Military

Reports from the First Crusade brought tales of victorious Christian soldiers eating dead bodies.

Hitler’s Deserters: Breaking Ranks with the Wehrmacht by Douglas Carl Peifer surfaces the stories of those who sought to sit out the Second World War.

The Vietnam War effectively ended on 30 April 1975 with the arrival of the North Vietnamese army in Saigon. Thousands fled the city, but many more were left behind.

On 5 March 1936 the prototype Spitfire made its maiden flight. Its creator R.J. Mitchell would not live to see its finest hour.

The Great Siege of Malta by Marcus Bull upends the myth of the Knights of Malta and their last stand of 1565. 

American air raids on Japan’s capital burned the city in March 1945, killing 80,000 people in one night alone. ‘Had to be done’, said the general who ordered it. 

The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain: 1815-1945 by N.A.M. Rodger looks above decks for the story of the modern Royal Navy.

British soldiers fighting in the American Revolutionary War were unprepared for the terrain awaiting them across the Atlantic. Many thought that America was determined to destroy them; some felt it had succeeded.

‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That the history of war is the same as military history.’