Odin & Aesop

Episodi

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  Midway 11.09.2026 1h 41min

  By the middle of 1942 Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sought a reckoning with the United States Navy. The Japanese wanted to neutralize the United States Navy and consolidate their early gains. Yamamoto’s plan was to draw the United States Navy’s aircraft carriers into a decisive battle by threatening the island of Midway 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii. The United States Navy took the bait. It took the bait armed with intelligence of the Japanese plan. Mark St...
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  Ghost Wars 11.08.2026 1h 31min

  This Pulitzer Prize winning book traces the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) involvement in Afghanistan. Starting in 1979, it explains how the CIA funneled arms to the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan’s intelligence service in conjunction with money from Saudi Arabia. Next, it provides the details and complexities of how the CIA subsequently attempted to confront the rise in radical Islamic militancy, Osama bin Laden and Al-Queda, and the Taliban. Steve Coll tells the s...
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  Afgantsy 11.07.2026 1h 32min

  The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. It was supposed to be a swift operation to install a loyal communist government. The Soviets were initially successful in gaining control of the cities and major infrastructure but became bogged down and flummoxed fighting against mujahideen guerillas in Afghanistan’s rugged mountains. The Soviet – Afghan War went on for ten years and cost the Soviet army an estimated 15,000 dead. After the Soviets withdrew, the go...
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  Suez 1956 11.06.2026 1h 38min

  Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar announced Egypt was taking control of the British and French owned Suez Canal Company in July 1956. He took this action to fund the Aswan Dam he wanted built. In response to Nassar seizing the canal, Britain, France, and Israel secretly planned a joint invasion. Israel would advance towards the canal through the Sinai Peninsula while Britain and France would intervene and regain control of the canal under the guise of being peacekeepers....
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  Valleys of Death 11.05.2026 1h 37min

  Bill Richardson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and enlisted in the Army in 1945. He deployed to Korea when war broke out in 1950 and fought northward up the length of the Korean peninsula as part of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. On November 5th, 1950, Richardson was captured by the Chinese during the Battle of Unsan. He spent roughly the next three years enduring brutal captivity. So brutal 38% of American prisoners died. Somehow Richardson survived wi...
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  Seven Pillars of Wisdom 11.04.2026 1h 35min

  Among other things, Thomas Edward Lawrence was an author, archeologist, and British Army officer. During the First World War, he served as a liaison between the British and the Arab tribes fighting Ottoman rule in the western Arabian desert. Lawrence spent approximately two years and covered hundreds of miles by camel in this role. His campaign was successful in toppling Ottoman rule yet failed to fully meet the Arab tribes’ aspirations for self-rule. Lawrence tells th...
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  How Drones Fight 11.03.2026 1h 21min

  Within a few short years, drones went from being a niche capability reserved for technically advanced militaries to something ubiquitous on the modern battlefield. According to the Atlantic Council, Ukraine was producing 200,000 first person view drones per month by early 2025. The Ukrainians used those drones to inflict up to 80% of Russian battlefield casualties. That conflict continues and so does its use of drones. Meanwhile, Hamas used drones to as part of the Oct...
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  Japanese Destroyer Captain 11.02.2026 1h 44min

  Tameichi Hara descended from Japan’s samurai class. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1921 and began a career at sea. When war started with the United States in 1941, Hara was serving as the captain of the destroyer Amatsukaze. He went on to command a destroyer division and participated in major engagements throughout the war. His last assignment at sea was captain of the light cruiser Yahagi tasked with a suicide mission to attack Allied forces ...
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  The Siege 11.01.2026 1h 28min

  On 30 April 1980 six Iranian Arabs seized the Iranian Embassy in the center of London and took 26 people hostage. They demanded the release of prisoners in Iran and safe passage out of the United Kingdom. British authorities managed to get five hostages released in return for minor concessions, but time passed, and tensions rose. On the sixth day, the hostage takers killed one of their captives. This killing triggered the British to launch an assault to rescue the rema...
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  A Shau 11.12.2025 1h 32min

  The A Shau Valley is in the mountainous northwest corner of what used to be South Vietnam. It is right across the border from Laos. Because of its location, the A Shau formed a natural hub for the North Vietnamese Army to move their units and supplies into South Vietnam and threaten the more heavily populated coastal plains. The United States tried multiple times and multiple ways to disrupt what the North Vietnamese were doing. Some of the Vietnam War's heaviest comba...
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  Crete 1941 11.11.2025 1h 21min

  The island of Crete sits in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1941 the Germans decided to seize Crete, “As a base for air warfare against Great Britain in the Eastern Mediterranean”. The elite paratroopers of Germany’s 7th Air Division were assigned to lead the attack. They would be reinforced by more troops arriving by sea and air. It was Germany’s biggest airborne operation of the war by far. The German attack started on May 20th, 1941. Approximately German 8...
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  Targeted Beirut 11.10.2025 1h 16min

  The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) landed in Beirut Lebanon on May 29th, 1983, as part of a peacekeeping force during Lebanon’s Civil War. Once ashore, the MAU’s battalion landing team, BLT 1/8, took up positions around Beirut International Airport. Things escalated and the Marines began regularly taking fire. They suffered their first deaths on August 29th when Staff Sergeant Alexander Ortega and Second Lieutenant George Losey were killed by mortar fire. Then on Oc...
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  Target Tokyo 11.09.2025 1h 30min

  Japan devastated the United States’ fleet with a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7th, 1941. The Japanese followed up on their Pearl Harbor attack by seizing Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines. The Japanese seemed almost unstoppable while the United States asked itself, “What are we going to do, or what can we do, now?” With direction from President Roosevelt to strike Japan, the United States came up with a plan. On A...
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  The Rhodesian War 11.08.2025 1h 38min

  Rhodesia, now called the Republic of Zimbabwe, used to be a self-governing British colony. In November 1965, the Cabinet of Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain in an effort to preserve white minority rule. The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Rhodesian Civil War, followed. It lasted until December 1979. This protracted guerilla war pitted Rhodesia’s globally isolated government against the African nationalist Zimbabwe African Nationalist Uni...
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  Brown Water Black Berets 11.07.2025 1h 28min

  South Vietnam has a long coastline and lots of waterways, particularly in the Mekong River Delta at the southern tip of the country. In 1968 U.S. Naval Forces Vietnam had roughly 38,000 sailors serving in country. Their main tasks were to prevent supplies from reaching the Viet Cong, stopping Viet Cong movements, helping move U.S. Army units along the water, and guarding ports and harbors. It was dangerous work. 1,631 sailors were killed in action, 935 died from other ...
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  The Battle Of The Tanks 11.06.2025 1h 40min

  The Germans launched “Operation Citadel” on July 5th, 1943. They wanted to encircle and destroy Soviet forces in a salient centered on the city of Kursk. The Soviets knew they were coming and had spent months preparing. What followed was the greatest land battle in history. About two million men with 6,000 tanks, 35,000 guns, and 5,000 aircraft fought into late August. Despite horrific losses, the Soviets stood their ground. Lloyd Clark tells the story in “...
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  On The Border With Crook 11.05.2025 1h 36min

  John G. Bourke won the Medal of Honor during the American Civil War. He stayed in the army and graduated from West Point in 1869. Between 1869 and 1883, Bourke served on the frontier with much of that time spent as an aide to General George Crook. Bourke saw action in the Apache Wars and Great Sioux War. He clashed with Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo. Bourke was a keen observer and chronicled his varied experiences. He published them in 1892 under ...
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  Victory At High Tide 11.04.2025 1h 41min

  The Korean peninsula was split into two countries after the Second World War. The Soviet backed North and the U.S. backed South. North Korea tried to unify the two by invading South Korea in June 1950. Initially North Korea had great success. It pushed South Korea's small military aside and rushed down the peninsula while the United States tried to get forces onto the peninsula. The North Koreans were finally stopped around the port of Pusan at the very bottom of...
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  The Burma Road 11.03.2025 1h 52min

  Japan captured and occupied China’s sea ports at the onset of World War Two. That lead to hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers building a road through Burma to get supplies to China. That road got blocked when Burma fell to the Japanese. Next, American engineers began building another road through hundreds of miles of steep jungle while pilots flew supplies into China over the Himalayas. Meanwhile, American and British forces fought to keep the Japanese at bay in ...
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  The Boer War 11.02.2025 1h 36min

  In 1899, the British went to war with the Boer Republics. This was when the British Empire was close to its blazing zenith and unquestionably the ranking world power. Any war against the somewhat backward Boers on a remote border of the empire in southern Africa would surely be quick and decisive. It did not turn out that way. As Rudyard Kipling put it, the Boers gave the British “no end of a lesson.” Thomas Pakenham tells the story in “The Boer War.”