Patrick Abbott £3.50

978 0 7478 0084 2 (Album 259) 32 pp, 51 ills.

Dirigible balloons, usually known as airships, were first suggested in the late eighteenth century but not until the invention of the internal combustion engine a hundred years later were they able to achieve controlled and directed flight. Although based on different principles from aeroplanes, airships were very successful in the early twentieth century and were used extensively by both sides in the First World War. However, the speed of aeroplanes improved rapidly so that within a few years airships were too slow to provide a challenge. The use of hydrogen also proved to be an unacceptable risk and with the burning of the Hindenburg in 1937 all development of large passenger-carrying airships ceased. The United States, with its monopoly of the safe gas helium, has continued to build and use small blimps while new developments in technology and a belated recognition of the virtues of airships have allowed Britain to return to their manufacture, in which it now leads the world.

Patrick Abbott has written The British Airship at War and Airship -The Story of the R34, and has contributed articles to various journals, mostly on aeronautical history. 

Aviation Archaeology in Britain

Guy de la Bédoyère £4.99

978 0 7478 0490 1 (Shire Archaeology 80) 64 pp, 54 ills.

During the Second World War an average of five aircraft crashed every day in the British Isles. Many others that took off from British airfields crashed on operational duties abroad. Their remains provide a fascinating opportunity for archaeological and historical study. This book, with numerous illustrations, is a wide-ranging introduction to the aircraft, the airfields, the documentary record and the memorials to the men and women who gave their lives in the air war.

Guy de la Bédoyère has degrees in Archaeology and Modern History from Durham University, the University of London and the Institute of Archaeology. His main field of study is the history and archaeology of Roman Britain, on which he has written ten books. He has presented a series on Roman Britain for BBC Radio 4 and BBC2. He has also made a number of appearances on Channel 4’s popular archaeology series Time Team, two of which involved the excavation of Second World War aircraft. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Battlefields of England and Scotland

John Kinross £8.99

978 0 7478 0370 6 (Handbook 287) 184 pp, 137 ills, 76 maps and plans.

The battlefields of Britain are a strangely neglected part of our national heritage. A few have visitor centres, and efforts have been made to explain what happened at the battle, bit most have no more than a monument, if that, to commemorate the valour of combatants and the lives lost there centuries ago. In this book the author describes sisty-nine battles that took place on English or Scottish soil. He sets each battle in its historical context, describes the action in relation to the landscape and gives a guide to the site as it is today.

John Kinross studied history at Exeter University. He is a Blue Badge Guide for the South West Region and was Honorary Secretary of the Taunton branch of the Historical Association.

Click here for other Scottish titles

British Campaign Medals 1815-1914

Peter Duckers £4.50

978 0 7478 0465 9, (Album 384) 40 pp, 58 colour and 18 b/w ills.

This book outlines the medals issued to British soldiers and sailors for military service across the globe. Their campaign medals have become a popular field for collectors since, apart from the artisitic merit of some awards, most British medals were officially named, making it possible to research the military career of an individual. Collectors feel that they can hold in their hand, a real link with the people and events of the past and with famous incidents in Britain’s military history.

Peter Duckers has been a collector of British campaign and gallantry medals for many years and now specialises in awards to the Indian Army. He is a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society, the Military Historical Society and the Indian Military Historical Society. He is the Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum in Shrewsbury Castle. Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1914–2005 (see below)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see below)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see below)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)
British Military Rifles (see below)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

British Campaign Medals 1914-2005
New updated edition - available now

Peter Duckers £4.99

978 0 7478 0515 3, (Album 393) 40 pp, 69 colour and 3 b/w ills.

This book surveys the medals awarded to British personnel for military service around the world and in two world wars. During the course of the twentieth century the role of Britain’s forces changed considerably – from imperial conquest and peace-keeping to full-scale participation in two world wars, campaigns for the withdrawal from Empire and finally service as a prominent member of the United Nations and NATO. The campaign medals awarded for these military actions have become a popular field for collectors, since the majority of British awards were officially named, thus making it possible to research the military career of an individual or regiment. Collectors feel that the objects in their collection give them a vivid and personal link with the people and events of the past and with major incidents in Britain’s military history.

Peter Duckers has been a collector of British campaign and gallantry medals for many years and now specialises in awards to the Indian Army. He has written numerous magazine and journal articles about medals and is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society, the Military Historical Society and the Indian Military Historical Society. He is Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum in Shrewsbury Castle. Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815-1914 (see above)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see below)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see below)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)
British Military Rifles (see below)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

British Gallantry Awards 1855-2000

Peter Duckers £5.99

978 0 7478 0516 8, (Album 394) 64 pp, 80 colour and 16 b/w ills.

Since ancient times soldiers have been honoured for gallantry in battle. Over the years and in different societies such honours have taken many forms but since the 1850s specific acts of bravery ‘in the face of the enemy’ by British and Imperial forces have been recognised by the award of a range of wearable decorations. These provide a visible indication both of the bravery of the recipient and of its recognition by the government and nation. Collecting awards for gallantry and researching them and their recipients have become a significant hobby within the world of militaria and numismatics; it provides enthusiasts with a feeling of real contact with those who experienced the dangers and excitement of the great events of military history and it helps to keep alive the memory of brave men and women who served their country around the world. This book surveys these British decorations and medals from their origins in the Crimean War of 1854–6 up to the end of the twentieth century.

Peter Duckers has been a collector of British campaign and gallantry medals for thirty-five years and now specialises in awards to the Indian Army. He has written numerous magazine and journal articles about medals and is a Fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, a member of the Orders and Medals Research Society, the Military Historical Society and the Indian Military Historical Society. He is Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum in Shrewsbury Castle. Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815-1914 (see above)
British Campaign Medals 1914–2005 (see above)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see below)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)
British Military Rifles (see below)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

The British Indian Army 1860-1914

Peter Duckers £5.99

978 0 7478 0550 2, (Album 412) 56 pp, 30 colour and 58 b/w ills.

For over two hundred years the British maintained a powerful military system in India. If it is recalled at all in the popular imagination of today, the Victorian Indian Army is remembered as much for its use in the pomp and ceremony of grand imperial occasions as for anything else – as a colourful adjunct to the parades, processions and rituals of British India. This book provides a glimpse into a complex, multi-layered and evolving institution and offers an introduction to the uniforms, arms and services of the Indian Army at the height of the Raj.
Peter Duckers has been a collector of British campaign and gallantry medals for thirty-five years and now specialises in awards to the Indian Army.Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815–1914 (see above)
British Campaign Medals 1914-2005 (see above)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see above)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)
British Military Rifles (see below)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

British Military Rifles

Peter Duckers £4.99

978 0 7478 0633 2, (Album 445) about 56 pp, colour and b/w ills.

This book outlines the development of the rifle and chronicles its use in the British Army over the past two hundred years. It takes the story of the British rifle from its earliest days in the American Revolutionary War, through its ‘coming of age’ in the Napoleonic War and, via the technological changes of the Victorian era, through to the present ‘individual weapon’, the SA80, used by British forces on service around the world.

Peter Duckers is Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum and has written many military books for Shire. Other titles by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815–1914 (see above)
British Campaign Medals 1914-2005 (see above)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see above)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see above)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

British Orders and Decorations

Peter Duckers £5.99

978 0 7478 0580 9, (Album 424) 56 pp, 114 colour and 10 b/w ills.

This book introduces the insignia worn by members of British Orders of Knighthood and Chivalry. These Orders have existed since the early Middle Ages and were initially intended to unite important noblemen in bonds of loyalty to their monarch or to act as impressive rewards for their services. Over the course of time, appointments to Orders were made to distinguished persons for services rendered to the sovereign or to the state and they have survived into modern times as another means of rewarding people of all classes and occupations for their contribution at international, national or local levels. The insignia worn by the various ranks within the Orders are often of the highest quality and exquisite workmanship and, like campaign medals and decorations, have become a popular field for collecting and research.

Peter Duckers has been a collector of British campaign and gallantry medals for thirty-five years. He is Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum. Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815–1914 (see above)
British Campaign Medals 1914-2005 (see above)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see above)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see above)
British Military Rifles (see above)
The Victoria Cross (see below)

Discovering British Regimental Traditions

Ian F. W. Beckett £9.99

*New colour edition - now available

978 0 7478 0662 2, (Handbook 292) 136 pp,

Professor Ian Beckett is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In this new colour edition of this fascinating book he explains how today’s British Army evolved, with its extraordinary amalgam of rules, customs, procedures, mascots and nicknames. There are chapters on veterans (who qualifies to be a Chelsea Pensioner?); ranks and appointments; badges and uniforms.

Other Shire titles by this author:

Victoria’s Wars
Discovering English County Regiments

Early Armoured Cars

E. Bartholomew £2.95

978 0 85263 908 5 (Album 209) 32 pp, 48 ills. 

Armoured cars were the first armoured fighting vehicles. Automobiles were converted for military use soon after the beginning of the twentieth century and in 1912 armoured cars were used in action for the first time. This book traces their development from the first improvised designs to the turreted armoured cars in service during the First World War. The emphasis is mainly on British vehicles, but foreign armoured cars are also included. The book is illustrated with photographs from the archives of the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset.

E. Bartholomew was the Education Officer and Assistant Librarian at the Tank Museum. This book makes extensive use of material from the Museum's collections.

Discovering English County Regiments

Ian F. W. Beckett £9.99

978 0 7478 0506 9 (Discovering handbook 291) 160 pp, 49 colour and 23 b/w ills. 

A warm regard for the British soldier, the values he served and the regimental traditions that nourished his humanity underlines the information collected in this book. It gives a brief history of each of the former county regiments, lists the battle honours on their Colours, their marches, customs, Victoria Crosses, nicknames, badges, facings, mottoes and memorials and describes their amalgamations and later lineage. Details of the regimental museum are also given, together with churches where regimental Colours are lodged. This information is offered in order that others may discover something of the endeavour which preserved Britain’s national liberties. This new, expanded volume is based upon the original work by Arthur Taylor.

Ian Beckett, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, is Major General Matthew C. Horner Professor of Military Theory at the US Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia, USA. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

Discovering Fortifications from the Tudors to the Cold War

Bernard Lowry £10.99

978 0 7478 0651 6 (Discovering handbook 296) approx 192 pp, colour and b/w ills. 

Much has been written about the decline and fall of the feudal fortress: much less has been written about the British fortifications that were built in the age of artillery. From the early and dangerous days of gunpowder to the threat of nuclear annihilation the state has responded to the threat of invasion or attack by building strongholds. The fortifications of Henry VIII resembled and were still called castles, but new influences from the Continent brought in the angled bastion and the age of the great forts such as Fort George in Scotland. As artillery and explosives became more effective fortress builders had to respond. The introduction of concrete revolutionised nineteenth- and twentieth-century fortifications. The book also describes:
*the fortifications that were built to contain insurrection in Scotland in the eighteenth century, and also in Ireland in the twentieth century;
*how London, in the fear of invasion, was ringed by a chain of fortifications in the nineteenth century;
*how in 1940 Britain put its faith in the pillbox;
*the secret structures built for defence in the Cold War.

Bernard Lowry has a lifelong interest in military architecture. He is a founder member of the Offa’s Dyke Association and the Castle Studies Group and for seven years was Honorary Secretary of the Fortress Study Group.

Military Barracks

Trevor May £3.50

978 0 7478 0489 5 (Album 358) 40 pp, many b/w ills. 

Military barracks have played an important part in the social as well as the military history of Britain. They have served many purposes, being homes, training establishments and recruitment depots, and were meant to impress (and, at times, to overawe) the local population as well as foreign enemies. Some towns, such as Aldershot and Colchester, were almost defined by the barracks located within them. This book looks at the buildings themselves, from early times to the twentieth century, and describes the life that was led in the barracks by the soldiers (and sailors) and their wives.

Staff Cars

David Fletcher £2.95

978 0 7478 0058 3 (Album 245) 32 pp, 48 ills 

With relatively few exceptions, the average military staff car is nothing more than an ordinary motor car in war paint. This book focuses primarily on the two World Wars but it begins with the first years of the twentieth century, takes a careful look at the years between the wars and briefly survey the post-war scene. Developments in great Britain form the main theme, but comparisons are made with events in other countries. Some of the more unusual types that loosely qualify as staff cars are included and many of the photographs have not been published before.

David Fletcher is the librarian at the Tank Museum, Bovington, Dorset.

Trench Art £4.99

Nicholas J. Saunders

978 0 7478 0543 4 (Album 409) 48 pp, 97 colour and 8 b/w ills.

Trench art is the evocative but misleading name given to a dazzling array of objects associated mainly with the First World War and the inter-war years (1914–39). Many items are recycled battlefield debris, notably artillery shell cases, often decorated with Art Nouveau motifs. Other objects, made from bullets and shrapnel, include letter-openers, cigarette lighters, enigmatic crucifixes, and artful miniature aeroplanes and tanks. Equally ingenious are talismanic and ‘sweetheart’ jewellery, embroideries, and items carved from stone, bone and wood. This book describes the different types of trench art, the techniques used to make them, and their historical and personal values to the soldiers, prisoners-of-war and families who made and bought them. Long ignored, trench art reveals a lost world of the Great War and its aftermath.

Dr Nicholas J. Saunders studied archaeology at Sheffield and Southampton Universities, and social anthropology at Queens’ College, Cambridge. Between 1998 and 2001 he was a British Academy Senior Research Fellow investigating the anthropology of the First World War and making the first ever study of trench art.

The Victoria Cross £5.99

Peter Duckers

978 0 7478 0635 6 (Album 447) 72 pp, 99 colour and 7 b/w ills.

The Victoria Cross, established in 1856 during the Crimean War, has remained to this day the highest British award ‘for valour’ and is perhaps the most prestigious gallantry medal in the world. Though the VC confers no special title and the medal itself is plain and simple in design, it is nevertheless the hardest-won and most coveted of gallantry awards. In every theatre of war where British and Commonwealth soldiers have served over the past one hundred and fifty years, VCs have been won by men aged from sixteen to sixty-one, soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians. Since its inception in 1856, well over thirteen hundred VCs have been awarded, reflecting the gallantry of British and Commonwealth forces in action around the world from the Crimea to Iraq. To read the award citations is to be brought face to face with examples of selfless courage and devotion to duty and to encounter deeds that are always remarkable and sometimes astounding.

Peter Duckers is Curator of the Shropshire Regimental Museum. Other titles for Shire by this author:

British Campaign Medals 1815–1914 (see above)
British Campaign Medals 1914-2005 (see above)
British Gallantry Awards 1855–2000 (see above)
The British Indian Army 1860-1914 (see above)
British Military Rifles (see above)
British Orders and Decorations (see below)

Victoria's Wars

I. F. W. Beckett £5.99

978 0 7478 0388 1 (History in Camera 2 88 pp, 52 ills 

This selection of campaign photographs shows the Victorian army in a variety of climes and conditions over 50 years from Burma in 1852 to Tibet in 1904. It also records the vital yet often neglected role played by the army in the great Victorian imperial adventure.

Ian Beckett, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, is Major General Matthew C. Horner Professor of Military Theory at the US Marine Corps University, Quantico, Virginia, USA. Other titles for Shire by this author are:

The Victorian Soldier

David Nalson £3.50

978 0 7478 0460 4 (Album 352), 32 pp, 42 b/w ills 

The Duke of Wellington’s description of the early-nineteenth- century soldier as ‘the scum of the earth’ and his less famous continuation that ‘it really is wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are’ could be applied equally to the soldiers of the Victorian period. Although lacking the sophisticated weapons of today, Victorian soldiers were basically no different from their present-day successors. This book aims to bring these soldiers to life through their uniforms, weapons, equipment and illustrations of them at war and peace.

David Nalson is a member of the Victorian Military History Society and has visited a number of Victorian battlefields. For many years he has been fascinated by the army of Queen Victoria and the personalities involved in it. Now retired, he writes on military history and assists at The Queen’s Royal Lancers’ Museum.

The WAAF

Currently out of print - reprinting Spring 2008

Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott £3.50

978 0 7478 0572 4 (Album 422), 40 pp, 81 b/w ills 

The story of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force is a journey of exploration. This intriguing history tells the story of the wartime WAAF at work and play. They were no decorative adjunct to the RAF, but an integral working force that eventually saved the RAF 150,000 men, whose places they admirably filled. Debarred from flying, they nevertheless could be found in posts ranging from cooks to aircraft fitters. In secrecy they worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park, in the Y Listening Service, as code and cypher officers in Churchill’s War Cabinet, as air interpreters, and as SOE agents in occupied France. Many others were posted abroad to work. This book provides a fascinating view of their many roles.

Squadron Leader Beryl E. Escott joined the RAF in 1961 and in her spare time edited magazines and wrote books for the service. Leaving the RAF in 1986, she is now widely recognised as the leading WAAF historian.

War Memorials in Britain

Jim Corke £5.99

978 0 7478 0626 4, (Album 441) about 56 pp, colour and b/w ills.

War memorials are a feature of Britain’s landscape, often taken for granted, and part of the fabric of its history as a nation. The Imperial War Museum’s National Inventory has sixty thousand war memorials spanning two millennia. They include works of art and the artless, the sacred and the secular, vernacular and abstract forms, all redolent with symbolism ancient and modern. The examples shown here are an eclectic mix with, perhaps, a few surprises. They are intended as a tribute to the victims of war and as tangible reminders of significant events, deserving remembrance and necessitating their conservation as part of the national heritage.

Jim Corke is a regional volunteer for the Friends of War Memorials and the Imperial War Museum, London.

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