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- ‘The Forgotten Ones’. Finding and Recruiting the Men on the Ground for
the Royal Flying Corps During the First World War Authors: David Spruce Abstract: When the First World War began the Royal Flying Corps was just two years old and over the next four years it changed beyond all recognition. To successfully support the Army, the RFC recruited almost 300,000 non-officers, the vast majority for service on the ground and, for most, service in Britain. While their roles were less glamourous than the so-called ‘aces’ who dominate the historiography, the service would not have existed without them. This article explains how the RFC found multiple ways to attract sufficient manpower to successfully prosecute Britain’s first war in the air. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1778 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Editorial
Authors: Richard S Grayson, Erica Wald Pages: 1 - 1 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1773 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- The China Gun Lascars 1841-1892
Authors: Mandeep Singh Pages: 2 - 23 Abstract: During the first Opium War four companies of Gun Lascars were sent from India in 1841 to serve with the Third Brigade under Lord Saltoun as part of the British Expeditionary Force and were later used to reinforce the garrison at Hong Kong. One company of the Gun Lascars stayed after the war and served with the Royal Artillery at Hong Kong. The Gun Lascars expanded over the years to include a company raised in 1881 and a company later raised for Singapore. The paper looks at the history of China Gun Lascars that served for over five decades before being re-formed in 1892 as part of Asiatic Artillery. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1771 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- The Legacy of the Boer War: British Army Procurement and Logistics before
1914 Authors: Michael Tyquin Pages: 24 - 43 Abstract: Strategy, battles and tactics may win wars but the inability to prosecute them ends in defeat. The First World War illustrates how the capacity to produce arms and materiel efficiently dictates the ultimate outcome. The British experience in the decade prior to 1914 is an interesting one. This article examines problems arising from the British Army’s experiences in the Boer War; subsequent enquiries and some of the lessons learnt ‒ and forgotten ‒ over the pre-war decades. It was this environment which explains the often forgotten logistics weaknesses that threatened the British Army’s fighting capacity in 1914. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1775 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Did professionals talk logistics' Officer education at the British Army
Staff College, 1903–1914 Authors: Christopher Phillips Pages: 44 - 63 Abstract: This article examines the education in the fields of supply and transportation provided to officers at the British Army’s Staff College. Drawing upon materials produced by those who taught and studied at the College between the South African War and the First World War, this article argues that the importance of logistical issues to military operations was clearly understood within the British Army, and considerations of supply and transportation matters were key components of the syllabus. However, its success was limited by an inability to correctly anticipate the character of the war that broke out in August 1914. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1776 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- The Equine Learning Curve: Horses and mules in British Army transport
services during the First World War Authors: Lucy Betteridge-Dyson Pages: 64 - 82 Abstract: This article combines research methodologies from military history and animal studies to write equines into the history of the First World War. In doing so, it seeks to demonstrate how considering the animal perspective can advance our understanding of conflict at an individual and operational level. It proposes that the horses and mules used in British Army transport services were not just passive victims as they are often portrayed, but sentient beings who played an active role in operations. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1777 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Casualties of War: 1/1 Bucks Battalion, 1915-1919
Authors: Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman Pages: 105 - 132 Abstract: The handful of surviving British army ‘casualty books’ from the Great War are not only a unique source for quantifying the wartime integrity of units but also of answering such additional questions as the incidence and type of disciplinary offences. Equally, the extent of disease and illness can also be determined as well as leave policies and the impact on battalions of secondments, temporary attachments and attendance at training courses. An analysis of the casualty books of 1/1 Bucks Battalion whilst serving on the Western Front and in Italy provide a microcosm of the internal dynamics of a wartime battalion. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1779 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- The German Unit of the Palmach: a suicide commando in the Second World War
Palestine Mandate Authors: Jacob Stoil Pages: 133 - 153 Abstract: In 1942, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) partnered with the Haganah to provide irregular forces to defend the Palestine Mandate. One force, known as the German Unit, was remarkable – it was a suicide unit and required its members to shed their liberated identities and assume the personas of their former oppressors. This article examines how the unit, trained by both organisations, prepared for their task. By employing a combination of traditional sources and interviews, it explores the role of identity and restores this little known story to the historiography of the Second World War while recovering the voices of the unit. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1780 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- The Bow and Arrow Versus the Atom Bomb: Air Defence in Scotland 1945-1955
Authors: Jim Gledhill Pages: 154 - 172 Abstract: This article proposes that the development of Britain’s air defence system in the 1950s should be viewed concurrently with that of her nuclear deterrent. Faced with a new threat from the Soviet Union in the late 1940s, Britain began engineering a new generation of anti-aircraft weapons. Using Scotland as a case study, the strategic relationship between air defence and nuclear deterrence will be explored in the British transition from a defensive to an offensive stance, and orientation toward American nuclear technologies in the late 1950s. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1781 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Soviet nuclear munitions in Czechoslovakia: 1965-1991
Authors: Stanislav Polnar Pages: 173 - 191 Abstract: Under a Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty signed in 1965, the rapidly developing missile forces and air force of the Czechoslovak People’s Army (Czech acronym and hereinafter ‘ČSLA’) were to be strengthened with the addition of nuclear munitions. These were to be used to support planned operations on the so-called Czechoslovak Front. Operation JAVOR consisted of the construction of three nuclear depots, which were manned by special units of the Soviet Army. A new agreement between the CSSR and the USSR was entered into in 1986, extending the existing conditions of storage. Fundamental changes were brought about in 1989 by the Velvet Revolution and the end of the Cold War. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1782 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Defending the Sky: A Historical Analysis of Israeli Drone Use, 1971-2014
Authors: Tal Tovy Pages: 192 - 207 Abstract: This article analyses the history of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), illustrating the pivotal role of drones from their initial deployment in the 1970s to their sophisticated employment in irregular warfare by 2014. Such an examination allows evaluation of the effectiveness of UAV missions in a variety of scenarios and the extent to which they provide a solution to the strategic threats that Israel faces. PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1783 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Robert W Jones, A Cultural History of the Medieval Sword: Power, Piety and
Play Authors: Máire MacNeill Pages: 208 - 210 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1784 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Steve Tibble, Templars: The Knights Who Made Britain
Authors: Stuart Ellis-Gorman Pages: 210 - 212 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1785 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- John Sadler, Crucible of Conflict: Three Centuries of Border War
Authors: Kieran Hutchinson Pages: 212 - 214 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1786 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- James Davey, Tempest: The Royal Navy and the Age of Revolutions
Authors: Jacqueline Reiter Pages: 214 - 216 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1787 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Evan Wilson, The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the
Napoleonic Wars Authors: Samuel Clark Pages: 216 - 219 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1788 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Michelle Tusan, The Last Treaty: Lausanne and the End of the First World
War in the Middle East Authors: Alex Worsfold Pages: 219 - 221 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1789 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Doris L Bergen, Between God and Hitler: Military Chaplains in Nazi Germany
Authors: Bernard Kelly Pages: 221 - 223 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1790 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
- Prit Buttar, To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42
Authors: Phil Curme Pages: 223 - 226 PubDate: 2024-03-22 DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v10i1.1791 Issue No: Vol. 10, No. 1 (2024)
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