SMS Bodrog – The Once-Mighty Warship Which Fired The First Shots Of WWI
Stuck into a muddy river bank, somewhere in Serbia, lies an old, derelict gravel barge. Rusted, useless, and over 100 years old it has limited…
The Little Known Battles of Attu And Kiska: Retaking The Only US Soil Lost During WWII
In the cold, desolate Arctic near Alaska in 1942, Japanese troops quietly invaded and took over two of the Aleutian Islands, considered to be North…
“WW2: War Pictures by British Artists” – Review by Mark Barnes
I get bombarded with books these days and had to re-organise my office to accommodate my “in-tray”; two large bookcases from a well-known Swedish distributor.…
Who Dares Wins – When Overly Timid Generals Brought Disaster To Their Troops
Recklessness can be a bad thing in a commander, getting the people beneath them killed by an excess of innovation and risk taking. But so…
From WW2 To The Iraq War – Longest Sniper Kills In Military History
A sniper is a skilled marksman whose job is to shoot someone from afar without hitting anyone (or anything) else. But it’s not just about…
The Day of the Rangers – The True Story That Inspired The Movie Black Hawk Down
When Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” came out in 2001 it had all the features that make a great movie. As well as drama, tension…
Underestimating the Enemy – The French Military Disaster At Dien Bien Phu
Arrogance. Ignorance. Poor planning. These were the weapons with which French commanders fought the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, and with which they ensured their…
How One Sailor With A Burning Flare Nearly Cost The USA an Aircraft Carrier
On the morning of the 26th of October, 1966 the USS Oriskany was stationed 50 miles off the north coast of Vietnam. A group of Skyhawk…
The Japanese Tried A Second Raid On Pearl Harbor – It Was Not A Success
Everyone knows about the first bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Less well known, however, was the second attack. And there was almost a third……
A Brief History of the Holocaust: Japan and the Jews
You might be thinking that during the Second World War, Europe was the region where there were most Jewish people. A lot of people don’t…
Sinking the Tirpitz, Sister to the Bismarck and the Heaviest European Battleship Ever
The story of the World War II German battleship Bismarck is legendary. The massive warship was destroyed by British ships and planes and then scuttled…
This True Leader Stormed Multiple Japanese Machine Guns In Burma Until Mortally Wounded
Oxford scholar and founder of a literary magazine are just a couple of honors to which a young man might aspire and find himself on…