This is the inspiring story of two Gordon Highlanders Territorial Army battalions which saw action in some of the Second World War's fiercest battles.After evacuation from Dunkirk, 6th Gordons fought in Tunisia in 1943, leading to the German surrender in North Africa. Following a spell in Iraq, the 1st London Scottish fought in Sicily and then the Battle of Monte Cassino where Private George Mitchell won his posthumous Victoria Cross, the most prestigious of the numerous gallantry awards to the men of both battalions.In January 1944, the 6th Gordons were the first British battalion ashore at Anzio. While the landing was unopposed, the Germans mounted devastating counter-attacks but, despite almost 400 killed, wounded and captured, the Battalion heroically held on. The 1st London Scottish arrived to fight alongside their Regimental 'brethren' suffering equally heavy devastating casualties.After the break-out, the Gordons pipe band led the liberation parade in Rome. Both battalions went on to fight up through Italy to smash the Gothic Line and eventual victory.
This book explores the various roles and operations undertaken by the special duties and special operations variants.
Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency investigates the infamous political scandal sparked after horrific photographs of war crimes during the Malayan Emergency were leaked to the British press. These photographs depicted British forces and their allies in Malaya scalping corpses and posing with decapitated human heads. The subsequent scandal, involving British generals, police, trade unions, and even Winston Churchill, led to the further discoveries that British forces had deployed over 1,000 men from Bornean headhunting tribes to Malaya, were publicly displaying corpses to terrify Malaya's civilian population into submission, and that photographs of such atrocities had become popular souvenirs among British troops.Using newly uncovered photographs, eyewitness accounts, and government documents, this research is the first ever attempt by any historian to create a complete history of the British-Malayan Headhunting Scandal, its political consequences, the stories of those involved, and its attempted cover-up.
First hand account of Lance Corporal Cayle Royce MBE suffering a life changing injury in Afghanistan.
This book is about technology and how it has changed the lives of people on three continents over the last three hundred years. The development of the cotton industry was the starting point for one of the great turning points in history - the industrial revolution. It began with the importation of cloth into Britain from India and that created a new fashion. As the demand for cotton cloth grew, British inventors began to find ways of making the same cloth using powered machinery and built the first cotton mills. The old way of life of the textile workers was transformed, as work moved from home to factory and thousands of small children were brought in to tend the new machines. If conditions in the cotton towns were bad, they were far worse in America where, thanks to the work of slaves, the country took over the supply of raw material from India. During the American Civil War, Britain turned again to India for its supplies. Today, positions have changed dramatically. India again has a thriving industry, while in Britain only a fraction of the old mills are still at work. The author looks in detail at the technology that produced the changes, but the emphasis is very much on the human stories of the industrialists and their workers, the planters and their slaves in Britain, India and America.
This is the story of a crucial year in the history of England, brimming with great political and social upheaval: the year 1603.
In March 1944, Japan launched its audacious overland invasion of India from Burma. Taken by surprise, the British rear areas lay exposed and undefended except for the previously untested 50 Indian Parachute Brigade training in the jungle around Manipur.After a series of brutal encounter battles, the Paratroopers consolidated on the isolated Naga village of Sangshak high in the Manipur hills. Holding out against an aggressive and determined enemy, the Brigade fought off wave after wave of attacks in bloody hand-to-hand fighting. With shortages of ammunition and supplies and casualties mounting, the defenders held on for a critical week before fighting their way out through the mountainous terrain, back to British lines.Fight Your Way Out describes this little known but critical first major battle between Indian and Japanese armies on Indian soil. The siege is described in detail using first-hand accounts as is their daring escape through the jungle and the experiences of Indian and British survivors captured by the Japanese.The crucial battle of Sangshak cost the invaders precious time from which they never recovered and set the scene for their eventual defeat at the final battles of Kohima and Imphal.
London's historic, iconic underground railway system in the period from 1968 to 1985 was a very different place to what it is in the 2020s. Much of its rolling stock dated from before World War Two, and with the exception of the new Victoria Line and the isolated Woodford to Hainault shuttle, trains were all two-person operated as the 1970s dawned.Transport photographer Jim Blake recorded most of the system on film before it would change forever, concentrating on the older rolling stock as well as other items of interest due for replacement or modernization, during this period when, regrettably, London Transport was often starved of much-needed funds by central government. The eminently sensible transfer of overall control of London's buses and Underground system to the city-wide Greater London Council at the beginning of 1970 was snatched away by the Thatcher regime in 1984, after which things rapidly went downhill. This book covers the years of GLC control, including the months prior to their taking charge in order to set the scene.Many rare and unusual scenes are included in this volume, especially of the then still basically intact portion of the uncompleted Northern Line extension between Drayton Park and Highgate, which had been so close to completion when work was halted during the war, but then abandoned in the early 1950s, incurring much wasted work and expenditure.For anyone with a serious interest in London's Underground, this book is essential reading, including as it does many pervious unpublished photographs.
Young Australian teacher Bruce Dowding arrived in Paris in 1938, planning only to improve his understanding of French language and culture. Secret Agent, Unsung Hero draws on decades of research to reveal, for the first time, his coming of age as a leader in escape and evasion during World War II. Dowding helped exfiltrate hundreds of Allied servicemen from occupied France and paid the ultimate price. He was beheaded by the Nazis just after his 29th birthday in 1943.
In this second of Tim Saunders' volumes on the opening stage of the 1945 Rhineland Campaign, the focus is to the north of the Reichswald, on the flood plain of the River Rhine and a narrow strip of slightly higher ground.
This is a study of royal absolutism in a most extreme form in modern European history, and of the nature of Louis XIV's concept of personal glory and of the embodiment of France as a new superpower. It is a study of political ideas expressed in architecture to establish Versailles as the center of French world power and royal prestige.It is also a personal story, full of social, cultural, and economic history of the period as seen in the life and work of Louis Le Vau, from a humble family of craftsmen, who was a self-taught architect in the early history of the profession, skilled in technical craft skills and even grand design. He was a major contributor to the architectural glories of Paris including the Louvre, Vincennes, Versailles and the College of the Four Nations. And all achieved despite interference from the great magnates of the age like Mazarin and Colbert and constant mind-changing by the King who wanted every feature in the buildings to reflect his concept of personal, royal, prestige. Le Vau was Louis XIV's First Architect from 1654 until his death and disgrace in 1670.The social, cultural, economic and political backdrop is striking with court intrigue, scandal, corruption, luxury, indulgence and the rise of a rich bourgeoisie, but the main thrust of the story concerns Louis XIV and the royal personal ambition, and the work of a stone-cutter's son who became the Sun King's instrument.The study is good on the more technical features of architectural history - reminiscent of Pevsner's marvelous Buildings of England series.
Compared to many of MI5's other double agents, HARLEQUIN's career was very short-lived, lasting only for a few months in 1943. However, during that time he provided insights into the various parties involved in the Appeasement process in 1938; the Czech crisis of 1939; the enterprises of a Franco-American businessman who hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's marriage in France; the espionage activities of an aristocratic German family; Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr - many of the Abwehr's personalities with whom he had come into contact or had known about and the agents he employed - as well as relations between the disparate organizations of the German intelligence services - the Abwehr, Gestapo, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the SS. Furthermore, he revealed the German Armistice Commission's involvement in espionage and their links to the Abwehr. MI5 shared this intelligence with the FBI and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) before HARLEQUIN requested that he be returned to American custody where he remained for the rest of the war. His effectiveness as a double agent will be examined using newly-released official files as a primary source.
Historiographically groundbreaking transnational history of the Mexican-American War.
Mosquito Intruders - Target Burma uses diaries, first-hand accounts, and official records to take the reader through the Mosquito intruders' three-year campaign to help force the Japanese out of Burma.
On Easter Monday 1916, Irish rebels seized a number of strategic buildings in Dublin, including the General Post Office on O'Connell Street, and declared an Irish Republic. Within a week they had been bombarded into surrender. Out in the countryside, amidst chaos and confusion over counter orders, the Rising failed to materialize as planned. The one notable exception was the campaign of the Fingal Brigade of North County Dublin. Their leader, the charismatic Tom Ashe, launched a fast moving guerrilla campaign against the para-military Royal Irish Constabulary, seizing barracks and capturing arms. At Ashbourne the Irish Volunteers, having captured the RIC barracks, were faced with the arrival of a numerically superior force of armed policemen. Using tactics evolved from British army training manuals, they overcame and defeated the police. Ashe and Fingal Brigade had shown that fast moving guerrilla warfare was the way ahead in the future struggle for Irish independenceThis little-known yet crucial development in the Irish War of Independence is well researched and described in this over-due account.
The Southern Region of British Railways had long sought to design a locomotive capable of working on electrified lines and non-electrified station yards and sidings. In 1959 British Railways approved a design, designated Class HA, later British Railways Class 73, which combined the electrical equipment of the latest EMU design with the standard English Electric diesel engine in one bodyshell. An initial order was placed for six locomotives but allocated to Eastleigh Carriage and Wagon Works because the design used stock components normally found on the multiple unit fleet.The locomotives were released to traffic during February 1962 and were allocated to Stewarts Lane depot from where they powered the mundane duties of freight, parcels and empty stock services. They also tested the principle of high-speed propulsion of passenger trains prior to the adoption of the principle for the electrification of the Waterloo - Weymouth line as far as Poole. Included in this scheme was the ordering of a further 43 improved Class 73 locomotives which were built by English Electric.The locomotives proved a useful design but when British Railways was privatized in 1994 the new operator considered them surplus and sold them out of service. The original 6 locomotives had already been transferred north to Merseyside to work on the local electric network. Although initially considered unsuitable by the original operator they were highly regarded by many companies hence were sold on to continue working on the national network. Some were converted for special purposes thus were formed into sub-classes hence as at December 2022 30 of the 49 fleet still remain active in mainline service.
The first of a series of volumes on the Hospitaller Knights of Saint John, this volume covers the period 1306-1522.The Hospitaller Knights had developed during the Crusades from a monastic order providing hostels for Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. The need to provide armed escorts to these pilgrims brought about their evolution into a Military Order. An elite component of Crusader armies, Hospitallers were involved in most large-scale Christian-Saracen engagements following the First Crusade. Taking to the sea, the Hospitallers became a major naval power in the Mediterranean.The author draws on the work of the Order's official historians, Giacomo Bosio and his successor Bartolomeo dal Pozzo. He transcribes their writings for the modern reader, while also presenting new information revealed in the 400 years of scholarship since Bosio's death in 1627. This volume opens with Hospitaller relocation from Cyprus to Rhodes during the years 1306 to 1309 while introducing other entities wielding power in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Mamluk Egypt, Turkish beyliks emerging from disintegration of the Seljuk Empire, the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, Cyprus itself, and not least, the Republic of Venice controlling most Aegean islands. The book brings to light the contributions of Hospital leaders (Grand Masters) as well as of lieutenants, allies and opponents, including those of Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, who became Grand Master in 1521. Complete with an extensive glossary of notable figures, this volume is believed to be the only continuous history since Bosio of the Hospitallers during the period 1306 through 1522, and is certainly the only such history in the English language.
It was in large part the lure of riches, such as spices and gold, and the promise of fertile land which tempted the British and other Europeans to venture out to unknown lands.These intrepid explorers, who devoted and often lost their lives on journeys of discovery, were frequently accompanied by artists. At the time there was no other way of pictorially recording their exploits and experiences.James Cook and his botanist Joseph Banks had artists Alexander Buchan and Sydney Parkinson on board for their initial voyage to the South Seas. Buchan's first pictures were of the natives of Tierra del Fuego as the Endeavour rounded Cape Horn but tragically within a month he died, apparently of epilepsy. Thomas Baines traveled with Livingstone while Charles Heaphy in New Zealand and the Governor's wife in India were amongst many others who produced drawings and paintings.The many fine works in this book fashioned the British public's image of their countrymen's discoveries and, later, of the lives of those who remained in these faraway places. Right up to the start of the 20th century their publication in the illustrated papers of the day became the core of popular appreciation.
Transcribed for the first time from Commissary General Tupper Carey's handwritten journals, this is the first of two volumes which cover the lively career of a Commissary who served throughout the Peninsular war and Waterloo campaign.Written with vivid detail, these journals offer a truly unique window into the life of a Commissary and the campaigns in which he served. Although a civilian and greatly discouraged from putting himself in mortal danger, Tupper was often to be found watching the fighting from some nearby vantage point and often describes the actions he witnessed, particularly where it affected his own charge, whether a battalion, a brigade or even later an entire division. Interspersed with these primary roles, he was often seconded to form supply bases in the rear of the army, or to hastily remove or destroy stores when threatened by enemy advances. He also talks freely about fellow officers, and being a private journal written simply for the eyes of his immediate family, he is not shy in giving his honest opinions of both his subordinates or indeed his superiors.This first volume covers Tupper's early life, joining as a clerk and his early years as a Commissary up until the spring of 1813, just before the Duke of Wellington launched his troops on that memorable campaign, designed to drive the French back out of Spain, across the Pyrenees. Also detailed are Tupper's role in the Corunna campaign, The Border War, Battle of Salamanca and the Siege of Burgos.The rest of Tupper's incredible career will be covered in the second volume.
In 1878 southern Africa's two most senior figures, army commander General Lord Chelmsford and the High Commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere created a false threat of a Zulu invasion of British Natal. In an astonishing act of over-confidence and without any government permission, Frere and Chelmsford invaded Zululand with five independent columns of troops. Both leaders ignored the serious implications of their two recently failed expeditions against the Zulus' neighboring King Sekhukhune and his Pedi people. The Zulu war lasted only six months and witnessed two separate British invasions of Zululand - one catastrophic, one successful.This book gives the reader a general overview of the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879 with descriptive text, location photographs and illuminating map overviews of the twelve main battles including Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift. The author's unique maps are based on his own lecture notes and 'battlefield map handouts' as a Zulu War battlefield guide for over 25 years. These maps were avidly collected by his many groups and other guides; they clearly explain each battlefield's layout and sequence of events but also included many little known details of each fierce and bloody engagement. At the suggestion of the Anglo Zulu War Historical Society, these maps are now reproduced in book form. While volumes have been written on the subject, this work gives us an even better insight into these grueling and complex battles.
It is 1814 and the Bengal Army of the Honourable East India Company is at war with a marauding Nepal. It is here that the British first encounter the martial spirit of their indomitable foe - the Gurkha hill men from that mountainous independent land. Impressed by their fighting qualities and with the end of hostilities in sight the Company begins to recruit them into their own ranks. Since then these light hearted and gallant soldiers have successfully campaigned wherever the British Army has served - from the North West Frontier of India through two World Wars to the contemporary battlefields of the Falklands islands and Afghanistan's Helmand Province, with well over one hundred battle honors to their name and at a cost of 20,000 casualties. In this talk General Duffell separates fact and myth and recounts something of the history, character and spirit of these loyal and dedicated soldiers seen through the prism of his own service and campaigning as a regular officer in the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles, as the Brigade of Gurkhas Major General and as Regimental Colonel of the Royal Gurkha Rifles.
After landing on D-Day, 1st Battalion, The Suffolk Regiment fought through France, Holland and into Germany as part of the 3rd (British) Infantry Division. Ever cheerful, the Battalion were opposed by an increasingly ruthless enemy determined to deny the invader their homeland.As the campaign developed, 1 Suffolk acquired an enviable reputation for getting the job done with the minimum of fuss. Inevitably casualties mounted up and, of the 850 who landed on D-Day, just 178 were still serving on VE-Day; 215 had been killed and 640 wounded.The Battalion's success was due in large measure to fine leadership and all four commanding officers went on to enjoy distinguished careers. But without the stalwart fighting spirit and comradeship of all ranks none of the Battalion's achievements would have been possible.This fine book draws on the testimonies of officers and men who served in this historic campaign. Recognition of the fighting record of 1 Suffolk is long overdue and the author is to be congratulated for pulling together these inspiring first-hand accounts along with many previously unpublished photographs.
* Re-issue of an esteemed piece of work, initially published in 1988 by Patrick Stephens Limited. * Extensively illustrated throughout, it offers a comprehensive and entertaining history of desert warfare from the Roman era to the 1980s. * Skilfully evokes a real sense of the desert landscapes that have played host to such an array of military en
The largely sea-borne invasion of Northern France in June 1944, Operation Overlord, is acknowledged as one of the key actions which hastened the end of the Second World War. The RAF played a vital part in the landings. It then supported the subsequent advance of Montgomery's 21st Army, and the Allies as a whole, through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany.Following the breakout from the Normandy bridgehead in early August 1944, the RAF's Second Tactical Air Force moved forward in support of the troops, occupying a number of temporary airfields as it went. The ground support for this operation was complex, a situation that was exacerbated by the fact that much of it had to be highly mobile. The advance, however, was rapid and soon ran into problems as the supply lines grew longer by the day.The planners had envisaged that capturing the Belgian port of Antwerp would eventually enable them to bring in vitally needed supplies much further north on the Continent. Although the city and its port were liberated in September 1944, the port's route to the sea along the River Scheldt was still controlled by German forces. It took nearly three months until this was resolved, and the port opened for business. Until then, in the RAF's equivalent of the US Army's famed 'Red Ball Express', it was some 300 miles by road from Normandy with the Second Tactical Air Force largely reliant on the Army for transporting its needs. For an air force needing large volumes of fuel and ammunition, demand soon began to outpace supply.A number of emergency measures were put in place to keep the aircraft operational, which saw the RAF resorting to the use of its heavy bombers to fly in supplies. Even when Antwerp was up and running, supplying the Second Tactical Air Force remained a hand-to-mouth affair right through until the enemy's surrender in May 1945.In Forward Air Bases in Europe from D-Day to the Baltic the author explores the challenges of supporting a mobile air force in those uncertain days as Hitler's forces were retreating to their homeland. As the Allies found, things can go badly wrong when thinking loses touch with the art of the possible - logistics. In the end, miraculously, it worked, but it was a close-run thing.
A complete history of women's football, from its Victorian games beginning in 1881, to the plans for England to host the Euro Finals in England 2022, this book demonstrates how women's football began as a professional sport, and has only recently returned to these professional roots in the UK. This is because there was a fifty-year Football Association 'ban' on women playing on pitches affiliated to the governing body in England. The other British associations followed suit.Why was women's football banned in 1921? Why did it take until 1969 for a Women's Football Association to form? Why did it take until 1995 for England to qualify for a Women's World Cup? Answers to these key questions are supplemented across the chapters by personal accounts of the players who defied the ban, at home and abroad, along with the personal costs, and rewards, of being footballing pioneers.
This significant new reference book provides a complete list of the ships of the Royal Navy which were lost at sea in the age of sail. Arranged in chronological order, it includes outline details of each vessel lost and the circumstances of her loss. 1649 is the start date, which coincides with the execution of Charles I and that time when the Royal Navy entered a new phase as an instrument of state: the launch of the steam-powered and iron-hulled Warrior in 1860 effectively marks the end of the great era of the wooden-hulled sailing warship.Life at sea in the age of sail was a hazardous pursuit, and there were many reasons for a ship being lost. A correspondent to the Nautical Magazine in 1841 detailed some fifty reasons and causes, from being short of crew, abandonment without sufficient cause, the poor condition of a ship, incorrectness of charts, poor dead-reckoning as well as less obvious reasons such as 'the presence of captains' wives and other women.' Navigational error, particularly before the chronometer allowed for the accurate calculation of longitude, was a common reason, while poor weather in the form of fog or gales was an obvious peril. So many ships suffered the melancholy fate of lonely disappearance - overwhelmed by storm and sea, and witnessed by none. Collisions and fire feature regularly as does, of course, loss to the enemy.Each entry includes details of the ship, its name and type, tonnage and dimensions, origin and place of build, the circumstances of the loss, the date and a list of the main references used. All this material is presented here in a single and highly accessible volume, and represents a major milestone both in naval research and publishing; it offers too a fund of fascinating and compelling stories of maritime misadventure.Praise for the author's previous work: 'This volume is an amazing encyclopaedic, catalogue of British warships lost between 1920 and 1982 ... It is strongly recommended to historians, authors, researchers and all those with an interest in the history of the Royal Navy and the Second World War.' - Scuttlebut Magazine
Investigates the formations that operated these deservedly famous vehicles and uses archive photos and extensively researched colour illustrations to examine the markings, camouflage and technical aspects of the Jagdtigers.
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