Month: March 2025

399: War in the Air I

Mark Podcast

After two years of effort, RAF Bomber Command developed the techniques to inflict huge losses on an enemy city by means of a massive bombing attack and the creation of a firestorm. In late July, Bomber Command attacked Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, and devastated it.

This photograph of a residential neighborhood in Hamburg was taken from an RAF bomber shortly after the war ended. Most of the gutted shells you see were once multi-story apartment buildings. (You can tell this photo was taken after the war, because the streets have been cleared of rubble.)

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Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“British Grenadiers”
Traditional. Public domain.
Performed by the Regimental Band of the Royal Regiment of Canada. Public domain recording.

Closing War Theme

Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

398: An Incontrovertible Fact

Mark Podcast
The participants in the Greater East Asia Conference of 1943. From left: Ba Maw, Head of State and Prime Minister of Burma, Zhang Junghui, Prime Minister of Manchukuo, Wang Jingwei, President of the Reorganized Republic of China, Hideki Tojo, Prime Minister of Japan, Prince Wan Waithayakon of Thailand, José Laurel, President of the Philippines, and Subhas Chandra Bose, Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of India.

As the fortunes of war turned against Japan, the Japanese began an effort to recruit allies from among the occupied nations of East Asia. As part of this effort, they permitted Burma and the Philippines to declare independence.

Among the Western Allies, US President Franklin Roosevelt pushed for China to be granted equal status with the US, UK, and USSR as one of the “Big Four,” the principal allies in the war against the Axis.

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Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Mo Li Hua”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing War Theme

Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

397: Pop Goes the Weasel

Mark Podcast
Japanese prime minister Tojo Hideki pays his respects before the ashes of Admiral Yamamoto Isoruku.

The Japanese military reluctantly came to the conclusion that they could not hold Guadalcanal and eastern New Guinea.

After the many problems with the Mark 14 torpedo were sorted out, the American campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare finally began to hurt Japanese shipping. In killing Admiral Yamamoto, the Americans exacted a measure of revenge for his attack on Pearl Harbor.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Pop Goes the Weasel”
Traditional. Public domain.
Arranged and performed by Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC-BY 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.