Raising the dead, 1865

In June 1864, Cold Harbor was the site of a fortnight-long battle during the American Civil War.

A year later, photographer John Reekie visited the battlefield and captured pictures of men as they roamed the fields, collecting and reburying the bones of dead soldiers.…

Airpower comes of Age, 1917-1918

In the last year of WWI, airpower became a major factor – so much so that the British turned their air contingents, previously treated as adjuncts of the Army or the Navy into a unified RAF. Was the diversion of resources worth it?…

Sink the Tirpitz!

John Sweetman analyses the relative failure of repeated Fleet Air Arm attacks on the German battleship Tirpitz.…

Secret Alliances

It is one of the great ‘what ifs?’ of World War II. What would have happened had the Nazis acquired a nuclear weapon? The consequences are unthinkable. The sabotaging of the Nazi nuclear programme was therefore one of the most important operations of the war. Operation Gunnerside, as it was…

Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors

The story of Alexander the Great, the dashing young prince who conquered vast swathes of the world before his mysterious death at the age of just 32, is a familiar one. It has fascinated historians for over two millennia, but our knowledge of it remains frustratingly incomplete. Here, Adrian Goldsworthy…

Gladius: living, fighting, and dying in the Roman Army

The author is a renowned scholar of the Roman Army and has written many books, both on this topic and related Roman subjects. The present work will be an absolute delight for those who are fascinated by the life and achievements of the world’s first and probably greatest professional army.…

The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom, and the Spanish Civil War

The precise number is uncertain, but around 35,000 foreign fighters may have served in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. Of these, perhaps one in five died, becoming, in the words of Ernest Hemingway, ‘part of the earth of Spain’. Hemingway was one among a legion of journalists…

Military History Matters 121

• Airpower comes of age
• The fight to destroy Hitler’s Tirpitz
• The Swiss: a late medieval military elite
• Britain’s secret World War II resistance plans
• The Walcheren Expedition, 1809…

Korean Air War

The Korean War was the first serious clash of the Cold War, but it also witnessed a small and often-overlooked revolution in airpower. During the conflict, the last generation of piston-engined fighters gave way to new state-of-the-art jet- powered replacements. In Korean Air War, Michael Napier, former RAF pilot and…

Mission France

Despite the deserved praise for Special Operations Executive members Violette Szabo and Noor Inayat Khan, many of its other agents are forgotten. Kate Vigurs here attempts to redress the balance, looking at the widely varying experiences of all 39 women who undertook such daring missions. Mission France: the true history…

The Western Front

In this authoritative new history, WWI historian Nick Lloyd goes against the widespread myth of the war of 1914-1918 as one of stupidity and pointlessness. Amid the mud and mire of the trenches, he argues, there was extensive innovation and adaptation, as well as tactical achievements that should not be…

The Compleat Victory

In the summer of 1777, British forces were waging a campaign to finally crush the American rebellion. Kevin Weddle here analyses how Continental Army and Militia forces under Major General Horatio Gates turned the situation around, inflicting a stunning defeat on the British that had consequences for the rest of…

Barbarossa and the Bloodiest War in History

On a fateful Sunday in late June 1941, millions of German soldiers poured into the Soviet Union, beginning Operation Barbarossa: the Nazis’ war of annihilation in the East. Stewart Binns here explores the struggle of the Russian army to defend itself amid the German onslaught, as well as many civilian…

Operation Pedestal: the fleet that battled

Malta’s strategic significance to the Allied war effort was not lost on the Luftwaffe: in the spring of 1942 alone, they dropped more bombs on the island than they did on London during the entire Blitz. In his latest book, Max Hastings charts a relief mission to the besieged island:…

Stow Maries Great War Aerodrome

Proudly claiming to be ‘Europe’s largest surviving World War I aerodrome’, the museum welcomes visitors to an impressive, hundred-acre site.…

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