Military History Matters

Latest issue

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

REVIEW – Hitler’s V Weapons: the battle against the V-1 and V-2, written at the time – an official history

Although the title says ‘written at the time’, this is not a collection of personal memoirs or diaries. Nor is it the recollections of ordinary people or those on the front line of action ...

Back to the Drawing Board: HMS Glatton

Sometimes poor quality-control can be as lethal as bad design – this was certainly true in the case of HMS Glatton ...

REVIEW – two new histories of the English Civil Wars

There are numerous histories of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (to give the ‘English’ Civil Wars their more-accurate title), as such, any new book, unless based on ground-breaking research, needs something unique to attract readers ...

War Athletes: Wyndham Halswelle

Christopher Warner on sporting figures in conflict ...

BEHIND THE IMAGE: Inside the Fortress

It looks like the interior of a spaceship. But the shimmering framework is that of a B-17F, under construction at the Douglas Aircraft Company plant in Long Beach, California, in 1942 ...

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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