Nazi Germany conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France, all involving heavy use of air power, either transporting troops or closely supporting the armoured forces on the ground. Later the RAF Fighter Command would defend Britain against the Luftwaffe's drive for air superiority over the English Channel and in the autumn the Blitz against London and other British cities. The first civilian death in an air raid on Britain in the Second World War came in March 1940, when a man was killed in an attack on the Scapa Flow Naval Base in Orkney. The RAF retaliated with a raid by 50 bombers on the German seaplane base very close to the German border with Denmark at Hornum. Events really began to move in April when Hitler fixed the date of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. One side effect of note was the occupation by British troops of Iceland on 10th May. On 30th April, believing that the Scandinavian campaign was over, Hitler ordered his generals to make their final preparations for the attack against Western Europe, and on 10th May, the assault began. What followed was the Luftwaffe's infamous bombing of Rotterdam on 14th May. The RAF adapted quickly although the Westland Lysanders proved inadequate and were withdrawn almost immediately following the German offensive. Only two of nine Blenheims returned from a mission on 12th May. The RAF deployed Hawker Hurricanes to France with the BEF, but not Spitfires, so the first the Germans would see of the Spitfire was over the beaches of Dunkirk. On 7th September almost 350 German bombers escorted by more than 600 fighters were easily able to find their targets in the London Docks and many ships were sunk and warehouses full of inflammable stores set alight. From that night until mid-November an average of 160 aircraft attacked London every night except when the weather was bad. While the Blitz in London was still raging, the war in the Mediterranean was starting to gain momentum as Mussolini ordered Italian forces to invade Greece from Albania. The Greek leader accepted the offer of RAF squadrons. These events are told in this photographic compendium of 128 pages in large softback, captioned. Some colour.

The Brutal Truth of Campo 21, 1942-1943 is the sub-title. As Rommel began to achieve Axis victories in north Africa, thousands of Allied POWs were transferred to camps in mainland Italy. An estimated 35,000 prisoners were taken after the Allied defeat at Tobruk, with the result that conditions in the camps were notoriously insanitary and overcrowded, with Campo 21 at Chieti one of the most degrading. In spite of that, the POWs kept up the tradition of maintaining morale with attempts to escape, organised sport and theatrical entertainments. Superficially the camp looked modern to the new arrivals but they found it was structurally unsound with primitive sanitary systems and the water supply frequently non-existent. The security officer in the camp, Captain Mario Croce, was soon identified as a vindictive gaoler, while the camp commandant, Barela, was a keen Fascist. The first Commandant personally beat up one recaptured escaper. A pilot was murdered by an Italian guard following his escape attempt. The British Lieutenant Jack Hodgson was a talented artist and his drawings of the camp, many of which are reproduced here, give us an unparalleled insight into what it was really like, while the cartoonist Gordon Horner has left us impressions of the personnel. Among the early intake Tony Maxtone Graham became chairman of the Dramatic Society. He was family man who missed his wife, author of the wartime Mrs Miniver books, and three children, though the marriage did not survive the war. The musician Anthony Baines recreated the score of HMS Pinafore from memory for the prisoners to perform, and sport was also a major distraction, with England Cricketer Bill Bowes and rugby international Tony Roncoroni leading the field. Amateur dramatics not only gave the prisoners a focus for their lives but also provided camouflage for escape attempts, with the wardrobe section creating German uniforms and the timber for scenery used for shoring up tunnels. The first uniformed escape was by Joseph Farrell, who had good Italian but was caught on the railway without a ticket. Subsequent attempts became ever more sophisticated, with one notable break being made by an officer who impersonated Captain Croce himself. 251pp, photos.

Far from home and faced with the horrors of combat, hundreds of men and boys fighting in World War Two found comfort and companionship with the animals they adopted at training centres and in war zones around the world. The book is sub-titled 'Heart Warming Photos of GIs and Their Dogs In World War Two', and author and historian L. Douglas Keeney sifted through many of the more than 2.5 million photographs at the National Archive to discover some of the greatest mascot and pet photography taken between 1941 and 1945, compiled from the collections of all branches of the US Military. A B-17 crew in England rigged an oxygen mask for their dog. A stray dog ran through a hail of bullets up the gangplank of a coastguard landing ship in the Pacific. A GI was caught stuffing a dog into his duffel bag. They were photographed and these photographs sent home and published in newspapers and magazines and became part of the theme the home front needed - that the boys were doing alright. Sinbad is a fighting dog from a fighting ship who slept through it all in his bunk when the cutter ran into a U-boat pack, depth charged six submarines, and sank the last by ramming it. Meet Soogie the mascot of a coastguard manned LCI operating in French waters, three years since he came aboard in Galveston, Texas. There are puppies, one abandoned on a sinking ship and rescued by Commander Dixon and Doc Sunshine on cheering-up duty shaking paws bunk to bunk as soldiers recover. The images are by turns funny, moving and inspiring showing the men at work and rest, soldiers, sailors and pilots, and although dogs were the most popular mascots, a few chickens, crows, rats, goats, monkeys and parakeets endeared themselves to US soldiers. Chapters include Dog Tags, Dogs and Dog Faces, Dog Fights, Salty Dogs, Semper Fido and Mascots of the US Marine Corps and Humour in the Face of War. Max the Boxer was a fully-fledged paratrooper in the Army who earned his wings after five jumps. Skippy is a Pitbull/pointer who played a big part in his bomber crew so much so that some of its members painted him on their B-17 Flying Fortresses and fitted him with a custom oxygen mask. Hobo was the Navy dog who followed his pals onto the landing craft when they took a beach. Big archive photos on every page, 175 page large softback.

The modern town of Cambridge can be traced back to at least AD875 and in medieval times there were leather and woollen industries. In 1209 Oxford scholars, seeking refuge from hostile townspeople there, settled in Cambridge, and Peterhouse, the oldest of the Cambridge colleges, was founded in 1284. There has always been a certain amount of friction between town and gown, although the university has provided the main 'industry' for Cambridge over several hundred years. The University Library is one of only five copyright libraries in the UK. At the start of the 20th century it was a privileged life for some, but many in Cambridge knew that war was truly inevitable. Terrible rumours were rife, that the Germans would burn the University Library and raze King's College Chapel to the ground before firing shells along the tranquil 'Backs' of the River Cam until the weeping willows were just blackened stumps. Town and gown rivalries were put aside as the city united against the common enemy. Our book tells the story of the grim years of the Great War. Thousands of university students, graduates and lecturers alike enlisted along with patriotic townsfolk. The First Eastern General Military Hospital was subsequently established on the site of the present University Library and treated more than 80,000 casualties from the Western Front. Though the university had been the long-time hub of life and employment in the town, many people suffered great losses and were parted from loved ones, decimating traditional breadwinners and livelihoods, from the rationing of food, drink and fuel, to hundreds of restrictions imposed by DORA. As a result, feelings ran high and eventually led to riots beneath the raiding zeppelins and ever-present threat of death. The poet Robert Brooke, a graduate of King's College, died on his way to Dardanelles in 1915, but his most famous poem The Soldier became a pre-emptive memorial and the epitaph of millions. 'If I should die think only this of me, that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.' Here is the city as the great focus for military, medical and mercantile interests within all the eastern counties of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely during 1914-18. 128 page paperback, well illus. with archive photos.

Sub-titled 'The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot', when first published in 1933 the book was considered the ultimate record of aerial combat in the First World War. Its extraordinary photographs showed men and machines apparently in their last moments, struggling for survival and victory over the skies of France. So remarkable were the photographs that their veracity was immediately questioned, and it was not until 1983 that the true origin of the book was finally discovered. The author was Wesley Archer, an American who served with the RFC, and the photographs and diary had been faked. The Introduction to this edition tells the fascinating story in detail and reveals the truth behind the mystery diarist. The origin of Death in the Air lies with a 1931 exhibition of aviation art which included 'The Cockburn-Lang Collection' which attracted enormous attention. Early on, doubt was cast about the authenticity of the photographs and it was only in 1983 that it was established that Cockburn-Lang was the pseudonym for the wife of Wesley Archer who had indeed been a WWI pilot, an American serving with the LRAFs (his parents were Canadian). On October 9th 1918 he was shot down by ground fire while strafing German infantry in his SE5. A bullet headed for his heart was deflected by his Colt automatic, the badly dented one now at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The book has a telegraphic style, understated heroics and flyers' slang and reading it you get to know the squadron - Jock, Canada, Mick, Chilli, Todd, Red, Kaffir and all the others. When one is missing after a run-in with the enemy, you suffer. When the author gets depressed and hits the bottle, you worry; when he meets a girl, you cheer. The daring hoax paid off well. We have a facsimile reprint of the 1985 edition with a new introduction 2016 and with very useful explanatory notes for such acronyms as A.A. = anti-aircraft batteries. 166pp, paperback.

The bayonet is essentially a knife fixed to the end of a gun, used for charging the enemy when firepower fails. There is something chilling about the order to "fix bayonets", heralding as it does uncompromisingly brutal hand to hand fighting, but there was bayonet warfare in the Falklands conflict and in Afghanistan in the 21st century. Norris draws on personal accounts of soldiers using bayonets in combat from the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars, various Colonial campaigns, through the World Wars. The bayonet originated in the French city of Bayonne and was introduced into military service in 1647. The earliest bayonets were of the plug type, with tapering handles capable of being fitted into the mouth of a musket when needed. When King Charles II was restored to the throne of England he placed an order for 500 bayonets, until then almost unknown this side of the Channel. The muskets in service, however, were not in good repair and the insertion of a bayonet tended to split the metal, so adjustments were made to allow the bayonet to be inserted through rings on a flintlock rather than into the muzzle. The bayonet also proved an effective intimidatory measure while soldiers were reloading, given that it added an extra 12 inches to a musket barrel already five foot long. In the 18th century the blade was now triangular in section and the bayonet itself was fitted with a Z-shaped slot that prevented it from falling off. The British faced French forces in the American War of Independence, but had to yield before their superior musket and bayonet technique. At Waterloo in 1815 the bayonet was effective in breaking up the enemy lines at the end of the battle. During World War I each of the three main belligerents had their own bayonet design, and today's contemporary bayonets are produced to exacting metalworking standards. 209pp, white photos.

In Mamucium in 79AD, the establishment of the Roman fort is the first known record of any formal military presence in the area that is now the Castlefield district. The site was previously occupied as a defensive hill fort by the ancient Britons or Brigants who were native to the area. Roman auxiliaries used the fort to protect the road from Chester (Deva Victrix) to York (Eboracum). The next major era of military activity at Manchester occurred in the Civil War and the Siege of Manchester in 1642. Manchester's declaration as a Parliamentarian town had far-reaching consequences in terms of its military legacy and on the voting rights of Mancunians. The Peterloo Massacre of August 1819 was a scene of a mass rally brought about by demands to repeal the Corn Laws, introduce universal suffrage, and reform other repressive legislation. The cavalry charge that resulted in the deaths of 18 innocent protestors and the wounding of over 500 took place at St. Peter's Fields, now St. Peter's Square. It resulted in the establishment of the Manchester Guardian and also the rise of radical free-thinking in the city, not always welcomed by those in authority. Both world wars had a profound influence on the city and through the pages of the local press, the establishment of the Manchester Regiment is detailed as is the later Manchester Pals. Heaton Park became their base while Field Marshal Kitchener visited the city to boost recruitment. Later the Luftwaffe's bombing campaign of December 1940, the Manchester Blitz, left the city with a legacy that has changed it beyond all recognition into the 21st century. Other chapters include The Boer War and The Home Front. Packed with nostalgic photographs throughout, 128pp in large softback, maps and colour plates.

Warfare results from disordered identity and in earlier times can be traced to the progress of urbanisation, or more recently to the ideology of the secular state being replaced by fundamentalist religious loyalties, which frequently assert that religion is more important than material wealth, a tendency seen not only in modern Islam but also in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. The author of this book puts forward themes that challenge the received thinking about warfare, focusing on three arguments: that small wars are inevitable, that they will mostly be concentrated in areas where honour is valued and material possessions disdained, and thirdly, that most wars will use professional soldiers and elite forces to reduce the political costs. The book was published before the current war in Ukraine and the author notes that our politicians tell us that general war is unlikely. But he adds, "Wars just over the horizon of our awareness are nothing new, as the examples in this book will illustrate". He comments that we tend to worry about weapons of mass destruction, but points out that the jihadists on 9/11 used only box cutters to hijack the planes that did such massive damage and changed our world-picture. Spain and Portugal created the first great colonial empires, encouraging the exploitation of native peoples without provoking rebellion. Military historians of the 19th century were divided on whether the world could be controlled by conquering eastern Europe and central Asia, or whether sea power and domination of trade and coastlines was the route to global power. This debate lay at the back of the "Great Game", focused on the prevention of Russian expansion. Ignorance of the terrain in Afghanistan led to impossible expectations, but the British had better agents and were eventually able to stop Russian colonisation of India. It was only a matter of time until the British, too, lost their empire. 226pp.

Fought near to or around York, Towton, Stamford Bridge, Marston Moor and Fulford were some of the most infamous and bloodiest battles on English soil. One of the oldest settlements in western Europe, York has changed and been changed by waves of settlers and conquerors and was easily reached as historically navigable from the great Humber Estuary and surrounded by Yorkshire fens. York has long been significant both politically and militarily, and with overland transportation difficult, this route inland from the coast to York provided deep penetration into the northern English countryside. The Romans built a great fortified city and military settlement from which they could foray to Scotland and the Picts. York's significance was emphasised when Constantine was made Emperor whilst residing there. The Vikings then swept into Northern England with Jorvic, reborn as their capital, York, much to their liking. Once subsumed into Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, York continued its strategic significance through late Saxon times, during the Norman Conquest, and into medieval England. Following vicious religious strife during the reigns of the later Tudors, civil war played out again under the Stuart kings and Parliamentary Commonwealth. The last direct conflict occurred when York was targeted for retaliatory Baedeker raids by German bombers during April 1942. The city's remarkable history and longevity and significance on the English and sometimes international stage has left a unique and unparalleled military history. Useful chronology, chapters include The Jacobite Rebellion, The Second World War and the Cold War, Service, Honours and Awards, The Walls and Other Defences and The Military Heritage among them. 128 page large softback, very well illustrated throughout, fact boxes and colour plates and maps.

Weaving the lives of brothers, sisters, wives, husbands and lovers seamlessly, this sweeping narrative casts a highly personal light on some of the most significant episodes of the Second World War. The book is the heart-wrenching reality faced by so many families whose sons and daughters were caught up in war. What would it be like to spend six years fearing what a telegram might bring? From the Blitz to the battlefields of Europe and the Far East, this is the remarkable story of four brothers and two sisters. Harold was a surgeon in a London hospital alongside his sister Ruth, a nurse, when the bombs began to fall in 1940. Peter was captured in the fall of Singapore. Edward fought the Germans in Italy, and Walter the Japanese in Burma, while in London, glamorous Bee hoped for lasting happiness with an American airman. Walter?s granddaughter Annabel Venning tells the moving tales of her relatives who were swept along by the momentous events of the war. 'If you can read the passage on the bombing of St. Thomas's Hospital, you'll truly appreciate great writing, and sheer terror.' - Edward Donne. 313pp, index, photos and map.