Major Digby Tatham Warter, the major who fought at Arnhem with umbrella and bowler hat, led a remarkable life. Known for his eccentric nature and bravery in battle, he played a prominent part in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden. Escaping from captivity, he devised a miraculous withdrawal through enemy lines before moving to Kenya.
During the Nazi regime in Germany, all police forces were centralised under the command of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The political police (Gestapo), the criminal police (Kripo), and the security service (SD) were all brought together under the RSHA umbrella in 1939, commanded by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich. Using RSHA in Berlin as the ......
From humble beginnings as a ‘barefoot boy’ in a small town in the heart of South Africa, he learned to mix with presidents and prime ministers, with royalty and popes, and quickly embraced the high-life of the jet-set who surrounded him. Throughout life, he was a serial womanizer, bedding famous European film stars (and their secretaries). He ......
The Experimental Seaplane Stations of the Royal Naval Air Service
Up to and during the First World War, the Royal Navy was at the forefront of developments in aviation: concerned not just with the use of military aircraft to defend the fleet, but also securing the homeland against Zeppelin raiders and undertaking tactical air strikes into enemy territory. With the aeroplane a totally new and revolutionary ......
A remarkable eighty-year adventure spanning the golden age of twentieth-century mechanical and motor-vehicle engineering. Born into an ecclesiastical family, Harry Varley had a burning ambition to be the best engineer he could. He was one of the three-man team that designed the iconic 3-litre Bentley and fifty-seven years later he created a new ......
1945: a mushroom cloud rises 20,000 feet into the sky. This is not from the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It is the remains of the battleship 'Yamato'. Representing the ambition and determination of Imperial Japan, the loss of the 'Yamato' in a kamikaze operation in April 1945 has become a symbol of the downfall of the Imperial Japanese ......
This collection of stories shows passenger liners, large and small as well as famous and obscure, through the eyes of officers & crew, with tales of the great Cunarders, P&O, Holland America & Union Castle liners, providing added insight, understanding, and even color to these liners of another age. It is a voyage along maritime memory lane.
The Schneider Trophy race was very significant in advancing design, particularly in the fields of aerodynamics and engines, and would show its results in the best fighters of WW2. The streamlined shape and the low drag, liquid-cooled engine pioneered by Schneider Trophy designs are obvious in the Supermarine Spitfire and the P-51 Mustang.
The 12-SS Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend' in Normandy
A detailed history of the 12.SS-Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend' during the Normandy campaign, based on the original war diaries and personal accounts. Being in constant action from June to early September 1944, the division experienced some of the most ferocious fighting of the entire campaign losing 60% of its original force in the process
