Hello and welcome to a new episode of the World War 2 podcast, I'm Angus Wallace.

In episode 144, I chatted to Andrew Sankster about Alan Brook.

Earlier this year, I noticed Andrew had a new book, Flood Commanders and Strategy in the

Battle for Italy, 1943-45. With his co-author Pierre Paolo Bazzelli, the book looks at Montgomery,

Mark Clarke, Patton, Harold Alexander, Albert Kesselring and the Fighting in Sicily and Italy.

There is too much to cover in a single episode of the podcast, but I've asked Andrew back to discuss the fighting in the Mediterranean from the perspective of Albert Kesselring.

Andrew, welcome back, so let's start with Kesselring. Who was he? At the start of World War 2, he was a Luftwaffe officer, but presumably he didn't start in the Luftwaffe.

But his background, presumably, he saw action in the first World War.

His background was very simple. He came from a middle-class family, went into what they call a younger officer training, but only just.

He was trained into the artillery. He had quite an experience in the first World War and he actually was quite keen on what they call balloon observatory,

watching where the enemy is from the balloons. Then he noticed the aircraft made that too much with a dangerous enterprise.

So he went through the 1920s, very much under one sect, looking and rebuilding up in the clandestine vanish fashion, the military buildup of Germany.

And then transferred to Luftwaffe, one of several German army officers who made the transfer as the Luftwaffe started to take shape.

And at the beginning of the Second World War, he was what they call an air fleet commander.

It was, I believe, what air fleet commander of one, but then there was a bit of a problem over the mentally and incident, and he was transferred to...

I think it was air fleet too. I don't have my notes in front of me. Luftwaffe 2, you know, it was.

And he organized the campaign, not only in Warsaw, he authorized a bombing of Warsaw, as matter of interest.

In his notes said it was justified because they were resisting. And then he was the one basically who spotted that the Russians had lined up all their aircraft on their fuels in neat rows, like a turkey shoot.

So he took out, get ready for this, somewhere in excess, a 3000 Soviet aircraft before they ever took off, which made the whole of Barbarossa.

Although it's very rarely noticed by anyone, that much easier because they weren't under aerial attack.

And it was only later on during the Russian campaign that he was transferred as commander in south to the Mediterranean area.

So why did he join in the 30s? Why did he choose to leave the army and join the Luftwaffe? Was he an Air Force Evangelist? How many was he a keen pilot?

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