Monthly Archives: November 2008

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I've just noticed this odd condition for the use of the Imperial War Museum's collections website:

Links to our website may only be included in other websites with our prior written permission.

Source: http, followed by a colon, then two forward slashes, then www, a dot, iwmcollections, another dot, org, a third dot, uk, another forward slash, and then terms, one last dot, and finally php.

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I received a letter from the university today, containing a form which is ominously entitled 'Completion Report for PhD Candidates'. I guess they are expecting to receive a thesis from me in the not too distant future!

One of the things I have to finalise is the title of the thesis. According to the form, it's currently called 'The Impact of Airpower on the British People, 1908-1939'. That's the bland title I picked more than 4 years ago, when I only had the vaguest idea of what I wanted to do, and it's clearly influenced by -- or lifted from -- Alfred Gollin's classic The Impact of Airpower on the British People and their Government, 1909-14. I've had a better one -- or at least, more accurate one -- picked out for a while, but wasn't sure if it's what I'm going to go with. But I'm out of time, and haven't had any bright ideas, so I'm probably stuck with it now!

To my mind, a good title should be descriptive -- it should give some idea of what it's actually about. If it's intriguing and memorable, that's a bonus. With that in mind, here's my provisional title:

The Next War in the Air: Britain and the Bomber, 1908-1941

So straightaway, this tells you the period and geographical focus -- it's early twentieth century Britain. The words 'war', 'air' and 'bomber' show that it's about aerial warfare, specifically bombing. But the first clause as whole, 'the next war in the air', hopefully suggests that it's about anticipations of bombing more than the actual thing.

I think that's all fine. But I'm not sure about the next clause, 'Britain and the bomber'. Yes, the thesis can be described as a study of the relationship between Britain and the bomber. I also chose it because I like alittle alliteration, and because it's the title of an article I cite (as is 'the next war in the air'). And it's a nod to England and the Aeroplane, too. But is it promising too much? As a study of 'Britain and the bomber' it's missing many things, such as (for example) nearly everything the RAF did or said on the subject. Or the Air Ministry or the rest of the government. That's not a problem for the thesis (I hope!) because my subject is about popular, civilian, unofficial ideas about and responses to the threat of bombing, and there's plenty of excellent histories of British air policy and RAF doctrine already out there. But maybe it's a problem for the thesis title -- it doesn't get across the idea that I'm writing about the public sphere. I could tweak it a little, and say 'British society' instead of 'Britain', or something like that. I'm a sucker for a nice turn of phrase, though, and that would spoil the things I like about it ...

The other thing to remember is that nobody will read the damn thing anyway, so it doesn't really matter too much what I call it :)

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OK, so I've poked a bit of fun at French aircraft design here from time to time, with a post on the fugliest aircraft of the Third Republic and another recoiling in horror at the aeroplane which should not be. But turnabout is fair play, and the British aviation industry has had plenty of shockers to its discredit.

Here's my pick: the Westland Lysander P.12. It's like the front half of an ordinary Lysander army co-operation aircraft stuck onto the tail-end of a heavy bomber (maybe a Whitley), with a four-gun power turret at the back. It first flew in 1941, but was never put into production; as far as I can tell, the intended purpose was to fly over beaches filled with German invaders and strafe them with the rear machine guns. It's one freaky flying machine! (Image source.)

Westland Lysander P.12

So what do you consider to the weirdest or ugliest British aircraft design of the last century?

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In contrast to the King's message to the RAF, Flight's reaction to the end of the war, in the same issue of 14 November 1918, seems rather grumpy. It's true that the editorial section is rounded off, on p. 1274 (source), by a short section which expresses a certain amount of glee at the news of the Armistice:

But the effect of the sudden end is too stunning for us to think coherently of anything but the one great glorious fact -- the WAR HAS ENDED.

But it's mostly preceded by a series of complaints and warnings to Lloyd George's coalition government, telling them what the country expects of them. (I'm not sure that an aviation trade magazine was the first place senior politicians turned to in order to take the pulse of the nation, but I guess if you've got a soapbox, you may as well use it!)

The main concern, on p. 1272 (source), was the nature of the forthcoming peace settlement.

We are in a state now of suspended hostilities -- not of final peace. True, we have imposed such terms on the enemy that render it utterly impossible for him to resume the War, but we must in nowise lose sight of the fact that the real position is this: The soldiers have done their part in reducing the enemy to a state of impotency in which he is prepared to be told what we will have him to do and to do it, but now comes the turn of the politicians and the diplomatists, who have it in their power to undo all that our arms have secured for us.

I've added the emphasis there, as it sets the tone for the rest of the piece: clearly there's little trust given to Britain's leaders. But what exactly does Flight want them to do? The leader continues:

Let it be said at once that we do not for a moment suppose that there is any likelihood of the extreme happening, but we are by no means so certain that the civilian representatives who will draw up the final terms are as determined to punish Germany to the utmost for her crimes as the country would have them.

OK, so maybe Flight did know the nation's mind, after all! More specifically, the question was: who is going to pay for the war? (A total cost, for all belligerents, is given as £60 billion.)
...continue reading

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It's 90 years to the day since the guns fell silent, and the bombs stopped falling. I don't feel that I have anything particularly insightful to say, so here's how Flight marked the occasion, by publishing the King's message to the RAF on its front page, 14 November 1918, p. 1270 (source):

Flight, 14 November 1918, p. 1270

THE KING'S MESSAGE
TO THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

To the Right Hon. LORD WEIR, Secretary of State and President of the Air Council.

In this supreme hour of victory I send greetings and heartfelt congratulations to all ranks of the Royal Air Force. Our aircraft have been ever in the forefront of the battle; pilots and observers have consistently maintained the offensive throughout the ever-changing fortunes of the day, and in the war zones our gallant dead have lain always beyond the enemies' lines or far out to sea.

Our far-flung squadrons have flown over home waters and foreign seas, the Western and Italian battle lines, Rhineland, the Mountains of Macedonia, Gallipoli, Palestine, the plains of Mesopotamia, the forests and swamps of East Africa, the North-West frontier of India, and the deserts of Arabia, Sinai and Darfur.

The birth of the Royal Air Force, with its wonderful expansion and development, will ever remain one of the most remarkable achievements of the Great War.

Everywhere, by God's help, officers, men and women of the Royal Air Force have splendidly maintained our just cause, and the value of their assistance to the Navy, the Army, and to Home Defence has been incalculable. For all their magnificent work, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty, I ask you on behalf of the Empire to thank them.

GEORGE R.I.
November 11, 1918.

In a follow-up post, I'll look at Flight's message to the politicians.

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I've got an article in the current (November 2008) issue of Fortean Times (named, of course, after Charles Fort). It's not at all airminded, it's not really historical either -- it has more to do with my shady astrophysicist past. It's about the famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction incident in New Hampshire in 1961 -- that's alien abduction, supposedly. In a hypnosis session a couple years later, Betty recalled being shown a star map on board her abductor's craft, supposedly of nearby space. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a schoolteacher named Marjorie Fish used the latest astronomical data in a prodigious effort to match the map to real stars near the Sun. And eventually she found a good match, which has been touted by some ufologists as scientific proof of the reality of alien visitation, possibly from Zeta Reticuli.

Except that nobody ever checked Fish's model against new astronomical data gathered over the last three decades, in particular the parallax observations made by the Hipparcos satellite in the early 1990s. When you do this, the Fish interpretation falls to pieces! Using her own assumptions and the new data, six of the fifteen stars chosen by Fish must be excluded, which is no match at all. And that's what my article is about. So I think this makes me, officially, a dirty debunker. Or maybe a noisy negativist.

I have an erratum: a footnote I added late in the editing process didn't make it through. It should have come after the word 'collapse' in the fifth sentence in the last column on page 51:

Since writing the above, I have been made aware of an unpublished and thorough analysis of the Fish interpretation by Charles Huffer of MUFON, which also uses Hipparcos data to reach conclusions similar to mine.

Anyway, I promise there will be some aeroplaney stuff soon :)

... is who to nominate for the 2008 Cliopatria Awards for the best history blogging of the year. (Why, what did you think I meant?) There are six categories: best group blog, best individual blog, best new blog, best post, best series of posts, and best writer. Nominations close at the end of November and winners are announced in early January.

Nominate early and nominate often!