MHM Book Awards 2024
Sponsored by: The ballots have been cast, the votes have been counted – and now we are delighted finally to announce the winners of the MHM Book Awards. Earlier this year, we curated a list of the best military history…
Second World War
In View
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles.
Agent Zo: the untold story of fearless WWII resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND This latest book from biographer Clare Mulley goes way beyond the astonishing life story of Elżbieta Zawacka. For it also provides an important overview of 20th-century Poland, as well as a reminder of the horrors of…
Normandy: the Sailors’ Story – A naval history of D-Day and the battle for France
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON The Battle of Normandy has been covered extensively in the 80 years since it took place. But less well remembered is the naval campaign that accompanied it, the subject of this new book by Nick Hewitt,…
Military History Matters 139
• D-Day 80 years on: Hitler’s Fortress Europe
• Empire of violence: Roman arms and armour
• The Lionheart in winter: Richard I’s last campaign
• ‘Looking death in the face’: Beecher Island, 1868
• Barbarian fantasy: the ghost of Genghis Khan
Secret Tunnels
Secret tunnels are a trope of local folklore – many a town in the UK has its story about long-lost underground passages, doubtless providing the inhabitants of a monastery or castle an escape route from their confinement.
Hitler’s Fortress Europe: Planning for defeat?
D-Day, 80 years on: Graham Goodlad examines Germany’s flawed preparations to resist an Allied invasion of North-West Europe.
D-Day: Before the storm
The decisive victory of World War II in Western Europe took place 80 years ago this summer. On 6 June 1944, after months of planning, around 150,000 men from five divisions – two American, two British, and one Canadian —…
MHM 139 Letters – March
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
MHM 139 Competition
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
Arctic Convoys: Bletchley Park and the war for the seas
REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND The Arctic campaign, fought between 1941 and 1945, saw Allied convoys battling through icy seas to deliver supplies to northern Russia. It was the stuff of legend. Yet more than 90 per cent of the cargo…
War On Film – Masters of the Air
TAYLOR DOWNING reviews a major new television series
Creating havoc, 1942
In this image, the newly constructed glass noses of several dozen A-20 ‘Havoc’ bombers shimmer under the factory lights at the Douglas Aircraft Company’s production plant in Long Beach, California. The picture was taken in October 1942 by Alfred Palmer,…
Museum plans lodged for WWII landing craft dug up by volunteers
The volunteers who excavated a World War II landing craft in Lincolnshire three years ago have now applied for it to be given a permanent home. The Buffalo LVT (Landing Vehicle, Tracked) was dug up in Crowland, north-east of Peterborough,…
New exhibition explores ‘great escapes’ during World War II
To mark the 80th anniversary of the legendary Allied breakout from a German concentration camp in March 1944, a new exhibition is exploring other ‘great escapes’ that took place during the Second World War. The exhibition, which opened last month…
Military History Matters 138
• Burma ’44: was Imphal and Kohima Britain’s greatest victory?
• The last charge: Von Bredow’s ‘Death Ride’, 1870
• The Kaiser’s U-boats: Germany’s submarine threat
• 1385 and all that: the failed French invasions
• The spies who never were: double agents Brutus and Garbo
Imphal & Kohima: Turning point in Burma
Graham Goodlad analyses Slim’s crucial victory, which dispelled the myth of Japanese invincibility.
Burma ’44: From disaster to triumph
In our two-part special for this issue, Graham Goodlad first profiles Slim and then looks in detail at Imphal and Kohima.
MHM 138 Letters – January
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
MHM 138 Competition
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
The spies who never were
In the third part of our series on deception in World War II, Taylor Downing uncovers the true story of double agents Brutus and Garbo.
Luck of the Draw: My story of the air war in Europe
REVIEW BY COLIN POMEROY Luck of the Draw, which has just been adapted by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks into the new television series Masters of the Air, is in effect the autobiography of the late Frank Murphy. It tells…
War Classics: The Cruel Sea
Nick Spenceley recalls one of the great works of military history.
Remains of a radar station, Craster, Northumberland
More than 200 radar stations were dotted throughout Britain during the Second World War, although very few survive intact today. A number of these were Chain Home Low, or CHL stations, so named because they could detect enemy aircraft flying…
Remains of WWII bomber crew identified in the Netherlands, 80 years after they vanished
The remains of three British airmen who went missing during the Second World War have been identified more than 80 years after they disappeared. Arthur Smart, Raymond Moore, and Charles Sprack were on board a Lancaster bomber when it was…
MHM 137 Competition
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
MHM 137 Letters – November
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
They’re coming! The invasion scares of 1803-05 & 1940
Napoleon and Hitler both drew up detailed plans for the invasion of Britain, spreading alarm among the public and forcing urgent measures from the UK government in return. Here, David Porter compares the plans, and the threat posed by the country’s two would-be invaders.
The corpse that fooled Hitler
In the second part of our series on the use of deception during World War Two, Taylor Downing uncovers the extraordinary true story of Operation Mincemeat.
In View
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles
To besiege a city: Leningrad 1941-42
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON Leningrad – today known as St Petersburg – was a key military and industrial target in the early years of the Second World War. But the city also held a psychological attraction for the invading armies…
Mosquito: the RAF’s legendary wooden wonder and its most extraordinary mission
REVIEW BY COLIN POMEROY Despite the title of this book, there is little detail about the Mosquito’s development or performance within its pages. But that is the only disappointment, for Rowland White’s new history of the ‘wooden wonder’ is otherwise…
A bit of a long shot: an experimental catapult from WWII
This image shows the remains of an innovative catapult – designed to launch fighter aircraft into the sky – which has recently been uncovered by archaeologists in Oxfordshire. The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Mark III Catapult was one of a…
Images provide clues to the final moments of Midway ships
Haunting new images have been revealed of shipwrecks caused by one of the most significant naval battles of the Second World War. The Battle of Midway, fought on 4 June 1942, saw the United States Navy inflict a crippling blow…
Underwater Survey sheds light on shipwrecks from Dunkirk
New research has been charting the wrecks of ships lost during Operation Dynamo, the Allied evacuation from Dunkirk in the summer of 1940. Historic England and its French counterpart, Drassm, carried out a survey of 30 wrecks in the waters…
Second World War catapult found in Oxfordshire
Work by MOLA in advance of the development of a Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire has uncovered the remains of an experimental catapult from the Second World War. Known from historical records, the catapult in question was called…