All articles in Military
16th September, 2016 in Military, Society & Culture
Theresienstadt: Paradise Camp
23 June, 1944. Maurice Rossel – a Swiss representative of the International Red Cross – paid a visit to a special camp run by the SS in the former fortress of Theresienstadt located in the north-west of the Czech Republic. The camp was home to thousands of Jewish inmates of…
16th September, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, Military, Women in History
Ask the author: Peter Hore on forgotten WWII hero Mary Lindell
Peter Hore is the author of Lindell’s List, which tells the moving story of Mary Lindell’s heroic leadership and the endurance of a group of women who defied the Nazis in the Second World War. We asked him about the inspiration behind the book, conducting research and w…
15th September, 2016 in Aviation, Biography & Memoir, Military
What became of ‘The Few’ after the Battle of Britain?
To the grateful population of post-war Britain those pilots who had fought against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain were true heroes. They were lauded in the media of the day and became the subjects of many a film. England’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill was even qu…
15th September, 2016 in Military
The Battle of Flers-Courcelette
The first ever tanks used in combat were unleashed onto the battlefield during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916, during the larger Somme offensive. Although their initial effectiveness is debatable and designs were primitive, the face of modern warfare was cha…
8th September, 2016 in Military
The Forth Bridge Raid
On the afternoon of 16 October 1939, around twelve German bombers arrived over the River Forth on the east coast of Scotland, dropping bombs over the famous rail bridge and almost hitting a train which was crossing the bridge at the time. Fighters were scrambled from local aerodr…
8th September, 2016 in Military, Transport & Industry
How the motor industry helped win the Second World War
During the Second World War the British Army underwent a complete transformation as the number of its vehicles grew from 40,000 to 1.5 million, ranging from tanks and giant tank transporters to jeeps, scout cars, mobile baths and offices. To build and maintain these vehicles was…
30th August, 2016 in Military, Society & Culture
The evacuation of children during the Second World War
With the start of the Second World War came Operation Pied Piper. This was the plan to evacuate civilians from cities and other areas that were at high risk of being bombed or becoming a battlefield in the event of an invasion. The country was split into three types of areas: Eva…
22nd August, 2016 in History, Military
Interpreting the Battle of Bosworth Field
The Battle of Bosworth was a defining moment in English history, as the Houses of Lancaster and York clashed in the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses. The death of King Richard III and the crowning of Henry Tudor as King of England marked the end of the Plantagenet dyna…
17th August, 2016 in Biography & Memoir, Military
Family loyalty and deceit within the clan of Dracula
Families can be a place of safety, repose and support during hard times. Equally they can be places of danger, deceit and division. This dichotomy of succour and sedition was never better displayed than in the family histories of the clan of Dracula and in that of their Ottoman o…
11th August, 2016 in Local & Family History, Military
How the Pershore Plum helped win the First World War
In August 1916, in the midst of the Battle of the Somme, William George Haynes, was given permission to take leave from active service in France to return to his home in the Worcestershire town of Pershore to help bring in the harvest. After helping to gather in the vegetables an…
4th August, 2016 in Military
Hiroshima: The first atomic bomb
On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of the Second World War, the United States (with the consent of the United Kingdom as laid out in the Quebec Agreement) dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing over 80,000 peop…
18th July, 2016 in Military
Five great battles from history
Author and historian Simon Elliott details five historic battles that have attracted his interest, explaining their relevance in the wider study of conflict and their appeal to him as an historian (listed here chronologically). Battle of Adrianople On the left, Fritigern’s foragi…