It was headline news on 8 April 1942: ‘One of the Navy’s most famous destroyers, a ship which survived bombs, torpedoes and full scale battles, has been wrecked’. That destroyer was HMS Havock, descri
At 18.57 hours on Sunday, 26 May 1940, the Admiralty issued the directive which instigated the start of Operation Dynamo. This was the order to rescue the British Expeditionary Force from the French p
The United States Marine Corps was one of the phenomena of the Second World War. Greatly expanded from its prewar order of battle of scattered defense battalions, overseas garrisons and ship detachmen
When the US Marine Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, announced the formation of what became the US Marine Corps’ Women’s Reserve, legend has it that the portrait of the fifth Commandant, Archi
The Crimean War saw the introduction of the Victoria Cross, which was awarded to 111 men. Whilst the history of the Crimean War has been related many times, never before have the stories of those indi
During October 2016 Paul Dawson visited French archives in Paris to continue his research surrounding the events of the Napoleonic Wars. Some of the material he examined had never been accessed by res
One of Churchill’s most controversial decisions during the Second World War was to switch SOE support in Yugoslavia in 1943 from the Cetniks loyal to the exiled Royal Government to backing Tito and hi