IWM Blog

  • Blog: Cold War

    Versions of everyday survival in 1950s Britain: feeling fear without worrying.

    The Cold War launched a new series of threats on Britain - from invasion by communists to atomic warfare. The military and moral implications of this ideological battle meant that fear was ever-present in the public sphere.
  • Blog: Arts and Culture

    Finding new ways to understand the impact of war: The ‘Sensory War 1914-2014’ Exhibition

    Kathryn Butler, a CDP student at the IWM and Open University, discusses her reactions to the 'Sensory War 1914-2014' exhibition.
  • Blog: IWM London

    Reprisal bombs on London following ‘Dam Busters’ raid

    Operation Chastise which destroyed the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe Dams was launched on the night of the 16th May 1943.
  • Blog: First World War

    Geoffrey Malins-early adopter?

    One of the recurrent pleasures of historical research is proving that something we assume to be up-to-the-minute in fact has a long back-story…
  • Blog

    Beyond Camps and Forced Labour, 7-9 January 2015: Day 3

    On the third and last day of the conference the themes ranged from visual testimonies, and repatriation and resettlement, to the legacy of the euthanasia programmes and medical experiments, and the uses of the International Tracing Service (ITS) digital collection.
  • Blog

    Beyond Camps and Forced Labour, 7-9 January 2015: Day 2

    The second day of the conference promised, and gave, a very full programme of 32 papers across nine panels. Papers touched on repatriation and resettlement, children, compensation, early testimonies, remembrance, displaced persons and forced labour.
  • Blog

    ‘Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: current International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution’, 7 – 9 January 2015

    The opening plenary session of this conference focused on the world’s newest Jewish Museum - Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw.
  • Blog

    ‘We hope to give the lads a little cheer’: marking Christmas during the First World War

    During the First World War, the troops made an effort to mark Christmas, despite the obvious difficulties. Words, objects and images from Imperial War Museums’ collections and elsewhere reveal how the soldiers negotiated some space for family, sharing and festivity.
  • Blog: Cold War

    The RAF in the Cold War 1950-1970

    For over forty years the Royal Air Force was in the frontline of Britain’s Cold War defences. Recording the first half of this dynamic period were a small number of specialist aviation photographers from the Air Ministry’s (later Ministry of Defence’s) Photographic Reproduction Branch (PRB) who produced a unique collection of 10,000 colour images.
  • Blog

    Remembrance Day 2014: Break of Day in the Trenches

    On the first Remembrance Day of the Centenary, Isaac Rosenberg’s acclaimed poem ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’ is set alongside images of troops at dawn during the First World War.
  • Blog: Film

    IWM Short Film Festival 2014

    On a sunny Autumn afternoon, I moved through the crowds pouring into IWM London to attend a screening of this year’s Film Festival. Launched in 2001 as a student competition by Toby Haggith, the Founding Director, the film festival is back from a three year absence to mark the reopening of the Museum.
  • Blog: IWM London

    Walcot Square / Kennington Park bomb incident, September 1940

    11.30pm HE bomb exploded Walcot Square. Serious damage to property. Known casualties. 1 killed." Civil Defence incident report from Post 9, 195 Kennington Road, 17 September 1940 Take a stroll around the side of IWM London and onto the Kennington Road.