british military history

Amphibious Landing at Anzio

By Mike Haskew

As the last days of 1943 slipped away, World War II in Italy ground to a miserable stalemate. Read more

british military history

A Burmese Jungle Masterstroke: Commonwealth Troops in Meiktila

by Jon Latimer

The battles of Kohima, Imphal, and the Admin Box saw the comprehensive defeat of the Japanese armies seeking to invade India during 1944 and sent them reeling back into Burma in early 1945, pursued by the revitalized British 14th Army under Lt. Read more

british military history

All Alone: The HMS Glowworm

By Robert Barr Smith

The great waves were huge and black, greedy tentacles of the North Sea clawing and snatching at the battered ships struggling in the icy dark. Read more

british military history

The Wehrmacht in France: Decisions in a Time of Debacle

By Brooke C. Stoddard

May 10, 1940, marked the beginning of the war in western Europe. Nazi-controlled Germany invaded Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. Read more

british military history

The Battle of Narvik: Crippling the Kriegsmarine

By David H. Lippman

The Germans could not believe it. Without suffering the loss of a single soldier or sailor, the German Army and Navy had sailed 1,500 miles through waters dominated by the British Royal Navy and captured Narvik without firing a shot, bagged nearly 500 Norwegian soldiers, seized one of Norway’s major military depots, and even taken five armed British merchant ships and their crews. Read more

british military history

Eric Dorman-Smith: Churchill’s Scapegoat in North Africa

By Jon Diamond

When one gazes upon the bookshelves in the Military History section of a well-endowed library, one cannot help but notice the number of volumes dedicated to the battles for North Africa during World War II and particularly to the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942. Read more

british military history

The Indian Ocean Raid: Disaster for the Royal Navy

By David H. Lippman

“So this is the Eastern Fleet,” ran Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville’s signal. “Never mind. Many a good tune is played on an old fiddle.” Read more

british military history

George Beurling: Canadian Fighter Ace Known as “The Falcon of Malta”

By Herb Kugel

In September 1943, Canada’s top air ace, the “Falcon of Malta,” Flying Officer George Beurling, was faced with two problems. Read more

british military history

Commando Kidnapping: Capturing General Kreipe on Crete

By John W. Osborn Jr.

Several Allied operations targeted a single enemy commander: the unsuccessful raid on General Erwin Rommel’s headquarters in North Africa to kill the Desert Fox; the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, SS Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich; and the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in the sky above Rabaul in 1943. Read more

british military history

The First Day of World War II

By Michael D. Hull

Just after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more

british military history

Easter Victory at Tobruk

By Christopher Miskimon

In April 1941, things were going quite well for the German armed forces. In a series of earlier campaigns, they had conquered Poland, the Low Countries, Norway, and France. Read more

british military history

Project Habakkuk’s Iceberg Aircraft Carrier

By Stephen D. Lutz

During World War II British and American aircraft carriers, serviced and ready for naval combat, averaged 20,000 to 30,000 tons. Read more

british military history

D-Day Funnies: No Joke to the Nazis

By Michael D. Hull

German defenders hunkered in their concrete and steel bunkers along the Normandy coast were in for two major shocks on Tuesday, June 6, 1944. Read more

british military history

Taking Out the Tirpitz

By Richard Rule

By mid-1942, the towering German battleship Tirpitz stood alone as the largest, most powerful warship in the world. Read more

british military history

Seizing the Altmark

By Joseph M. Horodyski

On Sunday, September 3, 1939, the day that Great Britain and France formally declared war on Germany after the Nazis’ invasion of Poland, the German supply ship Altmark concluded her stay at the refinery center of Port Arthur, Texas, where she had taken on a full cargo of diesel oil, and returned to sea. Read more

british military history

Operation Compass: Masterstroke in the Desert

By John Diamond

Established in the summer of 1939, Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell’s Middle East Command encompassed nine countries and parts of two continents, an area of 1,700 miles by 2,000 miles. Read more

british military history

Operation Willi: The Nazi Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor

By Eric Niderost

It was around noon, June 19, 1940, when a small caravan of cars set out from Antibes in southern France en route to the Spanish border. Read more

british military history

Nick “Cooky” Kukich: Covert Operative in Albania

By John Mancini

On the morning of April 7, 1939, Albania, the smallest of the Balkan countries, was invaded by Benito Mussolini’s Italian Fascist Army. Read more

british military history

Battle of Alma: First Blood in the Crimea

By Eric Niderost

On the morning of September 14, 1854, an Anglo-French fleet arrived off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea. Read more

british military history

Battle of Omdurman: The Last British Cavalry Charge

By Eric Niderost

It was the morning of September 1, 1898, the day before the Battle of Omdurman. Lieutenant Winston Churchill of the Queen’s 4th Hussars rode out with four squadrons of the 21st Lancers to scout the approaches to Omdurman, a Sudanese village on the west bank of the Nile opposite Khartoum, epicenter of a revolt that had rocked the very foundations of the British Empire. Read more