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1. 1
   Number 1: 1st Special Service Brigade, D-Day and Beyond, Part 1

   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

   July 13, 2026·1h 1min
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2. 2
   Number 2: 1st Special Service Brigade, D-Day and Beyond, Part 3

   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

   August 06, 2026·1h 19min
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3. 3
   Number 3: 1st Special Service Brigade, D-Day and Beyond, Part 2

   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

   July 23, 2026·1h 19min
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4. 4
   Number 4: Assault on the Merville Battery, Part 1.

   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 🔗 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 11, 2026·1h 34min
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5. 5
   Number 5: Preparations For Operation Market Garden, Part 1

   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

   September 10, 2026·1h 3min
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