D-Day

War on Film – Pressure

Taylor Downing reviews the latest film and television releases.

In Brief

MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.

MHM 142 Letters – September

Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine

MHM 141 Letters – July

Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine

Sword Beach: The untold story of D-Day’s forgotten victory

REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT Sometimes books teach us something new, but sometimes they inspire us to reconsider something that we thought we understood. Historian and archaeologist Stephen Fisher’s excellent debut work Sword Beach falls in the latter category. The number…

Operation Overlord – What happened next: from D-Day to Paris

6 JUNE 1944: D-DAY 12 JUNE (D+6) Carentan, a small town on the Cherbourg Peninsula, is captured by American troops. All the Allied bridgeheads in Normandy are now linked up. The following day, British troops attempt to advance through the…

At the sharp end: D-Day, 80 years on

In the fourth part of our series on the Normandy landings, Patrick Mercer follows three British units to understand what 6 June 1944 was really like for those at the point of the spear.

D-Day, 80 years on

In our two-part special for this issue to mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, David Porter examines the planning and logistical operation that ensured Allied success, while Patrick Mercer follows three British units to understand what 6th June 1944 was really for those at the point of the spear.

In View

MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles.

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,…

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 —…

The assault ration pack dating from the Second World War [right]. X ray scans [far RIGHT] revealed its contents, including meat blocks, biscuits, and latrine paper.

Last surviving D-Day ration pack discovered

Originally found in 2006, the sealed ration pack was mistakenly identified as an artefact from the 1950s.

Harry Read, 6th Airborne Divisional Signals, at home in Dorset.

The Past

New exhibition honours veterans of WWII airborne division

Formed in April 1943, the 6th Airborne Division took part in the Normandy Landings the following year, remaining in the line until the breakout to the Seine in late August 1944. During this time, casualties amounted to one in five men.

A landscape through time

Last year, Historic England archaeologists used ground-penetrating radar to confirm the remains of Tudor and Jacobean formal gardens at Belhus Park in Thurrock, Essex, the site of a manor built in the medieval period and rebuilt in the 16th century.…

Brothers in Arms: one legendary tank regiment’s bloody war from D-Day to VE-Day

Those with an interest in the British Army in the Second World War have had their appetites whetted recently by the paperback release of An Englishman at War: the wartime diaries of Stanley Christopherson, DSO, MC, TD, 1939-45 (reviewed in…

The Shortest History of War

Heinrich Severloh was a good soldier. On 6 June 1944, the 20-year-old Wehrmacht private manned a machine-gun overlooking Omaha Beach. He did his job without complaint: mowing down American soldiers as they disembarked on to the shore more than 500…

La Glacerie: excavating a prisoner-of-war camp in Normandy

La Glacerie in Cherbourg, Normandy, is the first WWII prisoner-of-war camp for German soldiers in France to be excavated and studied. How does living memory measure up to archaeological research? Robert Early compares the hard evidence with the witness accounts.