Neville Chamberlain
Following the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 (and roughly four years prior to the construction of the HMS Cornwall), cruisers became a focus of the interwar naval arms race, no less keenly felt by the British, whose survival depended on the sea-lane. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
During its history, the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation has earned a reputation for building versatile airplanes. Its 1950s era C-130 Hercules is no doubt the most famous, but it was not the first. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
By June 1940, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s seventh year in office, Europe was ablaze. In that month, France fell to the Nazi blitzkrieg that threatened to overtake the entire continent. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
The late summer of 1939 saw Great Britain teetering on the brink of war with Hitler’s Germany. The years of appeasement and vacillation, of meekly acquiescing to Hitler’s insatiable territorial demands, were over at last. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
One of the most interesting yet little known aspects of World War II was the role played by the Duke of Windsor, previously King Edward VIII of England, and his covert relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
Born November 30, 1874, to British politician Lord Randolph Churchill and Jenny Jerome, an American socialite, Winston Churchill rose to serve in Parliament and as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945 and 1951 to 1955. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
Born in Branau, Austria, on April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler rose to lead the Nazi Party in Germany during the 1920s and was appointed the nation’s chancellor in 1933. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
The Battle of the Atlantic was a life-and-death struggle between the German Kriegsmarine and the Allied navies that was fought for control of Britain’s lifeline to its empire and to the United States. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
On August 23, 1939, Soviet Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, V.P. Potemkin, waited at the Moscow Airport for Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
British historian Alan Clark wrote in his book Barbarossa, “Roosevelt’s betrayal of Eastern Europe, whether out of calculation or gullibility, is so notorious as to need no further recapitulation.” Read more
Neville Chamberlain
In describing the relationship between British General Sir John Dill and his political superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Dill’s biographer, Alex Danchev, noted, “It was … an association strikingly lacking in empathy or understanding, etched in fundamental disagreement, and scarred by a mutual disaffection welling up at times into personal distaste.” Read more
Neville Chamberlain
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
Neville Chamberlain
By 1943 it was obvious to the Germans that their tank production could not keep pace with battlefield losses. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
Stanislaw Sosabowski started his military career in the anti-Hapsburg Polish underground movement in 1907, served in the Austrian Army in World War I, and rose to the command of the Polish Parachute Brigade in World War II. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
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
Neville Chamberlain
During the last weekend of September 1938, the attention of the world’s capitals was transfixed by the diplomatic pas de deux Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain were enacting to determine the fate of Czechoslovakia and ultimately the world. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
Lord John Vereker, 6th Viscount Gort, Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1940, and his chief of staff, General Henry Pownall, have both been forever associated with the British Army’s greatest continental defeat; namely, the retreat through Flanders and eventual evacuation from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk in May and June, after being engaged with the invading German Wehrmacht for only three weeks. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
On the evening of August 7, 1937, two neophyte radio broadcasters went to dinner together at the luxurious Adlon Hotel in Berlin, Germany. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
The “Mythology of Munich” and “What Would Winston Do?” These were the feature story and the cover headline, respectively, for the June 23, 2008, issue of Newsweek magazine. Read more
Neville Chamberlain
Within hours of the entry of Great Britain and France into World War II on September 3, 1939, the British liner SS Athenia was sunk by a German U-boat off the northwestern coast of Ireland, with the loss of 112 dead, including 28 American citizens. Read more
