Philip Hamlyn Williams

War on Wheels and Ordnance are still selling and a third volume is on the way

I had always hoped that War on Wheels and Ordnance would be of continuing interest. So it is heartening to see Amazon putting both back to full price, nearly four years after War on Wheels came out. Heartening too since the proof of third book, Dunkirk to D Day, has arrived from Pen & Sword, […]

The soldiers who supplied the army on D Day

Daily Telegraph journalist, Joe Shute, together with photographer, David Rose, visited me to explore my mother’s albums of my father’s war and preparation for D Day. Joe had read War on Wheels. They were both fascinated by what they found not least in terms of the numbers: people involved (250,000), items packed (350 million), vehicles and troops crossing to […]

VE Day 75 and the RAOC

The Controller of Ordnance Services, Bill Williams’s Victory message paid particular tribute to the non-regular officers, women of the ATS and civilians who worked so hard and well with regular officers and men. He welcomed the even closer links welded with the Ordnance Corps of the British Empire: India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South […]

Changes in UK jobs over two centuries help to show what happened to British Industry

The table below was taken from data provided by the Office for National Statistics and shows the number of jobs split between Manufacturing (including Construction) [Orange line] and Services [Blue line] between 1978 and 2019 taking each quarterly return. Service sector jobs increased by 11 million and manufacturing reduced by 4.5 million. Looking at services […]

Engineering links with the Great Exhibition of 1851

I am exploring the companies I came across whilst writing War on Wheels and Ordnance. I have already looked further at many of the people, and more on this soon, I hope. What of the companies? I have found myself exploring some of the earliest machines, but also the economics that drove people to make […]

Economic parallels of COVID-19 with 1914-18 and 1939-45

A package equivalent to 15% of GDP, as announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 March 2020, is of the magnitude of support for the war effort. In 1914-18 there were still gold reserves, gold mined in Empire nations and investments overseas. One and a half centuries of industrial growth, during most of […]

Soldiers who armed an Army

At Dunkirk, the British Army had lost most of its equipment, yet of D Day, only four years later, Max Hastings would write: “To almost every man of the Allied Armies, the predominant memory of the campaign, beyond the horror of battle, was the astounding efficiency of the supply services”. None of this happened by […]

The war of 1914-1945

The more I explore the story of how the Army was equipped, the more I am drawn to a single narrative covering both World Wars. It most certainly was not intended. The war machine of the controlled establishments, created by Lloyd George in order to produce the arms to enable our men to fight, was […]

The Rootes Group and the story

The Rootes Group was part of my childhood. My Dad had a Humber Hawk and then a Super-Snipe. My mother had a Hillman Minx, and my sister and I learnt to drive in a Hillman Husky. My uncle rallied Sunbeam Rapiers.Then better known as Major General Bill Williams, my father had led the Royal Army […]

Philip Hamlyn Williams

Biographer

Dunkirk to D Day – my forthcoming book

War on Wheels

Ordnance

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