Showing results by author "Liam Dale" in All Categories

Mention the names Arthur Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy to a cinema-adoring crowd and you’ll get countless reactions in return. A few may scratch their heads. Others may fumble with their ties and grin nervously. If you’re very unlucky, someone will start to cry. But mention the names Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and those reactions will become associated with the characters they know and love. These were the names that made them famous and still conjure up images today. Laurel & Hardy. Popular but not populist. They appealed to the masses; and the masses have kept them in the ...

On December 7th 1941 as World War II raged, the focus of attention was snatched from the battlefields of Europe and diverted to the smoke and flames rising from the American Naval Base in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor. The Empire of the Rising Sun had finally struck, piercing the heart of the US navy in a bid to ensure that their plans for an Asian Empire, every bit as ambitious as Adolf Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, were not threatened. But as the injured were rushed to safety and America reeled from the shock of the Japanese attack, those battling against Hitler, most notably Winston Churchill ...

Russian Roulette July – September 1941 If Hitler had expected a decisive victory in Russia, at speed, he was thwarted at every turn and while the Luftwaffe bombed Moscow and the Siege of Leningrad began, the Soviet Red Army refused to capitulate as they watched and waited for the winter snows. Trouble was also brewing in the Pacific as America took diplomatic action against the Japanese.

The Fall of Singapore January – March 1942 With Britain no longer facing Hitler alone, the first GIs arrived in the UK, while the Japanese took the advantage afforded them by their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. As Singapore fell, the Allies looked on in horror as Japan also had control of Java, Burma and New Guinea, as they edged ever closer towards Australia.

Islamic dominance and control of the Western World is imminent. Terrorism has cowed the native populations into abject submission. A suicide bomber kills a child – the child of the most influential man in the British military. Revenge can lead to powerful and uncontrollable emotions. The military takeover of Britain begins. Full scale civil war surfaces. The watching Western World follows Britain’s lead. Tensions escalate into action between the Islamic World and the Western World. The world’s nuclear powers become involved as the domino theory gathers momentum. Orwell’s 1984 morphs...

The novel is set in the late 1970s, during the TROUBLES in Northern Ireland, and the story was told to the author by the only surviving member of the SAS team involved. The names and places have been changed, and the entire operation has always been denied by the British Government. O'Malley is a Special Forces trained Commando with a growing mental health problem, who is pushed over the edge by the death of his son at the hands of the British army. He turns rogue and begins shooting British soldiers. A specialist SAS assassination squad are assigned to eliminate him but begin to take ...

The whole question of women in history is an elusive one as the most written about ladies tend to be Queens, born or married into positions of power. Some, like the very English Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, built on their birthright with the power of their personalities to enjoy long and successful reins, while others made the history books for all the wrong reasons. And it is to this latter category that the subject of our journal, Marie Antoinette the most famous Queen of France, belongs.

El Alamein to Stalingrad July – September 1942 Hitler’s “Desert Fox”, Rommel pushed forward at El Alamein, but with the arrival of the maverick British General, Bernard Montgomery, to take charge of the Eighth Army in North Africa, the wind of change was about to blow. Meanwhile on the Russian Front Hitler’s troops advanced their Stalingrad campaign, with the Fuhrer boasting that this key city would soon be his.

Brave New World July – September 1945 With Europe sifting through the rubble of a long and bitter war, the Japanese, true to their cultural heritage refused to surrender. The prospect of a protracted land campaign, resulting in the deaths of many more American military personnel, was too high a price to pay, leaving Truman to take the decision to end World War II swiftly, with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Susan Clark has become a Bride for Allah, trapped as an Islamic sex slave in a Middle Eastern hell hole. Back in England, her genius school professor has progressed a little too far in his quest for Artificial intelligence and created a Super-Computer with powers as yet unimaginable. An equally brilliant Islamic scholar has been radicalized and has cloned the professor’s computer. Two individual computers of infinite power in the wrong hands pose a threat to all humanity. A superb blend of reality and probability, that conflicts the rigidly held beliefs of the Medieval Islamic world with ...

There are few amongst us who have not heard of the great romantic poet William Wordsworth, an artist who has for centuries, enchanted his readers with his eloquent verse and magnificent imagery. As a man who revelled in the beauty of nature, his love of the natural world shines through his stirring words, while all the while he attempted to unveil the hidden magic of the countryside. From the beautiful sites of the Lake District where he spent most of his life to the Scottish Lowlands and beyond, Wordsworth created unforgettable images, which would change people’s vision of rural Britain ...

Islamic terrorism had largely been confined to the “Lone Wolf” style of individual attacks. The Western world realized that if manipulated, it could be programmed to self-implode. The British counter terrorism unit was in the way of the grand plan and would have to be eliminated. A CIA trained female assassin was employed. Things didn’t work out. The consequences were serious and far reaching.

Battle Lines Drawn January – March 1940 As the New Year dawned and the people of Britain faced the introduction of rationing, all eyes turned northwards to Scandinavia, where Adolf Hitler was preparing for full-scale invasion. U-Boat attacks increased and at Scapa Flow a German Air Raid claimed the first British casualties.

Fighting Further Afield October – December 1940 Worldwide, the conflict continued to escalate as Japan made their presence felt as signatories of the Tripartite Pact, giving Hitler’s Axis of Evil more power than ever. Britain stood alone as the nightly bombing raids of the Blitz devastated major cities, while overseas British troops joined the Allied campaign for supremacy in North Africa.

Of all the legends of Ancient Greece, the story of Troy and the great battle for the beautiful Helen has to be the most famous, known and loved the whole world over. This is a tale suspended somewhere between fact and fiction, though few of us would ever be prepared to let the truth get in the way of this truly romantic, heroic story. We’re talking epic here, so be prepared for an amazing journey of discovery to a long, lost land, (if it ever really existed at all) where the search for Troy will inevitably lead us. Follow in the footsteps of the mighty heroes; Achilles, Hector, Paris, ...

Onwards, ever Onwards October – December 1944 Despite the fact that Hitler’s position was worsening by the day, the Nazis were still capable of inflicting terrible damage, and when the Germans attempted a breakthrough in the Ardennes region of France, the ensuing Battle of the Bulge resulted in terrible US casualties. Even so, the Germans failed to achieve their objectives, and as the year came to an end, so did Hitler’s last hopes of victory.

Churchill’s Finest Hour April – June 1945 It fell to the Russians to enter Berlin first, and as Hitler took his own life in his bunker, the war in Europe finally came to an end. Winston Churchill led the people of Britain in the VE Day celebrations, but the fighting continued in the Pacific. Sadly, President Roosevelt died in April, just weeks before VE Day, and the task of finishing the task in hand passed to the new American President, Harry S Truman.

The Race for Berlin January – March 1944 While the Russians moved towards Germany from the East, and the Western allies attacked from the opposite direction, the Japanese continued their battle in the Pacific, fighting American Marines to the death on the island of Iwo Jima. As the endgame came into sight, there were desperate measures taken by both sides, and the casualties kept on rising.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity July – September 1944 As the liberation of France got underway, the citizens of a nation oppressed since 1940 celebrated the Allied arrival with rapture. But there was still much to be achieved, on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. For Hitler the writing was on the wall, and when one of his own, Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to assassinate the Fuhrer, he very nearly succeeded.

Tentative Steps July – September 1943 From their success in North Africa the Allies were ready to return to occupied Europe, first landing on Sicily before moving north onto mainland Italy under the command of Montgomery, known fondly by his men as Monty. But as the Italians surrendered, the Germans occupied Rome, making the battle for Italy a long, hard slog, while the plans for the invasion of Northern France steadily took shape.