Anthony Cooper on ‘Dispatch From Berlin, 1943’

In December 1943, five courageous war correspondents join a British air raid on Berlin. They are Australians, Alf King from the Sydney Morning Herald and Norm Stockton from the Sydney Sun; Americans, Ed Murrow from CBS and Lowell Bennett from the International News Service; and Norwegian journalist and activist, Nordahl Grieg. Each is assigned to one of the 400 Lancaster bombers that fly into the hazardous skies over Germany on a single night. Of the five, only two land back at base to file their stories.

After parachuting out of his doomed aircraft, one reporter is taken prisoner. From there his captors take him on a remarkable tour of bombed-out German cities. In Dispatch from Berlin, 1943, Anthony Cooper and Thorsten Perl uncover this incredible true story of life on both sides of the war.

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Anthony Cooper about the massive operation that was supposed to end the war, the rationale for undertaking one of the most ambitious air raids in history, and the five correspondents who risked their lives to support the war effort.

Author: Anthony Cooper

Category: Humanities

Book Format: Paperback / softback

Publisher: NewSouth

ISBN: 9781742237923

RRP: $34.99

Check Out Some More Episodes

Roger Simpson on Dr Jane Halifax

A near-fatal car accident has left Jane in a coma. When she wakes, she has no idea who she is. Initially comforted by unlikely spectres from past cases, Jane is unaware of everyone else’s concerns: the police who believe she was deliberately run off the road; a lawyer...

Kate Mildenhall on ‘The Hummingbird Effect’

One of the lucky few with a job during the Depression, Peggy’s just starting out in life. She’s a bagging girl at the Angliss meatworks, a place buzzing with life as well as death, where the gun slaughterman Jack has caught her eye – and she his. How is her life...

Peter Papathanasiou on a sinister road trip in ‘The Pit’

Bob is sixty-five years old, confined to a Perth nursing home. But thirty years ago, he killed a man in the remote northern Kimberley mining region. He offers to show Sparrow where the body is, but there's a catch: Sparrow must travel north with him under the guise of...

Dennis Glover on R F Scott’s Antarctic expedition in ‘Thaw’

Drawn from the pages of history and cutting-edge science, Thaw is a gripping read that will forever change how you see the frozen continent – and those who seek to conquer it. In 1912, five British explorers struggle across the Antarctic landscape, through howling...

Matt Majendie on big-wave surfers in ‘Nazare’

In a small fishing village on the coast of Portugal, a select band of surfers take unimaginable risks, pushing the boundaries of their death-defying sport as they seek to go bigger than ever before. Their goal? To ride the Everest of the ocean – the 100-foot wave....

Sam Twyford-Moore on Australian actors in ‘Cast Mates’

'Cast Mates: Australian Actors in Hollywood and at Home' is a group biography of Australian acting giants across the ages.The larger-than-life personalities that form the heart of this book — Errol Flynn, Peter Finch, David Gulpilil and Nicole Kidman — have dominated...

Frank Bongiorno on the ‘The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely’

Since 1901, thirty-one different leaders have run the national show. Whether their term was eight days or eighteen years, each prime minister has a story worth sharing. Edmund Barton united the bickering states in a federation. The unlucky Jimmy Scullin took office...

Meet Your Host

Gregory Dobbs

Gregory Dobbs is a musician, producer and podcaster who likes to read books. In his spare time, he enjoys making homes for frogs, spiders, and Eastern Blue-tongued lizards. Gregory also likes looking at trees and bicycles.

Listener Comments

0 Comments