England Wars

Forever England explores Rupert Brooke’s life, from schooldays to the Great War, and in so doing builds a remarkable picture of a long-lost England and a generation’s descent into war. Brooke’s poems emerge dramatically from a tangled web of love, friendship, mental illness and politics. He reveals also the existence of a previously unrecorded love child from a South Seas romance. The WW1 legend was largely brought about by the words of one of his sonnets: "If I should die, think only this of me/That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England".

Ross Kemp has encountered conflict and warfare the world over, broadcasting from some of the most volatile military hot-zones. From meeting the world's deadliest gangsters, to perhaps his hardest assignment of all; embedded with the British Army in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where he witnessed some of the fiercest fighting of the conflict and was trained in the tactics they use to stay alive.

Scouted for her incredible language skills and recruited to work undercover for the French Resistance in occupied France, Claire must learn to evade the enemy and help her allies in secret. Amidst the danger and hiding from the Gestapo, Claire falls in love with striking French-Canadian captain Alain Mitchell. But no one can know about their feelings for each other, and everything is at stake.

The Plunge, is all about getting out of your comfort zone to achieve something. Taking the plunge. George had made fleeting appearances in the three earlier stories, well this is his story. He is the longest story so far .., and he is a busy man. He runs his own business, he is Kathy's father, father-in-law to Hal and Jo's big brother. Not surprisingly, he is too busy to tell his tale, so his wife Penny has taken on the task. She has been there from the beginning and met the important people that came before. Enjoy

The Crew recounts the intimate, personal testimonies of Wing Commander Ken Cook, who served as Bomb Aimer with the Comans crew. The audiobook specifically follows Flying Officer Jim Comans and his crewmen from their enlistment as volunteers, through training and into operational service. The Comans crew flew 45 hazardous bombing missions - mostly deep into Germany at night - through the winter of 1943 to the summer of 1944.

The British people had no sooner finished rescuing their trapped army from Dunkirk than they found themselves preparing for an attack from the Germans once again. But the heroism of the Royal Air Force and the fortitude of the British people turned Germany’s certain victory into defeat, forcing Hitler to abandon his plans to invade England. “We shall never surrender,” Churchill vowed, and his words rallied a nation, delivering a blow to the Nazi war machine that would, in the end, prove to be a turning point in World War II.

Do you want to learn more about the Winston Churchill, but don’t have time to listen to huge, long biographies. Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his tenure in World War 2. Winston Churchill had undeniably given his all for King and country and an allied victory promised to be his finest hour; but he was wise to be cautious, and quite incredibly his own future as the nation’s Prime Minister was far from assured.

History is swamped by patriotic myths about the aerial combat fought between the RAF and the Luftwaffe over the summer of 1940. In his gripping history of the Battle of Britain, Len Deighton drew on a decade of research and his own wartime experiences to puncture these myths and point towards a more objective, and even more inspiring, truth.

It is not often that a long-hidden gem of a manuscript is published, bringing a moment in WWII history to vivid life for today’s audiences. Geoffrey Wellum’s First Light was one example. The memoir of Timothy Vigors is another. Born in Hatfield but raised in Ireland and educated at Eton and Cranwell, Vigors found himself in France in 1940 flying Fairey Battle bombers. After the Fall he joined the fighters of 222 Squadron, with whom he saw frantic and distinguished service over Dunkirk and persevered through the dangerous days of the Battle of Britain, when he became an ace.

He was born Michael Warnick, a native of Duluth, Minnesota. A high school linebacker. An all-American kid. But the world would come to know him as Umar ibn Hassan. An eloquent and charismatic cleric, the American-born Hassan has made a name for himself with the Islamic State in the Egyptian Sinai. A powerful symbol in the fight against the West. For months, the CIA, working in coordination with Egyptian Special Forces, has been trying to capture Hassan. They've failed. So now, their mission has been "simplified": kill him.

In The Making of Modern Britain, Andrew Marr paints a fascinating portrait of life in Britain during the first half of the twentieth century as the country recovered from the grand wreckage of the British Empire. Between the death of Queen Victoria and the end of the Second World War, the nation was shaken by war and peace. The two wars were the worst we had ever known and the episodes of peace among the most turbulent and surprising.

In the tradition of Ben MacIntyre, Game of Spies tells the story of a lethal spy triangle in Bordeaux between 1942 and 1944 - and of France's greatest betrayal, by aristocratic and right-wing Resistance leader Andre Grandclement. The story centres on three men - one British, one French and one German - and the duel they fought out in an atmosphere of collaboration, betrayal and assassination, in which comrades sold fellow comrades, Allied agents and downed pilots to the Germans as casually as they would a bottle of wine.

Mention the spirit of Dunkirk today and people will associate the phrase with that “never say die” mentality so closely associated with the British as a nation. However, few would be able to tell you more than the fact that Dunkirk had something to do with World War II, and that it’s very probably a place in France. This is of course correct on both counts, although metaphorically speaking, just the tip of the iceberg.

For Christian readers seeking to delve into the historical intersections of faith and governance, "Oliver Cromwell: The Last King of England" offers a unique perspective on a pivotal figure whose life unfolded against the backdrop of profound religious and political change. This meticulously researched biography navigates Cromwell's journey, providing insights into his deep-rooted Puritan convictions and the role of faith in shaping his leadership. As readers explore the complexities of Cromwell's era, they will witness the intertwining of religious fervor, political upheaval, and the quest...

Virtuous Dove captures a sedate traditional look of life as it was in Victoria England. Newly released, this was the first book published in the Doves Collect series. Abolitionist, Felicity Phelps witnessing her mother and father's gruesome death; aiding runners in the Underground Railroad, flees America to Victoria England, the land of her ancestors. Discover with Felicity that not all appears as it is on the surface of the elite of society and those of the unfortunate forced to live in workhouses. Both classes are equally vulnerable when wealth and power are at stake. Can her virtues be ...

After the fall of France in May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force was miraculously evacuated from Dunkirk. Britain now stood alone to face Hitler’s inevitable invasion attempt. For the German army to land across the channel, Hitler needed mastery of the skies - the Royal Air Force would have to be broken. So every day throughout the summer, German bombers pounded the RAF air bases in the southern counties.

Europe’s attempts to appease Hitler failed, as Nazi Germany swallowed up Austria and Czechoslovakia by 1939. The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was Germany's invasion of Poland on September 1 of that year. Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, and World War II had begun in earnest. Of course, as most people now know, the invasion of Poland was merely the preface to the Nazi blitzkrieg of most of Western Europe.The narrative is that the British stood alone in 1940 against the Nazi onslaught....

An incredible, rare glimpse into the inner world of Nazi espionage. World War II seems to provide an endless supply of amazing true stories of heroism in the face of mortal danger. This true account of an MI6 agent's kidnapping and survival is a real-life spy thriller, and one worth knowing. On November 9, 1939, Captain Sigismund Payne Best and other members of Britain's ultra-secret Z service sat near a cafe in Venlo, The Netherlands, waiting to meet with whom supposedly-sound intelligence told them would be German resistance leaders.

Gallipoli: the mere name summons the story of this well-known campaign of the First World War. And the story of Gallipoli, where in August 1915 the Allied forces made their last valiant effort against the Turks, is one of infamous might-have-beens. If only the Allies had held out a little longer, pushed a little harder, had better luck, Gallipoli might have been the decisive triumph that knocked the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War.

In 1940 a group of artists, sculptors, film makers, theatre designers and set painters came together to form the Camouflage Unit. Led by Major Geoffrey Barkas and including among their number the internationally renowned stage magician Jasper Maskelyne, the unit's projects became a crucial battlefield weapon.