As I travelled to the Junction theatre in Goole with a friend, I had a great deal of trepidation about seeing the play Bomb Happy. Written by Helena Fox, it is based on the experiences of a number of Second World War veterans from York. But not just any veterans, a group of men who […]
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Eric William Ravilious was a British artist who, although born in London, was well known for his paintings of the Sussex landscape. He was part of a group of artists that lived and worked in Sussex before the war who did not just paint, they used many methods and skills including producing woodcuts. His landscapes […]
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I went to see this film in Sheffield today, with some trepidation. It wasn’t just a case of being a big fan of Christopher Nolan’s films (which I am), it was that this film is important. Why important? Well, it’s simply the biggest, most high profile film about the Second World War in some time. […]
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Tonight on Channel 4 my latest piece of Television work will be broadcast, Dunkirk: The New Evidence. This will be the fifth time I have revisited Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo for TV, from Dig 1940 to Dan Snow’s Little Ships. The latest programme was partially inspired by the upcoming Dunkirk movie and it is amazing […]
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The Battle of France began on 10th May 1940 when the Germans attacked into Holland, Belgium and France. With a couple of weeks the Netherlands were overrun, the Belgians had surrendered and the British and French were in retreat to the coast around the port of Dunkirk. Nearly 400,000 Allied servicemen were contained in a […]
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During the Second World War thousands of women from Britain and the Commonwealth served in uniform or in some direct capacity to assist with the war effort. None were fighters, but they were on the front line as WW2 saw the Home Front become as deadly as the battlefield. The images here featured in an […]
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Today is 6th June: the anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces landed on the Normandy coastline. D-Day and Normandy has prompted thousands of books, and during the campaign many thousands of photos were taken on both sides of the battlefield. These are a small selection of rarely seen images. 1. Rommel’s Asparagus, Utah Beach This […]
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He took the defining photo of the U.S.S.R.’s victory over Nazi Germany, although many of his photographs were heavily doctored or staged for Soviet propaganda purposes. But instead of accolades from communist authorities, Yevgeny Khaldei — born 100 years ago in 1917 — struggled to remain employed as anti-Semitism swept through the Soviet Union. Yevgeny Khaldei […]
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I enlisted in the Army in 1938. During World War 2 I served in North Africa, Italy, and India. I landed in North Africa as part of ‘Operation Torch’ After the fighting in Tunisia and Algeria I received extra training in the desert at a French outpost Chateau Dun. This covered driving and maintenance of […]
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In an age when the digital manipulation of images is commonplace, we are now used to seeing ‘colourised’ photographs of classic images from the Second World War. Some of these are good, some less so, some exceptional, like the work of Marina Amaral. However, we often forget that colour photos of warfare date back to […]
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