BATTLE FOR THE ISLAND KINGDOM
Now available from Osprey Publishing: Vikings, Normans and Anglo-Saxons in the great game of empire. Available in hardcover, audiobook & ebook.
For over 30 years Don Hollway’s writing on history, aviation, and re-enacting has appeared in magazines ranging from Aviation History, Excellence, History Magazine, Military Heritage, Military History, Wild West, and World War II to Muzzleloader, Porsche Panorama, Renaissance Magazine, and Scientific American.
His first nonfiction book, The Last Viking: The True Story of King Harald Hardrada (Osprey/Bloomsbury, 2021), a gripping history of the Norse king, is an Amazon best seller in the US and UK, acclaimed by The Times of London and by Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The Washington Post. His second book, At the Gates of Rome: The Fall of the Eternal City, AD 410 (Osprey/Bloomsbury, 2022), was similarly well received. And his Battle for the Island Kingdom (Osprey/Bloomsbury, 2023), about the decades leading up to the pivotal Battle of Hastings in 1066, was chosen as one of the Top Five History Books of 2023 by The Epoch Times and shortlisted by Military History Matters magazine as a Top Ten History Book of 2024.
He is a member of the Organization of American Historians and the Viking Society for Northern Research in the UK.
Now available from Osprey Publishing: Vikings, Normans and Anglo-Saxons in the great game of empire. Available in hardcover, audiobook & ebook.
Now available from Osprey Publishing: The fall of the Eternal City, AD 410. Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook & ebook.
Now available from Osprey Publishing: The dramatic saga of one of the greatest Viking warriors who ever lived. Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook & ebook.
A medieval last stand in the mountain pass of Roncesvalles set the standard for knightly conduct through the High Middle Ages.
From MILITARY HERITAGE, Fall 2023
Real Special Forces battles inspired a novel and a movie, propelling the Green Berets to stardom.
From VIETNAM, June 2022
In “officially neutral” Laos, 3,000 communist troops converged on a handful of Americans at a top-secret 5,800-foot-high mountain base
From VIETNAM, January 2021
After bitter defeat at the Bay of Pigs, the CIA sent an “instant air force” to Africa to fight communism…and Che Guevara.
From AVIATION HISTORY, January 2021
Malmedy, Belgium is infamous for a nearby massacre of American POWs, committed by a Waffen-SS unit. But it was also site of an important Allied victory.
From WORLD WAR II, December 2018
In August 1961 a crew of Douglas Aircraft test pilots proved the new DC-8’s worth by diving it through the speed of sound.
From AVIATION HISTORY , March 2022
During the Vietnam War, not one, not two, but three US Navy aircraft carriers suffered catastrophic fires
From VIETNAM MAGAZINE, August 2020
Gaius Appuleius Diocles earned more than most Roman governors, enough to pay all the imperial legions for several months or feed Rome itself for a year.
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Spring 2017
Now on Quora.com
At Quatre Bras on June 16, 1815, Marshal Ney held the fate of France in his hands. Lord Wellington did everything possible to thwart him from his objective.
From MILITARY HERITAGE, September 2017
After a Russian missile made “just one more” U.S. spy plane flight the last, American pilot Francis Gary Powers found himself facing KGB interrogators in Moscow while Dwight Eisenhower faced embarrassment at home.
From AVIATION, May 1994
Stunt pilot and air racer Paul Mantz flew in more than 250 movies and once owned the world's seventh largest air force
Appearing in AVIATION HISTORY, May 2020
The English siege of Orleans began in October 1428 and lasted seven months. French commander Joan of Arc broke it in seven days
From MILITARY HERITAGE magazine, Sept. 2018
One of the very first fighter aces, Jean Navarre terrorized the skies over France by day and the streets of Paris by night.
From AVIATION HISTORY, Nov. 2012
Six British battleships, three battlecruisers, two aircraft carriers, 16 cruisers, 33 destroyers and eight submarines, against one German battleship. It was an even match.
From HISTORY magazine, August/September 2017
Fifty years ago, filming the classic Hollywood movie Battle of Britain required former adversaries to relive the war, and reopen old wounds.
From AVIATION HISTORY magazine, Sept. 2019
American Louis Curdes shot down German, Italian and Japanese airplanes, but won a DFC for shooting down a U.S. transport
From AVIATION HISTORY magazine, Jan. 2017
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #8
In the very first weeks of World War II, Günther Prien and U-47 struck a surprise blow at the heart of the Royal Navy
From UBOAT.NET
To this day Étienne Brûlé might be remembered with Hudson, Cartier and Champlain as one of the great explorers of North America...if he hadn’t gone native.
From HISTORY MAGAZINE Dec-Jan 2015
Hans-Ulrich Rudel, Germany’s most highly decorated combat pilot, only shot down nine enemy aircraft, but he destroyed the equivalent of more than three Soviet tank corps
From AVIATION HISTORY, July 2011
The instrument that Shaped the 20th Century
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, December/January 2017
From bomber general to head of Strategic Air Command—and self-professed war criminal—Curtis LeMay divided America, but always kept it safe
From AVIATION HISTORY, November 2021
When the French Resistance needed help, a squadron of ex-sub hunters became the air arm of the OSS
Appearing in AVIATION HISTORY MAGAZINE, JULY 2019
In 1964–65 soldier for hire Mike Hoare and a handful of mercenaries defeated a horde of drug-addled communist Simba rebels—and Che Guevara—to reclaim the Congo
Appearing in MILITARY HISTORY MAGAZINE, March 2019
As a leader of Germany’s deadly “Fokker Scourge,” Max Immelmann almost single-handedly took on the entire British Royal Flying Corps.
From AVIATION HISTORY, Nov. 2013
At the height of the Battle of Britain, a platoon of volunteer reservists stood off an inadvertent German airborne invasion
Appearing in HISTORY MAGAZINE, Feb/March 2019
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #2
In January 1967 a World War II ace taught the North Vietnamese—and the US Air Force—how to dogfight
From VIETNAM MAGAZINE, January 2019
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #7
In 1918 the future Luftwaffe leader and Nazi war criminal was a 22-victory fighter ace and German war hero
From AVIATION HISTORY, January 2019
For nearly the entire Vietnam War, U.S. planes failed to destroy a bridge at Thanh Hoa. Then came the smart bomb.
From VIETNAM magazine, October 2015
Hernán Cortés and the Conquest of Mexico
From WILD WEST MAGAZINE, August 1992
To kill German zeppelins in their roosts, the British Royal Navy unveiled a secret weapon: the aircraft carrier.
From AVIATION HISTORY, July 2016
At Dunbar in 1650 Oliver Cromwell found his army trapped by a Scots army twice its size. Retreat was not an option.
From MILITARY HERITAGE May 2018
Only battle wounds kept Gerhard Barkhorn, with 301 victories history’s second-ranked fighter pilot, from becoming the all-time Ace of Aces
From AVIATION HISTORY, Sept. 2012
Off Cherbourg, France in 1864, two old shipmates squared off in the greatest maritime clash of the Civil War
From CIVIL WAR QUARTERLY Early Fall 2014
In the final months of World War II, Japanese aviators resorted to a last-ditch tactic: the suicide dive
From AVIATION HISTORY, Nov. 2015
Occupying the ridgetop at Hastings, King Harold’s shield wall surely invincible. Attacking up the slope was William. The outcome would be truly historic.
From MILITARY HISTORY, August 1992
The 1932 Thompson Trophy race pitted America’s greatest pilot against a man-killing hot rod of the air.
From AVIATION HISTORY, November 1994
The rocket-powered Me-163 Komet interceptor outperformed every other World War II combat aircraft…if its pilots lived to fight.
From AVIATION HISTORY, Nov. 2017
Sparked by a revolt in Bohemia, the Thirty Years’ War should have ended on a mountaintop near Prague in 1620, yet it dragged on another 28 years.
From MILITARY HISTORY, Jan. 2018
In December 1969 the rescue of two downed airmen snowballed into one of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War.
Appearing in VIETNAM MAGAZINE, August 2018
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #2, #5 & #10
Dancer, stripper, courtesan, spy: Did she cause the deaths of 50,000 soldiers in WWI?
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Dec. 2015
The faster airplanes go, the faster we need to get out of them.
From AVIATION HISTORY MAGAZINE, July 2018
A 15-minute skirmish at Wrightsville Bridge had a lasting impact on the Battle of Gettysburg and, by extension, the entire American Civil War.
From CIVIL WAR QUARTERLY, Early Fall 2015
A small group of die-hard aviators fended off Japanese invaders at Guadalcanal
From AVIATION HISTORY MAGAZINE, Sept. 1998
A peep at the naked truth about the legendary lady who bared all for her people.
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Oct/Nov 2015
James Michener’s bestseller and movie adaptation were based on one very bad day in North Korea
From AVIATION HISTORY MAGAZINE, Sept. 2016
A burning look at the conflagration that destroyed, and gave rebirth to, America's second city
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Feb/March 2016
By the end of the Renaissance the gunpowder genie was well out of the bottle. For over 400 years we've been trying to put it back in.
From RENAISSANCE FAIRES & CULTURE, Feb/March 2014
Fighter pilot, test pilot, aerobatic pilot: Bob Hoover was considered the greatest of all by airmen worldwide
From AVIATION HISTORY, September 2015
With Richmond in flames behind them, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, his family, and high-ranking government officials began a desperate dash for Mexico.
From CIVIL WAR QUARTERLY, Winter 2017
After ‘Hub’ Zemke whipped them into shape, the P-47 pilots of the 56th Fighter Group went on to score 992½ confirmed kills.
From AVIATION HISTORY, September 1999
The great mercenary commander of the Thirty Years War, Albrecht von Wallenstein went from soldier of fortune to supreme general to hunted outlaw
From MILITARY HERITAGE, Spring 2013
Filmed 50 years ago, long before the advent of CGI, the World War I aviation epic required two air forces built from scratch and stunt pilots willing to risk everything flying them
From AVIATION HISTORY, July 2015
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #1 & #2
Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt in the summer of 1798 served as a dress rehearsal for his subsequent conquest of Europe.
From MILITARY HERITAGE,September 2016
Jet combat over Korea gave a few WWII aces a chance to re-write their names in the history books.
From AVIATION HISTORY, Nov. 2014
Benjamin Church embraced Native American warfare, earning the respect and dread of his foes during King Philip’s War.
From MILITARY HERITAGE, Nov. 2016
Its development was kept under wraps for 14 years, but by 1991, the F-117 Nighthawk had become a household word.
From AVIATION HISTORY, March 1996
At Breitenfeld in 1631, the innovative tactics and gear of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus II revolutionized warfare
From AVIATION HISTORY, March 1996
GLOBAL GOOGLE RANK: #7
The Susquehannocks, the Europeans, and the Balance of Mid-Atlantic Power, 1608-1763
From MUZZLELOADER, January & March 2013
70 years ago, American aviators did the impossible —and set a precedent—by deliberately targeting the enemy’s most notorious leader
From AVIATION HISTORY, May 2013
When James Andrews’ Federal raiders stole his train, determined conductor William Fuller took action; the Great Locomotive Chase had begun.
From CIVIL WAR QUARTERLY, Early Spring 2015
The heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder went from lab-table exercise to preeminent air-combat weapon of the jet age.
From AVIATION HISTORY, March 2013
The versatile Skyraider flew missions that no jet could.
From VIETNAM magazine August 2017
Remember, remember, the 5th of November: Exploding the myths of history's first terrorist plot
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, May/June 2017
Thaddeus Lowe and his Union Army Balloon Corps pioneered aerial reconnaissance over some of the first battlefields of the American Civil War.
From MILITARY HERITAGE, July 2016
From Marine Corps orphans to top-scoring fighter squadron, VMF-214 followed their brawling leader, “Pappy” Boyington, to fame
From AVIATION HISTORY, Jan. 2014
The 1965 Indo-Pakistani War pitted Sabres and Starfighters against British and French fighters in low-level combat.
From AVIATION HISTORY, May 2017
Manfred von Richthofen shot down 80 enemy aircraft to become the World War I Ace of Aces
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Nov. 2015
On New Year’s Day 1945 the German Air Force launched its final offensive: an aerial Battle of the Bulge
From AVIATION HISTORY, March 2015
A thousand years ago, the Irish united under High King Brian Boru to expel the Vikings.
From HISTORY MAGAZINE, Feb/March 2014
