“Always winter, but never Christmas”. For many observing Christmas in 1942, this fictional quote was the harrowing truth. This week’s blog is from New York Times bestselling author Peter Harmsen as he reflects on the events of that fateful wartime Christmas and what they tell us about cruelty, kindness, and the human condition in extraordinary times.
All is fair in love and war — society portrait painter Sir William Orpen was entangled in the chaos of both. This week on the Casemate UK Blog, author Patricia O’Reilly explores the inspiration behind her new book, Orpen at War, and the artistic, eccentric, romantic, complicated life of Sir William Orpen.
Is the law always a sufficient mechanism for justice? Can morality ever be objective? How do you begin to construct a legal defense for pure evil? In this blog post, author Andrew Sangster discusses the process of researching and conceptualising his new book, Blind Obedience and Denial, which examines every defendant at the Nuremberg trials,… Read More »Law, Morality, and Pure Evil: The Nuremberg Defendants
(and a warning about tasting the archaeological record!) ‘Bog bodies’ are some of the most familiar finds associated with peatland archaeology. However, they are in fact comparatively rare. In this blog Benjamin Gearey, co-author of An Introduction to Peatland Archaeology and Palaeoenvironments, tells the tale of the discovery of the Tumbeagh Bog Body. This case… Read More »The Dos and Don’ts of Digging a Bog Body
Brian E. Walter explores the collective effort in which each of the major Allied nations played a critical role in attaining the ultimate victory against Nazi Germany in World War II, and how without these combined efforts, the Axis powers may have had the focus and strength to defeat the Soviet Army on the ground.
To mark the publication of Torpedoes, Tea and Medals this month, we asked author, Captain Chris O’Flaherty, about the writing process and his research into the fascinating life of Derek ‘Jake’ Wright DSC** RNVR – a previously little-known wartime naval hero who went from being a 16 year-old tea-trade trainee to one of only 44… Read More »Researching the life of a naval hero: Captain Chris O’Flaherty reflects on the journey of writing his new book.
To mark the publication of Torpedoes, Tea and Medals this month, we asked author, Captain Chris O’Flaherty about his passion for boats, where the idea for the book came from, and what initially appealed to him about capturing the story of Derek ‘Jake’ Wright DSC** RNVR. Read on for the first installment of Chris’s journey in discovering this little-known naval hero – a tea-trade trainee whose bravery and skill saw him become one of only 44 officers in the Second World War to receive a DSC with two Bars.
Our brilliant Trade Sales Manager relays the stories he was told as a child – about wartime North London from his father, and the harrowing tales from his mother’s childhood in Paris during the occupation. I: Father (North London) My Dad was a child in North London when the war broke out. Like many other… Read More »Casemate WWII Short Stories: A Childhood in Paris
Our wonderful Senior Marketing Executive shares two uplifting tales from WWII – one about a near-miss that saved thousands of lives and the other about the simple joy of bananas. I: During “My grandmother and grandfather talked about an air raid – it was thought at the time that the target was Ardeer Explosives Factory,… Read More »Casemate WWII Short Stories: Two Uplifting Tales
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