The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

This is the first episode of a new mini-series on the maritime history of Australia. We begin in the port of Fremantle, Western Australia, at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum to learn about the long and fascinating history of the Dutch in Australia. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Elly Spillekom, who worked as the coordinator of the Duyfken 1606 Replica Foundation, is a volunteer at the Shipwrecks Museum and a curator of the Dutch Australian Foundation. As Sam and Elly explore the museum we hear the story of how and why the Dutch were the first Europeans to sight Australia on board the Duyfken in 1606; how they went on to explore the coast; and why so many of the Dutch ships that followed the Duyfken were wrecked off Western Australia. 

This is the second episode of a two-part mini-series on the history of maritime special forces. In this episode we explore the history of combat divers - an elite within an elite.Combat divers must pass selection twice – firstly into their chosen elite military unit before passing a specialist combat diving qualification. Units are extremely small; they use specialist kit and vehicles; their work is dangerous and lonely; and their operations are cloaked in secrecy. Their history is rich and fascinating and runs from the Second World War to the present day, as so powerfully shown in the recent attack on the Russian Nordstream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. As their kit and equipment has constantly evolved, so has the nature of their work and their capabilities. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with former Royal Marines Commando Michael G. Welham, a man with extensive military and commercial diving experience and author of the recent ‘Combat Divers: An illustrated history of special forces divers’. Sam and Mike discuss the Second World War roots of combat divers working in Grand Harbour, Malta to protect allied shipping; managing risk underwater; navigation underwater; equipment and weapons; the use of marine mammals in underwater warfare; and a variety of operations that highlight the changing challenges of special forces divers over time including the actions of Soviet Spetsnaz divers in Swedish territorial waters during the Cold War.

This is the first episode of a two-part mini-series on the history of maritime special forces. In this episode we hear about the Second World War origins, development and early history of the SBS - the 'Special Boat Service'. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with Saul David, a military historian given unprecedented access to the archives of the SBS for his book - SBS - Silent Warriors: The Authorised Wartime History. Founded in the dark days of 1940, Britain's Special Boat Service was the world's first maritime special operations unit. It started as an inexperienced and small outfit that leaned heavily on the courage and enthusiasm of volunteers but went on to change the course of the war. Its operational inventiveness has served as a model for special forces ever since. Their assignments were some of the most challenging of the war. Feted by history they have gone on to become legendary military operations. The SBS operated globally: in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Channel and the Far East. Operating with flimsy canoes and armed with close-combat weapons - often nothing more than knives, pistols and their bare hands - these men operated repeatedly and successfully deep behind enemy lines. They landed secret agents, destroyed enemy infrastructure, attacked enemy shipping, spread uncertainty and fear and paved the way of some of the most important large-scale operations of the war, including D-Day.