John Rhodes

Tidal Wave

… the B-24s flew into very heavy flak at very low altitudes as a parade of slow-moving targets …A B-24 flies over burning facilities in Ploiești.On August 1st, 1943, B-24 Liberators from the 8th and 9th US Army Air Forces attacked the oil refineries at Ploiești,...

read more

Gomorrah

“Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven... And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” King...

read more

Chastise

Early this month I sent the draft of my next book to the publisher. Since then I have been wandering the streets in search of gainful occupation … The book is titled ‘Trial and Tribulation’—a Churchill quote, of course—and is set in 1943. That was the year in which...

read more

So This Is Christmas

This is the third year I am posting this Christmas Blog, which celebrates the moment in 1914 when the soldiers came out of their trenches to share drinks and sing carols together. It would be nice to imagine that the good side of human nature prevailed and peace was...

read more

Avro Lancaster

Now we come to one of the most important aircraft that fought in World War II, the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. When I was 5 or 6 years old we went to visit my grandparents who lived in Kirton-in-Linsey in Lincolnshire. The last part of our long journey took us along...

read more

De Havilland Mosquito: The Wooden Wonder

I have been busy with the next installment of the Breaking Point series, which has the tentative title ‘Trial & Tribulation,’ a title taken like the other titles in this series from a speech by Winston Churchill. It is now 1943. My protagonists face the fourth...

read more