Robin Neillands

Robin Hunter Neillands (3 December 1935 – 30 January 2006) was a British writer, born in Glasgow, who specialized in travel and military history. He also wrote under several pen names: Robin Hunter, Rob Hunter, Neil Lands and Debbie Hunter.

Neillands served, as a conscript, in 45 Commando Royal Marines in Cyprus and the Middle East. Afterwards, as a salesman for Pan Books, he travelled widely. In Britain, he founded Spur Books and through them published his early travel guides to France. One of his many journeys, cycling the Way of St. James pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, led to another book and also to the Confraternity of Saint James, the London-based pilgrim association. Other journeys, on foot, also generated popular travel books and newspaper articles.

His 20th-century military histories are very readable, containing rigorous detail as well as many first-hand recollections of veterans - they can be considered both academic and popular. Neillands did not resist expressing strong personal views and backed them up with cogent evidence. He was keen to expose revisionist 'myths' about World War II, many of which he perceived to have originated in America, in particular the denigration of Montgomery and British/Canadian forces in Normandy in 1944. Furthermore, his formidable book The Bomber War rejected accusations that the Allied bombing campaign was unnecessarily excessive, and he also expressed criticism of the execution of the 1942 Dieppe Raid. The Great War Generals of the Western Front made assessments of World War I generals (particularly in the British Army) that run contrary to popular conceptions of universal incompetence and stupidity.

Robin Neillands was a prolific author; however his work consistently bears close scrutiny, being immaculately researched and with conclusions that are always well supported.

Neillands received his BA and MA in 2002 and 2003, respectively. He was nominated for the Royal United Services Institute/ Duke of Westminster’s Gold Medal for Military Literature, for his book The Bomber War.

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