Ray Harris Jr. interviews Dave Holland, author of a recent book on the Matanikau Front battles, to kick off coverage of Operation Watchtower. Holland brings granular knowledge of the Guadalcanal campaign — the why behind choosing the island, the strategic context in the South Pacific, and the opening moves of America's first major ground offensive against Japan. A strong companion to the next episode and a proper entry point for the campaign.

Part 2 covers the intelligence preparation and paratrooper training for the Bruneval Raid, plus the puzzling German failure to defend their Würzburg radar installation. Holland is strong on how the operation was shaped by signals intelligence and photo reconnaissance — the episode is as much about the intelligence war as the airborne assault. Essential setup for Part 3.

Lions Led By Donkeys concludes their Iwo Jima series with a long-form episode — 85 minutes on one of the Pacific War's most brutal engagements. The show's trademark irreverence is balanced by genuine attention to the operational horror of the campaign, and at this length there's room to go beyond the flag-raising mythology into the grinding reality of the battle. In a week where nearly every feed is locked onto the sharp end of combat — from Bruneval to the Isonzo — this fits squarely alongside them.

Holland and Sandbrook tackle Italy's disastrous Isonzo campaigns — the bloodiest and most futile offensive operations on any front in WWI, and still underserved in English-language podcasting. Over 70 minutes, they cover Italy's entry into the war, the impossible terrain of the Julian Alps, and the grinding attritional logic that consumed hundreds of thousands of men for negligible gains. Moving from the Pacific to the Julian Alps, it's another episode this week that refuses to leave the tactical coalface. This is the kind of episode Rest Is History does well: two generalists who can make an under-told campaign vivid and accessible.

The companion piece to Part 2 — Holland and Sandbrook cover life in the trenches in 1915, the German spring offensives, and the introduction of poison gas on the Western Front. At 84 minutes this has room to breathe, moving from the experiential reality of trench warfare to the strategic escalation that defined the war's character. Well-paced and properly focused on the fighting rather than the politics.

Harris covers the Marine landings on Guadalcanal and the opening of the Solomon Islands campaign, setting up the Japanese counterattack. Short at 23 minutes but direct and focused on the operational sequence.

Dr Andrew Hammond covers how the CIA recruited Ivy League academics after a string of early intelligence failures, and how their analytical methods reshaped Cold War national security thinking. More institutional history than tradecraft, but squarely focused on how intelligence analysis was professionalised.

Murray Dahm tackles military signalling and the status of trumpeters in ancient armies, with a timely hook on a recently discovered carnyx in Norfolk. Interesting niche content but very short at 11 minutes.