A video podcast featuring Professor Peter Monteath has been created to commemorate the Battle of Crete in the Second World War on its anniversary last month (20 May).

Last year Professor Monteath issued a new book profiling some of the brutal realities that faced Australian troops in battle. The publication, Battle on 42nd Street: War in Crete and the Anzacs’ bloody last stand, focused on the Battle of Crete, one of the most spectacular military campaigns of World War II.

The book follows the course of events that led to the bloody battle, from the recreation of the Anzacs by teaming Australian and New Zealand infantry forces on mainland Greece, through their hammering from the skies by the Luftwaffe and their bitter but doomed efforts to hold the strategically vital points of Maleme and Galatas in Crete, and finally to the Battle on 42nd Street.

Professor Monteath had been scheduled to talk at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne in May to commemorate the anniversary and share his knowledge on what the soldiers lived through. Instead, the podcast with journalist Megan Spencer was recorded and is available to listen to here.

The History Channel feature on the Battle of Crete is also streaming tonight, Tuesday 2 June.