20th Century
The Desert War – December 1940
At the start of the last month of 1940 the Italians had been pushed out of Greece and were now under the cosh in Albania, Il Duce’s ambitions were more than his forces could handle. [more…]
Nazi Germany
20th Century
The Desert War – November 1940
More of the same is the best description of November. The Italians got their butts kicked both in and finally out of Greece resulting in the Duce eventually having to grovel to the Führer and [more…]
20th Century
A Barren Shore, Part Two
An even greater slab of armour plate than the one we had stumbled across decades before, stood upright blankly showing its wounds, punched through and scored by shot, rusty red, the memorial to those Finns [more…]
20th Century
A Barren Shore, Part One
This is a personal memoir of several visits to the far north and going realisation of what had always been before my eyes, unseen and recognised. I am not an historian and certainly not of [more…]
20th Century
The Desert War – October 1940
80 years ago this month things were quiet in the actual desert. After the initial British skirmishing that was an attempt to convince the Italians we were much stronger than we really were and the [more…]
20th Century
Postcard from Berlin
In June 2017 Master Reggie and I decided to go on a ‘lads’ tour of Berlin. Master Reggie had just completed his degree course and Mrs Reggie suggested it was time for some Father and [more…]
20th Century
The Desert War – June 1940
80 years ago this month the North African Campaign, or Desert War kicked off. On one side were the Italians, desperately trying to expand their Empire in Africa, on the other were the British who [more…]
20th Century
The most dangerous man in Europe
Otto Skorzeny was mentioned the other day and in the process of investigating something else I stumbled across his story. What a lad, his fearsome reputation didn’t quite match up to reality. He was in [more…]
20th Century
A Massacre of the Innocents
Introduction On Saturday 10 June, 1944, while heading north towards Normandy to help counter the Allied D-Day invasion, German troops of the Der Führer Regiment of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, committed an unthinkable [more…]