The German night fighter seemed to come from nowhere. One minute, the crew of the No.75 Squadron’s Wellington IC, L7818, AA-R had been returning home to RAF Feltwell, Norfolk, after a successful bombing raid on Münster, a mission relatively free from opposition with its end almost in sight. The next, cannon shells smashed through their aircraft, spraying fragments everywhere and filling the cockpit with smoke as a Messerschmitt Bf 110 fired at them from beneath. The damage wrought was swift and severe: the bomber’s hydraulic lines were rendered useless, its communication systems knocked out and its undercarriage was in a perilous state. Meanwhile, in the rear turret, Sergeant AJR Box was struck in the foot, though he did manage to fire a few rounds at the attacker, potentially a killing blow that at least ensured they would not see the night fighter again. This mattered little because the Wellington’s starboard engine had also been hit and a fuel tank opened, prompting a fire on the wing that, as the flames spread, would surely send the bomber hurtling to the ground in a deadly inferno.
NAUMACHIA TRUTH BEHIND ROME'S GLADIATOR SEA BATTLES
In their quest for evermore novel and bloody entertainment, the Romans staged enormous naval fights on artificial lakes
OPERATION MANNA
In late April 1945, millions of Dutch civilians were starving as Nazi retribution for the failed Operation Market Garden cut off supplies. eet as In response, Allied bombers launched a risky mission to air-drop food
GASSING HITLER
Just a month before the end of WWI, the future Fuhrer was blinded by a British shell and invalided away from the frontline. Over a century later, has the artillery brigade that launched the fateful attack finally been identified?
SALAMANCA
After years of largely defensive campaigning, Lieutenant General Arthur Wellesley went on the offensive against a French invasion of Andalusia
HUMBERT 'ROCKY'VERSACE
Early in the Vietnam War, a dedicated US Special Forces officer defied his merciless Viet Cong captors and inspired his fellow POWs to survive
LEYTE 1944 SINKING THE RISING SUN
One of the more difficult island campaigns in WWII's Pacific Theatre saw a brutal months-long fight that exhausted Japan’s military strength
MAD DAWN
How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day
BRUSHES WITH ARMAGEDDON
Humanity came close to self-annihilation with the Cuban Missile Crisis, Broken Arrows’ and other nuclear near misses
THE DEADLY RACE
How the road to peace led to an arms contest between the USA and USSR, with prototypes, proliferation and the world’s biggest bomb
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the race to beat Hitler to the bomb. How a science project in the desert helped win a war
