Upgrade Your History Mastery with These Top 8 World War 2 Podcasts

A product of the BBC, the History Extra podcast is a bi-weekly general history podcast profiling interviews with historians and figures through history. While it’s not strictly a World War II podcast, there are several episodes dedicated to the events of the 1930s and ‘40s.

Episodes from the period include:

1. The aftermath of the Second World War.
2. Memories of Churchill and the history of the individual.
3. Viking treasures and Hitler’s ‘perfect woman’.
4. D-Day and the Wars of the Roses.
5. The World War Two French resistance and British holidays.
6. Germany through the centuries and Hitler’s cocaine habit.
7. Student radicals and Crete in WWII.
8. Stalin’s early years and Mein Kampf.
9. The Battle of the Bulge and children of the Holocaust.
10. World War Two spies and an extraordinary naturalist.
11. Britain’s Second World War and the Country House.
12. The wartime SAS and Hitler’s drug addiction.
13. The attack on Pearl Harbor and physics through the ages.

The History Unplugged Podcast is not exclusively a WWII podcast and, as its full title suggests, covers everything from the American Civil War to the history of the Roman Empire. But over the course of its 200+ episodes, host and historian Scott Rank delves into several topics from the Second World War.

Second World Wartime episodes include:

1. Who Was WW2 Spy Zig-Zag?
2. Was Hitler a Christian, Atheist, or Something Else?
3. German POWs in the US During WW2
4. An Interview With Jerry Yellin, the 93-Year-Old Vet Who Flew WW2’s Last Combat Mission
5. Curtis Lemay: World War II’s Greatest Hero or Worst War Criminal?
6. What if the Nazis Had Won World War Two?
7. What if Japan Hadn’t Surrendered After Nagasaki?
8. Dan Carlin of Hardcore History on Why the German Military Was Better in WW1 Than WW2

Jim Leavelle witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbour from the USS Whitney and was one of the homicide detectives who investigated the assassination of JFK. Captain Jerry Yellin flew P-40s, P-47s and P-51s as part of the 78th Fighter Squadron and has the legacy of flying with the first and last combat missions over Japan during WWII. Lt. Col. Alfred Shehab joined the 38th Cavalry Squadron on a reconnaissance mission in the Ardennes region when the Battle of the Bulge broke out on December 16, 1944. John Weston joined the 758th Tank Battalion, the country’s first ever African-American armored unit.

Veterans Chronicles is a podcast dedicated to the men and women who have served on behalf of the US over the last century. Filled with insightful interviews with those who were involved in all of the wars during that time, not just WWII, the show is a must-listen for anyone who wants a deeper insight into the perils of war, from those who know them best.

It’s unfortunate that the War And Words podcast only lasted seven episodes, such was its early promise. Hosted by Jonathan Dimbleby, what’s unique and wonderful about the show is its heavy use of historical news clips from the period, something the BBC no doubt has easy access to. Interspersed with the clips is Dimbleby’s commentary, which ties each episode together and gives them pace and focus.

While War and Wordsisn’t a comprehensive coverage of the Second World War, the seven episodes span some of the more notable events, including the Spanish Civil War, The Phoney War, Dunkirk, D-Day, the liberation of Paris, and the bombing of Hiroshima.

As is sometimes the case with podcasts produced by the BBC, Witness World War 2 is a little less than captivating. Following the broadcaster’s age-old podcasting model, to inform first and entertain second, the show lends itself to those with a serious interest in the Second World War and is not for the fickle history prospector. If you happen to fit into that first category of listener, and your ears can accommodate the quaint British narration, then you’ll enjoy this one.

The podcast itself has been in circulation since 2010 and has since been responsible for more than 100 episodes, spanning the events of Pearl Harbour, the siege of Leningrad, the Retreat from Dunkirk and the fall of Berlin. The host’s narration is cut with snippets of interviews and other historical audio, which gives each episode a rich authenticity that isn’t replicated as well by other shows in the genre.

Belton Cooper and Bertrand Close, veterans from the 3rd Armored Division, describe their race across Europe in their M4 Sherman tank. Clarence “Bud” Anderson and Francis “Gabby” Gabreski reminisce over their roles as fighter aces who defended the European skies from the German fighters. Robert Weiss, a US Army forward observer, tells of his perilous role in the conflict, to surge ahead of his fellow troops to find enemy artillery targets.

Warriors In Their Own Words tells some of the most important stories from the Second World War in the words of those closest to the events. Whether you’re a newcomer to WWII history or a long-time devotee, you’ll devour this series of riveting and real retellings of the conflict that defined the middle part of the twentieth century.