Welcome to the British Modern Military History Society

Welcome to the British Modern Military History Society. Formed in early 2019, we organise monthly talks for anyone interested in military history over the last 200 years from Napoleonic times to the present day.   

Our talks will be given by writers, academics, former military personnel, and experts and will cover a wide variety of topics and events – hopefully an interesting cocktail to encourage you to join us.  Based in Woodcote Village Hall RG8 0QY (near Wallingford) in South Oxfordshire. We have a full schedule of events arranged for the coming months including talks on Arnhem, the Cold War, the Falklands and the Battle of the Atlantic.

Eminent historian and broadcaster Dr. Helen Fry will be giving our next talk on Wednesday 25th September 2019 on how the British gathered important intelligence by covert means from senior German POW’s.

Entry cost is just £8, payable on the door,  and will include the talk and a Q & A, drinks, light snacks (sandwiches etc.) and a contribution to a military charity. Car parking is available on site. Everyone is welcome.
 
Do join us for what should be a fascinating talk.  To help us with catering and numbers, please let us know if you are coming either through info@bmmhs.org  or our Facebook Event page. 
 

We are always looking for new articles about your family’s military experiences for this website and also for additional speakers on specific military subjects – see our latest Speaker wishlist.

Contact us on info@bmmhs.org and on Facebook or through our website www.bmmhs.org about future talks and activities, any articles you wish to be included and if you know of any speakers who could help us.

HF Sold Out

Next Meeting Wednesday 25th September; Woodcote Village Hall RG8 0QY 7:30pm
Dr Helen Fry

A Very Secret War: Bugging Hitler’s Generals in World War 2

 

Memorial service for 75th anniversary of the loss of Halifax VII, NP681 RCAF that crashed at Newnham Manor Farm, Crowmarsh Gifford.

426 (Thunderbird) Squadron RCAF.
Wing Commander (Ret) Jim Wright DFC, former navigator with the Bomber Command Pathfinder Force
Helen Fry Talk is NOW SOLD OUT

New Article from Steve Richards:
J landers Fighter Ace

Fighter Ace John Landers
Click on image for the article

Just Some of the talks already booked for 2020

Squadron Leader Ulf Burberry’s crew run towards a Handley Page Victor of No. 15 (XV) Squadron during a demonstration scramble at RAF Cottesmore, June © IWM, RAF-T 1018

Bill Pyke - Sir John Slessor – An unsung Cold War Strategist - March 2020

Click here for more details
THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC. JULY 1941, WESTERN APPROACHES COMMAND, DERBY HOUSE, LIVERPOOL. OPERATIONS AND TACTICAL COMMAND FOR THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC IS LOCATED DOWN BELOW THE GROUND IN SECRET WARRENS, BUILT OF STEEL AND CONCRETE. MEN OF THE ROYAL NAVY, ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE, AND ROYAL NAVAL VOLUNTEER RESERVE AS WELL AS WRENS WORK DAY AND NIGHT IN CLOSE CO-OPERATION WITH THE RAF. (A 4527) The Operations Room, with its large map on which small symbols and flags show every move in the Battle of the Atlantic. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205138797

Robin Brodhurst - The Battle of the Atlantic: the Turning Point - May 2020

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Previous Meeting: Philip K Allan. The Wooden World life in Nelson's Navy

July 3rd 2019​

Cold War Royal Navy Submarine operations

Chris Munns - Cold War – RN Submarine Operations - June 2020

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Taranto the sinking of the Italian fleet in World war Two

Paul Beaver - The Battle of Taranto - September 2020

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Wantage & the sinking of HMS Royal Oak

Coming Soon - New Article - The sinking of HMS Royal Oak

Some of the events that took place this month in history….

On This Day: 1st September 1939 German forces attack Poland across all frontiers and its planes bomb Polish cities, including Warsaw. Just before dawn, German tanks, infantry and cavalry penetrated Polish territory on several fronts with five armies, a total of 1.5 million troops. The attack came without any warning or declaration of war. Britain and France were forced to declare war after Germany ignored their separate ultimatums demanding the withdrawal of German troops from Poland. Britain then declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939.
On This Day: 2nd September 1898 Charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman, 2 September 1898 Oil on canvas by Edward Matthew Hale (1852-1924), 1899. © NAM. 1957-04-4-1
PENANG CONFERENCE ON BOARD HMS NELSON. 28 AUGUST TO 2 SEPTEMBER 1945, ON BOARD THE BRITISH BATTLESHIP HMS NELSON, FLAGSHIP OF VICE ADMIRAL H T C WALKER. DURING THE PENANG SURRENDER AND RE-OCCUPATION NEGOTIATIONS. REAR ADMIRAL UZUNI AND THE JAPANESE GOVERNOR OF PENANG SIGNED FOR THE JAPANESE AFTER WHICH THE DOCUMENTS OF AGREEMENT WERE SIGNED BY VICE ADMIRAL H T C WALKER AT 2115 HOURS ON 1 SEPTEMBER 1945. ROYAL MARINES OF THE BRITISH EAST INDIES FLEET FORMALLY TOOK OVER THE ISLAND ON 3 SEPTEMBER 1945. (A 30472) The Japanese officers arrive on board the NELSON, one is carrying a chart and in the centre is Captain Hidaka, Senior Japanese Naval Officer at Penang. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205161601
On This Day: 4th September 1967 Vietnam War: Operation Swift begins when U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley.
On This Day: 5th September 1942 Battle at Alam Halfa ends Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. Photograph Courtesy of the National Archives & Records Administration The Battle of Alam el Halfa took place between 30 August and 5 September 1942 south of El Alamein during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War
On This Day: 6th September - Germany Israeli Athletes Killed 1972 : A gun battle between the Palestinian group Black September who had kidnapped nine Israeli athletes from the Olympic Village in Munich ends when the nine hostages are killed in a gun battle between German Police and the terrorists at a nearby airport, Five of the terrorists were also killed and one German Police Officer.
On This Day: 6th September 1952 Farnborough Air Show Disaster Thousands of spectators watched as a De Havilland 110 aircraft broke the sound barrier and then disintegrated in the sky above them and fell to earth.
On This Day: 7th September 1940 London Blitz starts Germany starts it's Blitz on London with 300 German bombers in the first of 57 consecutive nights of bombing. The Blitz caused the deaths of over 40,000 men women and children and left a million homes destroyed in the city. A milkman delivering milk in a London street devastated during a German bombing raid. Firemen are dampening down the ruins behind him CREDIT: FRED MORLEY/GETTY IMAGES #WW2
On This Day: 8th September 1944 - Germany launches the first V2 rocket on London Over the next six months Germany launched 1,400 at Britain ending in March 1945. German V2 rocket being placed into position by soldiers prior to a launch. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images #WW2
On This Day: 9th September 1970 : Palestinian Guerrillas Hijack a BOAC British Airliner from India bound for London and forced it to land in the Jordanian Dessert. This was the 4th hijacking plot that week by the group calling themselves the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who demanded the release of 3 Arab prisoners held in West Germany. The BOAC Plane joined a Swissair DC8 and a Transworld Airlines Boeing 707 at the airstrip. Image: Journalists film the wreckage of exploded passenger planes at Dawson's Field, Zarqa, Jordan. (Peter Davis/Getty Images)
SURRENDER OF THE ITALIAN FLEET. SEPTEMBER 1943, ON BOARD ONE OF HMS WARSHIPS. FROM 10 SEPTEMBER 1943 UNITS OF THE ITALIAN FLEET SAILED TO MALTA TO SURRENDER TO ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET, SIR ANDREW CUNNINGHAM. THIS SERIES WAS TAKEN AS THE SHIPS NEARED MALTA. (AX 5A) The flagship of the Italian Admiral, the ITALIA, steaming to surrender. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205133286
On This Day: 11th September 2001 Two passenger planes hijacked by Al Qaeda terrorists crash into New York's World Trade Towers causing the collapse of both and deaths of 2,606 people
On This Day: 12th September 1916 Serbians on the Balkan Front, Serbian soldiers in a front line trench during the Battle of Kaymakchalan (12-30 September 1916) in Macedonia. During the latter engagement the Serbians attacked the peak of Prophet Ilia and pushed the Bulgarians back towards the town of Mariovo. Losses on both sides were high, with the Serbs sustaining around 10,000 casualties. NAM. 1999-10-8-3
FRENCH FLEET RETURNS HOME. 13 AND 14 SEPTEMBER 1944, TOULON. THE CEREMONIAL REENTRY OF THE FRENCH FLEET INTO THE PORT OF TOULON ON 14 SEPTEMBER, 17 DAYS AFTER THE RECAPTURE OF THE PORT BY THE ALLIES. (A 25666) The French battleship STRASBOURG and an overturned French cruiser scuttled in the harbour. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205157361
On This Day: 14th September Bulgarian dissident killed by poisoned umbrella at London bus stop The Bulgarian Secret Service and the KGB were suspected to be involved in the writer's murder , although they always denied it. Police investigating the strange death of Mr Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and broadcaster, found several people last night who may have seen the incident in which, they said, he was stabbed with a poisoned umbrella by a Communist agent “with a thick foreign accent.” Photo: The bus stop (right) in London's Strand where Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was murdered by a ricin spiked umbrella in 1978. Photograph: Paul Fievez / Associated Newspapers
On This Day: 15th September 1940 Sunday 15th September is celebrated officially as the climax of the Battle of Britain, when London had become the Luftwaffe's main target.
AERIAL VIEW OF RAF FYLINGDALES EARLY WARNING RADAR STATION, 16 SEPTEMBER 1963 (HU 69120) RAF FYLINGDALES, a joint Anglo-American project, photographed the day before it became operational. Its three steel buildings housing radar under domes were intended to track incoming Soviet ballistic missiles during the Cold War. Its systems offered a warning of 15 minutes for missiles targeted on the United States and 4 minutes for those targeted on Britain. The latter margin was deemed sufficie... Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205018749
18th September 1944 Arnhem (IWM FLM 1210) British paratroops landing in a field on the edge of a wood - Arnhem. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205131562
On This Day: 17th September 1944 THE BRITISH AIRBORNE DIVISION AT ARNHEM AND OOSTERBEEK IN HOLLAND An Allied paratrooper assisting a wounded comrade. This photograph was taken at around 3.30pm east of the Arnhem main road bridge. From left to right. Sapper J Dunney, Sapper C Grier and Lance Corporal R Robb, all of the 1st Parachute Squadron, Royal Engineers. The men had just been shelled and burnt out of the van Lunburgstirum school which they had occupied since the evening of the 17 September. © IWM (HU 2131)
On This Day: 18th September 1972: Expelled Ugandans arrive in UK The first Ugandan refugees fleeing the persecution of the country's military dictatorship have arrived in Britain. The 55,000-strong Asian community were ordered in August to leave the country within 90 days by President Idi Amin.
On This Day: 18th September The sinking of the Junyo Maru on 18 September 1944 was one of the deadliest maritime disasters of the Second World War, killing over 5,000 POWs and romushas. Here she is pictured in 1933, courtesy of City of Vancouver archives. CVA 447-2345.
BRITISH NAVAL FORCE SINKS THREE E-BOATS. 19 SEPTEMBER 1944, HARWICH. THE FRIGATE HMS STAYNER RETURNED WITH PRISONERS PICKED UP DURING THE BRISK ENGAGEMENT WITH THREE E-BOATS NORTH OF DUNKIRK ON 18 SEPTEMBER 1944. THE STAYNER TOGETHER WITH CRAFT OF LIGHT COASTAL FORCES, ACCOUNTED FOR ALL THREE SHIPS. (A 25624) E-boat prisoners coming ashore from the STAYNER blindfolded. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205157325
On This Day: 20th September 1854 Battle of the Alma: first major battle of Crimean War. British and French alliance defeat the Russians. © NAM NAM. 1962-07-1-1
On This Day: 21st September 1958 Britain and Iceland have called a temporary halt to the first Cod War because a British Marine was taken sick with acute appendicitis, and the British skipper of the Frigate Diana asked the Icelandic coast guard ship Aeger for permission to sail into the Icelandic port where a hospital was located inside the Icelandic 12 mile zone, The Icelandic Government gave permission and the Marine is now in hospital in Iceland receiving treatment. The Royal Navy’s 2,500 ton Leander-class frigate HMS Scylla collides with the Icelandic vessel ICGV Odinn in the third and final Cod War.
On This Day: 22nd September 1980: War breaks out between Iran and Iraq Three weeks of border clashes between Iran and Iraq appear to have finally erupted into all-out war. Iraq has bombed several Iranian air and military supply bases, including Tehran's international airport. The rise in hostilities comes after Iraq tore up a 1975 border agreement with Iran over sovereignty of the Shatt al-Arab waterway.
ROYAL AIR FORCE FIGHTER COMMAND, 1939-1945. (CH 1401) Interior of the Sector 'G' Operations Room at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. The callsigns of fighter squadrons controlled by this Sector can be seen on the wall behind the operator sitting third from left. The Controller is sitting fifth from the left, and on the extreme right, behind the Army Liaison Officer, are the R/T operators in direct touch with the aircraft. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205195667
On This Day: 24th September 1944: Signal from Major-General Roy Urquhart to Lieutenant-General Frederick Browning, Urquhart, commanding 1st Airborne Division, outlines his desperate situation and requests immediate assistance in strength from the commander of 1st British Airborne Corps. By this date, 1st Airborne was short of supplies and pinched into a small area around Oosterbeek. https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1994-06-201-2 From a collection of papers relating to Operation MARKET GARDEN, the surrender of Bergen, and reports on concentration camps, 1945. © NAM. 1994-06-201-2
THE GERMAN-SOVIET INVASION OF POLAND, 1939 (MH 13369) Hitler examines destroyed Polish Armoured Train No. 13 'General Sosnkowski' at the town of Lochów, with General Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of Staff of the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht), 25 September 1939. The armoured train was seriously damaged by the Luftwaffe on 10 September while covering the retreat of the 'Modlin' Army. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205194751
OPERATION 'MARKET GARDEN' (THE BATTLE FOR ARNHEM): 17 - 25 SEPTEMBER 1944 (HU 5417) Arnhem 17 - 25 September 1944: A group of survivors from the Arnhem Operation arriving at Nijmegen after the evacuation and having their first drink. One of them, Captain Jan Linzel (second from left) is a member of the Dutch Royal Navy attached to No 10 Commando. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205021987
On This Day: 27th September 1941 The destroyer HMS Lightning was one of the ships escorting WS11 from Gibraltar to Malta. Convoys on this route needed extensive protection and each one was a significant commitment for the Royal Navy – this convoy was ‘Operation Halberd’.
THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN, JULY-OCTOBER 1940 (CH 1404) WAAF telephone operators in the Sector 'G' Operations Room at RAF Duxford, receiving reports of enemy aircraft plots from Observer Corps posts, September 1940. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205209961
THE GERMAN-SOVIET INVASION OF POLAND, 1939 (HU 106371) General Wiktor Thommée, the Commander of the Modlin Fortress, negotiating the surrender terms with General Adolf Strauss, the Commander of the German II Corps, 29 September 1939. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205221938
THE MUNICH AGREEMENT, SEPTEMBER 1938 (D 2239) Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, makes a brief speech announcing ?'Peace in our Time'? on his arrival at Heston Airport after his meeting with Hitler at Munich, 30 September 1938. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205193839
On This Day: 30th September 1917 Aerial photograph of a section of the Western Front, 30 September 1917 Aircraft such as the BE2 and RE8 were used by the British to photograph the shattered landscapes of the Western Front. Aerial photography was used to identify artillery and bombing targets such as transport hubs and artillery positions and to gather intelligence on fortifications and troop concentrations and movements prior to attacks. NAM. 1996-01-74-10 © NAM
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