military history

In 1793 Republican France declared war on Britain. As usual we went to war in our socks and the Government dithering made that even worse. The need to service operations in Flanders, and on the French Atlantic coast, as well as in the West Indies, resulted in endless shuffling of what few...

The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service Since 1945James Jinks & Peter Hennessy, Allen Lane, London, ISBN 978-1846145803This is a heavyweight book in every sense, notably in the £30 hardcover edition. It has already paid for itself as it provided a welcome distraction from the...

RAF Coastal Command, like Army Co-Operation Command, was aptly described as a ‘Cinderella Service’ at the outbreak of World War 2. The ‘locust years’ of the interwar period, and the dubious legacy of Churchill’s ’10-Year Rule’ – a financial sleight of hand which assumed that no war would be...

The Military Corrective Training Centre (MCTC) has always been a place of mystery and suspicion for those of us lucky enough never to have been sent there. The tales about the treatment of soldiers, sailors and airmen (and those detailed to escort them there) are legendary. This book, written...