Ep3 – Summer Reading Recommendations

07/19/23 • 51 min

Spencer and Gary talk about their recommendations for summer beech reading over the holiday period. Gary recommends the Flashman novels by George MacDonald Fraser, Wellington's Waterloo Allies: How Soldiers from Brunswick, Hanover, Nassau and the Netherlands Contributed to the Victory of 1815 by Andrew W. Field and The First Day on the Somme by Martin Middlebrook. Spencer on the other hand suggests Hero: The Life & Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda, The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris by Colin Jones and The Armchair General: Can You Defeat the Nazis? (The Armchair General) by John Buckley.

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Ep2 – Sarah-Louise Miller – Espionage History

Spencer and Gary talk to Dr Sarah-Louise Miller about her research into espionage history. Sarah is a historian of war and conflict, specialising in the Second World War and the use of military intelligence. She is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of History, and is a member of Kellogg College, Oxford. She is also a tutor in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. Sarah received her PhD from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, in July 2022. Her thesis examined the work of women in the Allied naval services in British intelligence during the Second World War, focusing on the Battle of the Atlantic and the Pacific Naval War. She is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the King’s Intelligence and Security Group, and an Associate of both the Laughton Naval History and Maritime Strategy Unit and the Freeman Air and Space Institute at King’s College London. Sarah is the author of three books: The Women Behind the Few: The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in British Intelligence During the Second World War, Women in Allied Naval Intelligence in the Second World War: A Close Secret, and Hawaii’s Women at War. She also appears regularly on British television, having featured on various history documentaries for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky History. Sarah is particularly interested in recovering the missing history of women in intelligence work.

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Ep4 – Exploring combat motivation with Dr Tom Thorpe

Gary and Spencer speak to the podcast producer and editor Dr Tom Thorpe about his research and interest into combat motivation and resilience. They discuss what is meant by combat motivation and what factors are most dominant in driving soldiers to fight and persevere on military service. A range of drivers are considered from small group cohesion, ideology and coercion. Tom is an independent scholar, tour guide, communications professional and podcaster. Tom holds a PhD from King’s College London that explored the extent, nature and impact of small group cohesion in British infantry units during the First World War. He is also a public historian and being involved in a range of local social and medical history projects such as the Ulster University’s Belfast Epidemic medical history learning resource, the Queen’s University Belfast Living Legacies programme and the Men Behind the Glass Project at Campbell College Belfast. He has been a Honorary Research Associate at both Ulster University and Queen University Belfast (QUB) and a Tutor on the QUB Open Learning programme. He is also a Trustee of the First World War history society The Western Front Association and am Secretary its Antrim and Down branch. Added to this, he is an avid podcaster, hosting and producing three history podcasts. These are the Western Front Association’s weekly Mentioned in Dispatches Podcast, the Epidemic Belfast podcast, and Combat Morale podcast.