World War II Podcast

Following the beginning of the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Anglo-American armies fighting the Germans on the Western Front had the difficult task of breaking through the dug-in defenders unwilling to give up without a difficult fight. Especially at Caen, the British suffered massively against determined Germans intent on doing everything possible to stop the Allies in whatever places they could. The Americans had to do most of the heavy lifting in their attacks through Brittany and into open French territory in the interior. Once the Americans were finally able to break through and begin the massive movement towards Paris, the Germans fled the region for new defensive positions in Eastern France, barely escaping after an effort to close them off was unsuccessful. The Anglo-American force, combined with the troops from Italy invading southern France on the Mediterranean coast, was stopped cold on the Maginot Line, denying these forces the honors of quickly moving through Germany to stop the Soviets from getting all of the glory. Even the daring Operation Market Garden failed in its objectives to push the Germans back into their home country. The Germans, per Hitler's desperation and intent of destruction, initiated an attack on the unprepared and overextended Anglo-American force in the Battle of the Bulge, initially creating some panic and discord. However, the main goal of dividing the Anglo-American alliance failed and the defenders recovered to finally breakthrough. Only the Rhine was there to stop the attackers, and that was jumped over relatively quickly, leaving the rest of Western Germany open to conquest. In Italy, the slow slogging up the peninsula continued, breaking through the relatively staggered German defenders. In Eastern Europe, the Soviets used their massive armies and plentiful resources to occupy the entirety of the region without breaking a sweat, launching 3 million troops and thousands of tanks and aircraft against overextended German defenders. As a result, the Soviets were able to reach Berlin and have the honors of occupying the German capital rather than the hesitant Americans and British who didn't want to lose hundreds of thousands. The Soviets were in the power position to dictate the affairs of Eastern Europe after the war, and they took brutal advantage of these opportunities. In the Pacific, the Americans progressively pushed the Japanese back further in more island-hopping campaigns, taking control of the Philippines most notably. The Battle of Leyte Gulf also saw the Japanese fleet finally get eliminated once and for all,  opening up the Home Islands to constant sea and air attacks. In the Battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the determination of the Japanese to defend to the bitter end showed, scaring the American public and the military leaders forced to send their men to die. The kamikaze suicide attacks threatened the stability and power of American naval forces charged with protecting the invasion troops, showing the resourcefulness of the Japanese in their defense of home territory. It took two atomic detonations to force the Japanese surrender, finally ending World War II.

Following the German defeat at Moscow and Stalingrad, Hitler temporarily went on the defensive on the Eastern Front so that his forces could recover and launch counterattacks in the summer of 1943. At Kursk, Hitler finally launched his planned attack, but the Soviets were able to see the preparations happening. Matching up the Germans with some of their best troops and weaponry stationed in the western Soviet Union, Stalin and his military leaders were able to use their massive forces to finally stop the Germans once and for all and begin the attack west into Eastern Europe. Germany never had a chance to turn the tide of the war on the Eastern Front again. In the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, the Allies desperately brought in supplies to support the recurring Italian invasion and the planned invasion of Western Europe and France. The German U-boats were initially extremely successful, hampering Britain's ability to receive natural resources and weaponry needed to defend the Home Islands from both the United States and Britain's colonies throughout the world. However, the tide turned when the newest and greatest technology helped the convoys avoid and destroy massive numbers of U-boats stationed throughout the region, ending any threats to the supplying for the attack on Western Europe. In the air, the Allied air forces from both Italy and Britain had to eliminate the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe so that there aren't any massive threats to the planned invasion. The introduction of the P-51 Mustang fighter gave the Allies the advantage they needed to finally defeat the Luftwaffe once and for all and start the invasion. In the Pacific, the Americans progressively pushed the Japanese back towards their home islands through a series of island-hopping campaigns. The most important invasion of all was the attack on the Marianas and the corresponding Battle of the Philippine Sea, dealing a huge blow to the Japanese defense of the rest of the western Pacific. Their navy severely weakened and the home islands finally being in the range of the fabled B-29 Superfortresses, the Japanese were in no position to get the result they would want in the war. As a result, the Americans were that much closer to finally defeating the stubborn Japanese and end the war in the Pacific once and for all.

Following the initial growth and success of the Germans, Italians, and Japanese in Europe and Asia during the initial phase of the war, the tide of the war will turn into the favor of the Allies. There were two major mistakes by the Axis powers in 1941 that changed the way the war would turn out; the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June and the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December. Bringing in two of the most powerful nations on Earth in the Soviet Union and the United States to help the struggling Britain recover and bring the war to the Axis powers, these attacks really sealed the fate of the aggressors. In Europe, most of the major action occurred on the Eastern Front within the western Soviet Union, pitting millions of German and Soviet troops in a fight for complete supremacy and domination. However, there was some back-and-forth fighting within North Africa that temporarily threatened the Middle East and German domination of most of the world's oil. The British defense of Egypt in the Battle of el-Alemain sealed the Axis fate in North Africa, and along with Anglo-American landings in Western North Africa trapped and subdued over 240,000 defenders. The next phase of the European war will take place in the Mediterranean on the Italian peninsula, visualizing the easy access to German territory from the south. In the Pacific, the Japanese initially ran rampant across the western reaches, conquering various resource-rich nations in Southeast Asia and colonial possessions sprinkled throughout the region. The Japanese, in their fit for complete utter aggression and occupation throughout the Pacific, overexpanded themselves, finally being defeated in the vital Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. Without these American victories, the conflict in the Pacific could have gotten out of hand to the point where the Allies could have been defeated in the region.

At the start of World War II, there is a lot of craziness occurring throughout Europe and the Pacific. Aggressively planning and coordinating massive invasions of Poland, Scandinavia, and Western Europe, the Nazi regime caught the Allied powers of Britain and France completely off guard. The Nazis moved throughout the European continent at will, utterly destroying any nation that decided to stand up to their attacks. However, the first major defeat for Germany happened after Britain lost its ally in France in the Battle of Britain, losing enough aircraft to stand down on their invasion threats for the time being. Even though Germany was stopped from occupying the entirety of Western Europe, Hitler was still willing to lead his forces to the Soviet Union in the next episode of the series, a terrible mistake that would eventually cost them the war. Meanwhile, the Japanese were doing some lightning attacks of their own throughout Southeast Asia and China. After easily marching into Manchuria in 1931, the Japanese decided to invade China in 1937, initially being extremely successful in pushing the weak defenders back into their major cities. However, since there was such an immense area that the Japanese needed to occupy, the war in China dragged on for the entire war in the Pacific after the United States and Britain declared war. Although not as successful as they hoped for in China, the Japanese still decided to attack French Indochina in September 1941, receiving the first response from the US. President FDR decided to place an embargo on Japan in response, fueling the Admiralty's desire to attack American and British possessions throughout the Western Pacific on December 7/8, 1941.