Category: Military
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3301 – Charles Hazlitt Upham V.C. and Bar
Just before his 31st birthday in September 1939, Charles Upham volunteered as a private in the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He had been in the Territorials but refused to join at any higher rank. He was soon singled out for his natural leadership qualities and made temporary lance corporal, but refused to attend the…
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3210 – The White Death: Finnish marksman Simo Häyhä
Simo Häyhä tormented Soviet forces invading his native Finland between December 1939 and March 1940, killing 542 enemy soldiers in only 98 days. In the hostile, minus forty-degree conditions of the Finnish winter of 1939-40, a man clad all in white lay with packed snow mounded in front of him as he awaited his enemy.…
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3209 – The Castilian Civil War, 1350-1369
‘A bitter war between legitimate and illegitimate heirs was fought for the throne of fourteenth century Castile. The ensuing conflict pulled in many powers, large and small, including both the kingdoms of England and France. On March 26th, 1350, Alfonso XI King of Castile, León and Galicia died during yet another siege (the fifth) of…
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3208 – Alexander faces the Great King: The Battle of Issus
‘At the battle of Issus, fought in early November 333 BC, Alexander faced the Persian King Darius in person for the first time. Massively outnumbered, the Macedonian army faced the numberless might of the Persian military machine. The outcome would decide the future of both the Persian and the Macedonian empire.’ This episode was written…
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3207 – The Northwest Indian War (part 2)
“At last, the rule of the tomahawk and musket, which for more than twenty years had made the forests, the rivers, and the plains beyond the Alleghenies a torture chamber and a burial ground… had reached its end”. – historian Thomas Boyd This episode was written by Christopher Waters Christopher Waters is an armchair historian…
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3206 – The Northwest Indian War (part 1)
“At dawn they came. Howling their war chants that cut through in the early morning mists. In the camp, men readied their weapons in preparation of the horrors that awaited them. The unseen enemy had already killed several of their company in small, fast strikes when the invaders had searched for food and fodder. Now…
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3205 – Saladin
On 4 July 1187, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria, An-Nasir Yusuf Salah ad-Din ibn Ayyub—better known to us as Saladin—won a tremendous victory, one of the most famous of the Middle Ages. Beneath the Horns of Hattin, the twin peaks of an extinct volcano, his forces destroyed the largest army that the Crusader states…
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3204 – Ross Lewis Mangles and William Fraser McDonell at the Siege of Arrah
We saw in episodes 3104 and 3007 that due to the remarkable actions of several civilians who took up arms under military orders during the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and 1858 that the newly instituted Victoria Cross was altered to allow such acts of bravery to be recognised. Although Thomas Henry Kavanagh was recognised as…
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P-51 Mustang
In 1940 the British Purchasing Commission approached North American Aviation (NAA) to build under license Curtis P-40 fighters. NAA suggested that rather than produce an old design they proposed a new design, this would become the P-51 Mustang. When fitted with the Roll-Royce Merlin engine, the Mustang would be one of the most important fighters…
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3203 – The Battle of Poitiers
On the death of King Charles IV of France in 1328, Edward III of England was his closest male heir and therefore the legitimate successor to the throne of the childless Charles. This was due to the ancient Salian (or Salic) law which prevented female succession (it had, however, only been enacted in 1316). Despite…