Gloucestershire author Clive Pearson has released a book chronicling the events of World War Two.

The book, titled ‘The Second World War in 100 Facts’, contains 46,000 words and 192 pages, covering the greatest conflict in the history of mankind. Clive, a former history lecturer at Gloucestershire College, was well placed to write the book, having spent many years teaching his students the great impact the war had on the lives of not just the people on the front line, but also civilians back home.

Clive said: “It’s a period of time that has always interested me. I taught World War Two to students who were studying history at A Level. My book is extremely informative but there are also some light-hearted snippets in there, including a very funny story of a reindeer that ended up taking a journey on a British submarine and a bear that became friendly with a Russian infantry unit.

“Teaching history for such a long time I obviously had a good knowledge of the Second World War when I decided to write the book but obviously I had to spend a fairly significant period of time researching events that would feature in the book. The research was actually very enjoyable, I learned a lot of new things and increased my knowledge on events I’d previously covered.”

There have been been countless films and book released covering the events of the Second World War, although Clive admits that the directors’ artistic license sometimes means our understanding of the war is often not as accurate as it should be.

He added: “Hollywood has often perpetuated the myth that all prisoners of war spent every waking second hatching plans to try and escape to freedom. In fact, it was only the officers that had time to think about escaping and even then, it was only a tiny minority who actually attempted it. The rest of the prisoners of war were praying that the fighting would end as quickly as possible. Knitting was a very popular hobby for prisoners of war, not the kind of activity you’d associate with soldiers!

“I very much enjoyed researching and writing this book. It goes to show that no matter how much time you spend immersed in a subject, there are always new things to learn.”