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Spitfire and Hurricane (behind). After France fell to Germany in June 1940 and the British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk, Hitler had expected that Britain would negotiate a settlement with him. When Britain decided to fight on instead, Hitler ordered an invasion of England, code named Operation Sea Lion. If it was to […]

The assault continued unabated on 16 August, but on the following day there was little activity. So far the Adlerangriff had been a catalogue of missed opportunities leavened with the odd outright disaster. However, the Luftwaffe’s mood was buoyant: if it was not destroying Fighter Command on the ground, it was inflicting a great deal […]

RAF Hawker Hurricanes take on Luftwaffe He-111’s in 1940 Battle of Britain. The German invasion came not by water but by air, because Hermann Göring promised Adolf Hitler that his airmen would win command of the skies before the army and navy crossed the sea. In 1937, while entertaining Lord Trenchard, boasting of the superior […]

The rage of the Pharaoh Rameses II (1304–1237 BC), after his close encounter with death at the battle of Kadesh in 1275/4, is engraved in the stone walls of no fewer than five great temples. The Pharaohs regarded Palestine and Syria as important outposts against attack on their heartland from the east and north. But […]

The Naval Battle of Navarino (1827). Oil painting by Garneray. After initial negotiations failed with the Ottoman Sultanate, Britain, France, and Russia prepared to enforce the provisions of the Treaty of London through military action. In the summer of 1827, a large Ottoman-Egyptian fleet was being assembled in Alexandria for operations in the Greek theater, […]

On 13 October 1912, several eyewitnesses reported seeing a vast German airship over Sheerness. Then on the night of 22/3 February the captain of the City of Leeds, en route from Grimsby to Hamburg, reported seeing a large airship heading for the Humber. These were early endurance trials, probably of the German navy’s first Zeppelin, […]

Barry Spicer is a celebrated aviation artist from Adelaide, Australia. Barry considers himself lucky to be able to do something he loves, and his fascination in aviation goes back to his childhood. At the age of 6, his parents took him to see the film “The Battle of Britain” and was so inspired by the […]

The RAF’s Bomber Command showed the desperation of the situation when it issued counter-invasion instructions to its groups: Now the enemy occupies the western seaboard of Europe, the threat of invasion is very real. If it comes it will be by air and sea preceded by attacks on communications, airfields and naval bases. 2 Group […]

Mk Vs of the 301st (U.S.) Battalion taking a German trench. October 1918. In the spring of 1918 a British Army had waited grimly for an attack by forces that it knew would be overwhelming; in the autumn the pendulum had swung and it was Germany’s turn. This time it was not along a single […]