If you’re interested in military history, like I am, you’d do well to check out the works of Dr. Mark Felton. He is a military historian who specializes in the Second World War, and has a knack for finding obscure bits of wartime lore that most folks have never heard of.  Here, for example, is a video (yes, I know, YouTube, but what can you do?) talking about the Dirlewanger Brigade, an SS unit formed of convicts, psychopaths and sociopaths that even most of the SS looked on with some horror:

Most of Dr. Felton’s videos take the same form; an in-depth, detailed presentation of some obscure happening that most people never heard of.  Ever wonder what became of the bodies of Nazi war criminals executed at Nuremberg?  Did you know about the first attempt by the Allies to invade Hitler’s Fortress Europe?  The Japanese copy of the infamous Tiger tank?  The last battle involving the WW2 German Panzer tank – in 1967?  You can find all that and a lot more.

I can’t recommend Dr. Felton’s work enough.  I have not yet started on his lengthy list of non-fiction books, but they’re on my list.  Speaking of which:  His written works include:

• Yanagi: The Secret Underwater Trade between Germany and Japan 1942–1945 (Pen & Sword: 2005)
• The Fujita Plan: Japanese Attacks on the United States and Australia during the Second World War (Pen & Sword: 2006)
• The Coolie Generals: Britain’s Far Eastern Military Leaders in Japanese Captivity (Pen & Sword: 2008)
• Japan’s Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem & Torture in Wartime Asia (Pen & Sword, 2009)
• Today is a Good Day to Fight: The Indian Wars and the Conquest of the West (The History Press, 2009)
• The Real Tenko: Extraordinary True Stories of Women Prisoners of the Japanese (Pen & Sword: 2009)
• The Final Betrayal: Mountbatten, MacArthur and the Tragedy of Japanese POWs (Pen & Sword: 2010)
• 21st Century Courage: Stirring Stories of Modern British Heroes (Pen & Sword, 2010)
• Children of the Camps: Japan’s Last Forgotten Victims (Pen & Sword: 2011)
• The Last Nazis: The Hunt for Hitler’s Henchmen (Pen & Sword: 2011)
• The Devil’s Doctors: Japanese Human Experiments on Allied Prisoners-of-War (Pen & Sword: 2012)
• Never Surrender: Dramatic Escapes from Japanese Prison Camps (Pen & Sword: 2013)
• China Station: The British Military in the Middle Kingdom 1839–1997 (Pen & Sword: 2013)
• Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Fuhrer (Pen & Sword: 2014)
• Zero Night: The Untold Story of World War Two’s Most Daring Great Escape (Icon Books: 2014)
• The Sea Devils: Operation Struggle and the Last Great Raid of World War Two (Icon Books: 2015)
• Holocaust Heroes: Resistance to Hitler’s Final Solution (Pen & Sword: 2016)
• Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussolini’s Colditz (Icon Books: 2017)
• Ghost Riders: When US and German Soldiers Fought Together to Save the World’s Most Famous Horses in the Last Desperate Days of World War II, (Da Capo: 2018)
• Operation Swallow: American Soldiers Remarkable Escape from Berga Concentration Camp (Center Street: 2019)
• Chapter 8: The Perfect Storm: Japanese Military Brutality in World War II, Routledge History of Genocide, Ed. C. Carmichael & R. Maguire, (Routledge, 2015)

Check out books and videos both.  Dr. Felton has a real gift for uncovering these little bits of military history, and his work rewards the viewer.