50 - Operation Tonga
The WW2 Podcast
Angus Wallace
4.6 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2017
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode I'm looking at Operation Tonga, the British airborne element that led the way during the D-Day landings in 1944.
I'm joined by Stephen Wright.
Stephen is keenly interested in the operation, an operation his uncle was killed taking part in. For the last twenty years he's been researching the airborne, and particularly the use of Gliders during the closing years of the war.
His book, co-authored with Bill Shannon, Operation Tonga brings to the reader first hand accounts of that night. Stephen is also involved with a new feature film True Valour, you can follow its progress here on Facebook and for more information the website is truevalourmovie.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to another World War II podcast I'm Angus Wallace. |
| 0:05.0 | In this episode I'm looking at Operation Tonga, the British Airborne |
| 0:10.4 | element that led the way during the D-Day landings in 1944. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm joined by Stephen Wright. Stephen is keenly interested in the operation, |
| 0:19.0 | an operation his uncle was killed taking part in, |
| 0:22.0 | and for the last 20- plus years he's been researching |
| 0:25.6 | the airborne and particularly the use of gliders during the closing years of the war. |
| 0:30.6 | His book co-authored with Kevin Shannon, Operation Tonga brings a reader first-hand |
| 0:36.8 | accounts of that night. Stephen is also involved with a new feature film, but we'll |
| 0:42.4 | come to that later. |
| 0:44.0 | But just before we get started, I'd like to take a moment to thank all those people |
| 0:50.0 | who have taken the time to visit Patreon.com slash W.W2 podcast |
| 0:58.3 | and flicked a shilling into the virtual Brody helmet. The patronage of these loyal listeners helps me find the time to put the sure together and hopefully make it better for everyone. That philanthropy is greatly appreciated. |
| 1:17.0 | If you would like to become a patron of the World War II podcast, go to |
| 1:21.2 | Patreon.com slash W W2 podcast or visit W W2 |
| 1:29.8 | podcast dot com and click on donate. So Stephen let's get started. |
| 1:34.8 | We start by looking at the glider for... |
| 1:39.8 | glad... my spell check from my computer keeps wanting to change glider-born force into gline-born, which |
| 1:45.8 | keeps, which endlessly amused me. |
| 1:48.8 | It was adamant that it didn't like the word glider-born. |
| 1:51.7 | Shall we start by looking at the British glider force? |
| 1:55.0 | How big a force was it at this point to... |
... |
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