James Holland and Al Murray reopen the debate about the relative merits of Allied and Axis soldiers. Plus was there ever the possibility of the American, British and Canadian forces swapping beaches in Normandy?

Al Murray and James Holland mark Remembrance Day by reading an extract of Keith Douglas’s military memoir Alamein to Zem Zem and his poem Vergissmeinnicht (Forget-me-not).

Throughout the Second World War, the Special Boat Service took part in daring assaults across Europe and Asia – usually in the dead of night and in small canoes. James Holland and Al Murray discuss these missions and the fate

At the start of June, 1942, the Japanese navy ruled the Pacific. A week later US forces had won a decisive battle that would change the course of the war. Leading US historian Craig Symonds tells James Holland why the