Category: Personnel

Banastre Tarleton Officer casualties were probably disproportionately heavy in those engagements in America where British bayonet attacks failed to dislodge the enemy quickly because sustained fighting gave the rebels more opportunity to single out officers and shoot them down. Burgoyne later claimed that this had unfortunately very much been the case during the seesaw struggle […]

The Battle of Bunker Hill by Percy Moran In eighteenth-century conventional linear warfare, the regimental infantry officer took part in four main activities: he motivated his men, directed them, kept them in good order, and engaged in personal combat. At least on European battlefields, perhaps the first of these four activities was the most important. […]

Two early recruits to the BFC:SS-Mann Kenneth Berry and SS-Sturmmann Alfred Minchin, with German officers, April 1944. Collaboration has always been a topic that arouses fierce emotions, and those POWs who went over to the other side or in some way supported the Axis cause have received much coverage. But their numbers were minuscule, and […]

A group of Home Guard are trained in the use of a Northover Projector near the factory at which they work, somewhere in England, 1941. Home Guard soldiers load an anti-aircraft rocket at a ‘Z’ Battery on Merseyside, 6 July 1942.H 21135Part ofWAR OFFICE SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIAL COLLECTIONTaylor (Lt)War Office official photographer On May […]

When war was declared on 3 September 1939 the 1st Coldstream was training at Pirbright, while the 2nd Battalion was at Albuhera Barracks, Aldershot. The 3rd Battalion was in Egypt, serving in the Canal Brigade, and based in Mustapha Barracks, Alexandria. The outbreak of war was greeted (in 1st and 2nd Coldstream) by some with […]

The crossing of the Adour In the days leading up to 7 October 1813, Wellington tried with evident success to convince the French that his attack, when it came, would be inland, probably around Maya. Soult therefore placed the bulk of his troops in this area, leaving the mouth of the Bidassoa virtually undefended, believing […]