69 Interwar International Naval Policy

In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone. France had fallen, invasion seemed possible, and Winston Churchill faced a grave question: what should be done about the powerful French fleet? Fearing it might fall under German control, Britain launched Operation Catapult. At Mers el ...  Show more

Before he became a familiar face on screen, appearing in over 70 films like 'The Bridge on the River Kwai', 'The Cockleshell Heroes', 'The Guns of Navarone' and 'The Wild Geese', Percy Herbert survived one of the most brutal chapters of the Second World War. Captured during the f ...  Show more

On this episode of Battleground '44 Saul speaks to friend of the show Evan Mawdsley about the subject of his new book -The Battle of the Philippine Sea. The often overlooked battle was one of the major naval battles of World War II that eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy's ab ...  Show more

On 7th December, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Navy struck the United States. In an action which killed 2,403 Americans and destroyed 21 US warships and 188 aircraft, they also brought the US into the Second World War.

But it may not have been possible without the inpu ...

October 9, 1944. In California, 50 U.S. sailors are on trial for the Navy’s most serious crime, mutiny. It’s a rarely used charge, yet these 50 sailors—all of whom are Black—face the death penalty if convicted. But today, their chances of a fair trial get a little better. Thurgoo ...  Show more

In Holding Their Breath: How the Allies Confronted the Threat of Chemical Warfare in World War II (Cornell UP, 2023), M. Girard Dorsey uncovers just how close Britain, the United States, and Canada came to crossing the red line that restrained poison gas during World War II. Unli ...  Show more