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.

Sources include Charles Messenger's Commandos: The Definitive History, Tim Saunders's Commandos and Rangers: D-Day Operations, James Ladd's Commandos and Rangers of World War Two, Donald Gilchrist's The Commandos: D-Day and After, and Jeff Steel's From Dunkirk to D-Day: A Commando's War.

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

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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.

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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

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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

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Improved 2 part episode of the Merville assault.

In the early hours of June 6th, 1944, the men of the 9th Parachute Battalion will jump into the darkness over Normandy. Their objective is the Merville Battery, four guns in reinforced concrete, behind wire, mines, and a garrison of one hundred and sixty men. From its emplacements the battery commands the approaches to Sword Beach, where the British infantry will come ashore at dawn. It must be silenced before the landings begin.

This is part one of the Merville Battery. We follow Lieutenant-Colonel Terence Otway and his battalion from the intelligence picture in the spring of 1944, through the plan, the rehearsals on a full-scale replica of the position, the glider pilots and their compressed Rebecca-Eureka course, and the final days in the transit camp. We follow them to the airfields on the evening of June 5th. We follow them across the Channel into a storm of flak, and down into the fields and floodwaters of Normandy. Part one ends as the last men jump from their Dakotas into the night sky over France.

In part two, the assault itself.

This episode draws on the work of Neil Barber, Carl Shilleto, Jon Cooksey, Stephen Wright, Kevin Shannon and the official war diaries of the 6th Airborne Division. Full sources at worldwar2-sof.com.

#DDay #WW2 #WW2History #MervilleBattery #9thParachuteBattalion #OperationTonga #6thAirborneDivision #BritishAirborne #Normandy1944 #SwordBeach #WW2Podcast #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #Paratroopers #June61944

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In the thrilling conclusion of our series on the Coup de Main, we take you to the night of June 6, 1944. Join us as we follow Staff Sergeant Jim Wallwork, Major John Howard, and the men of the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in their daring glider assault on the Pegasus and Horsa bridges. Experience the tension, bravery, and chaos as these soldiers fight to secure these vital crossings against formidable German defenses. From the precise crash landings to the intense firefights, witness the extraordinary courage and determination that ensured the success of this pivotal mission in the Normandy invasion.

Don't miss this action-packed episode as we bring history to life!

#WWII #HistoryPodcast #PegasusBridge #DDay #CoupDeMain #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #OxAndBucks #NormandyInvasion #MajorJohnHoward #PodcastSeries #HistoricalEvents #WarStories #HeroicMissions

Listen now on Spotify and relive the incredible story of the Coup de Main and the heroes who made history.

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In this gripping first episode of our series on the Coup de Main, we dive into the meticulous preparations led by Major John Howard and the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. Discover how Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery's strategic decisions set the stage for one of World War II's most daring missions. Follow the intense training, strategic planning, and rigorous exercises that transformed ordinary soldiers into a formidable force. Learn about the importance of capturing the Pegasus and Horsa bridges to secure the left flank of the Normandy beachhead. This episode sets the stage for the thrilling assault to come.

Listen now and uncover the extraordinary efforts behind this critical mission!

#WWII #HistoryPodcast #PegasusBridge #DDay #CoupDeMain #SpecialForces #MilitaryHistory #OxAndBucks #NormandyInvasion #MajorJohnHoward #PodcastSeries #HistoricalEvents #WarStories

Tune in on Spotify and stay tuned for the next episode, where we delve into the actual assault and the incredible bravery displayed during the capture of the bridges.
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She is forty-eight metres long, flat-bottomed, and built without a keel. She crosses the Atlantic under her own power, carrying two hundred infantry to defended beaches her smaller cousins cannot reach. Her side ramps earn the grim nickname of "bullet magnets" from the soldiers who descend them under fire. Without the Landing Craft, Infantry, Large, there is no Sicily, no Salerno, no Anzio, no Normandy, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa at the scale the Allies achieve.

This episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, tells the story of the seagoing infantry landing craft that fills the gap between the davit-launched assault craft and the great Landing Ship, Tank. From the desperate summer of 1940, when the British Army stands on the wrong side of the Channel without the means to return, the Royal Navy and the United States Bureau of Ships develop the vessel together. The first contracts are signed on June 3rd, 1942. The first hull is afloat by September of the same year. Ten American shipyards, from George Lawley and Son in Massachusetts to Albina Engine and Machine in Oregon, build nine hundred and twenty-three of them in less than three years.

We follow the L-C-I-L through her three principal design types, her transfer to the Royal Navy and the Soviet Navy under Lend-Lease, and her conversion into gunboat, mortar boat, rocket ship, flotilla flagship, and minesweeper. We follow her into combat in two theatres of war. We watch Lieutenant Alec Guinness, the future actor, land troops near Cape Passero lighthouse at Sicily. We watch the Coast Guard-manned LCI(L)-85, LCI(L)-91, LCI(L)-92, and LCI(L)-93 destroyed on Easy Red at Omaha Beach. We watch the Royal Canadian Navy's 262nd Flotilla charge through the beach obstacles at Bernières-sur-Mer at thirty kilometres per hour. We watch Group Eight at Iwo Jima, where Lieutenant junior grade Rufus Herring's LCI(G)-449 wins the Medal of Honor and ten Navy Crosses are awarded to her sister ships.

This is the story of the unglamorous, slab-sided, flat-bottomed troop carrier that helps put the Allied infantry ashore on every contested beach from Licata to Okinawa. From the Channel to the Mekong, from Bethlehem Hingham to Subic Bay, this is the operational biography of one of the most-produced and least-celebrated Allied vessels of the Second World War.

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

#WW2 #WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #LCI #LandingCraftInfantry #LCIL #DDay #Normandy #PacificWar #Anzio #Salerno #Sicily #IwoJima #Okinawa #Walcheren #Dragoon #OperationNeptune #USCoastGuard #USNavy #RoyalNavy #RoyalCanadianNavy #History #Podcast #WW2Podcast #NavalHistory #Amphibious #WW2History #SecondWorldWar #AlliedForces #Mountbatten #BuShips #RufusHerring #AlecGuinness #BeachAssault

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April to May 1945. As the German front collapses, 1 and 2 Special Air Service race ahead of the British Army to secure key towns, hunt down Nazi officials, and liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. From Celle to the Elbe, and finally to Lübeck and Kiel, the Special Air Service plays a decisive role in the war’s final days. This episode follows their operations in the north German plain as the Third Reich disintegrates.

Part One covers the Rhine crossing and the Special Air Service actions in March 1945.

#SAS #WWII #OperationArchway #SpecialForces #HistoryPodcast #Belsen #VEday #Frankforce #WorldWar2

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March 1945. As the Allies cross the Rhine, 1 and 2 Special Air Service launch their final campaign in northwest Europe. Operating in fast-moving jeep columns, they strike deep behind enemy lines, linking with airborne forces, sabotaging German movements, and disrupting retreating units ahead of the main advance. This episode follows their actions across the Rhine and into Germany during the opening phase of Operation Archway.

Part Two will continue the story into April and May 1945, through the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and the final push to the Elbe.

#SAS #WWII #OperationArchway #SpecialForces #HistoryPodcast #RhineCrossing #DDay #Frankforce #WorldWar2

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She has no name. She carries only a number on her bow. She is slow, flat-bottomed, and unglamorous. Sailors call her a Large Slow Target. Yet without the Landing Ship, Tank, there is no Operation Torch, no Husky, no Avalanche, no Shingle, no Overlord, no Dragoon, no Iwo Jima, and no Okinawa.

In this episode of The Special Forces in World War II Podcast, host Michael Weyers tells the story of the vessel that solved a problem the Royal Navy had carried unsolved since the beaches of Gallipoli in 1915. How do you put a thirty-tonne tank ashore on a hostile coast where no port exists, no crane stands ready, and no pier reaches into the surf?

The answer arrives, improbably, on the back of an envelope in a Washington office in November 1941. John C. Niedermair sketches the design in a couple of hours. From that sketch flows a programme that builds more than 1,051 ships in inland yards beside the Ohio and Illinois Rivers. The cornfield shipyards employ firms with no prior shipbuilding experience. Reservist crews learn their craft under fire, driving their bows onto hostile beaches in defiance of every instinct trained into a naval officer.

This episode follows the L.S.T. from Churchill's first memorandum on July 6th, 1940, through the Maracaibo conversions, the Anglo-American design meetings, the production miracle, the disaster of Exercise Tiger, the cross-Channel shuttle to Normandy, and the kamikaze storms of the Pacific. Twenty-six L.S.T.'s are lost to enemy action. Hundreds of crewmen die by torpedo, mine, and kamikaze. Their story deserves to be told.

#WW2 #WorldWarII #MilitaryHistory #SpecialForces #LST #LandingShipTank #DDay #Normandy #PacificWar #Anzio #Salerno #Sicily #IwoJima #Okinawa #Gallipoli #Churchill #History #Podcast #WW2Podcast #NavalHistory #Amphibious #WW2History #SecondWorldWar #AlliedForces #RoyalNavy #USNavy #Niedermair #ExerciseTiger #OperationOverlord #OperationDragoon

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