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However, welcome to our stories history.

We got the mighty. You've got a returning champion, James Holland on the podcast. He's back. He's a TV presenter. He's a historian. He's a best selling author. He's a number one podcast host. I mean, he runs a festival. I mean, Jeepers Creepers. The guy's a phenomenon. He's now written a new book about Sicily, the 1943 invasion, the first major incursion into the axis, the core axis countries of the Second World War.

I go anyway, enjoy this podcast with James. It is today, if you're listening to this on the day this podcast is released, it's pretty much this is the last two days that you can order anything from the history hit shop and arrive in time for Christmas. Now, it is a source of considerable embarrassment to me that, ah, Henry, the eighth kitchen apron has sold more units than the Dan Snow calendar 2021. If I'm being kind, it's because this year was not a great year for calendars, because everything you wrote in it yet to cross out and you might as well just toss the whole thing in the bin.

But if I'm being realistic, it's because people prefer the Henry the eighth apron to a calendar full of me showing off in various historical locations around the world. So I am to cope with I'm sitting here promising I'm never, ever doing calendar again and probably will do it next year because that's what we all do. We forget, we forget and we repeat pay more attention to history. Anyway, the shop is selling everything you ever need. Got knitted knights helmets.

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We are producing our most ambitious project yet, a big TV show and a double podcast on the Christmas truce of 1914. You've had me going on about it for a while. Well, it's all complete. It's in the can. It's done. It's just a final. Edits are being made now. Glorious drama documentary on the Christmas truce. And historians, British, German historians, new sources, new letters, new diaries are all being broadcast on history.

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It's going to be awesome.

In the meantime, everyone here is James Holland.

Everyone I meet, I said, I'm getting James on the. I love James. How does he write this book so quickly? Because this is another it's another mega book. It's a bestseller. And it's this time it's consistently. So let's answer that question first. How do you write all these books so quickly? The process of putting a book together is three fold. So, first of all, you've got to sort of gather all your material and the more that you do on this subject, and I've stuck religiously to the Second World War, as you well know, the more your kind of base knowledge is already there and stuff that you've encountered in past interviews, you know, it might be some of the I interviewed back in 2004 for about North Africa.

He also talked about their in Sicily. So, yeah, I remember him. So you've got some of your kind of research is already done, but there's obviously research to do. Then the second part of the process is getting your ducks in a row. So that's they're marshaling your information, working out what your chronology is. Working out with the narrative arc is how you're going to structure it, getting ready to go in a way I always do that is by having a kind of chronology, a type chronology.

So I have main events, you know, Huskie 10th of July, 1943, you know, allies land and then emboldened, but in different colors for different nationalities. I then have my my cast list of individuals that I'm following. So, you know, 13th of July might be kind of Vilhelm Schmults in in purple because he's German, moves up towards Malayali or something like that. So that I know when I'm writing it that that is the point.

To go back to that particular source and put that particular anecdote in. I might not use the anecdote, but I know it's there at that point. And then the third part of the process is just the actual writing of it. And I just write in a fury. I get up at six and, you know, at my desk by six, fifteen, six thirty. And I literally write till nine. You know, I do my hours exercise and stop for coffee and lunch and all the rest of it.

But basically it's kind of I just go through the day. I push away at nine p.m.. Yes. I'm not I'm not writing for kind of, you know, 12 hours, 14 hours solidly. But I put in a long day and I just and I find that works because the problem is, if you don't write quickly or if I don't write quickly, I forget what I've written and I forget what I've done and how I use that particular story or not.

Whereas you sort of get in it sounds a bit pretentious, but you sort of get in a kind of zone, which I can sort of keep going. So when I'm in writing mode, I just boom, I go for it. And it takes me about I mean, it took me 10 weeks to write, but, you know, it's a it's a year's work, but it's but it's more than he has work because it's of all that research I've done in the past as well.

And also I was lucky enough that in the past I've I visited Sicily many, many times. I've been there with the British army on battlefields studies. I read a novel set a novel there during the war, one of my Gitano novels. So I'd done a lot of research already. You know, I kind of knew the lay of the land. And so a lot of that work was already done.

Let's talk about Ireland, Sicily, this one. Why did you want to write this account? Obviously?

Well, it's just an amazing story and it hadn't been done. And I was amazed that when I was researching this novel, this Jack Tanne novel, you know, some years ago, the last major narrative work on it was by Carlo D'Asti, and that was published in 1987. So it's a hell of a long time, really. You know, that's kind of over 30 years. And I just thought it was kind of ripe for treatment. And I mentioned it to my publisher a few years ago, actually, before I did the Normandy book.

And he went, well, you know, I'm not sure is anyone interested in Sicily, but then I the nominee book.

And that did okay. So I suddenly had a little bit more kind of sort of bargaining power. But the great thing about it is, you know, it's an island story. So it's got a really obvious statement and and it's got Monti. It's got Patton, you know, it's got the SAS, it's got it's got mountains, it's got malaria infested plains. It's got mad Germans. It's got Derman Vallentine Huba, he's got one arm and he's a brilliant kind of commander.

It's got, it's got faction. Yeager you know German paratroopers, it's got British paratroopers, it's got airborne ops, it's got it's got Audie Murphy for goodness sake. You know it's got Jim Gavin, it's got Tiger tanks, it's got Messersmith and Spitfires and Naval actions and Prince Phillip winning a DC. And you know what's not to like? I mean, it's literally everything you could possibly want for it. And I'm amazed that it's not more more popular.

Oh, it's got the Mafia. Let's let's not forget the Mafia as well. I mean, it's got everything and it's and it's Italy and it's and it's cool and it's and, you know, it's got amazing actions and it's got John Buck and Son climbing up kind of perpendicular hill in the middle of Sicily, leading his company that you just take a battalion which is just taking command of the day before and, you know, and so on and so forth and Atnah itself.

And it's got all that history already there. I mean, it's the most amazing place I have.

I'm sure you have as well. Many times I've interviewed people for programs about Normandy for the TV, and they very much disappoint the producers by saying D-Day. Yes, this was worse.

Well, yeah, it just it just kind of depends on what you're involved. I mean, some of those battles are really, really brutal. So take Trena, for example, or to repay you know, these are these are this sort of mountain top towns. And the reason all these towns are mountains is because of the long history of violence that befell Sicily. And you don't want to be on the coast and you don't want to be on your own because bandits are going to get you or or corsetry, you know, Barbary corsairs from.

From North Africa to come and sweep in Australia and take you back to back to North Africa as slaves, so, you know, all the settlements are on these little towns and there's infrastructure. And Sicily was not great. It's still not fantastic now. And, you know, you have this windy little kind of switchback road going up to the top of that town, another one coming back down the other way. The only way to go up it is up this road.

And once you're at the top, you know, the Germans have got got you in their sights. It's very, very hot, is very, very dusty. Everyone can see you coming. So the only way to win is just by kind of grab it inch by inch, yard by yard, by superior firepower and slogging guts. And, you know, for the poor old infantry and the tanks and, you know, artillery having to do all this stuff, it's absolutely brutal.

It was brutal for both sides. I mean I mean is amazing because it's the highest, highest town in Sicily and it's the kind of sort of sort of lumpy kind of mountain plateau at the top, which the Americans have to kind of prise from the Germans. And it just turns into this kind of six day kind of hell. And because the soil is really thin up there, every time a mortar comes over, you know, shrapnel and shards of rock are kind of flying everywhere.

And if you're an advancing squad of 10 men, you can easily have half a squad wiped out, just one shot.

So you can understand why it's so tough.

And, you know, overall, the casualty figures are not that bad compared to kind of some campaigns in some parts of the war. But if you take them as a percentage of the attacking infantry and armor that are involved, they're really, really high. So the campaign in North Africa comes to an end. Why did the allies is it just too tempting, so close to Tunisia? Why do they decide that they're going to try and do Sicily and presumably southern Italy rather than focus on on north Western Europe straight away?

Well, because by the end of the Tunisian campaign in May 1943, they've got this vast armies and armed forces in the Mediterranean. You know, they've got over three and a half thousand aircraft. They've got huge fleets. They've got really, you know, got two armies effectively or seem to have two armies. The 7th and the and the 8th first is going back home and disbanded. So you might as well do something with them. And Italy isn't out of the war.

And if you can get Italy out of war, that's a huge pain in the arse for the Germans because either they've got to abandon the entire Mediterranean or they've got to fill it with their own troops. And that means filling. You know, that means occupying Italy. It means occupying the Balkans. It means occupying the whole of Greece, the Aegean, the whole shebang. And that's a hell of a commitment when they've already got their hands full, you know, on the eastern front.

And they're also preparing for an invasion that's going to come across the English Channel, which they know is going to come at some point.

So there are obviously that then weakens their effort on the eastern front and also weakens our effort on the western front, which is all to the good. So the aims are really, you know, keep the Germans busy, knock Italy out of the war, make use of the huge force that you've got because you can't do D-Day in 1943 because that moment's already passed. So there's a kind of three very good reasons for for doing it. And also, you know, it's a major amphibious operation and as a proving ground for kind of what's to come in 1944, what could be better, the sheer logistics of organising such a major amphibious operation across the Mediterranean from one continent to another is this kind of stuff that just makes your head hurt?

I mean, there's no GPS at this point. There's no email. There's no WhatsApp group to say, you know, has everyone on board there by 8:00 tomorrow. Good on your lads. I mean, there's none of that. You've got to do it all analog. And it's incredible how successful it is.

You listen to history here with James Holland, we're talking about the invasion of Sicily, more coming up after this.

I've lost my bank and I've just been paid. I bet someone is drawing my cash around all over town, eating in fancy restaurants with those little breadsticks, renting exotic sports cars.

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Is that the biggest legacy almost of Sicily, do you think? Yeah, I think it's the whole thing. I think it's part of our evolution. And I think what you see by May 1943, suddenly, you know, they have this dark period in February where the Americans and to core part of British first army get a bit of a kind of nose kicking at Kasserine Pass. And it's a real wake up for the Americans who was actually you know what?

We've got a little bit of hard work to do here. You know, all the ferry and training back in the US and and so on, that doesn't really count for diddly squat. You know, we need to get some combat experience here and we've got to kind of wise up.

The turnaround is so swift so that just three months later in the middle of May 1943, they've won in North Africa. And although on the ground it is the British who've taken the kind of lion's share of that and done the kind of hard yards in terms of air power, it's kind of sort of even Stevens possibly even in favor of slightly of the Americans by that stage. And you're also harnessing naval power as well. And it's General later, Phil Marshall Alexander, who says, you know, modern warfare at around this time says modern warfare is a brotherhood of air, land and sea.

You know, the Army, the Navy and Air Force all have to work hand in hand. And he's absolutely right. What the allies are doing, what the coalition of Britain and America is working out at this point is how to kind of get their way of war, which is different to the German, where war is different to the Soviet wave. What's different to the Japanese war? This is a way of war that is that is amphibious at its absolute heart, is absolutely harnessing air power every step of the way, both strategically and tactically.

So i.e. bombers operating independently and air power using operating as close air support to the troops on the ground and also working out your long tail. This is big war, as I like to call it, which is this this concept of having a very, very long tail so that those in the shooting line, you know, those are absolutely at the coalface of war. You're infantry armor, I suppose, combat engineers and so on. And artillery are Apsey to a bare minimum.

But your support network, your backup is absolutely huge. Those summer months of 1943 between the end of the campaign in North Africa and the end of the campaign in Sicily in the middle of August 1943. That is where they sort of start to come of age. I mean, interestingly, seven army, which comes into being a kind of sort of, you know, one minute past midnight on the 10th of July, 1943, is the first field army that the Americans actually field in the Second World War in 1943.

There are army sized operations in the Philippines and so on. And, you know, there are multiple divisions being used in like Guadalcanal or wherever it might be, and Bougainville and New Guinea. But seven former US Army is the first field army to be fielded in the Second World War, and that only happens in the middle of 1943. So this is a really, really key moment. And, yes, huge lessons were learned. But but also it has other big strategic advantages.

You've always been very outspoken on this issue of what was the German army pound for pound, the best army that's ever been in history. What does the Sicily campaign tell you about the comparison? All things being equal, is it possible to start making a judgment in the summer 1943 about how this mythologised their market is able to cope with the British and Americans?

Yeah, I mean I mean, the interesting thing, if you've got a sort of a line, which is you're kind of sort of mean by the other countries, not bad division, let's say, an infantry division in the Second World War. The British and Americans are sort of wobbling either side of it, but not very much. But if you look at the Germans, it's absolute extreme. You've got some ones which are absolutely hopeless and kind of sort of get brushed aside in no time.

And you've got others which are very dogged and tough and really good. The interesting thing about Sicily campaign is the divisions that are there on Sicily when the land, which is only two German divisions at the time, are not much Shaikh's, you know, they're not up to much, but just take the home and go in division, for example, that's been cobbled together by lots of Luftwaffe guys. There's some people who've got some experience, but lots of people who haven't got any experience at all and they're split into two.

So there is a kind of brigade group around Catalonia which is commanded by a guy called Colonel Vilhelm Schmults. And he is a one, you know, he's absolutely top drawer, hugely experienced eastern from Western Front, the whole shebang. He's been there, done it, got the T-shirt, and he really, really knows what he's about. And that has filtered down very clearly into his part of the Hungarian division. The other German part of the German government division is in the center of the island and is commanded by people who are not up to much.

And it's an absolute show. And they make a hash of things and they cock up the counterattack against the Americans and they don't do very well. Lots of them run away.

You know, the whole thing's just hopeless. But then slowly, a few replacements come and Schmults takes control of it a little bit more and he starts to gel the whole lot together. And suddenly the two halves of the home are going to come together what's left of them.

And they become really good, you know, in a very quick order. And it goes to show just how good they can be when they're really well led. The other thing that happens is the first time you get a parachute division gets landed and gets the. Two brigade schmults, so they get although they are they are the first American division, they're sort of morphed into that part of the line and they come under direct control of the Hammergren division as well for a large part of the Sicily campaign.

And they are, again, full of really highly experienced people who really know what they're about.

And they're really good and they're tough. The big difference between American and British and German units is less to do with training, are more to do with discipline. And it's not that the British and Americans aren't disciplined. They are. It's just that with a German soldier, you can say. Get behind that rock with your with your machine gun and stay there until I say don't stop firing and they will do that, whereas the British and Americans will go, we're going to get shot to pieces.

Everyone is getting massacred. I'm off. And that is the difference. But that's got nothing to do with training. And I would argue that on a mountain pass when you can see your enemy coming manning machine guns, not very difficult or firing an artillery piece, you don't need a huge amount of training to that, you know, so it's really, you know, discipline and training can go hand in hand, but they're not necessarily bad fellows. And and I think that's that's a big, big difference.

So in terms of the quality of German troops, some of them are quite good. Some of them are really good. Some of them are absolutely awful. But they have the advantage of the defenders and that the terrain absolutely suits defense. Sicily, because the final exit point is a straight from a senior right at the north east of Sicily. And the island tapers to that point. That means as you pull back your line, get shorter, which means you need less men to man it so that you can organise your retreat across the straits and has seen it quite easily.

And so, again, everything about it favors the defender, really.

What about the Brits? The Americans? What do they learn in Sicily? Go as expected, or do they think they're fighting the axis in axis countries? Agree. Pretty tricky.

Well, the problem with Sicily is that when they're planning or when they agree, the plan, which is finally signed off on the 3rd of May, 1943, they have absolutely no idea what the what the defense axis defense is going to be. They don't know how good the Italians are going to be. They suspect it's probably not going to be very good. But the Italians have fought very, very well in the final stages of Tunisia. As it happens, the main reason for that is because you've got a lot of really, really experienced people, Italian troops in North Africa who know what they're about because they've learned the hard way, whereas the guys in Sicily are not particularly well trained, are not particularly well equipped, and as it turns out, absolutely hopeless.

But the allies don't know that they can suspect it, but they don't know that for sure. And they don't know how many divisions are going to be of Germans defending it. So the plan they make is is very cautious and it's very infantry heavy in the initial landings. And there's only so much amount of shipping that you've got. So having all those infantry landing and actually it's more infantry landed on D-Day on Sicily than D-Day. Normandy, a year later by the tune of about 5000 men comes as a you know, that comes with consequences and that's motor transport, because you've only got so many landing craft.

And if you're filling up, eventually, you can't fill them up with trucks and tanks and carriers and all the rest of it, the allies. And we've been criticized for being overly cautious. But if you're organizing amphibious invasion on that scale, the most the single most important thing in all of it is that it doesn't fail, that Trump's absolutely everything. Because the bottom line is, if you can get a bridgehead on your attacking island, you are going to win because you've got more numbers and you've got way to material advantage.

But the moment of real risk is in their actual landing itself, when you're vulnerable, where you're ferrying comparatively small numbers of men in the big scheme of things to, you know, comparatively small areas which might or might not be very well defended, you can't afford to take that risk. So the plan actually, I think was a very good plan, was the sensible plan and the right plan. But the consequences of that were to start off with in those crucial first days where the Italians are being, you know, running to the hills and the Germans are off balance and then having to regain their balance militarily.

The problem is that you've got too many infantry on board and not enough motor transport. And so you can't move quickly. And by the time you get to the key bits, the Germans are reorganize themselves. And so therefore it just turns into a slugging match. And that's got nothing to do with the quality of Germans of British, Canadian and American troops and just everything to do with the circumstances in which they land in the first place.

Tell me, James Holland, was Britain on its last legs in World War Two and was rescued by the Americans? No, I don't think it was completely I mean, I think the United States was a brilliant and by 1945, the US armed forces are the best in the world, bar none. You know, and I would challenge anyone to challenge me on that. You have to be careful not to look at Britain now or a Britain in the Second World War through the prism of Britain now or even Britain in the prism of the late 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

You know, Britain was in 1939, had the world's largest empire, had the world's largest global shipping empire, had 40 percent of the world's largest navy imperial powers and business assets. And all the rest of it had access to around 80, 85 percent of the world's merchant fleet operating on their behalf. You know you know, the global reach has never been greater from one and one nation ever, not even China today or the United States. That is absolute pinnacle.

So, you know, we had a lot of things in our favor. I think we definitely needed the help of the material help of the United States. And the firies would have been lost about the United States. I'm absolutely certain about that. The war was one hell of a lot quicker with America as well. But, you know, we're we're talking about what ifs here. I mean, fortunately, the US did come in. We had this amazing coalition.

We worked incredibly closely together, even though we were never a formal alliance. And I think rather than kind of sort of thinking, you know, one nation was better than the other, I think you've got to look at it as a sort of collaborative effort, really. What a beautiful thing.

Well, there been a collaborative effort well done in the book on Sicily.

It's called Sicily 43, The First Allied Assault of Fortress Europe. I think that's a subtitle. It's a great title. And then your wonderful podcast about Maori is called We Have Ways of Making You Talk.

It is. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. That is. Yeah. Not as much fun is talking to either. Well thanks man. But it looks like having fun I got to say. Yeah. Every so often I see you guys like dressing up and doing insane things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The thing that's kind of I've been sucked into at the moment is bloody modelling. You know, Owles Almaraz is quite keen on this is the closet model locked that he's been in a lot of it.

And then he was sort of posting pictures on Twitter and stuff and everyone's like, well, I'd be doing a Model T and suddenly, you know, the challenge with the gauntlet was laid to have the great British kit off so suddenly got sucked into this.

And, my God, it takes time. I mean, I haven't got time for this down.

I really I really don't. I sort of fiddle around, kind of, you know, putting on kind of Zimet on a fish tank.

I just don't need to do that, you know, because you got to keep writing books. But thank you for coming on the part of a pleasure as always.

I could just a quick message at the end of this podcast, I'm currently sheltering in a small, windswept building on a piece of rock in the Bristol Channel called Lundie. I'm here to make a podcast. I'm here enduring weather that frankly is apocalyptic because I want to get some great podcast material. You guys, in return, a little tiny favor to ask if you could go to get your podcasts, if you could give it a five star rating, if you could share it, if you could give it a review.

I really appreciate that. But from the comfort of your own homes, you'll be doing me a massive favour. And more people listen to the podcast. We can do more and more ambitious things and I can spend more of my time getting pummeled. Thank you.

I've lost my beancurd and I've just been paid.

I bet someone is drawing my cash around all over town, eating in fancy restaurants with those little breadsticks, renting exotic sports cars.

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