Author Archives: kmcauliffe

Reclaim The Phantom

Issue Number: 5075

Fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, it was not uncommon for ships to be at sea for months at a time, and during those long, isolated days it was easy for friendships or vendettas to form. Under the Caribbean sun, Captain John Valentine sailed to warn a British Flotilla about a heavily armed French convoy they […]

Higher! Higher! Higher!

Issue Number: 5073

It did not always matter if your aircraft was the fastest or had the most firepower, so long as you had the highest ceiling… Thought to have been retired after the Spanish Civil War, and reaching a staggering 39,000 feet, the Junkers Ju 86P was one such plane. It dominated the skies over the North […]

Troubled Times

Issue Number: 5071

It was 1918, and in the cold dead of the night over the trenches, German troopers crawled across the muddy, blood-soaked landscape. For Feldwebel Kurt Woden and Unteroffizer Johann Aachen it was just another night raid on British lines, but for Leutnant Erwin Horch it was his first terrifying mission… Then, The Great War ended […]

Air Kommando

Issue Number: 5070

Silently, their engines cut, the German Fieseler Storch planes swooped over the Russian airfield’s perimeter fence. Moments later, the quiet was shattered as small arms rattled and explosive charges lit up the night, destroying parked Red Air Force fighters in droves. And before the Russians even realised what was happeneing, the Fieselers were disappearing into […]

Operation Eagle Strike

Issue Number: 5069

By 1943, the victorious days of Operation Barbarossa were over. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union had stalled and the Germans were barely holding out against the cold might of the Red Army. But the furious Nazi eagle still had a few tricks left in its arsenal before it would be defeated… its claw […]

The Defiant

Issue Number: 5068

Glittering and gleaming, the medal lay in its splendid plush box. Not many men had ever seen – never mind won – this medal. It was the Cross of Gold, an honour only awarded to the bravest German soldiers, sailors or airmen. And of all Germans, Kurt Ruttmeyer wanted this medal more than anything else […]

HMS Iceberg

Issue Number: 5067

In early 1943, more than three long years into the war, both sides were desperate. Scientists everywhere were experimenting with weaponry and technology, hoping they might turn the tides of battle in their favour. Professor David Alexander was one such man. Working at a military base off the coast of Canada in the North Atlantic, […]