When Britannia ceased to rule the waves
The final volume of N.A.M. Rodger’s magisterial history documents the gradual decline of Britain’s naval power as the empire disintegrated
A romantic obsession: Precipice, by Robert Harris, reviewed
In the build-up to the Great War another drama unfolds, as the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith is seen to be distracted from politics by his infatuation with the beautiful Venetia Stanley
What did Britain really gain from the daring 1942 Bruneval raid?
The night-time dismantling of a German radar site in Normandy was a feat of skill, courage and imagination. But there was little improvement to Bomber Command casualties as a result
A Guardsman’s life as not as glamorous as it might seem
Besides taking part in dangerous operational tours abroad, units of the Household Division keep up a gruelling schedule of ceremonial duties at home
Fighting every inch of the way: the Italian Campaign of 1943
When Allied forces landed at Salerno on 9 September, they expected an easy run to Rome. But the intelligence proved dangerously faulty, as James Holland explains
Operation Chariot succeeded because it was unthinkable
Eighty years ago, just after midnight on 28 March 1942, the British destroyer HMS Campbeltown crept up the estuary of…
New tactics are needed for the wars of the future
The strategic bankruptcy of the West has twice so far this century demanded that our brave soldiers risk their bodies…
Spitfires of the sea: the secret exploits of the Royal Navy’s 15th Motor Gun Boat Flotilla
Fast boats and fast women have been the ruin of many a poor boy. But they can also prove a…
How a small Mediterranean island determined the outcome of the second world war
If you can tell the difference between Jack Hawkins and John Mills, and between a Stuka and a Sten gun,…
The carnage of the Western Front was over surprisingly quickly
This book does not mess about. It tells the story of the fighting on the Western Front between 1914 and…
