How a bare bum changed the course of two world wars.
Two years into WWI Lawrence Bragg, an Australian officer in the British army, was sitting in a toilet situated just behind the British lines. The toilet had no windows and the door was closed, so the only effective contact with the outside world was the sewerage pipe that led directly to his bare bum. 400 […]
Death Of Captain Leif Welding-Olsen Of The Royal Norwegian Navy
Here we have another of Paul Hannah’s particular way of looking at history, in this case it is the story of 15 incredibly brave Norwegians in a tiny boat, who happened to bump into a large part of the invasion fleet of the Germans on their way to invade Norway, and attacked it! Read on, […]
Gathering intelligence in wartime can be dangerous
Paul Hannah casts his eye over a couple of curious ways in which the protagonists in the last world war gathered critical information from each other. Gathering intelligence in wartime can be dangerous, tedious and occasionally mystifying. But ever since the first humans snuck up on a Neanderthal campsite and counted the fires, it has […]
Constantine the Great – Really Deserving Of Sainthood?
Here is a wee snippet from Paul Hannah in which he contemplates one of the curious aspects of how people think…….. Constantine the Great (272 – 337) redfined rape to include persuading of a woman under 25 to leave home. The punishment was to be burnt alive or torn apart by animals (if she admitted […]
St Nazaire – The Greatest Raid Of All.
Here is another piece of history from our indefatigable writer of historical tales, Paul Hannah. This one is all about what had to be one of the most daring and desperate raids ever carried out intentionally. Read on……………. In WWII there were many small scale and several larger raids on the coast of France. Universally […]
‘McRoberts’s Reply’ – A Tragic Story With A Twist
Our indomitable Paul Hannah who has supplied us with an ever growing number of small, but intriguing, historical snippets has come up with this small jewel of a story about a truly impressive woman – read on……. McRoberts’s Reply Lady Rachel Workman MacRobert (1884 -1954) , was indeed a woman to be reckoned with. In […]
A Tudor Murder? A Mystery Still……
Here we have Paul Hannah’s latest look at British history and some of its more unlikely mysteries. Read on and see what you think. Henry VIII’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth Tudor was 25 years old and under house arrest at Hatfield when she heard the news of her sister Mary’s death, an event that instantly […]
Fat Raymond Shows You Don’t Need Superior Forces To Win A War.
Here we have Paul Hannah again, this time he is discussing a battle that took place about 900 years ago, in which a military leader demonstrated a surprising skill. By the way, he was called “Fat”, but obviously wasn’t fat, so I assume his name has been mistranslated in the course of the centuries. Anyhow, […]
American Eagles in WWI
American Eagles in WWI By: Paul Hannah. American aviation in WWI was a pretty sorry affair. While the US Army Air Force had 280 aircraft in 1917 – none of them had ever had a machine gun fitted, none had dropped or even could drop a bomb – they didn’t even have cameras for photo […]
