Hello everyone, and thank you once again for listening to the saga of World War II,

the Cassusbelly Project.

As always, I encourage everyone to visit the website at casusbellypodcast.com

and to write the podcast on iTunes or like it on SoundCloud.

Those are the best ways to support and spread the show, aside from word of mouth, of course.

Again, if you would like to reach me, you can contact me at

Kassisbelly guy at gmail.com. So in this episode, we'll continue with the war on the Eastern Front,

then pivot to the Arctic convoys that supplied material to the Red Army, and finish up in

North Africa with Operation Crusader. So this episode ended up getting pretty long because it wasn't quite long enough without

Crusader, but Crusader isn't really enough material for a whole episode on its own.

But I don't want to have to make an awkward transition in the middle of an episode where America enters the war.

I want to go into the next episode basically opening a new chapter.

If the Second World War is a three-act drama, we're at the end of the first act and about to start the second with Pearl Harbor.

So to still yet another phrase from Winston Churchill, let's begin episode 14, the end of the beginning.

Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead.

Danger against which we must prepare. We shall fight on the beaches.

We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.

We shall fight in the hills.

We shall never surrender.

As discussed in the preceding episodes,

Hitler had changed his objectives midway through the invasion of Russia.

Rather than all three axes of advance being equal, Army Group South had become the main element.

...