At the age of eighteen Don Feesey volunteered for pilot training with the RAF. Having almost completed his course to become a fighter pilot, an eye problem was detected and he was ...

This fascinating story begins in 1973 when David Cook built a glider in an attempt to win the Selsey Birdman Rally – an annual event where all types of creations are launched from ...

This is the vivid memoir of a man who was twenty-one at the outbreak of World War II. Having joined the RAFVR before the war, he was mobilized in August 1939 and after training bec ...

This biography tells of the life of a Czech airman who escapes from the Nazi invasion, fights with the French and finally arrives in Britain to fly as an air-gunner with the RAF du ...

Alexander Johnston went over to France in August 1914 as the signals officer for 7 Infantry Brigade. He went on to serve in that capacity with 3rd Division before becoming, in turn ...

Adrian Carton de Wiart’s autobiography is one of the most remarkable of military memoirs. He was intended for the law, but abandoned his studies at Balliol College, Oxford, in 189 ...

Henry Tyndall was a typical product of the Victorian age - an intensely patriotic army officer who served in India, on the North-West Frontier, on the Western Front and in East Afr ...

John Strawson describes joining the 4th Hussars in the Middle East in 1942 and serving with them until amalgamation with the 9th Hussars in 1958 as The Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars. ...

Robert Shebbeare went out as a cadet to India at the age of seventeen and after a spell of ordinary regimental duties, he was caught up in the extraordinary and bloody events of th ...

While researching his excellent earlier book: Veterans of World War I, author Richard Van Emden encountered a fascinating personality of that long-ago conflict. After witnessing Ge ...

Leningrad was under siege for almost three years, and the first winter of that siege was one of the coldest on record. The Russians had been taken by surprise by the Germans' sudde ...

Massacre on the Marne is a graphic reconstruction of the experiences of a small closely knit group of fighting men - the 2/5th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment - in the Gre ...

In Florence cathedral hangs a remarkable portrait by Uccello of Sir John Hawkwood, the English soldier of fortune who commanded the Florentine army at the age of 70 and earned a fo ...

Like most members of the professional military freemasonry, Slim came to admire "all the soldiers of different races who have fought with me and most of those who have fought again ...

Military snipers are highly trained marksmen who target individual enemy soldiers. They are regarded as vital specialists in modern warfare, and their role evolved throughout the G ...

Following the conquest of his native Latvia by the Nazis, the author was given the stark choice: service in the SS or forced labor in a slave camp. So he 'volunteered' to fight fo ...

Lieutenants, or "subalterns" as they were called, were very young in the British Army of the Napoleonic Wars, so George Gleig was not unique when he joined the 85th Light Infantry ...

It is generally recognized that the war in Burma against the Japanese was as fierce as any. The Battle of Kohima was the turning point of this extraordinary campaign and personal a ...

'Butcher' Cumberland is portrayed as one of the arch villains of British history. His leading role in the bloody defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 and his ruthless pursuit o ...

Although over 330,000 British and French soldiers were evacuated from the Dunkirk beaches between 26 May and 4 June, many thousands remained in France, most under French command. C ...

Flight testing experimental and new aircraft is one of the world’s most hazardous occupations. A test pilot requires the skills of a flying ace whilst maintaining the self-control ...

John Howe started his flying career in the postwar South African Air Force, learning to fly on Tiger Moths, Harvards and Spitfires. He was posted to No 2 Squadron SAAF and sent to ...

A military history of the campaigns of Belisarius, the greatest general of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian. He twice defeated the Persians and reconquered North Afr ...

This is the story of Thomas Lancashire who joined the RAF in 1936 and became one of the famous 'Trenchard Brats' at RAF Halton to be educated and learn the trade of fitter. He was ...

Stanley Spencer enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers as a private in 1915 and was commissioned in 1917 and thereafter served with the West Yorkshire Regiment until demobilised in 1919 ...