In the summer of 1940, the skies over Britain filled with the sounds as of engines and gunfire, as the battle of Britain saw the RAF and Luftwaffe go head-to-head in a fight for air dominance. For the British pilots, the objective could not have been more critical – protect their nation from the threat of Nazi invasion. But were the British pilots really the plucky underdogs in this fight? And could Germany have launched an invasion if they had won the air battle over Britain? In the first episode of this five-part series on the greatest battles of WW2, Rachel Dinning explores those questions and more with military historian James Holland.
James Holland is a military historian and the author of several books on the Second World War including The Battle of Britain: Five Months that Changed History. He's the co-founder of the Chalke History Festival - which runs from 24-30 June this year. Find out more about the festival's extensive programme of history talks and events at chalkefestival.com.
The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cat crazy: the Victorian mania for moggies
Maria Theresa: life of the week
Agent Zo: spying against the Nazis
The Terror: everything you wanted to know
The real Lady Whistledown & the golden age of gossip
WW2's greatest battles | 5. Guadalcanal
A surprising history of sex between men
History Behind the Headlines: student protests down the centuries
Tudor ladies-in-waiting: the women who served Henry VIII's queens
Ancient Greek theatre: everything you wanted to know
The Tattooist of Auschwitz: is it ok to fictionalise the Holocaust?
WW2's greatest battles | 4. El Alamein
Shardlake: bringing the Tudor murder mystery to the screen
Kublai Khan: life of the week
Inside a Jim Crow asylum
The Spartans: Everything You Wanted to Know
Death by nostalgia: the curious history of a dangerous emotion
WW2's greatest battles | 3. Battle of the Atlantic
Smash hits: 17th-century style
Benjamin Franklin: life of the week
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Dan Snow’s History Hit
Gone Medieval
History Unplugged Podcast
Not Just the Tudors
History Daily