All articles in Military
5th April, 2017 in Biography & Memoir, Military, Women in History
Mildred: American WWI front-line witness
‘The Stars & Stripes are flying at my gate, and they are flying all over France. What is more they will be flying – if they are not already – over Westminster, for the first time in history.’ – Mildred Aldrich, April 8, 1917 So wrote an elated Mildred Aldrich when she could f…
31st March, 2017 in Military
The Falklands War: A chronology of events
On 19 March 1982, Argentine scrap metal workers illegally arrived at Leith Harbour, South Georgia, on board the transport ship ARA Bahía Buen Suceso and raised the Argentine flag. This move led to a brief, but bitter conflict on the Falkland Islands, a remote UK colony…
28th March, 2017 in Military
An A-Z of the Falklands War
On 2 April 1982, in a move which led to a brief, but bitter conflict, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a remote UK colony in the South Atlantic. The war which resulted is a story of occupation, fierce air battles, heavy naval losses and bitter encounters between groun…
27th March, 2017 in Military, Women in History
The 100th anniversary of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
On 28 March 1917 the first women were enrolled into the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and embarked for France three days later. Yet in 1914 the suggestion of women in the army would have been considered ridiculous by the War Office. Why in 1917 was there such a big U-turn? When wa…
13th March, 2017 in Military
Neuve Chapelle 1915: The BEF’s first offensive
The operation at Neuve Chapelle in the Artois region of northern France during 10 to 12 March 1915 was significant because it was the first planned offensive strike upon a German trench system on the Western Front conducted independently by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) d…
13th March, 2017 in Biography & Memoir, Military, Women in History
Odette: World War Two’s darling spy?
Born in Amiens as Odette Marie Celine Brailly she assumed a variety of names during the course of her war service. Yet she was universally known to both the British and French public in the post-war years simply as Odette. At a time when it was rare for a woman to step out of the…
13th March, 2017 in Military
Room 40’s brilliant World War I codebreakers
Even in the early morning gloom and wrapped in a heavy overcoat, Ted Palmer recognised the man who came in out of the London rain for his first day’s work at a new office as a ‘Parisian dresser’, and, at least by repute, already established as his department’s most ‘active, intel…
13th March, 2017 in Military
The secret World War II peace mission of Tancred Borenius
The spring of 1941 saw wartime Britain at its most vulnerable and desperate. Nightly bombing raids over the long cold winter of 1940 by the German Luftwaffe had sought to bring the Churchill led government to the negotiating table prior to the implementation of Hitler’s Operation…
28th February, 2017 in Military
How Lorenz was different from Enigma
During the Second World War there were two major high-grade cipher systems being worked on at Bletchley Park: Enigma and the Lorenz (also known as ‘Tunny’). Lorenz, the most top secret cipher, was broken and a large proportion of its messages were deciphered by senior codebreaker…
24th February, 2017 in Military, Society & Culture
Shelter at home in the Second World War
In the Second World War, the people of Britain found their homes in the front line. Cities became targets for bombs, and just as houses and flats were wrecked by fire and high explosive, so too were families broken, hopes dashed, loves lost. For people under daily and nightly str…
24th February, 2017 in Military
The Zimmermann Telegram
On 24 February 1917 the American ambassador to the United Kingdom was given the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledged to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declared war on the United States. The revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram, s…
21st February, 2017 in History, Local & Family History, Military
Britain’s last invasion: Fishguard 1797
With the French Revolution raging across the channel, there was much alarm in Britain in 1797. The newly formed French revolutionary government devised a plan that involved harnessing the poor country folk of Britain to rally in support of the French liberators. When the French i…