Go down into the central atrium of the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, and one of the first things you see is the ‘Nery Gun’. This is a British ‘QF’ 13-pounder field gun that was in combat in the first weeks of World War 1, and acquired its name from an ‘action’ at Nery in NE France on 1 September 1914, part of the BEF’s retreat from Mons. It was the last operational gun of the Royal Horse Artillery’s ‘L’ battery, and provided covering fire on its own for 2 1/2 hours in the face of a German attack. Three men in ‘L’ battery were awarded the Victoria Cross (one posthumously) for their bravery an ..read more

Before decamping to Nine Elms, Grosvenor Square was the home of the US Embassy for the best part of a century, first at No. 1, then moving to Eero Saarinen’s modernist construction in 1960 at No. 24. Saarinen’s old chancery building – demolished apart from its facade, and rebuilt – is about to become another luxury hotel. However, the association of this bit of the Duke of Westminster’s real estate empire with the USA goes all the way back to the 18th century, because John Adams the first US ‘ambassador’ to the Court of St James (and later the second President), lived at No. 9 from 1785 to 178 ..read more

Portsmouth’s D Day Story is a small museum on the seafront a literal stone’s throw from the Tudor castle at Southsea (where Henry VIII watched his brand new warship The Mary Rose turn sharply during the Battle of the Solent and then sink beneath the waves). It’s a compact place that tells the tale of 6 June 1944 and its aftermath through some intelligent displays and models, and with fascinating artefacts and photographs. It also has two unique exhibits – the Overlord Tapestry and LCT7074. LCT7074 – ‘Landing Craft Tank’ – is the sole survivor of over 800 such craft built to land tanks and oth ..read more

Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands The inscription above, which is on the memorial to the Machine Gun Corps at Wellington Place, opposite Apsley House, is perhaps the most chilling of any written on a London monument. It goes to the heart of the slaughter of WW1, when infantrymen charged (or walked) through no man’s land towards the enemy’s positions. They were hoping that the artillery had destroyed the opposing force’s resistance, but too often these men were simply mown down as they made their way forward. But machine gunners were themselves obvious targets. So ..read more

A coffee in the Onion Garden with the inestimable Vic Keegan – journalist, oenologist, poet and historian of London. His ‘Lost London’ column ran weekly on the OnLondon website (where its archive can still be found), each piece perfectly capturing a small fragment of our disappeared capital – places that were once hugely significant or important or popular, but which the tides of history have closed over and which need historians like Vic to bring to the surface once again. A few years ago the first 160 of these articles were collected together in book form, and when I reviewed it, I hoped tha ..read more

One of the lesser-visited galleries in the IWM is on Level 5 (the top floor), the Lord Ashcroft collection of Victoria Crosses and George Crosses and the stories of the exceptional acts of bravery that went into winning every one of these medals. The Valour Cross – “for valour” – was first presented in 1857 and is awarded to individuals displaying extreme courage in combat. Only 1,358 have been won in its nearly 170 years. The George Cross, instituted in 1940, is the highest award for bravery not in the presence of the enemy, so may be won by civilians as well as by members of the armed forces ..read more

According to etymologists, the word ‘charing’ seems to come from the old English – “cerring”- meaning a bend, hence ‘charing’ appearing on many old maps, and even now featuring as the name, or part of the name, of some English villages. In the early medieval period when London still existed within its city walls, and before Westminster had significantly expanded, there was a hamlet called Charing that sat in a bend of the Thames, and it is this that morphs into the modern placename of Charing Cross. That “cross”, which one can see on the Agas map of 1561, was a physical structure that stood ju ..read more

Over 55,000 Bomber Command crew lost their lives during the second world war – a death rate of over 44% from those who served. Thousands of others were killed in training, wounded, or shot down and taken prisoner. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than a junior infantry officer in WW1 (usually the benchmark for combatants’ slaughter). A tour of operations was 30 missions and the chances of surviving those unscathed was less than 30% The risks and the casualties are almost beyond imagining. But there was no memorial to those that flew until Liam O’Connor and Philip Jac ..read more

On 12 October 2002, Islamist suicide bombers detonated a large car bomb and a device in a backpack in nightclubs in the popular tourist location of Kuta, in Bali, Indonesia. 202 people were killed, nearly all of whom were under 40. The country with the most fatalities was Australia; 88 of the victims came from there, and there are memorials to those killed in Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Canberra among other cities. 23 UK citizens died, and London has its own memorial in Horseguards Avenue, just at the foot of Clive Steps. This was unveiled by Charles and Camilla (as the Duke and Duchess of Co ..read more

Many of the stories of those who served in WW2 are capable of inducing in those of us who have never had to face such experiences a state of awe: the unimaginable horror, always the risk of death, the loss of friends and comrades. How did they endure? What reserves did they draw on to survive? And standing out among the brave are those who worked in enemy territory, who had to live with the constant threat of betrayal and arrest, who knew that capture almost certainly meant torture and death. Some of these exceptional individuals – men and women – are recognised with the memorial by the river ..read more