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 […]
WWII
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.
Battle of the River Plate: Ship Specifications
On 13 December 1939, while Britain was living through a ‘Phoney War’ at home, in the waters off the River Plate a vicious sea battle was being played out, pitting three small cruisers against the pride of Germany’s Navy: the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. The Battle of the River Plate has acquired, over the subsequent […]
D-Day: Plan of Operations on 6 June, 1944
How were tens of thousands of infantry landed on the Normandy beaches on 6 June 1944? How was the supply of ammo, fuel, water, rations, and everything else required by an army of invasion managed on crowded beaches under heavy fire from artillery and machine-guns? How were the beachheads protected from counterattack and given time […]
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