The lightning Japanese offensives in the Far East in 1941/42 inflicted a series of costly defeats on the ill-prepared and badly supported British Commonwealth f

The Second World War was Britain's last conflict as a world power. For a year it saw Britain standing alone against the fascist dictatorships; winning it demand

On 1 September 1939, when Germany attacked Poland, the Wehrmacht numbered 3,180,000 men. It eventually expanded to 9,500,000, and on 8-9 May 1945, the date of i

The scope of Britain's wartime Middle East Command stretched far beyond the Libyan desert where the 8th Army's most famous battles were fought from Gibraltar an

The population of Britain was mobilized to support the war effort on a scale unseen in any other Western democracy – or in Nazi Germany. They endured long wor