Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 115 i History of War

June 1940 – September 1941 INITIAL FORMATION Following the example of successful German paratroopers, Winston Churchill orders the formation of a British equivalent. No. 2 Commando are retrained as parachutists and eventually make up three volunteer battalions called 1st Parachute Brigade. 10 February 1941 – 28 February 1942 COLOSSUS AND BITING 01 Operations Colossus and Biting are the first British airborne operations over occupied Europe. The success of Biting in particular (otherwise known as the Bruneval Raid) leads to the brigade’s expansion. It becomes the Parachute Regiment (Paras) in August 1942. November 1942 – April 1943 OPERATION TORCH 02 The Paras participate in the Allied invasion of North Africa. Largely serving as ground forces, they incur heavy casualties but capture over 3,500 Axis soldiers. The Germans refer to them as ‘Red…

Separated by decades, the Suez Crisis and the Falklands War proved to be two key moments in the regiment’s post-war history, although for entirely different reasons. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was created by a toxic mix of hubris, European exceptionalism and a dodgy deal known as the Protocol of Sèvres. Stung by Egypt’s intention to nationalise the Suez Canal, Britain and France – both major stakeholders in it – came up with a scheme to scupper the idea. After representatives of the British, French and Israeli governments secretly met at Sèvres, on the outskirts of Paris, Israel attacked Egypt. On 29 October, its forces rolled into the Sinai Peninsula east of Suez amid false claims that it’d been attacked from the region. The following day, Britain and France issued…

The disastrous retreat from Moscow following the invasion of 1812 would have broken most military commanders, as well as the war-fighting spirit of most nations, but Napoleon Bonaparte had proved to have superhuman resilience, raising a new army in 1813. He continued to find success on the battlefields of Germany, but his army was too inexperienced to deliver the kind of decisive victories that might have shaped events in his favour. At the same time, Wellington’s masterful campaign in the Iberian Peninsula, coupled with savage guerrilla warfare (the so-called ‘Spanish Ulcer’) was draining French manpower and resolve. At Leipzig, in October 1813, Napoleon was defeated by the massed ranks of his enemies, losing around 60,000 men and bringing his total losses for that year to half-a-million. It was a staggering…

Drakelow Tunnels North Worcestershire is home to an isolated complex of tunnels that was built as a World War II factory and later became a top secret nuclear bunker for the British Government Located underneath Kingsford Country Park north of Kidderminster, the Drakelow Tunnels are a former underground military complex. Covering 26,500 square metres in a grid system with a total length of around 5.6km, they were originally built between 1941-42 as a World War II ‘Shadow Factory’ for the Rover car company. Authorised by the Ministry of Aircraft Production, Rover manufactured engines for the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Originally known as Drakelow Underground Dispersal Factory, the tunnels achieved full production in May 1943. The vital subterranean complex produced components for radial engines that were used in aircraft such as the…

Author: Michael Ashcroft Publisher: Biteback Price: £25 (Hardback) Military history titles from Michael Ashcroft – better known to most as Lord Ashcroft – have never failed to impress and to hit the mark. In the Shadows is no exception to that rule. If anything, it is the firm opinion of this reviewer that this is Ashcroft’s finest military title yet. This is in part because of the hitherto relative paucity of any good solid work on the subject, notwithstanding the significance of the Intelligence Corps within the modern British Army. But mostly that plaudit is simply down to this being a supremely engaging account. And while one hesitates to use the old cliché ‘page turner’, the book is just that. This reviewer certainly found it hard to put down. Quite…

The Parachute Regiment’s origins can be traced back to 1940, when Hitler’s effective use of paratroopers, or Fallschirmjäger, in his conquest of Europe inspired Britain to create its own airborne army. On 22 June, as France was falling, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a letter to his chief of staff Lord Ismay. “We ought to have a corps of at least 5,000 parachute troops,” he wrote. “Advantage must be taken of the summer to train these forces, who can play their part, meanwhile, as shock troops in home defence.” Britain was in a fight for its life and Churchill knew it. Its army had been humiliated on the Continent and might have been lost had it not been for Dunkirk. Survival meant finding a new way to fight, and…

When civil unrest broke out between Northern Irish Protestant and Catholic communities in the late 1960s, the British Army was deployed to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Its presence was made at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland and their role was to assert the authority of the British Government in a province that was becoming wracked with sectarian violence. Spearheading the army’s operations in Northern Ireland was the Parachute Regiment, whose deployment lasted until 2005. All three battalions were regularly deployed for an average of 14 tours each, with 2 Para seeing more service during the Troubles than any other infantry battalion. The regiment primarily operated in Belfast, Derry-Londonderry and South Armagh with routines including patrolling, vehicle checkpoints, ambushes, surveillance and riot control. Throughout their service,…

The Russo-Finnish War, also known as the Winter War, erupted on 30 November 1939 when 30 infantry divisions and six tank brigades of the Soviet Red Army, roughly half-a-million men and 2,000 vehicles, invaded neighbouring Finland. The Finnish Army numbered only about 300,000, while the Soviet Union mustered more than 1.5 million troops under arms; facing overwhelming odds, the Finns possessed few tanks and an antiquated air force primarily composed of biplanes. However, the defenders were well led and exhibited tremendous resourcefulness and superior tactics, thwarting Soviet designs for a quick victory and gaining the admiration of the world. The Finns inflicted serious defeats on the Red Army, which suffered staggering casualties, and held out for more than 100 days before the conflict ended in Soviet victory on 13 March…

There are many remarkable things about Queen Wilhelmina’s life and reign. The fact that she took the throne in the first place was extraordinary in itself – because of the semi-Salic law which governed the succession she was preceded by an elder brother and a great uncle; and her fiery, outspoken character in an age when women still had few rights and people feared the absolutist pull of a political monarch made her story even more incredible. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the very first queen regnant of the Netherlands was that the institution she embodied for nearly 58 years survived at all. Wilhelmina’s voluntary abdication in 1948 was as much a symbol of a modern progressive monarchy as it was a potent act of triumph, a message…

Author: Michael Knights Publisher: Profile Editions Price: £20 (Hardback) The preface to this book reads like a highoctane thriller. It reimagines the moment in April 2015 when the United Arab Emirates launched a commando raid on the Port of Aden in Yemen. A more conventional historical narrative is soon established, however, one that takes us through the events leading up to that moment and the fighting that followed. The backdrop to this story is a tangled one, and author Michael Knights does an admirable job of unpicking it. The early chapters provide a brief overview of Yemen’s complex history while explaining Aden’s strategic and political importance. We also get an insight into the ancient sectarian rivalries that have condemned Yemen to a state of ‘forever war’. The book then fast-forwards…

WILLIAM III AT THE BOYNE c.1890s This stylised painting by Victorian artist Ernest Crofts depicts King William III of England, Scotland and Ireland leading his men during the Battle of the Boyne. Fought on 1 July 1690 in County Meath, Ireland, the Boyne saw William’s multinational Protestant army defeat the Catholic Jacobite force of his deposed predecessor King James II, who fled Ireland shortly afterwards. Some Northern Irish Protestants still celebrate William’s victory every year in July. THE CHINESE STALINGRAD August 1937 Imperial Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces (SNLF) in gas masks prepare for an advance in the rubble of Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. This naval infantry unit was formed in 1932 and first saw action in China that year. They participated in heavy fighting during the Battle…

Although the Paras saw action throughout the Mediterranean, it was the battles they fought in northern Europe from the summer of 1944 onwards that defined their war. By D-Day, the regiment consisted of 17 battalions that largely belonged to either the 1st or 6th Airborne Divisions. Despite being second-born, the 6th (its name was intended to confuse the enemy) was the first to see action. On the night of 5 June, 1,500 planes took off from airfields across England and headed across the channel as part of Operation Overlord. Alongside the 13,000 US paratroopers onboard were 7,000 men from 6th Airborne. A veteran of that night recalled what happened next: “Approaching the coast there was plenty of flak. The pilot took evasive action, making accurate dropping difficult. On jumping, a…

With a long history of tackling insurgencies, the Paras were well-suited to the type of challenges the war on terror presented. Within three months of the September 11 attacks in New York, 2 Para had been deployed to Kabul as part of the International Security Assistance Force in a peace-keeping role. At two months, it was to be a short tour in what turned out to be a long war – a war that would see the regiment return to Afghanistan again and again. The Paras also helped spearhead the invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003. Within days, 1 and 3 Para had secured the Rumaylah oil field in the south of the country. By the end of the month, 3 Para were patrolling Basra while 1 Para had…

“THE CANCELLATION OF SKYBOLT CAUSED A SHARPENING OF TENSIONS BETWEEN THE TWO GOVERNMENTS THAT THREATENED TO UNFASTEN THE TIES OF THE ‘SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP’” As the world stood on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, US President John F Kennedy faced conflicting pressures from civilian and military officials on his course of action. Even when the president reached decisions he needed reassurance they were the right policy to pursue. Kennedy found that support in his transatlantic telephone calls to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. The British premier did not perform an active role in the decision-making process. Kennedy had already resolved to impose a naval blockade preventing Soviet vessels transporting nuclear missiles to Cuba before he assured Macmillan “we can and should be in…

Shortly after Wilhelmina joined her daughter in London, plans were made to send Princess Juliana and her daughters to safety Canada in anticipation of a Nazi invasion of Britain. Juliana’s husband, Prince Bernhard, would join them in 1941. Wilhelmina would stay in London for as long as possible, where she would set up the government in exile. If Britain was invaded, she would try to join her daughter, but if this was not possible the Dutch queen’s private secretary had orders to shoot Wilhelmina. Juliana went to stay with Wilhelmina’s cousin, Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, in Ottawa. At the time the countess’ husband, the earl of Athlone, had just been appointed the governor general. The Dutch royal family were worried that because they had fled their homeland they would…

The Su-24 (NATO reporting name Flanker) is what the Soviet Union called a ‘frontal bomber’, designed to act at tactical and operational levels. Although capable of deep penetration and nuclear strikes, instead of cities it was intended to attack battlefield and rear area targets such as troop concentrations, logistical targets and airfields. It is optimised for high-speed and low-level attacks, and these factors dominate the overall design. Variable-geometry (‘swing’) wings allow rapid acceleration to supersonic speeds, while the broad fuselage was dictated by the need for a large radar dish in the nose. In some ways the Flanker was an answer to the United States’ development of the General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark, which was very similar in role and design, and which was unveiled shortly before the Flanker was commissioned.…

Director: Santiago Mitre Starring: Ricardo Darín, Gina Mastronicola, Francisco Bertín, Released: Out now on Amazon Prime The Trial of the Junta, the biggest war-crimes trial since Nuremberg, was a landmark event to prosecute the generals behind the Dirty War of 1974-83. Argentina, 1985 is a powerful exploration of Chief Prosecutor Julio Strassera and his young team in their struggle for justice in the face of obstruction, threats and political instability. Central to the film’s success is its understated tone, eschewing melodrama for a restrained, realistic portrayal befitting the events. In particular, victim testimonies are handled dutifully and compassionately. The unease and underlying tension of this violent, unstable time in Argentina’s history is also captured, as well as the shift in public sentiment against the junta. Ricardo Darín shines in his…