Latest Features
Military History Monthly issue 33 – June 2013
The June issue of Military History Monthly, the British military history magazine, is on sale today.
Warrior: Tamil Tiger
Tom Farrell describes one of the most formidable guerilla armies of modern times. Typically, serving members of the Tamil Tigers wore distinctive combat fatigues banded into a tigerstripe pattern. Variations included a blue uniform for Sea Tiger ratings and a black-on-grey pattern for the Black Tiger suicide division. Female fighters wore similar uniforms, but when on active duty their usual attire consisted of black [...]
Latest Articles
Museum – Le Musée de la Grande Guerre
Keith Robinson reports from France where he has been inspecting an architecturally fascinating WWI museum. North on the heights above the town of Meaux, a great slab of glass and concrete has recently appeared. This is France’s Museum of the Great War. Cantilevered out of the hillside it provides a covered area for community events [...]
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD – Flying Aircraft Carriers
It might sound a bit like a Sci-fi fantasy, but during the early 1930s the United States Navy actually operated two airships capable of launching biplanes. Ultimately, the experiment ended in disaster, with the catastrophic loss not only of both airships but of the admiral who had been the leading light of the project. Airships [...]
War Culture – David Langdon
Next year not only marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, it also commemorates the centenary of the birth of the cartoonist David Langdon OBE, once described by the Evening Standard as ‘the greatest comic artist of our time’. Aged 97 when he died, he first came to prominence during [...]
Summer Events Guide 2013
Each month, Military History Monthly’s ‘On Manoeuvres’ section brings you details of Britain’s finest history-themed activities, from lecture days and air shows, to militaria fairs and re-enactments. With summer soon upon us, we take this opportunity to draw particular attention to six of the best indoor and outdoor events taking place over the coming months. Weetwood Hall Weetwood [...]
Battlefield Tours
There are a select number of battle field tours that every military history enthusiast should experience. Here we list seven of the finest, most reasonably priced, worldwide tours available. Guided Battlefield Tours Our success has been based on providing our guests with a quality, personal experience at a reasonable price. Our group sizes are limited on each scheduled tour. You will be [...]
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD -The Dreyse Needle Gun
The Dreyse Needle Gun Daniel Sager examines this weapon’s limitations Introduced by the Prussian Army in the mid-19th century, the Dreyse Needle Gun was a revolutionary breach-loading rifle which proved decisive in its victory over the Austrians in 1866. However, when the Prussians marched into France four years later, they faced soldiers equipped with [...]
WAR ON FILM – The Dam Busters
Marking the 70-year anniversary of the actual raid, Taylor Downing reviews the classic war movie The Dam Busters At 7.30am on 17 May 1943, Flying Officer Jerry Fray took off in his photo-reconnaissance Spitfire for a damage assessment sortie over Germany. At 30,000 feet and about 100 miles from the Ruhr, he could see what [...]
Museums Guide – Spring 2013
With hundreds of military museums in the UK alone, how do you know which one will best suit your interests? Here, MHM has picked some of the best museums and exhibitions to visit this year, from hidden gems to long-established sites. Army Medical Services Museum The AMS Museum tells the story of how the British Army has affected the history of medicine and [...]
FILM REVIEW – Lincoln
Clausewitz taught us that war is an extension of politics. No apology, then, for including a review of Steven Spielberg’s new biopic Lincoln in Military History Monthly, even though the only battle scene is a short, visceral hand-to-hand struggle in mud and rain between Confederate soldiers and black Union men determined to kill them all [...]
OPINION – Lions and donkeys? Not at the Somme!
James Brett takes issue with our interpretation of the Somme. After my pleasant surprise at your refreshingly ‘revisionist’ editorial, I was disappointed with the lead article in the February issue concerning the Somme. An opportunity to reinvestigate the generally misunderstood Great War seems to have been missed. Instead we had the traditional view of ‘lions [...]
Your Military History
The Forgotten Theatre Meredith Graham looks through the scrapbook of her great uncle, a professional photographer who served in WWII and as a decoder in China during the Korean War. In late 1943, Alvin M Sievers set sail from Los Angeles, California, en route to India and, ultimately, China. As a member of the 12th [...]
The Hezbollah War Museum and Monuments
Richard Lucas discovers an extraordinary museum devoted to contemporary conflict in the Middle East. After years of open conflict, and in the midst of continuing political strife, Lebanon nevertheless remains a prime tourist destination offering visitors some of the most splendid sites in the entire Middle East. From the extensive Roman ruins of Tyre in [...]
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD – The Biber Submarine
When the German navy captured a British Welman midget submarine in November 1943, Commander Hans Bartels set about improving its crude design and delivered the prototype Biber (Beaver) in March 1944. There were just two problems with this project. Firstly, he copied the wrong submarine. Secondly, some of the improvements had unexpected, and ultimately fatal, [...]
WAR ON FILM – The First of the Few
In the second of his new occasional series, TV producer and historian Taylor Downing reviews a wartime Spitfire classic. On 16 August 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the control room of RAF Fighter Command’s 11 Group at Uxbridge. The Battle of Britain had just gone up a gear as Goering had ordered his Luftwaffe [...]
Museum Review – Aldershot Military Museum
Keith Robinson explores the military museum at the heart of the British Army’s Aldershot home. In a small corner of the great military complex that is North Camp, along the grand road that is Queens Avenue, lies the Aldershot Military Museum. This is a smallish local museum which, under the auspices of Hampshire County Council, [...]
Back to the Drawing Board – The Beaufighter
Whispering Death A heavy fighter derived from a light bomber, the Bristol Beaufighter entered service in the summer of 1940 and by the end of the war nearly 6000 of them had been produced, proving highly effective over both land and sea. This is an incredible record for an aeroplane that was designed in a [...]
WAR ON FILM – In Which We Serve
Launching a new occasional series, TV documentary producer and military historian Taylor Downing explores the story behind the wartime movie classic In Which We Serve. On 20 May 1941, 16,000 German airborne troops launched the invasion of Crete, Hitler’s final operation to reverse the disaster of Mussolini’s attempt to occupy Greece on behalf of the [...]
WAR ZONE – City of Terror: the Japanese takeover of Shanghai
Mark Felton revisits the nightmare of the Japanese takeover of foreign ‘concessions’ during World War II. ‘Obviously, there is nothing you can do with the forces at your disposal. I would suggest that you strike your colours,’ was the last communication Lieutenant Stephen Polkinghorn had with the British Embassy in Shanghai. Polkinghorn replaced the receiver [...]
OPINION – Military history from an early age
David Flintham puts the case for teaching kids military history. The recently announced plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War put particular focus on secondary schools. Quite right too, but what about children of primary-school age? As military history per se falls very much outside the school curriculum, [...]
