Tank markings, trick cigarettes and the war's fine print.
The WW2 Podcast pairs Angus Wallace with a guest, often an author, to work through one corner of the Second World War in close detail. Its subjects range from disguised SOE devices and a Canadian in the Red Army to torpedo bombers over Pearl Harbor and people hiding in Berlin.
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The WW2 Podcast takes on the Second World War one story at a time, with Angus Wallace interviewing a guest who knows that story closely. Episodes carry the same brief audio montage near the top, starting with the line 'This country is at war with Germany', before Wallace sets up the subject. The guests vary. Some are authors, and the show links their books in the show notes. Others bring family history. William Hogan talks about his father, Sam Hogan, who at 28 was one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the US Army and commanded a Sherman tank battalion in Normandy weeks after D-Day. The unit went on from the hedgerows to the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany, and the conversation does not skip the cost: all six command tanks were lost in the early fights before Mortain, and two tanks were shot out from under Hogan himself. It also records a lesson learned, as American crews stopped painting the big star on their tanks and toned down the numbering once the Germans knew where to aim. From there the range widens. Craig Moore's episode covers the SOE Camouflage Section, which the introduction compares to James Bond's Q Branch, and which hid weapons, radios and documents inside oil cans, firewood, record players and toothpaste tubes. He describes incendiary cigarettes that an agent could drop in a factory storeroom and then walk away from with minutes to spare, and notes how rarely post-action reports turn up to show what such devices achieved. The Berlin episode looks past the city's image as the heart of the regime to the millions of ordinary people who lived there. Its sharpest passage concerns people in hiding who sheltered in public lavatories, the zoo and allotment sheds, and who needed energy, youth and luck to keep moving. In 'The Long Death of Adolf Hitler', Caroline asks how ordinary Germans responded to his death, drawing on diaries and on Allied journalists embedded with the troops. She is frank about the limits of that evidence, since Germans talking to a representative of the enemy may not have been honest. 'A Canadian in Stalin's Army', with Scott Berry, asks how a Canadian ended up in the Red Army, and includes a release from a prison camp arranged by an old university friend, then a journey back across Ukraine on empty freight trains. The Pearl Harbor episode starts from the familiar memory of the attack as a stunning Japanese success, under the title 'Pearl Harbor: Japan's Greatest Disaster'. Its guest gets technical, explaining why torpedo bombers had to fly low and slow and how the last five aircraft of one group were shot down after coming in along the same approach. Across all of this the talk keeps coming back to mechanics and sources: how a thing worked, and how anyone knows. A Patreon offers ad-free episodes and occasional bonus material, and the pitch for it notes that one person puts the whole show together. The catalogue is large, and it rewards curiosity about the war at the level of a tank's paint scheme or a doctored cigarette.
Made for: Suits a listener who knows the broad shape of the Second World War and wants the particulars behind it: how a tank battalion adapted to heavy losses, how SOE agents hid their equipment, how Germans reacted to Hitler's death.
What sets it apart: It moves freely across fronts and scales, from a battalion commander's lost tanks to SOE incendiary cigarettes, Berlin's hidden residents and the torpedo attacks at Pearl Harbor, and keeps the talk on how things worked and what the sources can actually show.
A military history podcast that looks at all aspects of WWII.With WW2 slipping from living memory I aim to look at different historical aspects of the Second World War.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · August 2026
A guest-interview format that trades sweeping battle narrative for specific, well-sourced angles on WWII's overlooked corners.
The WW2 Podcast runs as a standing interview series: each episode, the host sits down with a guest, usually the author of a book on the subject, and works through one specific corner of the Second World War rather than a full campaign or year.
You bring the big WWII myth; the host brings the witness statements and awkward logistics.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A family account brings Task Force Hogan's armored combat and hard-won battlefield lessons into close view.
Task Force Hogan follows Sam Hogan, a 28-year-old lieutenant colonel leading a Sherman tank battalion from Normandy, through the hedgerows of France, the Battle of the Bulge, and into Germany.
A Canadian soldier's path through the Red Army, a prison camp, Ukrainian resistance, and the Soviet advance into Germany.
A Canadian in Stalin's Army follows Maurice, a Canadian citizen stranded in Eastern Europe when war breaks out and drafted into the Red Army in 1941.
A focused look at how SOE concealed weapons, codes, messages, and incendiaries inside everyday objects.
The SOE Camouflage Section turns espionage into a matter of everyday objects. The episode follows Craig Moore from his work on Operation Bertram, where tanks were disguised as lorries and lorries as tanks, into the smaller, quieter business of hiding weapons, radios, explosives,…
A close account of Berliners learning to make survival their central concern.
Berlin comes through as a city trapped inside the Nazi regime, where millions of ordinary people adjusted their daily lives as war, repression, bombing, fear, and the Red Army's approach closed in.
Hitler's death becomes a study in disputed evidence, public disbelief, and the German emotions left behind.
The Long Death of Adolf Hitler approaches Hitler's death less as a closed historical endpoint than as a problem shaped by collapse, rumor, and verification.
A familiar Pearl Harbor success story becomes a tighter look at Japanese tactical weakness and strategic failure.
Pearl Harbor is treated as a study in how a dazzling first impression can hide a deeper strategic failure. The host and Mark Stilley return to the familiar story of a flawlessly executed surprise attack, then weigh it against Stilley's argument that the raid was less a…
A clear, career-minded look at how British brigadiers carried defeat, survival, and patronage into wartime promotion.
The WW2 Podcast looks at British brigadiers in France and Norway in 1940 through the machinery of careers: education, army networks, staff college, regimental ties, and personal patronage.
A thoughtful account of how Burma's victories grew from reform, experience, and logistical risk.
The Burma campaign comes through as a study in how armies learn under pressure. Bill Slim's command of the 14th Army and the victories at Imphal, Kohima, and into Burma sit at the center, but the frame is wider than one commander.
Outnumbered units, remembered under fire.
Battle maps, war films, and patient context.
War news, tested against military reality.
Antique European history, read aloud.
An interview with historian Peter Mansoor about General Douglas MacArthur's role and strategy in the Philippines campaign during WWII.
An interview with author Ted Barris about the contributions of Canadian airmen during the Battle of Britain in WWII.
An interview with Matthew Hough about Harold Alexander's path to Supreme Command in the Mediterranean theatre during WWII.
An interview with historian Kevin Passmore exploring the history and legacy of the Maginot Line in WWII.
This episode discusses the Vistula Oder Offensive in January 1945, the Red Army's advance into Germany, and the geopolitical stakes of the Eastern Front.
Angus Wallace interviews William Hogan about Sam Hogan, a Texas-born West Point graduate who became one of the youngest lieutenant colonels in the U.S.
["The WW2 Podcast follows Maurice Berry, a Montreal-born Canadian who is drafted into the Red Army in March 1941 after showing a Dominion of Canada birth certificate.", "Angus Wallace talks with Scott Berry, Maurice's relative and the author of Army of Worn Souls, Under the Nazi Heel, and Walking Out of War, about a life that runs from Verdun and Nastasiv to Kiev, Kharkiv, Berlin, Munich, and Vienna.", "Scott Berry traces Maurice through Polish restrictions on Ukrainian language, Soviet occupation, a strafing attack near Kiev, a POW camp near Kharkiv, and Ukrainian insurgent intelligence work.", "The interview closes on postwar paperwork, an aunt named Evdokia in Montreal, and the hard path back to civilian life after years of wartime movement."]
Craig Moore tells Angus Wallace that SOE's Camouflage Section hid radios, grenades, maps, codes, and documents inside oil drums, logs, gramophones, rocks, and dead rats.
The WW2 Podcast episode Berlin, 1939-45 follows Berlin from the outbreak of war in 1939 to collapse in 1945, when Berliners stopped saying goodbye and said stay alive.
The WW2 Podcast episode on Adolf Hitler's death focuses on the April 30, 1945 suicide in the Führerbunker, where no public body, official announcement, or uncontested witness settled the story.
The WW2 Podcast episode with Mark Stilley treats Pearl Harbor, through his book "Pearl Harbor, Japan's Greatest Disaster," as a tactical success that became a strategic error for Japan.
Angus Wallace and Philip McCarty discuss Points of Failure, British Brigadiers in France and Norway, 1940, using 156 brigadiers to study careers rather than campaign narration.
Julian Bryan gets sent by Warsaw's mayor to show "what this new war is about" while bombs keep falling.
The WW2 Podcast episode "Churchills Forgotten Generals: Slim, Auchinleck & Savory" tracks three Indian Army officers and their influence on the Burma campaign.
The WW2 Podcast episode with Midge Gillis, author of The Barbed Wire University, focuses on Allied prisoners of war rather than battlefield combat.