Special Forces In World War 2 Podcast

It has no engine. It is built almost entirely of wood, by furniture makers. It carries 25 soldiers, or a jeep, or a gun, into the dark behind enemy lines.
The Airspeed Horsa is Britain’s main assault glider of the Second World War. In this episode, Michael Weyers follows it from the first British reaction to Eben Emael in 1940, through the specification, the design team and the first flight, to the factories that build it in 30 sub-assemblies. He looks inside the glider, from the cockpit to the tail, and explains how the Mark 2 gets a hinged nose for vehicles and guns.
Then the Horsa goes to war. The episode covers its operations from Norway in 1942 to the crossing of the Rhine in 1945: the British and American missions in Sicily, Normandy, southern France and the Netherlands, with the numbers and the results of each. It also covers the modifications made to the six gliders of the coup de main on D-Day.
Part of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast. Visit worldwar2-sof.com for more.
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The first lift is down. The bridge is eleven kilometres away. And the clock is already running.
This episode covers the afternoon and evening of Sunday, September 17th, 1944, as the British 1st Airborne Division sets out for the road bridge at Arnhem.
Major Freddie Gough's Reconnaissance Squadron is to get there first, by Jeep, and hold the bridge until the infantry arrive. Instead, his lead vehicle drives into an ambush on a sandy track east of Wolfheze, set minutes earlier by a German training battalion that happens to be in the right woods at the right hour.
Behind him, three parachute battalions take three roads into the town. We follow each in turn. Frost's battalion along the river, through cheering Dutch crowds in Oosterbeek, to a railway bridge that blows up with his men standing on it. Fitch's battalion on the middle road, where a camouflaged Citroën carrying the German garrison commander of Arnhem drives into the leading platoon's sights. Dobie's battalion to the north, swallowed by the woods and the darkness.
And we follow the Germans: Krafft's blocking line, Spindler's defences hardening east of the landing zones, and von Tettau in the west, preparing a dawn assault on the ground where the second lift is due.
By midnight, part of one battalion is at the bridge. The rest of the division is scattered across eleven kilometres of Dutch countryside, and the divisional commander cannot be found.
Part Four of our Operation Market Garden series. Start with Part Three if you haven't heard it. This is the corected 1.2 version without the double section that was previously released.
For maps, photographs and the full source base: worldwar2-sof.com
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Version 1.2 During the editing of this episode, we accidentally duplicated one segment, resulting in approximately 25 minutes of repeated audio. We apologise for the mistake. This has now been corrected in Version 1.2.
On Sunday, September 17th, 1944, the largest airborne operation in history begins. This episode follows the first lift of the British 1st Airborne Division from the runways of southern England to the heaths and farmland west of Arnhem.
It starts in darkness. Almost 1,400 Allied sorties strike German airfields, flak positions and barracks around Arnhem, Deelen and Ede. At Wolfheze, the bombs fall on the village and on the psychiatric institution, Stichting Wolfheze, killing 87 civilians.
Then the sky fills with aircraft. Over 650 gliders, towed by Stirlings, Halifaxes and Dakotas, cross the North Sea behind their tugs. Pathfinders of the 21st Independent Parachute Company mark the zones at 12:40 hours. The 1st Airlanding Brigade comes down on Landing Zones S and Z. The 1st Parachute Brigade drops on Drop Zone X on the Renkumse Heide. Within minutes, hundreds of gliders are on the ground, some of them wrecked, with their pilots trapped inside.
We follow the men who stay behind to hold the landing area: the 2nd South Staffords at Wolfheze, the 1st Border towards Renkum and Heelsum, the 7th King's Own Scottish Borderers on the Ginkelse Heide, and the sappers of the 9th Field Company in their fight for the Hotel Wolfheze.
And we follow the German response, which comes faster than anyone expects. SS-Sturmbannführer Sepp Krafft throws a training battalion across the woods between the landing zones and Arnhem. At Doetinchem, SS-Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich sets the 9th SS-Panzerdivision Hohenstaufen against Arnhem and sends the 10th SS-Panzerdivision Frundsberg south toward Nijmegen. In Oosterbeek, Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model looks up from his lunch to see British paratroopers descending three kilometres away.
This is Part Three of our Operation Market Garden series.
For maps, photographs and the full source base behind this series, visit worldwar2-sof.com
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In Part Two of this opening episode, the ground half of Operation Market Garden takes shape: XXX Corps, spearheaded by the Guards Armoured Division, tasked with breaking out from the bridgehead at Joe's Bridge and driving up a single road to reach the airborne forces at Arnhem, on a timetable that leaves almost no margin for delay.
Then come the final days before the operation launches: last briefings, cancelled leave, a night of heavy Allied bombing against German airfields and defences across the Dutch coast, and the morning more than two thousand aircraft and gliders take off from airfields across southern England, the largest airborne armada ever assembled.
By the end of this episode, the operation is airborne, and the day-by-day story of five separate formations, all fighting for the same corridor, on the same days, is about to begin.
Missed Part One? Start there first, this episode picks up right where it left off.
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September 1944. The Allied armies have shattered the German front in France and driven deep into Belgium, and then, suddenly, they run out of road. Low on fuel, stretched across hundreds of kilometres of supply lines, the advance stalls just short of the Dutch border.
Out of that crisis comes Operation Market Garden: the largest airborne operation ever attempted, a daring bid to seize a chain of bridges across Holland and open a path straight into the heart of Germany.
In Part One of this two-part opening episode, we follow the argument between Montgomery and Eisenhower that gets the operation approved, the German recovery that nearly closes the door on it before it starts, and the detailed planning of three airborne divisions and a Polish brigade, each given a piece of a hundred-kilometre corridor, and each about to discover just how little room for error the plan allows.
This episode lays the groundwork for the series ahead, following the 1st Airborne Division, the 1st Independent Polish Parachute Brigade, the 82nd Airborne Division, the 101st Airborne Division, and XXX Corps through Operation Market Garden, day by day.
Part Two continues the story.
#MarketGarden #OperationMarketGarden #ABridgeTooFar #Arnhem #WWII #WWIIHistory #MilitaryHistory #Airborne #101stAirborne #82ndAirborne #1stAirborneDivision #XXXCorps #PolishParachuteBrigade #WW2Podcast #HistoryPodcast
🔗 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