Today we travel to the final months of the Second World War when the Germans began to develop midget submarines. The allies had crossed the channel and invaded Normandy in June 1944 and were slowly battling their away through France towards Germany. The Russians meanwhile were making huge advances in the east. German UBoats continued to fight in the Atlantic but by this period their potency had been blunted by new tactics and technology which had turned them from the feared hunters of the early years of the war to prey. It was at this moment that designs for midget submarines were finalised and construction begun, in a last and desperate throw of the dice in the under-sea naval war. To find out more Dr Sam Willis travelled to the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven to explore the Seehund, one of only a handful of these craft to still survive. Sam spoke with Nils Theinert, an expert on German submarines. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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36:48
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36:48
Seapower Past & Present 7: South China
This episode forms part of a new strand of our podcast: Seapower Past and Present which explores seapower as it is understood and practised in the modern world whilst offering a historical perspective on the themes we explore. Each episode is chosen according to a theme or a location – a hotspot in the modern world where seapower has a major influence on geopolitics. So if you enjoy this episode do please seek out others in this strand – you will shortly be able to find episodes on economic warfare, critical national infrastructure, how technology is changing the nature of warfare at sea; and on hugely significant locations in the modern maritime world – the Black Sea, South China Sea, Middle East and Arctic.To make this series come alive we’ve teamed up with the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. In each episode you will hear from at least one historian and from at least one practitioner, a member of the armed forces who has direct first hand, personal experience of the topic being discussed.In this episode, Dr Sam Willis speaks to three guests at the Royal Naval Base in Portsmouth to help us understand seapower in the South China Sea. This region is rich in maritime history and diverse in its modern strategic concerns. To discuss this further, the podcast is joined by Dr Jennifer Sabourah-Till from Permanent Joint Headquarters, who commands joint and multinational military operations on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. Dr Matthew Heaslip, Senior Lecturer in Naval History at the University of Portsmouth, also joins to discuss the Royal Navy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He provides expert knowledge on the use of gunboat diplomacy, amphibious operations and imperial policing in the South China Sea. Also joining Sam in this episode is Joe Reilly, a junior Warfare Officer in the Royal Navy who has previously spent time in the Asia-Pacific theatre on board the patrol vessel HMS Spey. Joe is also a Richmond Fellow with the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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38:17
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38:17
Who Should We Rescue? The Morals of Maritime Emergency
This episode explores a subject of great contemporary interest and significance: the morals of behaviour at sea. What are the origins of the idea of a captain going down with his ship? When did it become expected to save anyone from shipwreck - regardless of their nationality, religion or status? Are we living in a world where the expected moral norms of seafaring are now changing? To find out more Dr Sam Willis travelled to the Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin to meet three historians who have been working on this project for several years and have published a hugely interesting and important book: Moral Seascapes: On the Ethics and Aesthetics of Maritime Emergency. They explore some of the great maritime artists including Turner and Gericault; epoch-defining lifesaving technology; contemporary images of migration disaster and raise questions about the nature of the sea and seafaring that are as relevant today as they were centuries ago. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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47:27
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47:27
Mapping the Atlantic: The Meteor Expedition, 1925
This episode explores the fascinating story of the German Atlantic expedition of 1925, in which the survey ship Meteor spent two years mapping the seafloor of the Atlantic as well as making other scientific discoveries which fundamentally changed the way that we think about the world. It’s a hugely important moment in oceanography and science as well as in the history of Europe - when Germany was trying desperately to recover from the economic disaster it faced in the aftermath of the First World War. German scientists crossed the Atlantic no fewer than fourteen times using the very latest echo-sounding technology to demonstrate that there was a ridge running top to bottom right down the centre of the Atlantic - which confirmed suspicions about how our world was formed via plate tectonics. The episode comes from the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven where a new exhibition on the Meteor expedition has just been launched. The exhibition cleverly places the scientific discoveries in a broad and dynamic context of political and economic strife, looking at the people involved in great detail as well as the scientific breakthroughs that they made. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Isabella Hodgson, curator of the new exhibition. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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1:04:13
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1:04:13
Tales from the Cinque Ports: New Romney
This episode continues our series on the Cinque Ports, an ancient confederation of towns in southeast England that provided ships and men to the crown in return for special powers and privileges. They have since become rightly dubbed as the cradle of the Royal Navy. This episode brings us to New Romney, one of the original five head ports. New Romney retains its deep maritime heritage and significance despite having lost its proximity to the sea when the Great Storm of 1287 dramatically altered the landscape and rerouted the River Rother. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The world's No.1 podcast dedicated to all of maritime and naval history. With one foot in the present and one in the past we bring you the most exciting and interesting current maritime projects worldwide: including excavations of shipwrecks, the restoration of historic ships, sailing classic yachts and tall ships, unprecedented behind the scenes access to exhibitions, museums and archives worldwide, primary sources and accounts that bring the maritime past alive as never before. From the Society for Nautical Research, and the Lloyds Register Foundation. Presented by Dr Sam Willis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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