Mountbatten
What a carve up! The British flair for disastrous partition
The ‘Great Partition’ of India in 1947 led to the wider division of Britain’s ‘empire within an empire’ – and to most of the problems plaguing southern Asia today
What did Britain really gain from the daring 1942 Bruneval raid?
The night-time dismantling of a German radar site in Normandy was a feat of skill, courage and imagination. But there was little improvement to Bomber Command casualties as a result
Debacle at Dieppe
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Sinn Fein’s hollow ‘apology’ for Mountbatten’s murder
Prince Philip’s death presented Sinn Fein with a particular challenge, given that the IRA murdered his beloved uncle. ‘I am…
A fiasco from the start
In carefree days which now seem so distant we used occasionally to take the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry. Docking after a long…
Courting trouble
Desmond de Silva was born in the colony of Ceylon in the early months of the second world war, the…
Passage from India
It is not fashionable to feel sympathy for the men and women who lived and served in the British colonies…
