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Following the Italian invasion of Greece in October 1940, the RAF reluctantly deployed three squadrons of Bristol Blenheim light bombers and one squadron of Gloster Gladiators, an obsolescent biplane fighter, to assist the Greek defenders. The fear among the Allies was that with Greece in Axis hands, enemy supply lines to North Africa would be significantly shortened, threatening the Allied position there and in the Middle East. By the time Germany joined the invasion in April 1941, both the RAF and FAA had committed more squadrons and been joined by army units, but they were soon overwhelmed, retreating to Crete, from where they were evicted in May 1941 after a massive German paratroop operation. For the next three years the RAF and FAA attacked Axis forces on Crete, mainland Greece and in the Aegean with mixed success. In addition, Allied air arms, including USAAF units, dropped weapons and supplies to the Greek partisan groups. In late 1944, as the Germans were forced to withdraw from Greece, RAF units once again flew into Greek airfields, yet they were soon drawn into the bitter civil war, fighting alongside Greek government forces against Communist insurgents. After the final withdrawal of operational units in 1946, the RAF retained an air delegation in Athens until 1952, when Greece joined NATO. Richly illustrated with detailed maps and rare and previously unpublished photographs, Air War Over Greece 1940–1950: British, Dominions and United States Air Arms examines in unique detail a neglected corner of military aviation history.

In the later third century AD, the outer reaches of the Roman Empire were being threatened on all sides by hostile powers. Along the southern and eastern coasts of Britain, a series of ten, possibly twelve, vast fortified enclosures were built beside strategic harbours to defend against external threats, mainly from Germanic marauders. Through sixteen centuries impressive vestiges of most of them have survived, although three have vanished virtually without trace. Several became the sites of Norman castles, others have associations with early Christianity, all have a story to tell. Taking the reader from the colossal surviving fort at Portchester in Hampshire to the empty, windswept site of Brancaster on the north Norfolk coast, Seeking the Saxon Shore is both a practical guide to locating and exploring these ancient sites and a handbook for bringing them to life. In describing the origins of the forts, their ancient settings, their functions and subsequent histories, this compelling guide will enable the reader, in the modern landscape, to recognise and visualise the distant past.

Richard of York, Father of Kings explores the life and legacy of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, shedding new light on his role in the Wars of the Roses and the events surrounding the Battle of Wakefield. While Richard III often dominates historical discussions, his father’s impact has been comparatively overlooked.The Battle of Wakefield in December 1460 marked a turning point in the Wars of the Roses. Richard of York’s death paved the way for his son Edward IV’s ascent to the throne and ultimately the Tudor dynasty through his grandchildren, Edward V and Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth’s marriage to Henry VII linked Richard of York’s legacy to the English monarchy. Historian Paul Dawson, however, presents a provocative reinterpretation of these events.Utilizing previously unseen archival documents from institutions such as the Bibliotheque nationale de France and The National Archives at Kew, Paul Dawson uncovers fresh insights into the Battle of Wakefield. These sources reveal a complex web of alliances stretching across Europe, challenging traditional narratives and recontextualizing Richard’s role in the geopolitical struggles of the era.This ground-breaking work provides a nuanced understanding of Richard of York’s influence on both English and European history, reshaping perceptions of this pivotal period in the late medieval world.

Deep in the heart of North Yorkshire, at a place called Walkington Wold, there lies a rather unusual burial ground, an Anglo-Saxon execution cemetery. Twelve skeletons were unearthed by archaeologists, ten without skulls, later examination of the skeletons revealed that their owners were all subjected to judicial execution by decapitation, one of which required several blows.Similar fates have befallen other wretched souls, the undignified burial of suicides - in the Middle Ages, the most profound of sins - and the desecration of their bodies, go largely unrecorded. Whilst plague pits, vast cemeteries where victims of the Black Death were tossed into the ground, their bodies festering one on top of another, are only today betraying their secrets.Although unpalatable to some, these burial grounds are an important part of our social heritage. They have been fashioned as much by the people who founded and used them, as by the buildings, gravestones and other features which they contain. They are records of social change; the symbols engraved upon individual memorials convey a sense of inherent belief systems, as they were constructed, adapted or abandoned depending on people’s needs.Burying the Dead explores how these attitudes, practices and beliefs about death have undergone continual change. By studying the development of society’s funerary spaces, the author will reveal how we continue to reinforce our relationships with the dead, in a constant and on-going effort to maintain a bond with them.

The story of the Mahdi of Sudan is generally related from the British point of view, though it was more an African event. The Mahdi’s uprising was the latest in a series of Islamic rebellions and wars which began in the eighteenth century. It also had a profound effect on the rest of North and East Africa, destroying the Egyptian Empire, provoking Ethiopia into a new unification, which allowed it to successfully resist the Mahdists, the Egyptians, and the Italians; it brought British forces forward from the East African coast as far as Uganda for fear that some European power would seize the sources of the Nile and block the river’s flow.Eventually (but only after several humiliating defeats) the Mahdist state was overthrown by a British invasion (led by Kitchener and participated in by Churchill); this also produced a difficult confrontation at Fashoda between the British conquerors and a French expedition – sparking a European crisis. The author sets the Mahdist war in the wider context of Africa and Islam, and in the context of the development of African states, but also with a glance forward to the present day, where the most important development in Africa is the extensive Islamic uprising, which is replicating that of the nineteenth century.

This is a true story. About survival.A Breton soldier who fought at Hastings returns to his family’s ancient Celtic roots in the West County. Nicholas St Aubyn follows his family’s tenuous path over the next one thousand years, describing those they loved, the many wars they fought, and their role in Cornish rebellions. His story also features a host of remarkable women, from the Countess of Oxford in the 14th century to Honor Basset at the 16th century Tudor court and Vita Sackville-West, a member of the 20th century Bloomsbury Group.He shows how the St Aubyns acquired St Michaels’ Mount during the Civil War, the Jacobite conspiracy plotted by Sir John St Aubyn, and the love between his grandson Sir John and local farmer’s daughter, Juliana, who inspired Winston Graham’s Poldark novels. The story moves from medieval battles, and shipwrecked treasure in Mount’s Bay, to love at the Court of Henry VIII, and the political fortunes of fourteen family MPs since 1283.The diary of one illegitimate son reveals the life of a Regency rake, as another builds a property empire in Devonport, while a third shocks his parishioners. In the First World War, St Aubyns were found on the Western Front, and during the Second, they served on the PQ17 Arctic Convoy and at the Battle of Arnhem. The gift of the family castle to the National Trust seventy years ago is one of many events that give this history its unique and increasingly personal perspective as the family identity evolves.

“Remarkably ambitious in scope, Harte manages to knit together a social and cultural history of these years, including how Churchill both influenced the world and was defined by the issues of the day. Harte wants to show when and where the ‘scrawny little twenty-year-old second lieutenant became a global leader.’ The question is not a new one, but it never fails to fascinate.” - **International Churchill Society**Churchill’s Enemies describes Winston Churchill’s main challenges when he was out of office from 1929-1939. They were the rise to dictatorship of Benito Mussolini in Italy and the adaptation of his fascist system by the Nazi Party in Germany. It also explains the relevance of Hitler’s collaboration with the Mufti of Jerusalem in the Middle East, who spread Nazi ideology in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Lebanon - and how, step by step, the two European dictators destroyed democracy.This account of the first half of Winston Churchill’s life should help readers to understand how today’s world crisis began. The Cairo Conference was the West’s first attempt to bring the Arab world into the twentieth century by solving the Middle East crisis in 1921. It also shows how Churchill changed from an ambitious young politician to an elder statesman, as a consequence of his experiences in the changing world with all its complexities, paradoxes and ambiguities - and how his decisions still impact world politics today. The major menaces with which he was confronted throughout his political career were the chaos caused by Islamist terrorists in the Middle East from 1918 and the spread of communism and fascism when he was Minister for War and then Colonial Secretary. The author described the first two threats in his previous book, Churchill’s Challenges.

Seventy years ago, the Nuremberg Trials were in full swing in Germany. In the dock were the leaders of the Nazi regime and most eventually received their just desserts. But what happened to the other war criminal? n June 1946, Lord Russell of Liverpool became Deputy Judge Advocate and legal adviser to the Commander in Chief for the British Army of the Rhine in respect of all trials held by British Military Courts of German war criminals. He later wrote;''At the outbreak of the Second World War, the treatment of prisoners was governed by the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention of 1929, the Preamble of which stated that the aim of the signatories was to alleviate the conditions of prisoners of war.''During the war, however, the provisions of the Convention were repeatedly disregarded by Germany. Prisoners were subjected to brutality and ill-treatment, employed on prohibited and dangerous work, handed over to the SD for "special treatment" in pursuance of Hitler''s Commando Order, lynched in the streets by German civilians, sent to concentration camps, shot on recapture after escaping, and even massacred after they had laid down their arms and surrendered.''Tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war died at the hands of the Nazis and their Italian allies. This book is for them – lest we forget.

This is the eighth in Christina Holstein’s masterly series of Battleground books on the Verdun area during the Great War, following the usual method of narrative to set the scene accompanied by detailed tours. Christina brings to bear her outstanding knowledge of the ground and her deep understanding of the military issues that faced both sides, aided by her ability to read both French and German sources. The six tours, expanding and developing the narrative chapters, and taking up over 70 per cent of the book, are richly illustrated and the whole is notably well mappedThe book focuses on the little-known fighting in the Verdun area in the first weeks of the First World War and the German attempts to overcome that powerful, entrenched camp without a frontal attack. Beginning with the devastating Battle of the Frontiers on 22 August 1914, the author follows the French retreat to the Marne, where their desperate resistance in the Revigny Gap and at Vaux-Marie Farm prevented a breakthrough, whilst Fort Troyon’s refusal to surrender to punishing bombardment stopped a concurrent attack on the French rear. In a second attempt two weeks later, the Germans captured the important town of St Mihiel and established a bridgehead on the River Meuse but got no further; Verdun remained in French hands. Fighting stopped and there was little movement until the start of the Battle of Verdun. Launched on 21 February 1916 to bring the war to an end, it quickly bogged down and three hundred days later the French declared victory over the third and final German assault on Verdun.

The meteoric rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party cowed the masses into a sense of false utopia. During Hitler’s 1932 election campaign over half those who voted for Hitler were women. Germany’s women had witnessed the anarchy of the post-First World War years, and the chaos brought about by the rival political gangs brawling on their streets. When Hitler came to power there was at last a ray of hope that this man of the people would restore not only political stability to Germany but prosperity to its people.As reforms were set in place, Hitler encouraged women to step aside from their jobs and allow men to take their place. As the guardian of the home, the women of Hitler’s Germany were pinned as the very foundation for a future thousand-year Reich. Not every female in Nazi Germany readily embraced the principle of living in a society where two distinct worlds existed, however with the outbreak of the Second World War, Germany’s women would soon find themselves on the frontline.Ultimately Hitler’s housewives experienced mixed fortunes throughout the years of the Second World War. Those whose loved ones went off to war never to return; those who lost children not only to the influences of the Hitler Youth but the Allied bombing; those who sought comfort in the arms of other young men and those who would serve above and beyond of exemplary on the German home front. Their stories form intimate and intricately woven tales of life, love, joy, fear and death. Hitler’s Housewives: German Women on the Home Front is not only an essential document towards better understanding one of the twentieth century’s greatest tragedies where the women became an inextricable link, but also the role played by Germany’s women on the home front which ultimately became blurred within the horrors of total war.This is their story, in their own words, told for the first time.

The ''ShipCraft'' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.The two ships covered in this volume were the only capital ships designed and built between the wars - a special concession of the Washington Treatys ban on new battleships - and they were unlike anything before them, with the superstructure three-quarters aft and all main armament turrets forward of the bridge. During the war Nelson survived mine and torpedo damage, while Rodney played a major part in the destruction of the Bismarck, both surviving to be broken up post-war.LES BROWN is a leading light in the Small Warships Group of the IPMS and the editor of their newsletter. He is the author of a number of titles in the ShipCraft series, including two on British destroyers, and, with John Lambert, he produced two larger works, one on ‘Flower’ class corvettes and another on Allied torpedo boats. He also wrote the volume on Black Swan Class Sloops in Seaforth’s ‘Original Builders’ Plans’ series. ROBERT BROWN is a Canadian ship modeller, who has contributed a number of volumes in the ShipCraft series, the most recent being British Aircraft Carriers published in 2024. He is also the author of Battleship Warspite, the first in a new series based on original builder’s plans.

Entering service in early 1941, the Dornier Do 217 was designed as an improved version of the ‘Flying Pencil’, the Do 17 bomber. The Do 217E-1 twin radial-engine bomber first flew in October 1940, the same month that the production of the Do 17 ceased.The Do 217 was initially used for conventional bombing and anti-shipping missions around the United Kingdom, including the infamous Baedeker Blitz against British provincial cities in 1942\. The Do 217 was the main German bomber in this theatre until late 1943, when it started to be replaced by the Messerschmitt Me 410 and Junkers Ju 188\. During this period, the Do 217E was improved, leading to the introduction of the Do 217K or M, the difference between the two being the engines.The Do 217 would be deployed in all of the Luftwaffe’s campaigns and fronts in the Second World War. Curiously, though, the only operational units to use the type on the Eastern Front were the night reconnaissance units, aside from which only occasionally did other Do 217 units fly missions against Stalin’s forces.With the delay in the Heinkel He 177 entering service, it was the Do 217 that became the first aircraft in history to be used to deploy precision-guided weapons in combat. This came on 21 July 1943, when Do 217s of KG 100 attacked Allied shipping in Augusta harbour, Sicily, using Fritz X radio-guided glide bombs. Then, on 25 August 1943 twelve Do 217E-5s from II./KG 100 attacked a convoy off the Spanish coast with a similar weapon to the Fritz X, the Henschel Hs 293 radio-guided glide bomb. This attack resulted in damage to three warships.In response to the intensifying Allied strategic bomber offensive, additional night fighters were needed by the Luftwaffe. The Do 217E-2 was therefore modified by fitting four MG17s and four MG-FF 20mm cannon in a solid nose. The rear firing guns, including the MG131 in the turret, were retained, as was the ability to carry bombs, creating the Do 217J-1 which was intended as a night intruder. The Do 217 also served extensively as a night fighter, with examples being fitted with Lichtenstein radar and obliquely mounted upward-firing MG151 cannon in the fuselage, the so called Schräge Musik modification.Despite the Do 217’s versatility and wide-spread deployment – all of which is explored here by the author through a remarkable set of archive images, many of which have never been seen in print before – production ceased in October 1943\. By the following year, the Do 217 had become obsolete.

The ''Defenestration of Prague'', the coup d''etat staged by Protestant Bohemian nobles against officials of the Hapsburg Emperor triggered the Thirty Years War. When Habsburg Spain intervened in support of their Holy Roman Emperor relative, what had started as a localised political and religious dispute in Germany, transformed into a European and global conflict.In seeking to exploit the Bohemian revolt, Spanish Habsburg revanchist ambitions directed by the Spanish Count of Olivarez at the economically powerful Dutch Republic were allied with the Habsburg Emperor’s counter-reformation ambitions. After the Bohemian defeat at the White Mountain in 1620 the war widened as the Dutch Republic, England, Transylvania, Denmark, Sweden, and Richelieu’s France all intervened to roll back Habsburg hegemony and restore the balance power.There was extensive fighting across the globe, as the Dutch and English sought to challenge the Spanish Habsburg global monopoly. These colonial wars were a major factor in the Iberian revolutions with brought down the Habsburg Imperium. Professor Charles Boxer called it: “the first world war”.It was a tragic war of attrition but also an epic story of remarkable individuals including the ''titans’ of the era,'' Imperial General Wallenstein, warrior King Gustavus, sinister Count Olivarez, and the masters of international intrigue, realpolitik and diplomacy- Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin. Above all there were the decisive victories of the under-sung military genius of the era, Lennart Torstensson.The Treaties of Westphalia followed a war which not only changed the global balance of power, but accelerated over thirty years the transformation of the European continent from a world characterized by dynasties and the medieval concept of United Christendom to a European order that was recognisably modern.

During the Second World War, the airplane became a true menace. Flying faster, higher, and capable of carrying a heavier payload, air forces of the warring nations formed a formidable threat to the forces on the ground.To counter this, special anti-aircraft artillery battalions were created by the US Army. Several of these battalions, including the 452nd Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion, were staffed by Black American soldiers. The 452nd AAA deployed in England in November 1943 and went ashore in Normandy, France, in June 1944. Assigned to XII Corps, part of General Patton’s Third Army, the 452nd AAA was a valuable asset of the US Army. Armed with the deadly 40mm Bofor’s gun and the .50 cal M45 Quadmount, these Black soldiers protected bridges, field artillery battalions and other vital installations during the Second World War. Some of the white soldiers from the field artillery battalions the 452nd AAA was protecting, doubted their abilities, but quickly came to appreciate the accuracy and coolness under fire of the Black soldiers.Credited with shooting down almost 68 hostile aircraft (one of the highest among AAA units in Europe), the 452nd AAA has rightfully earned its place in the history of the US Armed Forces during the Second World War. Although the battalion’s motto was ‘We Guard the Skyways’, it would perhaps be more appropriate to call them ‘Airplane Destroyers’.Almost 80 years after the war, this outstanding unit’s history is finally made public.

For centuries women’s history has been dismissed, or ignored entirely. Women make up half of society, and yet few pages have been written about women’s history, their lives, and contributions. It is time to redress this imbalance and recognize the significant involvement and impact women have had throughout history.Enter the Georgian period, hailed as the Age of Enlightenment. Amidst a backdrop of cultural blossoming, intellectual fervour, and the whirlwind of the Industrial Revolution, society underwent seismic shifts politically, socially, and technologically. However, for women, the landscape remained largely unchanged; the expectations of domesticity, marriage, and motherhood persisted as steadfast norms.Embarking on a journey through diverse backgrounds, from aristocracy to enslavement, this book introduces ten remarkable women who defied societal norms during the Georgian period. Among them are political activists, social reformers, a literary luminary, a pioneer in palaeontology, and a mathematical prodigy. These trailblazers dared to pursue careers, passions, and lifestyles deemed scandalous by societal standards, challenging the status quo and carving out paths of empowerment in a world reluctant to grant them their due recognition. Each embodies the spirit of feminism, resisting the grip of patriarchy and leaving an indelible mark on history.

Vietnam’s War of Hate recounts what returning from Vietnam was like for the author in 1969, proud of his combat service and proud of his Delta Company brothers. As a draftee who was discharged from the Army five months early with shrapnel a couple inches from his heart, Trewyn knew he was lucky to be alive. Inconceivably, five months later he was ready to go back to Vietnam. Dying with brothers in war looked better to him than living with haters in America while going to college in the anticipated refuge of his childhood hometown.This book is about his struggles trying to understand the animosity toward Vietnam veterans in the United States back then. The magnitude was overwhelming. It also documents the evolution of my knowledge about the war overall and his battles against the common, inaccurate representations of the largely honorable and valorous soldiers who deployed to Southeast Asia.It took Trewyn over thirty years to feel welcome in America, to experience a homecoming commensurate with the sacrifices made. Unfortunately, the erroneous portrayal of U.S. forces in Vietnam persists in popular culture and in the conventional wisdom of far too many Americans. The image of those who served remains tainted to this day including, most tragically, perception of the 58 thousand men and 8 women who died in Vietnam. Pride in their service to America was stolen from them by America. It was ripped from the hearts of their loved ones. Vietnam’s War of Hate describes the authors arduous journey entangled in this awful saga. Its causes are exposed along the way.Alarmingly, America is once again experiencing the type of strife and convulsions that he came home to in 1969. The bitterness and polarization of that period have resurfaced. Thus, the long trek charted in this book offers both timely and enduring lessons for our current era.