History Happy Hour

This week on History Happy Hour:  Forty years after the publication of Eugene Sledge’s memoir With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, his son Henry has written The Old Breed: The Complete Story Revealed. We’ll talk with Henry Sledge about his conversations with his father that form the basis of this book, as well as his reflections on his father’s war.     Henry Sledge is the son of renowned author Eugene Sledge, who wrote With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa and China Marine. While growing up, he witnessed his father’s memoir take form and come to life.   Henry has worked as a consultant for Valor Studios and has been published in Valor and Naval History Magazine. His most recent article was the cover story for the Autumn 2022 issue of World War II magazine. He has co-hosted numerous WWII podcasts and has appeared as a guest on numerous other talk shows and documentaries. He holds a BA from Auburn University and has over twenty years of experience in the heavy equipment industry.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Thomas Paine was a man whose words helped launch a revolution. In January 1776 he wrote Common Sense, which helped inspire the Continental Congress to declare Independence. In late November that same year, while serving in George Washington’s army during the Colonies’ most desperate hour, he picked up his pen again. “These are the times that try men’s souls” he began, and his words lit a fire in the men who would soon win a critical victory at the Battle of Trenton.To dive into the story of this resourceful writer who played such a critical role in the American Revolution, Chris and Rick talk to HHH alum Jack Kelly, author of Thomas Paine’s War: The Words That Rallied a Nation and the Founder for Our Time. Jack Kelly is an award-winning historian and author. He has been on History Happy Hour twice, to talk about his books Valcour: The 1776 Campaign that Saved the Cause of Liberty and God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America's Most Hated Man. He is also the author of Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence, which received the DAR History Medal. He has appeared on NPR, PBS, and the History Channel, and has written for national publications including the Wall Street Journal. He lives and works in Hudson Valley, New York.

This Week on History Happy Hour: In his new book The Greatest Force, author Marcus Gibson argues that RAF Bomber Command was the No.1 factor in Germany’s defeat. Rather than being too costly in terms of crew lives and civilian casualties, he argues that the impact of bombing fully justified the effort put into it.   Chris and Rick explore this challenging topic with him. Sunday at 4PM ET on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap. Marcus Gibson has written for The Financial Times, The European and Daily Telegraph newspapers as well as BBC R4 News. In 1984 he contributed to the Dictionary of the British Heritage published by Cambridge University Press. He is also the author Bootstrapping Your Business, published in 2016.  He lives in London

This Week on History Happy Hour: In March, HHH audience member Doug McCord visited a local museum in Nelson, New Zealand, where he was deeply moved by an art installation. Created by local artist Sue Heydon, it explored her father’s journey as a WWII prisoner of war. Captured during the 1941 Greek campaign, George Heydon spent more than four years in POW camps. We will talk to Sue about her exhibition, which honors the human spirit and a daughter’s mission to bring her father’s painful history to light.   Sue Heydon has always been an artist. She says getting an arts degree in 2015 changed her art practice. “I became fascinated by the researching aspect required for conceptual art. I started to write research documentation to support the work and add another element. The book supporting George’s War at 622 pages war is the biggest so far.” The work is her attempt to find her father, a remote figure who died when she was 10 because of his experiences as a WWII POW.  She lives in New Zealand.

This Week on History Happy Hour: She led a gang of horse thieves. She participated in stickups and robberies across Texas and Oklahoma. She was romantically involved with two of the west’s most feared outlaws. Many considered this extraordinary woman the most dangerous female in the west. In this encore episode, Chris and Rick will explore her fascinating story with Dane Hucklebridge, author of a new bio on Belle Starr, Queen of All Mayhem: The Blood-Soaked Life and Mysterious Death of Belle Starr, the Most Dangerous Woman in the West. Dane Huckelbridge was born in the Midwest and went to Princeton. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The New Republic and elsewhere. His debut novel Castle of Water was published in 2017, and his book No Beast so Fierce was published by HarperCollins in 2019. He currently lives in Paris, France, although he goes back to New York whenever he can.

This Week on History Happy Hour: One of America’s most critical needs in WWII was to build a merchant fleet that could carry soldiers and supplies to theaters around the globe. To build enough ships fast enough that U-Boats couldn’t sink them all. To lead its effort, the US turned to a man who had never built a ship – but he nevertheless created a network of shipyards that built thousands. Chris and Rick will talk about this epic effort with Doug Most, author of Launching Liberty. Doug Most is a veteran journalist in Massachusetts, the author of three books, and an Executive Editor and Assistant Vice President at Boston University. He spent 15 years as the magazine and features editor at The Boston Globe. His previous books include The Race Underground about the construction of the Boston and New York Subways, and the true crime story Always in Our Hearts.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Along with Guadalcanal in the Pacific, and Stalingrad in Russia, the Allies’ victory in North Africa was one of three Axis defeats that changed the course of the war in early 1943. The Africa campaign has sometimes been branded a side show, but it destroyed 40% of the Luftwaffe’s planes, ended Axis sea power in the Mediterranean and led to the surrender of 250 thousand Axis troops.  Chris and Rick dig into it with HHH Alum Saul David, author of Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa. Saul David is a professor of military history at the University of Buckingham and the author of numerous history books. He was on History Happy Hour in 2020 to talk about his Okinawa book, Crucible of Hell, and came on again in 2022 to talk about Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War. Other non-fiction titles include The Indian Mutiny, 1857, Operation Thunderbolt, and The Force: The Legendary Special Ops Unit and WWII’’s Mission Impossible. He has also written three bestselling historical novels, Zulu Hart, Hart of Empire and, The Prince and the Whitechapel Murders. He has appeared in numerous documentaries in the UK.

This Week on History Happy Hour:  World War II was unprecedented in its scope and ferocity. The heroism of the men and women who won the war may be well documented, but we know too little about the pain and hardships the veterans endured upon their return home.   We’ll discuss this with David Nasaw, author of the new book The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II.   David Nasaw is a professor of history at the City University of New York City.  He has written ten books, two of which, Andrew Carnegie and The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Time of Joseph P Kennedy, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.  He has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal among others.

This Week on History Happy Hour: It wasn’t just the Marines that fought in the Pacific – the Army actually did most of the fighting and dying in the war against Japan.   Historian John McManus returns to History Happy Hour to discuss volume two of his WWII Pacific War trilogy. In Island Infernos, he explores the U.S. Army’s dogged pursuit of Japanese forces, island by island, throughout 1944, a year that would bring America ever closer to victory or defeat. John McManus is Curators’ Distinguished Professor of U.S. military history at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. As one of the nation’s leading military historians, and the author of fifteen well received books on the topic, he is in frequent demand as a speaker and expert commentator. In addition to dozens of local and national radio programs, he has appeared on CNN.com, Fox News, C-Span, the Military Channel, the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, Netflix, the Smithsonian Network, the History Channel and PBS, among others.

This Week on History Happy Hour: In September 1943, the people of Denmark banded together to rescue nearly all of their Jewish citizens from a NAZI roundup by ferrying them to sanctuary in Sweden. Why were the Danes able to do what no other country could?   Rick and Chris discuss this little-known, true story with guest Tim Brady, author of A Light in the Northern Sea: Denmark’s Incredible Rescue of Their Jewish Citizens During WWII.  The riveting accounts of ordinary Danes, who used their modest resources, wiles, remarkable courage, and camaraderie to quietly orchestrate their escape. Tim Brady is an award-winning author. His previous books, Three Ordinary Girls, His Father's Son, Twelve Desperate Miles and A Death in San Pietro, have received wide critical acclaim. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he frequently writes for the History Channel Magazine. He has also written a number of PBS documentaries, and helped develop the series Liberty! The American Revolution, winner of the Peabody Award. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

This Week on History Happy Hour: In 1940, French painter Henri Matisse was ill, recently divorced, and full of doubt about his own career. But when the Germans invaded, he and his family defiantly refused to evacuate Nazi-occupied France. Chris and Rick discuss what happened next with HHH alum Christopher Gorham, author of Matisse at War: Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France. Christopher C. Gorham is a lawyer and teacher of modern American history at Westford Academy, outside Boston. He appeared on HHH in October 2023 to talk about his book The Confidante. He has degrees in history from Tufts University and the University of Michigan, and a law degree from Syracuse University. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post and in online journals. He and his wife Elizabeth live in Massachusetts.

This Week on History Happy Hour: The Hispanos of frontier New Mexico spent decades engaging in various forms of resistance against the corruption, exploitation, and violent oppression that frequently plagued their homeland following the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Chris and Rick welcome James Mills, author of In the Days of Billy the Kid. Mills dives into the lives of four men little known to history, who played a big part in the events of those days. JAMES B. MILLS is an HHH alum, having appeared in 2023 to discuss his first book, Billy the Kid. He has studied the American frontier and numerous other areas of history since childhood. He has published numerous articles for True West and Wild West magazines. He enjoys living a quiet life with his cat Bernard and dog Dennis.

This Week on History Happy Hour: In 1915 Winston Churchill resigned as Lord of the Admiralty in the wake of the Dardanelles disaster. Struggling to deal with the fallout, he accepted a commission and headed for the front lines – where he began the most extraordinary comeback in political history.In this encore episode, Chris and Rick discuss this pivotal year in Churchill’s life with J. Furman Daniel, author of Blood, Mud, and Oil Paint: The Remarkable Year that Made Winston Churchill. Dr. John Furman Daniel III is an associate professor of political science at Concordia University in Chicago. He is the author of 21st Century Patton: Strategic Insights for the Modern Era, The First Space War: How Patterns of History and Principles of STEM Will Shape Its Form, and Patton: Battling with History.

This Week on History Happy Hour: What drove the thinking of Hitler and his followers? How did ordinary Germans come to embrace an ideology of hate and destruction? Chris and Rick welcome Laurence Rees, award-winning historian and author of the new book The Nazi Mind: Twelve Warnings from History. Drawing on decades of research and previously unpublished interviews, Rees examines the twisted ideas at the heart of the Third Reich and what they reveal about human behavior.   Laurence Rees is an acclaimed historian, documentary filmmaker, and bestselling author specializing in Nazi Germany and World War II. Former head of BBC TV History, he has written and produced award-winning series such as Auschwitz: The Nazis and the “Final Solution” and The Nazis: A Warning from History. His books, translated worldwide, include Hitler and Stalin: The Tyrants and the Second World War and The Holocaust: A New History. His latest work, The Nazi Mind, explores the beliefs that drove the Third Reich.

This Week on History Happy Hour: In January 1945, as the Battle of the Bulge was coming to an end, the 29th Division readied itself to be at the point of the fourth Allied offensive in eight months.  There, along the banks of the Roer River, is where volume five of Joe Balkoski’s epic series on the 29th gets under way.In this encore episode, Joe joins us for his sixth History Happy Hour to talk about that book, The Last Roll Call: The 29th Intantry Division Victorious, 1945, and the many decades he has spent telling the story of the 29th. Joe Balkoski is a renowned American military historian who has authored eight books on American involvement in the ETO during World War II. This includes a five-volume series on the history of the 29th Infantry Division in World War II and a two-volume set on American participation in the D-Day invasion. He has appeared as a D-Day expert on MSNBC, and his work has been praised by Joe Scarborough, the New York Post, World War II Magazine, and others.

This Week on History Happy Hour: We’ll explore the history of the British and German war dead buried on enemy soil in the two world wars. How did Germany and Britain remember, commemorate, and reconcile the legacy of their fallen soldiers? Chris and Rick will speak with our guest, Tim Brady, author of Burying the Dead: Those who Cared for the Dead in Two World Wars. Sunday at 4PM ET, on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap. Tim Grady is professor of modern history at the University of Chester.  Much of his research has explored the human experience of the world wars and the contested legacies of conflict.  He is the author of A Deadly Legacy, and The German-Jewish Soldiers of the First World War in History and Memory.

This Week on History Happy Hour: We travel back to the six critical months before Adolf Hitler seized power, when the Nazi leader teetered between triumph and ruin.  As financial backers withdrew, the Nazi Party threatened to fracture. Hitler talked of suicide. The New York Times declared he was finished. Yet somehow, in a few brief weeks, he was chancellor of Germany.   Our guest is Timothy Ryback, author of Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power, a story of backroom deals, unlikely alliances, stunning betrayals, an ill-timed tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever.   Timothy Ryback has written on history and politics for more than three decades. He is the author of Hitler’s Private Library, a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and The Last Survivor, a New York Times Notable Book. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and the Financial Times. He is cofounder and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Eighty years ago, Japan surrendered to the Allies after three of the most devastating bombing attacks of the war – two nuclear weapons and the fire-bombing of Tokyo. What was the decision-making process in this endgame of World War II? Was it just the atomic bomb that brought about Japan’s surrender? This week, Chris and Rick will chat with HHH Alum, Richard Overy, author of Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan. Richard Overy is Professor of History at the University of Exeter, one of Britain's most distinguished historians and an internationally renowned scholar of World War II. (He’s also a History Happy Hour Alum!) He is the recipient of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize, the Wolfson History Prize, the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize and is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. His many works include The Bombing War, Dictators and The Morbid Age.

This Week on History Happy Hour: A trip back to the last 12 months of the Civil War, going behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents. Our tour guide is Scott Ellsworth, author of Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America by Scott Ellsworth. Scott Ellsworth is the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Game, winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. He has written about American history for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Formerly a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, he is also the author of The World Beneath Their Feet and Death in a Promised Land, his groundbreaking account of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, where he teaches at the University of Michigan.

This Week on History Happy Hour: Our guest had technical problems, so Chris and Rick engaged in an hour of History happy Talk, answering questions, chatting about tours, aqueezing in the Ghost Army wherever possible!  We will be rescheduling our guest, Tim Brady, author of "A Light in the Northern Sky" for some day in the future! Sunday at 4PM ET, on History Happy Hour, where history is always on tap.