The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
At 3 a.m. on 6 May, 400 Allied guns ‘flamed into action’ on a 3,000-yard stretch of enemy front on both sides of the Medjez-Massicault-Tunis highway. ‘The gunners sweated as they thrust shells into the guns,’ wrote journalist John D’Arcy-Dawson. The noise...
It is hard not to feel for a petrified young man cowering in the dark, his underwater home groaning, cracking and springing leaks, as high explosives detonate yards away and there is just eighteen millimetres of steel holding back oblivion. Yes, even if he is a...
In the history of the British Secret Service, SIS/MI6, two of its intelligence networks have been given high acclaim and both were in Belgium. They were La Dame Blanche (the White Lady) in the First World War and the Clarence Service in the Second World War. La Dame...
On the morning of 12 September 1942, off the West African coast, the watch officer aboard U-156 spotted a plume of smoke on the horizon. Already three weeks out of Lorient, U-156 – a Type IX submarine, on its fourth war patrol – was due to join a wolfpack in the...
The Aspects of History Book of the Year 2025. Saul David has often been the bridesmaid, but never the bride, when it comes to the Aspects of History Book of the Year. He has gained notable mentions for past awards for titles such as Devil Dogs and Sky Warriors - yet...
Hunter Class is the second novel in your Daniel Nichols Spy Thrillers series. What has happened to Nichols since the end of Rising Tide and the beginning of the new book? Nichols has been recruited into 30 Commando by Ian Fleming, a unit the Bond creator formed to...
Sword: D-Day - Trial by Battle, by Max Hastings A new work by Max Hastings, éminence grise of military historians, is always an eagerly anticipated event. In recent years we have been treated to his brilliant accounts of Vietnam, the Dambusters raid (Chastise),...
The History behind The Bratinsky Affair "It is not the wimpled version of history that is interesting but its brutality." - Hilary Mantel The story of Countess Irina Bratinsky, née O’Rourke de Breffny, has its roots in the religious wars of 17th-century Ireland and...
The subtitle of this book is ‘Anglo American Rivalry and the hidden story of the Normandy Campaign’ and the theme is American political and military machinations to ensure that Allied strategy in the Second World War was diverted to the support of American interests...
Historical Heroes: Chiune Sugihara Chiune Sugihara is the little-known Japanese World War 2 hero who saved thousands of refugees with his pen. Through his quiet defiance, he issued what became known as ‘Visas for Life’, helping an estimated 6,000 Jewish refugees...
