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HMS Peterel: The Royal Navy's Defiant Last Stand at Shanghai, 1941

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Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a small Royal Navy gunboat faced impossible odds in Shanghai.

When Japanese officers boarded HMS Peterel demanding surrender, her captain - 62-year-old Lieutenant Stephen Polkinghorn - gave them a defiant reply: "Get off my bloody ship!"

What followed was a one-sided battle against the armoured cruiser Izumo and shore batteries. With her main guns deliberately disabled, Peterel's crew fought back with Lewis guns and small arms.

She became the first British warship sunk by the Japanese in the Second World War - but she went down fighting, White Ensign still flying.

This video explores why British and American gunboats were in Shanghai, the strange "Solitary Island" existence of the International Settlement surrounded by Japanese forces since 1937, and the dramatic events of 8 December 1941.

It also reveals the remarkable story of CPO James Cuming, who evaded capture and spent the entire war as a spy in occupied Shanghai.

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The real Blackadder who fought at the Battle of Blenheim, 1704.

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Long before Rowan Atkinson's comic creation, a real Blackadder was fighting in some of the bloodiest battles in British military history. Lieutenant-Colonel John Blackadder was a Scottish soldier who served under the Duke of Marlborough and fought at the Battle of Blenheim—where he nearly died from a musket ball to the throat.

Born in 1664 to a firebrand Covenanter preacher who died imprisoned on the Bass Rock, John Blackadder joined the newly-raised Cameronians in 1689. This distinctively religious Scottish regiment—nicknamed the "Psalm-singing Regiment"—would become his military home for over two decades. His first taste of battle came at Dunkeld, where 800 Cameronians held off more than 3,000 Jacobite Highlanders.

During the Nine Years War, Blackadder fought at Steenkirk, Landen and the Siege of Namur. But his career was nearly derailed when he killed a fellow officer in a duel at Maastricht—an act that haunted this devout Presbyterian for the rest of his life.

The War of the Spanish Succession brought Blackadder to Marlborough's greatest victories. He survived Schellenberg, was wounded at Blenheim, served at Ramillies, and was hit twice more at the Siege of Lille. At the catastrophic Battle of Malplaquet in 1709, Marlborough personally promoted him to Lieutenant-Colonel on the battlefield when his commanding officer fell wounded.

After retiring in 1711, Blackadder returned to service during the 1715 Jacobite rebellion, commanding the Glasgow Volunteer Regiment. He ended his days as Deputy-Governor of Stirling Castle, and his diaries—published in 1824—remain an invaluable account of early 18th-century military life.

Timeline of John Blackadder's Life:

• 1664: Born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland
• 1689: Joins the Cameronians; fights at Battle of Dunkeld
• 1691: Kills Lieutenant Robert Murray in a duel at Maastricht
• 1693: Promoted to Captain
• 1704: Fights at Schellenberg and Blenheim (wounded)
• 1705: Promoted to Major
• 1706: Present at Battle of Ramillies
• 1708: Wounded twice at Siege of Lille
• 1709: Battlefield promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel at Malplaquet
• 1711: Sells commission and retires
• 1715: Commands Glasgow Volunteer Regiment during Jacobite rebellion
• 1729: Dies aged 64; buried in Stirling

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Fought in 1706, the Battle of Ramillies is arguably the Duke of Marlborough's greatest victory.

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The Battle of Blenheim 1704: Marlborough's first of four great victories over the French.

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In 1704, the Duke of Marlborough embarked on one of the most audacious military campaigns in British history.
With Vienna under threat from a combined French and Bavarian army, Marlborough deceived both his Dutch allies and his French enemies, marching 21,000 men 250 miles across Europe in just five weeks.

This video tells the story of how Marlborough outmanoeuvred the rigid French command structure, linked up with Prince Eugene of Savoy, and brought the French to battle at a small village on the Danube that would give its name to one of England's most famous victories.

The Battle of Blenheim saw Marlborough commanding a true coalition force — British, Dutch, Austrian, German and Danish troops fighting together against Marshal Tallard's veteran French army and their Bavarian allies.

The battle itself was a masterclass in combined arms warfare: infantry assaults on fortified villages, cavalry charges across boggy ground, and artillery moved forward at critical moments under Colonel Holcroft Blood.

A single French error — packing 12,000 men into Blenheim village — handed Marlborough the advantage he needed. By nightfall, Tallard was a prisoner, thousands of French cavalry had drowned in the Danube, and Louis XIV had suffered his first major defeat in forty years.
The victory saved the Habsburg Empire, knocked Bavaria out of the war, and earned Marlborough a palace that still bears the battle's name. It was England's greatest continental victory since Agincourt.

KEY DATES:

19 May 1704 – Marlborough begins his march from Bedburg
10 June 1704 – Marlborough meets Prince Eugene at Mundelsheim
2 July 1704 – Storming of the Schellenberg
13 August 1704 – Battle of Blenheim
21 August 1704 – News reaches Queen Anne at Windsor

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Florence Nightingale, the "Lady with the lamp" is one of the most famous British women in history. But, what did she really achieve?

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Buy a copy of Mary Seacole's autobiography
https://amzn.to/4qfNoox (this is my Amazon affiliate link)

Find out more about the Florence Nightingale Museum in London
https://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk

She's one of the most famous women in British history. Florence Nightingale, The Lady with the Lamp. The founder of modern nursing. The saintly figure who saved countless soldiers in the Crimean War.

But how much of that story is actually true?

In this documentary, we examine the real Florence Nightingale – a woman far more complex, more flawed, and ultimately more impressive than the sanitised legend suggests.

We discover that during the very winter the myth was being created, the Barrack Hospital at Scutari had a death rate of 42 percent – and Nightingale didn't understand why.

We meet the engineers whose sanitary reforms actually turned the tide. We encounter the other Crimean War nurses whose contributions have been overshadowed: Mary Seacole, Betsi Cadwaladr, the formidable Mother Bridgeman, and the tragic Martha Clough.

But we also explore what Nightingale achieved after the war – the statistical analysis, the political campaigning, the 853-page reports written from her sickbed that transformed military medicine and public health across the British Empire.

The revolutionary coxcomb diagram.

The nursing school that professionalised healthcare. The workhouse reforms that laid foundations for modern welfare.

This is a story about Victorian myth-making and what happens when the reality is finally allowed to emerge.

Florence Nightingale Timeline
1820 – Born 12 May, Florence, Italy
1837 – Receives religious "calling" aged 16
1850 – Rescues Athena the owl; trains at Kaiserswerth, Germany
1853 – Superintendent, Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen, Harley Street
1854 – Departs for Crimea (21 October); arrives Scutari (4 November)
1855 – Death rates peak 42% (February); Sanitary Commission arrives (March); rates fall to 2% (June)
1856 – Returns to England; meets Queen Victoria at Balmoral
1857 – Royal Commission on Health of the Army established
1858 – Publishes 853-page report; first female Fellow, Royal Statistical Society
1859 – Publishes Notes on Nursing
1860 – Nightingale Training School opens, St Thomas' Hospital
1861 – Sidney Herbert dies; Nightingale becomes bedridden
1865 – Professional nursing introduced to Liverpool Workhouse
1907 – Awarded Order of Merit (first woman)
1910 – Dies 13 August, aged 90

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This is Part 2 of my story about the battle (and fall) of Hong Kong in December 1941.

Listen to Part 1

Chris Green is The History Chap; telling stories that brings the past to life.

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Just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the Japanese invaded the British colony of Hong Kong on the 8th December 1941.

Smashing through the wonderfully named Gin Drinkers Line (which British military planners had optimistically called the “Oriental Maginot Line”), the British commander, General Christopher Maltby was forced to evacuate his entire force to Hong Kong Island after just five days.

Now, his 14,000 British, Canadian, Indian and local troops waited the final assault. They knew that there was no help coming - they knew that before the invasion even started - with no air and almost no naval support - they awaited the inevitable.

This is part 2 of my story about the battle of Hong Kong in 1941.

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The battle for Hong Kong fought between the 8th and 25th December 1941, is overshadowed by the British defeat at Singapore and thus is often a forgotten chapter in World War 2.

And yet, the British, Indian, and Canadian troops plus local volunteers who fought a grim and bitter battle against a Japanese enemy that outnumbered them is one that should be told and remembered.

It is the story of the Gin Drinkers defensive line, a Dunkirk-style evacuation, a massacre at a field hospital on Christmas Day, a desperate escape to freedom led by a one legged Chinese admiral, the first Canadian Victoria Cross of the war, and a loyal dog who would receive the animal version of the Victoria Cross.

In fact it is such a fascinating story that I have broken it into two episodes.

This is episode one. I hope that you enjoy it.

Chris Green is The History Chap; telling stories that brings the past to life.

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John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough: The General Who Never Lost A Battle.

Chris Green is The History Chap; telling stories that brings the past to life.

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John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, is widely regarded as Britain's greatest general — yet his remarkable story remains surprisingly unfamiliar to many.

The Duke of Marlborough won five major pitched battles against Louis XIV's armies, including the famous Battle of Blenheim in 1704, which saved the Grand Alliance from collapse and broke the myth of French invincibility. He successfully besieged nearly 30 fortresses, commanded multinational armies of up to 100,000 men, and was never defeated in battle.

But military genius alone did not secure his position.

His wife, Sarah Churchill, maintained a close friendship with Princess Anne that proved crucial to his career. When Anne became queen, Sarah Churchill's influence helped elevate Marlborough to unprecedented heights — a dukedom, command of all English forces, and the manor of Woodstock where he would build Blenheim Palace.

Yet when that friendship soured, Marlborough lost everything. Despite his victories, including the Battle of Blenheim, he was dismissed in disgrace, accused of corruption, and forced into exile.

We also trace the connection to his descendent, Winston Churchill, who wrote a four-volume biography defending his ancestor and is buried just outside Blenheim Palace.
The War of the Spanish Succession reshaped Europe, and Marlborough was central to that transformation.

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