Chief Joseph W. Pfeifer was the first senior fire chief to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9/11. His actions, along with those of hundreds of other firefighters, helped save tens of thousands of lives on that fateful morning 21 years ago.

Joe's key role in organising the emergency response on September 11 2001 was captured on tape by the Naudet brothers in their extraordinary film 9/11, and the Warfare podcast was honoured to welcome the retired chief - who now lecturers at Harvard - onto the podcast recently.

Join James as Joe leads him through his own personal history of one of the pivotal events of our time.

Joe's book Ordinary Heroes: A Memoir of 9/11 is available here.

If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy our episode on 9/11: From the 105th Floor, which was also just shortlisted for a Lovie Award in the Best Interview/Talk Show Category.

For more Warfare content, subscribe to our Warfare Wednesday newsletter here.

If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - enter promo code WARFARE for two weeks free + 50% off your first three months' subscription. To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.