I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. We have a pronunciation, right? I don't want to...

I don't want to... A staling grad. Oh, have we decided it's staling grad?

No, I'm still staling. Well, welcome everybody to... We have ways of making you talk.

The second World War Podcast. And the topic for the next two or three pods, three or four.

I mean, the thing is, is when we did Alamaine before Christmas or in the autumn rather.

The idea was to do a couple and we never even got the first one.

We got into that thing and the battle didn't start for three or four podcasts, because we were setting people down.

So we're here to talk about the battle of staling grad, which of course reaches its climax

on the 2nd of February 1943. 80 years ago. You know, 1943, I always think is kind of an...

Kind of gets... Apart from the battle of Kursk, maybe, it's sort of understated year.

But it's actually the year when the cookie crumbles for the Germans, really, doesn't it?

It's a massive year. It's a defeat to the wolf packs. It's down to the rate. It's the start of the all-out strategic air campaign.

It's Sicily, it's Kursk. It's Cittly, it's the Cursk. It's not in grade.

Yeah. Or the end of the end of staling grad. Now, or staling grad, you see, we've done it already in week.

Not already in week. Yeah. But just before we get going, I want to do like a very, very briefly.

If you go to Wikipedia, here are the bare bones of the thing before we get started.

23rd of August, 1942, to the 2nd of February 1943. Five months, one week, and three days.

Location, staling grad. Known as vulgar grad now, of course. Known as vulgar grad before it was staling grad.

But perhaps we're not for much longer. I mean, not for much longer, it seems.

Result, Soviet victory, destruction of the German Six Army, destruction of the Italian Eighth Army.

Yeah. Again, it's very important.

Territorial changes expulsion of the axis of the Caucasus reversing their gains of the 1942 summer campaign.

...