Military History Matters

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Military History Matters magazine
February/March 2021 is out now

‘Breaking the line’

Neither Admirals Rodney or Howe were paragons of virtue. But they were both personally brave, adept tacticians, and, despite their flaws, effective leaders. With their victories, both men made a major contribution to the development of the Navy, and helped their country achieve global supremacy on the seas.

Latest features

American Air Museum at Duxford granted listed status

During the Second World War, Duxford was both an RAF and a United States Army Air Force station, playing an important role in the Battle of Britain. Many of its original structures remain intact and are themselves listed ...

REVIEW – SAS: Band of Brothers

Yet, from the outset, this is a history with a difference. Set in the aftermath of D-Day, it concerns SABU-70, a 12-man SAS raiding party ...

English Civil War massacre ‘cover-up’ revealed

The site of a Royalist garrison in Nottinghamshire, Shelford Manor was besieged by Parliamentary forces on 3 November 1645 ...

REVIEW – Sicily ’43: the assault on Fortress Europe

Holland has written a series of nine excellent campaign histories over the last few years, looking at fighting World War II in a new light ...

MHM Competition: February/March

This issue, we’re giving away three copies of Bluebottle Goes to War, courtesy of Uniform. Bluebottle Goes to War tells the story of Peter Sellers’ years in Royal Air Force Entertainment Units, known as ‘Gang Shows’, during the Second World ...

Behind the Image

BEHIND THE IMAGE: Wind tunnel testing, Messerschmitt Bf 109, 1940

It may look like a scene from a movie shoot – Germany’s answer to The Dam Busters, perhaps – but this strikingly modern photograph from 1940 offers instead a real-life glimpse behind the scenes of a top-secret aeronautical project. The state-of-the-art wind tunnel at the Herman Goering Aviation Research Institute, near Braunschweig (or Brunswick) in Lower Saxony, was one of Germany’s most closely shrouded military sites. Spread over 1,000 acres, the Institute’s 60 buildings were low-rise, nestling under the treeline, and well camouflaged from the air. As a result, until the end ...
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BEHIND THE IMAGE: Wartime Christmas

Christmas at the front was about making do. Here, for instance, British soldiers have gathered in a shell hole around a makeshift table. Some are sitting on the ground, others on what appears to be rolled-up sheets of wire. As they enjoy their sparse meal at Beaumont-Hamel on 25 December 1916, the men seem indifferent to a fellow soldier’s grave just inches away. By this stage in the war, such as sight was commonplace. So too was the destruction that ...
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BEHIND THE IMAGE: VE Day, 8 May 1945

Image: Imperial War Museum We are all familiar with photos depicting jubilant crowds of people celebrating the end of the Second World War. They are shown racing through the streets of Piccadilly or crammed together outside the balcony at Whitehall as Churchill waves, exultant relief on their faces, bottles and flags in their hands. Victory in Europe (VE) Day marked the official conclusion of the six-year world war against Hitler and his allies. Civilians and soldiers around the world had ...
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