HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: The official website for BBC History Magazine
date: 2025-09-03T08:01:04.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Kavita Puri on VJ Day: "We don't talk about the war in Asia – which was a messy, complicated conflict"
items: "England is invincible": How the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain
items: The seaborne invasion: why we must remember the forgotten heroes of D-Day and the battle for Normandy
items: A hill to die on: why the Allies almost failed in the battle of Monte Cassino in WW2
items: Dudley Clarke: the spy who hoodwinked Hitler
items: Liberating WW2 Naples: triumph and tragedy
items: D-Day beaches map: where were the D-Day landings?
items: From the USA's 'good war' to Britain's 'great hurrah': how is D-Day remembered around the world?
items: War and military history podcast episodes
items: Masters of the Air: the real history behind the new show

Kavita Puri on VJ Day: "We don't talk about the war in Asia – which was a messy, complicated conflict"
type: item
date: 2025-09-03T08:00:44.000Z
creator: Kavita Puri
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Fascism
subject: Hiroshima
subject: Second World War battles
description: On the 80th anniversary of VJ Day, broadcaster Kavita Puri – presenter of a new BBC Radio 4 series on the Second World War in Asia – considers why this was the conflict’s forgotten theatre
encoded: Matt Elton: Your new series, exploring fighting on the Asian front during the Second World War, is called The History Podcast: The Second Map. Why did you choose that name? Kavita Puri: It came to me after I met a man called Peter Knight, who is now 98. At the time of the Japanese attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor [on 7 December 1941], he was a 14-year-old boy living in a terraced house in Bromley, a south-eastern London suburb. He had been following the war in Europe using a map posted on the wall alongside his dresser. After Pearl Harbor, he put up another map on the other side of the dresser – a map of Asia and the Pacific. He would sit down every evening with his mum and grandparents to listen to the BBC bulletin, hearing about places for the first time, and about this other war on the Asian front, in British colonies. And he would trace what was happening on that second map. So he was now updating two maps in tandem: one covering the war in Europe against the Nazis, and the second encompassing the war against Japan in Asia. Why has the war against Nazi Germany come to dominate how we view this conflict, at least partly to the exclusion of the conflict in Asia? I think it’s understandable: that war was close by and involved places whose names were more familiar to people in Britain. And it affected people here more directly: Peter Knight had experienced the Blitz, for example. So the European war was close to home, whereas this other war was far away. It was also a messy, complicated war – and not just because it was fought in jungle terrain, and soldiers were dying of malaria and other diseases as well as in combat. It wasn’t a neat good-v-bad situation, like the war against the Nazis. The war with Japan was essentially about two empires competing with each other, so it’s a much harder story to explain. It also involved a lot of troops from the colonies, as well as from Australia. So again, it’s a story about our empire. Historians such as Rana Mitter, who…

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"England is invincible": How the Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain
type: item
date: 2025-07-02T08:00:31.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: When the Battle of Britain erupted, many Luftwaffe pilots anticipated a swift victory. Yet soon that confidence had been replaced by chronic fatigue and a crippling fear of drowning in “dirty water”. Victoria Taylor charts the mental disintegration of Hitler’s flyers
encoded: On a muggy night in late August 1940, Hinnerk Waller’s fraying tether had finally snapped. Relentlessly deployed in the Battle of Britain as part of the Luftwaffe fighter wing JG 52, Waller was paying for every nerve-wracking sortie with his sanity. Snatching hold of his Walther pistol, he sprinted into some nearby woods with the grim intention of killing himself. A few concerned airmen rose up to stop him, but their Staffelkapitän, Helmut Kühle, bade them to resume their seats. “He was a shrewd judge of character,” as Waller’s friend Ulrich Steinhilper later recalled, “and as we all sat waiting for what we thought was the inevitable shot, nothing happened.” Steinhilper added that this “was our first case of Kanalkrankheit [‘Channel Sickness’] – a combination of chronic stress and acute fatigue” that was brought on by constantly flying in the Battle of Britain. That this dramatic episode came only two months into the Luftschlacht um England (‘Air Battle for England’) – the German name for the Battle of Britain and the Blitz – highlights just how frenetic this aerial campaign had become for the Luftwaffe. Just four days after his suicidal crisis, Waller was unceremoniously flung back onto the frontline. What is most important to observe about his breakdown, however, is that it happened when the Luftwaffe was actually in its most successful phase of the aerial campaign against the RAF. Waller’s mental anguish, then, starkly demonstrates that military success and heightened morale do not necessarily go hand in hand. It also demonstrates that we should be wary about imposing British perspectives on the Luftwaffe’s mentality during the Battle of Britain. The enemy’s flaws Pointing out that the German air force was not as indefatigable as it is often presented is certainly not to downplay the monumental achievement of the RAF’s ‘Few’ in denying the necessary air supremacy and build-up of invasion barges for the Wehrmacht to invade Britain in Operation Sealion. On the cont…

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The seaborne invasion: why we must remember the forgotten heroes of D-Day and the battle for Normandy
type: item
date: 2025-06-05T08:24:32.000Z
creator: Nick Hewitt
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: Ferrying troops to the beaches wasn’t the only contribution sailors made during the Allied invasion of Normandy. As we mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Nick Hewitt reveals how the Allied navies ended up fighting one of the most overlooked campaigns of the Second World War
encoded: On 30 July 1944, nearly two months into the Allied invasion of northern France, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay reflected on his command of the naval operations so far. “It may seem to some people that it was all easy and plain sailing,” he wrote in his diary. “[But] nothing could be more wrong. It was excellent planning and execution.” Ramsay died in 1945 without leaving a full memoir, but thousands of sailors could testify that nothing about their lives was “easy and plain sailing”. As late as 8 August 1944, with Allied troops poised to smash the German army in Normandy, sailors were still fighting to protect the beachhead. On that same day, the German submarine U-667 torpedoed both the US freighter Ezra Weston and the Canadian corvette HMCS Regina, the latter attack claiming the lives of 30 men. Ramsay’s words were prophetic. Today, discussions regarding sailors during the Normandy campaign mainly focus on their actions during the first day of the invasion: 6 June 1944, or ‘D-Day’. They are often absent from the wider story, despite the exhausting and dangerous campaign they fought to seize, exploit and defend the waters around Normandy throughout the summer of 1944. Read more | The road to D-Day: the masterplan The focus of the campaign was the Baie de la Seine, or Seine Bay, the huge inlet of the English Channel stretching nearly a hundred kilometres along the coast of Normandy from Le Havre in the east to the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula at Cape Barfleur in the west. Within the bay lay the five assault areas or so-called ‘beaches’: Utah and Omaha for the Americans, and Gold, Juno and Sword for the British and Canadians. Through this highly congested and vulnerable body of water passed a constant stream of transport ships carrying supplies and reinforcements, without which the military could not hope to win the more widely recognised battle of Normandy on land. Defeat was unlikely, but any setback could have prolonged the war for months. As the Allied commander-in-…

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A hill to die on: why the Allies almost failed in the battle of Monte Cassino in WW2
type: item
date: 2025-01-23T09:59:43.000Z
creator: James Holland
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
subject: Soldiers
description: In early 1944, the Allied advance in Italy was brought to a halt at a rocky outcrop called Monte Cassino. And at the heart of the bloodbath that followed, writes James Holland, was flawed leadership
encoded: For the men of the US 34th ‘Red Bulls’ Infantry Division, just getting up onto the Monte Cassino massif was an achievement. To reach this rocky outcrop, in late January 1944 those troops had crossed a two-mile-wide flooded valley, an area laced with enemy mines and overlooked by German troops in the mountains above. The weather was cold, wet and miserable, and the Americans’ route had taken them across a badly smashed causeway that offered an easy target for enemy artillery. Those troops had then traversed the bed of the Rapido river, which was impossible for tanks to cross, and clambered up into the hills and gulleys that comprise the lower reaches of the towering massif. Finally, they had slipped and scrambled their way up onto two of the ridges that cross Monte Cassino. By 6 February, the Second Battalion of the 135th Infantry, one of the three regiments of the Red Bulls, was within a stone’s throw of Point 593, the rocky outcrop at the end of one of these long ridges dubbed ‘Snakeshead Ridge’ by the Americans. The Germans launched a frenzied assault to displace them, only for the Red Bulls to counter-attack. Read more | Hell in Italy: the Allies' hardest fight of WW2? Bayonets fixed, shooting from the hip, they moved from rock to rock, picking their way through the increasingly loose and stony terrain along the narrow ridge. Bullets were zipping and pinging all around, mortars and grenades were exploding, and shrapnel and lethal shards of razor-sharp rock were fizzing through the air. “There was a lot of screaming and cursing,” recalled 23-year-old Sergeant Ralph Schaps from Minnesota. “We were not going to let the goddam krauts push us off the hill.” So close was the fighting that a rifle butt smashed into Schaps’ jaw but, somehow, he survived. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/12/GettyImages-1193060764-bf5e784.jpg" width="4516" height="3009" alt="The Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino, established in the sixth century an…

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Dudley Clarke: the spy who hoodwinked Hitler
type: item
date: 2024-10-14T06:30:30.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Long reads (podcast series)
subject: Second World War battles
description: Robert Hutton unveils the tricks of the trade of the spy who gave the Nazis a run for their money
encoded: Dummy tanks at El Alamein, bogus generals in Algiers, sham armies on D-Day – all were ruses masterminded by World War II's master of deception Dudley Clarke. This Long Read, written by Robert Hutton, tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis. HistoryExtra Long Reads brings you the best articles from BBC History Magazine, direct to your ears. Today’s feature originally appeared in the September 2024 issue, and has been voiced in partnership with the RNIB.

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Liberating WW2 Naples: triumph and tragedy
type: item
date: 2024-09-27T06:30:21.000Z
creator: Rob Attar
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: Keith Lowe tells the story of the first major European city to be freed by the Allies during the Second World War – a tale of ingenuity and heroism, immorality and despair
encoded: When Allied forces arrived in Naples in October 1943, they found a city on its knees. Already ravaged by three years of war, Naples had been further decimated by German occupiers and now faced a desperate battle to get back on its feet as the Second World War continued to unfold around it. In this episode, the historian Keith Lowe joins Rob Attar to explore the story of the first major European city to be liberated by the Allies – a tale of ingenuity and heroism, immorality and despair. Keith Lowe is the author of Naples 1944: War, Liberation and Chaos (HarperCollins, 2024) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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D-Day beaches map: where were the D-Day landings?
type: item
date: 2024-06-05T10:33:22.000Z
subject: 20th Century
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: How many troops were involved in D-Day? Which country suffered more casualties, Britain or America? And why was Normandy chosen as the location? Our D-Day infographics explain the numbers…
encoded: The invasion of Nazi-occupied France was codenamed Operation Overlord and took place on Tuesday 6 June 1944, having been delayed by 24 hours because of poor weather. Allied forces launched a combined naval, air and land assault in what was the largest seaborne invasion in history. D-Day marked the beginning of the campaign to liberate north-west Europe from German occupation. What were the five D-Day beaches? American, British, and Canadian troops landed on five different beaches across the Normandy coastline. The five D-Day beaches were Utah, Omaha, Gold Beach, Juno, and Sword. The Americans landed at Utah at the base of the Cotentin Peninsular and at Omaha at the western end of the northern Normandy coast; the British were to land at Gold Beach, east of Omaha; then the Canadians at Juno; and the British again at Sword, the easternmost invasion beach. D-Day: Land, Air and Sea | A HistoryExtra podcast series Member exclusive | Discover the story of 6 June 1944 from the perspectives of the soldiers, sailors and airborne troops who served. Featuring interviews with WW2 experts Saul David, Nick Hewitt and Giles Milton, as well as gripping eyewitness testimonies. Listen to all episodes now Why were the Normandy beaches chosen for the D-Day landings? The initial decision to land in Normandy was made by the chief of staff to the supreme allied commander (COSSAC) in 1943, Lieutenant-General Frederick Morgan. His team ruled out the Pas-de-Calais region and saw a landing between the Cotentin peninsula and near to Caen as being the most suitable, says military historian Paul Reed. Brittany, Dieppe and Pas de Calais were all considered as alternative landing locations, but none were as attractive as Normandy. At this stage in the war, due to lack of men and equipment, Morgan recommended landing on three beaches along the Normandy coastline, but this was later expanded to five. The work of the French Resistance had indicated that there were fewer defences in Normandy than in th…

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From the USA's 'good war' to Britain's 'great hurrah': how is D-Day remembered around the world?
type: item
date: 2024-06-05T09:03:11.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: On 6 June 1944 a massive Allied invasion force descended on Normandy in France. In recent decades, ‘D-Day’, as this event is commonly known, has been the subject of persistent commemoration, with major anniversaries – like the 50th in 1994 and the 75th in 2019 – marked with televised international ceremonies. But does everyone commemorate D-Day the same way? Or does the memory of the Allied invasion look different depending on exactly who is doing the remembering?
encoded: This June, on the 80th anniversary of D-Day, there will be ceremonies in Normandy and heads of state will deliver speeches. And while these speeches will undoubtedly emphasise Western unity, they will also reveal that over the years D-Day has come to mean different things to different nations over the years... D-Day in the United States: a good war D-Day looms especially large in American memory of the Second World War. American forces played a key role on 6 June and when news of the landings broke back home President Roosevelt took to the radio to lead the nation in solemn prayer. In later years, Cold War tensions only further consolidated American commitment to D-Day. Here was an eminently ‘useable’ story of freedom versus tyranny. This was certainly the subtext to the popular Hollywood film The Longest Day (1962), which depicts an American-led armada descending on the French coastline in a heroic quest to bring liberation to the oppressed. American interest in the legacy of D-Day further intensified in the late 20th century. President Ronald Reagan gave a celebrated speech during the 40th D-Day anniversary in 1984. Speaking from Pointe du Hoc in Normandy, scene of a fierce D-Day battle involving American Army Rangers, Reagan recalled the landings as a heroic endeavour in which “the Allies stood and fought against tyranny in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history”. In the 1990s, the D-Day histories of Stephen Ambrose – which often focused on the valour of ordinary American soldiers – sold in enormous numbers and Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster Saving Private Ryan (1998) met with critical and commercial acclaim. In 2000 a National D-Day Museum was opened in New Orleans (since re-named the National World War II Museum), followed a year later by the dedication in Bedford, Virginia, of a National D-Day Memorial. Today, 6 June’s position in the American memory of the Second World War remains unrivalled. It is remembered as the battle which perfectly encapsul…

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War and military history podcast episodes
type: item
subject: General History
subject: Period
subject: Hundred Years War
subject: Second World War battles
subject: The Crimean War
subject: Viking warfare
subject: Wartime Britain
description: Browse our archive of HistoryExtra podcasts on war and military history, from Nelson’s demise at Trafalgar to the role of Indian soldiers in World War One...

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Masters of the Air: the real history behind the new show
type: item
date: 2024-01-31T07:22:16.000Z
creator: Kev Lochun
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Second World War
subject: Second World War battles
description: Donald L Miller shares how US 'bomber boys' made D-Day possible, a story now dramatised in the Apple TV+ series Masters of the Air
encoded: Masters of the Air is the big-budget Apple TV+ follow-up to Band of Brothers and The Pacific. Exec produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, it follows the exploits of the 100th Bomb Group, charting the vital role played by American airmen in the run-up to D-Day. The series draws its inspiration from a book of the same name by Donald L Miller, and in today's episode Kev Lochun speaks to Donald about the terrifying realities of flying a B-17 Flying Fortress during WW2 bombing missions.

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