Mark Felton (born 1974) is an English author, historian, and
YouTuber. Felton has written over a dozen nonfiction 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.
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][dead link] His book Zero Night, about an escape from a German prison camp, received much critical attention,[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 November 2019, Felton created a second channel, titled War Stories with Mark Felton, on which he posts recordings of himself reading from books that he has written.[23][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."[26]
Personal life
Felton lives in
Norwich with his wife Fang Fang and son William.[27][28]
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.
ISBN9781315719054.
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.
^"About Mark". 3 September 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2023. Born in Colchester in 1974, Mark gained his PhD at the University of Essex where he lectured in history before spending nearly a decade teaching in Shanghai, latterly at one of China's most prestigious colleges, Fudan University. He also organised the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal for Eastern China, and was an education instructor for the Peoples' [sic] Liberation Army.