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.
Modern
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.
REVIEW – Waiting for War: Britain, 1939 – 1940
Most Britons are proud of their country’s role in helping to bring about victory in the Second World War. There is nothing to be proud of, however, in the way the government and its agencies ran the first nine months of war, from September 1939 to May 1940 – the period known as ‘the Phoney War’.
German armoured cruiser SMS Scharnhorst located off Falkland Islands
It was one of the most famous armoured cruisers of the First World War, but it had remained lost for a century. Now the wreck of SMS Scharnhorst has been located off the Falkland Islands.
REVIEW – The Irish Civil War: law, execution, and atrocity
Imagine this scene: soldiers bring out the body parts of executed men and place them outside their barracks; their loved ones arrive bringing coffins on carts and begin identifying the body parts and placing them in the coffins; all the while a military band plays dance music.
Washington and Yorktown
George Washington earned a place in the pantheon of leaders who led both militarily and politically through the storms of revolution. Combining a determination to destroy the status quo with exceptional tactical skill, the General transformed an insurgency into the first triumph of a new country. Our special this time surveys Washington’s military triumph at Yorktown.
Midway on film
The Battle of Midway is the subject of a new blockbuster, directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Ed Skrein, Patrick Wilson, and Luke Evans. But this is by no means the first time that the event has caught the eye of film-makers.
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