British Official Histories of the Second World War

This listing of the UK official histories was originally compiled and formatted by Patrick Clancey & David Newton of the HyperWar Foundation. I've taken the liberty of recycling the list for this page.

WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT?

The British Official Histories aren't quite as common in the USA (where the webmaster of General Staff lives), and due to UK copyright laws – items published under the auspices of Her/His Majesty's Government fall under Crown Copyright – they cannot be freely disseminated without copyright until fifty (50) years have passed since initial publication.

For much of the UK's official histories, that moment didn't come until 2019, which was fifty years after 1969.

Meanwhile, due to copyright law in the USA regarding Government publications, their equivalent American histories have been freely spread and passed around ever since the internet began to take off in the mid 1990s – for more than thirty years, the American side has been the one told the most to a wider audience – because if you're in an internet debate or googling something, the American histories will pop up in easily downloadable PDF formats or via HTML conversions on official (U.S. Army Center of Military History [CMH]) or unofficial (HyperWar) webpages.

Now, thanks to the high quality scans of many of these volumes by Google Books and other scanners; as well as the tremendous work by “Patchett” on the Internet Archive (LINK to their IA Page) in collecting almost all of them, this imbalance can be righted at last; restoring the British Empire to it's rightful place in the popular historiography of World War II on the internet.

MINOR NOTE: This page contains 100+ PDF files of approximately 2.58 GB space. It's instructive to consider that this...is rather minor and easy to download today, in 2023.

UPDATE (20 May 2023) – Everything that's in the public domain is now up; thanks to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville's library system which lent me several of the books that had not yet been scanned (Oil, Campaign in Burma and the Order of Battle series).

MINOR PLUG: For the Families In British India Society (FIBIS), which has their own wiki (LINK) with links to many of these books; they helped me find some rather rare books.

The “European Theatre” Series

NOTE: This was not an “official” series title, but rather a grouping of disparate titles that Patrick Clancey adopted, which I have chosen to continue, for ease of cataloguing.

Defence of the United Kingdom (1957)
The Campaign in Norway (1952)
The War in France and Flanders, 1939-1940 (1953) (WARNING! 160~ MB PDF!)
Victory in the West, Volume 1: Battle of Normandy (1962)
Victory in the West, Volume 2: Defeat of Germany (1968)

The Mediterranean and Middle East Series

The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 1: The Early Successes Against Italy (to May 1941) (1954)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 2: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally – 1941 (1956)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 3: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (1960)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 4: The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa (1966)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 5: The Campaign in Sicily, 1943 and the Campaign in Italy, 3rd September 1943 to 31st March 1944 (1973)

The work of this series was interrupted for a decade (1973-1984) when three out of four writers died in the space of two years:

Major General Davies (Army Historian) in 1975
Captain Flynn (Naval Historian) in 1975
Brigadier Molony (Team Editor) in 1976

Following the appointment of new writers, the series resumed in 1984. Unfortunately, this means that we will not gain free public access to the final volume(s) in this series until the 2030's, barring some change in UK copyright law.

The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 6, Part 1: Victory in the Mediterranean: 1st April to 4th June 1944 (1984 → 2034)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 6, Part 2: Victory in the Mediterranean: June to October 1944 (1987 → 2037)
The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume 6, Part 3: Victory in the Mediterranean: November 1944 to May 1945 (1988 → 2038)

The War Against Japan Series

War Against Japan, Volume 1: The Loss of Singapore (1957)
War Against Japan, Volume 2: India's Most Dangerous Hour (1958)
War Against Japan, Volume 3: The Decisive Battles (1961)
War Against Japan, Volume 4: The Reconquest of Burma (1965)
War Against Japan, Volume 5: The Surrender of Japan (1969)

A Short Military History Series

NOTE: The Short Official Histories were promulgated by H.M. Government to furnish the general reader with a short military history of the Second World War pending the publication of the numerous Official Histories then commissioning or in progress. The authors were selected by reputation and for their previous association with official sources (most notably in the well-known HMSO wartime pamphlets) and were granted unusual access to official documents and sources of information. As a result, and despite their “temporary” status, the volumes are not only vividly written but remarkably detailed and well-illustrated. The series was originally intended to comprise eight volumes but two of those projected, The Campaigns in Africa and The Far East 1941-1945 were never published, possibly because by then the first cluster of Official Histories was nearing publication stage.

Arms and the Men (1950)
Norway — The Commandos — Dieppe (1951)
Greece and Crete 1941 (1952)
Five Ventures (Iraq-Syria-Persia-Madgagascar-Dodecanese) (1954)
The Campaign in Italy (1951)
North-West Europe, 1944-5: Achievement of 21st Army Group (1953)
The Campaign in Burma (1946) (Warning, 263 MB!)

The Military Government Series

NOTE: This was not an “official” series title, but rather a grouping of disparate titles that Patrick Clancey adopted, which I have chosen to continue, for ease of cataloguing.

Civil Affairs and Military Government: Central Organization and Planning (1966)
Civil Affairs and Military Government: North-West Europe, 1944-46 (1961)
Allied Military Administration of Italy 1943-45 (1957)
British Military Administration in the Far East, 1943-1946 (1956)
British Military Administration of Occupied Territories in Africa, 1941-1947 (1948)

The Order of Battle Series

Due to the rather “thin” font used in these volumes, I've done them in two formats: a high resolution binary format, and a 50% reduced size grayscale format to ensure that information is not “lost”.

Orders of Battle, Volume 1 (1960) (26 MB Binary PDF) (614 MB Grayscale PDF)
Orders of Battle, Volume 2 (1960) (12.3 MB Binary PDF) (332 MB Grayscale PDF)

The Civil Series

British War Economy (1949) (Warning, 100 MB PDF!) (Version A)
British War Economy (1949) (Warning, 200 MB PDF!) (Version B)

British War Production (1952)

Statistical Digest of the War (1951) (Alternate Scan)

The Economic Blockade, Volume 1 (1952)
The Economic Blockade, Volume 2 (1959)

Food, Volume 1: The Growth of Policy (1951)
Food, Volume 2: Studies in Administration and Control (1956 )
Food, Volume 3: Studies in Administration and Control (1962)

Agriculture (1955)
Problems of Social Policy (1950)
Civil Industry and Trade (1952)
Manpower: Study of War-Time Policy and Administration (1957)
Oil: A Study of War-Time Policy and Administration (1971) (Warning, 77 MB PDF!)
Coal (1951)
Financial Policy, 1939-45 (1956)
Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War (1955)
Inland Transport (1957)
Studies in the Social Services (1954)
Civil Defence (1955)
Works and Buildings (1952)
The Administration of War Production (1955)
North American Supply (1955)
Studies of Overseas Supply (1956)
Contracts and Finance (1953)
Design and Development of Weapons: Studies in Government and Industrial Organisation (1964)
The Control of Raw Materials (1953)
Labour in the Munitions Industries (1957)
Factories and Plant (1958)

British Intelligence in the Second World War Series

Unfortunately, this series won't become largely copyright free until the mid 2030's.

British Intelligence in the Second World War, Abridged Version (1993 → 2043)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (1979 → 2029)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (1981 → 2031)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 3, Part 1: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (1984 → 2034)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 3, Part 2: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations (1988 → 2038)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 4: Security and Counter-Intelligence (1990 → 2040)
British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 5: Strategic Deception (1990 → 2040)

Special Operations Executive (SOE) Series

Unfortunately, this series won't become largely copyright free until the mid 2030's, with one volume not until the 2050s.

SOE in France: 1940-1944 (1966)
SOE in the Low Countries (2001 → 2051)
SOE in Scandinavia (1986 → 2036)
SOE in the Far East (1983 → 2033)

Secret Flotillas Series

Unfortunately, this series won't become copyright free until 2054.

Secret Flotillas, Volume 1, Clandestine Sea Operations to Brittany 1940-44 (2004 → 2054)
Secret Flotillas, Volume 2, Clandestine Sea Operations in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Adriatic 1940-44 (2004 → 2054)