Political scandals are nothing new. That a major scandal should have developed in what we may consider to be quintessentially gentlemanly England of Edwardian times is nonetheless something of a surprise.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Britain was without question the leading nation on earth and her great fleet the largest and most powerful ever assembled. The position of First Sea Lord was therefore one of the most important and influential military posts in the world. Little wonder then that the two most prominent admirals of the day, Beresford and Fisher, fought to achieve this, the highest rank in the Senior Service.

There are few better stories in the true crime genre than that of the miscarriage of justice being overturned at the very last minute and resulting the true culprit being brought to account. When the evidence that enables this to happen is generated by what is effectively the very birth of the forensic techniques we now take for granted, the story of Charlie Stielow, told in Colin Evans’ Slaughter on a Snowy Morn becomes an even more tantalising prospect.

Warfare always brings about rapid change, both technologically and conceptually. Nothing could exemplify this more than the development of airborne warfare which, for the British Army, began with a vague idea by Winston Churchill in June 1940. Within five years this form of warfare, in terms of the British armed forces, had reached its zenith when, on 24 March 1945, the 6th Airborne Division was dropped as part of the Rhine crossing.

On this day, nearly 12,000 men with their weapons, jeeps, artillery, anti-tank guns and even tanks were carried in a single lift in no less than 683 aircraft and 444 gliders. In this remarkable achievement, the 6th Airborne Division was carried over the heads of the assault troops crossing the river and put down on their drop and landing zones east of the Rhine. A remarkable achievement.

Richard King begins this fine book with an interesting and probably little-known fact. This is that it took Germany longer to defeat Poland in 1939 than it did for them to defeat the French in 1940 – and in Poland they were assisted by the Soviets.

When the fighting in Poland finally ended in October 1939, some 10,000 Polish Air Force servicemen of all ranks escaped to France. But it was in Britain that the Free Polish Air Force sought its home. This was because the Poles already had considerable knowledge of British aeronautical systems and engines which were used in Polish-designed aircraft and because they believed, correctly as it transpired, that the RAF had better machines than the French.