This Week on History Happy Hour: Tank warfare on the battlefields of Europe. Chris and Rick welcome Peter Hart, author of the book Burning Steel. Peter’s book tells story of a single British tank regiment, the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, that saw action from Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge. Peter has done intensive oral histories with the soldiers. Their personal recollections, raw and visceral, tell the dramatic story of a tank regiment at war against the Nazis. Sir Max Hastings calls the book “A [...] more

This Week on History Happy Hour: Chris and Rick welcome back Joe Balkoski, one of the most respected WWII historians there is, and a personal favorite of ours. Joe literally wrote the book(s) on D-Day, as well as a highly -detailed five-volume-history of the storied 29th Division. This week we'll talk about his book From Brittany to the Reich, which chronicles the war weary division’s arrival on the German border as the northernmost division of the United States Army. We’ll also touch on the recent controversy regarding the 29th [...] more

This Week on History Happy Hour: We sometimes think of World War II as "the good war. " But there were some for whom no war was worth fighting. This Sunday we look at WWII through the eyes of 60,000 British conscientious objectors who refused to take up arms and whose stories have been almost entirely forgotten. This week Chris and Rick welcome Tobias Kelly, author of Battles of Conscience: British Pacifists and the Second World War . The Spectator calls it "a moving tribute to moral courage. ” [...] more

This Week on History Happy Hour: Officially, he was a lowly bureaucrat, a “passport control officer” at the British embassy in Vienna. But Thomas Kendrick was actually Britain’s most important spymaster. In the tumultuous years leading up to WWII, he ran spy networks across Europe and facilitated the escape of Austrian Jews. Later he set up the "M Room," a listening operation that elicited information every bit as important as what was coming out of Bletchley Park. In this encore episode, Chris and Rick welcome back History Happy Hour [...] more

This Week on History Happy Hour : The story of German tycoons who made billions off the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II – and were never brought to justice because of political expediency. Many of the dynasties they started continue to control swaths of the world economy today, owning iconic brands such as Porsche, Volkswagen, and BMW. Chris and Rick welcome Dutch journalist David De Jong, author of Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany’s Wealthiest Dynasties. A deep dive investigation into family fortunes made off of slave [...] more

Something different this week on HHH. Chris and Rick have spent the week traveling the D-Day beaches with fellow Stephen Ambrose Tour historians and a small group of guests. On several evenings there were extended conversations about D- Day issues and questions that arose from our travels. This week's show contains excerpts from those conversations. It's a deep dive into some esoteric D-Day questions from Bayeux, France, with observations from Chris and Rick as well as fellow historian/guides Hugh Buchanan and Matt Broggie. Sunday at 4 PM on History Happy Hour, where history is [...] more

This week on History Happy Hour: A tale of a high ranking Nazi, his family, mass murder, love, cold war espionage, a mysterious death in the Vatican - and "the Ratline" the Nazi escape route to Peron's Argentina. In this encore episode, Host Historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome Philippe Sands, author of: The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive . Sands digs into the life of Baron Otto von Wächter, a lawyer, husband, and father, who was also a senior SS officer and war criminal, indicted for the murder of [...] more

This week on History Happy Hour: After the outbreak of World War I, German sabotage agents set out to destroy neutral America’s war-making abilities by unleashing a campaign of terror and destruction. A network of saboteurs and spies, scientists and diplomats worked furiously to wage a secret war on the American homeland long before the United States ever entered the war. This campaign culminated in one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history: the Black Tom explosion in 1916 across the harbor from New York City, which destroyed a staggering half a billion dollars of [...] more

The ongoing war in Ukraine is the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II, and brings to mind many striking parallels with the events of 1939-1945: Germany’s invasion of Poland, the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland, the strategic importance of Ukraine itself and the desperate plight of refugees. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been compared to Stalin and Hitler, while Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky’s stirring words have brought comparisons to Winston Churchill. This week on History Happy Hour, Chris and Rick welcome three distinguished historians (and HHH Alums) to discuss what insights WWII can offer us [...] more

This week on History Happy Hour: It’s been called “London’s House of Spies,” and suffice it to say, that for much of the twentieth century, St. Ermin’s hotel was at the epicenter of British intelligence efforts through two world wars and the subsequent Cold War. Used by various intelligence agencies during World War II, the top floor became the home of the Secret Intelligence Service’s Section D, while one floor below, the Statistical Research Department-the precursor to the Special Operations Executive-got its start. Later, at the height of the Cold War, traitors from [...] more

From 1914-1918, soldiers from all over the world found themselves in this remote part of the Western Front, battling to control this forbidding piece of French woodland. French, Germans, Italians, Austrians and, eventually Americans all came to know the horrors of fighting in the Meuse Argonne. It was here, in 1918, that America launched its final offensive of the Great War. Battles that saw Charles Whittlesey and his 'Lost Battalion’ hold out against insurmountable odds and Sergeant Alvin York, the Tennessee backwoodsman and pacifist, writes himself into American military history. Join host-historians Chris Anderson and [...] more

Ubique (Everywhere), the motto of the Royal Artillery Regiment, is an apt description of the World War II service of the South Nottingham Hussars. A part-time cavalry unit before the war, upon mobilization in 1939 the “South Notts” traded their chargers for guns and served with distinction from Tobruk across North Africa to Sicily and then all the way across Europe and into Germany; in the process becoming what Major Gordon Corrigan called, “A British Band of Brothers. ” Join Rick and Chris this week as we discuss At Close Range: Life and Death in an [...] more

This week on History Happy Hour: General George S. Patton. The debate still rages: Was he a brilliant combat commander or the most over-rated general of the war? A legendary leader or a legend in his own mind? Whatever you think of Patton, there is no getting around the fact that he is one of most-chronicled figures of World War II. Historian Kevin Hymel is weighing in with a book that seeks to add a new dimension to Patton’s story by looking at the general through the eyes of the soldiers who fought with [...] more

The controversial appointment of Joseph P. Kennedy as US Ambassador to Great Britain on the eve of WWII. Author Susan Ronald argues within two years of his appointment, the legendary Boston tycoon had revealed himself to be a Fascist sympathizer and raging antisemite who misrepresented American foreign policy and disobeyed direct orders from FDR. Host historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome Susan Ronald , author of “The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James’s, 1938-1940. ” An unflattering appraisal of the legendary Kennedy patriarch's diplomatic star-turn at the start of [...] more

The remarkable patriotism of Japanese American soldiers during WWII. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans had to navigate the complexity of their country being attacked by their ancestral home, virulent racism, and the horror of internment. Despite unimaginable injustice, many young Japanese American men still volunteered to fight for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which became the most decorated unit (for its size and length of service)in US history. Host-historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome Daniel James Brown , author of “Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World [...] more

The true story of two British POWs in WWI who hatched an elaborate escape plot that hinged on a Ouija Board, a feigned suicide attempt, and remarkable perseverance. Host historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome Margalit Fox, author of “The Confidence Men: How Two Prisons of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History. ” Captured after a horrific siege near Baghdad, imprisoned by the Ottoman Empire, these two British soldiers pulled off a an ingenious escape fromtheir remote mountaintop prison in Turkey – with the unintentional help of their captors! Margalit Fox [...] more

A unique and fascinating glimpse into the experiences of Kamikaze pilots. Host-historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer welcome back author Dan King, a fluent Japanese speaker who has interviewed more than 100 Japanese WWII veterans to gain insight into the war from their point of view. He’ll talk about his new book, Blossoms From the Sky: Firsthand Accounts from Kamikaze Pilots Who Volunteered to Fly the Ohka Baka Bomb . Dan had the extraordinary opportunity to sit down with men who trained to fly rocket planes into the American fleet. Why were they ready to [...] more

After the successful D-Day landings, people looked forward to the rapid liberation of occupied Europe. General Dwight D. Eisenhower knew, however, that the liberation would never succeed without seizing a port that would accept the ships bringing the estimated 26,000 tons of supplies the allied armies consumed every day. One such port was Brest, defended by some 40,000 Germans soldiers determined to deny Eisenhower this vital prize. In August 1944, the war-weary GIs of the VIII Corps were given the task of prying the Germans out. Host Historians Chris Anderson and Rick Beyer discuss [...] more