Just before dawn on Sunday 25 June 1950, following a brief bombardment, the 150,000-strong army of the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, backed by Soviet Russia, crossed the border and invaded its southern neighbour, the Republic of Korea, backed…
‘There’s no time like the present’, as the adage goes – and those who specialise in Contemporary Archaeology certainly agree. John Schofield explores how applying archaeological techniques to the material remains of our own times can illuminate current issues, as well as improving our understanding of the past.
In the first part of our special feature, Graham Goodlad charts the development of America’s air-arm from its earliest beginnings, while in our second article he focuses on the hardware deployed by American forces.
They were once a common method of changing governments around the world. But, as Nigel Jones explains, coups have fallen from fashion in the 21st century.
Currently home to the National Museum of Flight, RAF East Fortune near Edinburgh is one of the UK’s best-preserved Second World War airfields. Re-examination of finds from previous excavations, on the site, as well as new evidence from recent field observations, has shed light on its long military history, as Dr Matteo Randazzo and Olivia Jones report.
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
In the final part of our series on the coming of the Cold War, Taylor Downing examines the struggle for nuclear domination.
New documentation has come to light which suggests that the British government concealed evidence that personnel involved in the UK’s nuclear-testing programme in the Pacific Ocean in the 1950s and 1960s were at risk from radiation damage. For decades, nuclear-testing…
A Cold War lookout post has been rediscovered in the grounds of Scarborough Castle. Built in 1963-1964, it is one of over 1,500 posts constructed across the UK to detect nuclear explosions. This example was sealed and buried in 1968;…
Crown Room at Edinburgh Castle redeveloped Redevelopment of Edinburgh Castle’s Crown Room is under way. The project, which began in January, will see elements of the Victorian design, including oak panelling, restored and new enhanced displays for the Honours of…
Continuing our series on the coming of the Cold War, Taylor Downing examines the first major confrontation with the Soviets.
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
In the latest part of our series on the coming of the Cold War, Taylor Downing reveals how tensions mounted in Germany’s ruined capital.
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.
REVIEW BY ANDRÉ VAN LOON To get straight to the point: the strength of Soviet Secret Police Chiefs lies in its weakness. It is an engrossing read and yet a partial historical account, which leaves the deepest questions about the…
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’,…
Plans have recently been announced for a new museum of military intelligence inside an underground tunnel complex in central London, dating to the Second World War. The Kingsway Exchange Tunnels were built in Holborn between 1940 and 1942 as deep-level…
In the first part of our series examining the transition from World War to Cold War, Taylor Downing looks at how the end of the fighting in 1945 sowed the seeds of the conflict to come; while in the second part he explains how the defeat of the Nazis brought new division to the Austrian capital.
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
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…
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…
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 historian and best-selling author on her obsession with espionage, and why she will always admire Edith Cavell.
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…
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Calum Henderson.
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
REVIEW BY CALUM HENDERSON Throughout the Cold War, various American presidents liked to say that the West and the Soviet Union had never fought one another directly, with the obvious implication being that they wanted to keep it that way.…
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
A recent survey project has analysed almost 10,000 aerial photographs as well as LiDAR imagery to explore archaeological features preserved within a large swathe of the South Downs National Park. From monuments to military remains, both well-known sites and new discoveries have been brought to light, as Carly Hilts reports.
'Their stories are still being written – and they won’t be complete until you share your side.'
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Christopher Warner.
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…
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.
Open 10am-5pm daily (1 April to 30 October)Weybourne, Norfolk, NR25 7ERwww.muckleburgh.co.uk+ 44 (0)1263 588 210 The Muckleburgh Military Collection is the largest privately owned military museum in the United Kingdom. It was opened to the public in 1988 by Michael…