Author: Mark

422: A Stranded Whale

Mark Podcast
The ruins of the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino, following the Allied bombing.

The Allied advance in Italy was blocked by the Gustav Line, the German defensive line. Winston Churchill promoted the idea of an amphibious invasion behind the German line as a means of breaking the stalemate.

At the front line, many Allied commanders were inclined to think, despite German claims to the contrary, that the enemy was using the abbey on Monte Cassino as a forward observation post, and bombed the abbey.

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Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Overture to La Forza del Destino
Composed in 1861 by Giuseppe Verdi. Public domain.
Performed by the University of Chicago Orchestra 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.

421: Two Strikes and You’re Out

Mark Podcast

A look at American popular music during the war. This period marks the decline of the big bands, which occurred for a number of reasons, among them two crucial strikes in the music industry.

The videos above are of Glenn Miller and his Orchestra performing “In the Mood” in the 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade (I will have more to say about both Glenn Miller and this film in a future episode) and Jessica Rabbit (Amy Irving) performing “Why Don’t You Do Right?” in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Piano Concerto No. 1.
Composed in 1875 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

“Stardust.”
Composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael. Public domain.
Performed by US Army Blues. Public domain recording. 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.

420: A Continent-Wide Crime

Mark Podcast
Cover of the booklet published by the Polish government-in-exile in December 1942, detailing the murders of Jews in Poland.

The Holocaust is best understood not as a single project conceived and executed by Nazis, but as a series of overlapping genocides, inspired and encouraged from Berlin, but undertaken by many people in many countries.

In this episode, we consider the misdeeds, and the good deeds, of people in various Axis, occupied, neutral, and Allied nations.

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Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Pavane pour une infante défunte. (Pavane for a Dead Princess.)
Composed in 1899 by Maurice Ravel. Public domain.
Performed by Performed by Markus Staab. Public domain recording. 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.

419: Millions of Spectators

Mark Podcast
Newly arrived Jewish Hungarians at Auschwitz. Camp officials and prisoner-laborers are separating those who will be kept for slave labor from those who will be killed immediately. Photo is from the Auschwitz Album.

When Hitler learned that Hungary was secretly seeking to make a separate peace with the Allies, he ordered the German military to occupy Hungary.

Hungary was home to the largest surviving Jewish community in Axis-occupied Europe. When the German military moved into the country, so did the SS. It set to work deporting and murdering Jewish Hungarians as quickly as possible, while Allied and neutral leaders condemned the killings.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Marcia funèbre” from Six Piano Pieces.
Composed in 1925 by Erkki Melartin. Public domain.
Performed by Jean Dubé 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.

418: Bloody Tarawa

Mark Podcast

US military leaders, disappointed by the slow slog in the Southwest Pacific, try a new strategy of hopping small islands in the Central Pacific.

YouTube will not allow embedding of the Marine Corps documentary With the Marines at Tarawa, but you can watch the film on the YouTube site by clicking on the image above.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

String Quartet No. 19 in C major “Dissonant.”
Composed in 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Public domain.
Public domain recording. 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.

417: Over the Rainbow

Mark Podcast
Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz.

Blues records sold well in the 1920s, and the most prominent blues singers were women.

In the 1930s, teenaged Judy Garland became a film star, most memorably in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“St. Louis Blues.”
Composed in 1914 by W.C. Handy. Public domain.

“You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want to Do It.)”
Composed in 1913 by James V. Monaco, lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. 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.

416: The Iron Gut of Europe

Mark Podcast
President Roosevelt awards General Mark Clark the Distinguished Service Cross in Sicily, December 13, 1943.

The Allies invaded the Italian mainland with the blessing of the Italian government and the expectation the Germans would withdraw from the Italian Peninsula.

Instead, the Germans retained control over most of Italy, holding the Allies to a small part of the southern end of the country.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Violin Concerto in F major “Autumn.”
Composed in 1723 by Antonio Vivaldi. Public domain.
Performed by John Harrison and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 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.

415: Would They Obey You Any More Readily?

Mark Podcast
Vehicles and equipment abandoned by the Germans as they evacuated the Korsun Pocket.

The Red Army continued to apply pressure to the German Army along the southern part of the front throughout the winter and spring of 1944, denying the Germans any opportunity to dig in and stabilize the line.

Adolf Hitler blamed Germany’s deteriorating military position on disloyalty by the senior commanders of the Wehrmacht.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Lohengrin
Composed in 1848 by Richard Wagner. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. 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.

414: The Teheran Conference

Mark Podcast
Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill, seated in front of the Soviet embassy in Teheran during the conference.

In November 1943, the three principal Allied leaders met together for the first time.

In a friendly and informal series of meetings, they agreed on a strategy to defeat the Axis and shape the postwar world.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Scheherazade
Composed in 1888 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Public domain.
Performed by the University of Chicago Orchestra and used pursuant to a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 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.

413: Frankly, My Dear

Mark Podcast
Dust jacket cover of first edition of Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), created in 1924 in a three-way merger of film companies, quickly became the industry leader in Hollywood, in no small part because of its gifted chief of production, Irving G. Thalberg.

The success of Gone with the Wind, the highest-grossing film of the era, distributed by MGM, epitomizes the stature of the studio.

  • Listen now:

Transcript.

Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“I Wanna Go Back to Dixie.”
Composed in 1953 by Thomas Andrew Lehrer. Public domain.
Performed by the composer. Public domain recording. 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.