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Oct 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Nigel Jones |Jonathan Boff |Paul du Quenoy |Philip Hensher
Given the idolatry with which America worships the man widely seen as the greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, and the obsessive place that identity politics now occupies in public spaces, it was probably inevitable that the sexuality of the Civil War winning “honest Abe” would come under revisionist scrutiny sooner or later. And now it has happened.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Jonathan Boff |Nigel Jones |Paul du Quenoy |Lee Langley
These days we use radar to help us park our cars, but during the early years of World War Two it was white hot technology and a closely guarded military secret. First used to detect aircraft in 1935, within a few years it had helped win the Battle of Britain and sink the Bismarck. It was so secret that work on it was forbidden even to physicists of genius who had fled the Nazis.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Jonathan Boff
The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain, Volume 3, 1814-1945 Allen Lane, pp.812, 40 When the Royal Navy celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, 173 ships and 50,000 sailors filled the Solent. The Spectator (3 July 1897) described the ‘endless succession of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, gunboats and torpedo boats’ as offering ‘the most magnificent naval spectacle ever beheld’.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Jonathan Boff
When the Royal Navy celebrated Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897, 173 ships and 50,000 sailors filled the Solent. The Spectator (3 July 1897) described the ‘endless succession of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, gunboats and torpedo boats’ as offering ‘the most magnificent naval spectacle ever beheld’. More importantly, the fleet at Spithead ‘would have been able to beat any navy or combination of navies that might be brought against it’.
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Jonathan Boff
Text size Line Spacing Comments Share Share Jonathan Boff A romantic obsession: Precipice, by Robert Harris, reviewed Linkedin Messenger Email Precipice Robert Harris Hutchinson Heinemann, pp. 464, £22 Weekly delivery of the magazine Unlimited access to our website and app Enjoy Spectator newsletters and podcasts Explore our online archive, going back to 1828...
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Aug 7, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Jonathan Boff
Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar William Collins, pp.362, 25 These days we use radar to help us park our cars, but during the early years of the second world war it was white hot technology and a closely guarded military secret. First used to detect aircraft in 1935, within a few years it had helped win the Battle of Britain and sink the Bismarck.
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Aug 6, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Jonathan Boff
Text size Line Spacing Comments Share Share Jonathan Boff What did Britain really gain from the daring 1942 Bruneval raid? Linkedin Messenger Email Operation Biting: The 1942 Parachute Assault to Capture Hitler’s Radar Max Hastings William Collins, pp. 362, £25 These days we use radar to help us park our cars, but during the early years of the second world war it was white hot technology and a closely guarded military secret. First used to detect aircraft in 1935, within a few years it had...
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Jonathan Boff
Those Must Be the Guards: The Household Division in Peace and War, 1969-2023 Osprey, pp.368, 30 This book is the perfect present for the Guardsman in your life. It offers an authorised biography of the five regiments of Foot Guards and two of Household Cavalry from 1969 to the present day. In that half century the Guards have been under fire in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan, with much of the time also spent maintaining a presence in West Germany.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
spectator.co.uk | Jonathan Boff
Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments This book is the perfect present for the Guardsman in your life. It offers an authorised biography of the five regiments of Foot Guards and two of Household Cavalry from 1969 to the present day. In that half century the Guards have been under fire in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghanistan, with much of the time also spent maintaining a presence in West Germany. These were busy years. Units...
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Sep 27, 2023 | 
spectator.com.au | Jonathan Boff
The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 Bantam, pp.640, 25 In Whitehall, visible to even the most short-sighted from the gates of Downing Street, stands an outsize statue of Lord Alanbrooke, the strategic adviser to Winston Churchill during the second world war. His job was to help the prime minister see the big picture and concentrate on the decisions that really mattered. This was no easy task.
