Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 117 i History of War

To pause now next to the monumental Brandenburg Gate is to find yourself standing on what was once the fault-line running through the heart of Europe. The point where two competing ideologies of the 20th century, capitalism and communism, clashed as they balanced on the ruins of a third, defeated and discredited, dogma – that of National Socialism. The death strip of the Berlin Wall that once surrounded the Brandenburg Gate is no more. Gone are the border guards of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) tasked with shooting traitors escaping to the West – replaced with selfie-shooting tourists and street performers posing for photos. The past, it has been said, is a foreign country. In the case of Germany, countries would be more precise. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland of West Germany…

On the night of 21 July 1403, a 16-year-old soldier was carried into the candlelit sanctuary of Shrewsbury Abbey with a bloodied rag pressed against his face. Shortly before, he’d been evacuated from a nearby battlefield when an arrow had hit him just below his right eye. Ordinarily, he’d have been left to die. After all, this was medieval Britain, 400 years before the advent of anaesthetics, military surgeons or combat medics. The wounded teenager, however, was no ordinary soldier. He was Prince Hal, eldest son of King Henry IV and heir to the throne of England. It wasn’t only his survival that now rested on the successful removal of the arrowhead still wedged in his skull, but the fate of a nation. For years, the British Isles had been…

Born Peter Badcock in South Australia in 1934 (he changed his name to Badcoe in 1961), Badcoe enlisted in the Australian Army in June 1950 when he was only 16 – he had long-held ambitions to join the army despite his father’s opposition. Badcoe then joined Officer Cadet School in 1952 and graduated at the end of the year as a second lieutenant in the Royal Australian Artillery. He was promoted to captain in 1960 and, in June 1961, toured to the Federation of Malaysia (after the conclusion of the Malayan Emergency in July 1960 and which had involved troops from Australia since 1950). For a week in November 1962, Badcoe was seconded to observe counter-insurgency techniques in South Vietnam, specifically in Quáng Ngãi Province (located south of Da Nang).…

“THEIR RESOLVE AND DETERMINATION TO RESIST RUSSIAN AGGRESSION WAS CLEAR FROM THE START” Though escalating catastrophically in 2022, the Russo-Ukrainian War began eight years earlier with Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea. From that moment, the people of Ukraine began living under increasing military threat from their powerful neighbour and former Soviet overlord, while historic and cultural divisions in the eastern Donbas region flared up into open rebellion. Though in 2014 few Ukrainians could, or wanted, to envision the dreadful turn the conflict would later take with the full-scale invasion of their country, their resolve and determination to resist Russian aggression was clear from the start – even while global solidarity and support was at that time lacklustre. Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s visual narrative of this horrific conflict begins here, in the…

BATTLE OF THE BISMARCK SEA Fought off what is now Papua New Guinea, the Battle of the Bismarck Sea saw American and Australian aircraft attack a Japanese convoy that was carrying soldiers to the port of Lae. The convoy consisted of eight troop transports, eight destroyers and 100 escort aircraft. The Allies shadowed the convoy before attacking with 114 bombers and 54 fighters during 2-3 March 1943. All eight troop transports were sunk along with half of the Japanese destroyers. Over 2,890 Japanese soldiers and sailors were killed with the Allies only suffering the loss of 13 fatalities, two bombers and four fighters. This action was a disaster for the Japanese and greatly impeded their efforts to halt Allied advances in New Guinea. LIQUIDATION OF KRAKÓW During 13-14 March 1943,…

Author: Air Marshal Sir Arthur McDonald Publisher: Air World Price: £25 Sir Arthur McDonald joined the RAF on a Short Service Commission in 1924, and retired in 1962 as the air member for personnel. Along the way he served in the Far East in the 1930s, was station commander at Duxford in 1941, commanded all RAF training in India from 1943-5, and was commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Air Force from 1955-8. He was also heavily involved in the experiments of 1936-7 that developed ‘Pip Squeak’. This tiny piece of equipment, later fitted to all RAF fighters, allowed ground controllers to track British formations in the air, and successfully direct them to intercept enemy forces. Without it, the Dowding System (which was crucial to victory in the Battle of Britain) would…

Established by Napoleon Bonaparte on 19 May 1802, the Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honour) is the highest order of merit in France – both military and civil. All older orders of chivalry had been replaced during the French Revolution and it was Napoleon’s ambition to create a new reward based on merit rather than nobility. Despite its revolutionary genesis, the Légion d’honneur medal did resemble older French orders. For example, the badge is similar in appearance to the 17th century Ordre de Saint-Louis. Nevertheless, the Légion was mostly patterned after a Roman legion with laurel leaves and its highest rank being an eagle. The design for the Légion has differed since its establishment, with Napoleon’s original pattern being known as ‘Awards of the First [French] Empire’. In particular, the badge…

MICHAEL HASKEW The Leopard I, West Germany’s first post-war tank, was built in vast numbers and fielded by several NATO countries during the Cold War. On page 56, Mike takes a look inside this formidable main battle tank and how its design shaped up against its Warsaw Pact rivals. STUART HADAWAY RAF researcher and historian Stuart has taken a look at the critical missions carried out by Bomber Command in the build up to D-Day. He reveals how crews targeted Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and fooled German radar (p24). IAN GARDNER Ian is a former member of the 10th Battalion, Parachute Regiment, and now a military historian with an expertise in the Allied paratroopers of the Second World War. On page 68 he discusses his latest book Sign Here For Sacrifice,…

Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command had been formed in 1936, at a time when the vast majority of the RAF’s aircraft were still biplanes. Bombers were the great fear of the inter-war period; popular fiction and the press had stoked public concerns about bombing. Bombing promised the ability to knock out an enemy quickly and efficiently, while avoiding the even greater spectre of another land war like that on the Western Front. The need for bombers, and to defend against them, was one of the cornerstones of the case used to justify the continued existence of the independent RAF. Despite the inter-war fears, when Bomber Command went to war in September 1939 it was not a success. German short-range bombers were able to inflict serious damage on cities such…

Erected by the East German authorities on a Sunday morning in August 1961, the Berlin Wall completely surrounded the British, French and American occupation zones of West Berlin to stop the flow of East German citizens escaping to the West. Between 1949 and 1961 an estimated 2.7 million East Germans had fled the country, many through West Berlin. Two sizeable pieces of the wall remain – that of the East Side Gallery and the section at the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre on Bernauer Strasse. The former is located directly next to the River Spree and maintained as a giant open-air gallery with 1.3km of graffiti murals. Don’t miss the iconic image of the two Eastern leaders, Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker, smooching (below-left). The latter section is part of the…

Ho Chi Minh is credited as being the political leader who liberated Vietnam. He achieved this by first ending French colonial rule in 1954, then his strategies led to victory in the Vietnam War against the Americans and South Vietnamese in 1975. When he was born in 1890, French Indochina had just formed from Cambodia and Vietnam; Lao was added later. Many Vietnamese leaders looked for ways to end colonialism but none had made substantial progress. From observing previous methods, Ho designed his All-People’s War model. Ho’s model comprised the three strategic fronts of political, propaganda and the military, linked by the Revolutionary Infrastructure. This infrastructure generally included ‘Communist Party cells’, which were then linked together by advanced ‘couriers’ using courier corridors, and ‘guards’. This covert administration became a comprehensive…

Up until the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War was the longest armed conflict involving the USA. It remains a complex and misunderstood war, framed for many by a succession of arguably misleading (albeit entertaining) Hollywood movies. In his new book Sign Here for Sacrifice, author and historian Ian Gardner focuses on the story of one battalion, an outfit tasked with living up to the prestigious legacy of the 101st Airborne. Gardner describes how the 3rd Battalion, 506th Airborne (3/506) was formed from volunteers, and put through rigorous training before shipping out to take on the Viet Cong in the unrelenting jungles on the frontline. A former Para himself, Gardner recounts the 3/506’s first search and destroy missions, as the battlefield tactics and military theory of veterans such as the…

Director: JD Dillard Starring: Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson Released: Out now on Amazon Prime While veterans, historians, writers and filmmakers continue to work towards the so-called ‘Forgotten War’ being forgotten no longer, there remain many tales from the fighting in 1950s Korea that deserve more recognition than they currently receive. African-American pilot Jesse Brown’s incredible exploits are one such example, and his pioneering role for Black people in the American military has now been examined in Devotion. “THE MOMENTS DEDICATED TO AIR COMBAT ARE INTENSELY THRILLING AND IMMERSIVE” The Korean War epic opens prior to the conflict, bringing together the two leads, Ensign Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) and his white wingman Lieutenant Tom Hudner (Glen Powell). Comparison will undoubtedly be drawn between 2022’s well-received Top Gun: Maverick and…

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Revamping the RAF Museum The Royal Air Force Museum has been given a National Lottery Heritage Fund to transform its site in Shropshire Located in Cosford, Shropshire, the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands is dedicated to the history of aviation and the RAF in particular. A non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Defence, it is a registered charity with another site at Colindale in north London. The museum has recently announced that it has been awarded investment from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for its Inspiring Everyone: RAF Museum Midlands Development Programme. This ambitious project will deliver a major regional engagement programme, alongside a site transformation. An immersive exhibition will explore today’s RAF with a new Learning Centre that will provide bespoke facilities. A purpose-built Collections Hub will…

Author: RT Howard Publisher: Oxford University Press Price: £25 As its name suggests, Spying on The Reich looks at the role various intelligence agencies played in monitoring Nazi Germany in the build-up to World War II. Making use of previously classified documents, its author RT Howard does an admirable job of trying to piece together a coherent picture of how these agencies operated, and what they uncovered. This is no easy task, however, mainly because the available source material is so patchy. Cobbled together from British, French, Czech, Polish and even German archives from the 1920s and 1930s, the documents cited represent only a fraction of what must be a largely lost history. One can only guess how much evidence would have been destroyed during the war, either deliberately or…