Hello and welcome to Battleground 45 with me, Patrick Bishop and Saul David.

Well, we're carrying on into 1945 from 1944,

looking at the great events of the Second World War on and off the battlefield.

Loyal listeners will know the format by now.

We take a key event, a personality or a development,

that was shaping the war 80 years ago and discuss it, often with

the help of an expert historian. Or sometimes Saul and I are those experts, but we like to get

as many voices on the show as possible and range over as many aspects of this most fascinating

of conflicts that still echoes in our lives today. I think we

appreciate that when we look eastwards to our other podcast, the Ukraine podcast, lots and

lots of residences there. And we talk about not just the generals and the battles. You'll be hearing

something about culture, about social trends and quirky stuff,

like the effect the warhead on eating habits, as well as all the Sturm and Drang.

Well, it's a formula that seems to work, judging by the friendly and supportive emails we get.

So do keep them coming, by the way, and we'll do our best to address your points and your queries.

In this episode, Saul and I are just going to be looking forward to how the war developed in its final year,

highlighting the hinge moments and giving you a taste of the treats in store as week by week we look back 80 years.

So we're going to start, I think, with the war in

Europe. Now, there were hopes, weren't they installed that it was all going to be over by Christmas

following the German defeat in the Battle of Normandy and the Red Army's hugely successful

operation by Gratian. But Christmas came and went, and it was clear there was still a hell of a lot of fighting

to do in the West and in the East.

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