Under the heel: The Iron Curtain falls – Part 3: the crushing of Eastern Europe
In the third part of our series on the coming of the Cold War, Taylor Downing reveals how Stalin consolidated military and political control over a new Soviet bloc.
Cold War
V-Force: Britain’s nuclear bombers and the Cold War
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD Growing up near RAF Scampton at the height of the Cold War, in my formative years the delta-winged Avro Vulcan was a familiar sight. Soaring overhead with what V-Force author Jonathan Glancey calls its ‘otherworldly howl’,…
Korea: war without end
REVIEW BY TAYLOR DOWNING General The Lord Dannatt, once Chief of the General Staff, has teamed up with military historian Robert Lyman to provide a fascinating new take on the Korean War of 1950 to 1953. Their book has three…
Storming the Presidential Palace, Saigon, 1975
In this dramatic photograph – taken on 30 April 1975, 50 years ago this spring – a North Vietnamese tank is pictured at the climactic moment, as it smashes through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon. The fall…
Britain’s nuclear test veterans still fighting for justice
Some of the few surviving members of the group of men who witnessed Britain’s nuclear testing programme are still campaigning for justice for what it did to their bodies. The United Kingdom conducted a series of nuclear tests in the…
Cold War base under the Greenland ice sheet accidentally rediscovered
An abandoned Cold War military base buried underneath the ice sheet in northern Greenland has been rediscovered accidentally by NASA researchers. Camp Century, known as the ‘city under the ice’, was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers in…
The Vietnam War: A military history
REVIEW BY JONATHAN EATON The legacy of the Vietnam War continues to haunt American policymakers for the example it provides of a major power drawn gradually yet inexorably into a grinding conflict with no clear pathway for withdrawal. Claiming to…
Cold War Scotland
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Calum Henderson.
MHM 140 Competition
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
Back to the drawing board: The M551 Sheridan
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
Back to the drawing board: The de Havilland Sea Vixen
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
Conflict: the evolution of warfare from 1945 to Ukraine
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted the appearance of several books, setting the war in its historical context. This is the first study, however, to view the conflict in the long-term perspective of military history since…
Pritzker Military Museum & Library
Reviewing the best Military History Exhibitions with Christopher Warner.
This week: The Vietnam War
It began as an anticolonial struggle against the French, and ended as the Cold War’s bloodiest battleground. By the time the last US troops were withdrawn on 29 March 1973 – fifty years ago this month – it had cost…
The end: Vietnam, 1973
Fifty years ago this spring, the last American troops left Vietnam. Taylor Downing looks back on a conflict that ended in humiliation for the US.
British nuclear test veterans to receive new medal
The Nuclear Test Medal has been announced to commemorate the ‘Plutonium Jubilee’, the 70th anniversary of Britain’s first nuclear test.
Cuban Missile Crisis: how one man saved the world from nuclear war
John Lock resumes his occasional series on the ‘Butterfly Effect’ by examining another event that might have had unforeseen consequences. This time, he turns his attention to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the dramatic Cold War stand-off that led the world to the brink of disaster.
Museum review: Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Christopher Warner.
The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War
In his introduction to this exceptionally worthwhile volume, Stephen Robinson describes how, during the Gulf War, General Tommy Franks, a true believer in what had become the US Army’s dominant doctrine of ‘manoeuvre warfare’, formulated what historian Thomas Ricks referred to as ‘perhaps the worst war plan in American history’.
Cleaning Cold War aircraft
The team from Arco Services had to abseil from the hangar’s 30m-high roof to get access to the various aircraft, which include a Vulcan bomber and an English Electric Lightning.
Nuclear Folly: a new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis
A crisis over a small island south of the mainland United States in the autumn of 1962 was the closest the world ever came to a devastating nuclear war. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy, who recently chronicled the 1986 Chernobyl disaster,…
Aircraft at RAF museum get a spring clean
The annual high-level cleaning took place at the end of April and was conducted by specialists from ArcoServices. The team also carried out various safety checks on the suspension cables which keep the aircraft in 'flight'.
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.…
Former Cold War missile facility converted into Airbnb
It was once the launch centre for nuclear missiles capable of immense destruction. Now, a former military complex has found new life as an Airbnb guest house.
War Reporters: Kate Webb
Fearless as an action reporter, with a talent for the vivid phrase.
War on Film – The Vietnam War
James H Willbanks gives an insider's view on the making of The Vietnam War.
The end game: how did the Viet Cong win?
Neil Faulkner analyses the reasons for the eventual defeat of the United States in Indo-China.
The Vietnam War
Vietnam veteran James H Willbanks, who is a consultant to Ken Burns' The Vietnam War, looks back on the conflict that tore the United States apart 50 years ago.
Vo Nguyen Giap
General Giap was one of the 20th century’s foremost military commanders. He made his name commanding the military wing of the Viet Minh during the Second World War, before becoming commander-in-chief of the People’s Army of Vietnam.