Alan Wood (author)
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Alan Wood (author)
Alliott Alan Whitfeld Wood (6 October 1914 – 27 October 1957) was an Australian-born British journalist, soldier, war correspondent, and author. Early life Born in Chatswood, New South Wales, a suburb of the Lower North Shore (Sydney), Lower North Shore of Sydney, Australia, Wood was the son of George Arnold Wood, a historian, and his wife Madeline Whitfeld. His older brother Frederick Wood (historian), Frederick Wood later became professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington, Victoria University College in Wellington, New Zealand. Wood was educated at Sydney Grammar School, then at the University of Sydney, and finally from 1935 to 1938 at Balliol College, Oxford, his father's and brother's old college, where his subject was philosophy. In his final term, he was elected as President of the Oxford Union, defeating the future British prime minister Edward Heath and remaining in Oxford to serve as President in the Michaelmas term. He was the first Australian to be so ...
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War Correspondent Typing His Despatch
War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organized groups. It is generally characterized by widespread violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. ''Warfare'' refers to the common activities and characteristics of types of war, or of wars in general. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant suffering and casualties. Etymology The English word ''war'' derives from the 11th-century Old English words and , from Old French ( as in modern French), in turn from the Frankish , ultimately deriving from the Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic . The word is related to the Old Saxon , Old High German , and the modern German , meaning . History Anthro ...
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The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821), are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. ''The Times'' was the first newspaper to bear that name, inspiring numerous other papers around the world. In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as or , although the newspaper is of national scope and distribution. ''The Times'' had an average daily circulation of 365,880 in March 2020; in the same period, ''The Sunday Times'' had an average weekly circulation of 647,622. The two ...
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George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both authoritarian communism and fascism), and support of democratic socialism. Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella ''Animal Farm'' (1945) and the Utopian and dystopian fiction, dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and ''Homage to Catalonia'' (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as George Orwell bibliograph ...
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Military Intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making process, their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an intelligence analysis, assessment of data from a range of sources, directed towards the commanders' mission requirements or responding to questions as part of operational or campaign planning. To provide an analysis, the commander's information requirements are first identified, which are then incorporated into intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination. Areas of study may include the operational environment, hostile, friendly and neutral forces, the civilian population in an area of combat operations, and other broader areas of interest. Intelligence activities are conducted at all levels, from tactical to strategic, in peacetime, the period of transition to war, and d ...
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London Blitz
London is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe, with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a tidal estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre, the City of London, was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament. London grew rapidly in the 19th century, becoming the world's largest city at the time. Since the 19th century the name "London" has referred to the metropolis around the City of London, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent and Hertfordshire, which since 1965 has largely comprised the adm ...
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Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises thirteen Regular Army regiments, King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and five Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Army Reserve regiments. History Formation to 1799 Artillery was used by English troops as early as the Battle of Crécy in 1346, while Henry VIII established it as a semi-permanent function in the 16th century. Until the British Civil Wars, the majority of military units in Britain were raised for specific campaigns and disbanded when they were over. An exception were gunners based at the Tower of London, Portsmouth and other forts around Britain, who were controlled by the Ordnance Office and stored and maintained equipment and provided personnel for field artillery 'traynes' that were org ...
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Phoney War
The Phoney War (; ; ) was an eight-month period at the outset of World War II during which there were virtually no Allied military land operations on the Western Front from roughly September 1939 to May 1940. World War II began on 3 September 1939 with declarations of war by the United Kingdom and France against Germany, but with little actual warfare occurring. Thus began the "Phoney" period. Although the Western Allies did not conduct major military actions during the Phoney War, they did implement economic warfare, especially a naval blockade of Germany, and they shut down German surface raiders. They meanwhile formulated elaborate plans for large-scale operations designed to cripple the German war effort. The plans included opening an Anglo-French front in the Balkans, invading Norway to seize control of Germany's main source of iron ore, and imposing an embargo against the Soviet Union which was Germany's primary oil supplier. By April 1940, the execution of the No ...
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Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson, 1st Baronet, Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the ''Sunday Express'', was launched in 1918. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608. Under the ownership of Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, the ''Express'' rose to become the newspaper with the largest circulation in the world, going from 2 million in the 1930s to 4 million in the 1940s. It was acquired by Richard Desmond's company Northern & Shell in 2000. Hugh Whittow was the editor from February 2011 until he retired in March 2018. In February 2018 Trinity Mirror acquired the ''Daily Express'', and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell, in a deal worth £126.7 million. To coincide with the purchase ...
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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics of the first half of the 20th century. His base of power was the largest circulation newspaper in the world, the ''Daily Express'', which appealed to the conservative working class with intensely patriotic news and editorials. During the Second World War, he played a major role in mobilising industrial resources as Winston Churchill's Minister of Aircraft Production. The young Max Aitken had a gift for making money and was a millionaire by the age of 30. His business ambitions quickly exceeded opportunities in Canada, and he moved to Britain. There he befriended Bonar Law, Andrew Bonar Law and with his support won a seat in the House of Commons at the December 1910 United Kingdom general election. A knighthood followed shortly after. During the First World War, he ran the Can ...
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Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement was reached in Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, the French Third Republic, French Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy. The agreement provided for the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945), German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where 3 million people, mainly Sudeten Germans, ethnic Germans, lived. The pact is known in some areas as the Munich Betrayal (; ), because of a previous 1924 alliance agreement and a 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic. Germany had started a Sudetendeutsches Freikorps#Undeclared German–Czechoslovak War, low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, Britain and France on 20 September formally requested Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland territory to Germany. This was followed by Polish and Hungarian territorial demands brought on 21 and 22 September, respectively. Meanwhile, German forces conquered part ...
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Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from May 1937 to October 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938, ceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Following the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II, Chamberlain announced the British declaration of war on Germany (1939), declaration of war on Germany two days later and led the United Kingdom through the Phoney War, first eight months of the war until his resignation as prime minister on 10 May 1940. After working in business and local government, and after a short spell as Director of National Service in 1916 and 1917, Chamberlain ...
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1938 Oxford By-election
The 1938 Oxford by-election was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Oxford, held on 27 October 1938. The by-election was triggered when Robert Croft Bourne, the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament died on 7 August 1938. He had served as MP for the constituency since a 1924 by-election. Background On 29 September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had signed the Munich Agreement, handing over the Sudetenland to German control. This issue polarised British politics at the time, with many Labour supporters, Liberals, and some Conservatives strongly opposed to this policy of appeasement. Many by-elections in the autumn of 1938 were fought around this issue, including this one and also the Bridgwater by-election, three weeks later, where Liberals and Labour again united in support of an Independent anti-appeasement candidate. Candidates The Liberal Party had selected Ivor Davies, a 23-year-old graduate of Edinbur ...
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