Following a lull in the desert war which saw the Germans and British reinforce their armies, Rommel suddenly attacked British fortifications with an assault on the northern sector of the British line near Gazala. Pinning down the British in the north and outflanking the 1st Free French Brigade, Rommel succeeded in encircling the main British positions, trapping them in what became known as 'The Cauldron'. With thousands of British soldiers killed or taken prisoner, this was a devastating defeat for the Allies.

Accompanied by contemporary photographs and maps depicting the movement of...

June 6th, 1944: the largest fleet in history landed Eisenhower's Allied army on the beaches of Normandy against Erwin Rommel's Nazi German defenses. Almost seventy years on from D Day, the story of the greatest armada seen in world history is still not widely known. It has been celebrated in only two major books, both titled Operation Neptune; the first was published just after the war in 1946, the second in 1974, although reprinted in a new edition in 2008. Both were full of details, but lacked visual appeal. With the forthcoming anniversary of D Day in 2014, the time is right for the...

With Germany being pushed back across Europe, the Allied forces looked to press their advantage with Operation Market-Garden, a massive airborne assault that, if successful, could have shortened the war in the West considerably. The ground advance consisted of an armored thrust by the British XXX Corps, while the US 82nd and 101st US Airborne Divisions secured the bridges at Eindhoven and Nijmegen, and the British 1st Airborne Division and Polish 1st Airborne Brigade were tasked with seizing the final bridge at Arnhem to secure the route. What they did not realize was that the 9. SS and...