by Mark Simmons | Nov 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
‘Operation Judgement’. ‘During the attack a hundred thousand rounds were fired at us but only one aircraft was shot down in each wave. I got hit underneath by one half-inch machine gun bullet. It was the pilot’s job to aim the torpedo. Nobody was given a specific... by Mark Simmons | Sep 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Aug 13, 2024 | Uncategorized
1 The 39 Steps John Buchan. I think it has to be on everybody’s list written by Buchan while he was ill in bed at the start of the First World War and published in 1915. It has great pace and a riveting plot no wonder the soldiers in the trenches were enthralled, and... by Mark Simmons | Aug 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
In August 1909, a semi retired, Naval Commander aged fifty, and living on a houseboat near Southampton devising boom defences for rivers and harbours, received an odd written request. The letter was from Rear Admiral Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence. It advised... by Mark Simmons | Aug 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
The great American writer William Faulkner in his unique literary voice wrote of Pickett’s charge in his novel Intruder in the Dust and tells us the whole South wanted and still wants to be there at Gettysburg on the 3 July 1863: ‘…the brigades are in position... by Mark Simmons | Jul 5, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Jun 7, 2024 | Uncategorized
D-Day Commando The Story of 48 Commando Royal Marines, on the 6th of June 1944. 48 Royal Marine Commando was the last such unit to be formed in World War Two, and the first to land on D-Day. Lance-Corporal Ted Brooks arrived on Nan Red Beach on the... by Mark Simmons | May 8, 2024 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Apr 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
Portuguese rights of Ian Fleming and Operation Golden Eye sold by Casemate well done to the publisher. Chapter Ten is devoted to the espionage war in Portugal during WWII fought between the Allies and the Axis in the neutral country. Also both sides coveted the... by Mark Simmons | Mar 30, 2024 | Uncategorized
Due out soon the IV of the Rob Nicolson books Roundabout following on from Operation Flamenco although like all the Rob Nicolson books it is a stand alone. In this book he takes on the Criminal Golden Circle hell bent on world domination the action moves from the... by Mark Simmons | Feb 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
The Soldier If I should die, think only this of me That there’s a corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. there shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed A dust whom England bore, shared, made one, Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways...
by Mark Simmons | Jan 23, 2024 | Uncategorized
Prinz Eugen lucky ship of the German Navy. The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, third ship of the Hipper class, was launched at Kiel from the Gaarden dockyard of the Krupp Germania works on 22August 1938.The Ship was named after Prince Eugene of Savoy... by Mark Simmons | Dec 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Nov 13, 2023 | Uncategorized
The problems of Palestine, long before it became the modern State of Israel, had begun decades before 1920 when Britain was granted a mandate over the country after World War I. Ratified by the League of Nations in 1922 which terminated in 1948. In those... by Mark Simmons | Nov 1, 2023 | Uncategorized
We produced new paperback editions of The Serpent and the Cross, Shadows Washed in Blood, Room 39: And the Cornish Legacy, and From the Foam of the Sea. Three of them also as e-books, we did have some glitches with this but overcame them. The covers were... by Mark Simmons | Oct 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
I Knew John Mussell, although we never met, for over twenty years since my first article appeared in Medal News in 2002 and I went on to write dozens more. He was always a ‘gent’ and great to work with. I would like to express my condolences to his Wife... by Mark Simmons | Sep 30, 2023 | Uncategorized
And D-Day Betrayed? Were the D-Day landings ‘Operation Neptune’ betrayed? The popular view is they were not. Rather more it is felt through the British ‘Double-Cross System’, through their double agents fed the Germans a huge amount of miss-information which they... by Mark Simmons | Sep 6, 2023 | Uncategorized
Two English officers see the American Civil War Henry Charles Fletcher of the Scots Fusilier Guards (now Scots Guards) in November 1862, in just a few weeks travelling largely by rail, covered an immense distance through the Southern States. It was... by Mark Simmons | Aug 28, 2023 | Uncategorized
by Mark Simmons | Jul 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
Coming Soon my New Book Memories and Echoes: A Brits Journey into the American Civil War. For over thirty years my wife Margaret and I have been travelling to the USA. During that time we explored the background of the Civil War visiting all the major sites and...