The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
The final months of England’s only republic, from 1658 to 1660, may be the most consequential yet least understood in its past. For a nation obsessed with the long history of its monarchy this is no coincidence. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 cast the...
Supremacy at Sea The Second World War can be seen as a succession of phases, or campaign events, each of which in terms of timeline and effect had its own impact on the course and outcome of the war. The two big turning points in the Second World War both occurred in...
Evan Mawdsley, by mid-44 in what state was the Imperial Japanese Navy? In May 1944, the commanders of the American Pacific Fleet thought that it was unlikely that the IJN would sortie from the Philippines to defend the Marianas Islands. This was due to their estimate...
What was your inspiration for Savage Continent, your book about Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War? Did it grow out of your work on the devastating bombing of Hamburg? That was the seed out of which it grew. Having seen how devastated Hamburg...
CHF 2024: Day 5 Cassino ’44, James Holland The searing sun gave way to cooler cloudier weather on Friday, the day of the military big beasts, James Holland, Max Hastings, Saul David and Anthony Beevor. James Holland’s account of the battle of Monte Cassino follows in...
When one thinks of D-Day, June 6th 1944, the first images that spring to mind are of brave soldiers disembarking landing craft and rushing onto the beaches to face the machine-guns of the defending Germans. Films, such as Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day have...
Nick Hewitt, many congratulations on Normandy: The Sailor’s Story. Why did you want to write it? Thank you! I’ve been studying the naval history of D-Day and the wider Normandy campaign for most of my career, ever since I started working aboard HMS Belfast as a baby...
In your new book Every Spy a Traitor you move away from a World War II/Post War setting and focus purely on a ‘Cold War’ with the Soviet Union in the 1930s. What was it that attracted you to the period? I liked the idea of a series that covered a longer time span,...
On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed The National Service (Armed Forces) Act. All men aged between 18 and 41 were required to register for service. My grandfather John James Doherty ‘JJ’, a talented linguist,...
A couple of years ago at the Chalke History Festival, General Sir Simon Mayall, a popular member of the red trouser brigade, Balliol man, and retired military top brass strode onto stage to rapturous applause. Introducing his recently published memoirs he delivered a...
