The Battle of Waterloo is intrinsically linked to the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon, the towering military figures of the early 19th century.
Modern
War Athletes: Billy Fiske
The Chicago-born ‘slider’ became the youngest Olympic gold medallist ever as a 16-year-old at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St Moritz. Four years later, while serving as his country’s flag bearer, he piloted Team USA to another victory in Lake Placid.
BEHIND THE IMAGE: B-52 storage area, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona
The boneyard here at Davis-Monthan was established in 1946 to store WWII bombers and transports.
REVIEW – Retreat from Moscow: a new history of Germany’s winter campaign, 1941 – 1942
David Stahel’s latest book, Retreat from Moscow: a new history of Germany’s winter campaign, 1941-1942, is here to add vital nuance to discussion of the German Army in this crucial phase of the war. Over the last decade, his works on the Eastern Front have led the way in scholarly reassessment of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, demonstrating how Germany’s failure to decisively defeat the Red Army was a disaster, and left them in a highly vulnerable position for the winter of 1941-1942.
BEHIND THE IMAGE: Kristallnacht, by Charlotte Salomon, from Life? Or Theatre? 1940-1942
With its warm tones and bustling figures, this month’s image could – at first glance – appear almost to represent a scene of innocent activity. The truth, however, could not be more different.
REVIEW – Aerial Warfare: the battle for the skies
This book is written rather in the style of an excellent set of lecture notes produced by a diligent tutor. Frank Ledwidge, a Fellow of Law and Strategy at the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell, leaves very few stones unturned as he leads the reader through the complete history of manned and unmanned flight, quoting liberally from a wide range of authoritative sources.
Back to the Drawing Board: the Davy Crockett ‘Tactical’ Nuke
In the 1950s, the Cold War was at its height. To many, it seemed to be a question of when, rather than if, Soviet forces would exploit their overwhelming numerical superiority with a ‘steamroller’ offensive against Western Europe.
War Reporters: Kate Webb
Kate Webb was the war reporter who came back from the dead.
Tank museum appeals for gun information
Guns are an everyday feature of most military museums, but one weapon in particular has attracted a lot of attention. A WWI German Luger was recently handed in to the police in Wiltshire. Now the nearby Tank Museum is appealing for information about the pistol’s history.
Collaboration under way to recover missing WWII casualties
The victims of World War II are remembered in regular commemorations, but many of the fatalities have never been recovered. Now academics at Bedford’s Cranfield Forensic Institute (CFI) are collaborating with the US Department of Defense in a new initiative to recover and identify those who remain missing.
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