The Commando Raid that Changed the Course of WW2

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

In October 1942 the British launched a small raid on the Channel Island of Sark. A cast of characters who gave their colleague Ian Fleming ideas for a new secret agent character, James Bond, crept ashore and captured German prisoners. A scuffle broke out and two of them were killed. The commandos escaped with one prisoner and that might have been the end of it. When Hitler heard the news however he went ballistic and very shortly after issued his infamous Commando Order. Henceforth they were to be shot on sight. It was another ratcheting up of the ferocity, and criminality of the Nazi war effort. In this podcast Dan visits the Channel Islands. Meets a local expert and retraced the steps of the raid.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello History Hit listeners, as you are listening to this right now at this exact second I am
0:05.8	currently on an epic cross-country road trip of England. 600 miles and 1 million years of history
0:14.4	from the first humans through to Stonehenge, Dovercastle, Hastings up to Ironbridge in the
0:19.3	Black Country and to the northeast where I'm visiting a Cold War bunker in York.
0:25.0	I want to hear from you. I want to do more stops. Tell me when I should stop. Any local tips or
0:29.8	hints that you want to share or you want to see me report on on my social media channels and Twitter
0:34.1	and Instagram etc. just send me a message ds.hh at historyhit.com. That's delta Sierra.
0:41.4	. hotel hotel at historyhit.com or tweet me at the History Guy. You can keep up with the road trip
0:47.4	this week on Instagram and Twitter at the History Guy on both and then you can hear the whole thing as a
0:52.1	podcast series next week. Thanks and enjoy this episode.
1:02.3	Hi everyone, welcome to Downs and O's History Hit. I spent quite a time last year in the
1:05.4	Channel Islands. It's an archipelago of islands off the Normandy coast and where the rest of Normandy
1:11.0	reverted to French control after the Hundred Years War. Channel Islands remained subject to the
1:19.3	British crown. In particular, I was in the Islands of Gernsey, the Bayloric of Gernsey. These
1:24.6	islands of Gernsey are grouped around Gernsey itself and then the smaller islands like Aldony, Sark
1:31.9	and Herm. I was in the Islands of Gernsey because they'd got a fascinating wartime history.
1:37.0	Together with the rest of the Channel Islands, they've only British territory to be overrun by the
1:40.8	Germans during the Second World War. They endured not-socupation and we got another podcast coming soon
1:46.2	with some memories of people that were children under that Nazi occupation. It's a big year 2020
1:52.9	to go to the Islands of Gernsey. It's the 75th anniversary of their liberation from German occupation
1:58.2	during the Second World War. They were only the German forces on the islands only surrendered just
2:02.8	before the end of the war itself as the Allies mocked up Nazi resistance in Germany itself.
	...

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