A Scimitar AFV of 16 AAB alongside a USMC LTVP-7 west of Basra, March 2003. © Photo by US Marines 20 March 2003. Forty-six thousand troops from the British Armed Forces were deployed to the dusty, yellowish-fawn landscapes of Iraq under the codename Operation Telic. Whilst the British public prepared for the worst as its soldiers were facing weapons of mass destruction, most service men and women were under no illusion that they were invading Iraq to rid the people of Saddam Hussein. Now, twenty years on, Military Historian and former London Police Officer Julian Whippy is hoping to amend the ..read more

Only authentic gold is tarnish-free, and the Golden Age of Hollywood was anything but. Hollywood’s public persona was gilded by contractual morality clauses, invented identities, and arranged love lives – and yet, Hollywood’s greatest starlets continue to shine as bright as the set lights that illuminated them. This Women’s History Month, discover the glamour, innovation, misconduct, and legacy of this pivotal era of filmmaking through the lens of the pioneering women that made it. With titles from The University Press of Kentucky Screen Classics series, this reading list offers a deeper look ..read more

Casemate UK is delighted to welcome MMP Books! MMP was founded in 1996 by Roger Wallsgrove, to publish Mushroom Model Magazine. This quarterly modelling magazine was developed from Mushroom Monthly, a club newsletter which ran from 1985 to 1995, achieving a world-wide reputation for quality articles, fearless and honest reviews, and a great sense of humour. The magazine’s motto was “not taking serious modelling too seriously”, but at the same time concentrating on well-researched and well-written modelling articles, honest and forthright reviews, and good photographic coverage of chosen subjec ..read more

What are the stories that make us? Intergenerational storytelling is the thread that weaves the tapestry of a family’s history. For Author Denis Courtois, the tales told by his parents and grandparents of the Second World War fanned his lifelong fascination with war studies, a calling he followed to feel more connected to his family’s past. In this blog, Denis imparts some of the ancestral anecdotes that stayed with him throughout his studies and how this lore inspired him to write his new book Winning French Minds: Radio Propaganda in Occupied France, 1940–42. As well as this, he broadcasts t ..read more

We’ve reached the end of January, so there can be no denying it, 2023 has officially begun. In the settled calm that slowly descends as the novelty and buzz of the new year begins to fade, it often feels like a good time to turn back the page briefly and reflect on the past year. We enjoyed our trip down memory lane so much that we wanted to share it with you. We have put together a list of titles from 2022 for you to indulge in as you await with eager anticipation the brilliant books we’ll be bringing you in 2023. So here it is, 15 titles from Oxbow Books, Casemate UK and our partner publishe ..read more

By Andrew Chatterton, author of Britain’s Secret Defences | 7 min read Secret underground bunkers, patrols of 6-8 men highly trained in sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassination, and a life expectancy of just two weeks. The role of the Auxiliary Units is, at last, becoming better known. The Auxiliary Units have done much to help change our perception of Britain’s defences in the Second World War. They were not Dad’s Army, but rather a highly trained, highly secret, and highly ruthless group, ready to do anything to slow down the German invasion. However, the focus on the Auxiliary Units, a ..read more

“Always winter, but never Christmas” – C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. For many observing Christmas in 1942, in the throes of war and uncertainty, this fictional quote was the harrowing truth. All the markings of winter arrived still, but this time without the coloured trimmings of Christmas to streak its snowy landscapes. Soldiers stationed in far-off lands witnessed man’s capacity for unimaginable cruelty, questioning how the spirit of Christmas had become so contorted. Yet, somehow, profound moments of kindness, connection, and compassion continued to subsist… This week’s ..read more

All is fair in love and war — society portrait painter Sir William Orpen was entangled in the chaos of both. He began his prolific career painting the sumptuous and unsmiling patrons of aristocratic Edwardian society, whilst for leisure, he captured on canvas the many women he became intimate with. When the First World War started, however, he traded his Rolls-Royce for trench boots and endeavoured to portray the brutal art of war. This week on the Casemate UK Blog, author Patricia O’Reilly explores the inspiration behind her new book, Orpen at War, and the artistic, eccentric, romantic, compl ..read more

Is the law always a sufficient mechanism for justice? Can morality ever be objective? How do you begin to construct a legal defense for pure evil? In this blog post, author Andrew Sangster discusses the process of researching and conceptualising his new book, Blind Obedience and Denial, which examines every defendant at the Nuremberg trials, including their defense, psychology, and attitudes towards the Third Reich and other senior Nazis. By Andrew Sangster | 1/12/2022 | 4 min read Examining the Evidence Karl Dönitz: Commander in Chief of the Kriegsmarine (Navy of the Third Reich) and the last ..read more

Studies of World War II often stress the Soviet Union’s actions in defeating Germany, thereby relegating the contributions made by the Western Allies to secondary importance. I disagree with this view and would argue that no one nation was solely or primarily responsible for the defeat of Germany. Instead, this was a collective effort in which each of the major Allied belligerents played a critical role in attaining the ultimate victory. In viewing these contributions, it is fitting to start with the Soviet Union since it provided the bulk of the manpower and brute force to the Allied cause ..read more