Welcome to this extra episode of the podcast. In fact, we're going to have to

call it, we have more ways of making your talk. Last week, James and I were at the

Chalk Valley History Festival. As well as doing our show, oh yeah, it's a show

in front of a live audience. We got to meet some fascinating people. James

chatted with Professor Peter Caddick Adams. Some of the things he discovered

about D-Day will amaze you and Peter's book is excellent.

Well, I'm here at the Chalk Valley History Festival with my great-mate

Professor Peter Caddick Adams and Peter, you and I, gosh, we've been talking about

Normandy and chewing the card on all things World War II for many, many, many years.

And I was lucky enough to read your magnum opus on D-Day in chunks as it was

being written, hot off the press. And it's finally out. And I think we've got to

be up front about this. This originally was going to be a book on the entire

liberation of France, including Operation Tigroulin, August 1944, the invasion

of southern France. And you've got so much material that you never got beyond

day one. I wrote a million words last year in 2018 about Normandy and D-Day.

And the book was originally, as you say, going to be from the sixth of June, right

up until the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge, which was what my last book

was all about. And I just unearthed so much that was new to me. I thought I knew D-Day

and I had to start from scratch all over again. And I never got beyond the first

24 hours. But knowing you as I do, I can completely understand why. And I think

one of the interesting things is that you first went to Normandy as a teenager.

You've met Hans von Luck, you've met John Howard, you've met some of the

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