La Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 35-metre (110 ft) cliff overlooking the English Channel on the northwestern coast of Normandy in the Calvados department, France.
Lieutenant Herbert Denham Brotheridge was a British Army officer who served with the 2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during the Second World War. He is often considered to be the first Allied soldier to be killed in action on D-Day, 6 June 1944. He was killed during Operation Tonga: the British airborne landings which secured the left flank of the invasion area before the main assault on the Normandy beaches began.
Wing Commander Frank Arthur Brock was a British officer commissioned into the Royal Artillery, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) and finally, when the RNAS merged with the RFC, the Royal Air Force. He invented the explosive bullet that destroyed the German Zeppelins and he devised and executed the smoke screen used during the Zeebrugge Raid on 23 April 1918, an attempt by the Royal Navy to block the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge during the First World War.
Brian James Bond is a British military historian and professor emeritus of military history at King's College London.
The 214th Infantry Brigade was an infantry brigade of the British Army raised during the Second World War that saw active service on the North West Europe.
Philip J. Haythornthwaite FRHistS is an author and historical consultant specialising in military history, uniforms, and equipment. While his main area of research is the Napoleonic Wars, his list of publications covers a wider period from the English Civil War through to 1939.
Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 was a Luftwaffe night fighter-wing of World War II. NJG 3 was formed on 29 September 1941 in Stade from Stab./Zerstörergeschwader 26.
This is the order of battle for Operation Epsom, a Second World War battle between British and German forces in Normandy, France between 26 June and 30 June 1944.
Peter Hammond Liddle is a British historian and author specialising in the study of the First and Second World Wars. In the 1960s he developed the Liddle Collection, a large collection of interviews and memorabilia mainly relating to the First World War that is now held at the University of Leeds.
No. 656 Squadron RAF was an air observation post unit of the Royal Air Force in India and Burma during the Second World War and afterwards in British Malaya. Numbers 651 to 663 Squadron of the RAF were air observation post units working closely with British Army units in artillery spotting and liaison. Their duties and squadron numbers were transferred to the Army with the formation of the Army Air Corps on 1 September 1957 With this it became 656 Light Aircraft Squadron Army Air Corps.
Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers mining company in Kimberley for use by the British in the Siege of Kimberley during the Second Boer War.
Michael Glover (1922–1990) served in the British army during the Second World War, after which he joined the British Council and became a professional author. He has written many articles and books on Napoleonic and Victorian warfare.
Digby George Smith, who also used the pseudonym Otto von Pivka, was a British military historian. The son of a British career soldier, he was born in Hampshire, England, but spent several years in India and Pakistan as a child and youth. As a "boy soldier", he entered training in the British Army at the age of 16. He was later commissioned in the Royal Corps of Signals, and held several postings with the British Army of the Rhine.
Leonard Cooper worked for numerous publishing houses before setting up his own independent publishing house, Leo Cooper Ltd, in 1968.
Lionel Leventhal is a British publisher of books on military history and related topics, whose eponymous company was established in 1967.
Royal Air Force Shipton was a First World War era airfield located north of the village of Shipton-by-Beningbrough, in North Yorkshire, England. During the First World War, it was used by No. 76 Squadron RAF whose remit was to provide Home Defence (HD).
Exercise Spring Train was an annual Royal Navy-led NATO maritime exercise conducted in the Eastern Atlantic. It is most notable for the 1982 exercise which involved seven warships that were subsequently sent to the South Atlantic after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. Because the vessels involved already had full crews and were able to crossdeck supplies from other ships in the exercise the British response was more rapid than would have otherwise been possible. Two of the vessels involved in the exercise, the Type 42 destroyers Sheffield and Coventry, were sunk during the war. There has been speculation that some of the ships sent to the Falklands from Exercise Spring Train were carrying tactical nuclear weapons, which were routinely carried when on NATO deployments. The 1983 edition of the exercise was criticised by the Spanish and Soviet government who considered it provocative.
