SAS Hijacked A Fascist Train To Liberate A Concentration Camp
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
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Summary
Today, we uncover a forgotten SAS mission straight out of a war thriller: an elite unit jumps the chain of command and hijacks a 'pirate train', turning it into a weapon against fascist Italy. Their goal? To launch a surprise attack deep behind enemy lines on an Italian concentration camp and free its prisoners.
Historian Damien Lewis joins us to reveal the breathtaking tale of WWII’s most cinematic untold raid. Damien is the author of 'SAS: The Great Train Raid' and 'SAS Great Escapes 5'.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have you been enjoying my podcast and now want even more history? |
| 0:03.0 | Sign up's history and watch the world's best history documentaries on subjects like How William Conquered England. |
| 0:09.0 | What it was like to live in the Georgian era. |
| 0:11.0 | And you can even hear the voice of Richard III. |
| 0:14.0 | We've got hundreds of hours of original documentaries, plus new releases every week, |
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| 0:21.2 | Sign up to join us in historic locations around the world and explore the past. |
| 0:26.2 | Just visit history.com slash subscribe. |
| 0:29.9 | One of the most elite fighting forces ever assembled, the special air service, the SAS. |
| 0:36.4 | These were not ordinary soldiers. Handpicked, highly trained, |
| 0:41.7 | mavericks. They were deployed where the risks were greatest and the margins for error were |
| 0:48.0 | razor thin. And the story at the heart of today's episode, it might be the most extraordinary mission of World War II. |
| 0:58.0 | We are joined by the best-selling historian author Damien Lewis to talk about his book, The Great Train Raid, |
| 1:04.4 | which uncovers a forgotten wartime mission. |
| 1:06.8 | The hijacking of a pirate train. |
| 1:10.5 | Yes, a pirate train, which the SAS would use to launch a surprise raid on Italian concentration cap. |
| 1:18.8 | Today we're going to get into exactly what happened that day and how only the SAS could have pulled it off. |
| 1:26.3 | Enjoy. |
| 1:32.5 | Thank you. Only the SAS could have pulled it off. Enjoy. Damien, great to have you back on the podcast. How you doing? |
| 1:34.8 | Brilliant, man. Brilliant. So good to be it again. |
| 1:37.4 | I mean, I don't know how you keep finding these stories. The SAS, in the wartime SES is the |
| 1:42.1 | gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? It's just extraordinary what this |
... |
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