WW2 Battles and Military History

In occupied France, a captured agent faces an impossible choice: betray his country to save himself, or remain silent and face death. The hacksaw blade that offered escape, and death This episode recounts the extraordinary life of Frank Pickersgill, a scholar turned secret agent, and the harrowing decisions he faced during World War II. It explores the profound question of what it means to hold silent when your life, and the lives of thousands, hang in the balance. Person: Frank Pickersgill Date: August 8, 1944 Location: Paris, France Event: Prisoner transport - Frank Pickersgill, a Canadian graduate student fluent in multiple languages, was captured by Germans after parachuting into occupied France. - While interned at Stalag 220, Pickersgill used a hacksaw blade, smuggled in a loaf of bread, to escape through a window. - After his escape, he traveled through Lyon, Lisbon, and London, where he turned down a desk job to join the Special Operations Executive. - Pickersgill was assigned the code name Bertrand and parachuted back into France with fellow agent Ken Macalister and two SOE contacts. - Their mission was compromised when their car was stopped at a German checkpoint, leading to their capture and imprisonment.

A man who survived a world war and British prison chooses a glass phial of prussic acid over returning home to Germany. What would you do? A man crushed poison glass with his teeth rather than return to Germany This episode explores the life of Hermann Görtz, a decorated soldier and doctor of international law, who made a desperate choice rather than face repatriation. It delves into the events that led him to this moment, and the complex motivations behind his final act. Person: Hermann Görtz Date: May 23, 1947 Location: Dublin Castle, Ireland Age: 56 Means: Prussic acid - Hermann Görtz was born in Lübeck in 1890 and served on the Eastern Front in Class War I, earning the Iron Cross First Class. - After the war, he joined the Freikorps before earning a doctorate in international law and visiting Ireland in 1927. - In 1935, while working for German intelligence in Britain, he was arrested for espionage after a landlady's misunderstanding about a motorbike led police to discover secret documents. - He served four years in Maidstone Prison, was released in 1939, and then parachuted into Ballivor, County Meath, Ireland, in 1940 with £20,000 in cash for a mission. - Görtz spent nineteen months as a fugitive in Ireland, moving between at least twelve verified addresses, relying on the trust of those who harbored him.

A music rector builds a forced labor camp theater, but the state erases him in a single afternoon. His Beethoven manuscript vanishes. The Rector, The Gulag, and The Missing Beethoven This episode explores the life of Bolesław Przybyszewski, a man whose identity was interpreted in vastly different ways by those who knew him, and how the state's machinery ultimately defined his fate. What does it mean when your life's work is erased, not for what you did, but for who you were? Person: Bolesław Przybyszewski Date: August 21, 1937 Location: USSR Status: Sentenced to death and executed Event: State execution during the Great Purge - Bolesław Przybyszewski was sentenced to death and executed on the same day by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. - Before his execution, he spent years building a high-standard theater inside a forced labor camp. - He previously directed the Moscow Conservatory and was writing a manuscript about Beethoven that was never found. - Born in Berlin, he was the illegitimate son of Polish writer Stanisław Przybyszewski and was raised by his paternal grandparents after his mother's suicide. - As rector of the Moscow Conservatory, he implemented "proletarization," prioritizing class background over musical ability and integrating Marxist theory into the curriculum.

A Spitfire pilot in Kent watches an unarmed cook reach a downed Bf 109 - what would you have done? He Shot Down the Only POW Who Escaped Back to Germany In this episode, we follow Basil Gerald "Stapme" Stapleton from his signing with the Royal Air Force at eighteen through the violent months of summer 1940, and the day he forced a Bf 109 into a Kent field. The narrative traces the immediate combat, the field rescue, and the long delay before Stapme learns the downed pilot's identity - raising the moral and practical questions of aerial warfare. Person: Basil Gerald Stapleton (Stapme) Date: 5 September 1940 Location: Kent field; RAF Hornchurch; RAF Montrose Event: Bf 109 forced to land after low-level Spitfire attack Person: Franz von Werra (downed pilot; later escaped POW) - Stapme joined the RAF in January 1939 at age eighteen and was posted to No. 600 and No. 603 Squadrons at RAF Montrose by October. - By 27-31 August 1940 the squadron moved to RAF Hornchurch and suffered multiple pilot losses during intense Battle of Britain operations. - On 5 September 1940 Stapme engaged a Bf 109, kept bursts tight at low level, and forced it to a force-landing in a Kent field without destroying the airframe. - The first person to reach the downed German was an unarmed cook from a nearby searchlight battery who ran across the field to the aircraft. - The captured pilot was Franz von Werra, who would later become the only German POW to escape Allied captivity and return to Germany.

A pilot bails out of a burning bomber over occupied France, but his parachute harness is loose. He has four seconds to decide if he will jump. The loose buckle that asked if you would jump This episode recounts the story of Wally Kinnan, a B-17 pilot who faced an impossible choice during a bombing mission. It explores the profound question of what it costs to hold on for others when time is running out for yourself. Person: Henry Wallace Kinnan (Wally) Date: August 17, 1943 Location: Eygalières, Vichy France Aircraft: B-17 Flying Fortress Squadron: 429th Bombardment Squadron, Second Bomb Group - Wally Kinnan, originally slated for fighter planes, was reassigned to bombers due to urgent pilot needs, placing him in a B-17 over southern France. - During a mission, his B-17 took hits over Eygalières, causing engine number four to catch fire and wounding the other pilot. - Kinnan remained at the controls of the burning aircraft, allowing his entire crew to escape before his own bail-out. - While crawling through the burning fuselage, his parachute snagged, forcing him to unbuckle it, and he never properly restrapped it before jumping. - After landing, injured and alone in occupied territory, Kinnan was captured by German soldiers who, by his own account, treated him with genuine care.

Three men on a roadside stop stumble upon a body, only to realize it's a fallen comrade. What do you do when the freedom you fought for is snatched away? If it were you on the roadside bench, would you walk past a dead comrade? This episode recounts the extraordinary journey of Nils Jørgen Fuglesang, a Norwegian pilot who endured years of combat and imprisonment, only to face a final, deliberate act of violence. It asks what one does when every price has been paid, but the promised outcome never arrives. Person: Nils Jørgen Fuglesang Date: March 29, 1944 Location: Field outside Kiel Event: Discovery of a body Age: 25 - Nils Jørgen Fuglesang was born in Rasvåg, Norway, and studied economics in France before Germany's invasion of Norway in 1940. - He escaped Norway in March 1941, sailing to Shetland, and then to Canada to train as a pilot at "Little Norway." - By late 1941, he earned his wings and was promoted, eventually flying Spitfires with No. 332 Squadron RAF over occupied Europe. - In January 1943, he was credited with a probable kill against a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and received the King Haakon the Seventh Freedom Medal. - On May 2, 1943, during a mission over southwest Holland, his Spitfire was hit by cannon fire not intended for him.

Two bound men jump into a black river in North Vietnam at night, choosing a blind escape - what would you do to get out? The 12-Hour Escape That Broke a Nation In this episode, we follow the night George Thomas Thomas and his pilot Jack Fellowes chose to leap into the unknown rather than remain prisoners. It traces Thomas’s life from Boy Scout and Naval Flight Officer through mission fifty-five, captivity routines like “the wall,” and the planning that led to a river escape; what would you have held onto when everything was stripped away? Person: George Thomas Thomas Person: John H. Fellowes (Jack) Event: Ejection from A-6 Intruder after surface-to-air missile, 27 August 1966 Location: North Vietnam (near Vinh, Nghệ An province) Period: 2,382 days in captivity (over six and a half years) - He was an Eagle Scout from Troop Thirty-Two and carried the Scout Oath as a sustaining promise during captivity. - Thomas served as a bombardier-navigator on the A-6 Intruder with Attack Squadron 65 aboard USS Constellation. - Mission 55: their A-6 lost its right wing to a missile; both men ejected and landed about a mile apart eighteen miles inland. - At the Zoo camp he endured “the wall,” standing with hands raised from 5:30 a.m, to 10 p.m. for two months while his injured knee became infected. - Two men removed cell hinges, crossed a roof at night, tied themselves with a rope and dropped into the Red River to attempt escape.

A Royal Air Force navigator is captured and sent to an escape-proof POW camp. His only way out is a gymnastics horse. The gymnastics horse that buried a man alive daily This episode explores the incredible story of Eric Williams, a prisoner of war who devised an ingenious escape plan from Stalag Luft III. It delves into the unique challenges of the camp's design and the audacious method used to overcome them. Person: Eric Williams Date: December 17, 1942 Location: Stalag Luft III, Sagan (now western Poland) Military Branch: Royal Air Force Rank: Flight Lieutenant - Eric Williams, a navigator for the RAF, was shot down over Germany and captured at 28 years old. - He was sent to Stalag Luft III, a POW camp specifically designed to prevent escapes, featuring sandy soil, raised barracks, and seismographs. - Williams conceived a plan to use a wooden gymnastics horse to mask the vibrations of digging a tunnel. - The horse was carried to the exact same spot in the yard daily, with prisoners vaulting over it to create rhythmic, repetitive noise. - Williams, Michael Codner, and Oliver Philpot were key figures in the plan, with Williams being the first to dig inside the horse.

A Czechoslovak pilot shot down over France must choose escape or capture as the war ends and his homeland becomes his captor - what would you do? The Pilot Who Escaped Six Times, Then Vanished In this episode, we follow Josef Bryks from rural Moravia to RAF combat missions and repeated escapes from captivity, tracing the choices that put him at odds with the country he once served. How did his skills, decisions and a single boot shape nine years of flight, survival and disappearance? Person: Josef Bryks Date of birth: 18 March 1916 Event: Shot down during Operation Circus Fourteen, 17 June 1941 Location: near Saint-Omer-en-Chaussée, northern France Status: died at 41 in a prison hospital; cremated and buried in secret - Born in Lašťany, Moravia, seventh of eight children from farming parents František and Anna. - Trained at the Military Academy in Hranice; received pilot wings on 30 September 1938 and posted to Forty 33 flying the Avia B-534. - After Czechoslovakia’s dissolution he escaped via Poland and France to Britain, joining No. 242 Forty with Canadian and British airmen. - On 17 June 1941 his Hurricane was hit above France; he bailed out, lost one boot, suffered burns and was captured by German forces. - He used the alias Joseph Ricks of Cirencester and a prepared cover story, while wearing a Mae West belonging to Flying Officer Henry Skalsky that complicated his identity.

A long-ruling president dies mid-flight. His son is president within hours - was the system built to outlast its architect? The plane crash that built a president's myth This episode explores the life of a man who ruled a country for 38 years, and how his death revealed a system built to ensure his legacy. It asks what it costs the people living inside such a system when the transfer of power becomes an automatic reflex. Person: Étienne Eyadéma Gnassingbé Country: Togo Period: 1935-2005 Event: 1974 Sarakawa plane crash - Étienne Eyadéma Gnassingbé was born in the village of Pya, in northern Togo, and enlisted in the French colonial army at 17 or 18 years old in 1953. - He served in Indochina and Algeria, two brutal post-war conflicts, before returning to an independent Togo in 1962. - In 1963, Eyadéma was among soldiers who stormed the presidential compound, leading to the death of President Sylvanus Olympio, a killing Eyadéma both claimed and denied. - Four years later, in 1967, Eyadéma declared himself president of Togo and Minister of Defense, having consolidated control of the army. - In 1974, a plane carrying Eyadéma crashed near Sarakawa, an event he used to create a myth of his sole survival, despite other passengers also surviving.