Bloody Violent History

1.  Intro  2. British Crown Jewels  3. European Crown Jewels  4. Beyond Europe  5. ps  Bling for Today

Jamie goes solo to keep you up to speed with tech, tactics and time honoured aspects in war, conflict and adversity.  These 'Bloody Bites' are short podcast episodes which will hopefully answer a few questions thrown up in our general podcast discussions. A kind of  BVH glossary.

Let us know if you would like to hear Jamie's take on a particular topic.  [email protected]

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1. Fight or Flight  2. Deliverance  3. Embarrassing Retreats  4. Arduous  5. Catastrophic  6. ps Trafalgar

Today we are going to discuss the contentious issue of going backwards in war.  And no, we are not just talking about certain nations driving their tanks with 10 reverse gears.  We are talking about retreat, generally seen as a bad thing and withdrawal, sometimes seen as not such a bad thing. As Demosthenes put it ‘Sometimes you need to live to fight another day’.  And we’ve seen leaders turn disaster into triumph – Rourke’s Drift, the evacuation at Dunkirk comes to mind.  The US General Smith coined perhaps the best phrase for it when describing his military reverse ferret, at the Chosin Reservoir retreat by UN forces in the early stages of the Korean War in 1950.  General McArthur ordered him to retreat and his reply, ‘Retreat, hell we’re not retreating we’re just advancing in the wrong direction’.  It’s a known feature in war that the time of highest danger for men in battle is if they run, and the retreat turns into a rout.  Many of the great massacres in battle begin with a disordered group of soldiers running from the battlefield, as happened in 1416 at the battle of Towton the greatest slaughter of men on English soil.  

Today we’ll look at four categories of retreat, Deliverance, the Embarrassing retreat, the Arduous and the Catastrophic.  We should remember Churchill’s line in his great Dunkirk speech, ‘Wars are not won by evacuations’.  However, a successful withdrawal can allow those men to live, to fight another day.  Jamie and Tom discuss.

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1.  Intro  2. Antiquity  3. Crusaders  4. Middle Ages  5. C18  6. C19  7. C20  8. postscript 

Jamie goes solo to keep you up to speed with tech, tactics and time honoured aspects in war, conflict and adversity.  These 'Bloody Bites' are short podcast episodes which will hopefully answer a few questions thrown up in our general podcast discussions. A kind of  BVH glossary.

Let us know if you would like to hear Jamie's take on a particular topic.  [email protected]

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1. The Violence of Civil War  2. England  3. Ireland  4. America  5. Russia  6. Europe  7. Africa  8. China  9.  Democracy or Bread and Order

There is nothing more brutal than when a country goes to war with itself.  The scale of horrors almost always descends from the battlefield to ragged lines of refugees, violent insurgency, mass starvation, and long term schismatic destruction.  Towns are divided, the country sunders into ragged parts.  Throw in a giant dollop of religion or ideology and very quickly the people will be consumed by all manner of violence.

In this episode we are going to look at some examples - there are no good wars (although there can be just wars) but civil war,  brother against brother, is probably the worst.

so it goes,

Tom Assheton and James Jackson

Reference:

Extracts from The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue by Frederick Forsyth

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1.  Ancient spies to the 19th century  2. WW1 & WW2  3. Cold War  4. ps Drones and planes

Jamie goes solo to keep you up to speed with tech, tactics and time honoured aspects in war, conflict and adversity.  These 'Bloody Bites' are short podcast episodes which will hopefully answer a few questions thrown up in our general podcast discussions. A kind of  BVH glossary.

Let us know if you would like to hear Jamie's take on a particular topic.  [email protected]

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1.  Intro  2. Spy Ships  3. Merchant Raider WW 1 & 2   4. Cold War Spy Trawlers  5. Middle East  6. ps Future Roles

Jamie goes solo to keep you up to speed with tech, tactics and time honoured aspects in war, conflict and adversity.  These 'Bloody Bites' are short podcast episodes which will hopefully answer a few questions thrown up in our general podcast discussions. A kind of  BVH glossary.

Let us know if you would like to hear Jamie's take on a particular topic.  [email protected]

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1. Genesis  2. The People  3. The Plan - Operation Chastise  4.  Aftermath

On the night of 16th May 1943, 133 men of the Royal Air Force, in 19 Lancaster Bombers, flew a daring mission to destroy the Dams in Germany’s Ruhr valley.  Flying at night, at low level, these intrepid men destroyed 2 out of 3 of the dams.  1,300 where killed on the ground. 8 out of the 19 bombers didn’t return.  3 airmen were taken prisoner.  Of the 133 men who took part in the Dam Buster’s Raid, 53 were killed.

This is perhaps the most famous story of a bombing mission in WW2.

I first heard today’s guest give a terrific description Op Chastise at the Turf Club a couple of years ago, and I’m very pleased he is with us today in person.  Welcome back to the podcast, Hugh Macdonald-Buchanan.

and so it goes,

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

Reference & Readings:

Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson

Bomber Harris by Henry Probart

Hugh Macdonald-Buchanan  http://www.hmbtourguide.co.uk

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1. Reality Bites   2. Cannibals   3. Desert & Jungle   4. Mountain  5. Sea  6. The Odd Triumph  7. Aviation  8. Outer Space  9.  postscript

I hope you have calibrated your compass and zeroed your altimeter - for we are about to set off on a journey of exploration.  Anyone who has led any sort of life will have embarked on an expedition or two: some more hair raising than others, but things can still go awry at Centre Parks as they do paddling up the Limpopo or straddling Crib Goch wearing your grand father's tweed suit and a pair of wellies.  

But in the field of human endeavour there are some expeditions which end in a truly disastrous manner.  Humans love to explore and set records: on land, at the Poles, at sea, in the air and in outer space.  And some of these are undertaken by the amateur, who may be ill prepared or subject to bad luck.  So let's get in amongst the bodies dangling from mountain tops, frozen in the ice or bobbing amongst the waves awaiting a call from Bruce.  Jamie and Tom summon the ghost of Phileas Fogg and describe how often, on expeditions, reality bites.

So it goes,

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

[email protected]

Ref.

Cannibal Song, Flanders & Swam

Michel Montaigne Essays, Of Cannibals

Ronald Reagan broadcast, Space Shuttle Challenger - disaster

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

Today we talk about a subject close to our hearts on this show – what happens when the Brits get in touch with their inner pirate.  To help me I am joined by Colonel Tim Spicer OBE.  Tim had an illustrious career in the army, including commanding his Regiment, the 1st Battalion Scots Guards.  He then had 20 years running Private Military Security businesses; founding both Sandline International and Aegis Defence Services. He has published ‘A Dangerous Enterprise: Secret War at Sea'.  It is a  brilliant example of a few brave men, at great odds to themselves, making an important and vital difference to the prosecution of the war against Nazi Germany. 

so it goes,

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

A Dangerous Enterprise, Secret War at Sea by Col. Tim Spicer OBE

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447683/a-dangerous-enterprise-by-spicer-tim/9781999589134

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information

1.  Intro  2. Evolution  3. WW2,  all grown up  4. The Funnies  5. C20 & C21 - Battles  6. Ukraine  7. ps In Extremis

Jamie goes solo to keep you up to speed with tech, tactics and time honoured aspects in war, conflict and adversity.  These 'Bloody Bites' are short podcast episodes which will hopefully answer a few questions thrown up in our general podcast discussions. A kind of  BVH glossary.

Let us know if you would like to hear Jamie's take on a particular topic.  [email protected]

So It Goes

Tom Assheton & James Jackson

See also:

YouTube: BloodyViolentHistory

https://www.instagram.com/bloodyviolenthistory/

https://www.jamesjacksonbooks.com

https://www.tomtom.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify or Google Podcast App? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really helps to spread the word

See https://simplecast.com/privacy/ for privacy information