Hello and welcome to World War 2 Stories. I'm your host, Steve Matthews. In our previous episodes, we've explored various battles, weapons, and units that shaped the outcome of history's deadliest conflict. Today, we turn our attention to a more difficult but essential question: Why did World War II happen in the first place?

To understand this global catastrophe that claimed over 70 million lives, we must examine the man who set it in motion – Adolf Hitler – and the ideology that drove him to plunge Europe and eventually the world into darkness. This isn't a story told for sensationalism, but rather a necessary exploration of how dangerous ideas, economic desperation, and skilled manipulation combined to create the conditions for unprecedented destruction.

As the philosopher George Santayana famously warned, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today's episode is offered in that spirit of remembrance and vigilance.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're turning our attention to an extraordinary group of men whose courage and determination played a crucial yet often overlooked role in the success of D-Day - the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're diving into one of the most audacious and innovative air-sea battles of World War II—the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. This remarkable engagement saw Allied airmen pioneering tactics that would revolutionize naval warfare and deliver a devastating blow to Japanese forces in the South Pacific. It's a story of ingenuity, courage, and the willingness to fly straight into the jaws of death to change the course of a war.

Hello and welcome to World War 2 Stories. I'm your host Steve Matthews, and today we're diving into one of the most terrifying weapons of the Second World War – a weapon that brought hellfire to the battlefield and forever changed the nature of combat in the Pacific Theater. I'm talking about the M2-2 and M9A1-7 flamethrowers, weapons that literally projected liquid fire onto America's enemies.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're examining one of the most pivotal and brutal moments in modern history—the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. This is the story of how a sovereign nation was systematically dismembered, how a new form of warfare shocked the world, and how the fuse was lit for the most destructive conflict in human history.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're going to explore the extraordinary courage of one man whose actions on June 6, 1944, would earn him the highest military honor his country could bestow. This is the story of Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis – the only British soldier to receive the Victoria Cross for actions on D-Day.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're examining one of the darkest chapters in modern history—Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the terrible transformation of Germany under Nazi rule. This is not an easy story to tell, but it's one we must understand if we're to grasp how a modern, cultured nation descended into barbarism and unleashed a global catastrophe.

Greetings, history enthusiasts. I'm Steve Matthews, and welcome back to WW2 Stories. Today, we're exploring one of the most extraordinary chapters in American military history—the story of the Native American Code Talkers, most famously the Navajo, who created an unbreakable code that helped secure Allied victory in the Pacific. It's a tale of ingenuity, courage, and the remarkable irony of how a people whose language had been systematically suppressed would use that very language to help save the nation that had once tried to eradicate it.