2025 Lectures & Talks

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85 Years On - Beyond ‘The Few’: Rethinking an Iconic Air Battle

Anniversaries are a chance to reflect, but also to challenge the stories we’ve inherited. 

The Battle of Britain is iconic, but some of what people “know” doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. This lecture explores both the myths and the realities.

The lecture revisits long-held assumptions — from Britain’s supposed shortage of pilots and aircraft to Göring’s shifting strategy and the true origins of the London Blitz. 

Far from diminishing the RAF’s achievements, this critical re-examination highlights the resilience and skill of all who served, reminding us that the legacy of the battle belongs to the “many,” not just the “few.”

D-Day. Operation Overlord...

The 6th of June 2025 marks 81 years since D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history, and the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe. 

It was the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The statistics of D-Day are incredible. 

The Allies used over 5,000 ships and landing craft to land more than 150,000 troops on five beaches in Normandy. 

The landings marked the start of a long campaign in north-west Europe, which ultimately convinced the German high command that defeat was inevitable. 

This lecture includes  some of my favorite things you need to know about D-Day: with perhaps a couple of bonus extras thrown in too!

The Battle of Normandy began on 6th June 1944 – D-Day. 

The famous events of that historic day were just part of a tough, weeks-long campaign, culminating in the Allies crossing the River Seine, liberating Paris on the 25th and August and 5 days later entering Rouen.

This marked the end of the Normandy Campaign and the beginning of the Allied push to liberate northern France.

The so called 'race for Europe' was now on between the Western powers and Soviet forces.

This lecture follows on from my D-Day talk and I pick some of my favorite facts and key turning points of the hard fought Battle of Normandy you, (probably), need to know!

The Scale of Mistakes. World War II was a conflict of unprecedented size, scope, and consequence. 

While its battles and strategies have been studied in detail, it’s often the blunders, the miscalculations, the misplaced priorities, and the moments of hubris that are the most revealing.

These errors weren’t simply tactical missteps; many stemmed from faulty assumptions, overconfidence, and political interference in military decision-making. The result? Millions of lives lost, campaigns derailed, and, in some cases, the seeds of ultimate defeat sown at the height of victory.

In this lecture I’ll look at eight major blunders — some famous, some less so — and see what they teach us about leadership, planning, and the dangers of believing your own propaganda!

The Tokyo Raid.

At midday on April 18, 1942, 16 U.S. Army bombers, under the command of pilot Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, thundered into the skies over Tokyo and other key Japanese industrial cities.

This was a surprise raid designed to avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

For the 80 volunteer raiders, who lifted off from the carrier USS Hornet, the mission was one-way. 

After attacking Japan, most of the aircrews flew on to Free China, where low on fuel, the men either bailed out or crash-landed along the coast.

This chapter and outcome of what became known in popular culture as the Doolittle Raid has largely gone untold - until now...

'A Precise Inaccuracy'.

Another daring and low-level attack by RAF Mosquitos of 140 Wing, the same Wing of Operation Jericho fame. This time on the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1945. 

Codenamed ‘Operation Carthage’. Technically it was 100% successful, the building was destroyed, the papers burned, and resistance fighters escaped, but the attack resulted in the loss of 10 crew members, 125 civilians of whom 87 were children.

Attacking at roof top height, they struck a blow at the heart of the Gestapo, killing 151 Gestapo officers and allowing for the escape of 30 Danish resistance fighters.

The lecture explores that while some argue the loss of those civilians was not sufficient to justify the attack, others claim the success of the mission outweighed the tragic loss of civilian life.

The legendary Dam Busters Raid.

A low-level night mission that took nineteen Lancaster bombers deep into the heart of enemy territory, to destroy German dams of the Ruhr Valley carrying a brand-new weapon – Barnes Wallis’ the bouncing bomb.

Of the many incredible things about the Dams raid is that it almost never happened. 

When finally sanctioned, it started a race against time to form and train a new squadron. 

Their mission: to deliver a weapon that didn’t yet exist and was even more remarkable because the crews were not all the chosen elite that legend has us believe.

Operation Chastise and the feats of 617 Squadron became one the most celebrated events of the RAF bomber war, immortalized in music, books and movie, 

This lecture examines why it ranks as one of the greatest air raids of all time, and why it's true impact has been greatly underestimated and sometimes misunderstood

The Race to Destroy the V1 & V2 Weapons

At 12:35 a.m. on Aug. 18th, 1943, the first Allied bombs began falling on Peenemünde on the Baltic Coast.

This is the story of the Second World War feat of photographic reconnaissance and the art of photographic interpretation and how they are inextricably linked with the story of the hunt for the German Vengeance Weapons. 

I delve into the story of the remarkable woman behind the discovery of the V1 flying bomb, (The Girl with X-Ray Eyes"), and the subsequent Allied bombing raids on the German long range weapons development facility at Peenemünde. 

During 1943 intelligence data and photo-reconnaissance images gathered by the British revealed the secret research and development work being conducted by the Germans at Peenemunde, including development of the V1 flying bomb, the V2 long-range guided ballistic missile and rocket powered fighters. 

It made the site a priority target for RAF Bomber Command. 

The walls come tumbling down...

On the morning of 18th February 1944, 19 Mosquito bombers flew at low level across the English Channel, then skimming just feet above the ground, drop their bombs on the walls of Amiens Prison. Hundreds escaped, scores of whom evaded recapture. 

 But why?

In the new year of 1944, the French Resistance in northern France was in dire trouble. The Gestapo had locked up many of its operatives in a prison in Amiens, some awaiting execution. In the lead up to 'D Day', the Resistance had never been more important to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. The Resistance asked MI6 for help. London agreed. 

A precision air raid was ordered to blow holes in the prison walls. The RAF decided that by choosing the Mosquito bomber, the raid had a good chance of success. Ramrod 564, latterly Operation Jericho, or the “Jail Busters Raid”, led to one of the most audacious missions of the war. 

I analyze this daring raid and discuss some of the many conspiracy theories that have since surrounded it. 

The mission to kill the man who planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Commander Edwin Layton, the Pacific Fleet Intelligence Officer, was astonished when

two U.S. codebreakers rushed into his office and put a deciphered message into his hands. 

The message, received on April 14th, 1943 was a Japanese naval communication. 

It was almost to good to be true. Within the message were details of an upcoming flight by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto to an airstrip on the tiny Pacific Solomon Island of Ballale near Bougainville, New Guinea. 

Operation Vengeance: The plan to kill the man who orchestrated the attack on Pearl Harbor was quickly hatched.

P-38s were sent to intercept the bombers. Their mission  had only one goal... to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.

War generates stories – lots of them. And war, arguably, really boils down to human drama.

WW2 has been called the greatest ever drama in human history. Some stories are genuinely uplifting, showing humanity can still shine through terribly dark times. Other stories and cunning deception plans can be filed under ‘that’s just crazy enough to work’ and it does! 

But it’s also fun to look at the less well-known stories, facts and the often truly bizarre elements of operations, inventions and schemes that shaped the outcome and course of the war and thousands of lives... to this day.

These talks include some of my favorite – “did you know” odd facts and stories from 'Weird War Two', where truth can be stranger than fiction.

There’s no shortage of incredible stories from World War 2 . 

Yes, there are amazing tales of heroism and missions that sound just too good to be true, but often, dig deep enough and it’s the backstories and everyday  folk who also make huge contributions.

There are also plenty of stories where the protagonists would prefer never to be mentioned again…

Declassified files are still revealing information we find fascinating while at the same time amazing.

This talk includes more of my favorite – “did you know” odd facts and stories from 'Weird War Two', where truth, as it turns out, is much stranger than fiction!