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Peter Caddick-Adams | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960 (age 64–65) London, England |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Education | |
| Subject | Military history |
| Military career | |
| Service | British Army |
| Rank | Major |
| Unit | |
| Battles / wars | Iraq War |
| Awards | Territorial Decoration |
Peter Caddick-AdamsTD,VR,FRHistS,FRGS (born 1960) is a British academic historian, author and broadcaster who is specialized inmilitary history. He is known for books on 20th-century warfare, television work, and battlefield tours.
Peter Caddick-Adams is the son of John Caddick-Adams and Joy Mary Caddick-Adams (née Martin), and grandson of Major Charles Caddick-Adams,JP, all of Brampton Lodge,Newcastle-under-Lyme, in the county ofStaffordshire.[1] His grandfather and great-uncle, Captain Thomas Geoffrey Caddick-Adams, were both awarded theMilitary Cross duringWorld War I serving with theNorth Staffordshire Regiment.[2][failed verification]
Caddick-Adams was born inChelsea, and educated between 1974 and 1978 atShrewsbury School in Shropshire. He then attended theRoyal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he studied under ProfessorRichard Holmes, later his director and mentor atCranfield University. He was commissioned into theStaffordshire Regiment, a regular regiment of the British Army, in 1979. This was a regiment in which several family members had served. He joinedThe Queen's Own Mercian Yeomanry (amalgamated in 1992 into TheRoyal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry), acavalry unit of theBritish Territorial Army, in 1985,[3] was promoted captain in 1994[4] andmajor in 2000. He was awarded theTerritorial Decoration in 1998.[5]
In 1996–1997, Caddick-Adams was mobilised as an army reservist and served as the officialNATO andSHAPE Historian inBosnia with theImplementation Force (IFOR) andStabilisation Force (SFOR) peace keeping missions, based inSarajevo. He was attached to the staff of the US commander, GeneralWilliam W. Crouch. He wrote about some of his experiences in 1998.[6]
In 2003, Caddick-Adams served inOperation Telic, during theIraq War, with the Media Operations Group as a mobilised Reservist, based atCENTCOM in Qatar and later inBasra, where he was on the staff of the UK Contingent commander (Air MarshalBrian Burridge) and at theUSAFTallil Air Base atNasiriyah, near the ancient city ofUr, which he visited. He also reported forThe Sandy Times forces newspaper.[7]
Caddick-Adams readWar Studies and History at TheUniversity of Wolverhampton, graduating with a first classhonours degree in 1997, and was awarded his PhD by Cranfield University in 2007.[8]
He is currently director of the Defence & Global Security Institute (DGSI) and visiting lecturer at the Centre for Historical Research, School of Social, Historical & Political Studies,University of Wolverhampton.[9]
In 2003 Caddick-Adams provided expert witness testimony to theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.[10] He has been a member of the British Commission for Military History since 1995[11] and the International Guild of Battlefield Guides since 2004.[12] He has led more than 500 battlefield tours since 1984 for groups of civilians, military personnel, politicians, veterans and royalty.[13] In 2010, Caddick-Adams was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Historical Society (FRHistS),[14] and in 2017 became a Fellow of theRoyal Geographical Society (FRGS). He was a Member of the Education and Learning Committee of Waterloo 200, research consultant to the Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace 14–18 photographic project, and serves as a consultant forRoyal Mailcommemorative stamp issues[15] and is an honorary patron of the annual Chalke Valley History Festival.[16] He is also a member of theAmerican Historical Association, theSociety for Military History, and the Battlefields Trust.[17]
Apart from his books, Caddick-Adams has made podcasts or written forThe Daily Telegraph,[18][19]The Independent,The Sunday Times,[20]The Daily Mirror,[21]The Wall Street Journal,[22]The Field,BBC History Magazine,[23]Britain at War magazine,History Today,[24]The American,[25]The Week, and BBC online publications. He commentates forBBC News,Sky News andEuronews on national events, current defence issues and military history. Caddick-Adams has contributed to numerous documentaries, includingBattlefield Detectives (2004/5), The 100 Greatest War Films (2005),[26] 21st Century Warfare (2007),Weaponology (2007),[27]Wilfred Owen: A Remembrance Tale (2007), Battle of Britain: The Real Story (2010),[28] Combat Countdown (2012),[29] The Battle for Malta (2013), Normandy '44: The Battle Beyond D-Day (2014),Nazi Megastructures (2016),[30] Gary Lineker: My Grandad's War (2019),[31] Frontlines (2020), World War II By Drone (2020) and Decoded (2020). In 1994, Caddick-Adams introduced theBBC Radio 4 five-part seriesBook of the Week: Countdown To D-Day.[32] In 2012, it was announced that he would be the historical consultant for a forthcoming movie about theBattle of Monte Cassino, to be directed byJohn Irvin.[33] Caddick-Adams introduced the gameCompany of Heroes: Ardennes Assault on its release in 2014.[34]
His 2011 work,Monty and Rommel: Parallel Lives aboutField MarshalsBernard Montgomery andErwin Rommel was praised by historianMichael Korda inThe Daily Beast for ‘its readability and very rare fair-mindedness’.[35]Andro Linklater writing inThe Spectator assessed it a "discursive and highly rewarding book".[36] In 2012 Caddick-Adams publishedMonte Cassino: Ten Armies in Hell, which was assessed byThe Washington Post as ‘an excellent account of one of the bloodiest and most violent battles in human history’.[37]Alexander Rose, writing inThe Wall Street Journal called it ‘exceptional’.[38] It has since been translated intoPolish,[39] Italian[40] and Spanish.[41] It was shortlisted asBritish Army Military Book of the Year for 2012.[42]
Caddick-Adams wrote a trilogy of books about the Western Front. The books were published out of order chronologically with the first book about the Battle of the Bulge, the second about D-Day, and the last concerning the final 100 days of the war. In reviewingSnow and Steel, on theBattle of The Bulge, Chris Bellamy of theUniversity of Greenwich observed that ‘Caddick-Adams is probably the best military historian of his generation, combining a sweeping command of politics and strategy with authoritative detail worthy ofIan Fleming’.[43]Sir Max Hastings inThe Sunday Times wrote that ‘Caddick-Adams knows more about the Bulge than any other historian I have read...I admire his originality.Snow and Steel offers an authoritative narrative of the drama.’[44] InNational Geographic magazine, Caddick-Adams explained why he felt Hitler was influenced by the 19th century opera composerRichard Wagner for his 1944 attack. "In Wagner's operas, a huge amount of the action takes place in woods and forests. This taps into oldNordic mythology – that woods are a place of testing for human beings. So it was no accident that the attack against the Americans was launched from large forests, in heavy fog."[45]
In 2019,Sand & Steel was released for the 75th anniversary of theNormandy landings, about which Trevor Royle inThe Herald wrote that it ‘is destined to become a standard work on this iconic battle, and it well deserves that accolade’.[46] Jerry D. Lenaburg, writing in theNew York Journal of Books noted the work questioned "many of the long-held myths ofD-Day. This critique is long overdue and actually adds value to the overall narrative as these myths are either corrected or validated."[47] It was shortlisted forBritish Army Military Book of the Year 2020,[48] the Templer Medal of theSociety for Army Historical Research,[49] and theRUSI Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, 2020.[50]
In 2022, he published1945: Victory in the West, about the final 100 days of the Second World War on the Western Front.
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