Oliver Hayes: 28 books

In 1940 Hitler’s Germany launched an unprovoked attack on little Denmark. The campaign was meticulously planned and over in hours. It saw the first ever use of paratroops in war, the first German amphibious landings of the war and the threat of terror bombing of cities and towns. The Fall...

While the RMS Titanic was sinking more than a dozen ships were racing to the rescue. This is the story of the rescue mission, including the search for bodies that followed.The story of the tragic sinking of RMS Titanic is well known, but less well known today are the frantic efforts made by more...

In the chaos that engulfed Britain after the “Age of Arthur”, one battle stands out. This was a key battle fought in the heart of the Dark Ages for control of southern Britain that pitched the King of Kent against the leader of the Romano-Britons. The victory won here decided the fate of Britain...

The mighty warrior king Niall Noígíallach dominates the twilight world between history and legend. He was one of the greatest of the High Kings of Ireland in prehistoric days, but one of the least known to modern historians. He gave rise to the powerful and widespread O'Neil (Ui Neill) dynasty...

NOW UPDATED FOR POPE FRANCISFor at least five centuries scholars have puzzled over a document known as The Papal Prophecies that were ascribed to St Malachy, an Irish cleric who died in 1148. The Prophecies clearly state that both Rome and the Papacy will be destroyed at some date in the early...

For many centuries it was accepted almost without discussion that the priesthood, and pastoral work more generally, was exclusively a male domain. Women had a role within the Christian Church, as nuns or lay workers, but the giving of the sacraments was seen as a male preserve. And yet for centuries...

Key note: The Battle of Albuera was one of the bloodiest, and yet least decisive of the battles fought in the Peninsular War. In the spring of 1811, the French armies in Portgual were in headlong retreat, falling back into Spain to regroup. As they fell back they left a powerful garrison in...

For six weeks in the spring of 1812 Wellingston’s Anglo-Spanish army marched and countermarched across western Spain as it sought to find away past the French army of Marshal Marmont. Their chance came at Salamanca.The hilly country around Salamanca had bad roads and poor sightlines, a fact...

The Retreat to Corunna was a spectacular defeat for the British Army, yet it managed to save its reputation by carrying out one of the great fighting retreats of military history. In 1808 a British army under Sir John Moore advanced from its base at Lisbon into Spain to aid Spanish armies fighting...

In about the year 1190 monks at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset claimed that they had found the tomb of King Arthur. The discovery is today routinely dismissed as a crude hoax worked by monks greedy for the money that would come from a stream of pilgrims visiting the tomb. But was it a hoax? And if...

The Battle of Oporto was key early British victory in the Peninsular War that ensured that the troops commanded by Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) would not be driven out by the French any time soon.In March 1809 the French under Marshal Soult defeated a British-Portuguese army...

The Peninsular War was a savage war fought as part of the Napoleonic Wars that convulsed Europe for more than a decade. They saw set piece battles, guerrilla campaigns, sieges and every form of warfare known to the early 19th century.The Peninsular War began when the citizens of Madrid rebelled...

The Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo was a savage affair, fought as part of the Peninsular War that pitched Britain’s Duke of Wellington against Napoleon’s French Marshals.The fortress city of Ciudad Rodgrio blocked the route that Wellington wished to use to march his combined British-Portuguese...

With British & American troops again in Afghanistan, this book looks back to a previous conflict when Islamic fundamentalists again sought to overthrow the government of Afghanistan and British troops went in to pacify the area. In September 1879 rebels against Emir Yaqub Khan massacred...