In October 1942 the British launched a small raid on the Channel Island of Sark. A cast of characters who gave their colleague Ian Fleming ideas for a new secret agent character, James Bond, crept ashore and captured German prisoners. A scuffle broke out and two of them were killed. The commandos escaped with one prisoner and that might have been the end of it. When Hitler heard the news however he went ballistic and very shortly after issued his infamous Commando Order. Henceforth they were to be shot on sight. It was another ratcheting up of the ferocity, and criminality of the Nazi war effort. In this podcast Dan visits the Channel Islands. Meets a local expert and retraced the steps of the raid.
Catherine Nixey @catherinenixey is a classicist, radio critic of The Times and author of The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World.
Archaeologists in Norway have discovered an intact Viking ship. Dan chatted to Erich Nau about this momentous discovery and what it could mean for our understanding of the Norsemen.
The crisis in the Home Office about the treatment of citizens who arrived on the Windrush and their families has consumed British politics for months. Dan talks to Alex Von Tunzelmann about empires, immigration, and how the current situation arose.
