Archival footage and interviews with Flt. Lt. Rupert "Tiny" Cooling distinguish this fascinating documentary special on the preeminent British bomber of the Second World War: the Wellington.

In August 1941, the Allies launched Operation Dervish. This was the first of the Arctic Convoys, ships which sailed from the United Kingdom, Iceland and North America, and brought essential supplies to the Soviet Union.

After the successful launch of Operation Barbarossa, the USSR was in despe...

75 years ago, in the spring of 1945, the aerial assault on Germany was reaching a crescendo as city after city was devastated by British and American bomber fleets. James Holland, leading World War Two historian and bestselling author, joins Dan Snow on the podcast to talk about why and how the b...

In the Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, Nazis systematically murdered some 6 million European Jews. Between 1941 and 1945, around two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe were killed. Jews were part of a larger group that included anyone the Nazis considered to be ‘Untermenschen’, o...

Guernsey and its neighbouring islands have a unique distinction which sets them apart from the rest of the British Isles. Together with the rest of the Channel Islands, they were the only part of the British Isles to fall to Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In this documentary Dan Snow disco...

The Battles of Imphal and Kohima was a crucial turning point in the attempted Japanese invasion of India during World War Two. By October 1942 Singapore, Hong-Kong, Malaysia and Burma had all fallen to the Japanese; the Imperial army looked unbeatable. Yet it was then, when morale was at its lowe...

80 years ago Wing Commander Joseph Watts was killed when his RAF Hampden Bomber crashed, as it returned from a bombing raid in Occupied Europe. He left behind a daughter, and also an unborn son. John Watts, born 8 months later, would never meet his father. But recently he discovered that at the R...

During the Second World War, the City of London was a major target for both naval and aerial bombardment. In 1943, numerous towers were built in the Thames Estuary as anti-aircraft defences to protect the capital. Known as the Red Sands Forts, these Star Wars Walker-like constructions were initia...

In 1942, Hitler ordered the construction of an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom during the Second World War. The Atlanti...

By 1944, a third of the civilian population in Britain was engaged in war work, including over 7 million women. From compiling weather reports, maintaining aircraft, serving on airfields or working in intelligence, the work of women was crucial in the fight against Nazi Germany. Alice Loxton trac...

In late April 2021, a team of volunteers from the Crowland Buffalo LVT group in Lincolnshire spent five days digging up and excavating a World War Two amphibious vehicle which has been buried 30 feet underground for the past 74 years. The Buffalo LVT was brought in to the area in 1947 to provide ...

In this poignant interview, Lord Saye and Sele shares his unique story from the Second World War, which began on D-Day, 6 June 1944.

During the Second World War a storm of fire and steel was unleashed. Not just on front line troops, but on enemy society itself. All sides in the Second World War believed that aerial bombardment could decisively affect the strategic outcome of the conflict. But did the unprecedented onslaught fr...

In this short film, Chris Lloyd looks into the story behind the Spitfire that crashed into a Welsh mountain outside the town of Caerphilly during a training flight on 7 November 1941. Lloyd explores how the community of the town came together to remember a man, Canadian pilot Sergeant Ivan Raymon...

On the 73rd anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden, Dan Snow accompanies British veteran Victor Gregg, a POW in Dresden during the raid, as he returns to the city for a historic meeting with Irene Uhlendorf, who was just 4 years old on the night of the bombing. Together they are able to talk a...

Aviation historian Victoria Taylor answers key questions about the air war of World War Two: from the significance of the Dambusters raid to how we should remember "Bomber" Harris.

Just before dawn on 10 May 1940 the largest concentration of motorised vehicles in history roared into action. After months of quiet it was the start of Hitler’s invasion of the West. What followed was a stunning combination of new tactics and new technologies that left Britain and France – two w...

On 29 December 1940 London experienced one of its worst nights of the Blitz. German bombers dropped tens of thousands of bombs, destroying more of London than the city's famous Great Fire of 1666. The following morning, a photographer took a picture through the smoke and fire of Saint Paul’s Cath...

Narrated by Tom Selleck: Sunday, December 7, 1941 was a beautiful morning on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. A few sailors and soldiers were already up and playing a game of football near Pearl Harbor. Others were sleeping in their barracks or aboard ships after a late night of partying in Honolulu....

It’s 1940. And the world’s first real air battle is being fought in the skies of the UK. This is the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force would triumphantly fight off the threat of the German Luftwaffe. Behind the brave pilots and pioneering technology lies an often-forgotten secret we...

Dan Snow visits Coventry to tell the tale of the infamous bombing raid that struck the city on the evening of 14 November 1940, 80 years ago. Featuring Dr Kristopher Lovell and Victoria Taylor.

Salisbury Plain is the Ministry of Defence's largest training ground, covering an area the size of the Isle of Wight. Dan Snow is shown around the Plain by MOD archaeologist Richard Osgood, to explore how British, Commonwealth and Allied troops prepared for the two great wars.