All articles in Military
13th May, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Local & Family History, Military
Uncovering Josef Jakobs
In many ways, history is a tapestry, formed of myriad multi-hued threads woven together into a complex whole. Some of which is visible to us… and some of which is invisible. We rarely see the entire tapestry and many sections are faded and worn by time. In 1988, I asked my mother…
18th April, 2019 in Military
French SOE hero Robert Maloubier
In the summer of 1940 Churchill created the SOE on the edges of the Intelligence Service with the mission ‘to set Europe ablaze’. For obscure reasons, the official account of its activities was forbidden from being translated into French for fifty years after the war. And, due to…
10th April, 2019 in Local & Family History, Military, True Crime
Wartime London: A criminal’s paradise?
The natural inclination, when thinking about wartime London, is to imagine its people huddled in Tube stations and bomb shelters, singing rousing choruses of “Roll Out the Barrel”; of a defiant population fortified by Churchill’s soaring oratory. Certainly, there is truth to this…
22nd March, 2019 in Military
The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III
The escape of 76 POWs from Stalag Luft 3 on 24 March 1944 was the greatest mass escape from a prisoner-of-war camp ever known. It caused the Germans serious problems and great embarrassment, and tied up thousands of troops and civilians in a huge two week long search for the pris…
28th January, 2019 in Local & Family History, Military, Society & Culture
The Prison of Norman Cross: The Lost Town of Huntingdonshire
During the Napoleonic Wars many thousands of prisoners of war arrived in Britain often to languish in the war prisons for many years. Norman Cross Prison Depot, near Peterborough, was one of the largest with accommodation for up to 7,000 captives and used from 1797 until it close…
25th January, 2019 in Military
French Resistance and the Nazis’ attempt to tame ‘Little Russia’
When trying to make sense of the vast kaleidoscope of people, purposes and organisations that made up the French Resistance, it is often a good idea to break the country down into smaller parts. This is just what the F section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Churchill’…
14th January, 2019 in Biography & Memoir, Military, Women in History
Vera Eriksen: The Second World War’s most enigmatic spy
In September 1940 a beautiful young woman arrived by sea plane and rubber dinghy on the shores of Scotland accompanied by two men. It was to be yet another episode in the Germans’ attempt to penetrate British defences and infiltrate spies into the country. Of all the female spies…
30th November, 2018 in Military
Animals at war: The PDSA Dickin Medal
Animals have been a part of warfare for as long there’s been warfare, whether carrying soldiers or delivering messages, and on 2 December 1943, during one of the world’s most devastating conflicts, the PDSA Dickin Medal was awarded for the first time. The People’s Dispensary for…
29th November, 2018 in Biography & Memoir, Military
Churchill’s hidden years
Have you ever wondered what Churchill did in the First World War? Most people recall the Dardanelles. Some ask ‘Wasn’t he a soldier?’ But then they generally get stuck. I began to think about this and took a closer look. I was staggered to find both how active he was and how cont…
7th November, 2018 in Local & Family History, Military
Chapel Street: The bravest little street of World War I
In 1914, when the Great War broke out Chapel Street, Altrincham, Cheshire saw 161 men volunteer for duty from just 60 houses. Chapel Street was a long and narrow cul-de-sac of Georgian and Victorian houses, it was home to a four hundred strong multi-cultural (Scottish, Welsh…
6th November, 2018 in Military
How were changing attitudes to WWI reflected in poetry?
Initially many in Britain hoped that their country might avoid becoming enmeshed in the war threatening Europe, but this view changed dramatically as it learnt of the atrocities which had been committed by the Germans in the invasion of Belgium in August 1914. Then the war was a…
6th November, 2018 in Maritime, Military
Secret gold 20 fathoms deep: The quest for HMS Laurentic’s treasure
When HMS Laurentic hit German mines and sank off the coast of Ireland in 1917 nobody knew the significance of the cargo she was carrying. The Admiralty wanted to keep it that way. After all, broadcasting that there were now 3,211 ingots of gold at the bottom of the Irish Sea in t…