Quotes from Giles Milton

There was a flash, a roar and, for Hayes at least, an unwelcome surprise. The force of the blast lifted him clean off the deck and hurled him into the water, from which he emerged, concussed and bedraggled, minus his pipe, shorts and pants. March-Phillipps's men were astonished by the spigot's power. Not many weapons could relieve a man of his underwear.

These new recruits found that life at the Firs was never dull. Bombs exploded unexpectedly, sheds caught fire and, on one memorable occasion, an entire corner of the building 'containing some lethal liquid' blew up in a spectacular explosion. It was hastily repaired, before the owner of the property, Major Abrahams, got to hear about it.

Fleming had good reason for acquiring the longbows. He intended to teach his men to use them 'to hurl incendiary charges into German petrol dumps'.30 Without fuel, Hitler's tanks and jeeps would be trapped inside their beachhead.

Pollock delighted in underhand work – it was not so different from being a lawyer

Senior figures in the War Office and Admiralty decided that sinking German ships would be more cost-effective than building British ones.

All his men were crack shots, but Fairbairn himself favoured close-range physical combat over the bullet. 'His system is a combination of ferocious blows, holds and throws, adapted from Japanese bayonet tactics, ju-jitsu, Chinese boxing, Sikh wrestling, French wrestling and Cornish collar-and-elbow wrestling, plus expert knowledge of hip-shooting, knife fighting and use of the Tommy gun and hand grenade.

This, like all the other British communiqués, was completely untrue. After two years of war, the British government and its servants were finally learning to behave like cads.

Das Reich's journey to Normandy should have taken no more than seventy-two hours. Instead, it took seventeen days for the main body to arrive, and it was even longer before the last of the vehicles reached the battlefield. By the time General Lammerding's men and tanks were ready for action, it was too late. The Allied beachhead was secure.

We created an establishment which contributed more to the war effort than any other weapons design department,' said Macrae. But it was an establishment so ungentlemanly in its outlook that it was to be for ever erased from history.

I am looking at birds,' snapped the brigadier, unaware that he had inadvertently strayed into the Soviet zone. 'You are looking at our airfield,' said the sentry. 'Utter rot, my dear fellow. I am Brigadier Hinde and I have not the slightest interest in counting your planes. I am looking at birds and you are frightening them away, dash it!

On Sunday, 11 May 1947, he drove into the forest on the outskirts of Berlin in order to indulge his passion for birds. He was to have an unwelcome surprise as he crept through the undergrowth, when the sudden bark of a Soviet soldier demanded to know what he was doing.

the men were offered extra supplies of pemmican, a gumlike mixture of animal fat and protein. At its best, it tasted like salt-pork chewing gum. At its worst, it was like rancid whale blubber.

The work was to be done 'by undercover men, spies and saboteurs, who, if caught, would be neither acknowledged nor defended by their government'. They would be working outside the law and were to borrow their tactics from guerrillas and gangsters like Michael Collins in Ireland and Al Capone in America. In signing up for Section D, they were effectively signing away their lives.

geography. In those days, Run was the most talked about island in the world, a place of such fabulous wealth that Eldorado's gilded riches seemed tawdry by comparison.

Sabotage and subversion represented the only possible way of striking back and Churchill instructed Dalton to establish – as he called it – a Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

He complained to his superiors at 'being shot at from behind hedges by men in trilbys and mackintoshes and not allowed to shoot back'. But those men in trilbys taught him a lesson he would never forget: irregular soldiers, armed with nothing but homespun weaponry, could wreak havoc on a regular army.

The local natives were particularly curious to know why the English required such huge quantities of pepper and there was much scratching of heads until it was finally agreed that English houses were so cold that the walls were plastered with crushed pepper in order to produce heat.

In the Banda Islands, ten pounds of nutmeg cost less than one English penny. In London, that same spice sold for more than £2.10s. – a mark-up of a staggering 60,000 per cent. A small sackful was enough to set a man up for life, buying him a gabled dwelling in Holborn and a servant to attend to his needs

merchants who financed this expedition viewed it as a reconnaissance mission rather than a trading venture and little cargo was loaded on board the ships. Instead, all available space was converted into living space for the large number of men on board, a necessary feature of long voyages into the unknown. Many would die on the outward trip and for those that survived there was a cornucopia of tropical diseases awaiting them on their arrival in the East

Juet's journal frequently records how only a tiny quantity of alcohol was needed to get the Indians drunk, 'for they could not take it'; and tales of the drunkenness that greeted Hudsons' arrival persisted among the native Indians until the last century. Indeed Heckewelder claims that the name Manhattan is derived from the drunkenness that took place there, since the Indian word 'manahactanienk' means 'the island of general intoxication'.

Difficulties existed only to be surmounted, and there was no setback that a little thought and determination could not overcome.

His system is a combination of ferocious blows, holds and throws, adapted from Japanese bayonet tactics, ju-jitsu, Chinese boxing, Sikh wrestling, French wrestling and Cornish collar-and-elbow wrestling, plus expert knowledge of hip-shooting, knife fighting and use of the Tommy gun and hand grenade.

The Queen coined new money specifically for the Company {East India}. Minted at the Tower of London and bearing her arms on one side and a portcullis on the other, it soon became know as the portcullis money. She also granted the merchants a new flag which, with its blue field and background of thirteen red and white stripes, prefigured the one adopted by the Thirteen Colonies of America some 175 years later.

The Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors offered him a six-figure sum in recognition of his pioneering wartime inventions. Jefferis was gratified but turned it down. 'His Edwardian principals of right and wrong were very strong,' said his son John.16 He did not believe he should profit from having helped to defeat Hitler.