The iconic Spitfire found fame during the darkest early days of World War II. But what happened to the redoubtable fighter and its crews beyond the Battle of Britain, and why is it still so loved today? In late Spring 1940, Nazi Germany's domination of Europe had looked unstoppable. With the British Isles in easy reach since the fall of France, Adolf Hitler was convinced that Great Britain would be defeated in the skies over her southern coast, confident...

Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines speak in their own words about real life in today's armed forces. These are the brutally honest stories usually only shared amongst comrades in arms; stories of life-and-death decisions, and learning how to live with the effects of horrific injuries, both physical and mental. In the voices of the men and women who've fought overseas, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, this is a rare eye-opening look into what...

'I WAS JUST TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OLD WHEN I WENT TO BURMA. IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE THAT CHANGED MY LIFE FOR EVER. UP UNTIL THAT TIME, I HAD NOT REALLY TRAVELLED ANYWHERE AT ALL, APART FROM ONE TOURING VISIT TO HOLLAND WITH A BAND I WAS SINGING WITH BEFORE THE WAR, AND I HAD CERTAINLY NEVER BEEN IN AN AEROPLANE. BUT I WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, TO DO MY BIT.' Written with her daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones, this is the story of the time Vera Lynn spent...

This is the story of the Walkers, six siblings (including the author's grandfather) who survived Blitz, battle and internment and lived to tell the tale. This ordinary family's extraordinary experiences combine to tell a new social history of World War Two.

The story of Bletchley Park's codebreaking operations in the Second World War is now well known, but its counterparts in the First World War - Room 40 & MI1(b) - remain in the shadows, despite their involvement in and influence on most of the major events of that war. From first Battle of the Marne, the shelling of Scarborough, the Battles of Jutland and the Somme in 1916, the first 'Battle of Britain', the 'Zimmermann Telegram', to the Battles of...

Renowned World War Two historian James Holland presents an entirely new perspective on one of the most important moments in recent history. Unflinchingly examining the brutality and violence that characterised the campaign, it's time to draw some radically different conclusions. D-Day and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed have come to be seen as a defining episode in the Second World War. In this re-examined history, James Holland...

The story of the Royal Air Force, from its creation as the first major independent air force in the world in 1918, through World War and Cold War, to the struggle against jihadi terrorism in the 21st century.

Operation Chastise, the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron on the night of 16/17 May 1943, was an epic that has passed into Britain's national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who led the raid. In the 21st Century, however, he urges that we should see the dambusters in much more complex shades. The...

Sunday June 22nd 1941. 6 million Nazi troops marched on Moscow, with a brutal scorched-earth tactic that saw millions of Soviet citizens massacred. A level of brutality only paralleled after the Soviet's triumphed at Stalingrad, and took mindless revenge as they marched back into Berlin. Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, to the appalling circumstances of the Fall of Berlin in April 1945 and...

Films and TV documentaries tend to glorify the D-Day tale, told through iconic heroes, almost akin to a Homeric Iliad account. Objective truth is so much more difficult to achieve. There were heroes yes, who were brave, generous and resolute in sacrificing thousands of lives to free people they had never met. But there was also human frailty in abundance. The assault on the Normandy beaches was exactly what German propaganda foresaw should be the...