic importance, right? Obviously if ships have got, if ships have got to off Manly Head and you know, the entrance to Sydney Harbour, things have probably gone quite pear shaped, right, because that is a long way for anyone to get. But you can see why you'd build that battery there. Also for political consumption, public consumption, yes, we are defending you. Right, but the German public aren't going to go, well thank God that there's great big fucking guns on the Norwegian coast defending us, are they? They're never gonna.
- [12:14]
B
No, no, I'm not sure they're gonna be that impressed by the Schwerer Gustav, are they?
- [12:19]
A
Even the political component that has to come into all of them this, right, because we've talked about the strategic bombing campaign when that gets going and when, and when the Allies start to win it, the Germans have to defend Germany. They, even though the, the, even though it would probably be better to defend in depth to deal with the strategic bombing offensive and intercept the, you know, they've got to intercept bombers over Germany, haven't they? They've got to do it for the. Because so Germans can look, look up and go, well, at least they're defending us, right? But the. These great big coastal guns that have cost whatever, billions of Reichsmarks, surely, or tens of thousands of millions of Reichsmarks. No one can go, well, at least, you know, maybe they'll look at it in a magazine and say, well, Norway, Norway's obviously safe, but what a waste. And it's the wrong sort of waste. You know, war is waste about waste and it's the wrong kind.
- [13:12]
B
Well, here's a fun fact. The four guns of that 406mm battery north of Harstadt in the Arctic Circle have never, ever fired in anger once. I mean, you know, even if the Germans were the good guys in the war, and let's face it, they weren't, even if they were, they didn't deserve to win because of their grotesque waste of resources they did have. I mean, what on earth did the Germans think they were doing? Why were they so paranoid about this? And how do they think the Allies were ever going to get a foothold up there? I mean, I know what this is about. This is protecting iron ore coming from northern Sweden. Of course, you know, I get that, but it's really difficult to operate. You know, what are the conditions for amphibious warfare later on in the war, once the Allies sort of start to get their shit together? It is having beaches where you can use assault craft, because there is an assumption, quite reasonably, that using ports isn't going to be really be an option, because except in very, very rare examples, the ports are unusable because they don't have the capacity because the enemy that you're trying to attack have destroyed them, blah, blah, blah. So you need an alternative means, and what you really want is lots of sandy beaches. What is the one thing you do not have in Norway is beaches. You know, what do you have. You have lots of headlands with sort of great positions for observers. I mean, you know, small guns with machine guns, that'd do it. You know, judiciously placed mines, I would argue, would do the trick absolutely fine. You don't need huge grey guns and you certainly don't need 406 millimeter guns that can fire 30 miles, which you're never, ever going to use. It's insane. And it's just this total misuse of your resources and money and time for complete pointlessness. It's just absolutely astonishing.
- [15:10]
A
Get your balance sheet out right. How much steel and fuel and resources how much steel are you using to protect this iron ore? Are you getting enough iron ore for the steel? Right. Because you're literally using the resource. You're using the resource you're trying to protect.
- [15:28]
B
I've actually never thought of that. That's a really good point.
- [15:30]
A
Get the Excel spreadsheet out and work out how much steel is being used to defend this iron ore and whether the, whether the Germans are in the red on this or in the black.
- [15:39]
B
Okay. I'm just saying it now. Okay. I've got Axel up, got my calculator. Nope, not worth it.
- [15:49]
A
And also, I mean it's large numbers, large numbers of soldiers, isn't it? I mean it's on D day, it's sort of 350,000 people in Norway. So that would require a million on the rule of three to one. That would require a million to overpower. Right. So you're not going to do that, are you? The Allies.
- [16:07]
B
Well, and also, I mean, you know, the road, including rotation, how many troops, how many, how many German troops served in Norway? It's got to be one half million, hasn't it? Or million.
- [16:16]
A
Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting though because, because so much warfare is actually about deterrence. Right. And so the Germans have successfully deterred the Allies from landing in Norway, but they were never going to do it anyway.
- [16:30]
B
No, I mean, just the first whiff of it all going a bit pear shaped. They pull out of the one place that they're actually winning, which is in Narvik, you know, beginning of June. They've actually got the whole show on the, you know, under wraps. And the Geburgs, Jaeger under General Dietl are about to kind of throw in the towel and the British go, actually this isn't really worth it, is it? Should we just pull out? So they pull back to Britain.
- [16:54]
A
It's interesting though because you could argue that a gun never fired in anger has been successful, couldn't you? You could argue these guns are never fired in anger. So that's a success. They've successfully deterred the Allies, but obviously it's a failure.
- [17:10]
B
You could argue that. I don't think you could argue that very successfully.
- [17:16]
A
Well, no, but it's worth investigating, isn't it? As a thought experiment. You know, the idea is to deter the Allies from invading Norway. They've succeeded in doing that, but they never were going to anyway.
- [17:27]
B
Yeah. And we want to be open minded and we want to give the Germans
- [17:30]
A
the, well, look at their thinking. Is their thinking sound? Because detect, you know, the, the Outbreak of the Second World War is. And the outbreak of the First World War is a lot to do with the failure of deterrence, isn't it, that, you know, that the alliance is designed to deter Germany from action in the. Before the First World War, they don't deter Germany. In fact, they, they egg German it eggs Germany on to do something before those alliances close against it, which they then close against it.
- [17:57]
B
Right, yes, it's, it's. The whole argument for having a strong armed forces is a deterrent. It's to ensure
- [18:05]
C
hawk for war.
- [18:06]
A
Chamin's direction of policy before the war is, you know, Fortress Britain to deter the Germans from tussling with Britain as he rearms, because he is rearming like mad. There's no two ways about it. You don't lay down all those aircraft carrier keels in 38, 39 if you're not rearming like mad.
- [18:24]
B
Right, well, and let's face it. Well, we'll get on to Belfast in a minute. But let's face it, you know, building warships is a complicated and expensive and time consuming business.
- [18:34]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he, but, but that. That deterrence fails. Right. And the thing is, his deterrence is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? As much as. As much as in. As much as in your eyes. So the Germans think they're deterring the British and the, and the Allies from invading Norway, but they're not. They're actually tying up their own resources. And I think, you know, when people talk about deterrence, you know, because some people say, well, the nuclear deterrent didn't stop the war in Ukraine. You know, the Russians aren't deterred. Well, they're deterred from using nuclear weapons by the nuclear deterrent, but they're not. They clearly, they clearly think they've not reached a threshold where that deterrent will kick in. And the Germans, the German, Hitler was not deterred from taking action in Poland by the threat of the British deterrent, you know, of a rearming Britain. And yet here we have a thing that has worked as a deterrent, but it's deterring people from something they were
- [19:28]
B
never going to do in the first place, which is invade the Channel Islands or invade Norway.
- [19:33]
A
Yeah, you're never going to invade the Channel lines. There is just. There's no point. And it's this thing that Hitler would obviously be deterred by a great big coastal gun. So he builds some. Right.
- [19:46]
B
I mean, he's terrible at that awful crime as a war leader of looking at the world through the prism of your own worldview, you know, which isn't terribly helpful. You need to get inside your enemy's head.
- [19:57]
A
Yeah. Which is really difficult. And the Allies never quite succeed in doing it. They never quite, you know, even after the July plot, they read it the wrong way. They read it as imminent collapse. Rather than. Rather than. Oh, they're going to dig in now.
- [20:13]
B
If you're looking at the sort of algorithms of history, doesn't augurs well for the current situation, does it?
- [20:21]
A
We'll take a break. We'll come back and carry on. War waffling. We hope you're enjoying this. We'll see you in a tip.
- [20:32]
B
Mom, can you tell me a story?
- [20:33]
D
Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car.
- [20:36]
B
Was she brave?
- [20:37]
D
She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required.
- [20:44]
B
Did you have to fight a dragon?
- [20:45]
D
Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually.
- [20:48]
B
Was it scary?
- [20:50]
D
Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be.
- [20:52]
B
Did the car have a sunroof?
- [20:54]
D
It did, actually. Okay, good story. Car buying. You'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
- [21:05]
C
Hi there. Alastair Campbell here from the Rest Is Politics. And I'm here to tell you about a really important interview that's out now on our podcast channel, the Rest Is Politics. Leading this week I spoke to one of the defining political figures of our time. President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine is a fascinating interview. Reflects on his upbringing, reflects on his political rise, reflects on how he stayed in Kyiv during Russia's invasion, redefining leadership in wartime. And he warns us very much against anyone, not least Donald Trump, falling for Vladimir Putin's lies, warns that ceasefires may serve as a strategic pause rather than a sign of genuine peace. He offers a very blunt assessment of Putin, looks at his enemy's strengths, strategy, and crucially, his weaknesses in a war he is convinced Russia cannot win. And he doesn't hold back on the international response at times, particularly from the us if you'd like to hear more, and I hope you do, search the Rest Is Politics Leading wherever you get your podcasts. And now back to your show.
- [22:09]
A
We're back now.
- [22:10]
B
You pulled me back from the brink of going beyond 1945, so well done. And I thought we had. We've just had a couple of days, haven't we, on HMS Belfast. And let's not forget that HMS Belfast is a 12 and a half thousand ton light cruiser compared to a 40 plus thousand ton battleship. And what was absolutely mind blowing was the complexity of wiring tubes, pipes, valves and so on. I mean, I was thinking afterwards what it really reminded me of was Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. It was kind of sort of fantastical somehow.
- [22:49]
A
Well, you know what, Jim? I was also struck by, you know, the engine room from Belfast is from the same era as the Supermarine Spitfire, right? And people go, oh, form and function. Look at the beautiful lines. Form and function perfectly encapsulated in the airframe of the Spitfire. Foreman function engine room, baby. Right? It's like you need, right, you need a Heath Robinson drawn, Heath Robinson machine drawn by public, drawn by Pablo Picasso as your form and function in that room. Right? And when people say form and function, they, they, what they want is beauty. But there's an abstract art beauty to that engine room.
- [23:30]
B
Yes. And turn it, turn it into a film by Pedro Almodovar. I mean, that's, that's what it needs.
- [23:34]
A
No, let's stay in the era. It needs to be Louis Bunuel. It needs to be surrealist artists. Salvador Dali designing an engine room. And I think we've talked about, we've talked, I've talked before about how, you know, the, the Sherman tanker sort of art deco lines, particularly on the, particularly on the bogeys on, on the, on its, it's got art deco and you can see the art deco in the street. Streamlined design is in the Spitfire. Art deco, this sort of streamline art deco design taste it even in the Sherman tank, right? And in the, in the engine room of the HMS Belfast. It's a surrealist painting, a form and function engine. And it's just, you know, if you're a surrealist artist, you don't need to have clever ideas. You just need to go to an engine room in a light cruiser and go, right, okay, I'm going to paint this. And no one's going to believe it.
- [24:20]
B
It, it's it's just amazing, isn't it? I mean, I mean it's just this incredible tangle of pipes and tubes. And the pipes are all surrounded by sort of cloth which have then been whitewashed. And some of them are really thick. They're kind of, you know, three foot wide and some are really narrow. And then there's beautifully polished copper pipes and then there's just a mass of electrical wires just going helter skelter all over the place. And the whole thing just sort of swirls around you like a, sort of, like a sort of Fantastical kind of confused maze in your mind. And you're looking at all this, you're just thinking, someone had to design this. There is a blueprint of this somewhere. And how, how do you think this, how do you create this? How do you make sure that that thick pipe leads to that smaller pipe which then leads to this pipe, which then leads to that, which leads to that pressure valve. And don't forget it's Darbon and port and it's all in green and red and all this as well. And there's contingency and blah, blah, blah. And someone has bought all this and put it together and then created a light cruiser, not a heavy battleship. So you're then thinking about, oh, my God, what does an aircraft carrier looks like?
- [25:31]
A
That engine will work in a straight. In a straight line, right? There will be the things you have at the start of the engine and the output at the end, right? But they have to fit it into a box, a square box in the armored box inside the ship. So what they've had to do is, you know, pack it in so it all bends round itself and it's sort of concentric and all this sort of stuff. There's obviously a bit that has to be at the back of that box, but then everything else is curling around inside it could, I expect if it was a straight line, that engine would be as long as the ship. But they have to pack it all into the. Into the space they've got.
- [26:07]
B
It's like. It's like someone's intestines, isn't it? That's what it's like.
- [26:11]
A
Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. Yeah. All crammed in together. It's all got to fit in together and obviously all of it clad in lovely asbestos and, you know, and there are asbestos warnings absolutely everywhere, everywhere in the ship and, you know, and it says, please do not touch or damage the asbestos. Well, at least the signs up.
- [26:36]
B
Listen, I just want to stress though, it's very, very safe for visitors. You don't have to even wear a mask or anything like that. It's absolutely fine. And there's no way you're allowed there unless it's all absolutely fine. And I really, really would recommend anyone who hasn't been to HMS Belfast to get their asses over there straight away. It is absolute, absolutely amazing. And funny enough, they're kind of, you know, walking along the lino columns and going up and down a few steep staircase, metal staircases. That's great fun. But it is to go into the shell store the magazine at the bottom of the gun turret. Each of the four gun turrets. It is to look in the boiler room and the engine room. That is the bit that's truly
- [27:19]
C
just
- [27:19]
B
marvelous, isn't it, in the true sense of the world? I mean, it is absolutely jaw dropping.
- [27:23]
A
And you made a really great observation which, which ties into what you just said is that you said it's like a cottage. It feels like an old country house, you know, ramp sort of rambling with lots of different staircases that pop up in different places. And, and, oh, and baker like telephone. So it feels like an old country house. But I also. Yeah, but, but when you get into the shell room, that doesn't. That feel. All feels precise and geometric and perfectly laid out because it has to be. Because the whole thing, you know, that whole gun magazine thing turns with the turret. You know, it's all one great big revolving mechanism as the tubes, the tubes with the hoists take the shells up to the, up to the, the. Into the turret itself. And I thought, I thought the other thing that I was really struck by. So we stood on where the Walrus, the Shagbat catapult would be. And the other, you know, the thing I was really struck by these, these, these ships is because they're made of steel, you want to change it. You cut a piece off. You take the arc light to it and you cut the. You cut the bit of the ship off you don't want anymore. And yes, you know, weld another bit on. And the sort of way that, that actually these ships are temporary. They might appear to be permanent, but they're temporary evolving structures. And, and in that sense, they're like just. If we go back to the country house analogy, you know, someone stuck a conservatory on and then they took the conservatory off, you know. You know what I mean? If you think of it like that, it starts to change your understanding of it. And the. And we looked at a lot of footage while we were there. We're looking at a lot of incredible IWM footage and how shagged the ships look when they, when they're turning up, for instance, at Sydney, having sailed all the way. All the way across the world. How shagged the ships look from being back. Because, you know, they're not cruise liners. If the weather's. If the weather's awful, they'll stop. They've got a. They got to push on. They've got to go where they've got to go. You know, the aircraft carriers look like they've absolutely have the snot knocked out of them when they. When they're pulling into Sydney Harbor. That sort of. That sort of stuff is really, really interesting, isn't it? You know, that. And that the ships. You know. You know, because one of the things they say on Belfast is of course our. One of their problems is they don't have 900 ratings aboard who can repaint it when there's nothing to do and that. And that. Because that's how they would. That's how they keep life. You know, that's how they keep the thing together, keep the ship together. That's how they'd fight the corrosion is the crew was. One of the jobs the crew had to do was permanently painting it in that, you know, in what. Whatever pattern they were in this. This month. And they don't have that on the. On the. On Belfast anymore.
- [29:59]
B
They move the USS Missouri before it goes to Tokyo Bay for the surrender in September 1945. They're told that they're going to be the. The scene of a surrender ceremony sort of three days out and they're at sea, so they've got to get ready at sea.
- [30:13]
A
So they repaint the entire ship at sea. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Absolutely crazy. But yes, I mean, you're right. I mean, but Belfast is. People ought to visit it and you get a tiny inkling of how enormous the big ships must have been. You know, a kg5 is a. Is about 100ft longer, but it's the beam. It's wider in the beam is the thing, you know, like. Which is the. Across the middle for. Because by the way, everyone. I've been getting Jim to say folks' all instead of forecastle. Because every now and again. Every now and again.
- [30:44]
B
Every time I get it wrong, okay, I'm just. I'm still. I'm getting into. Into full Navy, but I'm not. I'm not 100% there yet. But I will be. Don't worry.
- [30:52]
A
I'll be.
- [30:52]
B
I'll be looking back on that and. And just thinking how could I have ever made such a terrible, terrible mistake?
- [30:59]
A
Now we were. We. We have jr JR very kindly has furnished us with a. Let's just rattle through this. On this day, April 14, this is going out. So on this day or roughly around then in the Second World War, so on. So. And we include 1939 in this because it's part of the swirl. And anyway, if, like me, you think the Second World War starts with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, because everyone needs an angle. Yeah, it's my angle. That's, that's when, that's when the international order begins to collapse and Hitler gets his freedom to freedom of maneuver or gets the green light. Basically. He thinks, well, the Japanese got away with it in Manchuku, why not me? So there you go. And every historian needs an angle, Jim, and that's mine. So in 1939, April 14, FDR messages Hitler asking for assurances Nazi Germany would not invade or attack a list of 31 independent nations with his armed forces. Mussolini is also asked to make similar guarantees, which is interesting. I mean, you can ask Hitler for guarantees. And this is in the wake of the collapse of the Munich agreement, isn't it? Because the previous month the Germans have carved up what's left of Czechoslovakia and the Poles have a little grab, haven't they as well? Let's not forget that basically it looks like things are crumbling in the European order. And so FDR is saying, would you mind, if you don't mind awfully, Jim, you could do FDR asking this. I seek assurances from Mr. Hitler.
- [32:30]
B
I require assurances from Herr Hitler that his intentions are truly peaceful. I think I'm pretty good at fdr.
- [32:40]
A
I think you're definitely the go to guy.
- [32:42]
B
You'll always be Churchill, I'll always be fdr.
- [32:45]
A
I think that's fair. It's a fair division of.
- [32:48]
B
But you're also always Hitler as well.
- [32:50]
A
I'm going, yeah, okay, you can be Stalin if you want. I mean, you know, okay, divvy it up evenly. April 14, 1940. And this actually ties back to what we were just talking about. 350 Royal Marines land at Namsos in Norway and they're the first British troops to land as part of the Norwegian campaign. And King, King Haakon VII of Norway makes a radio address to his people asking them to help the British wherever possible. Which given strictly speaking we're invading, is very nice of him.
- [33:23]
B
I tell you what we got to do. An episode on one of these days is the. Is the escape of the Nazi gold. Operation Fish it. I'm not the Norwegian gold, rather the government gold. It is absolutely unbelievable what happens.
- [33:37]
A
Right, well let's do it. Let's do it another day. And then of course Falchium Jaeger hold up Norwegian units for five days at the Battle of Donbas. But they absolutely get turned over those fashion bjaga. It's a complete disaster for them. I think it's an interesting example, isn't it? Because after 90, after the summer of 1940 everyone's going, we've got to get ourselves some of those airborne troops. Get me some airborne troops. Churchill writes his memo in June. You know, I must have thousands, whatever it is. Airborne closures are similar and the air Ministry gone, but they fail. Faustian Jaeger fail at Donbass and are defeated. Right. And yet it's overlooked. Yeah, you know, they do badly. They do very badly. It's Eben Emael. That's the thing where everyone goes, oh, that's tactical with strategic effect.
- [34:32]
B
10th of May 1940 is the single worst day for the Luftwaffe in the entire war in terms of aircraft lost.353,
- [34:40]
A
I think it is transport planes, mate. Really take a kicking. Anyway, these guys, these falchimierega go in the bag, but not for very long. And they are then redeployed to fight around Narvik. But, but it's basically, it's an early warning sign that the airborne operations might be glamorous, but they're really, really, really difficult to get right. April 14, 1941. German units under SEP Dietrich win the battle of Klezura Pass in Greece.
- [35:07]
B
He gets around, doesn't he? Sep Dietrich.
- [35:09]
A
Yeah. Peter II of Yugoslavia flees to Athens as the Greeks basically start to fall in on themselves. Call your king something snazzier than Peter is. My advice. In 1942, there's the RIOM trial in Vichy France, which is an attempt by the Vichy government to blame the fall of France on the Third Republic. It's a show trial, obviously. And the problem with show trials is everyone could go, that's a show trial, done work. Massive PR blunder, neutral nation, press coverage saying, oh, the defendants in this trial are really sympathetic and even Hitler, even Hitler realizes this is bad PR and, and, and says cancel this. And people like Blum Premier Blum, who's a defendant, was shipped off to a concentration camp.
- [36:00]
B
He becomes one of the prominent VIP POWs at the end of the war. Remember that with Kalten Brunner and everything up in the South Tyrol. Anyway.
- [36:09]
A
Oh, Here we go. 1943, Japanese naval ciphers which have been broken. You know, the Americans are poking around in the Japanese naval codes. They announced the tour of Yamamoto to begin April 18th and which will lead
- [36:24]
B
to him being assassinated.
- [36:27]
A
Yeah, I know, the incredible hit. We should do that. That's a two parter, the hit on Yamamoto. That's absolutely amazing.
- [36:34]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And actually you can still see the bits of his plane are still in the, in the jungle.
- [36:40]
A
Harry S. Truman, Senator Harry S. Truman as still Only a censor at this point attends a rally as a speaker in Chicago calling for interventions against the Holocaust. And Also on the 13th, 13th of April, radio Berlin had announced the discovery of the cat in massacre graves of over 10,000 Poles killed by the Soviets three years earlier. And that, you know, we talked about bad pr. There's some bad PR for the Soviets and a bun fight proceeds where both sides blame each other.
- [37:10]
B
Brilliant, brilliant. Bernie Gunter novel about this all centers around this. You know, the Philip Kerr novels. It's so good. Can't what it's called, but it's fantastic. Yeah. 1944, Japanese forces West of Kohima are broken and the British 33rd Corps are finally relieved. The U448 is sunk off the Azores on her fourth patrol by Allied warships HMS Pelican and HMCS Swansea. Because the Canadians are really kicking in. And she's one of these U boats that's claimed no victory since being commissioned in 1942. And then we get to 1945. It's all kicking off in April 1945, of course.
- [37:53]
A
Yeah. Dernitz is rolling the dice. In April 1945, says a wolf pack to America, two of these seven U boats returned to base needing repairs before getting across the Atlantic and then surrender in May. So that was worth it. The other five, the other five sunk by the US Navy and Canadian Air Force.
- [38:13]
B
So, you know, almost just terrible, isn't it? What? Stupid, terrible waste.
- [38:17]
A
So that's what I would do if I was in that situation, is send seven submarines to America. That's what I do.
- [38:27]
B
I. I'd reinforce Norway personally. That's what I do.
- [38:30]
A
Well, yeah, we're back to. We're back to. We're back to waste and failed deterrence. Thanks everyone for listening. We hope you've enjoyed our trot. Our trot through the things that I
- [38:39]
B
go through, hasn't it?
- [38:41]
A
It's been excellent. I love a bit of war waffle.
- [38:43]
B
Old school, old school.
- [38:45]
A
Well, there's loads to come. Always, always more wall waffle. We've got. We're gonna be looking at Jim's new book, the Visionaries, which is a. A really, really excellent. Well, I mean, you do some economics, Jim. Let's, let's not frighten people off, but there's some economics in it. We're going to look at the Operation Biting, the Bruneval raid, the British band of brothers, the naval action off Narvik, and we're gonna have a little. We've another look at Barbarossa because some of the news, some of the scholarship that's emerged in recent years is very, very interesting. Our next membership livestream will be on Monday 20th April. The one after that is May 4th. Fortnightly live streams are a thing that Patreon subscribers can get their hands on, so subscribe now. Sign up. Being a Patreon member is like having the Second World War red carpet rolled out for you on a daily basis, let's put it that way. And we look forward to you joining us there. And of course, we have Waze Festival tickets are on sale now and I
- [39:39]
B
just want to say the tickets are going like hotcakes, aren't they? They're going like hotcakes.
- [39:44]
A
Light hot cakes. Yeah, exactly. So thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you very soon and we'll see you at the festival in September. Cheerio.
- [39:50]
B
Cheerio.
- [40:09]
E
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for
- [40:32]
D
3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com.