The Night Britain Stole Germany's Radar

Comments · 356

• RI

  @ricklodewell6012 · 3 months ago

  It just dawned on me; I deserve a Holland family Award;  I'm watching this, I'm reading James Holland's "The War in the West" and rereading his "The Battle of Britain" and I'm reading Tom Holland's translation of Herodotus.  And finally, yesterday I watched "Why Gallipoli Was Always A Terrible Idea" | EP 5 on "The Rest is History".  And I guess I ought to thank the Holland family for keeping me entertained.

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• LE

  @lee-o5w5y · 3 months ago

  Al's Churchill impression sounding more and more like Zippy with a mouthful of gravel with every episode.

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• AL

  @alexbrooks220 · 3 months ago

  Colorado of the U.S. here! Can’t get enough of you two talking WW2!! James, I’ll meet you one of these days 🙏🏼

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• TR

  @Trooper23Bear · 1 month ago

  Heard about the Para drop first hand from a friend who took part. I met him when I joined the local branch of the Airborne Association.<br>I also became friends with another whose grandson was in my daughters class at school. &nbsp;He became my personal guide in 1994 in Arnhem, what a guide. One of the two guns outside the Hartenstein Hotel, now museum was his gun he identified by the hits it took and pointed out the dents the order in which they came including the one that left him as the sole survivor of that gun. He hid in the forest with locals, then captured, then escaped, put up with a few others then linked up with an Officer that got them &nbsp;over the Rhine. He had a week off, was re-equiped then sent for training on the Rhine crossing.

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• MA

  @markgallagher1377 · 3 months ago

  The photo you used of R V Jones is his post-war meeting with Werner Flos, one of his German opponents.

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• TH

  @throwback19841 · 3 months ago

  &quot;both men were promoted on the spot&quot; oh God that&apos;s a bad sign I&apos;d really be bricking it at that point.

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• JO

  @joe2mercs · 2 months ago (edited)

  The German radar systems were very good, too good. &nbsp;When Britain later equipped bombers with radar systems the crews, after taking off, would calibrate their radar sets to German radar transmitters because they were as good a reference frequency as could be had at that time. &nbsp;When the Wurzburg radar set was captured and retuned to the U.K. for analysis by the ‘boffins’ it was deemed as extremely well engineered, &nbsp;however that was also its weakness. &nbsp;The British habit was to rush radar sets into production and then add innovations and improvements almost by the month. &nbsp;The frantic pace of early radar development could not be readily accommodated in the ‘well engineered’ German sets. &nbsp;The British ended up taking a path of continual improvement while the Germans had to contend with improvements that were incorporated only when the next batch of radar sets had been thoroughly re-engineered and produced.

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• TH

  @thomasrock1835 · 3 months ago

  The only british airborne total success? Pegasus bridge says hello!

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• AA

  @aaron234567890987643 · 3 months ago

  As a Scotsman, Al&apos;s Scottish accent is remarkabley not horrible. The bar is usually very low but he passes for a good 60% of some of these quotes

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• SP

  @spidrespidre · 3 months ago (edited)

  For your information, CSM Strachan not only survived the raid but also the war. He went on to fight in North Africa, Italy and at Arnhem. Sadly, he died in 1948 at the age of 1942, from complications of his wartime wounds.

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• WA

  @WalkleyPlumbingAndGasServices · 3 months ago

  Meet Flight Sargent Cox, he owned and operated a electrical shop in Wisbech Cambs, I was unaware of he’s war time work until a neighbour informed me about a Radio four program on the raid, apparently it was true he was promoted for the raid and his bodyguards on the raid were just there to stop him being captured,

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• AL

  @alisonmarshall2654 · 2 months ago

  20 years ago, on his deathbed, my uncle told some stories of his experiences in Commandos in WW2. <br>We know he was a guard in Changhi prison disposing of bodies<br>He also told a story of a raid he took part in that he wasn&apos;t supposed to talk about, his job was to protect the &apos;radar guy&apos; &amp; to kill him if it looked like he&apos;d be captured. <br><br>We never knew what raid. <br><br>Irony is, he volunteered for Commandos because they believed war would be over before training was completed...

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