A second excavation season at Buckler’s Hard, a private ship- building hub on the River Beaulieu, 12 miles (20km) south of Southampton in the New Forest, has fully revealed the wooden slipway where 55 ships for the Royal Navy –…
Steve Dunn is the author of 15 books, mostly on specific aspects of World War I at sea, from the Dover Patrol to the defence of the Western Approaches. In Spectre of Invasion, he has turned his hand to a…
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT Developing a fresh interpretation for a well-charted subject area is always a challenge, as this reviewer knows only too well. I therefore approached Hugh Sebag-Montefiore’s reconsideration of the naval campaign fought to sustain the Soviet Union…
Edmund West traces the history of the small island with an outsized natural harbour that played a critical role in the battle for naval superiority in the Mediterranean.
More than 250 years after she was sunk, the final resting place of the vessel commanded by Captain James Cook on his first voyage of discovery has been confirmed. HMS Endeavour, which Cook used to map the Pacific Ocean and…
Graham Goodlad analyses Britain’s role in the long-running struggle against French domination of the Low Countries.
Nick Spenceley reconsiders Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.
Put your military history knowledge to the test with our competition.
In the final part of our occasional series on the rise of Britain’s imperial navy, Graham Goodlad reviews the remarkable career of Admiral George Anson.
Construction has begun on a new home for a rare German U-boat from the Second World War. The new Battle of the Atlantic U-boat Museum, which will house the vessel U-534, is expected to open in Birkenhead in 2026. The…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD Nicholas Rodger began his monumental history of British sea power, tracing its development from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the Second World War, almost three decades ago. The second volume, which took the story from…
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…
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,…
In the last part of our series marking the 150th birthday of Winston Churchill, Taylor Downing examines his relationships with some of the brilliant mavericks who contributed to final victory during World War II.
REVIEW BY NICK HEWITT No matter how long you study a subject, there is always something new to learn, and this reviewer learned a great deal from Michael Barritt’s excellent account of ‘how Thomas Herd made hydrographic capability a crucial…
With Marc DeSantis
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
In the second part of our series on Britain’s rise as a naval power, Graham Goodlad explains how supremacy at sea became closely linked with the 18th-century career of Admiral Edward Vernon.
In this image, a diver surveys one of the five cannon found during an archaeological exploration in Dry Tortugas National Park, off the south-west coast of Florida. The cannon played a crucial role in confirming that a nearby wreck, first…
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,…
David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
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Nick Spenceley recalls one of the great works of military history.
In the first part of a new occasional series, Graham Goodlad profiles Robert Blake, the republican ‘general at sea’ who laid the foundations of sea power after the Civil Wars.
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…
A diving team has explored the final resting place of a German U-boat that sank off the coast of Shetland during the First World War. SM UC-55 lies on the seabed some eight miles south-east of Lerwick. She was sunk…
With Marc DeSantis
The British submarine HMS Triumph was lost in mysterious circumstances off the coast of Greece in 1942. Now she has been located, after a search lasting more than 25 years. The submarine, which was involved in various special operations during…
To mark the 225th anniversary of Nelson’s spectacular victory off the coast of Egypt, Stephen Roberts analyses the battle that made his name as a naval commander.
DAVID PORTER ON MILITARY HISTORY’S DOOMED INVENTIONS
Graham Goodlad analyses Cunningham’s masterpiece, the battle which broke the power of fascist Italy in the Mediterranean.
For our special this issue, Graham Goodlad analyses the achievements of Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, universally known to his peers as ‘ABC’. In this first part, he looks at Cunningham’s life and career, while in the second he offers a detailed commentary on the battle that is widely regarded as his masterpiece.
![Above Christian with her husband John in 1943 [left] and in 2021 [right]. below An Allied tanker sinks after being hit by a torpedo fired from a U boat during the Battle of the Atlantic.](https://i0.wp.com/the-past.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/post-1_image0-5.jpg?fit=768%2C505&ssl=1)
Christian Lamb – who is now 102 years old – was involved in plotting the course of ONS-5, a slow trade convoy from Britain to North America that saw off a vicious attack from the Kriegsmarine in early May 1943.
There are, according to the heritage body Historic England, at least 37,000 shipwrecks strewn along the country’s coastline – a legacy of more than 6,000 years of maritime trade, exploration and warfare. Such a torturous proliferation offers a poignant reminder…
Launched in 1917, she saw a brief period of service during the final year of the war, and was responsible for sinking the German U-B