In 1943, the Allies faced a problem: everyone knew Sicily was the obvious next target. To make Operation Husky succeed, British intelligence needed the Germans to believe the real invasion would strike somewhere else. Their solution was audacious, macabre, and almost absurd: take the body of Glyndwr Michael, create a fictional Royal Marine officer named Major William Martin, attach forged invasion plans to his wrist, and let him wash ashore in neutral Spain.

In this episode of The Rum Ration, Rejoy and Colin unpack Operation Mincemeat, one of the Second World War’s most successful deception operations. It is a story of espionage, forgery, bureaucracy, Spanish neutrality, German overconfidence, and extraordinary attention to detail. But beneath the dark humour lies a human story too: the real man whose identity was hidden for decades, and whose death helped change the course of the war in the Mediterranean.

Rejoy and Colin tackle one of the darkest questions in modern warfare in our latest episode of The Rum Ration Podcast:

Can bombing civilians actually break a nation's will to fight?

Beginning with Colin’s visit to the haunting ruins of Hamburg’s St. Nikolai Memorial and Rejoy’s experiences living in post-war Germany, this episode traces the evolution of strategic bombing from the Zeppelin raids of the First World War to the firestorms of Hamburg, the skies over Vietnam, and the modern doctrine of “Shock and Awe.”

Along the way, we examine the theories of air power advocates who believed that terror from above could force populations to surrender, and compare those ideas against the historical record. Did bombing campaigns achieve their intended political objectives? Or did they harden civilian resolve and create a different kind of endurance?

We also explore the Royal Montreal Regiment’s own experiences under Luftwaffe attack during the Battle of Britain, reminding us that strategic bombing was not an abstract concept, but a lived reality for thousands of Canadian soldiers.

This is an episode about technology, strategy, leadership, and, above all, the resilience of ordinary people caught beneath extraordinary violence.

🎙️ Listen now and join the discussion: does air power win wars, or merely change how they are fought?

In March 1919, long after the guns had fallen silent on the Western Front, nearly 20,000 Canadian soldiers found themselves trapped in another kind of battlefield: Kinmel Park, a bleak repatriation camp in North Wales.

In this episode of The Rum Ration Podcast, Colin and Rejoy unpack the forgotten and deeply troubling story of the Kinmel Park Riots, where frustration, poor leadership, broken promises, and brutal living conditions erupted into deadly violence.Separated from their original units, unpaid, overcrowded, freezing, and stuck in administrative limbo after surviving the trenches of the First World War, these men were pushed to a breaking point.

What followed was one of the most serious episodes of unrest involving Canadian troops overseas: looting, arson, clashes with loyal troops, and ultimately Canadians firing on Canadians.The episode explores the failures of command, the chaos of demobilization, the deaths of five soldiers who never made it home, and the military effort to quietly bury the scandal.

More than a mutiny story, Kinmel is a stark reminder that when leadership breaks its covenant with those who serve, the consequences can be tragic.