The Most Important Date Of The Second World War

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0:34Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland, your second World War podcast of choice. Episode 1000 and I don't know. I mean, that thousand episode milestone, James? 14. 14. Seems quite a while ago now. Anyway, thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for sticking with us into our second millennium. Now, this is a War Waffle episode. Now, for those of you who have joined us recently, what a War Waffle episode normally is, is we talk about kind of what we've been reading or we look at what was going on across the six years of what people call the Second World War.

1:10Of course, you know, the window's been thrown far wider open by recent scholarship. But, you know, if you're Johnny Fennell, then you call it the, it's the Second World War. It's still the Second World War, but it's slightly bigger than six years. Was he 31 to 49? 39. 31 to 49. Six times, three times longer. Just in case people thought we were running out of stuff to talk about. But we talk about what we've been reading, what we've got in front of us. We chew the cud and we have a chat, which is, let's face it, it's where it all began. This is What's On My Desk, a magazine of the life and times of Leslie Thomas Jock Greer.

1:4618th July 1919 to 14th December 1957. He was in 151 Parachute Battalion. So the Indian Parachute Battalion then became 156 and went to Arnhem and he went to Stalang 11B and afterwards and all this stuff, which, funnily enough, ties in with, I've just been to the Edinburgh Fringe and there was someone there who'd found her great grandfather's war diary or his diary, just his diary, and had done a little play about Operation Market Garden, which is the 17th of September, Jim, which is when this episode's going out now. Although, I know if you're a regular listener, you're pretty tired of hearing about this movie.

2:29So I wanted to actually say, James, that the 17th September in the Second World War, I think, has the most consequential event happen on it, the 17th, but it's not in 1944. It's in 1940. No, it's 1939. it's the soviets rolling into poland without declaring war i thought you were going to say the day that that uh hitler calls off operation sea line no no no no because there'd be no operation sea line to call off if the soviets because there's the non-aggression pact is one thing right but the soviets then actually actively following up on it and invading poland okay so you know you're not you're not just saying 1st of september would be dumb of it no i'm saying 17th september i mean the most consequential day of the whole second war is the day it begins no no no no no no no no the most consequential day is the day where the soviets the soviets they set their thing in motion that results in barbarossa you know hitler's hitler's feels they're breathing down his neck doesn't he um but by the middle of night by well by the turn of 40 into 41.

3:41And this is the start of that process with the Soviets invading Poland and then laying out exactly what people have got in store, you know, what they've got in store for them when they show up. You know, they call it co-belligerents. I mean, they're allies, right? You've got the Soviets take the eastern half. And, you know, we had that, we read a family story the other day. I don't know if it would have been out by the time this, which was about a Polish fellow decided, you know, the Soviets show up and the Soviets say we're here to liberate and think, well, we don't fancy your liberation, thanks very much.

4:15So they escape on that great big loop through Iraq and Transjordan and Palestine and back all the way back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cook. Yeah, I think this is the day. 17th September 1939 and is also, for those who go well, you know, there's a non-aggression pact, but it's not an alliance. It's the Soviets like just trying going to stay out of it. Horseshit. They're absolutely up to their necks in it and are an ally of the Germans. No two ways about it. Otherwise, why are you dividing up a country for yourselves and slicing it up? Just ask yourself this. Later on in the Blitz, who's providing the fuel for the Luftwaffe?

4:56Can I tell you something funny? Yeah, go on. So 17th of September is also my parents' wedding anniversary. And a few years ago, I remember saying to them, isn't it amazing that you were married on the same day that the Soviets invaded poland that hitler decided to call off sea lion and our brave men landed in arnhem and i have to say my mother who is who has been incredibly supportive of my career and all that i do wasn't that impressed but i have to say that is how i think in terms of dates yeah of course i I mean, it's why, you know, I would never, ever forget your birthday. Yeah, I know. Because obviously it's the day that Churchill became Prime Minister and the day that the Germans invaded the Low Countries.

5:45I mean, the only thing that happened on me on my birthday was Cherbourg fell. Oh, well, you see. That's not bad. I mean, you know, as they go. It's not up there in the roster. I mean. It's not. You know, the 10th of May is definitely a top 10, isn't it? What do you think are the top 10 dates of the entire war? Obviously, 17th of September is one. 10th of May. I think May... 27th of May. 27th of May. Okay, 27th of May. And May the 8th. The day that Churchill transfers Falifax. Yeah, I think it's May. 6th of June. 6th of June, yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course. We've managed to leave that out. I think this is a thing on the Patreon.

6:32People should offer their top 10 dates. of the second world war top 10 dates and if you have a birthday on that date you have to let us know but what's good about the 17th september is it's got this trifecta so it's so it is it's the soviet invasion of poland it's a banger isn't it it's the end of sea lion it's market garden um you know it's it's it's like so are there are there any other dates that achieve the the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran finishes. Yeah. Yeah. Which no one talks about. And isn't it? Actually, I mean, if you want some forgotten war, forgotten war. There's your forgotten war.

7:15Us cooperating with the Soviets to invade Iran and carve it up and control it. I mean, and that all goes, that all proceeds very nicely. Everyone gets along absolutely cheerily. So there you go. Co-belligerence. I mean, the Soviets will do it with anyone they find convenient, right? The Day of Infamy has got to be up there, hasn't it? December. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. World War II dates top trumps. This is very good. This is very good. Top trumps. Fear factor. Fear factor. Significance. Consequence. So what are your top... So on a date, what are you doing? um um um potency fear factor you gotta fear factor you gotta you gotta fear factor i remember top trunks um um uh horror figures right and there was there was the fear factor was i think godzilla was right up there um but and dracula was was ted obviously yeah yeah but it was there was some really bad magician or something he and he you know he got one it's like oh no i'm paul daniels but but but fear factor so you have fear factor then what else would you have you'd have um surprise right you have to be surprised isn't it because like pearl harbor would get 10 for surprise multifariousness

8:44but d-day would only get surprised if you're german

8:50I never do. So when you have it in brackets, you have different... So you have to announce whether you're Axis or Allied before you play. So you can have one in one column and then another one in brackets. The brackets one is if you're a were-a-boo. This is not the worst idea I've ever heard. But then multifariousness, if that's such a word. So 17th September gets high because it's like lots of things happened on. Whereas 10th of May, I think it's just 10th of May, isn't it? It's just the 10th of May. Yeah, it doesn't really rack anything else. Just 10th of May, 1940. You know, other years, forget it.

9:27It's not, you know.

9:32Yes, multiplicity, something like that. Yeah. The thing is, though, I mean, when we were doing our Phony Wars series, though, because this is worth talking about. We were doing our Phony Wars series. I think one of the things that was interesting was that the naval war, like, is underway. isn't it? And so 17th September, this is when Courageous is sunk. An aircraft carrier, which is, I think, that's quite a blow for the enemy to strike so early in the war, isn't it? You know, 500 crew lost, sunk by U-29. The multiplicity factor is, it's got to be a nine for 17th September, hasn't it? I think it has.

10:07I think it absolutely has to. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I got sent this book about the loss of Royal Navy capital ships, which was fairly bendy on what it meant about capital ships, right? Is there another debate on ship nomenclature to be had? Well, basically, it should have just said big. It should have just said big on the title, and then you're like, then you're home and dry, right? Or Panzerschiffer. But basically, what it was, was a book about the Hood, actually, but with supporting chapters. It's been disparagingly reviewed. but what i what i what i found very stimulating about it right it got right into the hood and what you know what the the lucky shot and all that but one of the points it made regardless of whether this is the salient point in it all one of the points it made that i thought was really interesting is the just the sheer wear and tear on those big ships you know if they're steaming at steaming at 30 knots for a couple of days that just wear and tear you know metal for Metal fatigue is a new science.

11:13Around about the beginning of the First World War, they start thinking about metal fatigue, start trying to work out, you know, how do you calculate the metal fatigue? And one of the things, you know, the hood was known as a wet ship. You know, her quarter deck would often be underwater if she was steaming hard. Because once she'd been refit to sort of maximum weight, maximum guns and tonnage and everything, she very often would have sea coming over the quarter deck. and just the stress and strain on the ship and then on her drive shafts and then on her gearboxes and then on, you know, and so on and so on and so on and so on.

11:48That isn't to say that that's the reason, but just the wear and tear on these ships, that if they're steaming hard for 18 months of the year and then they have to come in and be refit, it's because they're knackered. They're completely knackered. And you can, you know, you can count these ships, count them up, tot them up, look how many you've got. But how many you've got isn't how many are going to be operational for much longer. How, you know, they're temporary objects. Well, isn't it the Rodney or the Renown that's on its way for a refit in Boston, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. When the Bismarck thing happens.

12:24Yeah, and it's called back. But basically, you know, several of the, several of the, several, you know, plenty of the big ships by the end of the war are basically worn out. Scrapyard. There's just nothing that can be done with them. They're finished, you know, and you can't cut the deck and put new engines in. But you see all those pictures of ships and there's sort of rust everywhere. It's just eking out of every rivet and opening. And even the USS Missouri, which only is launched, isn't it, the previous year. Yeah. By the time you get it into Tokyo Bay in September 1945, it's already got all those streaks of rust.

13:04Yeah. Just think about it. it's in salt water for god you know for goodness sake yeah yeah it was really interesting on the same note i'd be very interested to read that book by the way um so do let me know what it is but but the other day i was down at bovers um and i had a little look at the um how the tiger 2 was coming on i was talking to aaron who's the uh one of the one of the um engineers mechanical engineers on it and he was saying god you wouldn't believe how soft the metal is and and i did a little video and i was like pick up these these these wheels there's freaking hundreds of them and there were hundreds of them they're incredibly heavy oh and by the way aaron told me that the metal is really really soft and it came out like i was saying that the metal on the on the wheels is soft that's not what i meant i meant aaron then told me that the metal on the hull on the armor plate was really soft so much so that you could score it really easily with a screwdriver or something like that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and then i was thinking well maybe that's because it's a prototype but it's not if it's a prototype it's got to be it's got to be worth testing hasn't it so there's no point testing it if it's if it's soft metal it's just because they haven't got enough alloys yeah well their steel are taking a nosedive by the end of the war by the time they're building that you know this is one of their this is one of their ongoing problems is they haven't got the manganese or whatever to make tough enough steel so this so they put more steel on because they know they haven't got they haven't got the good stuff but the point that aaron was trying to make was 120 millimetres of steel or whatever it is, 140 millimetres of steel, doesn't necessarily mean it's 140 millimetres of steel in terms of its depth and weight and all the rest of it.

14:36But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's as effective as 120 millimetres of steel on a Churchill tank, for example. No, no, no, no. Well, and this is interesting because the Germans do have this sort of steel quality drop-off. I mean, and it's a thing. And it's one of the reasons their tanks end up with thicker and thicker armor, because they know the steel's worse. And so you end up with this appalling problem, because it's, you know, it's the iron triangle, isn't it? It's mobility, firepower protection, right? And the heavier the tank gets, the mobility suffers. And obviously, what they're trying to do is protect the crew, but the steel's worse.

15:15So the crew are protected because there's less mobility and because the steel's worse. So all you're left with is firepower, which is obviously, which is why you end up after the Second World War. The Germans, their tanks, the Leopard, is about mobility and firepower. And the protection is in the mobility and the firepower, not the armour plating. Because their conclusion is anti-tank weapons are so powerful now. There's no way of putting enough steel or Chobham or whatever on a tank once Chobham comes along. There's no way of doing it. So the thing to do is make sure it's quick. Make sure the drivetrain is really, really good.

15:50and make sure the gun can deal with anything before it gets in range. And it's so interesting because very often people look at these tanks as the future, don't they? The German tanks of the Second World War is the future. Is that actually what they are as a dead end? I have one phrase to say to you. Arise the Cromwell. Well, it's really quick and it's really reliable. And it goes like to shut off a shovel and it can do the same in reverse. And it's really easy to drive and it's highly manoeuvrable. And I never forget going for a drive in one of those things that Tobin had fixed up. And you just went, oh, OK, I get it.

16:26This thing can reverse and go forward really, really quickly. And that is worth quite a lot of millimetres worth of armour plate, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting as well because the Americans have a steel quality drop off because they're producing so much. So there's some questions about the quality of steel in American armoured vehicles, AFVs, towards the end of the war as well. But because they've decided to mass produce in numbers that mean, you know, the enemy will be overwhelmed. But also you've got the reliability question built in, transportability. And, you know, eventually they fix the firepower on the Sherman.

17:02You're back to the same place where what you've done is you've gone for mobility and firepower and they are the protection. Here's an interesting thought. The post-war, or more recently, I would say, what the British have adopted is really, really highly technical, incredibly complex, brilliant pieces of kit, which are incredibly difficult to maintain in the field, but are absolutely superb in their quality and Vorsprung-Durch technikness. But the Germans did exactly the opposite. They thought what we really need is mass and things which aren't necessarily completely amazing, but you can get a lot of them.

17:39so completely opposite lessons yeah yeah yeah yeah but but when but then peacetime procurement is a different ball game and peacetime procurement for a cold war that you think is probably going to be over in three days is another is a different ball game also isn't it you know our our capital tanks if we want to call them that right they're um their design they were designed for cold war that would you know they'd fight they'd fight the soviets back to the rhine and then they'd nuked them so they were going to last what three four days maximum you know everything they've been used for since wasn't that every you know this is the problem is that the and this is the problem of resilience that we talk about is that you design you you prepare for one event and then another one completely unrelated to it comes along which is tangentially takes me to all the stuff i've been reading about kokoda about the kokoda battles the battles in papua yes which is absolutely amazing right yes well that's on my to-do list but jim it's like burma and microcosm right Because what they do is they get run around by the Japanese.

18:42They get overwhelmed. They haven't got their best people on it. And I think everyone would admit that, right? And then they figure it out. And what they figure out is we draw the Japanese onto our shortened supply lines, make them extend theirs. We bring air power in. And then they haven't got a chance. And they starve the Japanese out. I will get around to this when we do Kokoda. There is an amazing instant where there's a supply dump that they've got to give up because there's an airstrip and there's a lot of disorganisation in the Australian effort. And that's one of the other things is there's a sort of streak of cynicism and disorganisation through things that is really quite hard to reconcile with the way the men are fighting.

19:24The men are like indomitable, but the people backing them up are all over the place. Anyway, they know they've got to give up this store dump. So they take all the ammunition and they take the food they can take. And then the food they leave, because they know the Japanese need to... This is how the Japanese fight, like locusts. So what do they do? They pierce all the cans and they piss on the rice. So that when the Japanese inevitably fall on this food supply, they will eat it because they haven't got any food themselves and they will be poisoned by it. That is how ruthlessly the Australians are prosecuting things in the Kokoda battle.

20:05It's the only way, isn't it? Well, yeah, but it's, you know, the brigade commander goes, I know what we're going to do. And so they open all, they pierce all the cans with bayonets, whatever they can, so that the food's rotting, but the Japanese will not be able to help themselves. And they all get ill. Yeah, well, as far as we know, because of course, this is another thing, you know, like we were saying about the Soviets earlier, there's not very many people who survive on the Japanese side. Once that's all over. To tell the tale. There's really no one left. But then they also, but what's interesting is they then do that and then they go down onto the Japanese positions at Buna and you end up with a first Arakhan thing going on.

20:42Push on, crack on. We'll try that again tomorrow then, chaps. And not insufficient reconnaissance. And having basically defeated the Japanese and pushed them right back onto their beach positions at Buna, the Australians make this series of absolutely ghastly errors to try and winkle them out because chiefly because of political pressure. It's so interesting. And you get MacArthur blundering around in the background. Eichelberger suddenly appears, which, you know, J-Mac would like. Does he? Yeah, and it's sort of his first thing where basically he's brought in to fire everyone. And does he do well?

21:18He does well, but the Americans do not cover themselves in glory in the Papua battles. and certainly, and MacArthur definitely doesn't. Can you still go there? Yeah, you can go there and you can do the trail. You can fly to Port Moresby and they take you up, go up over to the Irish. I mean, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good, isn't it? I can see I'm going to get quite obsessed by this. What's amazing about it is it's really only ever like brigade size encounters. And of course, these are brigades that have had to, you know, what's so interesting is it's a 20 minute flight to the airstrip at Kokoda.

21:58But that's an eight-day trail, right? And they've got bearers bringing the stuff up. And it's an eight-day trail that will inevitably make you ill. So you get this thing where people are going, well, that brigade's in position. They should be all right. God, it's not much of a place, is it? I'm just looking at it on Google Maps. It's a tiny little place. God, it'd be fun to go there. Kokoda Memorial Hospital. Wow, the Kokoda track. There it is. But it's this classic thing where someone goes, well, there's a brigade in position. They look on the map and they say, well, this brigade's got up to wherever, you know, up to Myoli or whatever.

22:31Should be all right then. But the brigade is obviously like kind of a third strength because everyone's sick. Everyone's got malaria. Everyone's feet have been torn to pieces. You know, so there's this thing of they're fighting these, you know, insertion battles, really. So was it eight days to trump there? Basically. And I, well, yeah, nowadays, you know, what you're not doing is marching with a number one rifle and a big bayonet and all your kit and maybe some mortar bombs. Although initially they decide they don't need mortars because mortars won't work in the jungle. No, I want my bush out and otherwise I want really, really good kit.

23:08There's some very, very bad decisions. Anyway, should we take a break and come back to the rest of September the 17th, Jim? Well, yeah. And also I want to tell you what I've been reading as well. We'll see you in a tick, everyone.

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25:07Welcome back to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray, and James Holland. A War Waffle special. As you can see, we've got Lost in the Jungles of Kokoda. James, right now, is peering into his screen, looking at the Google map, I think. What have you been reading then, anyway? Well, so I've just been immersed in Dunkirk because I'm doing this. Well, first of all, because we were doing this Commando comic, which is now done, coming out in October. 6 ,000th edition of the Commando comic. Amazing. Sweet revenge. I mean, that's on message, isn't it? I mean, it's everything you could ask for, really, Jim.

25:43It's got airborne. It's got engineers. You can feel your light touch dusted over it. Very clearly, I would say. But the bulk of it is Hasbrook and escape from Hasbrook and getting to Dunkirk, even though part of it is set in D-Day. So I've been doing that. And then I've been doing this book for Audible on Dunkirk and really loving it. And, of course, being me, I've got a bit carried away, written too much, done too much. But two of the great people, one of the great accounts is from Admiral Frederick Wake Walker. He is Bismarck Hood, expedition fame, and he is the SNO French coast. So he goes over there a couple of days after Tennant to go and kind of, you know, because Tennant is completely kind of being smothered by the kind of enormity of what he's got to do.

26:36and keeps just, you know, to go from Captain Bill Tennant, who was the SNL on the ground, the senior naval officer, who gets out there at about five o 'clock on the afternoon of Monday the 27th of May, to get to Le Pan, which is sort of the other end, which is where GHQ moves to as well, where Gort is and everything. You know, it's like 10 miles. And comms are really bad. And so there's whole days where he's just missing. No one knows what the hell he is and what the hell's going on. So they need another set of hands. They need someone with enough clout and authority. So they send over Real Admiral Frederick Wake Walker.

27:10And his account is just absolutely amazing. But also I've got this account of this guy. Okay, a French officer's diary, Capitaine Daniel Ballon. And he's in his late 40s and he's a reservist. He's one of these guys who's been called up because he's on that. You know, you do your stint and then you have three years where you're at kind of. You're on the list. On the list. Yeah, and it goes all the way down to like 16 years or something like that. It's amazing. He talks about, right, this is fantastic moment where it's the evening of the 30th of May and he and his men, he's got 550 men from his horse transport company and some gunners from his North African division.

27:49There's just 1 ,200 men left from the whole division. And he goes, the westerly wind beats down the immense columns of grim black smoke from the flaming oil tanks. Truly, this is the suffocating breath of the last judgment. Long sheaves of bright flames shoot up from the huge burning buildings Broken bricks and mortar, windows, paving stones dislodged by shells Strew the ground Immense open spaces stretch farther than the eye can see With only a fragment of walls standing here and there And the carcasses of the monster cranes in the docks Despairingly holding up their great black arms towards the ghastly sky Rent unceasingly by the explosions of the whining shells Gosh.

28:34I mean, that's pretty vivid, isn't it? I mean, who is he? Where has this hidden gem been lying? Why is his prose so good? Or flowery, depending on your point of view. Well, he's French, isn't he? He's French. He understands the music of words. That is really, that's very, very strong. Where did you find this though, Jim? Well, I found it in my bookshelf. Ah. I'd forgotten I had it. I just forgot I had it. But it's been absolutely amazing. And actually, I'm sort of a bit ashamed to say I've done more work on Dunkirk, the actual evacuation, than I've ever done before. And I've got a slightly different picture.

29:11You know, I was a bit down on the little boats, wasn't I? Do you remember when we were doing the podcast? Yeah, you were. You were, Jim. You said it wasn't really... Well, it wasn't. But they were brilliant. And what they did, they solved a problem, which was you still have to pull people off the beaches. You can't put everyone off the mole. No. You've got, you know, because the beach is long, it's 10 miles long, and you have to do it. And the only way to do that is to smother the beaches with lots of little boats, because otherwise it just takes too long. You can't have these destroyers, they're two whalers going out.

29:42It just doesn't work. And there's hundreds of cock-ups. There's hundreds of moments where there's this sort of comms problem, and they're saying, whatever you do, don't come to the port, because, you know, there's wrecks in the thing, and it's getting hit, and, you know, there's a hole in the mole now. and whatever you do, don't send them there. And then tenant comes back and goes, whatever you do, just send lots and lots of ships to the mole because it's now clear, it's all absolutely fine, but they don't get it. So they then send lots of ships over, but they come off the beaches not to the thing.

30:11So there's a whole load of men waiting. And that's why on the kind of third day, there's only 47 ,000 lifted rather than however many more it could have been. So Wednesday the 30th could have been this big, big day because it's a day of really bad weather and the Luftwaffe hardly flies a thing. and they aren't able to, they miss out on maybe 10 ,000, 15 ,000 men that could have been lifted who aren't. You remember one of your favourite Second World War nicknames was Toast? Oh yeah, Burnham Brown. Burnit Brown, Colonel Burnit Brown. Well, Burnit Brown, that was it, Burnit Brown. For the Patreons and to go with the phony war thing, I read my grandfather's letters home to his wife, to my grandmother, to Anne, from James to Anne.

30:51And he shared billets with Colonel Burnit Brown. That's fantastic. Did he call him Toast? he doesn't mention it so April the 30th 1940 things have been happening since I last yeah he says things have been happening since I last wrote I'm now sharing billets with Colonel Burnett Brown instead of Colonel Sale who's gone on leave to Aylesbury no way yeah he mentions him he mentions him a couple a couple of times there's been a few of these figures that have suddenly cropped up haven't there Matthew Sweet got in touch historian Matthew Sweet he's a cultural historian he's just written a book about Barbara Cartland called The Great Dictator oh yes yes yes yes because both her brothers get killed don't they that's right in one at one at Watu um you know they're killed in the they're killed in this this phase this phase the collapse around the collapse to Dunkirk and one of them had a boyfriend called Shule Michael Shule he had a boyfriend called Michael Shule and Michael Shule is also in my grandfather's letters which um when Matthew Sweet got in touch and said I've done this book and there's some Dunkirk in it I said oh that's interesting you know I think I think they fought along you know the my grandfather fought alongside one of our brothers and boink there suddenly there is this bloke in these letters and you think these sort of dinky county regiments were all very you could tell they're all having a wonderful wonderful jolly time they do a thing every now and again where the officers mess on a sunday night they all have to speak french to each other um as the as the sort of quite right as a way of amusing themselves it's all you know you sort of think what are you going to do though because it's plainly it was plainly very very boring the whole thing.

32:21What else have you been looking at, Jim? Two things, actually. Merrin has sent me her book, which I haven't started yet, but I'm going to have a look at that. And then my great mate, Aaron Young, who's been writing this new history of Peleliu, which I've mentioned a few times. He's finally got to the end of that, so I've just been delivered that, but I can't read either of them just at the moment, because I'm absolutely all in with Dunkirk, but I'm also all in with episodes 9 through to 12 of our Barbarossa series. Right, right, right. Okay. So I'm back on Sean McMeekin and back on David Stahl.

32:57And every time I pick up the David Stahl and every time I pick up the Sean McMeekin, I'm just full of kind of, blimey, God, would you believe it? No. That's absolutely amazing. I mean, the Soviet Union create 41 new armies between the invasion and the end of the year. 41. What do we have? Three, four. We have four, didn't we? We have one, two, 14 and eight. I mean, they've got a lot more people than us. Yeah, they've got 15 million. They've got 15 million already kind of good to go before Barbarossa even starts here. We're not on the main line. They're not on the front line. You know, there's a certain point where it doesn't matter how crap you are.

33:39Numbers will count. I think it's fair to say. So anyway, it's all fascinating stuff. Well, it's fascinating, isn't it? Because one of the things I think, and this came from talking to Jonathan Fennell as well, because he has got hold of some NKVD reports, of morale reports and stuff, hasn't he? So he has got some sort of, as much as you can have from that period in 1941, like a snapshot of what people felt about what was going on within the Soviet Union. I think there's a really interesting point here, isn't there, right? The Soviets, they've had their revolution. they've mobilized a big part of their population as part of it so in industrializing they're given people jobs they're given stuff to do but there's also the people who've had their farms collectivized and their lives destroyed right and you know part of what he was saying about the nkvd reports and it's in it's in it's in his new book you know people going there's nothing in this nothing in this revolution for me i know i've heard fascism's bad but can it really be worse than this meaning meaning the revolution revolutionary Soviet um the USSR and then I compared that with what compared that thought with a lot of the German accounts we had right which is that yeah that they want to go they need to destroy Bolshevism they're into it they want to go and and you have this peculiar business, don't you?

35:04The German position, the Nazi thing is popular. After all, I know they've ditched elections by this point, but Hitler had some democratic legitimacy, didn't he? Your average German punter, as long as he's North European, you know, is into it, they're fine. They've got quite a lot of freedom. They can do what they want. Well, exactly. But this is my point. So you have this very weird clash between, you know, the sort of consensual business of Barbarossa from the German side, that the soldiers are on side, the population's on side. And then on the Soviet side, something really quite different. Because look at how many people the Soviets have gulagged before the war even got going.

35:47They purged, he's purged the army. You've got something very different going on inside the Soviet Union. 22 ,500 officers. Exactly. And so you can see why they pivot to being the great patriotic war, not a revolutionary war, a great patriotic war. You can see why they reactivate the churches because they've got to get consent. And that war in the end, even in a state like the Soviet Union, which is really, you know, which could be argued as a terror state, holding its people to ransom, you've still got to manufacture consent somehow to be able to win the war, to be able to fight the war even, you know, long before we get to winning it.

36:23I think there's an interesting contrast there, isn't there? because... Well, the Germans are doing, you know, Hitler's delivering on some of his promises, whereas the Soviets are like, have militarized and mobilized for what? And why have they got an enormous army, James? What's it for? Yes. Which brings you back round to some of the things we were talking about in those episodes. But I was just struck by that. For all the perversion that Nazism represents, it was, it had the German people's consent broadly, didn't it? Whereas the Soviet population fairly conflicted about their government, I think it's fair to say.

37:00You know, David Starr makes a great point that Stalin is also persecuting lots of minorities in the same way that Hitler is persecuting lots of minorities. They're not quite in the same way, but, you know, Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, vulgar Germans, you know, they're all being absolutely hammered by the Soviet state. You know, Ukrainians don't know which way their arse is because, you know, only a few years before they were Austrian. and partly Prussian. It's not like the Germans have got a monopoly on persecuting minorities by any stretch of the imagination. And other countries besides, of course.

37:35I mean, look at the Balkans and so on. So it's an absolute mess, is the truth of it. But Stalin has got a lot of problems because when the whole thing starts to collapse, what he's got to do is make sure that they don't go over to the enemy, which is why they suddenly bring in all these NKVD units to kind of be a backstop. Yeah. But but the beauty for the for Stalin is that the the Germans are doing all the hard yards for them by kind of, you know, not embracing all these Ukrainians and vulgar Germans and all the rest of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And getting him off the hook, really, because, you know, it's yeah, it's a it's it's a regime that quite easily end up on a receiving end of a counter revolution.

38:22Anyway, let's look at the rest of September the 17th, 1941. It's the Anglo, as we said, the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran concludes. And this is obviously Iran officially had been neutral, but it's a supply corridor to the USSR. And Iran is essentially toppled and the existing system is toppled. And it's co-occupied by the British and the Soviets. It's quite interesting, isn't it? And we get along somehow. Well, the interesting thing about Iran is Iran, the Palevi, who's obviously the Shah, he really loves the Germans. And in the 1930s, he's invited lots of German engineers to come into Iran to kind of do German stuff and build autobahns and do the road systems.

39:09So there are a lot of Germans in Iran because they've been welcomed with open arms. Because he thinks, well, look, they're down on their luck. They've had a bad time after the First World War, but they're really good. Everyone knows their Wolfsprung dirt technique. Everyone knows about German engineering. Let's get them into Iran. So it brings them over. So there's this thriving German population in Iran before the war begins, and they're still there. And, of course, that makes them a hotbed of espionage and a magnet for that sort of stuff. And in 1941, the British and the Soviets go, hang on we don't want iran to be full of germans so you've got to you've got to kick out all the germans and the shard goes no i'm not going to do that and i go right okay well we're gonna we're gonna do you over then yeah and so they invade yeah and that's that he's overthrown and so comes the long story of western domination in the in iran yeah exactly which gets its full stop in 1979.

40:12Yeah. Yeah. We're also on the 17th of 1941. General Eugen Ritter von Schobert of the 11th Army dies when his stoch observation plane crashes in the Soviet minefield. And he is succeeded by von Manstein. Eric von Manstein. Also, to jolly things along in the Third Reich, listening to foreign radio is now punishable by death. So when I said earlier on that there's a kind of consensual thing going on in Nazi Germany, not all of it's consensual. The British government, then price controls potatoes. Orders that they should be a penny. Is that a pound? In order to encourage more people to eat them. That's interesting, isn't it?

40:52Because spuds aren't rationed, are they? Vick and Quisling in 1942 reintroduces the death penalty to the Norwegian Criminal Code, in which we serve. Directed by North Cod and David Lind, is a realist at Jukka Subas. We've all done awfully well. So you know how you always do Churchill and I always do Roosevelt? You always do Nolkard as well. I always do Nolkard. And in 1943, the SS Croatian Division, a large unit of largely Bosnian Muslims. So this is a strange business, isn't it? The SS Croatian Division, who are Bosnian Muslims, they're in France. They've been sent to France, probably to keep them from causing trouble in Bosnia, or Yugoslavia, rather.

41:35And they mutiny when Muslim and Catholic junior officers kill five, execute five German officers. And the hope is that there's going to be widespread defections to the Western Allies. But that's not what happens. No, inevitably. Never knew it. Never heard of that. Have you ever heard of that? Never heard of that. No, I never heard of that. Never heard of that. There you go. Bottomless pit. Bottomless pit. Exactly. Forgadden war. Completely. Market Garden on the 17th in 1944. And then the Turpitz is crippled in Operation Paravane and sunk completely two months later. That is an operational name never to forget.

42:09Mutti und Fati, I've been given the job on the Tirpitz. I'm so excited. Oh, great. I'm going to be bombed now for months until the ship sinks, basically. OK, that's also in your repertoire is Tirpitz crewman.

42:25So you're Churchill, you're Noel Coward and you're Tirpitz crewman. Dear Mutti und Fati, September 17th, 1944. My first day on the Tirpitz is beginning. in 1945 um uh the belson trials begin when um the british army and civilian personnel begin prosecuting joseph karma and 44 ssaids and this is this is interesting isn't it that this is there's a whole lot of stuff before nuremberg there's actually and they're sort of groping towards the formulations that they end up using in nuremberg yeah well there we are everybody um thanks for everybody who came to see us at the festival we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did oh it was brilliant wasn't it it was amazing it was absolutely amazing Jim we have eight more episodes on our Barbarossa series we have what else have we got we've got Kokoda Track or Trail so Pearl Harbour Singapore repulsed the Prince of Wales all in the near future and to balance out that bit of taste we also want to look at the San Azar Raid at the greatest rate of all.

43:27The Battle of Cape Matapan, which is some war spike and ABC love. Our next membership live stream is Monday, the 21st of September. The next, after that, is scheduled for October the 5th. Fortnightly live streams on a Monday are exclusive for Patreon subscribers. So sign up now. And of course, Patreon subscribers, you've got a whole lot more to be getting your teeth into. Yes, you have. The book is out now. The We Have Ways of Making Talk book. New Histories of the Second World War. And what's it got on the front? nothing, none other than a Sherman. A Sherman tank with its slightly soft steel.

44:00And we'll be doing the talks from the festival. We'll be trickling out on the Patreon for patrons, a benefit of membership. And we will let you know all about We Have Waste Fest, Sieben, as soon as we know about it. Anyway, thanks for listening, everybody. It's been our pleasure to war waffle for you. We'll see you soon. Cheerio. Cheers.

44:26Thank you.