Winston Churchill
“What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over,” intoned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “The Battle of Britain is about to begin.” Read more
Winston Churchill
“It is very difficult to be an openly declared, courageous Nazi today, and to express one’s faith freely,” read the editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper, which further added, “We have no illusions now.” Read more
Winston Churchill
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
Winston Churchill
Bombed almost daily for several months and in fear of an imminent German invasion, the British were hanging on by their fingernails when September 1940 came. Read more
Winston Churchill
“Am over enemy submarine in position …”
Cut off in mid-transmission, this contact report came from a U.S. Read more
Winston Churchill
As the landing craft carrying the invading Allied ground forces of Operation Overlord motored toward the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944, they were protected and supported by the largest aerial armada the world has ever seen. Read more
Winston Churchill
In July 1939, Archibald Wavell was named General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of Middle East Command with the rank of full general in the British Army. Read more
Winston Churchill
On August 7, 1945, the day after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, President Harry S. Truman announced, “The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East. Read more
Winston Churchill
In the predawn hours of June 6, 1944, the largest armada ever sent into war assaulted the coast of France at Normandy. Read more
Winston Churchill
The small craft from the British destroyer HMS Bulldog launched into the choppy, frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Read more
Winston Churchill
An army that will be poised for victory requires élan, military intellect, a penchant for tactical and strategic innovation, and the zeal to use the most qualified individuals for training and leadership. Read more
Winston Churchill
Steaming through the summer Mediterranean night, the world having gone sour in two awful months, British Vice Admiral Sir James Somerville read the message just sent to him from London: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with, but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.” Read more
Winston Churchill
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
Winston Churchill
Like all Palestinians and most Arabs, Haj Amin al-Hussaini not only looked forward to an Axis Pact victory in World War II but also saw it as a means of defeating what he believed was a joint British-Jewish conspiracy to foist an Israelite homeland on the Middle East that would be to the detriment of his own people. Read more
Winston Churchill
Men have been reporting their wars almost as long as they have fighting them. The first prehistoric cave drawings depicted hunters bringing down wild animals, and spoken accounts of battles, large and small, formed the starting point for the oral tradition of history. Read more
Winston Churchill
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
Winston Churchill
England’s survival hung in the balance. She had only recently clashed with an imposing Continental alliance, in a futile war characterized by unprecedented slaughter on obscure fields in Flanders. Read more
Winston Churchill
On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more
Winston Churchill
On October 11, 1899, Great Britain officially went to war with the Republic of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Read more
Winston Churchill
On the morning of February 16, 1940, two Royal Air Force Lockheed Hudson aircraft lifted off from Thornaby Airfield in northern England. Read more
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