Greetings all, and thank you for listening to the saga of World War II, a Cassus Belly project.

In this installment, we will cover the Winter War, the occupation of Norway and Denmark, and the early naval engagements of the war.

As always, this episode and all episodes are available on iTunes and SoundCloud.

You can also find the podcast blog at cassisbellypodcast.com

slash World War II.

That's World War with the number two.

I'd also just like to let everyone know ahead of time that I will be traveling here

shortly, so there might be a little bit of a gap in production.

I'm going to try and get one more episode in before I leave,

but I can't make any promises. I'll try to get some writing done while I'm away, though,

so that there will be fresh episodes as soon as I get back. Okay, that's enough housekeeping.

Let's begin, episode four, a phony war and a Winter War.

Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead. Danger against which we must prepare. We shall defend our island, whatever the cross may be. We shall fight on the beaches,

we'll 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.

In the fall of 1939, Hitler was at his peak mentally, emotionally, and politically.

The world was his, and he had seen only success for a decade.

The one setback was the English.

He was shocked and disgusted that his Anglo-Saxon cousins would make common cause with the reviled Franks.

Otherwise, he was at the top of his game.

Physically, he was in excellent shape for a 50-year-old man. His hair remained jet black, and he could

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