Do Go On - 568 - Operation Chariot, The Greatest Raid of All (with Nick Mason)

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Operation Chariot is frankly the most unhinged and daring military operation I have ever read about. In World War II, the Brits were so worried about the Nazi's super battleship Tirpitz, they decided to take out the St Nazaire dock in occupied France. To do this they sent hundreds of commandos on a disguised ship to infiltrate the port. Also, the ship was a giant bomb... Five Victoria Crosses later, no wonder this is referred to as "The Greatest Raid of All."On this episode we are joined by our friend Nick Mason from The Weekly Planet podcast:https://bigsandwich.co/ This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 11:57 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).For all our important links: https://linktr.ee/dogoonpod Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/Jess Writes A Rom-Com: https://shows.acast.com/jess-writes-a-rom-comOur awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:Jeremy Clarkson: Greatest Raid of All Time (2007), watch on Timeline - World History Documentaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCMCr2Kh1wI https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/bold-strategy-british-raid-st-nazaire https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/british-raid-st-nazaire-part-ii https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/commandos-WW2 https://www.britannica.com/technology/U-boat https://stnazaireraid.org/events-leading-up-to-the-raid-2/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/bismarck-battleship-facts-why-famous-feared-sunk-wreck/ https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/bismarck-battleship-facts-why-famous-feared-sunk-wreck/ https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-203249 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen up, nerds, because we have some updates for you. Particularly if you live in Canada. Nerds. And in Toronto, if you're a Torontoian nerd, we've added an extra show in Toronto. Our first show live at the Royal Theatre on September 20 is nearly sold out. So we're adding an extra show straight afterwards. And guess what? It's the annual Christmas special.

Woo! Yes! So that's very, very exciting. We're also doing shows, of course, in Vancouver. That's almost sold out as well. Calgary are still a lot of tickets there left. And Montreal, quite a few tickets too. Is it the Calgary, do you think there's tickets available because we're saying their name wrong?

And they're like, oh, I wish she was coming to Calgary. Never even heard of Calgary. And you can get tickets to all those shows, including the new one, do go onpod.com. Canada, we'll see you in September. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Devornikey and as always I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hey, Dave, so good to be here. Hey, great to have you here and great to also be here.

I hope. It's Nick Mason. It's great to talk in a particular cadence that we're all doing now. Why are we? Speaking like this. I don't know, but I love it. I like it too. It's great to be here, replacement, Jess.

Oh, yeah, Jess isn't here? Yeah, Jess is away, but if you had to ask where she was, we'd say she's fine. Yeah, I wouldn't. Yeah, you don't have to worry about her. I'm telling you, Mesa, but also the listeners. Yeah, but I mean, every time you say that, it makes me wonder if she isn't fine. What? Like that's...

No, that's the opposite of what we're telling you. We're telling you she is. fine. Use your ears, mate. Sorry. You hear us say she's fine and it makes you think she's not fine. Now I definitely think she is fine. Why would we say over and over again to stop people asking that we say she's fine? Yeah. We've said that to everyone, the police and everyone.

And that's far every time she has been fine. Yeah. She's got a great track record of being fine. She's fine. I think fine's an understatement. I think she's really good. Even if she wasn't fine this time, which she is according to you guys. Yeah. I mean, that can't trace it back to you. She's like a wine.

That's how fine she is. That's so true, isn't it? And she's also trapped in a cellar. AJ cut that bit. So, oh, Dave, can I tell you and the listeners about my new special bad boy? It's been out for three weeks now. And it's, yeah, people are watching it.

They're saying nice things. And if you haven't, maybe you could watch it. That's right. 50 something minutes of good stand-up comedy times. Good. Great. Yeah, now, okay. I've watched a few minutes.

I had time. I had time, I watched a few minutes. I'm the same. I think I might be 14 in. Yeah, okay. So far, not good, great. But that's the beauty of it.

That's the beauty of it. Because at a live comedy gig, you can't be like, you can't watch 14 minutes of Matt Stewart doing stand-up and be like, Matt, can you pause for a day or two? I mean, you could. And then I'll be back. I'm enjoying this a lot.

To be clear, I'm enjoying this very much, but I have some things to do. What a savor. I'm going to put the, watching on. So if you could pause for a second. And that's going to have my full focus. So, yeah, you've got to check it out on the Humdinger YouTube channel where you can also

watch Matt's two other stand-up specials. And David Warnockys. I'm there too. Whoa. And there's a bunch of do-go-on series on there. There's the quiz show where Dave, quiz us on a topic. Jess and I were team captains, different guests each week. And we had another series, an actor-nominated series.

That's right. It's similar to this, but it was filmed and had some animations from John that were all very funny. Yes, and we made a set that looked like, or Evan from Super Bowl Studios made a set that looked like an old library or something. Including fake candles. Oh, welcome to an old library or something. This is due going on. Oh, the production values in this old library or something are fantastic. So go check that out.

And, Mesa, it's great to have you back on the show for what some people count as an official episode of, So, yeah, we're up to, oh, half a dozen easily. I reckon maybe a dozen. Maybe a dozen, that's right. But it's been a while, maybe, have you had you on since the 500 episode? Yeah, it has been a while. Is that true? I just didn't feel like laughing and learning, you know?

But I batted you enough times and here you are again. That's right. I'm like, God, fine, I'll laugh and learn. Fine, just stop messaging. Let me clear my schedule, go ahead, Dave. I have a job. You were a man who is a high demand. Someone was talking about, um, James, some of you.

Sammy P was saying out James was on his podcast the other day and he's like, he only had a short window. I'm like, James and Mesa's life must be so stressful. And I reckon half of it is replying a message is about can you be on my podcast? Can you post in my podcast? I mean, most of the time on my off hours, it's just me busy having a lie down most of the time on us, honestly. You know how they say like, you know, when you get home from work or you get home from your day or what have you, you know, just make sure you do something. you know like do do a bit of tidying or you know put the put the washing on or something like that don't sit down oh yeah because once you're down you're not getting up and then that's no way to live your life but

I say take your shoes off have a lie down straight away yeah 5pm laid out that's it electric blanket on under the covers oh my god wake up at 9pm oh but it's time to go to bed wake up at 9pm oh no 12 messages about being on a podcast it is I mean what a way to live But it is an absolute pleasure to have you in. Whenever I message you about being on the podcast, I'm like, it's so grim if our last conversation was also about being on a podcast. I'm like,

we've got to throw in some other stuff in between you. No, that's our lives now. I'm like, we've committed to this. Let's go have a kebab without any podcast involvement. I reckon, I'm going to do so I'm going to pre-write a message and time it for about a month's time, and it's just going to say, did you like the Phantom movie?

Question mark, and you'll just get that. And so it'll break up, so then I can ask you. But I mean, if we did that, if we went to a movie or went to, you know, got a kebab or something like that, we'd both be like, got to turn this into content something. Yeah, that's right. That's the sad. What a waste of. Cabat boys is back. That's right.

Sort of sad, but it is like I do see, even though I may so haven't seen you in maybe a month or so since we did bookcheek together. But I see you way more than like school friends or stuff like that. Sure. The people you catch up with two or three times a year maybe. I've just looked this up. This is your 19th appearance. Whoa. The 19th official episode.

My goodness. We did it. And can we just say we also, we did just share some burgers off here. That's true. We did. We've had a bit of a bond. We are full of caffeine and saturated fats. You guys have already recorded a podcast today.

Peep behind the curtain. Yes. And you're about to record a weekly planet. Yes, that's right. So we live a pretty fun life. It's pretty good. I'd say the other thing. about people who request, whenever we ask for topic requests for block and stuff like that,

there's nearly always at least a couple people saying, can you get Mesa on to talk about this? Or like, getting him on the pod is a favor to sit and listen to us. Let alone go and hey, Mesa, can you come on but also have researched a topic? You know what? Back in the olden times, I definitely did research a topic. You did a few, actually. I've got to come back and do one. So maybe if you want to send me that.

list. Oh, okay. That's fun. Demanded and I'll pick one. Okay, great. But no pressure. Yeah, also zero pressure. Because whatever they say, I'm like, guys, let's be, he's being so generous just being

on stuff. I'll have that this. I do one episode where I do every requested topic. Oh. And I just ripped through him. Yeah, he was born in 1956 and he did some stuff and then he died next. We just do it. All the topics off the top of your dome.

Oh. We go two minutes on and I say a topic and you go for it. And then we move on the next one. Was he an artist? Yeah, close enough. It was a musician. Move on. You did a few.

You did the Ninja Turtles. You did Bill Finger and Batman. That's right. You did the Marvel universe. Yes, I think so. Yeah, a bunch of Marvel characters. Yeah, maybe there was another one. But yeah.

Did you Superman? I did. Yeah, Superman. That's right, yeah. I can come back to do something really grim, though. Yeah. Yeah, you're a bit topcast, mate. Exactly.

These are all kind of, I don't have your notes, these are on a similar world. Anyway, Dave, what is this show we're doing? We are doing, do go on this week, where we take it in terms of report on a topic, often suggested to us by one of the listeners. We go away, do a bit of research, and write up a little report. It is my turn to write up a report, I should say in brackets. It's a bit of an epic. So we should jump in.

And we always start with a question to get us onto topic. Very exciting. So my question to both of you is. Oh, hands on buzzes. Oh, hands on buzzes. Okay, hands on buzzes. What does the Cambridge Dictionary define as? And it's one word.

A short, sudden attack, usually by a small group of people. Ah. A. Short sudden attack. Sudden attack. Yeah. You get in, you get out. A raid.

A raid. It's a raid. Congratulations, you are correct. Raid. The history of a raid. Are we doing the history of the mosquito spray? Right. Is that Louis the Flores?

Is that right? No, he's Morten. Oh, he's Morty. Apologies. Sorry, Morten. Please think of this wrong. No, today we aren't talking about any raid or raid the repellent. We are talking about one that is known to history as the greatest raid of all.

Oh, my goodness. This is exciting. This is Operation Chariot, aka the San Nazer Raid. Sunsair. Well, it's. It's Saint Nazaire, but it's in France. Oh, so that's a say, son Nazaire. Son Nazaire.

We, we. This topic's been suggested by a bunch. Pickies out. It's a fancy episode. Suggested by a bunch of topic, sorry, this topic's been suggested by a bunch of people. And from the look of it, almost exclusively British men. Thank you. Thank you to.

Well, that's judgmental. Wait, so this is a World War II topic. It's a World War II. Oh, my goodness. And it's an English World War II story. It is so funny. That is such a person. So it's the kind of thing that's had documentaries on SBS in Australia.

Yes, it definitely could. Definitely could. But I'll talk about the docco on this in a second, but it's been suggested by Ollie Bailey from Bristol, Ollie Griffith from Laycock in Wiltshire, Olly Bailey four years later, but this time he's living in Chipponham. He wouldn't stop talking about that right,

and they evicted him. It could be another Olly Bailey. I looked it up, Chippenham is on the outskirts of Bristol, so he might have just sort of been a bit more specific the second time. Maybe one slightly fan. He's like, I'll tell people like that. That's right. Bristol's great.

Punch it up a bit. Chipping him. I don't know about that. Rich, but four years later, I was like, I've got to admit where I live. It's chipping him. Rich O'Neill from Coventry. Ben Johnson from Milton Keynes. Max Edmonds, also from Bristol.

Ryan McAsland from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Eddie Robinson, also from Bristol. And William Young in Hull. And I should say, and again, because I wanted to shout out Tristan Thomas from London, who gave the most incredible pitch for this story in 2021 when writing into a suggestion hat, so you say, why should we do this topic? Or what is this topic?

I used it when getting the patrons to vote for the topic, and people said they simply couldn't resist voting for this story. So well done, Tristan. Are you going to rate it out, or is that spoiler? It was spoiler too much. And I should say, put us four banging topics I thought, and the topic that came second is also awesome. And I'm going to do that as a Patreon bonus episode

that's coming out this weekend. Have we had that yet? We haven't recorded yet, so I don't want to spoil it for you, Matt. Jeez, there's a lot of teasing going on here. Exactly, yeah. You're edging us both. That's right.

Before that, we've got to get to the greatest raid of all. It's an incredible title. It's an incredible title, and it's a lot to live up to. Yes. I mean, these days, there's raids all the time.

On Twitch, Fortnite. That's right. They're going to be better than any of those raids. Like frat houses doing panty raids? They're always doing raids, are they? That's still a bigger.

That feels like some. from porkies or something. They were all in prison. So there's none of that. Even in Trump's America? Oh, they're back. At the time of recording. They're back on the streets.

So today's episode is a small but incredible part of the Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II. Kicking off in 1939, so like pretty early on the war, Britain and France tried to enforce a naval blockade on Germany in an attempt to restrict the supplies of minerals, fuel, metals, food and textiles, all the stuff that. that they would need in Nazi Germany and later also fascist Italy. But then the Germans attempted a counter blockade

that was highly effective. Oh, you've got to blockade us. We'll blockade you. You're going to put a line of ships in front of us? We'll put a line of ships in front of that. What do you think about that? Yeah. Good luck getting your textiles through now.

I need those textiles. My grandma's knitting. Right? Those uniforms. Undeniably good. You go boss uniforms. That's it. It is funny to think about how England, Britain and France, worked together in these recent wars,

because we've been talking about older wars and they're always at each other's throats. They don't like each other. So it's a, I mean, a real, you know, it's an odd couple. It's a real mixed bag. I mean, sometimes, like, you know, they're sharing the king, you know, because they're all sort of marrying into each other. And other times, they're killing each other. Yeah. Sometimes they're right, like William was Norman who raided them.

Yeah. Conquered them, they say. but I think William the Raider would have been better. It's not a bad time. So as an island, Britain was highly dependent on imported goods, requiring more than a million tons of imported material per week in order to survive and, of course, fight back. The Battle of the Atlantic involved what is called a tonnage war.

That is, the Allies struggled to supply Britain while the Axis-targeted merchant shipping critical to the British war effort, rationing was enacted to try and make the supplies last, but if those pesky Germans and their allies were able to cut off those supplies, Britain would falter and then starve. I'm always fighting a tonnage war these days. Yeah. I've reached, you know what I mean?

Oh, yeah. We shouldn't have had those double burgers. I had a double burger. I think this week I'm definitely losing the tonnage war. Tonnage war, I was thinking it sounded like a high-scoring cricket match. Oh, right. So, you know, your ninth drop comes out and makes a tonne. Yeah, no, everyone's making tons. Tons galore. It's a ton on tonne war.

Tonege war? Steve War. Toneage, Steve War. Tonege Steve War. Mark. Is he also one of the wars? Yeah. Dean War. Stain War the third brother. The third war. The third war. World War III.

Yeah. Which is started by Trump's America at the time of recording. But won by Dean War. Yeah, yeah. Dean War. He came in, had a huge ton. Double ton. Because, you know, when your twin brothers become two of the most famous cricketers for your country of all time, you're like, well, I've got to make my mark somehow. How about I win World War III? Yeah.

Well done, Dean. I start and then win World War III. He played for New South Wales. Like, he played cricket to a pretty high level if I remember. He'd be the best play that I've ever met. Yeah. Third best cricketer in his sibling group. So let's talk about the British we're up against because they were very worried about being, you know, blockaded properly.

Like in World War I. German submarine U-boats formed the backbone of Germany's naval warfare. That's shot for underboats. Yeah. Oh, I thought it was like a, what's that thing that people don't like people using? He and her and stuff? Oh, like a pronoun. I thought it was a pronoun.

It was a pro. Yeah, right. So is it what? He, her, they, you boat. Her boat. Her boat. Okay. Them boats, all these them boats.

Me boat, you boat. These things that people don't like using. I love that that was a big enough. I wasn't quite the clue, was it? I had to say he and she. Yeah, it's so funny that people are triggered by the use of pronouns like you boat. It's just boat. But which bro are you talking about?

I'm confused and I'm angry. Armistice's terms of 1918 required Germany to surrender all its U-boats and not build anymore, but Hitler started to build them again in the mid-1930s. I don't know, man, this Hitler guy. He's building U-boats. I didn't know he was woke. Vegetarian too. Vegetarian artists.

Sounds like a cuck to me. At the start of the World War II, they were devastatingly effective. Britannica writes how the Allies adopted, however. The first phase, during which the U-boats generally operated singly, ended in March 1941, but which time many merchant ships were sailing in convoy, trained to escort groups were becoming available, and aircraft were proving their effectiveness as anti-Uboat weapons. So they weren't as big a threat because they worked out how to deal with them. But then the U-boats began operating in what was referred to as wolf packs.

Oh, hell yeah. Oh, now we're talking. Hell yeah. Yeah, now we're talking alpha dogs. I know this army is somewhat problematic, but, you know, wolf pack. It's hard, yeah. I mean, it's hard not to bro shake that. Yeah, right?

You said bro shake? Yeah. Hard not to dab up the wolf pack, you know what I mean? Put it there. That's coordinated groups that ambushed convoys and warships. They wreaked havoc in the Atlantic, sinking hundreds of ships. Fellas new plan, let's work together. Oh.

Get all the U-boats together. Okay. You get, yeah, get all the lone wolf U-boats to come together and be, Not so lonely boats after all. That's right. Hey, forget U-Botes. How about we-boats? We-boats.

So, but it was genuinely very scary. So Winston Churchill wrote in his diary that the peril caused by U-Boats was the only thing that truly frightened him during the war. Okay, yeah. He would have been at risk, wouldn't he? Yeah. Probably in his mansion. In the house in London.

Oh, no, I lived in a river. The Chams, they're coming straight down. I don't think I'd be admitting that if I was Winston. And there were worse things happening in that war that may be more terrifying. And plus, if he's writing this after the war, he did win the war. I would have been like, I wasn't afraid of anything.

Wasn't afraid of anything. You boats, they wouldn't even anywhere near me. But even if they were, whatever. Who cares? Nothing. I went down the beach. I splashed around. But then his editor said, we really need,

like there's no, there's no conflict. Yeah, that's right. It's just like you, yeah, we know you won from the start. And then at the end, you're at the end of you. You need to be at least give us something you were afraid of. Just say you were afraid of U-Boats or whatever. Yeah. He starts the book by saying, I've never liked snakes.

And it's like, it's not quite what I meant. At the start of World War II, Britain's Royal Navy was the strongest navy in the world. You know, always hear about the British Navy. You can sort of been the Sadeau. Royal Britannia. With the largest number of warships built and with naval bases around the globe. But as building up Germany's U-boats started, Hitler also enacted, Hitler also enacted plan Z.

Oh, geez, you've started with plan B, plan A. It goes straight to Z. Yeah. It makes you seem like none of the other ones work, doesn't it? Yeah. It's embarrassing. It's like 25 failures. You're about to go to like double A?

Jesus. Plan triple B. Okay. Double D gentlemen? Plan double D. Gentlemen? Gentlemen? Gentlemen?

Gentlemen? I'm just skipping out. We're pretty sure the first 25 plans suck. Yeah, they suck. Plan Zed or plan, but what's Zed in German? It probably sounds cool. Oh. Zake?

Something like that. Plan Zake. Yeah, that'll do it. The plan was the re-equipment and expansion of the Kriegsmarine, which is the Nazis Navy. You know, the Air Force I've always heard about the Luftwaffe? The Luftwaffe, yeah. You know their navy is called the Kriegs Marine. That's not bad, actually.

I've not heard that. Me either. The Luftwaffe you hear about all the time. When I was a kid, there was a Luftwaffe, game. It's called the secret weapons of the Luftwaffe and you were just like flying around in World War II era German planes. Wow. That's hectic. It's pretty epic. And there was never any like, there was no justification. It wasn't like, you're an allied soldier and you've, you've hijacked these planes or whatever. It's just like, no, you're in the German Air Force in the 40s. And you've

got these cool planes and you're flying around, you're shooting rockets and stuff. It's pretty cool. And who am I shooting at? Oh, you know, guys. guys or whoever's in your way. Yeah, whatever. Stop asking questions. So, yeah, the Vermark is the United Military Forces of Nazi Germany. It included the here, that's the Army, H-W-A-R, the Luftwaffe Air Force, and the Kriegsmarine Navy, which Americans would probably call the Craigsmarine.

Right, sure. Apparently a German name for the letter Z is Zet, which maybe sounds like Zet. Planset. T-S-E-T. Yeah, I can imagine like an Indiana Jones villain, you know. That's absolutely. launching plan Zet. So plan Zet basically is make the Navy bigger than the Britain's.

Oh, easy done. All right. Let's do it. Bang, let's start. Oh, what's your plan? You got a great plan to, what is it? To be bigger and better than the other one? Okay, step one, we're going to send some guys out and they're going to be at the beach and they're going to count all the ships.

We're going to get an accurate number of the Allied ships and then we're going to have plus one. That's one more. One more. One more than that. Well, unfortunately for the Nazis, which is not a sentence you often hear, and certainly one I don't often write. Plan Z had them having the best navy in the world by 1948. Wow. Which was, unfortunately, for them, nine years after they started World War II.

Oops. So they didn't quite leave themselves enough time to get the Navy what they wanted. That's when they aim to achieve it? Yeah, they said they did the math. It's going to take nine years to get the best Navy in the world. So assuming World War II is still going by then. Yeah, yeah. They'll be going to win it.

That's so, yeah, that's right. They're thinking we'll keep it going for ages. I think that maybe, I don't know, I think that also it's by 1940, probably if you're not at war, like building everything else. So ideally for them, they'd be doing this starting World War II after the Marines, the Navy's built. But the good thing is they took on like multiple fronts at the same time. They fought everywhere at once.

Yeah. So I think that's, you know, you know that saying, if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person? Sure, yeah. It's like that. Oh, you want to get a huge new fleet of ships done? Who do you ask? Well, a country who's really busy at war.

That's right. What's another thing on the plate? You know what I mean? Give it to a real type A personality. Yeah. Give it to a type Zet. By the outset of the war, they had only started work on two battleships, which I know we've just counted how many they've got. We've just counted the British naval ships.

It's a lot less. It's not much on paper. However, they were massive and formidable. And were the biggest ships that Germany. Germany's ever built and St. Nazaire Raid.org which has several articles on today's topic writes that the two ships were quote

so powerful that no single adversary could be or adversary could be certain of defeating them in a one-on-one engagement. So they're like, they've only got two but they are the best. Right. And they're huge.

And they're massive. So the battleships... Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes being huge in a war type thing. It's not always the... It's like a big target, slow, hard to manoeuvre. Are any of these things going to come into it? Each of the battleships had a big glowing red spot.

And if you hit it, the entire thing just... All these cartoon smoke came out of it and just sank. But the good news is it was the biggest glowing red spot on it. Hell yeah. So, you can't compete with that. So the battleships were meant to be 35,000 tons to meet the stipulations of the 1920s, Washington Naval Treaty,

which placed limits on the size of battleships. It's to stop an arms race. Right. But when the treaty laps, the Germans made their ships over 50,000 tons. Also, you could probably just not abide by boat. I reckon there was a few other treaties and rules of war. Maybe the Nazis weren't complying with. We can't, we can't ignore this treaty.

Yeah, this one's important. But what about all the other? Okay, yeah. What if there's an arms race? So, but anyway, so 35,000 tons was seen as a big one. And everyone agreed to that in the 20s, but they made theirs 50,000. So just for scale, it was a beast. Both battleships built were also faster than any Royal Navy could send to war. Whoa.

They must have lots of sails on them. So many. 5,000 sales. Whoa. And the German ships eight 15-inch main guns were of a bigger caliber than those of Britain's new King George the 5th-class battleships. So they were bigger, faster and had bigger guns and were pretty scary for the Allies. They got the plans by asking some children in the playground What they were put on a ship

Well, it would be bigger And it'd be 50,000 tons And the guns would be bigger Really big guns Bigger than those guns Bigger, bigger than those guns Bigger, bigger Or not that big

And my dad can beat up your dad The Allies were keen to keep the Germans From getting the ships out of the Baltic Sea Where they were doing trials And into the open Atlantic Where it could be a real threat If met up with U-boats A big problem was the British Navy

was stretched thin, protecting Atlantic convoys and fighting the Italians and Germans in the Mediterranean, not to mention when Japan entered the war. So they're basically, they're also defending on all fronts. Now, the first of the two German battleships was the Bismarck. I think I've heard of the Bismarck. Sink the Bismarck is what they say, I think. Is there a movie called Sink the Bismarck?

I've definitely heard about the Bismarck recently. And was it also like a currency? No, that's the Deutschmark. And also they also had Reichsmark. You have changed for this. I've got a Bismarck. It's huge. It's really big.

I kid just wanted it. The biggest coin in the world. I was hearing about the Bismarck recently. Yeah. I can't think of where. Was it here? Are you thinking of the rapper Bismarcky? Oh, yeah.

Bismarkey mark. Yeah. It's really Bismarkey. So the Bismarck was named after this is also I've probably heard the word. First Chancellor of the German Empire Ottoe von Bismarck. Yeah. Yes. And history extra writes this very weird sentence about the Bismarck Battleship.

They're right. Launched on Valentine's Day 1939 at the Blom and Voss shipyard in Hamburg. The battleship Bismarck inspired love in many of those watching her go down the slipway. Oh. It's like the opposite of saying a hot dog thrown down a tunnel. A Bismarck down the slipway. Yeah, it just fits so perfectly. You can't help it fall in love.

Yeah. This is doing something. romantic German umpah music as it was being launched. Oh, darling. Oh, my goodness. It puts me in the mood. I thought that was a weird thing for history extra to write. Yeah.

This is awoken and something in me. It really feels like they were struggling to think of something to write there. And they just looked at the date and went, Valentine's Day, all right? Okay. It does, it's like that's, I finally understand the classic Whitlam song. There's no Aphrodisiac like the Bismarck going down a slipstream. What's great? I forgot that that's how that song goes.

Yeah. But it does, everyone. Don't look it up. Don't look it. Why would you? Why are you wasting your time? God, do it. So in May 1941, the Bismarck was sighted off of Bergen in Norway by a British reconnaissance

aircraft and only had one other ship with it. Such was its perceived threat that practically the entire British home fleet was immediately taken off other tasks and sent into action to intercept it. Get a bloody load of this, they see. Oh, geez. Oh, no, all our Navy officers are getting horny. barring out. No, don't look at it.

Look away. Oh, my God. Do you think they said the other ship? Like, it was with two ships just to show how big the Bismarck was. Oh, yeah, you got to show, yeah. It's like when a dingy. Like a skil mark and a dingy. Remember when the like Melbourne Cup horses would trap?

There'd be ones traveling from overseas and they'd travel with a little goat or something, a little companion. Was that just to make the race horses look bigger and more powerful? Probably. They always said they were just friends. Do you remember that? Yeah. It was always like cute news stories.

Oh, this champion English racehorse is travelling with its pony. Was it, to give it something to eat on the plane over? It's a long way. It was just like a companion theory. But it was funny to think of her as just like, so when they arrived, everyone was like, whoa, this horse is huge. A little farming tip, there's nothing a horse loves to eat more than a smaller horse. How did he got so big?

He's an easy to win. Yeah. Yeah, Russian horses. I like Russian dolls. Big horse and a little horse in it. Horse power. How many horses have you eaten? Yeah.

Makes sense. Falaps, heart. Phalaps, heart. A little heart in it. And phallop's ass, why not? I'm so hungry, I could eat phallops ass. We've all heard the saying. I'm so hungry and eat the ass out of phallops' ass.

You know when you hear a piece of Australian. slang and you're like, I think they've made that up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all made up. But a lot of people you hear, you know, like, I think they made that up for an ad. Right. They would have made that up for an ad? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think we could sell that. I reckon, let's get in a room. Before this comes out, let's get into a room to make guys. Maybe raid fly spray. Yes. Oh, I'm so annoyed by these mozzies. I could eat phalaps else. Something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, long story short, they sent the entire British Navy to intercept the Bismarck. It was attacked. Don't send the whole thing. Well, a lot of it was sent there, which resulted in a three-day chase. A military journalist Ian Ballantyne writes,

The Huge Ship may have gotten away with it too, but... Some plucky kids in there, little dog. Well, he writes, quote, Admiral Gunther Lutians, who was aboard Bismarck and was the missions commander, made frequent progress reports to German naval headquarters. It was a huge era. Although Germany's naval enigma signal codes were still hard to crack, the Bismarck's transmissions enabled British radio direction-finding

stations to identify the battleship's general location and heading, so they could just follow it. Rookie mistake. So they chased... Because it was really big, you could just see it. There it is. It's over there. No, we're not.

So they chased and kept up with it, and eventually the Bismarck was so badly damaged that it was scuttled or purposely sunk by the Germans to avoid the Brits getting on board, and only about 110 of the 2,300 crew aboard the Bismarck survived. That is, I mean, it's pretty, remembering their Nazis. Yeah. That's pretty funny.

Yeah. This is the bit, this is like, this post-Titanic? They really, they built it too big to fail, you know? Yeah, and it was all very embarrassing for Germany and particular Hitler, because they're like, these are our two biggest ships. We've built better than yours, and then one's been sunk pretty much immediately after coming on long. Is this what the... The got big ship, mate, big target.

It's too big. Like, ever since you're describing it, I've been thinking it's like the Death Star. Yeah, right? Yeah. Just for everything about it, feel like, I mean... Was the Death Star based on the Bismar? It might have been. Well, maybe the second Death Star was based on this next thing,

because the threat wasn't over as there was another battleship to worry about. He didn't even mention the second one earlier. This is number two. Oh, my God. The Turpitz. I don't like that. that as much as the Bismarck. Named after...

People would call it the turd pits, wouldn't they? Yeah. Tird shits. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, it sucks. Yeah. But named after German Grand Admiral and State Secretary

of the German Imperial Naval Office, Alfred von Terpitz, who would revolutionize Germany's Navy in the 1890s. Did you put some diodron on today, mate? You got the turd pits? It's just, it's not as cool a name as Otto von Bismarck.

No. Was Otto von Bismarck? worthy of the name? Yeah, he's very famous. He was obviously, like I said, the first person in charge of Germany, but they talk about, what is it, Bismarckian politics? He was, I think after him, it all fell apart for World War I because he was very good at keeping everyone happy

and playing all the European powers. Keep him in strudel. Oh, that's, yes, thank you. He's bribing everyone. And I think people still, I think entire courses are, like, devoted to Bismarkeyian politics. And I think it's people like, how is he doing that?

Right. Very difficult to follow. So he was like pure diplomacy. Yeah. Like Reese in the right palms here, chatting over here. We're all good guys. Tai personality. Sort of like, yeah, Trump's sort of a modern day version of him.

Yep, absolutely. Just really good at diplomacy. I'm not going to bring up Trump anymore. Sorry about that. I know Americans I like hearing his name. I don't know. Some really like him or his name. Oh, that's a pretty good point.

Oh, we'll do two versions of this podcast. We'll start again. We'll finish and then we'll do a very Trump heavy one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the other 50% of our audience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something for everyone. So the Turpitz was slightly larger than the Bismarck.

It had armour a foot thick and could still outrun and outgun any other warship in the world. She was 251 metres long and had a displacement of roughly, which is how they measure the tonnage of ships, 53,500 tons, making her the heaviest European battleship ever built. All right. Okay. So absolutely massive. So we're into early 1942 now. the USA just entered the war, which was extremely welcomed by the Brits, but Winston Churchill

knew that they needed time to come online basically and build up a war footing. So they're going to help out heaps soon, but they've got to basically get into action. And the German threat was real. By January, 1942, there were about 200 U-boats strangling supply to Britain, and nine million tons of shipping had already been sunk. Oh. So they were like sinking ships left, right and center. Oh, and that's just underwater for the taking. We could have that. We could go get that.

Wait, is that up for grabs now? Yeah, 9 million tons of it. There's probably like canned food in there that's still good. Yeah, still good, absolutely, yeah. I love that. Medals, probably they're shipping some metals. We could have those. Yeah.

We could put those on eBay. Rum? We'll keep some from ourselves. Rum. Grog. Grog. Aged, what, 100. No, sort of cat.

80 something. Yeah. 80 something years. Hell yeah. Well, think about how much alcohol. like the Titanic went down with. Imagine if you get a piece of that action. Sure, yeah.

A couple of 21st up your sleep. For when you need a 21st. I had the drop of a hat. Don't worry. For my son's 21st, we're serving some wine that was on the Titanic. Oh, and they're all vomiting in the garden. Okay, they've had too much. All right.

It's pretty chilled. It's good stuff. They really appreciated that. So 9 million tonnes's already been sunk. Everyone's already having a bad time. And then the turpits came online. This looming demon that according to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Churchill and the Admiralty were obsessed by it.

Churchill himself said, the whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship. Like, such as the threat of it. I've looked at Churchill's Pinterest board, and it's just nothing like pictures of the turpits. This guy's obsessed. It's kind of weird. It's obsessed, right?

Yeah. His wife was a bit like, can you come and have dinner with me? He's like, no, the turpets. Can the turpets come with me? It was at that point in the fjords of Norway, but the worry was, well, they'd done a bit of testing and that kind of thing, but the worry was if it managed to break free into the open North Atlantic shipping lanes, it could devastate the Allied merchant convoys carrying essential war materials from North America. Britain would be cut off from supply and starve and lose the war, so it was a very serious threat. They needed a plan to take care of the turpets, and they came up with an absolute doozy. Oh, here we go.

Yeah, here it is. So rather than attack the turpets itself. Okay, that would have been my plan, I think. We're going to get rid of that. Let's attack it. But it's in Norway, so you've got to get in there, which is very difficult to do. You attack Norway, and then Norway's annoyed at that, and they do it for you. Because you attacked them.

Yeah, the Norwegians are like, geez, all right. We'll get these guys off her back. Love the turpets. I've got to tell you, that is a doozy of a plan. It's a doozy, right? They went with a planzat. Oh, yeah, all right. Okay.

They would, so rather than attack the turpets itself, they would attack the only place she could go to in the Atlantic if in need of repair. Because of the turpets massive size, there were very few dry docks in Europe big enough to accommodate her. Most were in Germany, and heading back to those ones in the Atlantic was not a possibility of damage as the turpets would have to limp back past the UK and risk suffering further damage.

Or there was only one dry dock big enough on the Atlantic that the Germans had control of, the Normandy dock in San Nazaire. Normandy, that's, I've heard of that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I know. I know of that. Yeah. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The dock had been built in the 1930s when France was making massive ocean liners. it measured over 300 metres by 50 metres That's enough room for them turpets With a 16 metre depth

And featured a pair of massive gates at each end So the Allies were like Right we have to get rid of this dock So the turpitz has nowhere to go When in trouble Knowing that the Nazis were unlikely To risk their only remaining Massive battleship

After the destruction of the Bismarck And how embarrassing that was So the easiest way To ensure that outcome Was to blow up the gate at the front of the dock, which works like the lock on a river. You know, the ship goes in, and then they shut the gate behind it. They drain all the water out, and then you can sort of repair it.

You refloat it, and then you take it back out. Yeah, yeah. But obviously, if the gate doesn't work, you can't put the boat in there. So they're like, let's blow up the gate, and then they won't be able to use the dock anymore. I mean, if you blow up the gate, there's no. I had another gate. Yes. And you control the lock.

And even bigger gate. Put it in a double gate. Double gate. hadn't thought of that. That's a dozy to solution. Hey, so Winston Churchill here. Yeah, we put an extra gate on. Yeah, I don't know where the key is.

Sorry, yeah. That's good. The Germans don't know either. They can't use it. The problem was the dock was located six miles up an estuary, and this made its destruction rather difficult. It would be very treacherous for the Allies Navy to get in close enough for an attack because it's heavily defended.

The whole area was netted to stop any submarines. so you can't sneak in that way. And an overland attack was out of the question as this part of France was occupied by the Nazis and stationed in the town next to the dock were 5,000 Nazi troops. Look, to me, this was one of France's big mistakes. Don't let the Nazis occupy you.

Yeah, right? You're at war with them. Don't let them have your... Yeah. Why would you let them be in your country at all? They said they were only going to stay for a couple of nights. And then keep going. Classic Nazis.

Classic Nazis. We just need someone to sleep They're chronic overstayers Aren't they though? Yeah, yeah exactly And it's hard to evict them You know, they've suddenly got squatters rights I'm only going to stay the night

But what's your Wi-Fi What's your Wi-Fi password And is that your wife? Why? And is that your wife? I would like to smooch it Wow, this fucking Nazi Jesus Christ

And as for a bombing campaign from the air That was my first thought But then I watched the 2007 Jeremy Clarkson documentary that he made on this topic. It's really good. Jeremy Clarkson, how I would have won World War II. It's actually way better than I was expecting it to be. Jeremy Clarkson's funny as. Funny as.

But it's linked in the show. River of a blood. If you want to watch it on the Timelines World History Docos YouTube channel. Okay. You can watch it. And only goes for an hour, it's quite good. Anyway, Clarkson says this fact that blew in my mind. In the Second World War,

Bombing raids, he says, were notoriously inaccurate, and only 22% of bombs landed within five miles of their target. Wow. Isn't that bad? That is, yeah. That's bad, five miles. That also explains why every farmer in England is always like, and in France, they're just finding unexploded bombs in their fields. Yeah, still, digging it up in the field. I guess even the ones that land, they just, a lot just didn't go off.

Yeah. And this was, so this is a tiny little dock, so almost impossible to hit from the air if you're, If you're stoked if it lands within five miles. Does it have an exhaust port of any kind? Okay, yeah, I think it might. They've accidentally built something on... Like a vulnerability. Yeah, like an easy vulnerability.

Why don't they keep doing that? I don't know. They get a Luke Skywalker type to fly up the estuary. Yeah. Or you know what I'd do? I'd drop bombs five miles away. Yes, right? And a five mile radius around it, you know, eventually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just keep going. Yeah. You're blowing up all sorts of things. What you do? You're blowing up France. A lot of civilians. What you do is you aim for the dock and you see where that bond lands.

And then you just adjust on the second time. Then you lick your finger. Yeah, that's right. Put it up in the wind. Yeah, what's that? Okay. Pick up some grass and throw it. Okay.

Yeah, looks like in South Wester. Do that thing with your time when you're doing a painting. About there, yeah. A little sort of L7. Yeah. Camera one, camera two. Yeah. You're good to go.

It blow up another allied city. Another French farmer going, fuck it, what the hell? All right, we'll go again. So, it's almost a possible hit from the air. And what's more, because Senna Zaire also had 14 U-boat pens where, so it's a big place where their essential U-boats are, it's protected by, it was protected by 80-aircraft guns. 80-air aircraft guns.

Yeah. Tongue twist, I like it. 80-air. Craft guns. 80 anti-aircraft guns 80 the more you say it the more South African you sound I've got diplomatic amenity

oh no he's stuck the more impression of that you do the less you sound like South Africa it's amazing so the doc I've seen a constant loop of sounding slightly too South African

and then he has to work his way out of it that's how I get out and everyone has a key my key out of South African is diplomatic aminae a bit of say sounds like a child from 1920s Australia. Our diplomatic community.

That's a wallaby. So the dock was basically inside Fort Knox and protected from all angles. How the heck were the allies going to attack it? Well, they had to think outside the box. Oh, here we go. This is good stuff. Ragtack tank, team. Enter the commandos.

Hell yeah. Don't wear underwear. Famously. No time. I'm going to get to the battle half a second quicker than everyone else. So only recently formed at the time the commandos were formed during the Second World War in June 1940, following a request from Winston Churchill himself for special forces that could carry out raids against German occupied Europe.

The idea was a small group of highly trained men would get in, fuck up enemy shit and get out before they even knew what had happened. Before the commanders knew what had happened? So they just came out like, what do we do? He came out, shot a machine gun in the air and then ran. Did you hear? anything? I don't know. Did you hit anything? It was dark. It was sick, though, wasn't? It was sick. It was sick. I should do it again.

Get in, blow shit up before the enemy, like, even, they wake up and go, what's happening? I've been blown up. Yeah. Churchill called it the butcher and bolt approach. Okay. The first recruits were all volunteers selected from existing regiments in Britain. The worst of the worst. Yeah, volunteers. Would they normally, how else would they normally do that? we're going to make you do this.

I think usually you get, it's like, you know, you join the army, you get signed a division, but this is because it's like, it's highly experimental at this time. It's highly, it's highly dangerous. They only want people who want to sign up, and then you've got to do a series of tests. Mavericks. Oh, yeah.

I've just been watching this show called Legends with Steve Coogan. And it's, uh... Classic Commando. This is it, well, it's, he's the old guy. And it's not quite the same as English. and it's 80s, I think. But it's the same. They're like at the post,

in the postal service sort of thing. But they're like, we need volunteers for a real dangerous. And it ends up being quite a dangerous undercover thing. Well, like, it's so funny to be on, all right, posties or whoever. Any volunteers, this is pretty full on work.

Be like, yeah, how full on could it be? Yeah, and then it. But it ended up being, yeah. It's like going undercover and drug, like a big drug sting thing. Good show. Good show. And is it?

Like a... I'm up to the last episode. Comedy twist as well. Oh, I think Kugan's it a little bit, but, you know, he's also good. You know, he's a serious actor too. But I think you'd love it, Dave. I've got this card in my letterbox. It says I've got to collect some drugs.

Can I get the drugs? Yep, you're nicked. Yes. Gotcha. Oh, you've seen it. Yeah, it's good. It actually does sound awesome. Yeah, I think you'd love it.

No, there are definitely some light comic relief moments, but it's generally pretty serious. Just like you. Yeah. Yeah, generally pretty serious. So it's accidentally symbol upon levity sometimes. Sometimes. But that's an accident. Obviously, not this week, but.

Not this way, Jess isn't here. I won't allow it. So the UK's National Army Museum rights, commander recruits were trained at special centres in Scotland. They learnt physical fitness, survival, orientering, close quarter combat, silent killing, knife throw, signaling, amphibious and cliff assault, vehicle operation. Killing frogs?

Yeah. He's a magnifying glass. Got them. Vehicle operation, the handling of different weapons and demolition skills. Now put your indicator on and out of the parking spot. Nice and easy. Taking your foot off the clutch. Any man who failed to live up to the toughest requirements would be RTU returned to unit.

Oh, shame. Oh, you get back to the unit. Did you fail? No, I just decided it wasn't for me. Yeah, no, yeah, no. It was actually boring. Yeah, they said I was too. dangerous.

Yeah. I killed way too many frogs. They said I was sick. Yeah. Literally, yeah, they said I was sick. Probably not right. Yeah, I'm not allowed to hold a gun anymore. But don't worry, I mainly use knives.

I exploded too many frogs with my karate chops. So they had to send me back. So, they're like these badass guys. However, in the docker, Jeremy Clarkson, like, makes the point that despite the reputation there's these fearless killing machines, they weren't all Jason Statham types. Like there were a mixed bag On the doco

There's a rag tag There's a rag tag There's like grads of universities Like Oxford and Trinity Dublin There's a guy who's written a book On like the history of the Byzantine Empire Maybe the professor

They call it a professor There was a poacher A motorcycle rider Miners factory workers There'd be at least one guy called soup or soap I reckon You know And because he's either clean

Or not clean You never had a bath Like soup or doesn't Like soup. Farmers, policemen, tradesmen, but they're all chosen for their intelligence, initiative, and individuality. They were much more independent than regular army regiments. Now, despite a direct request from Churchill, this new group be formed.

This, like, team that didn't follow the rules weren't popular with the conservatives at the head of the military. It's very regimented. Those pencil pushes. We've been doing this way for a long, long time. You follow the chain of command, but they also reportedly didn't look. like that because of the high standards of the commanders, they were taking a lot of the best men out of normal regiments.

Yeah, right. And they were like, well, you're taking my best guy. Yeah, yeah. This sounds like the GAA, the Irish Football Association. They lose a lot of their best players to the AFL because AFL, Aussie rules is a professional league. So they're like this 18-year-old gun who just played in the premiership, broke a seven-year premiership drought.

in Ireland has been recruited by the Saints and the GAA like can you please stop doing this? He was like, he was the future of our competition. Yeah, he's like, he's on the,

you know, the poster boy in the magazines or something. Well, we're the saints and we need to break our premiership. You know, we're really, fingers crossed it.

His name's Kobe. We're really hoping he's the, he's the drought breaker. Wow. The drought. Is that what people are calling him? I think they are. The drought breaker.

The drought breaker. Kobe, Kobe, the drought breaker. Wow. An 18-year-old who's never played a game of Ozzie rules football. Yeah, right. Who we're pinning our hopes on. And other people have played their whole lives. Like, what?

Yeah. Can I get picked? But, I mean, it happens. There's a pretty good conversion rate of gun Irish footballers to Australian football. Jim Starns mean anything to you? No. Okay. No, I've heard it.

I've heard this time. Yeah. So the World War II commander, Mickey Burns, says that basically the top brass were doing their best to get the commanders disbanded in their early stages. They don't know how a rag tag team works. And I don't have anywhere really to put this. Crusty old deans. Well, I think, can a rag tag team exist without the crusty old deans?

You know, they need someone to be rebelling again. They need an editor, don't they? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, because you don't have anyone to push back against. You're like, okay, do what you want. Oh, can we? Oh, I guess we could. I'm going back to writing about the Byzantine.

Yeah. And I don't have anywhere to put this in the report But one of when I was looking at Mickey Burns Well, you should put it here then Yeah, put it right here. You know, Mickey Burns would just said We'll allow it He's a commander, a badass

One of his lovers was Ella Van Heimstra Who was the mother of Audrey Hepburn Whoa What's he the father? No But he did go to Colditz Castle Whoa Which is an early topic we've covered before

You go to cryal castle? Haven't done that yet But it could do it Haven't been there? No, I've driven past it. Just outside of Ballaratan country of Victoria, what is it? An eccentric millionaire has built a fake castle and they hold jousting tournaments there. Have you done that weird German town in South Australia?

Oh, I've been there. Hand off. Hand off, I haven't been there. Dave, you're... Yeah, it is also, it's like a... Also just like a fake city, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it's a real city.

And was it founded by German people? I don't know. I thought that, but I reckon last time was in Adelaide, someone was telling me that it's, that was more of a, you know, a manufactured thing. It was founded by British commandos as part of a scheme to lure the Germans in and get it. They've been working on it for decades. So anyway, the commanders weren't getting any support for the military traditionalists. But Churchill wrote to the Secretary of State for War, which is an amazing job title, saying he'd heard that the commanders weren't getting support and were on the brink of being disbanded. but he pushed and said the commandos must be developed,

and he wanted a successful aggression to lift the spirits back home and prove the usefulness of the commandos. Their mission, like I said, was to destroy the dry dock, and it was called Operation Chariot. And the plan was for the ultimate ram raid. Oh, yeah. The commandos, this is the plan, but get two destroyers, so big Navy ships from which they weren't sure where they'd come from,

but they were like, we'll get two. Okay. And then sail them from Cornwall in England down to France. Probably get them from Cornwall. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. That'll save a lot of time. Wait, get them from France. Yeah.

They're already there. Get them from the dock, yeah. Yeah. Just take one from the dock. Yeah, take one out and then drive it back in. Actually, why just leave it there? Highjack the turpets. Oh, yes, the turpets.

Drive it out, drive it out, smash it back in. Yeah. Smash it back in. And then return the turpice before the Nazis even notice. I wouldn't even notice, yeah. Yeah, that's right. The Nazis arrive and you're polishing the hull. Yep.

Yeah, beautiful looking ship there, sir. You're making a motion. I thought you were doing the reverse. Back it up. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Just in Norway where you left it. I mean, it hasn't moved. So it's called Operation Chariot.

They get these two destroyers. In Norway. Sail them. That's where the ship the turpets is. Remember, it's in the fjords of Norway. Right. But they're worried it will get out of Norway. Fjords of Norway is a great.

It's beautiful. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. A little bit of phraseage. I think they're very deep. Norway and Normandy, I just think it's, I think they should change that. If this is a, if I'm the editor, I'm saying, let's make one of these places different. The editor of Earth.

Of Earth. Yeah. Of the story of this. It's too confusing. So the rest of it be set at Crowell Castle. Yeah. It's like when a movie. has two characters with the same first name.

Why would you have done that? You don't need two marks. You have every name. Olly and Olly of those guys from earlier? Yeah, exactly. Get rid of one of those guys. Sorry, Olly. You know which one you...

Yeah, get out of here. You know which one staying. Yeah. Yeah. The good Olly. Yeah. Yeah. From the better place in town.

Yeah. Beautiful city, Bristol. Lovely. But Lewisham. Wasn't it Chipperdale? Chippendale? What's it? It was chips in it.

It was chipping them. Sorry, you're right. Because I remember I drifted off because I had cheesy chips. The person went to Bristol, which I'd never heard of, but I was there with an English person. I were like, you've never had cheesy chips? Only I said it with an English accent. Yeah, yeah.

And then we had cheesy chips. Oh, yeah. And I really enjoyed the cheesy chips. Can I ask? A cheesy chips exactly what you would think they would be? Yeah, okay, right. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

They have a beautiful way with words. Absolutely, yeah. Fjords of Norway, cheesy chips. Cheezy chips. Oh, it's good to have culture. So, get the ship down to France, and whilst the Air Force attempted to distract the Nazis with a bombing raid nearby, they would sneak the two destroyers up the six miles of estuary, hoping not to be noticed by many, many gun posts and spotlights, and then one of the destroyers would ram into the gate. And then the piece de resistance, the boat would have a massive bomb on board. So once on top of the dock gate, so they wanted to like ram it and land it on top of the gate,

it would be detonated blowing it to smithereens. Hell yeah. And in the meantime, the commanders on board would have gotten out, blown up some more shit before somehow... Just whatever, just get whatever. Blow some stuff up. There's a couple of like pumping stations. They're like, take that out,

but they would want to destroy as much shit as possible. And then somehow rendezvous with the second destroyer and get the hell out of there. Getaway destroyer, very important. Going back down the estuary with all the guns, presumably aimed squarely at them, easy as you like. But a bitty boom

Get in, get in, get out Blow it up Pop down the pub Pop down the pub Have a couple of pints Two for one on cheesy chips Have a couple of pints and some cheesy chips At the Fjords in Norway

I was so good those cheesy chips Wish you had some right now Oh We should say that For the ultimate cheesy chips We might be trying some in Canada Next week Whoa

At the time of release of this podcast We are heading to Canada Poutine Poutine We're gonna get some Poutine Toutine Professor Putin with mystery's history With some gravy on top

Yes And yes if you're in the area Please pop on down to Vancouver Calgary Montreal or Toronto See us do some live podcasts Yeah And if anyone does know Mr is from Professor Putin's Mysteries histories

Send him along What I meet that guy An Instagram account of a historian That Matt and I like to follow Yeah It starts every video with Professor Poutin with mystery. His history is here, and he finishes everyone.

Consider yourself updated. It's good stuff. It's good stuff. He's great. Like his vibe. It sounds like he's got a good vibe. He's got a really good vibe. He also says his name.

I can't remember what it. Anyway, so he has three names. He's mystery. He's Professor Poutine. And then a real name. Oh. I guess. Which he explained that someone called in Professor Poutine as a put down and he was like, I like that.

So he used it. or Professor Poutine put down won't work on me. I'll throw it back in your face. I'll trade market. I'll make a T-shirt. So, anyway, Lord Louis Mountbatten,

who is very high up in the military, presented the frankly insane plan to the war office. It's a frankly insane plan on the Manila follow. And not everyone loved it. Listen, before we go into this, I need you to know,

this is frickin' nuts, this plan. Just roll with it. Just, they might be just crazy enough. Honestly, that's his plan. Mountbatten himself said in 1974 of a meeting with a military chief who said, and he's like a really, he's like a posh old English guy, this guy.

Mountbatten's like in the, isn't he in the royal family? Mountbatten's like, yeah. He's got relation to that. Let me look him up. But he can't be all bad. First Earl of Mountbatten. A maternal uncle of Prince Philip. Some of them are all bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's Prince Philip's uncle. There you go. and a second cousin once removed from Queen Elizabeth II. So you can imagine how he speaks, and he talks about this military chief saying to him, well, dicky old cock, if you're prepared to lose all your soldiers and all your ships,

I suppose you can take on this task, which I regard is absolutely impossible. I said, it is the fact that it is regarded as impossible, which makes it possible. The Germans would never think we'd attempt it. What? Basically, like, it's so insane.

It's just like two Oscar Wilds going at each other. Well, dicky old cock. And it is the classic rich people in a very safe spot. Playing with real people's lines on a board. Prepare to lose all your soldiers. Perhaps we could wager 100 British pounds on whether you'll lose all your soldiers, my good chum. A gentleman's wager.

So the Air Force was asked to supply 100 aircraft for the distraction bombing, But they were not into it either, so they said you can have 35. Of our worst ones. Yeah, like, honestly. You can have some hot air balloons. We got some gliders. We got a couple of kites. Yeah, a couple of things we made from the hobby shop.

Yeah, yeah. Balsa wood ones. You've got to throw them. Yeah. Sessna's ever heard of them? We'll give you some Sessna's. The shit ones. Yeah, they're not the good ones, no. The Navy were similarly skeptical, thinking that not one,

but two of their destroyers would be lost for a mission that was described in an official document. as having negligible success. Another surviving letter writes that the explosion may not fully destroy the gate, and the destroyer will look, quote, silly. I mean, if destroy, it doesn't destroy something, then, you know. Yeah, you don't. That's a big risk looking silly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that in war, though, you've got a risk looking silly. Yeah. That's what, I'm one of those, you're putting yourself out there. Yes, at times during the war, we did look a bit silly. We look silly on the beaches. So they did... He would look silly on a beach. He would.

With his big union suit thing going on, his bowtie. He'd be wearing that full body bathing suit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big cigar. Yeah. They did agree to supply one boat, albeit not a state-of-the-art destroyer. It was called the HMS Campbelltown, which was an obsolete World War I destroyer on loan to the British

from the Americans known for being sluggish and having poor maneuverability and it was seen as expendable. Okay, so shit the Navy don't care what you do with it. Blow it up, whatever. Good luck. From what I'm hearing, there's zero chance of success. I'm really, this is going to be a real downer

when they go in and they're immediately obliterate. The HMS Campbelltown has just blown up immediately. Unless their plan is so crazy. Yeah, but it's just... But it wouldn't be, would it? Might work. Could it be that crazy? Yeah.

It could be that crazy. Wait, you said it's going to blow up, but imagine if that's what they wanted. And then like a big wave comes and just knocks it over. We weren't expecting waves in the sea. The first commando steps on it and it just sinks immediately. And he's just saluting. It's going down with the ship. The air falls out.

It's like a blow up boat. It's like, flog as floges. off. So they got given basically the worst boat they could give them but still a ship's a ship and the commandos

were keen to see some action. Corrin Perdon Just need some TLC. Exactly. Swob in the decks. And a can-do attitude. Can-do attitude. Which are Coran Purden

a commando interviewed for the Clarkson documentary. He says in a lovely proper British accent. We had been trained to do every form of demolition from dock demolition trains,

anything. So when we heard that we were going to blow up the dock installation in San Nazaire, he pauses and then says, I suppose really it was the feeling of elation. Whoa. It's like, been told the most insane plan of the war and they're like, sounds awesome. That's fun. And I forget, when was this documentary made? 2007. Right. It's so sick that they were able to interview people for that. And these guys, even then were like, you know, 80, 90 years old. Yeah, that's awesome.

You forget how, like, you know, the stories I'm going to tell you now, they're so insane, but then these guys are being interviewed, it was like my granddad. Who was in World War II, but, you know, you would have met any of these guys in the shop and been like, oh, what a nice old man, but they've done some insane stuff. I blew up a gate once. Of course you did. Yeah, off we go. The Campbell town was disguised, and in just 12 days the Navy fitted out the ship to go under,

cover as a German craft. Oh, sneaky. They removed two of the four funnels and angle the other two backwards. So it had the silhouette of a German craft. And then they added a fake Nazi flag. But this wouldn't stand up under proper scrutiny. Like if you squinted at it in the dark, you might be like, I think that's one of ours. They also added extra battle armour for protection.

That isn't the Nazi flag. That's not the swastika. It's the cool S. It's the Stussy. Is that the Stussy ship? That sounds German. That's for Stozy. Meanwhile, the 600 members of the attack teams engaged in grueling,

specialized training and rehearsals to destroy as many of their objectives as possible. Okay, look, that's too many to make a movie about. Like 600 guys? I was imagining like... Like a dozen or something? Yeah, yeah, six, seven guys. Yeah, rag tag. That's too many to be rag tag.

You got the sniper. You got the kid who's going out on his first mission. Yeah, explosives guy. Explosive guy. You've got obviously the first in command, second in command, who sometimes pushes back a little bit, and they call each other by their first names, even though, because they've known each other so long. Got an ex- Circus guy or something. Yeah, yeah, anachronistic ninja is there for some reason, you know.

And then maybe you've got the inside. Just roll with it, it's fine. Inside man, Michael Fastbender speaking German. The girl one? The girl one? Oh, yeah. What are you doing here? You're a girl.

You can't be in the Navy. You're a girl. Whoa, hang on. She just punched someone. Yeah. I snuck aboard, but I'm actually the toughest of all of you motherfuckers. Should we make this movie? I think we could make this movie.

I doubt anyone's made a movie about this. I don't think anyone's made the film about this. Mountbatten charged Commander Robert Ryder to lead the naval tasks and charged Lieutenant, or Lieutenant, I should say, for English. Commander Charles Newman with leading the Commander assault. The massive bomb that was to go inside the Campbelltown and hopefully destroyed the Dry Dock was left to a man with an incredible name. Lieutenant Nigel Tibbitts

Oh This seems a little kitten He was the shy 28 year old Bomb expert That's too old to be shyder Come on mate Yeah come on Especially back then

You're middle age Yeah Come out of your shell mate It's alright Time's ticking He'd been a bomb prodigy At Dartmouth Davil College And he chose to use

Over four tons Of the highly volatile Amatol Bomb prodigy sounds like Just like a lunatic. Well, he was an arsonist, but we're calling him a bomb prodigy. We're pre-branded him as a bomb prodigy. You want him on the team?

He's an arsonist, but he's our arsonist, okay? That's right. I just point him and say, you can burn all of that. He's our orsonist. He's going to do owson. Am I your son? Oh, God, no. No, no.

Amazingly back then, they didn't have accurate timing devices. So he had to use a fuse that when activated, released acid that burns through a strip attached to a spring. And when it burns all the way through... A rub Goldberg device. Yeah. It is like that. When it burns all the way through to the striker spring, well, it springs, and then the bomb goes off. But it was susceptible to shock.

Not idea when it's inside the biggest ramming device the world has ever seen. Yeah, geez. And also... I get what they could have done. You get all the guys to hold it. Right? They hold onto the bomb. Hold it.

And then when the, when it's about to crash, the ship's about to crash, everybody jumps. Oh, perfect. Like when he survived, the fall in the lift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, lift rules. Which is obviously a foolproof plan that's worked every time. That's right. Also, the timing of the fuse was hard to predict.

And Nigel Tibbitts couldn't be certain to within an hour when the bomb might actually explore. Yeah, that's too much. That's a, that's a. Yeah, that's so well. Yeah. And he's like the best in the world kind of thing. And he can't get it. get it, you know, accurate in any way.

Give or take an hour. Should we break for lunch before the bomb goes off? Who's to say? Maybe, I don't know. You don't want to go early then. It would be hungry later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just another variable that might make this mission less likely to work.

Hmm. I think a lot of stuff was like that. Like, you know, like a hand grenade or whatever. It's always like you pull the pin and it's five seconds. But it's usually like about five seconds. Right. You know what I mean? It's like.

Yeah. And then you hear about stories of them. Maybe it's six. You hear stories of them not going off at all. Yeah, yeah. But I guess you probably only hear those stories because it didn't go. That's right. No, think about that.

I'm like, I've read quite a few of those stories. Yeah. Oh, okay, because I didn't hear any of the other stories. That's right. So another small hiccup was the fact that the Navy wouldn't supply a second destroyer, which was essentially going to be the rescue ship. Yeah, the getaway car. They would pick up the commanders when the mission was over.

So they had to go for plan B or C or F or Zite. Sight. They were given 16 small wooden motor launches, produced in pre-fabricated plywood kits, and essentially they were made to make the British Navy appear larger when at sea. They would offer little to no protection from German guns, as they are literally plywood. Half of the 600 soldiers would also be carried to Sun as they're in these, what do they call, ML ships, motor launches, and then they'd all be evacuated in them. Okay.

But it's like, okay, this pretty insane plant has got even more dicey because as if these are going to work. Anyway, the night before the mission, Lord Mountbatten gathered the commandos and the Navy officers together and due to the risky nature of the raid said to them that any man who wanted to could step down and walk away without a stain on his character. And not a single man did. Whoa. Though probably you'd be standing there going, if anyone else does, I will.

Yeah. He was on me the first hit. No, I'm good. I didn't even think about it. Yeah, I was belated. Somebody all the way over there steps out. I'll wait. Everybody's going to look at him and then I'll just run.

They'll never even notice I wasn't there. I was never in the commandos, honestly. Yeah. The men were told they could leave a note. I was in the command don'ts. I joined the command notes. It was an administrative error, but now I'm in, I can't leave. I was in the command do.

I made a mistake. You know what I mean? Sergeant? You know, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, long story shot, can I go? Can I go? I think I've got bones spurs or something.

Yeah. Yeah, bad ones. Yeah, in case some of them are good. I know I want to make it very clear. If you think maybe I've got them for attack perks. Yeah, like I'm some sort of X-Man. I'm not an ex-man. I'm not an ex-man.

But I could be if it gets me out of it. Yes. I'm a woman now. Or I could be. I would like to leave. Yeah. That's what I'm asking, really. Smoke bomb! So the men were told they could leave a note to be given to their next of kin or a loved one back home if they didn't make it back.

And on the back of the envelope wrote, to be posted in the event of my failing to return. You wouldn't, nah. Bad karma. Actually, in the docker, one of the guys goes, I thought it was bad luck to write it. Yeah. I didn't want to. And he was arrogant. And he lived. He did. He goes, I was, you know, young enough, I was like, no way I'm not. coming back. Do you ever see that clip of that guy and he's on the final round of who wants to be a millionaire?

Oh, he calls his dad. He calls his dad and he's like, dad, I'm just going to let you know, I'm going to be a millionaire. I know the answer. Yeah. You would write that in the note. You'd just be like, see you, see tomorrow, baby. Hey, look up from the note, you'll see me. Yeah, that's right.

Also lock in C. Yeah, that's right. That made me, like, that's a different kind of person who'd make that call. I'd be, even the thing I know for sure. What is your middle name? I would, until the green light goes on or whatever, I'd be assuming there's a trick or something. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, I mean, how great, like, could there be a more embarrassing moment in human history if he got it wrong after? Yeah. It's like, yeah. The money pales in comparison to the devastation of the embarrassment if you're wrong. Who cares about the money?

You look like an idiot. You're that guy. Oh, you called your dad. Did you know the answer? I don't think you did. And he ended up, he would have won 32,000 or whatever that, safety life and still would have been would have wished he'd lost 32,000 and didn't have the shame. I'll pay $32,000 for this episode not to go to air.

You're kidding me? This is a ratings bonanza. Yeah, this is going to live on TikTok for decades. You look like an idiot. It's disappointing that he got it right, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, can we do a take? You got the answer right.

Congratulations, you're a millionaire. Can we do a take where you got it wrong? And we'll spread that around. Yeah, we'll give you an extra million if we can make you look like an idiot on TV. Nah, not worth it. No way. So the mission was top secret and they weren't supposed to tell their family where they were going. But our bomb man, Nigel Tibbets, who had only recently been married, told his wife and she later said they both secretly knew he wouldn't be coming back.

Whoa. That's crazy. That's better than what I thought you might have said. Secretly, she was a Nazi. Yeah. And she told them the plan. Her dad was Hitler. Secretly her dad was Hitler.

Mary Hitler. There she was. Oh, I never put two and two together. Why don't you tell me? It was weird that Hitler gave you away at the wedding. I just thought you didn't know any other men in your life. I thought your dad was Charlie Chaplin. I don't know why I'm on the phone.

So she thinks they thought that he's not coming home. I thought a lot of them must have had because it is, even for these keen young commandos, like an insane mission. My favorite band from the 80s is the keen young commander. I actually think that's a great note. Is that based on fine young cannibals? Okay, great. Just double checking, I got it.

You did it and it wasn't worth it. I got it too. We all got it. A certain demographic all got it and it wasn't worth it. I loved it now that I know I got it. Thank you. This feels like in real time, do what I watch a superhero movie. And then I'll listen to weekly planet to see if I enjoyed it or not.

Oh, yeah, great. I'm like, I think that was all right. Let me just double check. That could be how we do our reviews from now on. Yep, folks, we watched it, and you didn't like it. Yes. You didn't like it. It wasn't for you.

If you thought you liked it, come on. Come on. It was bad. If anyone asks, you hated it. Yeah. I find that useful too. Films I haven't even watched, you know? Oh, true.

Yeah. Like, I don't like, what's one you watched recently that you didn't love? Hey, man. Yeah, I hate that movie. Wow. I've never seen it. I never will see it. I don't have to see it.

You don't have to see it. But if you listen to a more recent episode, you'll know that Mace says, not sure if he hated it like he thought he hated it. Yeah, but I lock in my opinion forever. Oh, good idea. Which is why I don't like Morbius.

I don't even really know what a Morbius is. No. But I know it's Morbin time? I don't think even the people that made the movie Morbius know what Morbius is really. What is a Morbius? He's sort of like a vampire, but he's not a vampire. And he's like a spin-off from Spider-Man. He's a spin-off Spider-Man.

Sony owns like all the non-spidermen. Correct. from the Spider-Man universe. And they've tried really hard to make something and have not succeeded. They're all bad. They're officially that go. Oh, have they? There's nothing left on the slate.

Really? Does that mean they're just letting it go? Well, no, because they own Spider-Man, so. Or they own the rights-old. Don't they have to make something to hold onto it? They do. Like spinal taps off? But I think because the most recent Spider-Man's going to make like $2 billion.

Right. I think they're probably like, you know. They've got a little wiggle room there, right there. Yeah, okay. They probably just wait at five years and make another Spider-Man. Make another one. Right. It's all the ones in between where they're trying to

to sneak one in. Oh, let's do Craven. Yeah. That'll be a big hit. What's a Craven? Craven, he's like a, he's like a man hunter. He's a hunter of men. His dad was Russell Crow.

And he was a big game hunter. Russell Crow's been a few Superhero dads. Yeah, he was Superman's dad. Wow. Man, he's got some epic jizz. Is he Thor's dad as well? No, but he was Zeus. Is that Thor's dad?

No. Thor's dad is Odin. Oh, okay. Because Zoot's got around so much. I assume he's most of those guys dad. Yeah, but that is interesting. That's another dad. It's another dad role.

He's sort of like the dad of all gods, Greek gods. But he speaks like a Melbourne, a Melbourne Greek guy from the 80s. Yeah. Which is such a... Yeah, he based that on Conno Fruber. I think that's... There's something about it that I think is fantastic. And that movie, how do I feel about it?

You don't like that one. I don't like that movie. No, you don't like that one. Yeah, which... That I needed it because I thought it was fine, and then I'll listen to the episode. I'm so glad I didn't talk to anyone in between. It was really, probably it was awful.

Really? Yeah. God, I hate it. Which I realized after. Yeah, especially that Russell Crow character. I should say I don't watch any of these movies. I just guess out of it. Wait, because isn't that partially because you are in the pocket of Big Marvel?

Absolutely it is, yeah. Kevin Feigel is your uncle? Kevin Feigel is my uncle. Kevin Feigle. Is that close to do it? That's not, but it's funny. Okay. He's not some of you.

His name's Clarence Fagel. That's right. That's right. Anyway. Well, that was a mini episode of Talking Weekly Planet. Yeah, exactly. A mini episode of,

Do I like it? And I know a Spider-Man brand new day or something. Yes. I like that. I like that. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. But maybe over subsequent weeks I won't like it as much.

Maybe I'll find little things to not like about it. Dave, just for the people who don't know what we're talking about. Oh, yes. So our great man, Nick Mason. Apart from co-hosting this podcast, once a year for the last. 10 years.

Also, co-hosts every week with James Mr. Sunday movies, Clement, the weekly planet podcast. That's right. That's right. Comic, book, movies, video games, TV shows, pop culture stuff in general. Big of blockbusters. If they ever make a movie out of this, we'll probably talk about it.

They should make one. We talked about one and it's called the... Well, I thought you meant this podcast episode. It's got Harry Caval in and it's called, like the... A Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Which is a similar vibe, I think. In the previous episode. I think, in the first 100.

I've got, at the end of the... I like that movie, but you... I never did an episode about it. No, but I talked about it for five minutes. I thought it was all right. Oh yeah, I thought it was fun. I like Henry Cavill. Me too.

I do now as well. So do you want to tell me the mission? Oh yes, good. Everything's been, you know, it's pretty rapid like a lot of things in World War II. Like, you know, they had like I said, 12 days once it's approved to get everything ready. They headed off on March 26, 1942, the total of 264 commandos and 357 personnel on board. board, most of them Navy people, that's 621 men total. I sent Nazera ray.org writes that these men were, quote, with inadequate weapons,

short of ammunition, denied effective gun or air support, and yet determined absolutely to sacrifice themselves to save their merchant navy comrades from destruction by Terpitz's massive guns. So the Navy are very, even though they don't support the commanders, that much they're keen for this mission to work because it will take out the biggest threat to the Navy, which is this massive massive ship. Which is so funny because the other version of this ship sucked. Yeah, that's right. And I only reckon it's going to be here because they don't think the Germans are going

to risk it. Yeah. Which means it kind of feels like a pointless ship. Yeah, but if they don't succeed, they will. They probably, they would risk it. They will risk it if they don't succeed. So, as in. Oh, because they're going to get it back there to.

Yeah, if they've got this, they think if they've got the dock ready to repair it, they probably will bring it straight to the Atlantic. And what if you don't stop that? don't stop this ship and they drive, they crash it into the tower bridge or whatever, crashing into Big Ben, you know, embarrassing.

Oh, I took it left. Yeah. Oh, no. Embarrassing for you. And they're like, oh, sorry, I lit the fuse anyway.

Oh. You know, it takes like over an hour for it to go, so I just thought it was doing it. Yeah. Sorry, Winston. Sorry, Winston. You've got an hour maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you want to get it somewhere else. Yeah. Two hours, we don't know. We don't know. Maybe it'll never go off. So they were off, according to the National World War II Museum, the journey was

unoffentful until they encountered a German U-boat, 209 kilometers west of St. Nassair. One of the escort destroyers gave chase but sailed to sink it, because they've got these, the Navy are with them until they get to the start of the mission, then the Navy has to, they're on their own. Good luck, you're on your own, they would have said. But, yeah, but at this point, they've got the escort with them. In a stroke of good fortune, the U-boat was able to radio an alert on the convoy,

but its captain sent an incorrect heading and reinforced a British ruse that the convoy was headed further south towards Gibraltar or Africa, or that it appeared to be a mine-laying operation. Because they've got, they want to make it look like they're not going to this place. And this U-boat has accidentally said, they're not, you know, they're going to Gibraltar, keep an eye out for it. So very lucky. U-boat to headquarters, alert, alert!

but everything's fine. Alert. Thank you. Don't worry about it. Click. Oh, no. And I've used up all my credit. I can't.

And they're not accepting collect calls. It took 33 hours, but the flotilla, which was escorted by two destroyers, made it to the head of the estuary. The area was heavily defended by guns, but it also offered natural defenses for the Germans, given that its shallow depth of just 10 feet,

and muddy shoals posed challenges even for a seasoned navigator. Natural defenses. Natural defenses. And it was probably a natural glow too. Tidal depth research favored a night assault. Also, I imagine it's easier to sneak in, so it makes sense. Yeah, to sneak in.

So the British flotilla would proceed under cover of darkness and attack shortly after midnight. That's the plan. So the two escort destroyers left. What's their line? You're on your own. Good luck. We'll see you later.

See you later, boss. Don't worry about it. You're on your own. I'm going to get Maccas. Does anybody want anything? Tibots was instructed to start the fuse And they began to make the six-mile journey upstream They crept by the first few German gun outposts

I would have said I was going to like the fuse And then I wouldn't have lit the fuse Because it takes like it takes a couple of hours Yeah But Probably Probably Why not just light further up the fuse

Later Because of the spring Because it's not like light It's like, I don't know. Vinegar or whatever. It's filled of vinegar. I picture a really long string. It's basically like breaking a glass thing and then acid comes out and starts burning.

He's one of those drinking birds. But you know what I mean? Why, if there was going to be, I assume they'd be lighting the fuse as they jump off. Why not design the fuse? Why design the fuse to take so long if this is when you're going to be lighting? I'm mad. I don't know if you know this, but you don't really design a bomb. Oh, sorry.

Inspiration. It's like the bomb designs itself. I, you know, I've been, I've been, led astray by you too. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, can I say this bomb goes up to 11? Vertigo, is that? Vertigo, yeah.

Yeah, this bomb goes up to 11. Can you have a beautiful day? I haven't. Thank you so much. So. Another one. A third one, yes. A third one.

A third one. Elevation? Yes. You got to watch out for the elevation when you're lighting the fuse. Yes, on a bomb. One bomb. One night.

In the night. I said night. Anyway, Bono, what a lyricist. Life is a roller coaster, just getting tired. Ronan Keating. Ronan Keating. Another Irishman. There it is.

I see what's happened. Yeah. So, they crept by the first few German gun outposts. And they roll. Me, me, me, me. Yeah, they didn't open fire. Me, me, me, me. So far, so good.

But they hit a big snag when the RAF distraction raid, from the planes failed to begin because they were told not to bomb in the case of cloud cover to avoid French civilian casualties. We might get the French. It was cloudy so the planes flew around but didn't bomb anything and this alerted the Germans

that something was up and they started using their search lights. What's happening? Why that there? The U-2 album was called How to Dismantle a Boy. Correct, yes. I had it wrong. My head it was how to design an atomic ball. That whole riff was based on a really weak

foundation. That is something that Bono and the Edge would do, isn't it? Designed an atomic bomb. Those dogs. Then upload it to your iPod. Yeah, exactly right. For free. For free. It was easily deleted. I'm curious. That was the atomic bomb in the streaming area.

I don't tell you that much. I mean, people actually on shore are yelling Actung Baby, surely. Oh, sure. So the ship was challenged by a signal from the shore if they didn't signal the right thing back, the Germans would open fire. Fortunately for the Brits, they had recently secretly come into possession of German naval code books

and were able to signal back the right passwords buying some more time. Man, you're sweating on that because there's so much like sub-diffusion stuff, right, during the war that they're getting fake code books and stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this right? Oh, we're doing the code. Hopefully this code isn't saying, we are using the fake code. They're like signaling back like, I am horny. So, so horny.

like open fire. Open fire on these horny fuckers. Twice the Germans opened fire, but Campbelltown again signalled and they stopped. Like, oh, okay, they're one of, so sorry, sorry about that, boys. But eventually the Germans... Imagine if they really were on their side.

And you get, you got in the cafeteria later, and it's like, you did fire on us twice, by the way. Yeah, seriously. Come on. Yeah, I said the code, I'm so horny. What do you want? It's exactly right. Eventually, the Germans, however,

realized that this was not a friendly ship, which must have been unbelievable to think that your enemy is trying something so daring. They're like a few miles up the estuary, trying to sneak past, and then they just started opening fire. Cotton Himmel, you'd say. These Englanders, they're crazy. They're crazy. What are they like? The crazy. The crazy. It's so crazy. It just might work. And when the commanders and Navy officers were less than two kilometres from the dock, the Germans began opening fire.

And I mean, really opening fire. Everything was being shot at. Remember there's the Campbelltown and the 16 wooden boats, but the Campbelltown was bearing the brunt. A lot of its guns stripped for maneuverability, so it didn't have heaps of firepower to defend itself, or the little ML wooden ships traveling with it, which were pretty shit. They only had like balsa wood guns.

It's just them going, phew, pew, pew, pew. All it would take was one shot to the bomb on board, and it would explode, killing everyone. Also on the ML ships, they've got their petrol tanks on the deck. Another design floor. Like one shot at that and the whole wooden boat goes up. They're not that good. With the guns, they did have the British immediately returned fire.

33-year-old Captain Stephen Beatty ordered the lowering of the German flag and replaced it with the white British battle standard. Hell yeah. And in what is like a scene from a movie, actually most of this is like a scene from a movie, The entire flotilla followed suit and the commanders went into battle flying the king's colors.

It's so funny, it's like, you reckon you could be doing something better with your time? Now you've got at least 17 different guys. You've got anything better to do with your time than aura farm? That's what the kids call it. It really feels like this is Star Wars. The Germans are now shooting out of like stormtroopers

not hitting anything by the sounds of it. Yeah, they're going, we're going to win this war. we've got all the plot armour we need. This is an incredible mission. We're the good guys, you know. Captain Beatty was on the bridge, and he was being heavily fired upon

and calling out orders for directions. The man on the wheel was shot... Man, cover me. Stand in front of me. Absorve those bullets, man. I need a human shield. The man on the wheel was shot dead, and another man stepped up to take his place,

only to me killed almost immediately. Third time's the charm boys. A royal engineer by the name of Montgomery stepped up But he was unsure how to steer And then he got a tap on the shoulder From a voice who said I'll take it old man It was Nigel Tibbitts

The bomb maker Whoa Himself stepping up Tibbitts tapped on his shoulder with his voice That was crazy Tibbitts tip-taped As the dock came closer and closer Captain Beattie

Who is like sort of Given all the steering orders realized that he had lined them up on the wrong lighthouse, and they were off target. Oh, my God. A searchlight momentarily showed the lighthouse that they wanted, and he yelled to Tibbers to turn the wheel hard to the right to miss an outsticking jetty, which he grazed, like he smashed into it. It was close. But once that was clear, he had to turn a ship that handles poorly under the best of conditions,

hard left to line it back up with the dock. He grazed and smashed Dave. What story is this? Can it be both? Mate, you know, we trust you to tell this story accurately. I think you can graze into a dock and then smash its pieces. I reckon, I mean, things are usually very clear during a battle. Yeah, yeah.

Should be very definitive. What would it use their dash camp to figure out what happened? If you want to, you know, if you want to cast some people in this movie, I'd like to be the fisherman who's just fishing on that dog. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, take my hat off and I throw it in the water. Yeah. Because I'm going to be bow.

basket of fish and they all fall in the water. I'm like, Bo-R-R-R-W-Bum-Bum-Buh. Yeah, they're all swimming off to say, I'll play one of the fish. Nice. There's a couple of guys, like putting in new glass for some reason.

Oh, shit. But basically, so he steers around this thing and then lines it back up. It's like the naval equivalent of an NBA buzzer-beater performed while thousands of bullets and artillery whizz passed. The doc came interview and they sped up. It was full steam ahead. Whoa.

Thanks so much for putting it in terms of me, so understand. NBA. Yeah, that's right. I'm trying to think, it's like if Thor had a really big hammer and he does, he does, he does. And at the last second, like someone else had it,

but he grabbed it off like Aquaman or something and then hit Aquaman on the head. Wow. In the dying seconds. And then LeBron did a slim dog. Oh, wow. In India, in Spacham. Yeah.

I'm not sure I'm not Thor and Aquaman will be on different sides of this. Yeah. I mean. Are they, they're friends, are they? Well, maybe in a crossover edition Yeah, maybe they'd be co-workers I think in a crossover edition I haven't seen, I've seen Aquaman

It was one of the worst films I've ever seen It's very interesting Octopus playing the drums That's that one isn't it? That one made a billion dollars That's a little mermaid isn't it? The octopus also does play the drums in Aquaman I mean, it's just their favourite instrument

Yeah, that's all that was left to do Was brace for impact A simple case of racing for impact. The front of the ship smashed into the gate, and incredibly, it lined up exactly where Tibbets had placed the bomb. So it went a little bit over the gate. They rode over the top. Thankfully, the bomb didn't explode on impact, and the ship was wedged fast. The Germans weren't going to be able to get it out in a hurry.

And Captain Beattie coolly turned to his men and apparently said, well, here we are. Four minutes late. I'm sorry, is this guy played by Pierce Prozden? I think so. And if it was saying, I guess these pizzas are free. Yeah. That's awesome. That's when I watch movies, what I say.

Fuck, yeah, Jason. I don't know the name of a single character you've ever played, and I've seen all your movies. You're always Jason said. There's one, his surname is Christmas or something? Yeah, that's expendables, isn't it? I think so, yeah. Ricky Christmas or something. Fantastic.

So he must have a line about coming more than once a year or something. Yeah. I mean, Pete Brosner does. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. There's Christmas Jones. Christmas Jones is a Bond girl.

Oh, man. I can't believe that they put that in the script and then we're like, yeah. Okay, we're doing that. The backwards engineering of someone's name to equip is crazy. You're like, their name is that the whole movie for this? I saw that movie with a, friend who'd never seen a James Bond movie before. And at the end, that that line happens and I had, I turned to around, I'm sorry about this.

I didn't expect it to go like this honestly. They're normally bad. You turned her and said, Goldfinger's actually awesome. Yeah, that's right. You're going to have to say my word for it because you're never going to watch the bomb. It's actually really good. So they thought they had about two and a half hours before the bomb would go off. But remember, Tibitz couldn't be exact.

So the commanders got off and did what they do. Create Havved. Commando. They commando. Command don't. Follow the rules. Nice. Hando.

Paint a picture. Very good. Commando. Paint a picture of a celebrity while you're interviewing them. We're losing all internationalists. Yeah. Camaldo. Okay.

That's a lot of albums in Op. Shops. That's right. And it's like, as used as butts of racist jokes on Hay Hats had it. Correct, yes. Why are people so unkind? Correct, yes.

Major General, the commander, Corrin Perndt, interviewed for Clarkson's documentary, said, there were a lot of bodies lying around, a lot of blood on deck, and there was a hole in the deck, and I remember Johnny Proctor lying there with his leg blown off, cheering us on. My God, Johnny Proctor is a statham-sounding character.

I'm Johnny Proctor. Just what the Proctor. order. I'm Dr. Johnny Prokner. I just want the Proctor order to marry. An apple a day

keeps Proctor away. As he's like shoving an apple and then someone's trying to choke him. Johnny, I'm Johnny Proctologist or something like that as he like shoved something up someone's ass. Like a grenade. Yeah, yeah.

Your exam is all clear. He's our last great movie, sir. And an Olympic diver. Commonwealth diver. Oh, apologies. Sorry, day. Still pretty good. So, yeah, that's...

He never made the Olympics. I don't think so. Well... Because by that time game around, he's like, I'm just going to be a movie star. Yeah. Right, he'd already done lockstock by then. I think he's like, early 90s, he's at the Commonwealth. Yeah.

94 or something. So, but that's so crazy. This guy doesn't have a leg and he's still like, go boys. So crazy. There's so many stories of bravery from this. this one night, Sergeant Thomas Frank Durant was on board one of the smaller wooden ML boats, and it was unable to dock as it was challenged by a German boat. For his actions, Durant would receive a Victoria cross the highest military honour for bravery.

His citation reads, Modal launch 306 came under heavy fire while proceeding up the river Loire towards the spot. Sergeant Durant in his position abaffed the bridge, great word, where he had no cover or protection engaged enemy gun positions and searchlights to shore. During this engagement, he was severely wounded in the arm but refused to leave his gun. The motor launch subsequently went down the river and was attacked by a German destroyer at 50 to 60 yards range and often closer. In this action, Sergeant Durrant continued to fire at the destroyer's bridge with the greatest

of coolness and with complete disregard of the enemy's fire. The motor launch was illuminated by the enemy searchlight and Sergeant Durrant drew on himself the individual attention of the enemy guns and was again wounded in many places. Despite these further wounds, he stayed in his exposed position, still firing his gun, although after a time unable to support himself by holding onto the gun mounting. After a running fight, the commander of the German destroyer called on the motor launch to surrender. Sergeant Durant's answer was a further burst of fire at the destroyer's bridge. Although now very weak, he went on firing using drums of ammunition as fast as

they could be replaced. A renewed attack by the enemy vessel eventually silenced the motor of the, sorry, the fire of the motor launch, but Sergeant Durant refused to give up until the destroyer came alongside, grappled the motor launch and took prisoner those who remained alive. That's the end of his citation. He was shot in the head, both arms, legs, chest and stomach, and he was arrested. He later died of his wounds in a military hospital, and the commander of the German destroyer was the one who later recommended that he received the Victoria Cross. Holy shit. Making here one of the very few who received the award after being recommended by the enemy.

Oh, wow. Which is crazy. Yeah. Wouldn't happen these days. No. No. Yeah. Back then, you know, blokes would be blokes.

That's right. But if you did a good job, they'd say so. That's right. Not anymore. No. Not anymore. Not anymore. Things are different now.

Different, different and worse. Yeah. Worse than when Hitler. was trying to take over the world. That's right. Now he's worse. So he got a Victoria Cross. He was one of five people to receive the Victoria Cross for their actions at San Nazaire,

making it one of the most heavily decorated single actions of the Second World War. So the commanders were put into teams of between 3 and 14, with each team focused on assault, protection, or demolition. According to the National World War II Museum, the commander assault and protection teams were heavily armed with, Thompson machine guns, Bren guns. That's another thing I learned

of the documentary is they talked about how like a brand gun usually you'd put it on the ground and fire it from the ground. The commanders were, their whole thing was like, what if we could use this on the run?

Yeah, yeah. So they just got the biggest guns they could and like Arnie Star just fired them from the hip, which is crazy. Like a gun that like a few people operate, they're like, just chuck it on me hip. Just about like the probably lifelong burns Yeah.

Not good for you. On their hips. They also had fragmentation grenades, mortars and smoke bombs. The demolition group members each carried a cult 45 sidearm plus a rucksack with 50 to 90 pounds of explosives and fuses. And if all else fails, you could just sit them with a rucksack. Bang. A bag over the head. I couldn't lift that sack up.

And these guys were like running upstairs and doing high kicks and shit, crazy stuff. They're doing high kicks? Yeah. But they didn't have phones. So, you know. Yeah. So they were bored. They were bored, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, if they could scroll all day, they wouldn't be lifting those big rucksacks. No. No, no, no. They were being present. That's right. They were being present in the moment.

That's right. Yeah, these days, someone can walk down the street with a brand gun, I wouldn't even notice. Yeah. Heads in your bloody pain. Did they fire up from the ground or from the hip? I don't even know. I don't know. It's no way of knowing.

That happened today, did it? Someone walked past me with a, what, a brand gun? A few say so. Oh, they shot me. That's why I'm here in hospital Today Sorry I'm just finished wordle

Sorry have you got a phone charger Mindful though Would be moving from various landing points Can you unplug my life support Put the phone charge up I'll be fine for a minute Just get up to 5% Sorry this is just my generation

Well that's what we all do This is my life support I need to be I need to be jacked into the mainframe To be clear now is worse than World War II. Yes. Oh, make it better again, you know, even great again.

Oh, yes. Back when it was. Not now. Not now. Now's awful. It's basically, I'll tell you what, Melbourne, it's like, you go out in the streets like a bloody war zone. Not like back in World War II. This is good for the Trump part of the episode.

Yeah, yeah. I think we're going to win a few new. If you're listening to the non-Trump episode and that was in there, it was ironic. It was ironic and an editing mistake. I mean, this is true always. If you agree, sincere. If not, ironic. That's right.

Ever heard of jokes? Yeah. I mean, that's another thing. You can't joke anymore. I don't joke anymore. Can't talk anymore. Oh, but then, no, I forgot. Elon Musk made comedy legal again.

Yeah, that's true. I can't wait for him to try it. So weird for the guy, like, he cares so much about comedy and bringing it back. A man who's never said a single funny thing on. On purpose before. On purpose, yeah. It's such an insane thing for him to be obsessed with. It's like it's got nothing to do with you, Alon.

This is none of your business. I've always said that what he wants is he just wants a funny person, like a genuinely funny person to say he's funny. Right. And then he'll just. Do you reckon we'll get somebody to volunteer. Okay. Do you want to fall on your sword and become his friend and tell him it's funny?

Matt, would you like to do that? Oh, man. At what cost? That is a huge personal cost. But I guess, yeah, the reward for the world. And he might give you a Ferrari or something or a Tesla or whatever. Oh, yeah. And I'd have to laugh that he brought a sink into Twitter.

Absolutely, you would. Yeah. Okay. I'm not the best actor. Elon, you are so funny. That is funny as. Elon, you are funny as. Funny as.

Do you think you buy that? Yeah, that's good. Elon. Mate, you've done it again. Mate, you can't say that, can you? That's very good. Very good stuff. So they're on the land now, the commandos.

Blowing stuff up. They established War Weapons Week as the challenge password and Weymouth as the correct reply to recognise each other on the assumption that the Germans would stumble on the pronunciation of the W. Oh, okay. That's a Vorvians. weapons V.

I'm allowed to. I'm Dave Vornikey. Oh yeah, I think everyone's allowed to. That's your catchphrase in all aspects of life. I'm allowed to. I'm Dave Warnocki.

I've got Fonokee privilege. As I cut into the line at the supermarket. Excuse me, can I check your bag there? I'm allowed to just go through off Davornike. Oh, I'm checking the bag. I thought I was stealing.

No, you're stealing. You were stealing. You were stealing. In a nod to tradition, Captain Donald Roy led his Scots into battle, wearing their regimental kilts. So when you know, there's some Scots out there with...

There would be in a World War II movie like this. There would be a kilt wear. And classically, no underwear underneath. It's a commando. Saving time. Yeah. That's right. One of the big missions, one of the big submissions,

was disabling the pump houses that controlled the water level in the dry dock. And the destruction of one or both was vital to just disabling the dock's operation. They had trained on a similar pump in England. and have done it so many times that they were able to get in, plant the explosives and get out, all whilst literally blindfolded. Wow. At the English one.

This one. Everything's in reverse. Oh, what the hell? It's on the left side. This wasn't meant to be here. This isn't in English. We're a lot of trouble. They're touching people's faces.

Wait, who's this? Oh, no, he's got a tiny mustache. That can't be good. Charlie Chaplin, is that you? Please say yes. Oh, no, he doesn't talk. Oh, he can't say anything. Charlie Chaplin, do you know anything about disabling pump systems?

Of course, they didn't practice it after being shot. They should have tried that. Stuart Chant was in charge of the explosives. Stuart, Stuart, Stuart, Stuart. Pump house, pump house, pump house. So he was in charge of the explosives. He'd been wounded in the left leg, the right arm and both hands. You need most of those for the same thing.

He was able to plant the bombs, which this time... With his mouth? I think he was somehow able to use his hands a little bit and that these bombs did have short fuses Matt and then he sent his three men away and when he lit the fuses he only had 90 seconds to climb the seven flights of stairs in the dark and badly wounded.

Without hands. And he made it. What? Goodbye pumping house blown to shit. Must have strong teeth. I have to chew my way out of this. He did have a butler with him. So the butler sort of.

They never tell you about these things. Yeah, they never tell you about the butler. Very good. He had a Sherper and a butler. So they blew up a lot of stuff and it was time to rendezvous and wait for the boats to pick them back up. But when the 120 survivors reached the rendezvous point, they looked at and saw the whole river was on fire. Oh, that's hard to do. Normally water is not flammable.

You got to work hard for that. That's right. Look, good work, fellas. You have set a river on fire. and that's hard to do and good job but double-edged sword in this instance

hunt of sail down a river that's on fire but we'll try in water boats well five of the six rescue ML boats had been destroyed at this point and that means

well that meant that they had no ride home even if they were able to get on the water so they had to go with plan Zatt again they would fight their way out of the town of 5,000 soldiers this is 120 men

then split up into small groups and head for the Spanish border, which was only about 550 kilometres or 350 miles south. Oh, shit. Half of them were wounded, so it was a big ask. Hard to do your fake German accent when wounded as well. Or maybe easier. Ah, I, oh.

Or I, my foot. Mine foot. Mine foot. My calf, my struggle with my foot. My calf. My calf, calms. I've been shot. I've a bullet in mine bottom.

Et cetera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And plus it's, you know, if they're in Spain, the German's not going to work so well. Ah, that's true. And Spain. Once they're at the border, they're like, oh, I didn't train for Spain.

You're trained for Spain mainly in the plane. But they're on boats. They're on boats. Hey, yeah, all right. What's going on? I feel like I'm losing my mind. So there were 120 survivors, then only 80 of them. made it to a heavily defended bridge that connected them to the town and they just charged

across. Okay. More men being picked off because there's snipers. Like, you know, they've tried to blow up this whole base and there's a town of 5,000. So they've all woken up and like, you know, turned up. So there's, they're heavily outnumbered. And is, and the, the main boat bomb still ticking? Still ticking.

Right. And it, is the bomb in there is that, is that like hard to find if so? If the Germans got on there, would they be able to? It's hidden, but they're worried that the more time that it takes to go off, the more time they've got to search and go, oh my God, there's a bomb here, either evacuate or let's get this boat off somehow. Well, they're hoping, best case scenario, the 5,000 local Germans all go to inspect the bomb. That's right. It's right. It's got some very fine print on it.

Yeah. They're all leaning in. So, National World War II Museum writes, their efforts took them into the town where they engaged in close quarter fighting among the streets and building. and scrambling along rooftops or over fences, gardens and chicken coops in what would later be dubbed the St. Nazaire steeplechase. Oh. Eventually, with the survivors cornered and many gravely wounded, and once all ammunition was spent, they surrendered and were arrested. So they didn't quite make it to Spain. No.

Well, amazingly, five of the party did make it to Spain. What? Which is, like, less than 1%. That's the five we cover in the movie. And also the five who, I guess, were interviewed. was the guy that Kelly Clarkson interviewed No, Alistair Clarkson. What's his name?

Kelly Clarkson's dad, Jeremy Clarkson. He interviewed. What do you think of my daughter's song since you've been gone? What do you think of it? As a survivor of the world's greatest raid? What do you think of it? What do you think of a career generally? Pretty good?

So those five made it to... A real underdog story. They made it to British held Gibralto eventually to rejoin their units in England. A further 222 did make it back on wooden boats, but not all of them being commanded. because there were so many like army support officers too. But all in all, 214 were taken prisoner.

Like I said, some were later sent to Coltitt's Castle, which we covered way back on episode 1, 27 and 2018. In total, 168 allied men lost their lives at sent in his air. So a lot of them died. Nigel Tibbets, the bomb maker who had stepped up to steer the ship into a perfect bullseye, sadly was one of those killed, as his wife predicted. after the crash. I knew it.

I knew you would. I was right. After the crash, he held you. Who has to take the bins out? Me. Mrs. Tibots. That's a funeral speech.

What do you call those speeches? A eulogy? The eulogy is just two words. Three. Told you so. Couldn't count a three. Called it. Culled it.

Sins back down. Not a dry eye in the house. Well, I called it, Castle. After the crash. This is Tibbitts. He helped wounded men onto one of the tiny M.R. wooden ships and got on himself. But sadly, the boat was machine gunned and sank.

Tibots, what a freaking legend. What a legend. So 168 men died that day. Was it all for naught? Well, by dawn the next day, the bomb still hadn't gone off. And this was three hours later than even the latest estimate. And it's never gone off. And now it's a tourist attraction.

Yeah. You go visit it. Some nice fine print you can look at. Knowing my luck. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Oh, the day before I'm in the old explodes. Typical. Kills a lot of people.

I never got to see it. And they put the wrong milk in my coffee. Fierierreous. Yeah, virius. Two stars. Yeah. So it looks like it might have been a dud bomb. Poor Tibitz.

At this point, he's already dead, so he doesn't matter. Okay. The Germans were interrogating the captain's soldiers, trying to work out what the hell were they thinking. They were trying to be like, what was your plan? What was your plan? They were so surprised that many of the Germans... Was that your plan?

Many of the Germans were patting them on the back for their bravery for raiding a heavily defended submarine base. They were a bit like, you English guys are crazy. Some of the captured allies were marched right past the ship and had to keep a straight face walking past a giant bomb than you and actually hoped would go off at any second. It's a funny straight face, not just like... You'd be sort of like breaking as in ears.

No, yeah, we'd have to be like, yeah, cool being here. I don't want standing here, it's fine. I'd say I'd stand it for as long as you're long. Yeah, nothing's us here. Just like speed walking. But hope was fading, and at 10 a.m., the bomb still hadn't gone off. And hundreds of Germans were all over the crashed Campbelltown, searching and looting.

Okay. The English were worried their bomb would be discovered and disarmed before it had time to finally go off. Nearby, in a small hut, the captain of the ship, Stephen Beattie, who later himself was awarded a Victoria Cross, was being interrogated, and one of the Germans remarked to him that it was no good to ram a strong dock like that with a flimsy boat, pointing out that the mission had really been pointless and a failure. At that moment, there was a massive bang as the bomb inside Campbelltown finally exploded. And Beater, here's the one he said, oh, four minutes late, he's got another great quip here. He reportedly smiled and said to the German officer who'd, been chiding him seconds earlier, huh, we're not quite as foolish as you think.

Yeah, like, the Germans must have been like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Obviously, so, yeah,

they must have felt like that was clearly always going to have happened. What were we thinking? We know, when, it's so, anytime you're like, this is stupid,

you know, you're watching a movie or something, and you're like, oh, no, it's not stupid. It's clearly they're setting me up to think that. Yeah, this is,

this, And turns out I was the stupid way. Why would they do that? Have they never seen a Guy Ritchie movie that adapts a World War II event? These idiots? God. So it went off the explosion was huge and ripped apart the dock gate exactly as hoped. So much seawater rushed in that it dragged what was left of the Campbelltown ship in with it.

And the wreck of the Campbelltown could still be seen inside the dry dock months later when the RAF photo reconnaissance plans were sent to photograph the port. So they just couldn't, you know, it was so big they couldn't get it. it out. All right. Let's just build the port around it, I guess. Just start again. And as for the hundreds of Nazis on board searching and looting the ship,

well, parts of them were found nearly 400 meters away. Joyce. Whoops. It definitely softens the blow of, like, human blood being spilled when you call them Nazis and not people. Yeah, yeah. Definitely made sure to do that. According to the National Army Museum, Hitler was pissed when he heard the news.

is. Drunk or annoyed? Maybe a little of both. Certainly vegetarian. And isn't that typical of it? That is. Can't drink any of those wines that use fish to scales or whatever. He was drunk on his own lack of iron.

That's right. He was falling over. He was woozy. He couldn't even do one of his salutes he's famous for. Too tired. Ons, Kant lifts my arm. Dahl Hitler. Yeah, dumb Hitler.

The veterinary and one ball. Yeah, that's right. And other things are probably much worse than that, too. In fact, he was so enraged that he later issued his infamous commando order in 1942. Nal van Vez, underpunts! Which allowed the summary execution of any captured commander. This war crime was extended to all British Special Forces personnel caught in Nazi control territory, although its implementation depended on local circumstances.

That's also a weak move, because surely, surely, your commando, you'd form your own commando team, full of German guys. Yeah. Or not, oh, we're less commando, worst all the commandos. Well, you're going to do that with the regular troops as well? Like, come on, you dumbass. He's embarrassing as shit. Yeah, exactly.

He's such a fucking little bitch. Yeah. He sucks. Also, if you were a commander on like, I wasn't a commander. I got lost, I got lost, actually. Oh, you thought I was a commander. No, no, look. My jocks had just written down a bit.

Let me pull them back up. That's right. You think I recommend it. Me? A piece of shit? You know, I went to Octoberfest many years ago. And one of the tents, I don't know if it's still is, but used to be the tradition that if you were found to be wearing underwear, people would rip them off you, dip them in a beer and throw them up on this big hanging. Like it was like a cloud hanging sort of thing from the roof.

So I'd go, when I went in there, looking back, just don't go in there. But when I went in there, I just pushed my jocks down a bit lower. So if people try to... What a hectic thing. This might surprise you, though, mate, though. You didn't think of decoy underwear? Decoi underwear would have been really clever. Just pre-cut some a bit.

Just put some in your back pocket. Yeah, exactly. This is going to shock you. He's gone. Majority of people in there are Australian. Wow. Wow. It's just great to travel and broaden your horizons.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, if we see you wearing shoes, we're going to take one of those shoes off you and fill it with beer and make you drink the beer from the shoe. Oh, no. It's culture. Oh, no, I don't want to do that.

Genuinely, please don't make me do that. Rip off my jocks if you got it. They don't make me drink shoe juice. Yeah, give me a wettie so bad that my undies break, but please, don't make me drink a beer. Yeah. Odd stuff. I preferred the other tents. That was the Hofbrow tent.

Paulana tent was a lot nicer. What was that like the bird cage? No, that were just different beers, but there was just, there was no one ripping off your job. There's a pledge at the door. We promise to not rip any jocks. Yeah. Well, now you've got me thinking about it. I'm suspicious now.

Wow, that's all I've been commando ever since. But it's just making me think that was in Germany. Mm. Were they enforcing some sort of commando law there? Maybe they were, yeah. They hate the command. Oh, no, they hate the commandos, though. Oh.

Too, but yeah. But maybe they've swung so far the other way. Mm. You know what I mean? Now they're so pro-combed. Without docks, they're swinging all over the place. So the damage to the dock was so devastating that it wasn't able to be repaired until 1947, two years after the war finished.

The mission was a success, and as intended, the Turpitz was unable to have a base on the Atlantic. And not wanting to risk losing her, she spent most of the war in the fjords of Norway, meaning the ship is what is called a fleet in being. In naval warfare, a fleet in being is a term used. to describe a naval force that extends a controlling influence without ever leaving port. Were the fleet to leave port and face the enemy,

it might lose in battle and no longer influence the enemy's actions. But while it remains safely in port, the enemy is forced to continually deploy forces to guard against it, potentially becoming an active participant. So true, isn't it? A fleet in being is my favorite Fjords of Norway album.

It's so dreamy. Oh, God, I'd love to get a sleep to that. Yeah. The Turpitz never fired a single shot at an enemy ship before being destroyed in November 1944 when British Lancaster bombers equipped with 12,000 pound off five and a half thousand tall boy bombs scored two direct hits and a near miss which caused the ship to capsize rapidly in a fjured in Norway. And there's footage of the attack from a 1944 newspiece on the Turpitz Wikipedia page. It's called Operation Two Big Bombs.

And one near miss. But the near miss makes it capsize. That's pretty good. The voiceover says, these RAF pictures show the death agonies of the crippled monster. They just don't write it like that. No, no. Take us back.

It's a good old days. World War II. The Terpets is, it's serving capsize. It's serving. Yeah, the Terpets, it's so mid. The vibes, so, the vibes cringe at the Terpets right now. Like I said, earlier, five Victoria Crosses were awarded for Operation Charity, quickly go through them.

There was the captain of the ship, Stephen Beattie. Part of his citation says, The Victoria Cross is awarded to Lieutenant Commander Beattie in recognition not only of his own valour, but also of that of the unnamed officers and men of a very gallant ship's company, many of whom have not returned. So he kind of, because he's the captain of the ship, sort of accepted it for his own actions, but also on the behalf of all the men that day. Did they make 600 medals?

I think they only made just the one for him, yeah. Other VCs went to the Commandos commanding officer, Lieutenant's great way, Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Newman. His citation reads, he was one of the first ashore leading his men and directing operations quite utterly regardless of his own safety. Augustus. It's not a good name. That's a great name.

To me, it sounds real German. Oh. But which I would have thought, you know, they'd, like, they were so paranoid back then. They would have washed him out. They even, like, they even changed the name German Shepherds in England during the first or second World War to Alsatians. Freedom Shepherds. But yeah, it is funny. Augustus, maybe it's not as German as I think.

Maybe they said, I'm Gus. You're right. Yeah. And I'm thinking of Augustus Gloop. see German? May as well have been. May as well have been. What he was like.

Yeah. That's what he was serving. Yeah. According to... Gloop. Using that correctly? Commander Robert Ryder, who spent over an hour under heavy fire

trying to evacuate soldiers onto one of the smaller boats. His VC citation reads, that his motor gunboat, now full of dead and wounded, should have survived and should have been able to withdraw through an intense barrage of close-range fire was almost a miracle.

There was also Sergeant Thomas Frank Durant, who I mentioned before. He's the one recommended by the Germans himself. And another VC was posthumously ordered to Abel Seaman, William Savage. Very nice. Willie Savage. The Abel Seaman. His citation reads, For great gallantry, skill and devotion to duty as gun layer of the pom-pom in a motor gun boat in the Sennaz air raid,

completely exposed and under heavy fire, He engaged positions ashore with cool and steady accuracy. On the way out of the harbour, he kept up the same vigorous and accurate fire against the attacking ships until he was killed at his gun. Willie Savage completely exposed. Full commander. Full commander. Whistle a you.

As well as the five VCs on Setner's air garnered, four distinguished service orders, 17 distinguished service crosses, 11 military crosses, four conspicuous gallantry medals, five distinguished conduct medals, 24 distinguished service medals, 15 military medals, and 51 men mentioned in dispatchers. Conspicuous gallantry. Oh, no, after you. There's a medal. No, no, after you.

Another one for you. Please, I insist. I'm racking. I'm up here. So that's the story of the greatest raid of all. Whoa. Huge times. And yeah, I've got a shout out to the Jeremy Clarkson doco.

is really good if people do want to watch it. And you love, you do love him and everything he stands for. Absolutely. Double chicken, yeah. Mostly watching Topkew with my family in the 2000s. Yeah, that'll do it, yeah. I don't know what he stands for. He hosts, who wants to be a millionaire.

Does he? I think that's part of it. He took over from Chris Tarrant. Oh, he's like the Eddie McGuire of England. Yes, is Eddie McGuire still? He is, I think, in a lot of ways, like the Eddie McGuire of England. Yeah. Lately we've been doing anything where we point people to other episodes

to check out if you like this style of topic. We've got a million World War II episodes. Keep them in the walled garden. Yeah, that's right. If you want, we've got the last Japanese soldiers. There was way back episode 71. Tom Cruise? There was.

I mean, it could be Tom Cruise in the movie. It could be absolutely. That's guys for like up to, what, 10, 15 years that were on these remote islands in the Pacific that didn't know that World War II had finished. I don't believe it. Yeah. The Ministry of Ungenerable. Warfare we mentioned, that's episode 93.

The Escape from Colditz Castle, Episode 127. Which sounds like almost a sequel to this. Yeah, a lot of the guys. Mickey Byrne was it both. The Battle for Castle Itter, which is often called the strangest battle of World War II. Yes. Man, I have some vague memories of these episodes. And they sound vaguely good.

And last year, episode 508, I did a report on The Real Great Escape. Oh, that, yeah, I do remember that. I was great. I think Dane Simpson maybe was on it. Was Dane on that episode with us? And Mesao, yeah, Mesa's 19th episodes. If you want to hear more Mesa, you should be able to search, just search his name in our feed. That's what I do.

Am I remembering one that I wasn't here for that you're on? Was that a World War I? Some maze escape or something? What was that? Oh, maybe. No, that was some prisoners escaping in Ireland. Right. That's right.

And I did that episode about the big molasses flood. Oh, that's a bonus. Oh my goodness. Wow, did a bonus episode. We know. And we did a bonus episode about your life. Well, that's right. Based almost entirely from a Dan Connell interview.

Oh, right then. We did a report on the history of Nick Mason. I messaged you to check if you were cool with that. Yes, it's weird. And I think we made up some stuff as well. Terrific. I love that. That was a long time ago because it was voted as one of the most requested block topics years ago.

And we're like, this can't be a main feed episode. It's very strange. Yeah, this isn't for the relative normies. No, the true believers. You were on that episode, but we didn't let you speak to confirm or deny. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You just had to listen to us, Lander. Yeah, I think you're on the episode where I talked about how Oregon blew up a whale.

That's right. Yeah, that's true. That's true. And the answer is dynamite. Dynamite. Lots of it. Yeah, yeah. It's a short, we.

on that one. That's right. Short wig on Moby Dick. And then we freeze from. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Absolutely. A pleasure every time. We love hanging out with you.

If people want to check out those episodes. But also every week, you're coming out at the weekly planet. And also go to the Mr. Sunday movies YouTube channel. Yeah. Where we have a series called Caravanagh Garbage, where we talk about a lot of movies of the past that are not all garbage. But we thought of the name and it's too late to change it now. It's a great name.

Thank you. And is it based on Caravan of Courage? Yes, which we have not covered. Right. But maybe one day. That's like a... I assume that that was way back on episode one. No, no, no, never.

Because that is, that's the Steel Saunders love. I've never seen it either, but I think Steel Saunders talks about that being one of the first things that got him in a Star Wars. Yeah, right. Wow. Changed his life. Caravan of... Courage to go. garbage. I like it because it doesn't really work that well.

No, not at all. That's why we've picked it. I mean, honestly, that's most of the podcast and the YouTube. Just stuff that doesn't work that. I don't think it's great. But there's just so much of it. There's someone about a really neat pun being kind of corny. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. That's why Dave makes me cringe all the time. He does it so perfectly. Too perfect. Yeah, yuck. Too accidental. Yeah. If anything, too, yeah.

Spot on. It's like just breathing. Yeah. More like Dave. Yuckicky. See, there's another one. Yeah, there you go. There's another one.

Almost too perfect. Almost too perfect. Well, Mason, until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. And as we say goodbye to the great man, Nick Mason. Oh, ding, ding, there it goes on the tram. We say hello to the great woman, Jess Perkins. Oh, my God.

We told you she was okay, probably. I'm fine, probably. She's back. I remain fine, probably. Yes. And this is probably something we already told you. Don't make us say it again probably. Shut up about it. Everyone's fine.

It's fine. Why are they messaging, emailing, calling? Sometimes a lady just needs a day off. Yes. Or maybe in this case, was it three weeks? Yeah. About four? Four was it?

Well, because we spread it out only a couple of weeks. Two. You've only missed the last two. This episode you're here for now. I'm technically here for it. Dave, you want to give us a brief rundown? Yes, so Jess, basically. I just told Mesa and Matt the story of what's called the greatest raid of them all.

Operation Chariot in World War II webinar. It was the panty raid from Animal House or Porkies or one of those sort of thing. One of those great movies. I think Animal House is meant to be a great movie. It's one of the Porkies. Or is Porkies in Animal House? Well, I think they're different films. But I think Animal House maybe was the archetype or the prototype.

Ah. Okay, great. So it's basically that but World War II. And they did a very, the Brits with the commanders did an incredibly... That's when they're not wearing any... Underweight because their panties have been raided. Well, that's why they needed them. They'd have to go get some more.

Do we make these jokes at the time? We did it, amazingly. Amazingly, that's why we missed Jess. Is that what I bring out for you? Do I make you guys perverts? Yeah, that's my fault? Yeah, Moso keeps us on the straight and narrow. Wow.

Yeah, they did a massive raid where they rammed a boat, this is the commanders of English, into a French port that was held by the Nazis in World War II. Wow. They rammed it into the gate of this lock and then blew it up. Oh, did I... And it was absolutely audacious. Dave, did I say things like,

Raid and Mortine and stuff because of the... No, but I'm glad you've had a couple of weeks now to work on some alternate jokes that you can get into the episode. And these ones that you've worked on sounds fantastic. And they're like, is that Morty the Fly or whatever? Marty. Is it Marty? Is it Morty the...

Morty was Morton. It's Louis the Fly. Louis the Fly. And then more smart, more safe, Morton. Yeah. Absolutely. perfect harmony. That sounded pretty good actually.

I don't have the cans on, but that sounded pretty good. I thought you always got the cans on sugar. Welcome back to work. Great to be here with you, Jess Perkins. I just need to send a quick email to HR. Oh, I've just got a new email here. Bill, me too.

Delete. Got that got through the spam. Oh, no. I have the same thought. Yeah. I know. But then when you called me sugar. No, that was the bit that...

That elevated it. Yeah, and whatever the opposite of elevate is. Yeah. De elevated. So it's great to have you back. And welcome everyone to the... Basically the second half of the show. The Patreon section of the show

where we dedicate a little bit of time to the beautiful people who support the show via Patreon. You got a Patreon. And you're not being figurative, are you? You're being literal. They are beautiful. Oh, they're a bunch of hoists.

There's a vetting process. We've kicked out thousands. We've turned away millions of dollars. Millions of ugly dollars. We could be rich and ugly, and we decided to be beautiful and poor. Nothing more noble than that. That's poetic, baby. That's Lord Byron for you.

Yeah. Yes. You can go to patreon.com slash dogo on pod to support the show. And in exchange for your support, you will get a bunch of what we call rewards what we call prizes, what we call what we call it, I've never heard us call them many of these things. Can you, Matt,

remind some of the people of the perks and treasure they can get. Okay, you get access to the video versions of these episodes when we film them, which is most weeks. And also an ad-free podcast feed. Add-free, ad-free feed. And you get to vote on topics. You get to the book-cheap book club club club club. club, which is a fortnightly newsletter day publishes in the Patreon feed.

You have to submit, Who Newt Questions for our sister show, Who Knewit, Matt Stewart? You get to access to the Facebook group, which is the nicest corner of the internet. You get a Christmas postcard on certain levels. You get to, what else is there? Bonus episodes. Bonus episodes, yeah, which is four per month, basically every week. I just put out one that actually came second in the poll to this. This topic won narrowly on the Patreon poll,

and the one that came second is the F1 Diamond Heist, wherein Monaco a couple of diamonds for a promo reasons were glued to the front of Formula One cars. And let me just tell you, one of them are went missing. Big part of the Patreon section, though, Matt, is the fact quote or question section where people can write into the show. And I believe. Let you finish talking. Okay.

I believe that section. I'll take it from here. Would you say, Matt, the section has a little jingle that goes something like this? I would say a factual question. Ding! Oh, no. She always remembers the sing. He sometimes remembers the sing, and I always remember the ding.

What? And this section, Matt, is where people write in with a fact, a quote, a suggestion, a brag, whatever it is. Question, a recipe, a rap, a fact. I said that a couple times. You really want me to talk? Okay. I'm pretty sure. I'd like you to do it efficiently.

Okay, but I don't know. I don't like it when people are paying your attention. I'll do it. No worries. No, no, it's all good. You can leave for the day and I will take it from here. Great. Jess has got it there.

That's a genuine offer. No, actually now, lock in. Lock the fuck in. That sounded so good to just go lie down for a bit. But yeah, the way this works is I read out some facts and quotes, some questions, some suggestions or really whatever you want it to be. if you're on the Sydney-Shyrneberg level or above. You get to do this.

You also get to give yourself a title. First one comes from Sophie Chuter, a name that I double-bluff myself about every time. Every time. Sophie Tudor, Sophie Shooter, Sophie Tudor. It's Tudor. Okay, group mom. And under fact quote a question,

Sophie's written, Ramblending with a question. Okay. And Sophie writes thusly, Every week Oh she's English I'll do Every week When I listen to the section

Older show I think Oh yeah Must admit one And then forget Immediately I got three daughters And three tattoos

I'll lock back him I've got Penelope's tiny footprint A message that my Granny wrote To my oldest daughter Jen You got a message

Toot That's fun And of course Release the Slugs And a Slug sick. I'm now planning on getting some cute woodland animals slash things to make up a half sleeve and need something to represent B.

Any suggestions? I'm joking, obviously. I'm doing a bumblebee. Ah, that's good. That's good stuff. Getting the sleeve is part of my things to do before I'm 40 list. I've only got till October next year and I'm not suddenly going to get rich. So I'm keeping my list realistic.

What one thing would you? put on your things to do before your 40 list in brackets or 4,000 for Matt. That was a while ago, but hypothetically for you, Matt, I suppose. The first thing that popped into my head was surfing. Oh. Oh, that's good. Learn to surf or something. Yeah, that's probably easier.

You should lock in. And you don't get wet. Yeah. Well, you do. Well. Get safe search back on, Desk, please. Dave, any thoughts? Things before, 40, unrealistic.

Now, I wanted to, I had this goal of trying to reach every continent by 30 and then... Have a pie on each. Yeah, COVID sort of knocked a bunch of that even further down the peg. And now, with the family... What are you short of? Africa and Antarctica? No, I've been to Africa, technically, been to Morocco. Northern Africa.

Oh, you've been to a camel. But haven't been to South America or Antarctica. I don't know if I'm going to get to either by 40. Go to Argentina, you can do it in one go. That's what I'm thinking. Argentina, Antarctica, back home by lunch. Yeah, easy, easy. Leave the fan.

Don't worry about it. I only have missed one lunch. Back on Monday, you'll be right. Is airspace okay or do you need to hit terra firma? I reckon I reckon I got to be on the ground. Yeah, I would agree. All right, well, yeah, maybe it'll be late after me. But we also weren't talking about you.

So what about for Sophie? Oh, yeah. Well, Sophie, what do you think about that, having a pie on every continent? I totally misheard. By 40, no, it probably was, what would you do? Yeah, I don't really know. I haven't thought about it because it's so far away for me. Obviously, so far.

Oh my God, like, who even... Me too, but in the different direction. Who even thinks that far ahead, do you know what I mean? I know. And I'm a planner. I'm a Virgo. I don't know if you know that about me. Yeah, I don't know why I thought surfing would be fun.

A tasel to hang in the office? Yeah, because you know what? If I learn anything from Moira Rose from Schitt's Creek, it's take the nude photos now because when you're 70, 80, looking back on them, you won't have the body insecurities you have now you'll think, look at that young perky woman, you'll say. Oh yeah, you were talking about you, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense to you as well. Same for me, my body has rapidly deteriorate. But it's only going to get worse. Yes. So if you take the nudes now. I know, I'm only like, whoa, look how perky I was back down. God, I'd love to go back to that. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's an option. Would you be cool if I had hung that in our office? No. Yeah. No, I wouldn't. Okay. Yeah.

Thanks for asking. What if I put tassels on? Where? Over your eyes, so you don't have to look at it. Every time I have to go into our office. Tassels up. I don't. I don't know.

Yeah, some sort of travel thing I would think. Yeah. Which is hard when money is an issue. Yeah, money is an object. Yeah, I would love to live like money is no object. How do we do that? I don't know. I want to fly like business or first class somewhere for my 40th.

Like as in just once in my life I'd like to do a long haul. Business at minimum, maybe first class. That's like tens of thousands. I know, I know. I'm 36. I'm talking once in my entire life, which hopefully will. continue for a while. But yeah, even then, I doubt I'll ever be able to justify it.

Yeah. What are on points? I reckon if you really hacked the points for years, you can maybe get a couple of. Maybe. At least a business, maybe. A business. Yeah, first class is like insane. No, that's crazy.

And I think I'd feel too much. I would not enjoy it. No, I wouldn't. I'd be like, I don't belong here. What a ways? And it just feels like I could be. The food's too fancy. Right.

I'm like, just bring me some Pringles. Yeah. They would do that. I think. Yeah, I think they would. And if they didn't, well, I'm going to shoot on my bed. Well, there's 18 hours to go and this is my bed. I've made my bed and now I'll lie in it.

What about write a book, Sophie? Some people say everyone's got a book in them. And it could be a kid's book. It doesn't have to be super long. Exactly. Yeah, that's good. Write a book, that's good. Yeah.

Write a book, surf and complete Dave's continent list. Yeah, have a couple of points. Have a couple of points. Contonance list. Sorry, Dave. My incontinence. Thank you so much, Sophie. Show us those tats in the Facebook group.

Oh, I really need you to renunciate there. Show us them tats. Ooh. It's the wrong accent. That still sounds like tips. Show us them tats. We've seen the slug tattoo, I believe. Noah Cartwright, aka Mr. Allgas, where's the brakes?

I'm so tired. Please help me. Also, I might be a convicted goose molester, but more on that, sec. I just want to see if the character limitless glitch has been patched yet for this field. It seems no, but I won't push it. Ooh, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, push it, push it real good. They all, I've never noticed. Is that all salt and purple lyrics? The goose stuff? I don't know. Maybe that will be revealed. Yeah, more than that a second.

Noah goes on to say, a bit of a rant, then some bragg's writing. That's the, the, uh, That's the category. Great. I've had the busiest most stressful few months of my life. In March, our dogs started paying blood, and after a month of tests in $1,200 at the vet. Could have gone to first class. Yeah.

Or maybe a... For 1,200 bars. Well, you know, to Hobart or something. To the vet. Around the corner. We're now told she's probably fine. That's good news. And later that day, while playing with our dog,

to celebrate her probably being fine, my wife hurt a knee and ended up having to have surgery in a month of PT, public transport or personal training? Physical therapy. Oh my God. There's a third option. One of my favorite bands, I mean, all could be relevant there too. Because he might not be able to drive.

One of my favorite bands ever, acid bath, reformed in 2024 after disbanding in 1997, and I got to see them in a cave in March where they played my favorite. song the blue for the first time in 30 years. I had so much fun. I went to see them again in April, then turned 25 a couple of days later. Then I started a new job the next day. I work in wildlife conservation and did a fisheries job talking to the public that I hated for two years and I'm now managing land waterfowl. So the pod is getting blasted through the speakers of a big tractor planting crops for ducks now. I got to ban Canada geese a few weeks ago where we took both out to groups of geese and someone step on land to scare them all into the water and then

corralled them into our banding site with the boats where I got to help sex the geese. I hope that means what I don't think it means. This involves grabbing a goose by the neck, fantastic, tucking its head under its wing, holding it like a football, flipping it over and folding the tail back to make the cloaca pop, then peel that back, essentially rubbing it until its bits pop out. So now I'm an official state-sponsored cloacal creeper. Oh, and we bought our first house in May. Sounds a bit like Gary Chalk from our patron bonus.

It really does, but first of all, can I say, congratulations on getting the cloacca at a pop. Fantastic work. The biggest thing that happened this year. That was, I love the stream of consciousness nature of that. Yeah. It was a real brain dump. Yeah. Which are always welcome.

Cool to think that we're being blasted under the tractor right now. But that is a wild one. That's a lot going on. If we're being blasted on the tractor, it's going to be one of those ones where I'm not audible. Yeah. But they love that podcast that Dave and Jess do. And how they leave space sometimes. The listeners just to chill.

And finally, from Stephen Edmonds, okay, tester of limits, despite the like of character limit on this title film, being known about for some time and it being called out twice there is still no limit so every Patreon should take this as an invitation to exploit the sleephole Stephen, shut the fuck up

nah good idea, mate all right now Stephen has a gift writing stop! Please do not continue unless you have in hand of the package I've got to go get it It goes on okay So a couple of weeks ago

This arrived a box Addressed to us And on the side it said Do not open until you get to this And we're finally here. I've stashed it in our office. I know where it is I'll go and run again. Okay.

Matt and I'll just fill. I guess we could just catch up. Yeah. Chat as friends. So where have you been? Young lady. I've been visiting your mom. Nah, just kidding.

How is she doing? She is mad at you. Oh, I was just talking to her on the phone. Nah. She's on the way here today. She's pretty pissed. She sounded, she sounded violent. We said we love you to each other at the end.

What? It doesn't always happen. She doesn't mean that. She told me. Yeah. She was like, oh, I love you too. Yeah, yeah, you are. She was like, he needs this.

And do you think you're the clingiest of her children? Yeah. Clingious in the way of like most sort of... Mommy, do you love me? Oh, no, no, no, no. Although I'm like, no, but then I don't think the others are at all like that. Maybe. Yeah.

But it's like, you know. If you don't know which one is the clingy sibling, then it's you. Dave's brought in a big knife. Dave's wearing a big knife? So I just ran to our office. Got the thing. Obviously, I am the clingy sibling. That's definitely me.

So we've got a little. That's, yeah, I know your sister and I would say that's also true. I got the box. And then I ran into the kitchen to get some scissors. And Beck Petratus is in there from the studio. And you took the knife out of her hand. Said, Beck, don't. Beck, come on.

Beck, no. It's only Thursday. You have so much to live for. She's making popcorn. I said, do you have any scissors? And I was surprised, and she went, huh! She goes, no, take this knife. So, thank you.

She was using the knife for popcorn? I worry about Beck sometimes. I don't want to be the one to open this. All right, let me continue. I don't want you to open it. Oh, sorry, yeah. All right, now you got the hand. All right, now he wants me to have it in my hand.

Oh, okay, sorry. I'll give you the knife. Can you throw it? Can you throw it? I don't know what it is. Okay, well, I can catch a knife, though. All right, it says Stop unless you got in hand

The package that goes along with the FQ and Q Post is a humdinger And ideally all three of you present Check, check, check Hopefully the package has not yet been open, Check based on my profile image Lego man Yes

It should not surprise anyone That I'm a fan of Lego Or is the South Australians It would say Lego South Australians And as the Italians would say, Legos, when they're making a pasta. Maltobani. Not just the official sets, there are many people that create fantastic designs and make instructions available via sites such as red brickable.

You can then order the pieces from online sellers through a site such as Bricklink. This is how I put together a couple of rare NASA sets and also added cars such as the Blue. Lusmobile, the Mad Max, it says Madman, but I think Mad Max Interceptor, Night Rider, and the Ferris Bueller Ferrari to my collection. Some time ago, I came across the Go BrickMe set, a set intended for you to make Brickheads models of yourself. One of the example designs perfectly represented Matt, and the other was close to Jess. And I knew what I had to do.

Oh, it says, Jess, please open the package. Once this FQQ is read out I will share the design files to the Patreon Facebook group and I might get around to submitting a recipe as promised but I get distracted by this project That's right, long

I just want to talk for a second So the camera comes over to me So you can see the size of the knife And I am kind of glad that What is that solid of knife I love that one with that sort of like oval shaped design on it It would be for a specific thing

If you know about knives Maybe let Matt know But I would just say that's a bettery knife. You don't have to do that makeup thing. Oh yeah, I have to talk so the camera's on me. Sorry, I forgot. Very tedious for the non-patrions. Apologies to them.

Okay. She's opened the box. We might be able to clip this. Bit of bubble wrap has been taken off. AJ, maybe remember this could be a good clip. Okay, so I'm going to do, I'll hold them up to the camera. Okay, I'm going to get everything else out of my way here. I'm going to do a reveal.

Okay. So maybe let's start with Dave. We're going to do an unboxing. Stop with me? What do you mean? Well, you're just like playing Lego head. Is this not the Blues Brothers Mobile? Oh, you weren't listening to what I wrote out?

Do you listen to anything? Yeah, I do. Is it us ever? No, I'm listening to an audio book right now. It's really good. It does, there is like a, it looks like there's a little platform for us to stand on, but where they're sort of wrapped differently, so I'm just going to pull out. So here's a little.

Oh! Oh, that is beautiful. So Dave is wearing a rabbitose jersey. Yeah, he's wearing a green and green and red striped top. He's holding a microphone. Very cute. Classic, mate. It's really nailed your hair.

Here, you can hold you if you like. Your hair is your Lego S thing. I love it. You can set your clock to that haircut. Thank you, Stephen. This is beautiful. Now, next up. I shoot me wants them back.

Little tiny Lego Jess. Hey. Little tiny Lego Jess. who's also holding a microphone. I don't have a mouth, and I don't think that's necessary, probably silencing women, Stephen. Does Dave have male?

I've been silenced as well. We've basically all been silenced. Again, I've got difficult hair to capture because it's so voluminous. It's got layers. This is a layered hair style, but somehow he's done it. They've done it.

Incredible stuff. That's really cute. And then finally, the thing that really kicked this all off, So I just want to point out that Dave and I are holding microphones. Not Matt Stewart, he's holding a beer. That's great. It really does look like that.

Here, you hold yours. It's beautiful. Look at it being me. Oh, I love it. How would you describe that, Dave? So you're wearing like a red trucker style cap it looks like. You've got thick. Red white and black as well, nice touch, saints colors.

Very nice. You've got, obviously, your long hair. You've got a beautiful orange beard. Your eyes are framed with some thick black, reddened glasses. A bit of mullet, flat. A little bit of mullet. And I do have a mic in one hand of beer and the other. Oh, I see.

I only saw one hand. Love it. I think you look beautiful. Well, thank you so much. Oh, Stephen, this is lovely. And then there's like a little, like a stage we can all sit on. Oh, Stephen, thank you so much. Just putting a straight in the middle spot.

Do you want to be in the middle? No. You never want to be in the middle. Which is why I'm often in the middle. It's true. Matt does request to not be in the middle. Just, well, I don't like being the centre of attention, and I know you two do. I tolerate it.

That is so awesome. There you go, that's the three of us on stage, ready to do a fantastic live podcast. That's sick. If we don't put this out as a clip, we'll post a photo, so check our socials. Do we go on pod on Insta? We have a new... Do we on podcast here at Humdinger as well, so that can go on display in the office. We've got an office with a pool room now and it'll be going to straight.

straight to the ballroom. Thank you so much, Stephen. Thanks, Stephen. That's awesome. Very cool. Sorry for telling you to fuck off or whatever before. I made it seriously. Two in the same episode.

Honestly, fuck off. So I've got to now figure out and I put a character limit on this. Stephen Naur and Sophie, thank you so much. Next thing we like to do is shout out to some of our other fantastic supporters. Jesselma comes up with the game. What do you think in this time, Jess? Well, I wasn't fucking here. Yeah, so it's...

Okay. What about what they tried to blow up in World War II? Yeah, okay, nice. So this was like a big... Because this is Operation Chariot. I was going to be like Operation and just give them a word. That's their operation. That's even better.

Do you want to do a random generator for that word? Random word generator? Yeah. I can do that. Do you reckon that exists? I'll find out. You found some specific ones over the years, but probably not that specific. A random word.

Wanderer. Would you believe it exists? That exists. Well, how about Matt, do you want me to do? place names and you do people. That sounds good to me. Happy with that. Well, first up, I would like to thank from Bentley East here in Victoria.

What a hell. Science Heartland. Great to have you on board. Thank you to Robert. Robert, possibly surname starting with B, but hasn't given their full name, and that's fine. Wait. Oh, I know this, Robert.

Do you? But if he hasn't given his surname, maybe I'm not meant to dox him. But anyway, that's cool, Robert. Thanks for Rob. He's like, he's a mate of my brother Tom. No, that's nice. Oh, no, I've said too much. You said too much.

Now anyone can find him. It turns out he's on the run. So, Operation. Chorus. Oh, that's actually good. Yeah, he's trying to blow up a school bus of a choir. They know what they did. Holy shit.

Yeah, yeah. Pretty full on. They're young kids. It's crazy. Yeah. It's pretty full on, Rob. I wouldn't want to put my surname attached to that either, to be honest. Yeah, it's for the greater good, but like poor, questionable ethics.

Thing is, he doesn't put his surname on now, but with all killers, you end up getting the full three-name treatment, don't you? Yeah, that's right. That's right. You're going to get middle-name soon, brother. Sorry, I don't make the rules. Enjoy it while last year, and then in the mini. Thanks, Robert.

Over to you, Matt. I would love to thank from... Actually, I stuffed this up. I said I was going to replace names. So let me, let me, let me, let me do my job. Did you miss the first one? Yeah, that's why. I've realized, we've got a...

One in a slightly different. An overdue. An overdue one. We've got from Bacchus Marsh, also in Victoria. Thank you too. Well overdue. Claire Razmanus. Oh, fantastic name.

Operation Lover. Ooh. Lover, lover, lover. You don't treat me no good no more. Treat me good no more. That was really nice. And, yeah. Blowing up a wedding chapel.

Oh, yeah. Are these all ramming a ship into them? Yeah, that's awesome. You've got to find a chapel on a dock. A school bus. A school bus. A school bus on a dock. They just wanted to go on a field trip.

Next up from Coulham Beach in Queensland. Hello. Thank you to Alex Tilem. Operation Cubbered. Okay. They're trying to blow up a cupboard? Is this from... No.

Where'd you get that? It's called Operation Coverage. Yeah. They're trying to blow up. A gay person. You're thinking closet? Yeah. I'm out of the cupboard.

Oh, geez. Don't worry about Steve. He's still in the cupboard. Yeah, blowing up, not a non-out gay person. I don't think that's what you should do. I wouldn't be putting my name to that. Full name as well. Alex Talum.

I'm still on the pantry. Okay. That's what food in you. That's what gay foodies do. They come out of the pantry. That must be a very good joke someone's already made. That's how good it is. You know, when you go, it's like when McCartney woke up with that melody,

he's like, someone must have made the through. Next up from a location that is unknown to us, they're probably deep within the fortress of the malls. I was listening to this right now. Hello, thank you to Jennifer Clemens. The head of Operation Fireplace. Oh, Santa. Santa Claus.

Yeah, I'm trying to blow. up sound of course. I'm trying to ram a ship into his sleigh. That's good. Very difficult. He's in the air. Yeah. And he's, you know, if you want to do it in the fireplace, his legs are Kimbo. I mean, that's pretty full on. That's pretty full on. He's down the chimney, you're up the trough. Next up from Modesto, California. Hello and thank you to Justin Ellen. Justin Ellen. Oh, I see Justin L. Arsson, oh, Justin Lell and I every. Come on, I lean. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. But that was really good. It was very good. Oh, I picture me dancing over a tabletop. Are you wearing? I always am. Are you wearing overs? No.

It doesn't matter what you're going to say. Sugar. Was that this episode? I don't know. He's winking. What's Justin Allen? Operation Horizon. Oh.

It's going to blow up the horizon. Yes. But the closer I get, the further it gets away. That darsely horizon. It is often on the water. Yeah, good for the ship, actually. Good for the ship. They are going full speed ahead at that horizon.

And what's good for the ships? Good for the shander. Oh, dear. We almost finish. Next up from Bristol in the greatest of Britain's. Ah, yes. Go bears. And thank you so much to Caitlin and Ollie Royden.

Operation Hickup. Oh, yeah, this is where a ship comes up behind them and scares them. Yeah. And they go, ha! How do you scare me? And they say, yeah, but are you hiccuping still? No? Yeah.

You got me. Kayla and Ollie. You're welcome. You're welcome. Next up from a location that's unknown to us, they're probably right alongside Jennifer and the fortress. It's Caleb Rowe. Operation Dry.

Oh, yeah. Blowing up a vineyard that does just a dry savvy bee. Caleb, thank you so much. From Toronto, Ontario in Canada, a place that we are visiting right now at the time of release. This weekend, we are kicking off our tour, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and of course Toronto. Coming up, don't forget, if one of those last minutes tickets, do go on Pod.com, but listening, hopefully, and seeing us in person from Toronto, hello and thank you to. Bjorn Herman.

Oh, great name. And the leader of Operation Twilight. Oh, yeah, vampire-related. Vampires. Yeah, lot of vampires. With a shit. That's hard to do it. Well, the ship, it's a wooden ship.

It's not impossible, but it's... The masts. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's really clever. And the chefs are making lots of garlic meals. And we've lined up all of the vampires. And the chef is simics a girl.

It's one big spear. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, we're going to shish gabam. Datas have to stay very still. Stay still. Yes. Wait.

That moves. Hi. Whoa, whoa, bo, blah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Next up from Alexandria in Virginia in the United States. It's Charlotte. Oh, such a Charlotte.

Operation admiration. Oh, Mirandaation. Such a Miranda. Are these people from that show? Which show? The next, and so the next thing is. CSI? What is it?

Well, it protects the city. Yes, that's right. And then what did it become? And just like that. And just like that. And I guess that's what it is now. And such a poorly, oh, anyway, good on them.

Such a Charlotte thing to blow up. What did they blow up? Admiration. Admiration. Yeah. Marantoration. Blowing up redheads. Redhead lawyers.

Is that what she is? Yes. I saw the sequel movie and then the Greek islands at a hostel. A great place to start. You know what? People don't say this enough about you. You know how to consume content. Either at a hostel.

I was mining, like, our group's mobile phones at a charging port, and then the hostel was playing on a big screen. And then everyone, the guys all came and go, hey, we're going to head in the town. I said, I'm it in there. And I've since found out, it's like one of the worst refuted movies. I don't remember anything about it. But I remember being mesmerized. Yeah.

I think I was very hungover. I need to know how this ends. I was very fragile. So funny. All right, thank you again to Charlotte, Bjorn, Caleb, Caitlin and Ollie, Justin, Jennifer, Alex, Robert and Claire. And the next thing we need to do is welcome some people in the Triptage Club. And what do we? You just got one inductee this week.

Dave will explain this so well. This is our, basically, our Hall of Fame slash Clubhouse, a bit of theatre of the mind here where we welcome people who have been on the shout-out level or above for three consecutive years supporting us on Patreon, absolute legends, one and all. We read out your name, you run on in, and once you get inside, you can never leave. but why would you want to? Because we've got food, drink, entertainment and working toilets. Whoa.

Yeah, I've been away, so the toilets have been working and nobody's been destroying them. Until now. Jess, you are behind the bar, though, back on the bar. What do you got going there? I've got, I'm serving all drinks in little mini chariots. Oh, beautiful. It's really cute. Oh, wow.

They're like a little horse and cart chariots? Yeah. And David, you've booked a band. Oh, you never got to leave who I booked this week. What have you got? Oh, I couldn't believe they said yes, they will have to reformers. They have already broken up, but I've got the American hardcore punk band, The Chariot. Whoa.

That's actually really fitting because I'm serving drinks and chariots. Yeah, that's why I was like, oh, I can't believe this. That's crazy. Oh, my going. Anthem. That's exciting. And I, I'm on the door. I'm going to read out a name for you.

And I'm head on in. The 1100 plus people who are already in there are still in there because they're not allowed to leave. they wouldn't want to anyway. Why would they want to? Go grab it. If you hear you, come on in. Grab a drink off, Jess.

And Dave's up on the stage. I'm seeing the night, hyping up the crowd. Well, let's do this. Getting them into a lather with a bit of weak word play based on either of your name or where you're from.

And wow. I've not heard of this place, but I love this place. If you hear your name, come on in. If you're from Fuquayv Arena in North

Carolina home of Michael Jordan Shorts. It's Karen Little. Karen Little, my love for you. It's not Little, it's large. Woo! I love you, Karen. Karen, welcome in. Make yourself at home.

Grab yourself a chariot. And yeah, let's dance the night away to the band that Dave just mentioned. The chariot. And there is no Triple Trip Titch Club this week. No one's been on for nine years straight as of this week. So, yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio will be twiddling his sums for now. People that are already in there can get another portrait down. Oh, true.

That's so true. There's 30 odd people already in there. Yeah. So, and I know you've probably already got multiple, but can you ever have too many? Emphasis on the odd. No, they're not. They're really actually very just stand-up characters. And odd, if I say odd, I mean that as a compliment.

Yeah. Beautiful people. Matt's easily one of the oddest men I've ever known. What? Well, you just said that's a compliment. Oh, thank you I'll bring this to the end of the episode Jess now can I ask if there's anything we need to tell anyone

that we're really sorry about this Yeah But I think it was the bit with Mason I think AJ will really tighter this up I don't think it's possible Thank you for listening If you would like to suggest the topic you can There's a link in the show notes

It's also on our website which is dogoonpod.com You can find us on socials at dogoonpod You know what I think we should do as well I haven't said this to you guys You have said that. We've said no so many times. I'd say that too often, I think, actually. But I think we should do a little bit of a campaign

to get more subscribers on YouTube. Oh. Because I think we could round up. Okay. I don't like uneven numbers, so I'd like to round up. So go follow us on YouTube. Go subscribe. You know, we've got some great stuff up there.

Yeah. Go have a little looky-loo. There's a few exclusive videos there, like tour of videos from back in the day. Yeah. There's a few old live episodes full videos that are free for anyone to check out. Can I just say at the time of recording, there are 769 videos on there. That's so many videos.

Nice. But yeah, so you can find us on socials, do go on pod. And we love you so much. Dave, boot this baby home. Hey, we'll be back next week with another episode. Please come see us in Canada if you there. We'd love to see you there. And thank you so much for listening.

Dave, is it true that next week's episode may even be the live one in Canada? We're hoping to put out a live one from Canada just to share a bit of Canadian love with the world That's right But so look out for that one on your feeds Thank you so much for listening Until next time Goodbye

Later Bye I'm going to tell the story of the history of Tim Bits Tim's Bits We'll figure it out All right Gooday mate It's Matt here in the year

2026 letting you know that Blocktober is coming And the voting is now open You can go to Bitley slash block 2026. Block is in all caps.

Or, you know, you'll find the link on our social media on our link tree, that sort of thing. But voting is now open for Block 2026. You can vote for your 12 favorite topics in a short list of 230-something. Oh my God, I'm excited. Also, my brand new stand-up comedy special Bad Boy is out now on the Humdinger YouTube channel.

You can check it out for free and I would love it if you did. Bit of fun. People are already saying really nice things. Watch, comment, feed that algorithm. I would be so appreciative and I love you. Never forget that.