Archaeological investigations in south Lincolnshire, linked to the ‘Digging Market Garden’ project, have uncovered objects relating to one of the largest airborne assaults in history – as well as some unexpected medieval finds. Operation Market Garden was an attempt by…
From Burma to Iwo Jima, armoured fighting vehicles played a key role in some of World War II’s most challenging environments. Our military technology expert David Porter takes notes.
TAYLOR DOWNING reviews the latest film releases
A rare Japanese sword dating from the 17th century – thought to have been a diplomatic gift – has been uncovered during excavations in Berlin. The wakizashi, a short sword carried by samurai in feudal Japan, was found in the…
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A project aiming to recover the remains of three crew members from a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber that crashed after a mid-air collision near Thurston, Suffolk, in 1944 has located aircraft wreckage and personal objects connected to those on board.…
In the second part of our series to mark Winston Churchill's 150th birthday, Taylor Downing explores his relationship with the difficult but brilliant scientist who restarted Britain’s controversial World War II bombing campaign.
Less well-known than the invasion of Normandy, the Allied campaign in northern Italy saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the Second World War. Eighty years on, Patrick Mercer looks in detail at one action to understand how things went wrong.
Everyone has a story to tell. So do warships. The saga of the USS The Sullivans, which was launched in April 1943, is still making headlines today. The Fletcher-class destroyer is one of three decommissioned World War II- era naval…
A ‘brilliant’ mathematician who helped break the Nazi Enigma codes at Bletchley Park during World War II has been honoured with a blue plaque outside her childhood home. The memorial to the late Joan Clarke was unveiled in south London…
The wreck of the ‘legendary’ American submarine that sank the most Japanese warships during Second World War has been found, 80 years after she was lost. USS Harder was discovered 914m below the surface, off the island of Luzon, in…
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David Porter on Military History's doomed inventions.
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles
REVIEW BY JONATHAN EATON Sir Max Hastings has an established reputation as a leading writer on 20th-century conflicts, drawing on his previous experience as both a war correspondent and newspaper editor. His recent works have included studies of Vietnam and…
REVIEW BY GRAHAM GOODLAD The Second World War saw the parachute and glider used to deploy troops in large numbers for the first and last time in military history. The technology had simply not been available in the Great War,…
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…
As we mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings this month, Carly Hilts reports on a visit to Fan Bay, near Dover, where Jon Barker showed her fascinating traces of Second World War coastal defences on the site and in the immediate area that are being investigated by the Wanstone Rediscovered project.
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…
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.
A major new restoration project is under way at the 150-year-old Newhaven Fort, which is one of the largest defensive works ever built in Sussex. The £7.5 million project aims to open up previously inaccessible areas of the fort, such…
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…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles.
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…
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,…
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.
The Historic Buildings Team from Cotswold Archaeology has recently carried out a detailed recording of Fort Gilkicker in Gosport. This fort is part of the Victorian defences around the town’s harbour. It is one of a number of structures known…
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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…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history titles.
TAYLOR DOWNING reviews a major new television series
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,…
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,…
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…
When the Salisbury Plain village of Imber was taken over by the War Department in 1943, its inhabitants all departed, never to return. What has recent archaeological work revealed about the life and death of a long-lived Wiltshire community? Richard Osgood reports.