Second World War

Topic description and stories

Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Credit: Churchill Archives Centre

D-Day’s ‘forgotten man’

06 Jun 2014

Seventy years after Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, the Churchill Archives Centre has released a short film commemorating the ‘...

Ronald Edmond Balfour, Credit: King's College Archive Centre, The Papers of Ronald Edmond Balfour, REB

Ronald Balfour: Cambridge’s own ‘monuments man’

10 Mar 2014

The ‘monuments men’ were a multinational unit of the Allied Forces who operated behind enemy lines during the Second World War to safeguard artistic...

An RAF training plane in the skies over Cambridge during the early days of World War II. The image is taken from Malcolm Shaw's film., Credit: Malcolm Shaw and the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

Captured on film: footage of Cambridge student life during WWII

15 Jan 2014

Previously unseen archive footage has been made available online which shows student life in Cambridge at the start of the Second World War.

General Chen Yi of China accepts the surrender of Andō Rikichi, the Japanese Governor-General of Taiwan. The collapse of Japanese Imperial rule in the area marked the beginning of a new era for both countries.

Identity, trial and retribution: East Asia after World War II

05 Nov 2012

A five-year research project will examine East Asia’s emergence and struggle for self-definition after the fall of the Japanese Empire.

Marking the centenary of Turing's birth

23 Jun 2012

Saturday 23 June marks the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing - mathematical genius, hero of the WWII code breakers of Bletchley Park, and father...

Dr Gilly Carr at the entrance to “Occupied Behind Barbed Wire”, which will be on display in Jersey until the end of 2012.

The art of survival

22 May 2012

A collection of artefacts made by prisoners from the Channel Islands in World War II has gone on display in Jersey to mark the 70th anniversary of...

An extract from the original psychoanalysis.

Inside Hitler’s mind

04 May 2012

A secret report, previously unknown to historians, shows how British Intelligence was tracking Hitler’s growing preoccupation with “the enemy within...