Merry Christmas from We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Over the next 12 days Al and James are reading extracts from some of their favourite books about the Second World War. Today Al is reading from Mussolini: His Part

In the autumn of 1944 German troops murdered more than 700 Italian civilians in one village. James Holland visits the scene seventy five years on.

As the last men are lifted from Dunkirk we look at the legacy of the battle in both political and strategic terms. Al and James discuss the implications for the Mediterranean and North Africa and describe Churchill flirting with disaster

Chapter 1: The Cauldron, by Zeno In September, 1944, the British 1st Airborne Division found itself in a fierce battle for the Dutch city of Arnhem. Al Murray reads the story of a single platoon trapped in the smoking ruins