Military History Matters

Latest issue

Military History Matters magazine
June/July 2020 is out now

The Battle of Berlin

Germany lost the war long before May 1945. But Hitler refused to surrender, instead dragging the country into the abyss. Although there was a huge imbalance in force between Germans and Soviets, the Nazis maintained surprising advantages in equipment, experience, and tactics. We explore in-depth this apocalyptic showdown.

Latest features

War Athletes: Anthony Wilding

Handsome and charming, Wilding embraced a life full of adventure that also involved racing motorcycles across both hemispheres ...

MHM Caption Competition: August 2020

Can you think of something appropriately witty for this image taken from our article on the Long Range Desert Group, from the August/September issue of Military History Matters? Leave your caption as a comment below ...

MHM Competition: July/August

This issue, we’re giving away three copies of RAF 100: The Official Story, courtesy of Welbeck Publishing. RAF 100: The Official Story is the most up-to-date history of the oldest air force in the world. From its genesis in the ...

Last person to receive American Civil War pension dies

The American Civil War ended more than a century and a half ago. But the last person to receive a pension tied to the conflict passed away only recently ...

Museums and events with MHM (Aug/Sept 2020)

With many museums and galleries still closed, Military History Matters has compiled a guide to some interesting websites you can check out from the safety of your own home. Click on the links below to find out more ...

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: 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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BEHIND THE IMAGE: U-Boat on Hastings beach, April 1919

Five months after the Armistice and with the Great War finally behind them, the last thing the townspeople of Hastings expected to see from their elegant promenade, just in front of the Queens Hotel and lying like a monstrous metallic whale, was a U-boat. But on the morning of 15 April 1919, after a storm had caused the submarine to break free from its tow, that is exactly what they saw. U-boat 118 had been launched in February 1918, and ...
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