201: A Soft Underbelly: The Allied Invasion of Sicily & the Fall of Il Duce
History That Doesn't Suck
Prof. Greg Jackson
4.7 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"My dear Duce, it’s no longer any good… At this moment you are the most hated man in Italy.”
This is the story of Operations Underworld, Mincemeat, and Husky.
On the heels of the decisive Allied victory in Africa, leaders decide to take the fight north. But Hitler and Mussolini surely know they’ll be aiming for Sicily next, right? Actually, pre-Husky Allied intelligence victories have the Germans and Italians barking up the wrong tree (shoring up the wrong island defenses), all thanks to one Major William Martin.
Meanwhile, back in mainland Europe, Germany is wondering if Italy is still 100% committed to the Fascist alliance. After all, Mussolini’s popularity is tanking, and it looks like he might get the boot any day. Things are… uncertain, to say the least. How will the combined Allied forces fare in Sicily? Which army will win the race to catch the Axis retreaters at Messina? Will George Patton get promoted again, as he so desperately wants? And perhaps most importantly—where to next?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, we've got Simon on the line. Simon, young people, they're just all a bit, a bit lazy, aren't they? |
| 0:09.0 | What are you fucking lame? |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome to McDonald's. |
| 0:11.0 | Have you get the six minutes, please? |
| 0:12.0 | Some say young people are work shy, but at McDonald's, we hired 47,000 of them last year. |
| 0:19.0 | How's your night? |
| 0:20.0 | Like George here. |
| 0:23.1 | Who keeps things running during a Friday rush? |
| 0:25.7 | Resilience. |
| 0:28.2 | Making it happen at McDonald's. |
| 0:34.2 | What I've dedicated my life to is revenge. |
| 0:37.5 | A brand new drama based on the best-selling novel. |
| 0:38.5 | They think they're better than us. |
| 0:39.6 | Who do you think you are? |
| 0:41.5 | I'm going to prove to them that they're wrong. |
| 0:42.8 | She's punishing me. |
| 0:44.3 | You destroyed my family. |
| 0:47.0 | I will not rest until I've destroyed yours. |
| 0:50.0 | A woman of substance on Channel 4 starts tonight at 9. Thank you. It's about nine in the morning on an unspecified day, late April 1942. |
| 1:05.2 | We're in Midtown Manhattan, just south of Central Park on West 58th Street at a popular, |
| 1:10.6 | upscale New York City chain |
| 1:12.4 | called Longchamps, where two gentlemen are just walking in and making their way past |
... |
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