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Did public opinion make Pearl Harbor possible?
(Blog piece for History Today . Jan 2013.) In December 1941 most Americans refused to believe that the Japanese would mount a surprise...
rdfreeman987
Feb 142 min read
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Midway: the overlooked battle
For many of us the Battle of Midway is just one more Hollywood spectacular in, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, a far-away sea of which...
rdfreeman987
Feb 133 min read
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‘In the Hour of Victory’ - Review
(This review was first published in Fighting Times .) The Glorious First of June, 1 June 1794. Every researcher knows the excitement of...
rdfreeman987
Feb 123 min read
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H V Morton ‘Atlantic Meeting’
Roosevelt and Churchill on USS Augusta where they agreed the text of the Atlantic Charter. I first read this book more than ten years ago...
rdfreeman987
Aug 2, 20242 min read
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There’s a flap on!
As the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) prepared to sail for France in September 1939 the general view in Whitehall was that it was...
rdfreeman987
Jul 21, 20241 min read
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An intimate glimpse of Churchill at War - Review
Colville ‘The Fringes of Power’ Vol 1 (Sir John Rupert Colville was 24 years old when he was seconded from the Foreign Office to the post...
rdfreeman987
Jul 6, 20245 min read
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Butcher ‘Three Years With Eisenhower’ - Review
The birth of a diary ‘Ike says I’m to keep a diary.' With these words Captain Harry C Butcher, USNR, begins a diary like no other. He had...
rdfreeman987
Jul 3, 20244 min read
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The Anti Haw-Haw League
One of the best known figures of the Second World War was Lord Haw-Haw. His real name was William Joyce, a British citizen who chose to...
rdfreeman987
Jul 2, 20242 min read
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Jacky Fisher - a naval genius
An earlier version of this article appeared in Victorian Military History 2014. Jutland 1916 At 7.17 pm on 31 May 1916 Admiral Reinhard...
rdfreeman987
Jun 28, 202420 min read
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Greatest Hero Debate
This is the text of my contribution to a 'Greatest Hero' event at the National Maritime Museum on 17 October. 2011. Patrick Bishop argued...
rdfreeman987
Jun 13, 20249 min read
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The First Prime Minister? More recent than you might think ...
Britain’s unwritten constitution did not recognise the position of Prime Minister until relatively recently. All the so-called prime...
rdfreeman987
Jun 11, 20241 min read
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A last letter to a dying man
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brandishing his agreement with Hitler. Writing a letter to a dying acquaintance is never easy....
rdfreeman987
Apr 17, 20242 min read
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A diary on the move
Review of H C Butcher ‘Three Years With Eisenhower’ (Heinemann 1946). An accidental diarist ‘Ike says I’m to keep a diary.’ With these...
rdfreeman987
Apr 9, 20244 min read
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A genuine people's memorial
The Roosevelt memorial that now stands in Grosvenor Square was a true people’s memorial to a great man. After the war, a Franklin...
rdfreeman987
Apr 8, 20241 min read
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