Featured battle : Operation Castor

Part of French Indochina

Date : 20 November 1953 - 22 November 1953

A French paratroop operation to capture the location of Dien Bien Phu. Led by General Gilles, elements of several crack French paratroop battalions dropped into an area of Northwestern Tonkin to establish an entrenched camp to disrupt Viet Minh operations across the border in Laos. By misfortune, elements of regular Viet Minh units were exercising in the area and put up some initially stiff resistance before withdrawing.

The Badges of Kitchener's Army

David Bilton
This book has the wow! factor. Packed full of information, a real reference gem.
In its 351 pages, the badges of sixty nine infantry regiments are covered with explanatory text and over a thousand illustrations. Also, oft neglected, Divisional and Brigade badges are included. Every one of the illustrations of badges and of men wearing them is an original photograph. The text, often as an annotation to a photograph, is fully informative and where the author doesn’t have the necessary knowledge he says so. I rather fear that, after his thirty years research, if David Bilton doesn’t know then it is unlikely that the knowledge is anywhere to be found.
This book will be of interest to many people from the person with a passing interest to the most knowledgeable collector. I defy anyone who picks it up intending to look at one regiment to put it down with out looking at a few more.
We highly recommend this invaluable research tool.

Pen & Sword Military, 2018