I have received a number of comments about Denis Barnham, artist and former Spitfire pilot, who flew with 601 Squadron over Malta at the height of the siege in April-June 1942.  Denis survived the war and with the help of the diary he kept during his time on the island, later wrote a fabulous memoir of his time out there, published by William Kimber as ‘One Man’s Window.’  Read more…

I’ve just finished writing my new book about the Battle of Britain, which has taken me the best part of three years to put together.  I’ve always been amazed by how often aspects of the Second World War quickly became the acceped way of regarding things and have been continued by historians ever since.  The Battle of Britain is a prime example.  Since the HMSO pamplet published in 1941 first appeared, the Battle has been viewed as RAF Fighter Command versus the Luftwaffe, yet this both isolates it as a much smaller conflict and demeans the significance of what happened in that incredible summer of 1940.  Moreover, most accounts look at it only from the Allied perspective, which also provides a very narrow-minded view. Read more…

The Extraordinary Life of Field Marshal Alexander

When I was a young boy, I used regularly to get a magazine called Look and Learn.  In one of the editions there was a large article on Britain during the Second World War and included circular head and shoulder illustrations of Britain’s war leaders.  Montgomery was one of the field commanders, Alexander was the other.  To my ten year-old eyes, Monty, with his beret and sharp features, aroused my juvenile mistrust. The picture of Alexander, on the other hand, made a considerable impression.  His distinctive peaked cap and smart appearance made him look how I imagined a general should look, but I was also struck by his gentle eyes with laughter lines stretching down from either side.  He seemed kindly and humorous, and at that age, the cut of someone’s gib seemed very important.
From that moment on, Alexander was on my radar – not massively so because for the next twenty years, through school, university and beyond, I never studied the Second World War and had only a passing interest in the subject; but I did not forget about him, nor, for some reason, that image from a magazine that has long since disappeared from the shelves. Read more…

Review of FINEST YEARS: Churchill as Warlord, 1940-1945

It is often muttered that the best MPs are those who have experienced a little bit of life first, and not treated politics as a career that begins the moment they graduate from the student union.  Even a career politician like Churchill, who became an MP at a young age, had already been a soldier and journalist, had killed men in battle, and had travelled to far flung corners of the world before he entered Parliament.  In many ways, this tenet could also apply to historians.   Academic life can be a very closed society: one reads, teaches, produces papers, attends conferences, but does that make one qualified to judge the lives of others?  It can pay, I think, to have been around the block a little, especially when dealing with such a towering figure as Churchill, with all his mighty achievements and failures, extraordinary abilities and failings. Read more…

The perceived wisdom about Nazi hunting goes something like this: after the war, elaborate rat-lines called ‘Odessa’ and ‘Spider’ were established that enabled SS men to escape from the clutches of the Allies. Most ended up in South America, living in luxury haciendas thanks to Nazi loot. However, the hunt continued, with dogged investigators tracking them down and eventually bringing a large number to justice. Amongst these hunters, the name of Simon Wiesenthal stands out – a Jewish death camp survivor responsible for bringing in thousands of former Nazis. Read more…