The Normandy Tank Museum is shutting down and will sell its entire collection of tanks, armoured vehicles, and Second World War memorabilia at auction next month. The museum is closing its doors due to poor visitor numbers. It is situated on a Second World War airfield used by the Allies during the Battle of […]
WWII
BATTLE MAPS: Battles of Monte la Difensa and Remetania
Monte la Difensa Today, when you look at the routes up Difensa’s crags, it is just possible to imagine small groups of highly trained mountaineers conquering them. But hosts of heavily laden troops could not succeed, could they? They did, but not without facing almost overpowering difficulties. As one Forceman said, ‘no fear of death, just sheer exhaustion and survival. I […]
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 […]
All you need to know about… Erich Ludendorff
Neat ‘tache… who was he? Once called ‘the most powerful man in Germany’, Erich Ludendor ff was a prominent general in the German Army of the First World War. He was also a writer, military theorist, and ultra right-wing politician. He went to cadet school at an early age, and later attended the prestigious War Academy. He quickly rose through […]
BEHIND THE IMAGE: captured Luftwaffe crewmen, London Underground, 1940
In photography, timing is all – and there is no better example of the dictum than this gem of a snapshot capturing a surprising moment from ordinary London life during the Second World War. The image shows two airmen in Luftwaffe uniform walking through the Underground. One is a corporal, the other an Oberleutnant (the highest-ranking type of lieutenant), and together they stroll […]
REVIEW: Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Visitor Centre
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight has conducted thousands of flypasts at events up and down the country, taking part in over 100 airshows per year. The Flight was formed in 1957 to commemorate the RAF’s defence of Britain against the Lu ftwa ffe in 1940. It subsequently became a memorial to those who lost their lives […]
The Ethics of Battlefield Archaeology
A controversial amateur archaeology programme has aired on Channel 5, despite widespread condemnation from archaeologists, academics, and heritage professionals across the UK and abroad. Battlefield Recovery, produced by London-based ClearStory Ltd, features four self-styled ‘diggers’: British metal-detectorists Steven Taylor, Kris Rodgers, and Adrian Kostromski, and American dealer in Nazi memorabilia Craig Gottlieb. The series is a repackaged version of Nazi War Diggers, which the National Geographic Channel planned […]
BARNES WALLIS: visionary designer
WALLIS: Biography Born: 26 September 1887, Ripley, Derbyshire Married: Molly Bloxam, 1925 Educated: Christ’s Hospital Aircraft designed: Vickers Wellington, R100 airship, Vickers Warwick, Vickers, Windsor. Bombs designed: Bouncing Bombs, Tallboy, Blockbuster Died: 30 October 1979, aged 92. In context: the bouncing bomb In 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War, Great Britain was […]
The Sherman Tank
Building the Sherman Tank In 1940, in the light of the successful use of panzers in the European war, the US Army decided to start a rapid tank-building programme. Rather than adapting existing engineering plants, the President of Chrysler suggested constructing a brand new Tank Arsenal just outside Detroit, the home of the US car industry. Adopting the mass-production techniques used for making cars, this huge new […]
Great Commanders – Yamashita
Graham Goodlad reviews the career of Tomoyuki Yamashita, ‘the Tiger of Malaya’, who was responsible for the fall of Singapore in 1942.
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