Featured battle : Frauenfeld

Part of The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Date : 25 May 1799

Massena's French army outnumbered the Austrian by almost four to one. There was no doubt of a French victory but surprisingly the Austrians were able to extricate 4,000 of their troops in good order to fall back on Winterthur. [see Battle of Winterthur 27th May]

Operation Colossus. The First Airborne Raid of WW II

Lawrence Paterson
Lawrence Paterson’s book is an incredible story beautifully told. As fiction it would be barely believable but the thoroughly researched facts are from official reports and first hand accounts. This book is about so much more than operation Colossus because it necessarily has to include the beginnings of military parachuting. Anyone familiar with modern military parachuting will be amazed by the early efforts in exiting from unsuitable aircraft. In a sense Colossus was an operation both to try out and test this new weapon in Britain’s armoury. From the missions successes and failures many useful lessons were learnt but to say more would be to give the game away and this book should be read as a novel which shouldn’t be spoilt by knowing the end before reading it. Supporting the text is a very good set of photographs.
To those who want to be better informed and to anyone who wants a good read we highly recommend this book.

Greenhill Books, 2020