Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 129 i History of War

Tom Hanks’ and Stephen Spielberg’s new TV series, Masters of the Air, is making its way onto Apple TV+ and follows the story of the ‘Bloody 100th’ Bomb Group (BG), based at Thorpe Abbotts in Norfolk. After being formed in Washington State in November 1942, the unit experienced a long period of unrest before deploying. All of the aircrews were temporarily reassigned as instructors on other units between February and April 1943, and then all of the co-pilots were replaced just before their deployment to England in early June. This disruption combined with inexperienced officers and poor discipline to give the unit a bad reputation before it had even seen action. Once in England, the unit was soon earning a name as a ‘bad luck’ unit. After taking ten per…

“IN BADAJOZ, THEY SHOT 2,000. IF MADRID FALLS, THEY WILL SHOOT HALF THE CITY” July 1936, and chaos reigned in the streets of Madrid. The Republican government, for so long attempting to avoid open war, was on the verge of destruction at the hands of Francisco Franco’s military coup. Fighting had broken out in major cities across the country, and for a moment it seemed as though the capital would fall to the rebels. Instead, it held out until the spring of 1939 thanks to the spirit of popular resistance. Communists, democrats and anarchists united against the Francoists, rallying around Dolores Ibarruri’s famous radio broadcast “¡No pasarán!” (“They shall not pass”) and banners reading: “Madrid will be the tomb of fascism!” Popular resistance to fascism was far from the centre-left…

1927 FLIGHT ACROSS THE ATLANTIC When Lindbergh left college he became a ‘barnstormer’, a daredevil stunt pilot who would appear at fairs. Joining the US Army Air Corps, he graduated first in his class and became an airmail pilot. Since 1919, a contest to fly across the Atlantic had been arranged by hotel owner Raymond Orteig with a prize of $25,000 to the winner. Opting not to include a parachute and more fuel instead, Lindbergh flew some 3,600 miles (5,794km) in 33½ hours. 1932 LINDBERGH KIDNAPPING At 9pm on the evening of 1 March 1932, two-year-old Charles Lindbergh Jr was taken from the family home. An hour later his disappearance was discovered and a ransom note for $50,000 was found. A massive police investigation was launched and on 9 March…

Legion: Life in the Roman Army The British Museum covers everyday life in the ancient world’s greatest military machine A new exhibition, coming to the British Museum in February 2024, explores the daily lives of the people who were part of Rome’s monumental military machine. At the height of its conquests the ancient superpower controlled a quarter of the world’s population, yet those within its borders lived surprisingly domestic lives in settled communities. Legion: Life in the Roman Army will feature 200 objects, many of which have never been on display in the UK. Together, they tell the lesser known story of how the Roman army became an effective tool for social change for those in its service by drawing recruits from all walks of life. As well as being…

Author: Charles Glass Publisher: Bedford Square Publishers Price: £22 (Hardback) Released: Out now Centred on the War Hospital for ‘shell shock’ at Craiglockhart just outside Edinburgh during the First World War, Charles Glass narrates how the industrialised horror of modern warfare in France and Flanders saw thousands of soldiers struck down by ‘neurasthenia’, which we know today as post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD. The facility at Craiglockhart became something of a cradle for the treatment of the new phenomenon, with therapies created and administered by some of the leading medical minds of the age. Two of the patients treated there were Wilfred Own and Siegfried Sassoon. Sassoon had already been awarded the Military Cross for bravery and was something of a hero to the younger Owen, to whom he became…

LOUIS HARDIMAN For over two years, Spain’s capital city was on the frontline of the nation’s horrific civil war, enduring bombardment and eventually bloody street fighting. History of War Staff Writer Louis details the siege and subsequent battle for Madrid in this issue’s Great Battles (p32). CLIVE WEBB Clive is professor of Modern American History at the University of Sussex. Over on page 52, he explores how Black American servicemen made a vital yet overlooked contribution to their country’s military campaigns. MIGUEL MIRANDA Miguel is a writer and researcher based in Manila, Philippines, with an expertise in conflict and security, particularly in East Asia and Eurasia. In this issue’s Frontline he explores Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, its origins, operations and importance to the nation’s power in the region (p12).…

During the 19th century, the Black Sea Fleet’s mere existence became a sticking point for Europe’s great powers, as Russia’s Imperial ambitions clashed with those of its western and southern counterparts. For Russia, it was paramount to reach the world’s oceans and this required a presence in the Mediterranean, a goal hindered by the Ottoman Empire. It is not surprising how Russia’s empire never shied from wars with the Ottoman Empire, and another one was looming by the 1850s. The Crimean War was fought over three dreadful years from late 1853 until 1856. It saw a concerted alliance between the British and the French as they fought to deny Russia further influence in the eastern Mediterranean, whose flows of maritime trade were vital for Europe’s colonial empires. The French, then…

While the flow of American equipment to Britain, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations under the Lend-Lease Act is well known, less celebrated is the Reverse Lend-Lease scheme. Under this, vast quantities of British support was poured into establishing the American air forces and sustaining them. Of the 133 airfields eventually occupied by the Americans, 119 were built by the UK’s Air Ministry; every single one averaged 500 buildings, needed 130,000 tons of concrete and 50 miles (80km) of drainage pipes. Just as American aircraft were delivered to the British, so Supermarine Spitfires and de Havilland Mosquitos went the other way to VIII Fighter and Bomber Commands, while smaller-scale equipment ranging from aircraft drop tanks to heated flying suits were provided by the RAF. Even 20 percent of the…

Crossing the Dutch border, Flight Lieutenant David Lord immediately flew into trouble. German flak filled the sky and his Dakota transport aircraft was soon hit twice. It was 19 September 1944, two days after the beginning of Operation Market Garden. Already, the Allies’ plan to bring the war to a quick conclusion by seizing key bridges across the Rhine was unravelling. Lord’s mission was to drop vital supplies to the British 1st Airborne Division and 1st Polish Parachute Brigade surrounded at Arnhem. With one engine burning fiercely, and flying on a wing and a prayer, he made the fateful decision to press on to the drop zone. It was typically characteristic of a man with a reputation for dedication to duty and getting the job done, no matter what. Quiet,…

1941 LEND-LEASE As well as not joining the war, it’s highly unlikely that had Lindbergh run for and won the presidency in 1940 that the Lend-Lease programme or something similar would have been instigated. Following Roosevelt’s victory, in 1941 Winston Churchill appealed directly to the president requesting support, which initially led to the USA providing 50 navy destroyers in return for 99-year leases on British bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. However, soon more support was requested and so Roosevelt designed a programme that allowed the United States to lend or lease war supplies to any nation deemed to be “vital to the defence of the United States”. Certainly, this programme would not have developed under Lindbergh and it’s doubtful how long Britain would have been able to hold off…

TRAINING FOR D-DAY In the nine months running up to D-Day, over 2.8 million servicemen were stationed in southern England, preparing for the invasion of Normandy. There was limited doctrine among the Allied forces for assaulting heavily defended coastline, but experimentation solidified tactics and hard training brought the men up to peak physical fitness. Due to the use of live ammunition and multiple calamitous practice attempts, more men died training for D-Day than in the first 24 hours of the Battle of Normandy. A BATTLE FOR AERIAL SUPERIORITY Allied bombing raids in 1943 were frequently interrupted by up to 500 German fighters, and losses to Allied bombers became unsustainable. The Big Week (Operation Argument) ran from 20-25 February over Belgium, the Netherlands and north Germany, and aimed to achieve aerial…

Author: Bill Yenne Publisher: Osprey Publishing Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out now Tens of thousands of American airmen from the Eighth Air Force were shot down over Occupied Europe or Germany in the Second World War. A significant minority of these became ‘evaders’, men who managed avoid immediate capture by the Germans and (at least attempt to) escape back to friendly territory. Most were assisted along the way, sometimes by Resistance groups, although these generally tried to remain separate from the dedicated escape lines. Organisations like the Comet Line and Pat O’Leary Line consisted of long chains of incredibly brave men and women who would assist downed airmen through German-occupied territory and across the borders into neutral countries. Not all made it, being arrested by the Germans along the way,…

Author: Steven K Bailey Publisher: Osprey Publishing Price: £27.58 (Hardcover); £19.31 (E-book) Released: Out now Steven K Bailey, chair of the Department of English at Central Michigan University, has poured his life energy into the production of a revealing and candid work that illustrates the courage and dedication to duty of carrier-based US Navy airmen who executed a costly mission against Japanese forces at Hong Kong in January 1945. Along with a team of tireless researchers, Bailey in the process also lays bare the tactical flaws and shortcomings of commanders in the sometimes ill-advised deployment of brave men in wartime. Years of research and a personal quest to learn as much as possible about the individuals and machines that participated in the raid come together in a measured and often…

After the ill-conceived Crimean War, an eventful 62 years passed before the British and French sent their armies to Ukraine again. It was late 1918 and the Russians had crumbled, while the Ottoman Empire was teetering on the brink. At the beginning of the 20th century Sevastopol’s status was not only strategic but symbolic, making it one of Russia’s three great cities after St Petersburg and Moscow. Russia’s empire never stopped improving Sevastopol with boulevards and museums, no matter if foreign tourists were prohibited from visiting. Its significance as a naval base only grew as advanced weapons like submarines joined the fleet in 1916 to be employed as minelayers for thwarting Turkish shipping. Years before the outbreak of the First World War, the revolt of 1905 swept the Russian armed…

The Mother’s Cross came with a deed of conferral carrying the Great Seal of the German Reich, Hitler’s signature and that of the Minister of State Otto Meissner. The Gold class was presented in a hinged blue case with a gold facsimile on the outside and the manufacturer’s name on the inside. The fabric holding the award was divided into two parts, one for the Cross, the other for the ribbon. None of the individual awards has a manufacturer’s mark. The Silver and Bronze classes were issued in paper packets. The award was worn around the neck, suspended by a thin ribbon 23.6-27.6in (60-70cm) in length with two white stripes and a blue stripe on either side of a central, larger blue stripe. The Cross itself was designed by Munich…

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It is now nearly 50 years since a book about the history of all the Guards regiments has been published. There have of course been regimental histories and coffee-table books, but nothing about the seven regiments as part of a single and unique part of the British Army: the Household Division. Septum juncta in uno (seven joined in one) is the Guards’ motto, invoking a sense of unity while also recognising that these regiments (The Life Guards, The Blues and Royals, Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, and Irish Guards) are different. Our story begins in 1969, as a sequel to The Story of the Guards, which follows the long history of the Guards from their formation in the 17th century. 1969 was a good place to start, since it represents an anchor…

Director: Daniel Arbon Starring: Lewis Allcock, Daniel Arbon, Bill Brookman Released: Out now Hawker, the story of Britain’s first ‘ace’ pilot, was released on the anniversary of his death on 23 November 2023. The 23-minute film tells the story of a pivotal few days in the First World War which saw airmen transformed into fighter pilots for the first time. Major Lanoe Hawker VC was an outstanding and inspirational leader who was responsible for several important innovations, including formation flying and the development of the side-mounted Lewis machine gun, which helped to end German air superiority in 1915; the period known for the ‘Fokker Scourge’. The film uses a mix of replica flying aircraft, hand-built miniatures, life-size cockpits and CGI to tell the story of the action on 25 July…

Author: John Sadler Publisher: Amberley Publishing Price: £25 (Hardback) Released: Out now In February 1943, a group of Norwegian commandos pulled off one of the Second World War’s most daring raids. After parachuting into their occupied homeland, they blew up the Vermork power station in Telemark, where the Nazis had been developing heavy water as part of their atomic-bomb programme. The same unit later sank a ferry carrying what heavy water remained in the Nazis’ possession, ultimately neutralising their ability to build a war-winning weapon. It’s a story that’s been told many times, but this new book by John Sadler to mark its 80th anniversary does a fine job of breathing new life into it. The raid, known as Operation Gunnerside, was part of a bigger operation launched the previous…