Special Forces In World War 2 Podcast

By mid-1942 the Japanese tide in the Pacific is turning, and the invasion Fiji feared never comes. But the war is not finished with the First Commando Fiji Guerrillas.
In this episode, the American forces take over the defence of Fiji, and the New Zealand-led commandos pass under a new command. They become an unexpected thing: a jungle-warfare school for the incoming US Army, running night raids and mock ambushes against their own allies, and arming their Fijian soldiers at last. Then the orders come, and the unit sails north into the Solomon Islands.
On Guadalcanal they absorb Fijians, Tongans, and Solomon Islanders into a five-nation force. On New Georgia they go to war for real, a small band whose reconnaissance behind Japanese lines becomes the key to the American advance on Munda, at a cost that begins to fall on named men. On Vella Lavella they hunt a scattered enemy through the bush. And in the end it is not battle but malaria that breaks them, until a unit worn down and used up is brought home and disbanded in 1944.
This is the story of how a garrison force raised to defend one island fought its way across others it had never heard of, and of the New Zealanders, Fijians, Tongans, and Solomon Islanders who made it.
Sources: Colin Larsen, Pacific Commandos: New Zealanders and Fijians in Action; Anna Annie Kwai, Solomon Islanders in World War II: An Indigenous Perspective; Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary; D. C. Horton, New Georgia: Pattern for Victory; and further histories of the Guadalcanal, New Georgia, and Bairoko campaigns. Recorded testimony of Solomon Islander veterans, including George Maelalo.
For maps, photographs, and the full source base behind this series, visit worldwar2-sof.com
Search terms: WW2 Pacific, Fiji Guerrillas, New Zealand commandos, Guadalcanal, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, jungle warfare, special forces history
#WW2 #WWII #PacificWar #MilitaryHistory #HistoryPodcast #Guadalcanal #NewGeorgia #SolomonIslands #Fiji #Commandos #NewZealandHistory #SpecialForces #WorldWarTwo #Podcast #History #JungleWarfare #WW2History #PacificTheatre
🔗 Stay connected with us:Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sofFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOFFacebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sofSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

June 6th, 1944. The Commandos of 1st Special Service Brigade have fought their way off Sword Beach and up to the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne. Now the harder task begins. They must climb onto the high ground beyond the Orne and hold it, whatever the enemy sends against them.

This episode widens to the whole Brigade. Number 3 Commando, Number 4 Commando, Number 6 Commando, and Number 45 Royal Marine Commando, on a low ridge that is the far left edge of the entire invasion. Hold it, and the eastern flank holds. Lose it, and the enemy looks straight down onto the beaches and the crossings below.

We climb to Le Plein with Number 6 Commando as the guns of the fleet come down among their own lines. We follow Number 45 Royal Marine Commando east to Franceville Plage and the guns above Merville, into a day of street fighting that costs them dear and drives them back into the ruins in the dark. We stand with the Brigade through the loss of Lord Lovat at Bréville, through the long grinding weeks in the foxholes where the killing is close and constant. And when the enemy breaks at last, we go forward with the pursuit, across the River Dives and on towards the Seine.

This is the story of eighty-three days on the eastern flank of Normandy. Of four Commandos who came ashore separately and learned to fight as one. Of a ridge held from the sixth of June until the enemy was gone.

Drawn from the war diaries of the units themselves and from the historians who preserved this campaign, this is special forces history told in immersive, documentary detail.

Search terms: D-Day, Normandy, Commandos, 1st Special Service Brigade, Lord Lovat, Sword Beach, Le Plein, Amfreville, Bréville, Franceville Plage, River Dives, 6th Airborne Division, Operation Overlord.

#DDay #WWII #WW2 #Normandy #Commandos #LordLovat #SwordBeach #BritishArmy #RoyalMarines #MilitaryHistory #HistoryPodcast #OperationOverlord #DDay1944 #WW2Podcast #MilitaryPodcast #6thAirborne #Bréville #WarHistory #1944 #SpecialForces
🔗 Stay connected with us:Website: https://worldwar2-sof.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sofFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOFFacebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sofSpotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

They came ashore into a beach that had not been cleared, and they were still fighting three days later.

In our last episode we followed 1st Special Service Brigade as a whole, from the Normandy beaches to the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne. Now we go back and follow the Commandos one unit at a time.

First, No. 4 Commando. We land with them on Sword Beach alongside Capitaine de corvette Philippe Kieffer's French troops, setting foot on their own soil for the first time in four years. We fight through the fortifications of Ouistreham, the anti-tank wall, the Casino strongpoint, the battery at the mouth of the Orne, and march more than fourteen kilometres under sniper and mortar fire to cross the bridges last of all the Brigade, as night falls on June 6th.

Then we turn back to the morning of June 7th and to No. 3 Commando. Held on D-Day guarding a divisional headquarters while the battle moved on without them, they are sent against the Merville guns — silenced by the 9th Parachute Battalion a day earlier, and speaking again. What follows costs them half of two troops and their second-in-command.

Both threads end on the same ground: the high ground east of the Orne, around Amfreville, Le Plein, and Hauger, where on June 8th the Germans throw fresh divisions against the Brigade to drive it off the ridge and roll up the flank of the invasion.

This is the story of how the Commandos held.

For maps, photographs, original documents, and the full source base behind this series, visit worldwar2-sof.com

#DDay #WW2 #WWII #Commandos #Normandy #SecondWorldWar #MilitaryHistory #History #HistoryPodcast #WW2History #BritishCommandos #Lovat #SwordBeach #Ouistreham #MervilleBattery #SpecialForces #WW2Podcast #Airborne #OperationOverlord #FreeFrench #Kieffer #1944 #MilitaryHistoryPodcast #WarHistory #DDay80

🔗 Stay connected with us:
Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF
Facebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof
Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

June 6th, 1944. On the far eastern edge of the greatest invasion in history, the whole enterprise hangs on a single flank. Hold it, and the beachhead is secure. Lose it, and the enemy pours in from the east.

https://worldwar2-sof.com/welcome-to-world-war-2-special-forces-com/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-world-war-2/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-1944/which-special-forces-operations-took-place-in-june-1944/operation-overlord/operation-neptune/sword-beach/1st-special-service-brigade-operation-overlord/

In the darkness after midnight, the men of 6th Airborne Division drop into Normandy by parachute and glider. They seize the bridges over the Caen Canal and the River Orne in the opening minutes of D-Day, then hold on, cut off some eight kilometres inland, pressed from every side. They have taken the prize. Now they must keep it until help arrives. And help has to fight its way up from the sea.

That help is the Commandos.

This is the story of their march to the bridges. Brigadier Lord Lovat's 1st Special Service Brigade lands on Sword Beach on the morning of the sixth, four Commandos strong, into a storm of gun and mortar fire. Ahead of them lie nine kilometres of enemy-held country: false beaches and drowned men, minefields absent from every map, snipers in the trees and the corn, strongpoints dug into the villages, open fields swept by fire. They must cross all of it on foot, under crushing loads, at speed, and reach the airborne before the perimeter gives way. When the plan was first laid out, senior officers called it impossible. Some called it fanciful. The Commandos were given three hours.

At the head of the column walks a piper. His name is Bill Millin. He carries no rifle. He carries the pipes, and he means to play them every step of the way, from the surf at the water's edge to the steel spans of the bridges themselves.

Told in immersive, present-tense documentary detail and drawn from the accounts of the historians and the veterans who set the record down, this episode follows one of the most daring feats of the entire invasion, minute by minute, metre by metre, from the ramps of the landing craft to the linkup that secures the left flank of the Allied lodgement.

New here? This is part of an ongoing series on the special forces of the Second World War, built around the battle for the eastern flank of D-Day and the airborne assault on the Merville Battery. Start anywhere. Stay for the whole campaign.

#DDay #WW2 #WWII #SecondWorldWar #Commandos #SwordBeach #LordLovat #BillMillin #PegasusBridge #6thAirborne #OperationOverlord #MervilleBattery #Normandy1944 #MilitaryHistory #WarHistory #HistoryPodcast #WW2History #Airborne #SpecialForces #DDay1944

🔗 Stay connected with us:
Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF
Facebook Support Group: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF/subscribe/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof
Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof

Improved 2 part episode of the Merville assault.

In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, the 9th Parachute Battalion drops into chaos. Aircraft scatter six hundred men across the flooded fields of Normandy. A handful find their way to the wire of Batterie de Merville. What follows is one of the most audacious small-unit actions of the Second World War.

In this episode we follow Major George Smith's Trowbridge Party from the wire back to a battalion that barely exists. We follow Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway as he organises an assault with a fraction of his force, no engineers, no specialist charges, and no way to illuminate the target for the gliders. We follow the men through the breach in the wire, across the minefield, and into the casemates. And we follow the survivors as they fight their way to Amfreville and hold it until the Commandos arrive.

This episode draws on the works of Neil Barber in The Day the Devils Dropped In and The Silencing of the Merville Battery, Carl Shilletos's Merville Battery and the Dives Bridges, Jon Cookseys operation Tonga: 6th Airborne Division, Stephen Wright and Kevin Shannon's in Operation Tonga: The Glider Assault, and the war diaries of the 6th Airborne Division.

For maps, photographs, original documents, and the full source base behind this series, visit www.worldwar2-sof.com.

#WorldWarII #WWII #DDay #Normandy #MervilleBattery #9ParachuteBattalion #BritishAirborne #6thAirborneDivision #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #Paratrooper #OperationOverlord #DDay1944 #WW2Podcast #MilitaryPodcast #Airborne #WarHistory #NeilBarber #SwordBeach #Parachute

🔗 Stay connected with us:
Website: https://worldwar2-sof.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ww2.sof
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldWar2SOF
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ww2.sof
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SpecialForcesinWorldWar2
Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/worldwar2sof