Hello and welcome to another episode of Battleground 45 with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

Well, 80 years ago, big events were happening at the Potsdam Conference,

Patrick, and they lead, as we will discover or we will discuss inexorably to the dropping of the

first atomic bomb at Hiroshima on the 6th of August, 1945, and of course, three days later, the second

bomb at Nagasaki. But let's start with Potsdam.

Shall we first, Patrick?

The conference, of course, the first post-war in Europe conference between Stalin,

the new US president, Truman and Churchill, of course, although Churchill's about to be replaced as Prime Minister of the UK, just complicating matters a little bit further.

And they, of course, have taken all their senior military advisors to the conference. as Prime Minister of the UK, just complicating matters a little bit further.

And they, of course, have taken all their senior military advisors to the conference.

And you've got an interesting anecdote, haven't you, about Peter Portal, who, of course,

was the UK's chief of Air Star. Well, Portal was, I suppose, more than anyone responsible for the RAS bombing of German cities. But even he was taken aback when

he saw with his own eyes the results of the actions of his squadrons. So he arrives in Berlin

on his way to Potsdam. Potsdam, of course, is sometimes described as a suburb of Berlin. It's about 20 miles to the

west of the German capital. And he wrote in his diary, Berlin is ghastly. I could never have

believed how complete the destruction is. We covered about five miles and saw less than a dozen

undamaged houses. And not one in ten was anything more than a burnt-out shell.

Then when he arrives in Potsdam, he says, you recorded, Bert Harris, removed the town of Potsdam in half an hour one night in April.

I have never seen anything so complete.

It even actually moved.

He was a pretty hard-nosed, morally, very rather lofty character, but certainly had a

kind of sliver of ice, I would say, in his heart.

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