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When German air units in the Mediterranean were redeployed to support the invasion of the USSR, British air and naval units increasingly threatened Axis supply lines in North Africa.

In November 1941, the British Operation Crusader broke the eight-month siege of Tobruk and drove the Axis forces out of Cyrenaica.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Violin Concerto in F Minor, “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

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

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When the US entered the war, German U-boasts began to prey on the heavy shipping traffic up and down the East Coast of the United States.

Disagreements between the US and Royal Navies, coupled with a shortage of escort ships, left American merchant ships with little to no protection.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre
Composed in 1870 by Richard Wagner. Public domain.
Performed by The University of Chicago Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Schubert, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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

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On the Eastern Front, Hitler and the Wehrmacht planned their 1942 offensive. The Wehrmacht was battered after the hard winter, while the Red Army was stronger than ever.

Unhappy with the unrest in Bohemia and Moravia, Hitler assigned Reinhard Heydrich to pacify the region.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Violin Sonata
Composed in 1914 by Leoš Janáček. Public domain.
Performed by Jean-Claude Féret and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0 DEED. Source.

Closing War Theme

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

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In the first week of June, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the Aleutian Islands and Midway. The latter action was also meant to ambush and destroy the US Navy’s carriers.

The Aleutian landings were successful, but the Battle of Midway ended disastrously for Japan, with the sinking of all four of the Japanese carriers involved.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

With the Sea
Composed and performed by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com).
Used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.

Closing War Theme

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

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The US Navy sent two aircraft carriers to the Southwest Pacific to harry the Japanese Navy as it moved into the Solomon Islands. The Imperial Japanese Navy sent two of its own carriers to counter them.

The four carriers clashed at the Battle of the Coral Sea. This was the first battle in naval history in which the opposing fleets never came within sight of each other.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Pacific Waters

Closing War Theme

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

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President Roosevelt wanted the US military to find a way to strike back at the Japanese Home Islands, in revenge for Pearl Harbor.

It was a tall order, but the US Army and Navy found a way.

• Listen now:

Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

String Quartet No. 19 in C Major
Composed in 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Public domain.
Performed by the Musopen String Quartet. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing War Theme

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

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By May of 1942, the Japanese Army in Burma had reached the Indian border. Suddenly, the war was no longer a distant thing. India itself was threatened.

Indian nationalists hoped to leverage the war to aid the cause of independence, but at the same time, two and a half million Indians volunteered to serve in the British-led Indian Army.

• Listen now:

• Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

“Something Stirring”

Closing War Theme

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

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The above editorial cartoon, drawn in 1942 by Dr. Seuss, visualizes the fear many white Americans had that the Japanese-American community on the Pacific Coast of the United States represented a “fifth column” of saboteurs. It also gives a sense of the racism of the time.

Though there was zero evidence that Japanese-Americans, either citizens or residents, posed any kind of threat, the Roosevelt Administration ordered their removal from the West Coast and imprisonment in what were concentration camps in all but name.

• Listen now:

• Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

The Old Bachelor
Composed in 1691 by Henry Purcell. Public domain.
Performed by A Far Cry and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing War Theme

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

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In January 1942, a group of German government officials from various ministries and offices, met at a house on the Wannsee, a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. There they laid the plans for the mass murder of the Jewish population of Europe.

The letter above is from Reinhard Heydrich to Foreign Office undersecretary Martin Luther, informing him that the meeting, originally scheduled for December 1941, would be held on 20 January 1942. The letter is dated 8 January and was sent from Prague, where Heydrich had been installed in his new job as Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

• Listen now:

• Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor
Composed in 1808 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Performed by the Davis High School Symphony Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

String Quartet No. 2
Composed in 1908 by Arnold Schoenberg. Public domain.
Performed by the Carmel String Quartet, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 Deed. Source.

Closing War Theme

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

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As the German Army suffered through a record-setting Russian winter, Soviet army formations no German knew existed began a counterattack. Hitler refused to permit his army to retreat.

In North Africa, the British began Operation Crusader, which relieved the besieged garrison in Tobruk and pushed Rommel’s Afrika Korps all the way back to El Agheila—the place where he had begun his own offensive almost a year earlier.

• Listen now:

• Transcript.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening War Theme

Prelude from Parsifal
Composed in 1882 by Richard Wagner. Public domain.
Public domain recording. Source.

Closing War Theme

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