A (2:37)

Yeah, exactly. Well, welcome to. We have ways of making you talk episode five of the Visionaries, planning for peace with me, Al Murray and James Holland. And in the last four episodes we've been looking at, well, really FDR's vision for the future, which extends beyond fighting, supplying and making the Second World War winnable. But what he wants out the other end of it.

B (2:59)

Yes.

A (2:59)

And he's a political Swiss army knife, isn't he? He, he's got, he's got an angle on every, absolutely everything he's got for every possible opponent, possible situation. That means really he's the politician supreme in this. You know, you've got, you've got Churchill who's doing what he can hand to mouth in Britain, but Roosevelt laying out

B (3:19)

his stall for a big picture from isolationism to internationalism. He was always an internationalist, that's the whole point. But I mean, but, but he gets in on this isolationist ticket. He is now seeing, seeing America at the heart of future globalism and capitalism.

A (3:35)

But he's got to get, he's got to get there first. And by the way, this series the Visionaries is sat alongside your book, Jim, which I did the audiobook off a couple of weeks ago.

B (3:44)

Yes.

A (3:45)

And there's a chapter in the book called D Day. Just think about this. And I think this really makes the, this really lays the point down hard. D Day people think of it I think sometimes of simply of the, the crust of the landing craft going forward or the, or the glide that glider

B (3:59)

and the opening 20 minutes to saving

A (4:01)

Private remains rightly the gliders at Pegasus Bridge or whatever. But the actual SC scale of it and what it takes to bring that ally tied in core of it is American industry.

B (4:12)

It's the apogee of coalition cooperation, coordination. I mean it just is.

A (4:18)

Yeah. And so American industry, right. In 1942 it produces 47,836 aircraft, which

B (4:28)

put that into some context, is 4,000 less than the capacity of the Yankee Stadium in New York City.

A (4:33)

The head count in Yankee stadium.

B (4:34)

And then 1943 it produces 85,898 aircraft, which put that in some, again, to some context, that is more than the entire capacity of Twickenham Stadium in West London. And just think about if you, for anyone who's been into a major sporting arena and imagine what it looks like when it's completely jam packed and then think every single person represents an aircraft and there's still some way to go.

A (5:04)

Yeah. And in 1944, the following year, I mean, it's not that far off 100,000 aircraft. It's 96,318 aircraft.

B (5:13)

It's hard to compute these figures. I mean, that is just so many.

A (5:17)

But here's the thing. Even if half of those planes are

B (5:19)

dogs, so what, you've still got 44,000.

A (5:23)

Exactly. Exactly. Right. You know, all these things become relative when you're doing this. So this is the work of Bill Knudsen, who has.

B (5:32)

Basically, it's the vision of Bill. Nuts. Yeah, he's one of the visionaries.

A (5:35)

Yeah. Because. Because he, he's come from Ford. He's where the assembly line was developed and perfected and he's brought this to the business of making aircraft. And this is the thing that the Americans could do. And of course the British are mass producing, but it's artisan mass production, which is why every Spitfire is different. You may have two Mark Vs in front of you. The riving, riveting will be different on both aircraft because it will just. They haven't been made on jigs in the way that Americans are just stamping these things out. The American factories are completely. They're unmolested by a German air effort, although that's. That has tailed off. But you know, they can do. They could do what they want. They could build factories any scale they like. It doesn't matter if they're visible from the sky.

B (6:17)

And also they've got no interruption from factory to ship either, because you've got to, you got to, you know, say you're a willow run in a hire or whatever. You've then got to get from willow run to wherever you're going. You know, if you're all the, the huge tank plant in tank factory in Cleveland, Ohio, for example, you've got to get from that factory to the ship and on railways or whatever it is. And it's worth saying that the point about the assembly line, which was invented by Bill Nudson when he was working for Ford.

A (6:42)

Yeah.

B (6:42)

Is that instead of everyone working together on one thing, you have one person working on one bit, another person one way, and it goes down at the assembly line. You just plonk it on. Your job is to just screw in the doors and do the next one and do the next one. So each person is just doing one thing, which means you're honing your, your, your expertise into one little area.

A (7:03)

What's interesting is, is that, that seems obvious, but again, it's one of those things. Someone had to invent it, someone had to perfect it. Key to this sort of assembly line working things is Henry Ford's son, Edsel Ford. Yes.

B (7:14)

Who's bought into nuts because Knudsen and Ford fall out over. Yeah, not over the assembly line so much, but. But Knudsen idea is that, you know, something like an automobile ought to be aspirational. But beyond just sort of aspiration of the ordinary man, what you need to do is aspire to go better and better and better, which is why he's in favor of producing new models every year, whereas Ford is going now. What's wrong with the Model T and Dunstan's game? Well, it can be better, you know, more of this.

A (7:36)

Yeah, but, yeah, but yeah, because Ford doesn't want to introduce more SKUs to the manufacturer. But there we are. Right. They're tricky.

B (7:44)

But Edsel Ford is across all of it.

A (7:45)

It. Yeah. And he sends a close associate, Charlie Sorensen to the Consolidated Aircraft factory in San Diego to see how they're doing. B24 bombers.

B (7:53)

Yes. This is a liberator.

A (7:54)

Yeah. And. And he finds that it's shambolic, it's inefficient production. So he breaks down the construction into various assemblies, sub assemblies that can be done within 24 hours. Consolidated resists this a little. They're not sure about it, but the Army Air Force wants more bombers because a part of what's going on is the US Army Air Force wants to prove it can win the war with bombers. And so there's a real drive coming from that's that part of the American defense establishment.

B (8:22)

And also Roosevelt's behind it.

A (8:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (8:24)

Ruse is all in on aircraft.

A (8:26)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because it's, it's still not flesh as well, isn't it?

B (8:29)

Yes.

A (8:30)

Instead of infantry. So Ford is given a contract to build a massive new assembly plant, granted the license to construct B24s. And this is this place called Willow Run. It's the largest single room in the world in, in farmland west of Detroit. And it's an L shaped factory. This is, as legend would have it. Well, it's, it's true. It's true. But it's, this is the sort of thing that belongs in legend. They have to keep the building in the same county for tax purposes. Yeah.

B (8:58)

So they just put a kink in it.

A (8:59)

So they put a kink in it. So the bombers go around the corner at the end of the production line.

B (9:02)

I mean, there are photographs of this, of the internal, the inside of, of Willow Run. And it is truly gargantuan.

A (9:08)

Yeah.

B (9:09)

I mean, you know, it is over a mile in length.

A (9:11)

Yeah. And a new bomber comes off the production line. Every 63 minutes at its height.

B (9:15)

Yes. And employs 42,000 people by 1944.

A (9:19)

And then Packard are licensing Rolls Royce Merlins.

B (9:24)

Yeah. And they were kind of high end automobiles in the 1930s and 20s. And then you got the Fisher plant in Cleveland, Ohio. The Fisher plant. I've been there. It's now a massive conference center. Again, it is absolutely whopping, this place. I mean, it is enormous. Right next to the airport, Cleveland.

A (9:40)

Yeah. And they're making Sherman tanks. You can make the, build these tanks all you like, but you've got to get them, you've got to get them to the theaters they're required in. So shipbuilding is the, it's the most important part of all of this.

B (9:50)

Yes. And this is just the most amazing story and it involves one of the most extraordinary characters. So by 1940, 849 new naval vessels have been contracted and under construction. And this is, enter stage left, Henry Kaiser. Because the. We talked a little bit, didn't we, about him and Cyril Thompson coming over, the British ship designer coming over with his liberty ship design, not called liberty ship at that point, but, but he comes over and Kaiser is this, this amazing sort of egg like bald headed, kind of larger than life character.

A (10:23)

He sounds great.

B (10:24)

Yeah. And Thompson meets him and says, you know, can you build a, build us a new shipyard? He goes, yeah, sure, you know, how hard can it be? And everyone's going, well, it is quite hard. And he goes, enough for me. And he makes, and he, and he builds one. He builds one in three months. It's just absolutely extraordinary. And he, and you know, he promises Thompson that they can produce at least 200 freighters every single year of 10,000 tons each, you know, which is, and he takes him to see this bleak landscape of empty mud flats in Richmond, California, just across the bay from San Francisco. And it's going, it's true, you see nothing. Now Kaiser tells him, but within months this vast space will have a shipyard on it with thousands of workers building the ships for you.

A (11:03)

He doesn't build one shipyard, he builds two. There's one on each coast.

B (11:06)

Yeah, yeah, there's one, there's a west

A (11:07)

coast one and an east coast one. And they build, they build these liberty ships. And this is, I mean this, this is Thompson's original design, isn't it? Which is a prefabricated ship. The idea is that, that you, you

B (11:17)

slap it together and it's going to, you know, the original design is, is it's going to take 225 days to make one.

A (11:23)

Yeah.

B (11:23)

Which is like unprecedentedly fast.

A (11:26)

Yeah. They launched the first Liberty ship, as they become known on in August 1941. And by May 1942 it's one every 73 days, then every 24 days by August of 1942.

B (11:38)

And even at that point no one is thinking that a 10,000 ton freighter could be made in such a short time. That's ridiculous. You know, 24 days, that's, that's just nuts. But then the Robert E. Peary launches on the 12th of November after four days, 15 hours and 26 minutes.

A (11:55)

I mean, come on, come on, that's

B (11:56)

not even five days. That's a stunt. It's a PR stunt, but it's still a pretty good one. But then they go back to their kind of, sort of 15 to 20 days. But I mean, come on.

A (12:04)

Yeah, I mean I imagine that some of the light switches might not work in that ship. They've done it in a rush, you know.

B (12:10)

Yeah. There's the odd loose bolt.

A (12:11)

There's the odd loose bolt.

B (12:12)

A bit of welding that's kind of, you know.

A (12:15)

But I think what's interesting about, about this is that is the British aspiration before the war is this idea of still not flesh that use technology to take the strain. You want a working population left after the war. You don't want to chew through everyone. You want you to be able to, you want to be able to manufacturers and all that sort of thing. Have a, have a civil society after a war and all this sort of thing. But it's American industrial muscle that makes steel, not flesh actually pos possible.

B (12:38)

Yes.

A (12:39)

Quite a while ago we talked about the tank procurement issue in Britain, which is often present as the great tank scandal, you know, which is one of the set pieces of historiography about Britain can't produce tanks for any good. And there's a counter argument says, well, it doesn't bother because it's just going to buy them. And they decide that they make a decision. We'll buy Sherman tanks until the tank we know is going to work, that we can get up and running in 18 months time, which is the Cromwell we'll buy American tax in the meantime. And this is also.

B (13:07)

There's no tank scandal in my book.

A (13:08)

Well, exactly. So this is the point is that American industry means that you don't. There's no rush with these things. You'll just buy the bits you need through lend lease.

B (13:18)

But I think it's really important to say that the two absolute key points of this are providing enough industrial shipping to get Stuff across to where you need it to be, whether it be an atoll in the Pacific or whether it be across the Atlantic. And air power. And air power is absolutely central to the whole thing. Whether you be. Whether it be part of the Navy with your, you know, operating out of carriers, whether it be transport fleets, whether it be defenders in your fighter force or whether it be bombers. And you need bombers to do two roles and you need different size bombers. You need heavy bombers to do strategic operations where these are bomber fleets hitting cities and industrial targets separate from ground forces. That's the strategic forces and tactical forces, which is more. Smaller bombers, two engine bombers which can get in lower and faster and fighters to directly support ground operations. And that's the tactical air forces. I'm sorry to repeat myself a little bit for those who've heard this before, but it's worth just spelling it out again.

A (14:17)

Why is there a strategic bombing campaign? What's it for? To stop them being able to do what you're doing with your factories.

B (14:24)

Yes.

A (14:25)

That the two exist in perfect mirror images of each other.

B (14:29)

Absolutely. You're playing to your hinder your tactical forces, which is your armies and your tactical air forces.

A (14:34)

Precisely, precisely. You're playing to your strengths. You've identified industry as your strength. So you're going to deny the enemy the use of industry. Of course. And the strategic bombing campaign is actually that simple to explain.

B (14:49)

Yes. Still seems to cause people headaches. But anyway. So the air power objective is to obliterate the accessibility to produce war material and thus wage war. I mean, you know, it's a very, very sensible, well, strategy.

A (15:02)

I think if you attack the Maybach factory in Paris in April 1944, that makes the engines for Tiger and Panther tanks. There will be fewer Tiger and Panther tanks at the front in Normandy in six weeks time when you invade mainland Europe.

B (15:16)

Yes. Simple as that.

A (15:18)

It's as simple as that.

B (15:19)

I rest my case.

A (15:19)

Yeah, there you go.

B (15:20)

There is also an increasing emphasis on firepower on the ground. So this is more artillery. More, more tanks. More, longer, bigger. Those long toms, those 155 millimeters and 240 millimeters and so on. And I think this is entirely sensible because, you know, overreliance on infantry is inherently inefficient. And if you want any proof of that, just look at what happens on the Western Front in the First World War. And look at what's happening to the Red army and German armies on the Eastern Front. You know, they're getting absolutely slaughtered. The more, more infantry you have, the More people are going to die. It's just as simple as that.

A (15:53)

And the further away you can kill the enemy, the better. The fewer will die. Yeah, exactly. But this strategy, these methods take time to bed in, don't they?

B (16:01)

Well, and you can only do these strategies if you don't, if you have a huge industrial power base behind you. And this is the problem that Germany and Japan particularly and Italy have is they don't have this industrial power based one. So they have, they have no choice but to use infantry and huge vast numbers of infantry divisions, but consequence of that is they all get slaughtered.

A (16:23)

Kind of getting ahead of ourselves here because in first off of 1942, Britain is having a very, very, very, very,

B (16:29)

very, very sticky time.

A (16:30)

Very rough time. You know, the Japanese take, take Malaya very easily, having taken Hong Kong. Singapore falls on 14 February. The British are having a bad time in North Africa for all sorts of, for all sorts of reasons.

B (16:44)

Yeah.

A (16:44)

And the siege of Malta is massive pressure on what British Britain can achieve strategically in the Mediterranean. We talked about this in the last episode about Barbarossa's. The Germans overextend. They're winning too much. In a sense. That's what Rommel does in the, in the desert as he gets himself too far ahead of himself and leaves himself vulnerable to a properly summoned British offensive, which is what happens at El Alamein. You have Americans arriving in Europe in January, I mean immediately arriving in first first streets.

B (17:15)

34th Red Bulls division. Come on. 24th of January 1942.

A (17:18)

Yeah, incredible. I mean that, that, that, that's five, six weeks after Pearl Harbor. It's extraordinary. And the Americans are saying, well, we'll do a cross channel assault kind of right away.

B (17:28)

And the British go, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

A (17:30)

But at the same time saying to themselves, that's completely ridiculous. That's ridiculous. And the compromise is operation torch in November 1942, which is an invasion of northwest Africa all along, all along the western end of North Africa as well. I mean it's very ambitious. Yeah.

B (17:45)

From, from, from Morocco. Yeah.

A (17:47)

I think what's really interesting about this is that Hitler's response is rather than to go, well you know what, we'll write Africa off, right. North Africa off. Can't win here. No.

B (17:56)

He doubles down.

A (17:57)

It's too difficult. They're making us fight at the end of us right at the end of our supply chain. And if things go wrong here.

B (18:03)

Yeah, here's a thought. Let's reinforce Sicily.

A (18:05)

Yeah. So instead he reinforces Tunisia. But basically this is a massive defeat for the, for the. For the Germans. Yeah. You know, you've Operation Vengeance, which is the Royal Navy turning its.

B (18:17)

Yes.

A (18:17)

Turning its fury on the. On. On Axis shipping.

B (18:22)

Kill, burn, destroy.

A (18:23)

Kill, burn, destroy. The Luftwaffe loses 24, 22 aircraft between November and of 1942 and May of 1943. And that's a hell of a lot. Yeah. And a quarter of a million soldiers are taken prisoner.

B (18:35)

Quarter of a million.

A (18:37)

Yeah. And also they. The. The Germans in their effort, they also, they show some of their cards a little early and they send Tiger tanks to Tunisia, which. Which sets alarm bells ringing. It means that there are countermeasures for that German heavy armor in place by Dean.

B (18:53)

Because one's knocked out.

A (18:54)

Yeah.

B (18:55)

Brought back to England, analyzed, now resides at the tank museum in Bovington.

A (18:59)

Exactly. Yeah.

B (18:59)

The very one.

A (19:00)

For some reason, they leave it on horse guards for parade for people to look at, which I think would probably cause some loose bowels, but there we are. But, but what's happening in Tunisia is the Allies are figuring out how to fight. And you know, the Americans, rather than take their reverses to heart, they. They go, right, okay, what do we actually do about this?

B (19:19)

Yeah. I think she needs a.

A (19:21)

Is.

B (19:21)

Is a completely underrated campaign in terms of its importance. It's because it gets overshadowed by Sicily and it gets overshadowed by D Day and what happens in northwest Europe, of course.

A (19:30)

And by Stalingrad.

B (19:31)

And by Stalingrad. But it is, it is such a formative campaign for this. Working together.

A (19:38)

Yeah.

B (19:39)

And realizing that the future warfare is a marriage of air, land and sea power, as Alexander says in June 1943.

A (19:47)

Yeah.

B (19:47)

And I think it's. It's probing forward of infantry and armor, waiting for the Axis counterattack, which they know they're going to have, which they know is going to come and, and then hammering them with their massive firepower. That is the Allied way of war as developed. And it's in Tunisia where that comes to the fore.

A (20:05)

Yeah.

B (20:06)

And also the medium bombers, twin engine bombers and fighters are also vital for supporting the ground forces. This is a tactical air forces.

A (20:16)

And you've had the Casablanca conference at the start of 1943.

B (20:19)

Yeah.

A (20:20)

Which is the Declaration by FDR and by Churchill once he's played catch up that unconditional surrender is the terms for the end of the war. That the Germans can't negotiate. Can't negotiate their way out of this. Yes. I mean, because of course they can't. The Allies, the Allies problem now is one of strategic momentum and pace, trying to get the war over with, trying to get it finished. But also having to fight the Germans, who are becoming increasingly die hard as the. As the war progresses. Yeah, yeah.

B (20:53)

And of course, got Stalingrad in February, start of February 1943 as well, which is a big turning point. So it's clear that, you know, the Axis are on the rocks, but it's only at the start of March 1943 that the RAF strategic bombing campaign really gets underway. I mean, yes, they've been doing it since May 1940, but very ineffectively. And it's not until Harris takes over the start of 1942 and then really starts to kind of build up a heavy bomber force with new, improved navigational aids that they're able to do what they need to do. And of course, you know, don't belittle the dams raid, you know, which is only kind of 19 bombers causing vast amounts of destruction.

A (21:32)

Yeah.

B (21:32)

You know, you're getting on towards that panacea, which is kind of one plane, one bomb.

A (21:36)

The RAF's aspiration is to destroy entire cities and it succeeds in doing that in July with Operation Gomorrah in Hamburg, which is, you know, a day and night attacks. So the American Air Force involved in that as well. Yeah. And that, that's sort of a planetary alignment in terms of conditions, the weapons they've got, the technology, the use of

B (21:56)

this bit of wind.

A (21:57)

Yeah. A window as well. Using. Using an electronic, Electronic countermeasure.

B (22:01)

Oh, yes, this is a silver foil that they drop, which means that the German radar is jammed.

A (22:06)

Yeah, it's cut to the. Cut to the length of the wavelength of the radar and creates a great big, great big image that looks like everything coincides. And all the work they've done on what the German built, what buildings are like in Hamburg, what. What munitions you need to drop where. Creates a firestorm. And the interesting, you know, they kill 37,000 people at least. And you. You have Goebbels afterwards saying, if they do that again, two more of these and we've had it, we've lost the war. I mean, but unfortunately for the. For Bomber Command and fortunately for German civilians, in a way, it's really difficult to do. Not every German city is the same. Not every raid happens on a balmy summer's evening where everything goes exactly according to plan.

B (22:45)

And of course, with a nod, you always have. Have new technology your enemy doesn't know about.

A (22:50)

Exactly. Because the issue with Windows, once you've used it, you've used it and they know about it. But the Americans are also building up their strategic capability. They have Aspirations to bomb in daylight because it's a more moral way of bombing because they're going to bomb accurately and this sort of thing.

B (23:04)

But also they don't really get going until the middle of 1933 because the 8th Air Force, which has come over to Britain specifically to attack Germany and be a strategic air force alongside Bomber Command, is then stripped bare by the campaign in North Africa. So most of the forces which have been sent over for 8th Air Force are then sent to the Mediterranean and it's not until the middle of 1943. And this coincides with the declaration of Operation Point Blank, which is first mooted by Ira Ecker, who is the commander in Chief of the 8th Air Force over in Britain. He goes to the Casablanca conference and says, look, I really think we need to focus on destroying the German air force first. And we do that by hitting their factories, but also by destroying them in the air as well. Because if we do that, the biggest threat to our bombers is other aircraft rather than anti aircraft guns. So if we can destroy that, then we can be much more effective with our bombing. And everyone goes, yeah, okay, that all sounds reasonable. Harris, who's commander in chief of RAF Bomber Command, isn't so keen on this, but goes along with it, is signed off in June and that means the priority for all strategic air bombing after that point, so mid-1943, is to destroy the German aircraft industry.

A (24:12)

Yeah.

B (24:12)

Both their power plants and their aircraft.

A (24:14)

Yeah. Like all of these things, they've got to make, figure out how to do that, make it work. And you need the skies clear.

B (24:21)

Yep.

A (24:22)

For Overlord, for the, for the course,

B (24:24)

you know, all very, very big way.

A (24:27)

When all of these things are leading, are leading there. All of these are the elements that are required before you can do Normandy, you need to have done some amphibious landings just just to know how.

B (24:40)

Yeah.

A (24:40)

So you've taught, you've husky in, in Sicily.

B (24:43)

Yeah.

A (24:44)

Getting into Italy, Anzio in the turn of the year and all of this, all of this stuff and this, this is only possible because, because of American industry. One of the problems that the US Army Air Force is having over, over German airspace is, is it doesn't have a fighter escort.

B (25:01)

Yes.

A (25:01)

That can get to Berlin and back essentially. But there's one about to come online which is the Mustang, the P51 Mustang.

B (25:09)

Well, yes, because there's a major, the major ally crisis of the war really is that comes in the second half of 1943 when they're trying to desperately smash the German aircraft industry and not achieving it because while the Ruhr industrial heartland is very helpfully on the western side of Germany and the flat bit of Britain is very helpfully on the eastern side of England and it's a hop and a skip in a way. Effectively the aircraft industry is deep inside the Reich and it's beyond the range of fighter escorts. And what the Americans are finding is that Flying Fortresses and, and liberated bombers, despite having 1350 caliber machine guns per plane, is not enough to protect them. And they're getting absolutely slaughtered.

A (25:50)

Can't actually defend, you know.

B (25:52)

On the 17th of August 1943 you have the Schreifer Regular Beckonsburg raid where 60 out of 360 whatever bombers that fly over are shot down and a further 125 or whatever it is are badly mauled. And this is unsustainable losses. So you need this escort to go long range, deep into the third right. And there's a huge urgency for this of course, because of the requirements of D Day, which is this whole point. You need the whole of the airspace over northwest Europe cleared, not just above the invasion beaches. Because the moment they land the cats out of the bag and the moment the cat's out of the bag, then there's a race on to, to see which side is it going to be the Germans or is it going to. The Allies can build up in a material quickest and is it going to be the Allies you've got to get across the sea in slow boats or is it going to be the Germans who are already on the continent and obviously on paper it's the Germans. So you have to slow up the Germans ability to do that. And you do that by destroying their, their transport networks, their marshalling yards, their railway bridge, you know, their bridges across rivers and all the rest of it. But you can only do that with very accurate bombing. And you can only do that if the skies are clear. Because acro bombing requires low level flying. And if you're low level flying and you've got a Messersmith or a Wolf above you, you're in big shit. Yeah. So you have to clear those skies. And so there is this huge urgency in the autumn of 1943 to get these long range fighters. And it comes in the form of the Mustang, which originally has this dog of an Allison engine which makes it kind of redundant. But then when it's married with the Rolls Royce Merlin suddenly is transformed into a very, very long range, highly efficient, highly maneuverable, high altitude, very fast fighter plane, which is a game changer.

A (27:25)

Yeah. Things are going better against the Japanese. There's a battle of Midway in 1942. After all we said about the attack on Pearl harbor. If they'd sunk the aircraft carriers, what's the actual difference? Well, probably six months and maybe Midway would happen six or three months later. I mean, there's sort of nothing in it really. The Americans defeat the Japanese on Guadalcanal and it takes, it takes a long time. Yeah, but it's the graveyard of the Japanese army in that, in that part of the world.

B (27:50)

Yeah. When they're defeated, the Japanese commanders themselves recognize that they can't win the war.

A (27:55)

They've had it. Yeah. The Americans island hopping their way towards the Philippines. The British Indian army having had a torrid year in 1943 with the offensives in the Arakan, then in 1944 crushes the Japanese 15th Army. And what's interesting about that is that victory is so decisive that Kohima, an infar battle is so decisive that the chiefs of staff in London don't realize how decisive it is because they haven't really got their eye on that ball. Because D Day, D day is coming. That's the thing they care about. Chief of the Imperial General Staff Sir Alan Brooke. He, he doesn't understand when Slim says to him, by the way, we've pulled this off, really what they've pulled off, it's such an extraordinary victory. And the Japanese are spending 88% of their GDP on the war, isn't it? Which is bonkers.

B (28:40)

88%. Yeah, absolutely bonkers.

A (28:43)

Yeah. But let's come to D day because this is where this is all leading. I mean, this is the interesting thing is these aren't a series of discrete events. They're all, you know, that are locked off from each other.

B (28:52)

That's a pretty nifty precis of the war.

A (28:54)

Oh yeah, I think so. But what? Just remind everyone everything's leading to everything else. Everything's in the context of everything else. Yeah. Strategic momentum requires that you keep moving, you know, this kind of the way they're fighting the war. You know, it's the shark. It's got to keep moving or it'll die. It's that, that notion, isn't it? And so, you know, rome Falls on 4 June 1944. What's interesting about this, and we said this before, is that, is that it's American industry that's allowing the British to fight the world war the way they want to. D day is primarily a British operation.

B (29:27)

Primarily.

A (29:28)

Primarily, right. All three service chiefs are British. Yes. The, the man at the very top, supreme commander, is American, but all three service chiefs are British. The warships, two thirds of the warships are British.

B (29:39)

Yep. 200792 out of 1213.

A (29:42)

Yeah, there we are. Most of the minesweepers are British or Canadian. The Canadians suffer more casualties on D Day than the Americans, proportionally. Proportionally, yeah. It's not a competition in the end. By August you've more American troops in theater than British and Dominion troops and. But that's not how you got there. You got there because it was predominantly a British effort on D Day. No, and this isn't special pleading. This is just, this is just a. These are the numbers.

B (30:07)

It is worth reiterating the D Day stats.

A (30:10)

Yeah, go on.

B (30:11)

You've got three airborne divisions, two American, one British, amounted to 23,490 paratroopers. You've got 6,939 vessels. You got 1,213 warships, 4,127 landing craft. 6,939 vessels in all, delivering 132,715 men onto the beaches on the first day, supported by 12,590 aircraft.

A (30:38)

Right. This is the moment where I wish I had a white flag on a stick. I could wave forlornly at the camera. Got in himal. All five beachlands success are successful. Right. And they have to be. This has to be too big to fail. There are 76,000 enemy troops in the immediate area and 10 mobile divisions. But as we talked about, the airspace has been closed down. So if the Germans want to move, they can't do it during the day, they've got to do it during the night. And. And if they stop during the day, they're going to get spotted and torn up anyway. Yep. And obviously the logistics side of this is only possible because of the. Because of the two temporary harbors, the floating harbors, the mulberries, each of which is bigger than the Port of Dover and produced by a workforce of 55,000 people.

B (31:23)

Yeah, I mean 42,000 people at Willow Run. 55,000 people working on the mulberries.

A (31:27)

Yeah. I mean Lend Lease is a big part of this, but I think one

B (31:29)

of these both ways.

A (31:30)

Yeah, exactly. That's what's really interesting about it, is it's seen as one way traffic, but

B (31:33)

it's not.31% of all US supplies in the ETA, the European theatre of operations, are supplied by Britain. You know, it's not small. Right. So in other words, they are doing Lend Lease in reverse.

A (31:43)

Yeah. But it's about collaboration, it's about shared technologies, it's about coalition effort. It's about scientific breakthroughs and people playing to each other, drawing on each other's strengths and advantages.

B (31:52)

The nations involved, and let's face it, the two main nations are Britain and the United States with massively important support from the Canadians especially. But, but, but let's face it, this is two nations working towards a common single goal and they are working extremely well. This is how democracies should operate in coalition warfare.

A (32:15)

And you know what, Jim? The thing is, the keen eared listener was promised sexy economics at the start of this episode and there hasn't really been any coming off the break in part two. We're going to tell you, we're going to show you some leg.

B (32:27)

Yeah.

A (32:28)

Some economic leg with the Bretton woods conference. Hold on to your hats. Balance of payments incoming. See you in a ticket. Predator Badlands now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney. Here you're not the predator, you're the prey. Prey, prey, prey, pray. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning and breathtaking.

B (33:00)

Many have come here, none have survived.

A (33:05)

Predator Badlands now streaming on Hulu and

B (33:07)

Hulu on Disney Plus.

A (33:08)

Rated PG 13. Welcome back to we have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland and Jim before promised economics. Before the break we promised economics and well, this is, this is, this is where the economics gets real, baby.

B (33:30)

Right?

A (33:31)

We've gone from, you know, the sort of pinnacle of coalition warfare to actually at the pretty much the same time the what are we going to do now? This is very much the direction of travel in FDR's thinking is what are we going to do after the war? How do we extend this idea that everyone is America's neighbor after all and the people in East Java are good

B (33:55)

at neighbor policy as outlined in his inauguration speech in March 1933.

A (34:01)

Yeah. Which was to do with Latin America.

B (34:05)

Primarily.

A (34:06)

Primarily.

B (34:06)

It was a seed of a bigger, bigger theme.

A (34:08)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because by this point in the war this is coming to fruition in, in how he's viewing what's to come and the two key figures in, in what's going to happen. Basically it's long term learns to help countries stabilize their currencies and development projects to get their economies on an even keel and plugged into the, and plugged into the American economy. And you.

B (34:30)

But, but it's worth just stressing that the point about this is yes, it's because the world's a better place and he wants Everything to be nice and sweet and cozy, but it is primarily because if these other countries are more stable, their economics are going to be more stable, their politics are going to be more stable, and they're going to be better placed to do trade with America, which will in turn make rich America wealthier.

A (34:52)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

B (34:53)

Okay. So. So the altruism only goes so far.

A (34:55)

Yeah.

B (34:55)

There's quite a lot of.

A (34:56)

There's a.

B (34:56)

There's a massive dollar.

A (34:57)

It's quite a lot of quid for the pro quo.

B (34:59)

There's an awful lot of quid for the pro quo.

A (35:01)

Yeah. But.

B (35:02)

But it is really worth stressing that this notion of low tariffs and free trade, financial backing, soft power for other nations, enables America to get richer, not poorer.

A (35:16)

And the key figures in this are Sumner Wells, who's the Undersecretary of State, and Henry Morgan Tao, he's the Secretary of Treasury. Secretary of treasury, and Morgenthau. I mean, interestingly, there's a controversy around him, isn't there, about the Morgentau plan for what to do about Germany? Yes, because one of the options he tables.

B (35:32)

Yes.

A (35:32)

Which is to reduce Germany to an agricultural economy and completely de. Industrialize and all that sort of stuff. And the Germans get hold of that and. And use it as a propaganda weapon against the Allies. But actually, he's a much more serious figure than that because he. If people have heard of him, they tend to have heard of him in

B (35:49)

that these people are all serious players. They're serious, learned.

A (35:54)

Yeah.

B (35:55)

They're maybe not intellectuals, but they are proper serious people who treat politics seriously and treat the world seriously.

A (36:01)

Yeah. They're worried about Nazi influence in South America as much as anything else. And the Monroe Doctrine, which is an American idea that South America. Yeah, exactly. It's its backyard. And he wants a financial equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine that basically American money should be the thing that guides the future of the Americas.

B (36:30)

And in the long term, the principle is that whatever you spend on kind of sort of bolstering trade and projects and building projects and infrastructure projects in these countries is going to be as nothing compared to what you'd pay if you ended up in some kind of conflict or their economies go down the Swanee.

A (36:44)

Yeah, exactly. I think our first episode, we talked about John Maynard Keynes, who's the British economist who. Who summed up what he thought of the Treaty of Versailles, the economic consequences

B (36:56)

of the peace, which is not a lot, was it?

A (36:58)

No, he didn't. He didn't rate it. He didn't. He took a very Dim View and it was a bestseller, so extremely influential. I mean it's a bestseller. An economics book was a bestseller.

B (37:08)

And I think I remember arguing that it was more entertaining than one might imagine

A (37:13)

the past. It's not just the foreign country, it's another flipping planet anyway. But his, his, the thing he's interested in is countercyclical theory and fiscal policy. And the idea is that, you know, what a government can do is when things are sticky it should, it should borrow to spend in order to get things going. And then when things have got going again, it doesn't need to do that anymore.

B (37:34)

Yeah, so the principle is that, you know, so and this is something that Keynes articulates in massive bestseller, which is the general fear of employment, interest and money. This is his big, big magnum opus really. It's a sort of culmination of his, of his economic theorizing. And he is at one with a leading American economist called Harry Dexter White. The idea is basically the austerity measures are frowned upon because that just slows it down even more. It might be a short term, kind of gets you out of the mire immediately and stops you spending too much, but it also long term, it just, it will lead to stagnation. So you need to have the confidence to get people spending, spending in the streets, commercially, whether it be food or entertainment or whatever it might be, or a new car, et cetera, et cetera, but also for business owners to invest in new enterprises and new things. You know, you don't want a contraction, you want an expansion. So that's the countercyclical theory of fiscal policy.

A (38:29)

These theories say that markets that are not self correcting, that markets need that it all needs some nudging along and some help. This becomes known as Keynesian economics. And certainly, I mean I certainly remember during the Cameron government during the austerity time in the early 2010s there was a lot of talk about what about Keynesianism from people, why have they turned their back on this? But that's because these ideas have since been through the wringer.

B (38:55)

But there are still plenty of people who absolutely support the Keynesian countercyclical theory.

A (38:59)

Yeah, but these ideas at the time have come completely center stage because of, because of the, because of the Great Depression, because of the Wall street crash and because of the situation the war is offering the Americans in a sense that the Americans are seeing here with the New Deal and his plans for post war economic stability, there's an opportunity to rewrite how economics works globally. There's An Inter American bank which is part of this policy, this idea that you're going to include America, this include the Americas in this financial Monroe Doctrine. And central to it is countercyclical economics. This, however, all this stuff to do with the Americas is then put on hold. But by the arrival of the Second World War. Although Roosevelt wants the good neighbor, you know, he's got bigger fish to fry.

B (39:47)

Yes.

A (39:48)

Than basically dealing with his, with his back backyard as he sees it. But this, but this means, you know, this means that when it comes to it, when Morgan Tao is trying to put together plans for post war, these are the eye, these are the people and these are the ideas that he goes to.

B (40:07)

Yes. And it's the same principle. So, so the idea of this creating this Inter American Bank.

A (40:11)

Yeah.

B (40:12)

You know, a multilateral financial institution led by the US and this is funded by government bonds. So bonds are basically, you're basically taking on loans, but you're taking them on what in modern parlance would be a. AAA insurance. So in other words, they're guaranteed, they're very low interest, they're long term.

A (40:31)

Yeah.

B (40:32)

And the IAB would then in turn fund the good neighbor policy. So this bank, this Inter America bank would then fund these projects in South America. You know, whether it be, you know, new infrastructure, buildings, drainage, ditches, whatever it might be. I think the key thing about the good Navy policy in terms of the Americas is that this is a total break from what had come before. This very dominating, bullying, you know, we don't like your dictator, therefore we're going to get rid of him. All this kind of stuff, there's none of that anymore. This is a much more kind of softer, touchy feelia kind of way of going about things. But of course, as you say, it all gets benched in the 1940s because they're now at war.

A (41:14)

I mean, you say it's touchy feely, but actually in the end what it's about is, is stabilizing things so that America gets rich richer. Which isn't. Yeah, there's nothing touchy feely about that at all. That's that. I mean it's economic rail politic is what's interesting about it. But again, we're back to the Roosevelt thing where you can present it as, as being, you know, being. Being nice to people.

B (41:34)

It is being nice.

A (41:35)

Well, it is, but. It is, but we.

B (41:36)

It's unquestionably nice to people, but we're product.

A (41:39)

Exactly, exactly, exactly. You know, and I think this is the, again, this is the interesting Thing about the way Roosevelt likes to operate is he treats, he treats everything as a coalition problem that you have to, you have to find the coalition of people partners to get on board. Yes. And you need to come up with an overarch. You call it Good Neighbor. Overarching and vague. But it contains all these other things.

B (42:01)

Yes.

A (42:01)

That mean you, that mean you'll get it over the line.

B (42:05)

Yeah.

A (42:06)

And this is his, this is his, this is his genius and the people around him are part of this. So in, in 1942, Morgan Tower and White prepare plans for an inter allied stabilization fund which is basically, and it

B (42:18)

should be said that White is an academic I think at the University of Chicago, something like that. But anyway, he, he's working for the U.S. treasury.

A (42:25)

Yeah.

B (42:25)

During the war.

A (42:26)

Yeah, yeah. And they base it on what they've, what they've done before for the Inter American Bank. And this is an 80 page document and this is May 1942. America. America's been in the war for six months.

B (42:37)

Yeah.

A (42:40)

And this, what this proposes is money to go in, capital to go into post war construction and recovery.

B (42:46)

And this is, I can't even stress how enlightened this is though at the time. I mean it's revolution. One has ever come up with this as a plan.

A (42:53)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically the idea is that you, you, you, you're considering the economic consequences of the war beyond your own borders. Yeah. And helping out other combatants. And I mean you know Versailles was about reparations, was about punishment.

B (43:07)

Yes. But, but, but this is the first time ever that a leading combatant nation has considered post war economic relief beyond its own borders. And it's also part of that is a bank of reconstruction. So this would be an international bank led by the United States with a massive great pot for doing this.

A (43:28)

Yeah.

B (43:29)

And again that's, that's, this is about trying to raise the living standards in other countries. It's, it's, it's trying to create economic growth.

A (43:39)

Yeah.

B (43:39)

It's really, really enlightened revolutionary stuff.

A (43:44)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in the meantime, Keynes is scratching his head in Britain about what, what on earth Britain does next. Because, because you know, one of the terms of Lend lease is the imperial preference, which is, which is basically the British Imperial economic Zone.

B (44:01)

Yes. Which was created in a response to the Smoot Hawley Tariff.

A (44:05)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Fair enough. Because every action is equal opposite reaction in economics in this instance. And he's worried that what's going to come is an end to that protection for products within the British Empire. Dominions because basically if that happens and the Americans are able to produce goods cheaper than, than parts of British Empire, the British Empire is in real trouble.

B (44:28)

Yeah. And it's interesting if you want a recent comparison. So in 1999 the Americans allowed the Chinese into the World Trade Organization of wto, which is what has led to the decline of the blue collar worker in the United States.

A (44:42)

Yeah.

B (44:42)

Because suddenly America was flooded with cheap goods from China.

A (44:45)

Yeah.

B (44:45)

So it's exactly the same thing.

A (44:46)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Because the British, the British basically they want to, they want their economy to recover via exports and, and if you, if you get rid of imperial preference, that makes that a lot less likely to happen. Keynes goes on to write the Keynes plan, which is in direct competition with White's plan. It's got some similar ideas, but Keynes is basically. Keynes is worried about the simple reality that America is going to end up the richest country in the world and Britain's going to be bankrupt. And Britain, after all, Lend Lease only kicked in once Britain had run out of cash.

B (45:16)

They're not emerging from the war. They are already.

A (45:18)

That's where we are. Yeah.

B (45:20)

At that point.

A (45:21)

But yeah, it takes two years. I mean between them there, there's a lot of horse trading and armor.

B (45:26)

It's a joint thing, you know, we're working on it together. And Kanes and, and Dexter White get, you know, they've become really, really pally and, and Harry, Dexter White is a, you know, he's a big, you know, he's, he's slightly in awe of, of Keynes to start off with because he's the giant of.

A (45:40)

Keynes is the most famous economist in the world, if you could imagine such thing.

B (45:43)

Yeah. In.

A (45:46)

He's the Elvis of economics where Dexter White is more.

B (45:51)

The Beatles.

A (45:52)

Yeah, yeah, I think that maybe, actually, I think we've, I think we've got that right. And it takes them two years to draft something. But on 21 April 1944, the British and American governments issued a joint statement by experts on the establishment of an International monetary fund. And two weeks later, so this. Before Overlord. Before Overlord, 40 day, they're hosting a conference two weeks later. The US government is going to host a conference two weeks later in New Hampshire at a place called Bretton Woods. And the main objective is to hash out these proposals a bit longer than that. Yeah, yeah, well that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The main objective is for them to hash out these proposals with delegates from countries all over the world. And Keynes is scared the conference will Be become a monstrous monkey house where nothing will be agreed. And he's drawn up plans for a new bank as well called the International bank for Reconstruction and Development, which he thinks is the thing.

B (46:54)

Ibrd. I think that's got good.

A (46:56)

Yeah. It's going to complement White's proposals for basically free trade. Because free trade, free trade is problematic for the British Empire. Yes.

B (47:06)

And Keynes is very determined that in this conference which is going to be hosted by the Americans is not going to be dominated by them. So you're still going to have a say on that. And as it happens, for all sorts of reasons, not least because of D Day, because they can't get the delegates there because they. The D Day is dominating the shipping.

A (47:22)

Yeah.

B (47:23)

It doesn't begin until the first of July. And at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton woods which is in New Hampshire. And it is absolutely staggering. This is happening, you know, three and a bit weeks into into D Day in the Normandy campaign. Operation Bagration has begun on the eastern front and yet 730 delegates attend this conference from 44 different nations, including from Ethiopia and Iran.

A (47:52)

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it?

B (47:53)

It's absolutely amazing.

A (47:55)

Yeah. And there's three commissions they've set up. There's White chairs Commission one, the establishment of the International Monetary Fund. Commission two is chaired by Keynes which is plans for a world bank called the ibrd, Remember the International bank for Reconstruction and Development and a new. And Keynes's big punt, a new international currency called the Bancor. The Bancor, I mean that's in the scrap heap of history along with Esperanto, I think. And then the third commission is chaired by Eduardo Suarez from Mexico. It's the international financial and cooperation. In other words, global trade policy.

B (48:28)

Yes. But isn't it interesting that. That that Mexico are given such a large. Yeah. Window on this, a such a significant part of this when traditionally America just bullied and bludgeoned Mexico and told them what to do.

A (48:42)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although there's some bullying and bludging. Bludgeoning.

B (48:46)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's kind of in a convivial atmosphere of, of the, of the new Mount Washington.

A (48:52)

Late night still there by the way. Yeah, late night chats over cigars and brandy. But White plan basically prevails. And it's, I mean it, it's going to. Of course it's going to. It's no surprise. I mean if nothing else, the Americans are at least going through the motions. Right. Yeah. And the bancor, tragically for fans of the Bancorp Maybe we should. That. We should have that as our currency. We have waste first six.

B (49:16)

That's such a good idea, isn't it? So you cash in. But you cash in pounds.

A (49:20)

You cash in your pounds for bank.

B (49:22)

You have a little tokens.

A (49:25)

Then we can have a banknote with

B (49:27)

you and me on it.

A (49:31)

Pint of Imperial Preference, please.

B (49:36)

A £1 note could have Monty on the front. A 5 bank or not. But obviously the most. The £50 one Churchill on it.

A (49:46)

But basically what. It's what the bank, the bancor goes and is replaced with a system tied to the dollar inevitably.

B (49:52)

Because the gold standard, as we said before, is tied to the sterling, to the pound.

A (49:55)

Yeah, yeah. And now it's. And now it's the other way around.

B (49:58)

Is that basically because they've got all the gold? Yeah, because everyone's been selling their gold.

A (50:03)

Yeah.

B (50:04)

For arms.

A (50:05)

Yeah.

B (50:05)

And so America is now washed with gold ingots.

A (50:08)

Doesn't.

B (50:08)

It's got so much. He doesn't know what to do with it.

A (50:10)

So that means that the dollar is

B (50:11)

now the preeminence dominant currency.

A (50:15)

Yes. The new system is also trying to combine stability of fixed exchange rates with flexibility to adjust when needed. Because everyone's. Everyone has basically been burned by the gold standard shenanigans of the interwar years. And also the fact that gold standard didn't help anyone, didn't help everyone all the time. The British did well out of it. And more fundamentally though, all measures are anchored by the belief that economic and political stability and democracy that these all enhance. This is a virtuous circle.

B (50:45)

This is the absolute key point. This is the key point of the Rooseveltian world view. Is that. And this goes right back to the first episode we did on this series.

A (50:54)

Yeah.

B (50:55)

Is that when you have economic stability in a democracy, you have political stability too. And when you have economic and political stability, you will have peace. And the converse is also true. Yeah, that's the key. The key thesis on the whole thing.

A (51:10)

And peace means long term prosperity because war is ruinous.

B (51:14)

Yes.

A (51:15)

In every way as well. In every single way. Is actually the point to make here is Roosevelt's not just thinking about lives lost, he's thinking about the ruin it brings with it. That creates further instability. That creates further.

B (51:26)

Even if you win, it still costs a shed load.

A (51:28)

Yeah, exactly. So the IMF is created, the International Monetary Fund.

B (51:32)

Yeah.

A (51:32)

Isn't that amazing?

B (51:33)

In July 1944.

A (51:34)

Yeah. But also John Maynard Keynes, he gets his bank through, it's known as the World bank, renamed as the World Bank. It's the World Bank. Yeah, it's known as the World bank now, but he gets it through. The purpose of that is to provide long term loans for post war reconstruction. And both these organizations inevitably will be based in Washington D.C. because you don't

B (51:54)

want a sudden collapse of a country economically. So if it's looking like it's going down the Suwannee, then the IMF is there to provide funds to, to stabilize your, your own currency so that you don't have this huge lurch like you did with the Wall street crash in 1929. That's what it's designed to avoid.

A (52:12)

Good luck to everyone involved with it. And, and then there's a general agreement on tariffs and trades. So in other words, free trade, low tariffs globally, which means an end to imperial preference. Yes, everyone signs it. Who's there? Except for the Soviet Union. They're just not into the IMF and they're not into the World bank.

B (52:29)

So they don't want American influence on the Soviet economy.

A (52:31)

Yeah, well, yeah, I'll take your trucks,

B (52:34)

but not your dollar.

A (52:35)

Well, exactly. In spite of everything that the Americans have done. But, but, you know, big warning signal

B (52:41)

there, I would say, I think, possibly.

A (52:42)

But this is an amazing achievement.

B (52:44)

It's an amazing achievement. Most people, I mean, if you're interested in economics, I guess you've heard of it, but most people, I would wager, have never even heard of Bretton Woods. It's, it's an incredible thing.

A (52:54)

I think they probably think it's a person. Have you met, have you met Bretton Woods? It's awfully nice.

B (53:00)

Nice to see you, sir.

A (53:01)

He only accepts Bancor

B (53:05)

with Ike's head on it.

A (53:07)

Bretton woods is on schedule with the idea that the war is going to end pretty soon. Maybe by the end of the year. Maybe, maybe by, maybe by, maybe by March. The, the British war economy is geared to winding down in March of 1945 in terms of tank production. They're talking about switching over to peacetime tank production in March 1945. They're wrong, as it turns out. But that's the direction, that's the direction of travel at this point. And there's no doubt that the Germans are done.

B (53:39)

But I think the warning sign is a schism is coming for the victors, not least by the Soviet Union refusing to sign the Bretton woods agreement. And suddenly it's a kind of us and them kind of scenario with the Soviet Union. A gulf is starting to emerge that despite the fact that the Allies bailed out the Soviet Union financially and in terms of armaments and all the rest of it. There's two views to the future world order. And I think it's worth just having a little look at the Soviet Union and what they've been up to in the war up to this point. So there's millions of Germans dead by this point, by the summer of 1944, maimed, starving in Soviet prison camps. Luckier ones are imprisoned in Britain, in Canada and the United States. Of course, German cities and towns are apocalyptic wastelands by this point. And it's only going to get worse. Piles of rubble, jagged, broken buildings. You know, there's a. Germany's become a. The Third Reich has become a sort of monochrome landscape, hasn't it? You know, Hitler always painted the war as the Thousand Year Reich or Armageddon. And Armageddon is definitely winning out at this stage. But as Germany is crumbling, another despotic power is rising. And of course this is the ussr, the Soviet Union.

A (54:57)

This has come about, I think the last time we talked about, in this series about the Soviets fighting the Germans, we mentioned Stalingrad actually in passing.

B (55:07)

Yeah.

A (55:08)

Interestingly because, because that is, I think most people see that as the turning point in, in the, in the war on Eastern Front. And that comes about because. Because in the summer 1942, Hitler, Hitler's had another bright idea and no one can, no one can stop him. And he wants the oil in the Caucasus oil fields. Yes. And wants to push down through the, through the, the left Soviet left flank through the south and get down to the caucus where they're. Caucasus, where there is oil. Because Germany, you know, one of Germany's endless problems.

B (55:41)

And he agrees on all this about consulting his allies. Yeah, yeah, going for it.

A (55:45)

Yeah. But allies aren't for consulting if you're a military genius like the Furagym.

B (55:49)

Yeah.

A (55:50)

And the, the thing is, is the problem is with this is it's 1200 miles from Berlin to Rostov. It's a very long way.

B (55:57)

That's only to Rostov.

A (55:58)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Berlin to Baku where the oil is, is 2,250 miles and it's still only

B (56:07)

the third largest oil producer in the world.

A (56:08)

I know. But also as if the Soviets don't know this oil.

B (56:14)

I just love the arrogance of assuming the Germans just going to walk into these oil fields and start pumping oil straight back to Berlin. They just haven't thought it through at all. No, not at all.

A (56:24)

Yeah. And that Soviets are going to destroy the oil wells and even if they

B (56:29)

don't They've got no means of getting it. Getting it back to Germany.

A (56:31)

Yeah, yeah.

B (56:32)

How do you get. How do you get that transport all that oil and how do you refine it?

A (56:36)

Leave my headquarters now. Do not come to me with problems.

B (56:42)

There's no pipelines heading west Holland.

A (56:44)

Silence. I'm just trying to, just trying to recreate that. No train feeling of the. The. So Hitler then of course changes his mind. He decides that what he wants to do is seize and destroy the city of Stalingrad, which is on the banks of the River Volgas.

B (57:01)

By the way, we have done a big series on this.

A (57:02)

Yeah.

B (57:03)

Anyone who hasn't heard it?

A (57:04)

Yeah, yeah. In the archives in Volgograd, it's known as. Now it's not an important city from a German perspective, one of the most hellish battles. I mean, you know, Stalingrad is synonymous for things now, isn't it? It's like a gold standard of awfulness.

B (57:21)

Yes.

A (57:21)

That people will say, well, if you're face, if you do that, you're facing a Stalingrad grad Yeah. Type battle. And people immediately know what that means. It's.

B (57:30)

It's a, it's a reference point.

A (57:31)

Exactly. It's a meat grinder. It soaks up people effort. But what actually, what it amounts to is that the Germans are surrounded. They lose an army there. Soviets learn how to get organized. The lend lease stuff come online. Are unable to overpower the Germans. Yeah. Yes.

B (57:49)

But it's an inconvenient truth for Putin and all those. He would, you know, he like wanging on about the Great Patriotic War, that Stalingrad itself, the victory of Operation Uranus, which is the encirclement of the German 6th army at Stalingrad, is only possible with 70,000American trucks.

A (58:04)

And by July 1943, the Germans have, you know, Operation Zitadel, which is the Kursk offenses, where the Germans are trying to basically tidy up their front line. And that's the extent of their strategic ambition in 1943. At the summer 1940, 943. They're not, they're not trying to get to oil. They're not trying to get to Moscow. They're not trying to get to Leningrad. They're not even. They're not trying to hold Stalingrad. They're just. They're trying to tidy up, straighten the line. They're. Straighten the line. And they fail in doing that. Although the Soviet victory there is incredibly

B (58:32)

costly as all Soviet victories.

A (58:36)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, which, which, which is, I think defeats as well. Which is what we're coming to, isn't it? Because Stalin wants to rewrite the map of Europe back in line with the old Russian empire, doesn't he? Is the truth. He's an expansionist, although he's a Georgian. He is Russian in his outlook in terms of where the Soviet Union should reach to and what it should influence and particularly where the end of the Soviet Union is and where the west begins. That's the sort of thing he's most bothered about. He's only fussed about Nazism up to a point in itself and he's not particularly fussed about the lives of his own Soviet system.

B (59:14)

I was saying not a jot.

A (59:16)

Not a jot. Because he's delivering. He's going to deliver a workers paradise at some point in the future.

B (59:22)

Yeah. In terms of the Soviet Union, this is the one area where Roosevelt gets it wrong.

A (59:27)

Yeah.

B (59:27)

You know, he hopes that there is a kind of, there is a debt owed to the United States and he thinks that all the help that they've been given them will make them realize that actually kind of softer version of communism, a sort of, you know, modern democratic socialism is a way forward that will benefit Russia. But I mean, you know, he's just completely underestimated Stalin at this point. You know, he is expecting Soviet cooperation in the post war order as payment for lend lease. Yeah, but that ain't going to happen.

A (59:57)

Yeah.

B (59:58)

And at Tehran and then at Yalta, Stalin emphasizes repeatedly that the massive losses of Russian soldiers on the eastern front imply how much the USR is owed, USSR is owed rather than the other way around. But it's interesting because they always play this card about the sort of huge sacrifices and the blood that's been spilled to save the western capitalist asses and all the rest of it. But I would argue that most of the, a lot of these losses are self inflicted. I mean, you know, you think about the kind of pretty bad defeat against Japan in 1905. Then you think about Russians in First World War. 5.5 million casualties in only three years of war. I mean that's quite a good effort. You then have the Brest Litovsk Treaty. So Russia then cedes loads of territory to Germany. Then you have war with Poland between 1919 and 1921 and their own civil war which causes even more losses. And you've seen land in Ukraine and Belarusia. Then there's the Stalinist purges in the interwar years. 22,000 Red army officers executed, including four out of five marshals and something like 13 out of 15 army generals, something like that. I mean, absolutely ridiculous. Then there is a humiliation of the attack by. On the attack on Finland, Finns lose 70,000 casualties, Soviet Union lose 350,000, and Finland loses a bit of land. But it's very much a Pyrrhic victory for the Soviet Union. So the Red Army's near destruction in 1941 during Barbarossa, I would argue is less due to amazing German skill and more due to its own incompetence. And Stalin's micromanagement and the lack of good commanders is due to the purges that he inflicts in the late 1930s is entirely, you know, his own fault. And the 750,000 men encircled at Kyiv in September 1940, 1941, is entirely because Stalin forbids his commanders from retreating back beyond the river Dnipro.

A (61:59)

Yeah. Stalin also makes great play of the idea that half of Soviet industry has been moved behind Urals and that that's a key factor.

B (62:09)

But, but, but it isn't.

A (62:10)

It's lend lease. It's lend lease that's taken the strain. You know, just. Just the number of boots, you know, it's millions of boots. It's enough copper wiring to go around the world. How many times. I mean, it's crazy, the level to which the Americans underwrite the Soviet war effort.

B (62:26)

Yeah, it is absolutely ridiculous. And Stalin absolutely persists of this narrative, which persists to this day, that it is the west that should be indebted to the Soviet Union rather than the Soviet Union indebted to the West. And the truth is that 1,500 enterprises, industrial enterprises, are shipped east in the summer of 1941, but the Germans still took loads of factories, mines and so on. Fully, fully intact ACT and German seizure of coal fields and steel production is absolutely catastrophic for the Soviet Union. They lose 200 million tons of iron ore, plus 80,000 tons of manganese per month and 300,000 tons of coal per year. And this, of course, results in a huge dip in tank and steel production. So pre barbarossa, they're producing three and a half thousand tanks per month, but 400 by the end of 1941. So that is a catastrophic loss.

A (63:19)

I mean, it's interesting that that figure 400amonth at the end of 1941. How that leaps out, because we said in a previous episode, you know, 200 British tanks contribute to the defense of Moscow. That's where the numbers are. So that is a significant contribution. When you see it in that context, it's not. It's not that they're churning out thousands of tanks. They can't. And so the, what the British offer to help, we come back to the Matilda being the most consequential tank of the Second World War, is borne out in their own Indo. In their own production numbers. Yeah. And if you're only producing 400, 200 is a big, is a big contribution, isn't it?

B (63:55)

Yeah, yeah. And also the counter attack at Moscow is, is pretty, you know, it's, it, it does, it is a counter attack. It is successful at the point, but, but their subsequent efforts to kind of take the fight to the Germans isn't very success, aren't very successful and it takes them a while to get there, leadership sorted, get enough experience in the bank to kind of start doing anything meaningful. But even when they do do that, they're still unspeakably ruthless. And there's also the point that shouldn't be forgotten, that Stalin has actually helped Germany wage war against Britain and France pre Barbarossa. So the Luftwaffe are using Soviet fuel to bomb Britain.

A (64:30)

Well, I was in St Petersburg, I mean, it's 10 years ago now, we went to visit St Petersburg and there was a museum of politics in Saint Petersburg and there's a bit about, you know, the treacherous Germans attacking the, the, the, the Soviet Union or Russia, but there's no explanation in that museum of what the Russian army was doing in Poland.

B (64:55)

Amazing. Amazing. Well, so talent state.

A (64:59)

You can put whatever you want, help us out here. Yeah, yeah. They're burning through their own people in a big, big way. And its Allied supply is tanks, guns, trucks and aircraft, aluminium that are keeping them going. And, and you know, as you said, the Stalingard victory, Operation Uranus, Uranus for the polite, basically, is only thanks to American trucks and lubricants. There's jeeps there, you know, with.

B (65:29)

I don't know, when Shukov turns up at Stalingrad, he arrives in a jeep.

A (65:33)

Where'd that come from? Yeah, yeah. Not even a year into the war for the Americans and yet they are losing many, many more people. I mean, the thing is, it's essentially a land war. The British and the Americans are having, are fighting in the Pacific as well and in Burma. I mean, after all, the Lend Lease is only getting to. To the Soviets, but because the Americans have fought a naval war.

B (65:56)

Well, yes, and also. And then they're fighting these huge great campaigns, these huge operations, all of which, every single one is begun with the Red army massively outnumbering the Germans that they're attacking. Yeah, I mean, hugely, both in terms of manpower, in terms of tanks, in terms of aircraft, in terms of artillery, rockets, everything you could possibly think of. The Soviet Union have got.

A (66:19)

Got.

B (66:20)

The Red army have got a massive majority.

A (66:22)

Yeah.

B (66:22)

And yet Operation Bagration, the great big Summer Offensive of 1940, War.771,000 Soviet casualties to half that of the Germans who they're attacking and defeating.

A (66:33)

Yeah.

B (66:35)

And of course, every time they do this, they have to pause because they have to recover and create new divisions and new units and stuff because they've been so badly mauled. Then the Battle of Berlin is just, just incredible, you know, where you have this, this unbelievable dominance in terms of manpower and equipment against an army which, yes, it has got a few Waffen SS types and a few old veterans from the Eastern Front in their numbers in the German army, but most of the kind of million or so men that are there to defend Berlin are teenagers and old men, badly equipped. They've got a handful of tanks, most of which don't work because they haven't got enough fuel, blah, blah, blah, are. And yet in 16 days, the Soviet losses are 361,000. That's quite impressive in its incompetence, isn't it?

A (67:22)

Yeah, it's staggering. It's absolutely staggering. And their material advantage over The Germans is 40 to 1 for tanks and artillery and 10 to 1 for manpower.

B (67:32)

Yeah, they should be. They should be losing. Not even close to that.

A (67:35)

Yeah, yeah.

B (67:36)

A fraction of that. And the only reason they're doing that is because of the carelessness of. Of the regime, the carelessness of the serious commanders, and because they're not very good at what they're doing.

A (67:48)

Amazing, isn't it? 25 million Soviets are dead by the end of the war. But Stalin's official figure is seven and a half million. Yes, because you can't admit to having.

B (67:58)

No, seven and a half million is enough to convey heroic sacrifice. But, but, but 25 million is gross incompetence.

A (68:05)

Yeah, yeah.

B (68:07)

You know, and that comes with total disregard for his own people. Scorched earth policies, deliberate starvation, mass executions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, so, you know, this is not to play down the cruelty of the Germans and the ideological war they're fighting as well. And the fact that they're torching villages, it's not. But the scale of the losses, the enormous scale is down to cruelty, corruption and incompetence on the Soviet Union as much as anything else.

A (68:36)

Yeah, but the end of the war is approaching. Is this bloodbath in the east. And, and I mean, it's still it's still what's happening in the west is still.

B (68:46)

And a new order is two new versions of the world order are emerging.

A (68:50)

Yeah. So in our next episode, we're finally final episode of the Visionaries. We will be coming to the end of the end of the of one war and maybe the beginning of another. Thanks very much for listening. If you want to hear these all without adverts and go to our we have ways of making you talk Patreon become a member live casts for you where you can watch a spoor waffle way to our heart's content in the live there on your laptop or phone or whatever and also ticket offers and stuff. And don't forget we have Waze Fest Mark six in September or become an officer class member of our Apple podcast channel. Thank you so much for listening or watching if you're watching on the YouTube. How extraordinary there that or Spotify or Spotify the brave new world in which what we is living. We'll see you very see you very soon. Cheerio.

B (69:37)

Cheerio.

A (69:50)

It is out of control in the White House right now. Welcome to the rest is Politics Us. I'm Katie Kay. I'm Anthony Scaramucci, who is the worst

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politician in Washington right now. They don't know how to manage Donald Trump. I talked to the people that organized the abduction.

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