269. Battleground '45 - Your Question's Answered
50:31 Share

Daredevil is born again on Disney+. My name is Matthew Murdock. I'm a lawyer. Exactly what kind of a lawyer are you?

Hey, really good one. Critics everywhere agree it's the best Marvel television series. Gritty, intense, and elevated. It's Daredevil at his best. If you step out of line, I will be there. Marvel Television's Daredevil, Born Again, now streaming only on Disney+.

Hi, this is Debbie, your Blinds.com design consultant. Oh, wow. A real person. Yep. I am here to help you with everything from selecting the perfect window treatments to... Well, I've got a complicated project. Oh, not a problem. I can even schedule a professional measure and install. We can also send you samples fast and free. Hmm. I just might have to do more. Oh, okay. So the first room we're looking at is for guests... Shop Blinds.com now and save up to 45% site-wide. Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply.

Hello and welcome to this special episode of Battleground 45 with me, Saul David, and Roger Morehouse. Well, today Patrick is not with us and we're trying to catch up on some of the many varied and excellent questions that have been coming in for both Battleground 44 and 45 over the last few months that we haven't had a chance to deal with.

And we should just add that there's a health warning to this episode. There are descriptions of sexual violence. But we should just mention, Roger, that today we've got news. That's today we're recording Tuesday. We've got news of the death of the last Battle of Britain pilot,

A character called John Paddy Hemingway. And it's pretty remarkable to think, isn't it, that actually any of them are still alive? Yeah, indeed. I mean, that was my first thought. You know, astonishing. You know, we think that that generation really has gone. And then something like that, I think he was 104, 105. Remarkable life, remarkable life. So, yeah, we should spare a thought for him.

Well, listeners to the podcast will remember when we were doing the special charity episode last November, when we were on the big red bus in London, we were actually speaking to

during that trip to a 103-year-old Mosquito pilot. And I saw that he celebrated his birthday the other day. So he's still alive, although he didn't actually get into combat until 1944 and 1945 with the bombing raids over Berlin. But they sounded pretty hair-raising to me. But in any case, there are still one or two of these veterans still alive. And it is, I think, important to mark their passing, isn't it, Roger, at a time when, of course, our sister podcast is

the Ukraine war, there's some pretty shameful things going on at the moment. And I think we can celebrate these guys for doing the right thing at the right time, can't we? Indeed. And in the case of this jet you just mentioned, the Battle of Britain pilot, of course,

John Hemingway, he was called, was an Irishman. I don't know what his sort of family connections were, but in these days where we're sort of agonizing about, you know, would even British youth fight for Britain? Lo and behold, there's an Irishman who was manning the Spitfires in the Battle of Britain to defend these isles. So, you know, good on him for that.

We were doing a little bit of research. We were struggling to find details on how many enemy aircraft he shot down, but he was himself shot down four times. Spitfire pilot. And we know that his squadron actually took out quite a few of the enemy, 90 enemy airplanes.

so you know tremendous job aged just 21 years old and you mentioned nationalities roger i mean we should remember of course that it was very much a united nations fighting in the battle of britain wasn't it with czechs poles americans canadians australians i mean they came from all over the place didn't they yeah and the highest scoring ace in the battle of britain of course is the

statistic always gets trotted out was a Czech in a Polish squadron. So, you know, that's again, it illustrates exactly that point, Saul, that it was really a multinational effort. I think it's fair to say that the Eastern Europeans were highly motivated, weren't they, Roger, after what had happened to their homeland, which you wrote so beautifully about, of course, in the Polish campaign in 1939 in your book, First to Fight.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they were, as you say, they were very fired up. Of course, they also had decent combat experience. They didn't necessarily have planes of the quality of the Hurricanes and Spitfires that they were, well, mainly Hurricanes that were put in in 1940 at least.

But they did, of course, have combat experience of the real fight against the Germans. So in that sense, they were working at an advantage already in 1940 against a lot of domestic pilots. So there's that element as well, I think, has to be borne in mind. But yeah, you're right. They absolutely knew what they were fighting for. They were fighting for their homelands. Their families very often were still in Poland. So absolutely clear-eyed about what was at stake. Yeah, and an interesting modern parallel, of course, is the combat experience the Ukrainians have got.

in their defensive war against the Russians. And if there is going to be a reckoning with Russia further down the line, having the Ukrainians on your side is going to be very useful, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Again, the same model applies. They've got a wealth of combat experience already in that arena.

Right, let's crack on with the questions then, shall we? And the first one's about the Arctic convoys. And it's quite an amusing message from Alan Hendry, who writes, my father is 102, so he's obviously still alive, and his corvette escorted eight convoys to Russia during the war. There was a lecture at Duxford during the summer about the Arctic convoys, so I thought I would

quiz him about conditions so that I could share them if there are any profound nuggets of information. Although he's pretty sound of mind and still has a pretty good memory, he made it sound like a Mediterranean cruise! Exclamation mark.

I'm wondering if his memory is that good, because I read some first-hand accounts of the Arctic convoys, and it sounds pretty grim service to me. You know, the infamous convoy, of course, Roger, was, I think it was number 17, in which a large number of ships were sunk by the Germans. And so you've got the threat, of course, of enemy action, which did take out a number of ships. But you've also got the problem of the sea conditions, right?

You know, the freezing temperatures, the high seas up in the Arctic convoy, this was no picnic. So, you know, it's interesting how often veterans are modest about what they've achieved. And it sounds the same with Alan's father. But you can take it from us, Alan, that he must have gone through some pretty tough times. And you should be very proud of him.

It's interesting. I mean, PQ-17 is, of course, the famous one, infamous one. But some of those, I think he said his father escorted eight convoys, right? Some of those convoys were actually sort of, you know, comparatively easy in that they didn't see much enemy action. So some of them slipped through, you know, without being sort of seriously engaged by the Germans.

As you say, Saul, you know, the weather conditions, the sea conditions, that was what was really critical in a lot of examples. So it strikes me a little bit. I think some people, especially, you know, in later life, they tend to sort of blot out the bad. And I think that's sort of natural human reaction. So if he does describe it in that way, I suspect that's a little bit, you know, an element of what's going on.

Just one point when I listened to that question, one thing that sprung to mind, I did a lot of oral history back in the day when I did a book about Berlin. I spoke to a lot of Berliners of that generation. And one of the things that struck me then was that a lot of those interviewees that I had, and an interview then would last, you know, could last about sort of three or four hours many times.

Their children, who are, of course, adults themselves, were often in the next room and were extremely keen to hear what was being said because they'd never heard most of it. And I think there's a natural instinct to protect your children from the worst things that you've experienced. You don't even want to share them necessarily. So there's always this and this comes up a lot. And I've heard it many times since.

that, you know, that generation that went through, you know, often the most horrific experiences in the war, whether as soldiers or civilians, very often there's a real reticence, a real reluctance to talk about it with their own children. They will talk about it with other people sometimes in the right circumstances, but they very often are profoundly unwilling. And it's kind of instinctive. It's not even a conscious thing to

to actually share it with their own children. Because you don't want to burden those children. You don't want them to feel sorry for you. You don't want them to sort of look at you in a different way. So I think there's a whole package of sort of emotions around this. So the fact that Alan's had this sort of experience where, you know, his father's memories seem to be a little bit too rose-tinted, it's not entirely surprising. And there could be an awful lot going on behind that.

Well said, Roger. Last thing to say about this question. He mentioned the talk he went to last summer. I wonder if it was given by a former star pupil of mine when I was teaching the MA in military history at the University of Buckingham. And this is a character called Andrew Boyd. He'd already had a very successful career in the submarine service and also in the foreign office and then came to do a master's in his early 60s and did so well that we suggested he did a PhD and

So he did that and he flew through that with flying colors. And he's since written two really excellent books. And the second of which is called Arms for Russia and the Naval War in the Arctic, 1941 to 1945. Really brilliant piece of work. So if he wasn't referring to that and listeners are interested in finding out a little bit more about that, do have a look at that book by Andy Boyd, because it's really excellent. And he makes the very strong point, actually, Roger, which you and I have both referred to in the past, I know, which is

You know, of course, enormous numbers of Soviets did die in the cause of defeating Germany. But the real impact was made economically chiefly by the Americans, not least because of all the lend lease aid that was going to Russia. But it was also going from the UK as well, which is the point Andy makes in his book from 1941 onwards, making a material difference to the ability of the Soviets to be able to hang on and eventually defeat the Germans.

So the second question is from Andy Clark, and he wrote, I recently learned of the so-called British Free Corps in World War II. There seems to be scant information about the unit and those who were involved. Can you shed any light on the Corps and why it's not more widely known?

It's an interesting one, that actually. There was a very good book a few years ago now, Adrian Weal, W-E-A-L-E, which is on this very subject, which really does sort of cover the subject quite well. In terms of information about the unit and those who are involved, essentially the SS tried to recruit people

from POWs, British POWs who were in captivity in Germany. And to a large extent, those that sort of took the bait and went for this were a sort of motley crew of the perennially disgruntled.

the Irish as well, incidentally, and people that, you know, just wanted to, you know, have a square meal and get out of the, out of the, you know, the prison camp and all that sort of thing. So there's a sort of weird, weird combination of motivations that, that went with it. And consequently, I think, you know, it was only ever a pretty small unit and,

the Germans were really not confident about it at all. So it really didn't sort of measure up to some of their other foreign fighter units within the SS. There's numerous divisions of French and Latvians and Croatians and various sorts within the Waffen-SS. So in size, certainly, it didn't measure up to those. And in reliability, a lot of those units were profoundly unreliable anyway.

And I think the thing with the British Free Corps is that in training and so on, they were so concerned that it wasn't going to be up to scratch. I think it was never actually put into operation. Yeah, I've done a tiny bit of checking on this. I mean, you're absolutely right, the broader point you're making, which says that it was relatively tiny. And in some senses, we should be quite pleased about that, shouldn't we, Roger? Because you know that the Germans would have been offering all kinds of inducements to British people.

POWs, of which they had many by 1943 when they really set up the British Free Court. It was, by the way, the brainchild of John Amory, who was the son of a British cabinet minister and, of course, later treated as a traitor and, in fact, executed by the British after the end of the Second World War. But Amory was a

British fascist. He'd stayed on in France after the fall of France in 1940, and eventually was trying to be useful to the Germans and so suggested setting up this free court. But he never really got off the ground. I mean, total membership was no more than about 50. I mean, can you believe that? So that's not really enough even to staff a company. And in terms of

strength at any one time down to 25, 26, 27. So it was a complete irrelevance, more a propaganda thing than anything else. Although they do actually do some fighting, but only in 1945. So it's a bit of an irrelevance. And I suppose the point about, the really interesting point about it is why did more people not take the inducement as the Germans? And as I said a minute ago, I think that's something we should be quite

proud of it wasn't just british they were looking at that one one infamous member was canadian a couple of australians i think or at least one australian so they were obviously trying to target uh british english speaking more generally for this group but he never really got off the ground yeah well said i absolutely concur you know we should be um the question we should ask is you know why why so few and and that's a that's a very positive thing and you know we should be proud of that

Okay, we've got a question of an operation I've heard of but didn't know much about, and that's Operation Infatuate. And this is from Sandy Carrick Buchanan. I may have missed it, but have you done or will you consider doing an episode on this operation? My wife's grandfather, Brigadier Jumbo Lester, led the 4th Special Service Brigade onto Normandy, then the assault on Walcheren Island as part of Operation Infatuate, freeing up access to Antwerp and shortening the supply lines to the Allies as they pushed east.

The family attended the 80th anniversary celebrations this month, and the locals are still vocal in their appreciation. This is a fascinating and much overlooked episode of the war and would make for a fascinating podcast. Indeed, it would. I mean, unfortunately, the sort of, you know, the horses bolted to a certain extent. This took place at the end of 1944. But it is a fascinating story because it leads into the question of the failure to

properly capture both sides of the Scheldt Estuary, Roger, prior to the Arnhem operation or indeed immediately following the Arnhem operation, there was a feeling, I think among many historians, I was reading Anthony Beaver's notes on this recently in his World War II book, in which he says a real opportunity is missed because it's already well capturing Antwerp, which I think they did on the 1st of September 1944, but you can't actually use the port of Antwerp until you've captured both sides of the estuary that leads down to it.

and the walker in ireland is one of the key locations on the side of the estuary and until you've actually got it under control you can't get ships up up the estuary so they finally carry out this operation in the autumn that's after the failure of the operation market garden and it's a pretty tough fight actually operation infatuate more slightly controversial things happen during the operation they decide to bomb the uh the dams on the island and to flood the island thinking it'll make it harder for the

Germans to defend actually probably made it easier reminds me of the bombing of Monte Cassino so that was probably a mistake that the Dutch were never consulted on and if they had been there they said don't do it but nevertheless it was a tough old fight to take Walker and you had commandos coming in on one side the Canadians were involved the 52nd lowland division was also involved and a lot of tough fighting as I say before they finally took the island and

Final casualty, 1,473 on the Allied side, including 489 killed. Germans, 1,200 killed and wounded and 2,900 captured. So as I say, it was a brutal fight in which no doubt Sandy Carrick Buchanan's wife's grandfather must have done some very good work.

And it's a reminder, Saul, of that vital importance of supply questions in all of this. You know, you can't have an army that's, you know, poised to go into Germany itself across the Rhine and so on.

that's still being supplied via Normandy. You have to shorten those supply lines. And that was one of the primary rationales, as you well know, behind Market Garden as well. So it fits in with that rather less glamorous aspect of all of this, which is that of logistics and supply. And it all had to be done.

Yeah. So how does it come about? Well, it comes about, in my view, I think probably in Beavers and other historians who've covered this, because Monty's eyes were on the prize and the prize was getting into Germany first and preferably getting to Berlin first. And the idea that he had to take care of, you know, the kind of basic stuff like logistics, which, by the way, he'd been quite good about in the deserts.

But now he's under so much competition in his own mind to prove himself against the Americans, or at least to compete against the Americans. Bradley, of course, was the army group commander to the south of him who he was competing with supplies for, that he was determined to get into Germany, as I say.

probably not overly concerned about the side issue of dealing with the approaches to Antwerp. And of course, it horribly backfires and almost certainly leads to an extension of the war as a result. Okay, we'll take a little break there and we'll be back in just a couple of minutes. Welcome back. Well, we've got a question from Switzerland. That's Dominic in Switzerland. And he asked, could you fill in the glaring gap that my country represented during the Second World War in Europe?

For whether you were an Axis or Allied general, you had to make assumptions regarding the strategic spot Switzerland occupied and whether it was worth resources or the diplomatic implications of invading it or force its government to allow passage and calculating the risk of leaving the Swiss flank exposed. Do you know if Allied planners thought about not regarding Switzerland's neutrality and marching through? Anyway, I'm interested in any answer you may give and would enjoy listening to your what-if scenarios. So,

So yes, it's an interesting one, isn't it? Roger, we know what happened, which is that Switzerland did stay neutral all the way through the Second World War and was never invaded. But that didn't necessarily have to be the case, did it? I mean, certainly the Germans, I think from my basic reading on the subject, did have plans to get into Switzerland. So what actually happened? Yeah, indeed, the Germans did have plans. I mean, I think a couple of things need to be said, first of all, and then I'll sort of look at it from, I think, the Swiss perspective is quite interesting on this.

To some extent, I mean, Switzerland was already sort of tacking to the, I would say, tacking to the Nazi wind. So there was this sort of, you know, you remember, of course, the Wilhelm Gustloff, which we know is the famous ship sunk in 1945, the worst death toll in maritime history, named after a Swiss Nazi, of course. There were, you know, there were those trends in Swiss society already prior to 1939, as well as others.

But there was a degree to which Switzerland was already sort of, you know, aligning itself to some extent with its northern neighbor. And to some extent it had to. And what's interesting, if you look at it from their perspective in sort of 1939 and onwards, is that, you know, Switzerland had this tradition of armed neutrality always, you know, through its existence.

And they perpetuate that in 1940. A chap called General Guizin, who I wrote about in my last book, had this sort of twin track policy of basically arming Switzerland as far as possible to the teeth.

If you go to Switzerland now, you can very often find these old bunkers and sort of fortified positions up at the top of valleys, you know, strategically, brilliantly placed. And they would just make any invasion by any force an absolute bloodbath and make it extremely costly. So Guizart had this policy of arming Switzerland to the teeth and very publicly saying, you know, we will fight to the last bullet.

And at the same time, sort of tacking to, you know, to accommodate the desires to some extent of their northern neighbor. And you can see this in things like immigration policy or the lack thereof. You know, the policy of the red J on German passports, for example, Jewish passports, was a Swiss idea because they wanted to make it easier to recognize Jewish would-be immigrants approaching the Swiss border.

So it's a sort of curious neutrality. They are neutral, of course, but it's a curious neutrality where they do tend to, to some extent, sort of bend over backwards to accommodate their aggressive northern neighbour. From the Allied perspective, it's interesting that I think the Allies, to a large extent, benefited from

during the war from having Switzerland as this sort of island of comparative normality and comparative democracy and comparative neutrality within, you know, in the very heart of Europe. Because, of course, that's where they had essentially a listening post. You had, you know, agents of, you know, OSS, predecessor of the CIA, are working out of Switzerland. You know, it becomes a sort of hotbed of espionage, which is a fascinating element to the story.

Where it came into my sort of last book, which is The Forgers, was, of course, that that was used by Polish intelligence for the same purpose. It was a sort of an outpost where Polish intelligence operatives could be very safe, and yet they could still function and gather intelligence and so on. So from an Allied perspective, Swiss neutrality actually really served a useful purpose.

So, yeah, it's a very interesting story. It's one that we tend to ignore. So in that sense, I think Dominic's question is absolutely right. But it's much more complex than we imagined. So, yeah, it's an interesting one. Yeah. Do we know that if there were ever allied plans to advance? So, you know, they were up against some tough nuts, weren't they? They had to get across the Rhine. They had the Vogue Mountains, the Tsar campaign. These are all really tough campaigns. And to a certain extent, they're kind of forced into it.

going through those corridors because they couldn't go through Switzerland. But the sort of the way you're talking about what the Swiss would have done if the Germans would have attacked, they'd have done exactly the same, presumably, if the Allies had tried something similar. So they were making similar calculations, presumably. Yeah, I haven't sort of come across anything on Allied planning to that extent, to be honest. And I'd be a little bit surprised if there were those plans.

But the policy in 1940 certainly was, you know, the aggressor then was, or the assumed aggressor was Germany, of course. And that policy stood, that was, you know, arm yourself to the teeth, basically, you know, if you do want to invade, we're going to make it absolutely as costly as we possibly can.

And at the same time, we are going to do as little as possible to annoy Germany. Essentially, that was the sort of track. So it's a curious kind of twin track. So we call it neutrality. It's actually much more complex than that. Switzerland's attitude during the war. And of course, then Yimbayi's very location was a haven for people to escape prisoners of war and

Jews on the run from Germany. I mean, not always, and again, this is something you've covered, I know, Roger, the Swiss attitude to the Jews was ambivalent, would you say, at best? I don't want to get too deeply into this subject, but just a couple of thoughts on that. Yeah, ambivalent is probably a little bit, you know, too positive. Or too generous. You know, there was a thoroughly unpleasant character by the name of Heinrich Rottmund, who was the head of the Swiss police.

was really a renowned anti-Semite. And I mentioned Wilhelm Gustloff earlier on, he of course was assassinated in 1936. But there are these sort of fascistic elements alongside many others in Swiss society and in Swiss politics.

So, you know, again, it's not the sort of the benign haven that we perhaps imagine if we give it even a moment's thought. It's much more complex than that. So it does reward a bit of study. It's quite a fascinating story.

Good stuff. OK, moving on to the U.S. Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team. And, you know, that number to some listeners is sort of not going to mean much. I mean, the U.S. Army had an enormous number of regimental combat teams, which is the way they kind of fought. That's just their regimental infantry number.

So what is the 442nd? Well, Tom Hutton in Hawaii has written, I was excited some time ago when Saul mentioned having learned about the U.S. Army's storied 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and duration of service. And I'll talk about its decorations in a second, actually, because Tom's absolutely right. And one recruited from among Japanese Americans. And the reason this story is so extraordinary is because

As we'll know, Roger, after Pearl Harbor, a lot of Japanese Americans, both those living in Pearl Harbor but also on the mainland, were interned for the duration. And the internment camps were pretty horrific. And it's one of the more shameful stories, actually, to come out of the Second World War. But despite that,

They still recruited this extraordinarily effective regimental combat team. Originally started actually as the 100th Infantry Battalion, later expanded into the 442 with Japanese American soldiers and fought in a number of locations, which Tom reminds me about. I mean, I reviewed a really excellent book on this.

a short while ago, maybe two or three years ago, in which a lot of the detail was there. But, you know, Tom's reminding me, so I'll just tell listeners. So these Japanese American soldiers remained proud of their original unit and played, that is, the 100th, and played a key role in the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy in May 1944, where it earned the nickname the Purple Heart Battalion, obviously because of the number of people who were wounded there.

Anyway, Tom goes on to say it was the 442nd in October 1944, and this is its most famous action, and one I must include in my forthcoming book about the end of the war, The Battle for Europe, in which the 442nd rescued the so-called Lost Battalion. That was the 141st Infantry Regiment, made up of

Texas National Guardsmen, which had been deliberately allowed by the Germans to advance into a trap in the Vogue Mountains in France and were then surrounded. And the 442nd basically volunteers to go in and get them out. And in a six-day campaign, it managed to rescue 211 of the 275 surrounded soldiers at a cost to itself of over 800 casualties. So you might ask the very reasonable question, was it all worth it? But what there is no doubt about is the extraordinary courage

of the 442nd. I spoke about it being the most decorated unit in terms of its size. Well, what does that mean? It received 18,143 awards in less than two years. And this was just

10 000 men who actually served and that includes 21 medals of honor the u.s equivalent of rbc and an enormous number of other awards including 29 distinguished service cross that's the second most important award and 371 silver stars and the list goes on 4 000 bronze stars 22 legion of merit i mean at

Absolutely astonishing. And this is the detail I like most of this story. In 1962, Governor John Connolly of Texas, because, of course, they rescued a Texas unit, made the members of the 442nd honorary Texans in appreciation of their rescue of the lost battalion of the Texas National Guard. And remember, this is at a time when, you know, of course, Texas was horribly racist in terms of its laws. So pretty extraordinary stuff. A great story. And thanks for reminding me about it, Tom.

roger have you heard about the 442nd i mean many people haven't uh honestly no i hadn't my sort of knowledge of that stuff particularly you know american forces you're much much better on that than i am um my focus is very much on europe and particularly central europe so i'm afraid i haven't no fascinating story yeah well here's a question that you might know a little bit more about and this is the force repatriations at the end of the war and elliot asked the question uh

This is Soviet citizens, so basically citizens coming from the Soviet Union and other Eastern Europeans after the war, as agreed at Yalta. So the agreement is you're going to return people back to their original places. The sinister bit of all of this, of course, is what the Soviets are going to do when they get their hands on them. And of course, I hope you'll explain in a minute exactly what did happen.

The question Elliot asked is, what were the primary motivations behind the Western Allies' decision to participate in these repatriations, particularly given the known risks of persecution or execution for those returned to the Soviet Union? So do we know what the primary motivations were? Yeah, just to rewind a bit, I mean, as you alluded to there, the sort of Soviet policy on repatriation

Those that had surrendered essentially to the Germans in World War II was absolutely brutal at the end of the war. They were considered to be traitors to the Soviet state, quite simply. So there was none of that sort of welcoming them back into the bosom of the nation that you sort of had with, you know, Allied airmen liberated from POW camps and so on. For Soviet citizens, whether they be, you know, forced laborers or others, they were simply viewed as traitors to the motherland.

And you could expect some degree of retribution, whether that's being dispatched to the Gulag or worse. Absolutely many, many cases of that. So particularly for those also that, you know, like the Cossacks and others who, you know, had ended up fighting in German colours in World War II, who then, you know, scheduled for repatriation at the end of the war. You can imagine that the fate for them would be as, you know, as grim as possible.

So, you know, that's a little bit the sort of background to this question. And in terms of, you know, why the Allies decide to go along with that. And we knew, I think, that the fate of those individuals was probably going to be grim going back into the Soviet Union. So the question why we agreed to go along with that was, I think, twofold. The first one is, you know, this is...

Still the policy, the Grand Alliance, you're coming to the end of the war. There's awareness in allied circles that you are sort of cuddled up with a fairly sinister force in the Soviet Union, yet to have the beginnings of the Cold War because that sort of comes in 46, 47. But still there's an awareness that the Soviet Union is not the cuddly place that the propaganda has been describing it as.

but you still have to sort of play nice. So you still have to play by the rules. You have to show willing to preserve and to propagate that great power relationship, which is very important to everyone concerned. So there's that element. More crucially, I would say, is that the Soviets, as they had rolled across, you know, occupied Eastern Europe, they'd also liberated a lot of Allied airmen and others and POWs. So they had Allied prisoners in their hands.

So if you decided not to repatriate those that didn't want to go back to the Soviet Union, you're potentially creating problems for those, you know, British and other airmen and others who are in POW camps and now in Soviet hands who desperately want to come west and go home. Perhaps the Soviets wouldn't have let them home. So there's a very practical reason behind that sort of approach.

as we could view it now in retrospect, a sort of rather myopic policy of sort of sticking blindly to the rules on this. So it is rather more complex, even though, as I say, I think, you know, Western planners and command staffs and so on were pretty well aware of what awaited those Soviet citizens going back to the Soviet Union.

Fascinating stuff, Roger. Thanks for that. Now, French Air Force, we've got a question from JJ Malovich in Canada, and he asked a very sensible question. What happened to the aircraft of the French Air Force after the fall of France? We can see that the Germans happily used French armoured vehicles and French trucks all the way until the end of the war. But what about the aircraft? They could not have all been destroyed. What happened to them? Well, I don't know in any detail about this

Roger, but I'm assuming it's a relatively similar story to what happened to the French Navy. Basically, there was a deal done between Vichy, which is going to be the new government of unoccupied France. Of course, remember that in 1940, a big chunk of the French coastline, including Paris, the capital, did remain under German hands. It was part of occupied France. So the French had control of their own bit of territory, and that was known as Vichy because of

of course the capital was the spa town of Vichy and the deal done with the Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain was that the French navy would remain under French hands and of course this was of huge concern to the Allies and with the British of course in 1940 because if the Germans had got their hands on the French navy it would have been disastrous which leads to another number of engagements in which we try and force the French to hand over what ships they have if we could actually get to them like we could at

places like the UK. There were some French ships there. Meersel-Kabir is the famous action that was fought in which we sink a number of French ships. But in any case, the overall deal with the Germans that was done was that you can keep hold of your navy for the foreseeable future. And I'm guessing they probably did something similar with the French Air Force, because it is true that they, or at least I agree with

JJ, that I haven't seen any instances of the Germans using French planes in combat on the Eastern Front or indeed anywhere else. Roger, have you? No, I haven't either. It's a good question. And it's one, again, I touched a bit on this in some work I did last year. I mean, the French Air Force in 1940 was pretty good. I mean, certainly had pretty good numbers, but

The two sort of most famous aircraft, there's the Potters and the Morin-Saulnier 406, which was their sort of primary fighter. They had over a thousand of these Morin-Saulnier 406s. So that was the sort of the backbone of the force. And it was pretty good. It really didn't, it didn't compare to sort of Messerschmitt 109s, for example, but, you know, pretty good in this, in the grand scheme of things.

It lost a lot of them in 1940. They did carry on this. So what remained was then divided, like you said, you know, absolutely right. It was divided between Vichy and then the Germans kept some as well. The Germans used those 406s for training.

And then they sold them off as well to their allies, their less well-equipped allies, like the Croats, for example, and the Finns. So it was possible. You said you'd never seen one on the Eastern Front. Neither have I, Saul, but it's quite possible, as they were sold them to the Finns, that they did end up on the Eastern Front somewhere, but just perhaps under Finnish colours. Those that...

remained with Vichy, I think they flew them for a while and then they essentially, you know, they became unserviceable because all the supply networks were all fractured and so on. So essentially they sort of dissipated and disappeared into the melee of the war. But

But the premise of the question is why don't we sort of see them? What happened to them? He's absolutely right. They do appear to have disappeared. It's quite an interesting story because it was a substantial air force in 1940, of course. Yeah, fascinating stuff. Thanks for that, Roger. You've filled in a little bit of a gap in my knowledge. Next question is from Joshua in London. And he says, I've often wondered what would have happened if there were no nuclear weapons at the end of World War II. So my questions are beyond the atomic bombings,

What were the key factors that led to Japan's eventual surrender in 1945? And would these factors have led to Japan's surrender even if there were no atomic weapons? Saul, what do you think? Yes, brilliant question by Joshua. It's almost as though he's up with the latest scholarship because when I wrote my Crucible of Hell book a few years ago, which deals with the end of the Second World War in the Pacific, chiefly the fighting on Okinawa, but also the decision to use the bombs as a result of the savagery of the fighting on Okinawa,

Okinawa. I was very much of the opinion that the bombs did end the war. But actually, there's been some more recent scholarship on this. It doesn't entirely change the explanation for why the Allies decided to use the bombs, which and the latest scholarship on this is done by a very brilliant historian who's actually written a lot about Eastern Front, as you know, Roger, called Richard Overy. And Richard Overy has written a very small, pithy, but brilliantly argued and revealing book called Reign of Ruin.

And what Reign of Ruin really does is it links the firebombing of Tokyo and indeed, of course, all the other cities in Japan in 1945 with the decision to use the bomb for two reasons. One, that firebombing was actually quite effective. Now, you know, if you take morality out of it, you've also got the reality of the destruction of enormous areas, enormous urban areas. Something like 40% of all Japan's urban areas were destroyed in the firebombings.

and the two atomic bombs. So Overy makes the point that even by the summer of 1945, June 1945, when the Allies were beginning to think, well, we're actually going to have to invade Japan. That's the only way we can force them to surrender. The Japanese already at that point were reeling under the effects of the fire bombings

and were coming to the conclusion, as Richard O'Reilly lays out quite clearly, we need to start thinking about peace. But they weren't thinking about unconditional surrender, so that would have been an issue. And they also made the very bad strategic error of considering the Soviets as the best kind of interlocutors between them and the Western allies. Of course, the Soviets...

had already made a verbal agreement at the Yalta conference at the beginning of 1945 to actually enter the war at some stage. They hadn't said exactly where they're going to do it. But while the Japanese are actually going to them and putting out peace feelers, the Russians are making an absolutely firm decision now to come into the war at some point in August. OK, so you've already got the Soviets' Bad Faith Act.

in the so-called peace feelers that were put out. But the reason I mentioned the peace feelers is because there was very much a feeling among the senior Japanese civilian leaders, notably Suzuki, the prime minister, that actually the game was up. The danger they had is persuading the militarists, in particular the chiefs of the various armed forces, but also the war minister, Anami, who were very much determined to fight to

to the end. And the feeling is if we push them too far, too fast, there's going to be a military coup. They might even consider toppling the emperor. So it was a question of how can you get to that point? So while these machinations are going on, on the one hand, on the Japanese side, on the other side, of course, the Allies were considering using the bombs. And if you look at the detail of the actual use of the bomb, so you've got the

The Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese basically ignore it. They don't actually say no, but they just say we're not dealing with that at the moment. And the reason they say that is because they're already considering, hoping that the Russians are going to begin these peace talks. Well, that never happens. The first bomb is dropped.

There is a kind of understanding that this is a terrible weapon, but it takes a bit of time for that information to come through. And I think the key moment in terms of tipping the emperor over the edge into making what was known as a sacred decision to end the war was actually the Soviets' decision to enter the war. They basically declare war on the 8th. That's the day before the second atomic bomb is dropped. And on the morning of the 9th, even before that bomb's been dropped,

that's when the emperor says to his civilian leaders, we need to sue for peace. We need to accept the Potsdam Declaration with certain conditions, which we needn't go into, Roger. But it is interesting that the Japanese are reeling. And so the overall question, did the atomic bombs need to be used? We'll never know for sure. In my mind, it was the final element to tip them over the edge, but they were certainly considering peace at that point.

Yeah, I'm not at all surprised. Very glad you mentioned Reign of Ruin. I read it last week, coincidentally. Brilliant book. I mean, absolutely, really, ovaries always good value. And I think it shows you how I think that where a change of perspective in the sort of historiography can be really useful because he does go into...

the mindset and the machinations and what the Japanese knew in that August and beyond. And it answers exactly the question that Joshua was asking here. And you alluded to it just then. What was interesting to me is that the Japanese high command and others, they weren't even sure what had happened to them with the first of those atomic bombs.

bombings, you know. They weren't even sure what it was. So the idea in retrospect, it was very neat in retrospect, and that's how obviously the American historiography has it. It's very neat in retrospect that you've got the bombing, you know, they realize the game is up, they sue for peace. The reality is much, much more complex as you just described. They didn't

properly understand what had just happened to them. The Soviets are coming in, starting their invasion. And at the same time, thanks to the firebombing that's been going on for most of 1945, you've got the prospect of potential civil unrest in Japan, which is kind of unthinkable because the dislocation on the ground is that bad.

So I think that, you know, in answer to that final question that Joshua asks there, you know, would these factors have led to Japan surrender, even if there were no atomic weapons? I think absolutely, because from their perspective, they didn't even necessarily understand atomic weapons have been used. So they were already making those decisions, regardless of that.

Yeah, good stuff. OK, I think we'll end on a final one that actually refers to a podcast we both did, Roger. And this is sexual violence. It comes from Kirsty McKenzie. She doesn't say where she is, but I'm assuming the UK. And she goes on to write, I wanted to say how much I enjoyed podcast 243 about the arrival of the Soviets in Germany. And that's the one you and I did earlier this year, Roger, when we were talking about the East Prussian campaign in particular.

Kirstie goes on to say it was very moving and clearly covered very disturbing topics, particularly around the rape of women across the region. What particularly struck me was that the women who had been in concentration camps were raped. To survive the horror of the camps and then have to face another terrifying ordeal is almost beyond belief. And how such women coped is hard to imagine. What is also shocking is the realisation that the perpetrators probably never faced any punishment for their crimes. I know it's a horrific

But it's so important to highlight this all too common feature of conflict. So that's why I read out Kirstie's note. And it is, of course, of particular relevance to what's going on at the moment, Roger, isn't it, in Ukraine? Because we know and I've mentioned many times on the podcast, the extraordinary avalanche of evidence.

about Russian war crimes, but also including sexual violence, deliberate sexual violence against the Ukrainians. And there is, of course, a danger. We'll have to see how things pan out over the next few days that a deal will be done between Putin and Trump to give immunity for these war crimes. And, you know, and if that is the case...

it will be an absolute disgrace among many other disgraces that we fear might also be perpetrated. What's your feeling about that? Yeah, I'd absolutely agree with that sentiment. You know, sexual violence in war is sadly as old as the hills. You know, it seems to be the sort of natural, it's a horrible word to use, natural corollary of warfare is that, you know, the civilian populations, particularly women, will be brutalized in the process. It's

It's horrible, but there it is. It is what it is. I came across a lot of this when I did my Berlin book, as I mentioned earlier on. And where you're sort of interviewing what were then 80, 85-year-old women about their experiences of the war, whether it's sort of bombing or rationing, whatever. And then they sort of go very quiet and you can see them obviously making a decision to share something with you. And then they tell you in very matter-of-fact terms how they were raped by the Red Army at the end of the war. That's a sort of

for me as a historian, is one of the most searing experiences of my life, I have to say. So I've sort of felt that, to some extent, admittedly at one remove, and I've felt the horror of it and the shame of it as well, the shame they felt. Utterly unjustifiable, but so it was. And as you say, to look at the modern parallel, I was just reading this morning how the Americans have now pulled out of this War Crimes Investigation Commission program

So it looks like the Russian soldiers now are going to get a free pass for everything they've done in the last three years, which I agree with you is absolutely shameful. It's sort of staggering, honestly, the way things are going the last few weeks with the Trump administration in Ukraine. I'm sort of struggling to find words to sort of rationalize it to myself.

Never mind to make sensible comment here. But yeah, on this aspect, absolutely thoroughly depressing and shameful chapter.

Okay, we're going to wrap it up there. Before we go, just want to refer to a couple of other questions we haven't had time or comments we haven't had time to deal with. Norma writes about the Canadians at Operation Varsity. If you'd like a little bit more detail, then listen to an episode she did. She recently appeared on a podcast. She's very knowledgeable, Norma, about all aspects to do with the Canadians.

fighting in the Second World War. And this is a podcast called Ham and Jam, and you can listen to it on Podbean or Spotify. So if anyone wants to take that further, then do have a look at that. We've got a couple of questions relating to Burma. People very much enjoyed my chat with Rob Lyman on the Burma episode and mentioning various things. One person, David Wrightson, and says, for goodness sake, tell Rob to be careful because the civil war is ongoing at the moment. But generally speaking, best of luck and keep up the great work.

So we'll finish there. Do join us on Friday when Roger will again be standing in for Patrick and we'll be giving you the latest from Ukraine. I can't imagine that's going to be a particularly happy podcast to discuss, but you never know, Roger. And also, of course, next Wednesday when we'll have another episode of Battleground 45. Goodbye.