British Army Archives

British Army

Veterans Remember the Disaster at Dunkirk

By Mason B. Webb

BACKSTORY: After Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Hitler’s regime. Read more

British Army

Elphinstone’s 1842 Kabul Retreat During the First Anglo-Afghan War

By Robert Heege

In the second week of January 1842, a British lookout standing watch on the ramparts of the old walled city of Jalalabad was suddenly confronted with an alarming sight. Read more

While the National Army Museum lacks the space for extensive display of vehicles or field guns, the outside is usually “protected” by an armored vehicle or two.

British Army

London’s National Army Museum

By Peter Suciu

The city of London practically overflows with military history. Predating the Romans, London has been the seat of government ever since it was fortified by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Read more

Bayonet-wielding troops in the British 31st Regiment of Foot overwhelm Sikh artillerists at Mukdi, the opening battle of the bloody First Sikh War between Great Britain and the Sikh empire.

British Army

The Battle of Sobraon: Indian Waterloo

By Mike Phifer

Maharaja Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Sikh empire in northern India, was dead. Under his intrepid leadership, starting in 1799, Afghan control over Punjab, or Five Rivers Land, was thrown off and the Sikh empire flourished over the next 40 years. Read more

Seymour entered into the war as a slave owned by the brother of Aaron Burr. By the end of the war, he would earn his freedom.

British Army

African American Revolutionary War Heroes: Seymour Burr

There were several African American Revolutionary War heroes that made major contributions on and off the battlefield, but not all of them fought for the Colonists. Read more

British Army

The Lee-Enfield Bolt Action Rifle

By Christopher Miskimon

A small party of about 40 German soldiers had infiltrated the Australian lines around the besieged town of Tobruk, Libya, during the night of April 13, 1941. Read more

British Army

Tragic Surrender

By Mark Simmons

On Saturday, December 6, 1941, a Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson bomber on a reconnaissance mission from Khota Bahru on the west coast of Malaya was flying northwest over the China Sea toward the Gulf of Thailand. Read more

British Army

Key to the Eternal City

By Nathan N. Prefer

They had been staring at it for the past four months. That small, rubble-strewn town of Cisterna di Littoria in central Italy just inland from the ports of Anzio-Nettuno, had become their nemesis. Read more

British Army

Mission to Madagascar: British Assault on Diego Suarez Port

By Cleve C. Barkley

In early 1942 things could have hardly looked bleaker for the Allies. In Europe, Hitler’s war machine had steamrolled across the entire continent and was now battling before the gates of Moscow. Read more

One regiment that stands out for its number of African American Revolutionary War heroes is the 1st Rhode Island regiment, colloquially referred to as the "black regiment."

British Army

African American Revolutionary War Heroes: Boston to Yorktown

by Mike Haskew

Although a large number of colonial slaves fled their condition of involuntary servitude seeking freedom through service to the British Army, an estimated 5,000 African Americans served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Read more

British Army

D-Day’s Concrete Fleet: Making the Mulberry Harbors

By Michael D. Hull

No Allied amphibious invasion in World War II left such a bitter legacy as Operation Jubilee, the ill-fated British-Canadian raid on the northern French port of Dieppe on Wednesday, August 19, 1942. Read more

Although first dismissed by some older veterans, soldiers in World War II eventually warmed up to the Lee-Enfield Rifle and came to appreciate its benefits.

British Army

The Lee-Enfield Rifle and its Effectiveness in World War II

By Arnold Blumberg

By 1901, the Small Arms Committee—the body within the War Office tasked with arming the British Army with weapons—sought to replace their then-standard issue rifle: the Magazine Lee-Metford Rifle Mark II. Read more

British Army

Sherman Tanks vs. Tiger Tanks: Which Was Best at the Bulge?

by Michael D. Hull

When American soldiers landed in France in June 1944 as part of the great Allied crusade to liberate Europe, they were well trained, fully equipped, and brimming with confidence. Read more

Wearing distinctive pith helmets, British soldiers assume prone positions as their commander scans the horizon for enemy activity. These troops were photographed near Ramadi, Iraq, as the British attempted to secure Middle Eastern oil reserves.

British Army

Auchinleck of the Indian Army

By Jon Diamond

Many students of World War II history know General Sir Claude Auchinleck as the Commander-in-Chief Middle East, who, after taking over for General Sir Archibald Wavell in late June 1941, oversaw the fluctuating fate of Britain’s Eighth Army while combating German General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps during Operations Crusader and Gazala. Read more

British Army

General Arthur Percival: a Convenient Scapegoat?

By Jon Diamond

On February 15, 1942, the island fortress of Singapore surrendered with 130,000 men, thus ending the defense of Malaya as one of the largest military disasters in the history of British arms since Cornwallis’s capitulation to Franco-American forces at Yorktown in 1781 during America’s Revolutionary War. Read more

British Army

Welsh Adventurer Henry Lloyd

By Adrian Lowe

Few men in the 18th century lived a life as varied and unpredictable as that of Henry Lloyd. Read more

From Around the Network

Captured! Belgium’s Mighty Fort Eben-Emael

The Forgotten American Airborne of Operation Market-Garden

A War Worth Remembering.

John Brown’s Bloody Abolitionist Crusade