With his special interest in British airborne operations, Al is excited to be heading with James to the Breville Ridge, a key objective for the British 6th Airborne Division on D-Day.
This ridge runs roughly North-South, and in between the Caen Canal and River Orne to the West and the River Dives Valley to the East. As Al and James investigate, they discuss how German Field Marshal Rommel himself visited the very spot just before D-Day, recognising its vital importance.
On D-Day and beyond, bitter battles were fought along this ridgeline, held by British paratroopers until the very end of the campaign.
In Walking the Ground, historian James Holland and writer and comedian Al Murray follow in the footsteps of World War 2 soldiers and commanders, unearthing fascinating insights and stories along the way. Exclusively on Youtube. Subscribe now.
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Loving this, guys!! Brilliant content
Good job guys, and good timing. Woody had an amazing panel on the Canadians at Verriers Ridge yesterday.
Brilliant fella's, properly brings home the role of the ridge as the pivot.
Was this Rory Stewart’s dad’s battle that Rory Stewart spoke about when he appeared on the we have ways pod? It is the Black Watch but I don’t know the details.
Love these clips
Love the maps in this series; such a necessary addition that is missed in too many others.
Brilliant, always interested in this, my grandfather was a Canadian soldier in surrey during the war, the absolute scale of the D day landings is astounding! I’m hooked! Well done guys.
How can I order the Normandy map being used in the series? Thank you!
loving this channel!!!
Brilliant. Learnt a lot. 👍
Cracking content. Thank you.
Keep it coming chaps, loving this series 👍
Jim & Al’s WW2 History lesson, please don’t let it end 🙌
Breville Ridge, where the toasted sandwich maker was invented.
I think it was up there that Billy Gray of the Ox & Bucks got wounded and got back to the UK. He was in Major Howard’s Glider & I had the honour to know him later in life. A brilliant bloke.
These videos are tremendous! They help me to appreciate more fully what you’ve been talking about on the pod. Hope there will be a lot more of these. Or to put it another way, “carry on”.
Very good. Glad James mentioned Rommel was away to see the Fuhrer, and visiting his wife was an added bonus. Rommel had seen Hitler asking for control of 12 SS Panzer Division. He wanted to place them near Carentan!
This is helpful thanks. Maps online or in books with various red and blue arrows looking like a plate of spaghetti don't serve my brain any favours. But what you're doing here with gradual online arrows give me a far better idea of what was 'going on'.
I eventually want to get my head around Operation Bluecoat. So as and when you can do a vid explaining it in terms that duffers like me can understand (the where and the why) – job done.
Reading James Hollands account of D-Day and the Battle for Normandy just now .This really brings it to life . Recommend the book to anyone with an interest in the Normandy campaign
…and then I’ll get Lucy some shoes…LOL😂 The human drama indeed.