Philip Hamlyn Williams

Bob Hiam, COD Old Dalby, AOD Caen and Antwerp 1944

Whilst the Dunkirk evacuation was taking place, Bob Hiam was busy setting up what was intended to be an overflow Motor Transport Depot for COD Chilwell. Soon it became clear that a further massive depot for armaments was needed to support COD Donnington, and COD Old Dalby began to take shape. Bob Hiam had worked in tyre sales and […]

Arms and vaccines – strange bedfellows

I was surprised when I read in the newspaper about vaccine production by Oxford University/Astra Zeneca to discover that the government had backed the development of the vaccine by paying money up front; not just money, but many millions. I was reminded of two other periods in our history when government has put is money where its mouth […]

How Dunkirk to D Day came about

Writing War on Wheels and Ordnance, I became more and more aware that the same names kept appearing. It chilled me to realise that these people had fought in not only one world war, but two. They are called the blighted generation, and rightly so.I decided to explore the lives of such men and women […]

My forthcoming book Dunkirk to D Day

I have spent the last five years researching and writing about how the British Army was supplied in the two world wars. In my research the same names kept re-appearing. I needed to find out who these people were: what had prepared them for the task they undertook, what they did afterwards and what impact […]

120,000 post hits on philwilliamswriter.co.uk

Dunkirk to D Day is to be launched next month, with the reveal of the book cover. It tells the story of the lives of those who led the RAOC supply of the army in WW2 Now under contract, is How Britain Created the Manufacturing World. This began as an exploration of the many companies […]

Some of the characters in Dunkirk to D Day – Jack Omond

Dunkirk to D Day is about some of the leaders of the RAOC who together achieved the astonishing supply success of the D Day landings. It follows the lives of some twenty men and one woman caught up in war. Most of the men served in two world wars, many came together on a course […]

How Britain Changed the Manufacturing World

I am thrilled that Pen & Sword have agreed to publish my latest work in progress, How Britain Changed the Manufacturing World. The peoples of the British Isles gave to the world the foundations on which modern manufacturing economies are built. This is quite an assertion, but history shows that, in the late eighteenth century, […]

VJ Day 75

The expectation of a long and gruelling land war against Japan was firmly in the minds of British soldiers fighting in the Forgotten Army, but also those wrestling with the massive problems of how such a war might be supplied. I wrote about this in the final chapter of my 2016 book, War on Wheels. Over […]