Mark Felton

Mark Felton (born 1974) is an English author, historian and YouTuber. Felton has written over a dozen non-fiction books. He runs several channels on YouTube covering different historical subjects of the 20th and 21st century, mainly related to World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Felton has been a lecturer at the University of Essex and at various universities in China. He has also been featured on television as a military history expert. In 2014, he published Zero Night, a book about the 1942 mass allied escape from the German prisoner-of-war camp Oflag VI-B.

Mark Felton FRHistS
Born	May 1974 (age 50–51) Colchester, Essex, England
Education	Anglia Polytechnic University (BA) University of Essex (PGCert, MA, PhD)
Occupation(s)	Author, historian, YouTuber
Years active	2005–present
Organization	Royal British Legion (2010–2014)
Notable work	Zero Night and his Youtube channel Mark Felton Productions
Television	Combat Trains Top Tens of Warfare Evolution of Evil
YouTube information
Channels	Mark Felton Productions War Stories with Mark Felton
Years active	2017–present
Genre	History
Subscribers	2.24 million[1]
Views	900 million[1]
Last updated: 27 January 2025
Website	markfelton.co.uk

Early life and education

Felton was born in 1974 in Colchester, Essex.^[2] He attended Philip Morant School.^[3] Felton sat for a BA in history and English at Anglia Polytechnic University; he also holds a postgraduate certificate in political science, an MA in Native American studies, and a PhD in history, all from the University of Essex.^[4] Felton's PhD thesis, titled "Resistance in exile: Sitting Bull and the Teton Sioux in Canada, 1876-1881", was in the field of Native American studies.^[5]

Career

Felton taught at the University of Essex before moving to China for nine years, where he taught at various locations including Shanghai University and Fudan University.^[3][6] He was a volunteer for the Royal British Legion in Shanghai, organising the annual Poppy Appeal in Eastern China, from 2010 to 2014.^[7] He assisted the British Consulate Shanghai in the rediscovery of the graves of four British soldiers killed by the Japanese in 1937.^[8][9][10]

Felton has appeared on television as a military history expert, including in the series Combat Trains (History Channel), and Evolution of Evil (American Heroes Channel).^[11][12] His book Zero Night, was about an escape from a German prisoner-of war camp.^[13][14][15] and was the subject of the BBC Radio documentary Three Minutes of Mayhem.^[16] Zero Night has been highlighted to Essential Media for feature film development.^[17][3]

In 2016, Felton's book Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussolini's Colditz, which concerns the escape of British generals from Vincigliata Castle near Florence in 1943, was identified for feature film development by Entertainment One.^[18] In 2017, he became a member of the Naval Order of the United States.^[19]

In October 2017, Felton started his first YouTube channel, titled Mark Felton Productions, which explores a variety of historical subjects in terms of the 20th century (including material outside of the First World War and Second World War context, such as releases about the Cold War).^{[20][non-primary source needed]} For example, he has covered the German Wehrmacht's use of captured U.S. M4 Sherman tanks during the Second World War.^[21] In April 2022, Felton published a video identifying an abandoned tank found in an English field as a rare Canadian Ram tank, designed and built during WWII.^[22]

In October 2019, Center Street published Felton's book Operation Swallow: American Soldiers' Remarkable Escape From Berga Concentration Camp, which details the illegal mistreatment by Germans of U.S. prisoners of war under Nazi captivity in the context of the Battle of the Bulge. When creating the book, Felton analysed official documents as well as eyewitness accounts.^[23]

In November 2019, Felton created a second YouTube channel, titled War Stories with Mark Felton, on which he posts recordings of himself reading from books that he has written.^{[24][better source needed]}

In January 2022, the German Tank Museum issued a statement responding to a YouTube video Felton had posted, refuting a claim that they had "recently sold a Tiger I to a private collector and replaced it with a 1:1 plastic model." The museum accused Felton of "just want[ing] a maximum degree of sensation and emotion in his video, regardless of facts and with minimum workload".^[25]

In May 2022, Felton was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.^[26]

In 2023, Felton released the YouTube series Find the Führer: The Secret Soviet Investigation, concerning the forensic investigations of Hitler's death. As only Hitler's dental remains are known to have been found, Felton surmises that rather than the Soviet Union falsifying their reports (although they propagandised them),^[a] the Germans committed last-ditch forensic fraud.^[32][b][c]

Personal life

Felton lives in Norwich with his wife and son.^[38][39]

Publications

• Felton, Mark (2005). Yanagi: The Secret Underwater Trade between Germany and Japan 1942-1945. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1844151677.
• Felton, Mark (August 2007). Pen and Sword Books: The Fujita Plan – Hardback. Pen and Sword Books. ISBN 9781844154807.
• Felton, Mark (2007). Slaughter at Sea: The Story of Japan's Naval War Crimes. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-84415-647-4.
• Felton, Mark (2008). The Coolie Generals: Britain's Far Eastern Military Leaders in Japanese Captivity. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2009). Japan's Gestapo: Murder, Mayhem & Torture in Wartime Asia. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2009). "The History Press – Today is a Good Day to Fight".
• Felton, Mark (2009). The Real Tenko: Extraordinary True Stories of Women Prisoners of the Japanese. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2010). The Final Betrayal: Mountbatten, MacArthur and the Tragedy of Japanese POWs. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2010). 21st Century Courage: Stirring Stories of Modern British Heroes. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-1-84884-073-7.
• Felton, Mark (2011). Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2011). The Last Nazis: The Hunt for Hitler's Henchmen. Pen & Sword. ISBN 9781848842861.
• Felton, Mark (2012). The Devil's Doctors: Japanese Human Experiments on Allied Prisoners-of-War. Pen & Sword. ISBN 978-0-19-106297-1.
• Felton, Mark (5 June 2013). Never Surrender: Dramatic Escapes from Japanese Prison Campsyear=2013. Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-78159-022-5.
• Felton, Mark (2 September 2013). China Station: The British Military in the Middle Kingdom 1839–1997. Pen and Sword Books. ISBN 978-1-78159-069-0.
• Felton, Mark (2014). Guarding Hitler: The Secret World of the Fuhrer. Pen & Sword.
• Felton, Mark (2014). Zero Night: The Untold Story of World War Two's Most Daring Great Escape. Icon Books.
• Felton, Mark (2015). The Sea Devils: Operation Struggle and the Last Great Raid of World War Two. Icon Books.
• Felton, Mark (2015). "The Perfect Storm: Japanese Military Brutality in World War II". In C. Carmichael; R. Maguire (eds.). Routledge History of Genocide. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315719054. ISBN 9781315719054.
• Felton, Mark (2016). Holocaust Heroes: Resistance to Hitler's Final Solution. Pen & Sword. ISBN 9781783400577.
• Felton, Mark (2017). Castle of the Eagles: Escape from Mussolini's Colditz. Icon Books.
• Felton, Mark (2018). 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.
• Felton, Mark (2019). Operation Swallow: American Soldiers Remarkable Escape from Berga Concentration Camp. Center Street. ISBN 978-1-5460-7643-8.