Revisionism and The Battle of Britain

I’ve got to say that personally, I’m quite sick of the wave of revisionist thinking that’s been going on with regard to the Battle of Britain.  I don’t think it’s prompted any healthy debate at all; rather it has merely denigrated the efforts of the Few.  Read more…

An Unusual Fascist Spy, 26 August 2006

The other day it occurred to me that while I’ve done a fair amount of research on SOE and OSS and the Allied secret intelligence services, I’ve not really examined the German and Italian equivalents.  But of course there were Axis agents operating behind Allied lines every bit as much as Allied agents were operating in the north of Italy.  Read more…

Imperial War Museum, 24 August 2006

For a while I’ve been thinking that the issue over Mark Clark disobeying Alexander’s orders and veering off to capture Rome rather than heading straight to Valmontone and cutting off the retreating German Tenth Army is really only a post-war controversy.   Today, while looking through the papers of General Leese at the Imperial War Museum, I found another piece of evidence to support that.  Read more…

Two Good Days, 17 August, 2006

Have just had two really good days in London.  Yesterday, I got the train up and was at the National Archives in Kew before 11am.  These archives seem to get better with every passing month, and I’ve now cottoned on to the fact that I can order documents and reading desk the day before so that they are waiting for me when I arrive.  In this case, a big folder of translated statements from German commanders in Italy was waiting for me.  Read more…

August 15, 2006
Quite a few interviews in the past few days, filling in gaps and making sure I’ve got everything covered.  Last week I spoke to two Americans over the phone.  Chas Dills, in California, was a former US fighter pilot who flew over Italy.  Read more…