What was the situation in Burma following the Allied victories at Imphal and Kohima?

By the summer of 1944, those two hard-fought battles had marked a major turning point in the Burma campaign. Japanese forces were in retreat, and the initiative had passed firmly to the Allies. But pushing into central Burma would require bold strategy, speed, and coordination across air, land and river.

I’m joined by Jack Bowsher, author of Thunder Run: Meiktila 1945. We will be discussing the dramatic and fast-paced battle for Meiktila, a pivotal moment in the Allied drive south that contributed significantly to the conclusion of the Burma campaign.

patreon.com/ww2podcast

In this episode of the WW2 Podcast, we’re turning our attention to the opening phase of one of the most brutal and vast campaigns of the Second World War—Operation Barbarossa.

On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched his long-anticipated invasion of the Soviet Union. In the first two weeks, the German Wehrmacht made some of its fastest advances of the war. Panzer groups surged deep into Soviet territory, clashing with Russian armoured forces—encounters that were sometimes unexpected and, for both sides, revealing.

To explore this dramatic opening stage of the war in the East, I'm joined by Richard Hargreaves, author of Opening the Gates of Hell, which examines the scale, speed, and shock of Barbarossa’s beginning.

patreon.com/ww2podcast

When we talk about the Second Front, most of us think of the Allied invasion of Northwest Europe—D-Day, June 1944. But in his new book, Second Front: Anglo-American Rivalry and the Hidden Story of the Normandy Campaign, historian Professor Marc Milner offers a different perspective.

What if the real second front wasn’t in Normandy, but in Washington?

Milner argues that while Britain fought alongside the United States on the battlefields of Europe, it was also engaged in a very different kind of struggle across the Atlantic: a political and diplomatic battle to retain its influence over an increasingly dominant America.

By the time Allied troops landed in France, the United States had not only become the senior partner in the alliance but had begun reshaping the postwar world, often at the expense of British interests.

But as we’ll hear, this wasn’t just about wartime politics or military planning. The roots of Anglo-American rivalry ran much deeper, stretching back to the way each nation remembered the First World War.

Joining me to discuss all this is Professor Marc Milner.