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Old Fort Erie
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Christopher Warner.
War on Film – Lee
Taylor Downing reviews the latest film releases.
James Holland
The best-selling historian on his obsession with World War II, and why he wouldn’t invite Monty to dinner.
New discoveries at Waterloo’s ‘unique’ burial ground
This image shows the remains of a horse excavated recently from a trench at Mont-Saint-Jean Farm in Waterloo, Belgium. The farm was the site of a field hospital for the Duke of Wellington’s troops in the aftermath of the battle…
War of Words – ‘Cohort’
With Marc DeSantis
New names to be added to Bomber Command archive
A further 9,000 names are to be added to the Bomber Command archive, in a project that has been described as a ‘labour of love’ by its head. The Losses Database, launched 12 years ago, already contains information about the…
Arrowheads shed light on one of Europe’s oldest battlefields
It is one of the oldest and most mysterious battlefields in Europe. But new research into arrowheads dating from the 13th century BC has revealed more about who was involved. The Tollense Valley in the northern German state of Mecklenburg…
Uniform of British escapee from Napoleonic prison goes on display
In 1809, a young Royal Navy midshipman, Charles Hare, made a daring escape from a Napoleonic prison – with a French uniform as his disguise and a dog in tow. Now, two centuries later, Hare’s uniform, along with a fascinating…
Long-lost British submarine found in the Aegean
Alost British submarine has been found in the Aegean Sea. HMS Trooper struck a mine on 7 October 1943, causing what has been described as an ‘immediate and rapid sinking.’ All 64 men and officers on board lost their lives,…
Japanese atomic bomb survivors awarded Nobel Peace Prize
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyō, a group that represents survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. The organisation received the award for ‘demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never…
War Classics – Old Soldiers Never Die
Frank Richards holds a unique place in military writing, for several reasons. His book Old Soldiers Never Die is reckoned to be among the finest war memoirs ever produced, and one of very few to be written by a private soldier. Richards was himself a rarity, having survived active service from the beginning of the First World War in 1914 right through to its conclusion in November 1918.
In Brief
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD It is now three years since Bristol University historian Ronald Hutton’s The Making of Oliver Cromwell appeared. That earlier volume took Britain’s first commoner head of state from his origins as a minor East Anglian landowner…
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…
Alexander at the end of the world: the forgotten final years of Alexander the Great
REVIEW BY MARC DESANTIS Alexander of Macedonia is known as the Western world’s greatest conqueror. Not for nothing has he been given, since antiquity, the appellation ‘the Great’. In just 11 years, he drove his army of superb cavalry and…
Winston Churchill
REVIEW BY TAYLOR DOWNING The military historian Peter Caddick-Adams has written this witty and enjoyable political biography of Winston Churchill. Unlike the multivolume authorised biography written mostly by Sir Martin Gilbert – which contained more than three million words –…
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.
Napoleonic tunic and weapons on display at new exhibition marking emperor’s death
Napoleon in Exile at the Fusilier Museum in Bury tells the story of the military leader’s final years and will include several personal items which have never been on display in the UK before.
Samurai armour goes back on display after conservation
The armour is the property of National Trust's Snowshill Manor in Gloucestershire and is part of the largest collection of its kind in the UK.
New evidence of Nazi war crimes uncovered in Poland’s ‘Death Valley’
New research has uncovered evidence of the first large-scale atrocity committed in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. Around 30-35,000 people were murdered in the country’s Pomeranian province in the first months of the conflict. One area saw so…
Museum acquires items from defender of Rorke’s Drift
At the auction, the museum acquired three lots belonging to Chard: a small archive of material relating to his life; a manuscript copy concerning the battle; and surveying and drawing instruments in a wooden case belonging to the Lieutenant.
Project to restore Waterloo hero’s monument gets funding boost
The site is dedicated to Henry Paget, who was second in command under the Duke of Wellington and leader of the allied cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Bodies identified in Spanish Civil War graves excavation
The individuals were killed and buried in a civil cemetery at Almagro, in the Ciudad Real region of Spain, between 1939 and 1940.
Buffalo LVT excavated in Lincolnshire
Lightly armoured amphibious landing craft, Buffalo LVTs (Landing Vehicles Tracked), were used by the Allies in the crossing of the Rhine and Elbe rivers in March 1945.
IWM to open ‘extensive’ new galleries on the Second World War and Holocaust
The story of the Holocaust will be told through 2,000 photos, books, artworks, and letters, as well as personal objects from toys to jewellery.
‘World’s oldest war memorial’ identified in Syria
Archaeologists have stated that a monument at the Banat-Bazi complex is over 4,000 years old.
War of Words: ‘PAWN’
Pawn emerges etymologically from the Anglo-Norman poun, which itself comes from the medieval Latin pedo (‘footsoldier’), derived from the Latin pes (‘foot’).
Operation Bagration
Which was more important, D-Day or Operation Bagration? Chris Bambery argues that it was on the Eastern Front that the fate of Nazi Germany was sealed.
MHM Letters – April/May
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.
Back to the Drawing Board: Heinkel He 177 GreIf
Frantic redesign efforts were made, but in 1942 the aircraft finally entered production still plagued with the same engine problems.
Museum – 1066 Battle of Hastings Abbey and Battlefield
Reviewing the best military history exhibitions with Calum Henderson.
Special Forces in World War II
Elite units played an essential if often obscure role during the Second World War. In this new illustrated book, with more than 120 colour and black-and-white images, Michael E Haskew charts units from across the globe, regardless of nation or…
Crusader strategy: a contradiction in terms?
Medieval warfare was not just a matter of crude feudal violence, argues Steve Tibble.
At Close Range: life and death in an artillery regiment, 1939-45
The direct experience of the gunners has long been a neglected aspect of World War II history. We have had plenty on life in a tank unit, or a fighter squadron, but there is a sense in which the role…