View Mystery aircraft, Australia, 1918 in a larger map

My next step in characterising the 1918 Australian mystery aircraft scare was to plot all the sightings Google Maps, which you can see above. I've used differently-coloured icons for different time periods to give an idea of the progression over the course of 1918: blue is January and February; red, March; green, April; cyan, May; yellow, June; purple, July; magenta, August through November. There are too many for Google Maps to show at once in an embedded map (without me learning JavaScript) but the rest can be seen here. Each icon is named for the location and has an attached date, but no other information. I dithered over which map mode to use but in the end settled on good old satellite mode, as it gives an idea of the terrain but also has good social data such as roads and towns (even if these are from 2012, not 1918). Of course you can switch between them yourself.


View Mystery aircraft, Australia, 1914 in a larger map

I've made similar maps for the other war years, without colour-coding by month as there were too few sightings to warrant it. The maps for 1915 and 1916 are for the same reason very uninteresting, so I won't embed them here. The 1914 map is above; the 1917 one below.

View Mystery aircraft, Australia, 1917 in a larger map

As I've discussed, the date is often vague and at this level that applies to the location too. The information provided in the intelligence files is usually reasonably specific as to the town or locality; in only one case was I unable to find, even roughly, the place where a mystery aircraft was said to be seen ('Reef Creek, South East district, SA'; it's not in the national gazetteer or the state one). But below that level it's more variable. Sometimes there were sightings outside towns, on roads or railways or from remote properties. Again I've not been very fussy about this and have generally gone with however the sighting was classed at the time. For example, an aeroplane was reported to have chased a train early one morning from Kaniva to Dimboola. Where do I place the marker: Kaniva, Dimboola, or somewhere in between? I put it on Dimboola because that's where the Navy's index lists it, probably because that's where the police report came from. Also, sometimes the information I have only states where the aircraft was thought to be, not where it was seen from, and that is an estimation fraught with observer bias. So what I'm saying is don't place too much faith in my icon placement. It's another one of those things I don't care about too much -- it's not terribly important to me to be able to distinguish between a sighting in Hope Street or one in Smith Avenue, at this point what I'm trying to see are any large-scale patterns.

And for that it has been useful. It was already clear that Victoria was far and away where most of the mystery aircraft were seen in 1918, with NSW second (Terrigal/Terrigal Haven alone had eleven reports, though only three involved people other than the Moir family or Gunner Naughton) and the other states a long way behind. The map reinforces that impression; but it does more, because it shows that within Victoria some areas were favoured much more than others. Zooming in helps here:

View Mystery aircraft, Australia, 1918 in a larger map

There were no mystery aircraft reported from the Riverina region in the north, nor from the central area around Bendigo or the Alps (of course, there weren't many people living there either). The northeast had only a handful. By contrast, the Mallee and the Wimmera in the west of the state had a significant number of sightings. The red icons in the northeast mostly mark sightings which fell on the same day early in the scare, 21 March, including one by a policeman: it was taken very seriously and a pair of investigators came up from Melbourne travelling through the Mallee seeking out witnesses. There was another burst around Ouyen a month later. The activity in Wimmera included hotspots at Casterton (three sightings) and Hamilton (four), and the only occasion when an aeroplane was seen to land (according to the press, anyway; the eyewitnesses, a drover and a boy, said no such thing when they were eventually interviewed by police and military intelligence).

But the real heartland was the arc from the Kinglake ranges north of Melbourne, through Melbourne itself and right around the southeast coast to Orbost in Gippsland, also taking in the Latrobe Valley inland. Again there are many hotspots within this area: Bairnsdale with at least five sightings was the most visited by mystery aircraft in the whole state, though the first was not until May, quite late in the scare. Inverloch had four, Sale, Orbost and Yarram three. While Melbourne is massively underrepresented, given that in 1918 it had 51% of the state's population, given the difficulty of seeing anything at all in an urban night sky I think it had a reasonable amount, including one from West Footscray where I lived as a child; 'Anxious' of Brighton wrote in to the Herald (which passed the letter on to the censor) to ask whether the 'mysterious aeroplane' they had seen early on 7 May 'might be the German one that is about'. What was going on in these places? Why were they so prone to mystery aeroplane sightings? I don't have an answer, and I may not ever have a convincing one, but it's time to start digging deeper.

The Lebaudy-built Patrie, seen above, was France's first military airship. A descendent of the Jaune, in 1906 and 1907 it carried out a number of successful proving and publicity flights, including one where it carried the prime minister, Georges Clemenceau, over Paris. Afterwards it was moved to its operational base near the fortress of Verdun. Due to a mechanical failure during a subsequent flight it had to ground in the open, far from the safety of its hangar. A gale blew up, and even one hundred and eighty soldiers were unable to hold the stricken airship down. At 8pm on 30 November 1907, the Patrie floated off into the distance, fortunately sans crew.

That was not the last of the Patrie, however. It was feared that it would drift eastwards into Germany, giving the (likely) enemy a good look at the latest French aeronautical technology. Luckily the breeze took it northwest towards Britain, France's partner in the Entente Cordiale. The Daily Mail reported that the Patrie was seen the following morning over Wales about 450 miles away, at Cardigan and at Llanelly in Carmarthen. That afternoon, the S.S. Olivine and the S.S. Captain saw the airship over the Irish sea, and then it was spotted at Larne and at Whitehouse, both near Belfast in northern Ireland. The airship actually dragged along the ground at one point, ploughing a furrow in a field at Ballysallagh, tearing a hole in a dyke, and leaving behind a number of mechanical artefacts. The War Office put a propeller under guard, presumably handing it back to its ally in due course. Then a report came in from the Lloyd's signalling station at Torr Head, the extreme north-east of Ireland, to say that 'a yellow dirigible balloon' had passed overhead at 4.05pm, 'going backwards'. About an hour later, Patrie was near Islay in the Western Isles, where it was seen by the steam trawler Lark heading north-northwest. After that there were no more reports, and we may presume that it eventually crashed and sank somewhere in the North Atlantic. Following so hard on the heels of the wreck in October of the British military airship Nulli Secundus, also in a gale (again, fortunately without casualties), some parts of the press discussed the need for 'an organization of aerial ship "docks" and stations for emergency purposes'. According to the Cornishman, the Royal Engineers' Balloon School had already prepared a map marking 'specially-chosen hollows in woods, at the foot of sheltering hill-sides, and in deep gravel-pits, where an airship may descend in case of an emergency and lie sheltered even though a gale of wind be blowing above'.

Now this is interesting to me as a very close analogue of a mystery aircraft panic, for example the false sightings of the Andree expedition balloon in Canada in 1896 and 1897. Here, though, it appears that the reports that the Patrie was floating over Wales and Ireland were real, as they follow each other in a fairly logical progression in time and space, tracing an arc from Verdun northwest to the sea beyond Ireland. They can indeed be plotted on a map, as above (though it is missing the Llanelli and the Captain sightings, and point 6 is wrong; though the Olivine's was almost the last sighting to be published it actually took place at 2pm on 1 December, that is between the sightings in Wales and the ones in Ireland, which makes sense because it took place at 'lat. 53.48N, long. 5.27W -- i.e. fully half-way between Holyhead and Dundalk, on the Irish coast', so between points 2 and 3 and not at 58° N as on this map). This episode shows that ordinary people can accurately report what they see when confronted with something unexpected in the sky, which is something worth bearing in mind given all the episodes of mass aerial misperception I've discussed here in the past. When somebody says they saw an airship where it shouldn't be, they aren't always wrong.

And yet. Not all of the reports were accurate. Here is the Daily Mail's report from Cardiff:

The few residents of Carmarthen who were astir at eight o'clock this morning witnessed the flight of an airship over the district. All agree that the cigar-shaped craft was flying at a great speed at a very great height. According to one report the county police, with the aid of marine glasses, were able to distinguish three or four occupants in the cage.

Another rumour afloat is that when the airship was over Carmarthen a carrier pigeon was released, but at such a height that it became a mere speck, and the direction in which it flew could not be seen.

Some observers claim to have seen the name La Patrie through a telescope. The airship took a very erratic course, now so low as to look almost as big as a house, and anon rising to great heights, resembling a large cigar speeding rapidly through the air. The mystery is deepened by the fact that a second airship or balloon is alleged to have been seen about the vicinity.

So. 1. Nobody was aboard the Patrie. 2. If nobody was aboard then there was nobody to release any pigeons (though perhaps some object broke loose and fell away). 3. While it can be seen in the photograph at the top of the post that 'Patrie' (not 'La Patrie') was inscribed on the envelope, the letters appear to be only a couple of feet high and it scarcely seems credible that they could be read even with a telescope. 4. Needless to say, there was only one airship!

In addition, there was another sighting of the Patrie which isn't plotted on the Wikipedia map because it was entirely false. This was in Scotland on the banks of the Clyde. Lord Blythswood, an amateur scientist with a laboratory at his estate at Erskine Ferry near Glasgow, was at this time experimenting with large box kites made of bamboo. He happened to choose the day the Patrie was adrift over the British Isles for a flight to investigate local air currents, lofting it to a height of 2000 feet where it hovered over Clydebank on the north side of the Clyde.

Attention was at once directed to the object, and the greatest excitement prevailed, everyone jumping to the conclusion that La Patrie, the missing French airship, had drifted to Scotland. In the shipyards the platers neglected their chalk and line, the smiths their anvils, the engineers their callipers -- all to stare at what they thought was the airship, which appeared to be traveling fast in a northerly direction.

No doubt was entertained of its identity, but as somehow it seemed to preserve a well-defined circuit and never to get beyond the horizon of easy vision, a newer excitement arose in the belief that it was collapsing and likely to fall at their feet. What fame for Clydebank! The Lusitania was forgotten. Alas! the usual sharp boy detected the string, and the excitement turned to laughter.

In Glasgow the afternoon papers gave a fresh vent to the excitement by announcing the arrival of the airship six miles away. The roofs of Glasgow's tallest buildings were at once utilised and telescopes were levelled, but the strongest glass, owing to the haze, failed to discover anything. Instead of allaying interest these features rather intensified it, and when the late editions of the papers were compelled to explain away their own story there was quite as much chagrin as laughter.

Setting the amused tone to one side, this account has several interesting features. 1. News that the Patrie was adrift had already reached Clydebank, presumably in the morning papers. 2. The witnesses quite confidently identified what was presumably a relatively small box kite with a much larger airship. 3. The afternoon newspapers spread the idea of an errant airship to Glasgow on the opposite bank. 4. Despite this priming, nothing was seen from Glasgow, whether airship or kite.

In the end the last flight of the Patrie, while providing a useful reminder that people didn't (always) make their airships out of whole cloth, shows that even when a real airship was involved it was still very possible for them to add their wrinkles to the fabric.

Image source: 100 Years Ago Today.

My main interest in this series about the RAF Displays at Hendon has been in the set pieces with which they ended. But as this is the last post it's worth looking a bit at the organisation of the Display itself. Flight had some useful articles for this in its preview of the 15th Display, held on Saturday, 29 June 1935. Above is a map showing the aerodrome, the seating arrangements, car parks, access roads and Colindale tube, which opened in 1924 and was a major boon for visitors to the Display. (For those who have been to the area more recently -- say to the RAF Museum or British Library Newspapers -- it's interesting to compare how the area has changed.) We can see from the seating plans some of the groups the RAF was trying to impress: there are boxes for the House of Commons, the House of Lords and public schools -- presumably with an eye to future officer recruitment. Private boxes seating six could be booked for between £4 and £7 (depending on location?); at the other end of the spectrum the groundlings could buy tickets for the least exclusive enclosures on the day for 2s., or a spot on a hillside overlooking the aerodrome for 1s. Attendance peaked in 1931 at 169,000 (bringing in £27,585 6s. 11d.), though including onlookers sitting in places where they didn't have to pay the figure came up to around 500,000 (or so Flight reckoned). The organisation of the Display was a year-round affair, with the 'display office' being closed only for a couple of weeks in August. The programme is 'usually settled fairly exactly by the beginning of the year', but by whom is not clear. The whole thing is overseen by a 'Display Committee' headed by Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham; the 'Flying-Subcommittee' chaired by Air Vice-Marshal Joubert de la Ferté handles the exciting bits; and the 'General Purposes Committee', of which Air Commodore B. C. H. Drew is secretary, organises everything else -- ticketing, liaison with transport and police, construction, etc.

Another reason for talking about the organisation is that this year there was no set piece, only a fly-past. Flight's correspondent wasn't sure why:

In past years the final item of the Display has, as everybody knows, been a "set-piece" in which a fort, munition works, aerodrome, ship or other objective belonging to a nefarious enemy has gone up in flames, smoke and terrific noise, to the general delight. This time, for some reason best known to the organisers, the finale took the form of a fly-past by nine squadrons of machines which had taken part in the display.

This, it was thought, was 'unimpressive, either by comparison with the finales of previous years or with several items the same afternoon'. It would be interesting to know why there was no set-piece; perhaps for some reason such play-acting was no longer acceptable given that tension in Europe was rising and the RAF itself was rearming.

Whatever the reason, the set-piece was back for the next Display (held on Saturday, 27 June 1936). Indeed, there were a couple of mini-mock battles earlier in the programme -- one involved Bristol Bulldogs bombing and strafing marauders from 'an unknown race of white savages' ('in some quarters it is thought less reprehensible to bomb white savages than to employ similar tactics against black men'). The set-piece itself involved a much more industrialised target:

Southland's power station -- a most solid and convincing edifice on the far side of the aerodrome -- was the objective of Northland's bombers.

The 'brightening-up' of this year's programme included broadcasting radio transmissions from the participants over loudspeakers for the crowds to hear. So they were able to listen in to 'Southland's operational headquarters receiving raid warnings from ships and the Observer Corps, ordering up its defending fighter squadrons [...] to patrol the expected avenues of attack, and calling on the A.A. guns to stand by in readiness'.

Northland first sends in a Hawker Hart to shoot down the observation balloon; 'the latter, apparently preferring death to dishonour, burst into flame before the Hart was within range'. The commander of one of the defending squadron reports 'we are now engaging the enemy', more Harts, who appear 'out of the heat haze with the defenders and diving in and out among them, and in a few seconds the unlucky power station's volts, amps and ohms are being split into atoms in a terrific welter of smoke, flame and noise'.

And then the guns are told to stand by for a second raid which will be "here in three minutes -- as you were, in one minute." This time the attackers are two squadron V's of Heyfords; they are engaged by No. 17's Bulldogs, and one descends "in flames," doing a genuine loop -- amazing sight -- in the process, and going down out of sight behind the trees in realistic fashion. But the power station suffers again.

A Heyford looping would have been very impressive indeed, as it was a big twin-engined machine, the last of the RAF's biplane night bombers. It does sound like Flight's correspondent found the set-piece quite exciting:

Then we learn that the first raid is turning to reopen the attack, and soon the Harts are approaching in echelon, to fall away one after the other in a steep bombing dive.

A bit oddly, though, the set-piece ends with Southland resigning 'itself to waiting for "another raid at 10 p.m."', even though the power station is already ruined. I'm not sure what this was meant to convey to the audience. That the times of air raids can be predicted? That targets will be bombed over and over again until the rubble is turned into dust? That they should stick around for an encore show that evening?

The eighteenth RAF Display was held on Saturday, 26 June 1937. Again, some of the earlier events had scripted scenarios (strafing some river pirates, for example) but the main attraction was again the 'old favourite -- the Set Piece. This year it was more theatrical than usual, and well staged'.

The erection represented Port Hendon, complete with lighthouse and a ship in dock. The broadcast came from the control room of the Fighter Command, and one heard the reports coming in of a Blueland raid flying inland very fast and evidently making for Port Hendon. The A.O.C. ordered up No. 3 (Fighter) Squadron to meet it, and we saw the Gladiators (Mercury engines) leap into the sky and make off for their patrol line. Then came in reports of a second raid, and yet a third. After waiting a moment to make sure of its direction, the A.O.C. sent up No. 601 (County of London) (Fighter) Squadron to deal with it, and off went the Auxiliaries in their Demons (Kestrels).

The first wave of bombers were Bristol Blenheims, which easily dodged the Gladiators, though 'Archie' got one ('Bravo the Territorial Army!') Hawker Hinds were intercepted by the Demons, but the port took some damage (as seen in the Pathe Gazette newsreel above).

Meantime some Vildebeests of No. 42 (Torpedo Bomber) Squadron, very proud of their new sleeve-valve Perseus engines, came in low and torpedoed the lock gates, to the discomfiture of the ship inside.

The coup de grâce was delivered by five Vickers Wellesleys ('very shapely'!) and five Armstrong-Whitworth Whitleys ('impressive').

When they had finished, Port Hendon was a sorry mess, but everyone was tremendously cheered to hear that our own bombers had just demolished the chief aero engine factory of Blueland. "That," remarked the A.O.C., "will keep them quiet for a while." The reflection did not seem to console the O.C. Port Hendon, but it did rub it in that after all British bombers are our defenders.

Yes, take that the Fighter Command and also pacifists!

The eighteenth RAF Display was also the last. In January 1938 the Air Council announced that it would no longer be held. The reason given was that the faster aeroplanes now in service meant that it was now too hard for Hendon to be the 'culminating point for the training of squadrons stationed in this country':

A large part of the attraction of the display has been the presentation of intricate evolutions in a comparatively confined space within clear view of all the spectators. The advent of new aircraft of greatly increased power and speed has led to the development of new technique [sic] in training and tactics. If, therefore, the display was to maintain a real connection with the Service training of the Air Force, its character would have to be radically altered. The aircraft taking part would need to manœuvre over a much wider area, and its attractiveness would thus be greatly diminished. For these and other reasons, Hendon is obviously unsuitable.

These 'other reasons' may have included the need to focus more squarely on preparing for war; and perhaps also a feeling that, after Guernica and the other air raids on civilian targets in Spain, mock bombing wasn't suitable entertainment for the masses.

I'll probably write another, more reflective post on the Hendon set-pieces. But not today!

But sometimes, it rhymes.

The above map, accompanying an article entitled 'BOMB THESE TEN TOWNS!', was published on page 4 of the Daily Mirror on 29 August 1940. It rhymes with this map published in the Daily Mail twenty-three years before:

A REPRISAL MAP. -- The shaded parts of this map show those parts of Germany within reach of Allied aeroplanes similar to those used against London. All the large towns shown could be attacked.

So too does this, the cover of the Illustrated London News for 21 September 1940...

BOMBERS' PREY.
GOERING'S ATTACKS ON LONDON ACHIEVE LITTLE BUT THE MAIMING AND SLAUGHTERING OF CHILDREN.

... rhyme with these photographs in the Daily Mail of 15 June 1917:

Four of the little sufferers in an East End hospital yesterday. Three are only five years of age; the fourth is ten. All were badly injured in the head, arms and legs while in a London County Council school in a densely populated district. All that was left of their classroom was a mass of blood-spattered debris.

And this scare in February 1940...

Mr Mitchell returned at 2.50 saying that Mr Moffat had told him that he had been told by the porter at Dunblane station this morning that the officials at Fife had told him to beware of what appear to be children's balloons. These balloons are full of poison gas. Anyone seeing one should refrain from touching it, but should call a policeman instead.

I said I thought the Germans would hesitate to use such a method, because the direction of the wind is west to east and we could so easily retaliate, and there was a risk that their own balloons would blow back on them. Mr Mitchell did not agree.

... (somewhat less successfully, it is true) rhymes with this scare from February 1918:

The "Chemist and Druggist" of London, of February 23 [1918], informs us that the German blackguards had, during that month, been dropping poisoned sweets from aeroplanes in the London area. It is quite inconceivable that any British general would issue a similar order for the poisoning of little German children, or, if it were given, of any British airman obeying it. An occurrence like this brings home to one, more than many of their acts, what a degraded being a German can be.

Not that history always rhymes, either. But the cadence is certainly familiar at times.

With apologies to Split Enz.

Previously, I identified a comparison between the reprisals debate in the First World War and the reprisals debate during the Blitz as something I could do that previous writers have not (except in passing, or implicitly). I won't have time in my AAEH paper for a full-blown comparative approach, or for that matter time before then to do the research; though perhaps I could for a version for publication. But it's something I can do briefly, and it helps that I already covered this in my thesis, where I looked at the British press reactions to the Gotha summer in 1917.

Schrecklichkeit is the German word for 'frightfulness'; both words were used by English-language speakers during the war to refer to the perceived German propensity for barbarous acts of war. In terms of British public opinion, the 'Rape of Belgium' was easily the most influential and inflammatory of these early in the war; later came the introduction of gas warfare; the execution of Edith Cavell; unrestricted submarine warfare; and of course the Zeppelin and Gotha raids on Allied cities, including London. Propaganda, mostly unofficial, kept this baleful view of the 'Hun' in the public eye. The photographs above, for example, were published in the Daily Mail after the first Gotha raid. The accompanying caption reads:

Four of the little sufferers in an East End hospital yesterday. Three are only five years of age; the fourth is ten. All were badly injured in the head, arms and legs while in a London County Council school in a densely populated district. All that was left of their classroom was a mass of blood-spattered debris.

(These are victims of the tragic bombing of the Poplar infants school.) Another example is a letter published in an Australian newspaper, but relaying information from the London Chemist and Druggist:

The "Chemist and Druggist" of London, of February 23 [1918], informs us that the German blackguards had, during that month, been dropping poisoned sweets from aeroplanes in the London area. It is quite inconceivable that any British general would issue a similar order for the poisoning of little German children, or, if it were given, of any British airman obeying it. An occurrence like this brings home to one, more than many of their acts, what a degraded being a German can be.

This sounds more like an urban legend than an actual tactic (and indeed, the only reference I can find to anything like this in The Times at this time is a rumour that strangers were giving children poisoned sweets in Kent), but it illustrates the depths to which it was believed Germans had sunk, and the essential difference between them and 'civilised' peoples like the British.

Though it was not the only response, the demand for reprisals in June and July 1917 was quite loud, and it did not just come from the press. Large public meetings held at Tower Hill and at the London Opera House endorsed resolutions such as one calling on 'the Government to 'pay back the enemy in the same way as he has treated this country'. Others went further. William Joynson-Hicks, a Conservative London MP, told the House of Commons that it was clear that Germany 'has declared deliberate war on the nation, the men, women and children of our country':

I submit to the House and the Government that the time is very rapidly approaching when, whether we like it or not, we shall be forced to declare war in the same way on the German people. Not that I have any desire whatever for the exercise of cruelty, or to slay Germans because they have slain our people. I say this because I believe it is the only possible way of bringing home to the German nation the enormity of what they have done -- that is, the adoption of the policy on their part of destroying the English civilian population in the way they have done. I ask the Government to state, not that there will be a small and insufficient raid on a town like Cologne or any similar German town, but that as soon as a raid of this sort, involving, as it has done, 500 casualties, takes place, stern and swift reprisals will take place on German towns.

Joyson-Hicks was not alone. Robert Bell MD, for example, wrote to the Daily Mail to insist that the Germans be told 'that for every air raid they make upon an innocent community we shall do our best to destroy one of their cities'. The Mail helpfully published this 'reprisal map of Germany', placed on the same page as the above photographs of child victims of the Gotha raid:

A REPRISAL MAP. -- The shaded parts of this map show those parts of Germany within reach of Allied aeroplanes similar to those used against London. All the large towns shown could be attacked.

We can classify opinions in the debate about reprisals for German frightfulness along two axes: morality and effectiveness. People -- at least those writing letters and leading articles -- asked (and then answered) two questions: are reprisals moral? and are reprisals effective? Actually, that's not quite true: they usually considered one or the other of these alone; the answer to the other was simply assumed to support their conclusion. Perhaps surprisingly, my impression is that those with moral concerns tended to be in favour of reprisal bombing, while those worried about effectiveness were more evenly split. Let's look at some examples.

Joynson-Hicks, in his speech quoted above, went on to explain that

the only certain way of stopping these raids, in spite of the defence we may make by means of our aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns, is that we shall punish, and punish severely, raids of this kind by inflicting similar raids with certainty -- because they are useless without certainty -- on German towns.

So his was an argument based on effectiveness: by bombing German cities you will make them stop bombing ours. (Deterrence, in other words. Others put forward versions of the knock-out blow theory, believing that heavy air raids into Germany would make its people clamour for peace.) Some, however, did not accept this logic. 'Watchman', in a letter to The Times, argued that

The best reprisal is the heaviest military blow. I can conceive of nothing weaker or more contemptible than to send our airmen off on long and hazardous expeditions without any military object, either direct or indirect, but merely to kill a certain number of children, women, and old men in the vain hope that the Germans will then cease from murdering our own civilian population [...] Say we succeeded in killing two or three hundred civilians in Cologne, and lost, as we very well might, 25 aeroplanes out of 50 in achieving this result, how the Prussian High Command would chuckle and slap their thighs at having succeeded in inducing "these English madmen" to play the German game!

In essence such arguments boiled down to the belief that these bombers and their pilots would be better employed on the Western Front, supporting the Allied armies there. (This of course is a major difference with the situation in the Second World War, at least after Dunkirk, where one argument for strategic bombing was that there was no other way to strike at Germany.) But note the bleedthrough of moralising language here: British airmen would 'kill' German civilians to stop German airmen from 'murdering' British civilians. And the cunning 'Prussian High Command', laughing as the foolish Britishers fall into the trap of tit-for-tat reprisals to no military purpose.

The moral arguments against reprisal bombing was straightforward enough: if it was wrong for Germany to bomb civilians then it was wrong for Britain to do so too. One bereaved mother expressed this as follows:

I have given two sons to the war (my only two) and they will never come back to me. I gave them willingly, and I have no regrets; I gave them to help to free the world from tyranny and barbaric savagery, and I believe that by giving up their young lives they have "done their bit" towards that end. But should I live to see Englishmen sent to murder in cold blood German women and children and harmless civilians, then indeed I should begin to ask, "Have my sons died in vain?"

Another correspondent had no such qualms:

After the recent experience of German frightfulness, what other course is open to us but that of fighting the enemy with his own weapons? When the Germans used liquid fire against our brave fellows, were we not justified in resorting to the same method in order to protect our men from the most horrible of deaths, and to "bring home" to "the apostles of culture" the barbarity of their methods? [...] To advocate the policy of "turning the other cheek" under present conditions, seems to me a misuse of Our Lord's teaching. If a man hit me once, I should probably turn the other cheek and let him hit me again; and if that method failed to make him ashamed of himself, I should be compelled to "go for" him in self-defence. But if a man attacked my children, I should knock the brute down without the slightest hesitation.

The author of this letter was J. Stephens Roose, president of the Metropolitan Free Church Association.

I could go on, but won't. Hmm... maybe this is not something I can do briefly after all.

So, THATCamp Melbourne is over. It was pretty much as I expected, which is to say it was excellent. I'm not going to write a conference report (you should have been following #thatcamp on Twitter for that!) but two sessions did give me ideas for digital history projects I might like to do. One day. If I get the time.

One came out of the unofficial API Tim Sherratt reverse-engineered for Trove Newspapers. (Why the National Library of Australia won't release an official API is a bit mysterious.) He uses that to scrape Trove to do searches and display results which aren't possible with the interface offered by the NLA, such as plotting the frequency of Australian vs British/Briton. Are there any publicly accessible datasets which I use which could benefit from the same treatment? Yes, there are. The first one I thought of was the Flight archive, which is a great resource burdened with a limited interface. (But it's fantastic that it exists at all: Flightglobal is a commercial operation and they didn't need to open up their back issues like this at all, if they didn't want to.) I think this is easily doable. A second one is much more ambitious: The National Archives catalogue. It's frustrating that you can't do keyword search across their digitised collections; all you can do is search the descriptions in the catalogue, and these are by their nature limited. A scraper would help here. But the problem there is that you can't download documents directly, even when they are free; you have to add to a 'shopping cart', pay £0.00 for it and wait for an email to arrive. Possibly this could be automated; possibly not.

The other idea I had was to use SahulTime (or its eventual successor, possibly called TemporalEarth) to display the British scareship waves. SahulTime is something like Google Earth, but it allows you to map events/documents/people/objects in time as well as space. Matthew Coller, the developer, originally devised it to represent archaeological data on migration into Australia across the ice-age land bridge, but it is just as useful for historical data. So I could use this to show when and where the scareships were seen, showing how the waves started and evolved, with links to the primary sources. SahulTime is also good at displaying uncertainty in time, which is helpful where I have only vague information about when a sighting happened. The same could be done for uncertainty in space, though that's a bit trickier conceptually.

One day... if I get the time...

'RAF PREPARING A GREAT NEW BOMBING OFFENSIVE', Daily Mail, page 1:

POWERFUL new R.A.F. bombers now being produced in great numbers and an amazing new long-range fighter are likely to be used, in the immediate future, for a greatly intensified bombing offensive over Germany.

Hitler's people can look forward to more than a taste of the medicine their Luftwaffe is administering over here.

'Shortest Raid. LONDON ALERT LASTS 20 MINS.':

LONDON had its usual air-raid warning half-an-hour than usual last night. It proved to be the shortest after-dark "Alert" since the blitzkrieg began, lasting barely 20 minutes.

And it was followed by the longest period of quiet.

'2-TONS OF BOMBS RAIN ON KRUPPS':

TWO tons of bombs were rained on the great Krupps arms works at Essen during a lightning high-altitude attack by the R.A.F. in Saturday night.

[...]

They started a trail of fire across Germany's oil plants and railway yards, blasting the docks in Holland, and set the French coast aflame from Dunkirk to Boulogne.

'Nazis Lose More Than They Kill':

LORD CROFT of Bournemouth, Under-Secretary for War, revealed yesterday:

"It is believed that ten days ago a single British submarine sent more German soldiers to their doom than all the British deaths caused by German airmen in the whole month of August.

[...]

"It is highly probable that far more German war factory workers have lost their lives than the total losses inflicted on our civilians from air attack."

Page 2:

The 'Portal Aggressive,' New British Type Just Released.

SPEED: Terrific. CEILING: Not reached yet. ARMAMENT: Unlimited bombs. -- by Illingworth.

'New Tube Shelter Opened', page 3:

THREE thousand people of Bethnal Green took over a deep shelter last night 65ft. below ground in the station at the end of the incompleted Liverpool-street-Bethnal Green extension of the Central London tube line.

Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minister of Home Security, visited the station on Saturday and ordered that it to be opened as a shelter.

'It's Your Opinion':

POSTBAG ANALYSIS: Since the R.A.F have shown us the right way to upset the enemy's war effort there have been fewer demands for reprisals. Readers are now looking to this winter's transport difficulties, and a typical letter printed below points out the dilemmas of the late worker. Other letters refer to the allowance for equipment made to the Home Guard, lifts from motorists, and men sheltering in the Tubes.

'"FRONT-LINE" FAMILIES CAN HOPE AGAIN. East End Say "We'll have new homes soon"':

THE people of London's bombed East End have a new hope. For the first time since they found themselves in the front line of the air attack on Britain they feel a real drive is being made to ease their hardships after all the early muddle and confusion.

'Nazi Child Murder Must be Ended':

"If any trace of humanity remains in the human race, such deeds as the Nazi murder of children must be ended," declared Cardinal Hinsley when he addressed the Society of the Sword and Spirit in London yesterday.

"The massacre of the innocents," he said, "began with spiritual murder by inhuman upbringing. The massacre of children at sea and from the air has manifested to the whole world what hideous callousness has been branded into the hearts of German youths."

'EPIC OF BOMBED LONDON', page 6:

[Malcolm MacDonald, Minister of Health, told America in a radio broadcast that] THESE great war-time dormitories are presenting us with many problems. But their virtues as shelters are not their only significance. It may not even be the most important part of it.

It is in them that the London populace gathers. It is in them that the effects of war on the thought of this or that individual is tried out on the community of his fellows.

It is in them that economics and social questions are being argued out. In fact, in them post-war Britain is being conceived: they are the wombs from which the new Britain will be born.

'RAF HAVE BATTERED NAZIS. 4½ Months of Bombing Paralyse Industry':

TO-DAY, through the Ministry of Information, is released the R.A.F.'s crushing reply to Göring's boast that no British aircraft would cross Germany's frontiers.

It is the story behind Air Ministry communiqués No. 664 to No. 1,867 and records R.A.F. bombing attacks on more than 200 military objectives in the Reich, from the Baltic Sea to Switzerland and from the North Sea hundreds of miles inland to Berlin and beyond, over a period starting on May 11 and ending on September 29.

The detailed facts prove that the web of destruction woven night after night by our bombers is clogging Hitler's great industrial and war machine.

NB. The map is from World War II Today, as it's a better copy than the one I have. However it is also slightly different: the Mail's version, for example, has the bomb symbols filled in in black.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2010/10/07/monday-7-october-1940/feed/ 3 http://airminded.org/2010/09/18/wednesday-18-september-1940/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wednesday-18-september-1940 http://airminded.org/2010/09/18/wednesday-18-september-1940/#comments Sat, 18 Sep 2010 12:49:08 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=5227

The Prime Minister gave a speech on the war situation to the House of Commons yesterday, which I'll come back to. The Manchester Guardian has a lot on the air war, of course (5). A big wave of enemy raiders, consisting of 'more than 200 Messerschmitt and Heinkel fighters' was broken up over Kent yesterday afternoon, getting no farther than Maidstone. Losses were small on both sides, however (possibly due to the heavy clouds and the '100-mile-an-hour gale' they fought in): seven German aeroplanes were shot down, and three British. Unusually, the defenders' record was nearly as good at night: anti-aircraft guns accounted for four enemy aircraft before midnight, and fighters one. The Luftwaffe dropped bombs central London, including the West End ('There was considerable aerial activity near Green Park'), and also on 'a South-East England village':

One dropped in a roadway, making a crater and causing considerable damage to houses and a number of casualties, some of them fatal. A couple and their four children had a remarkable escape when their house collapsed and they were buried in the wreckage.

So it's not just the big cities which are having to 'take it'.

And there's the 'harrassing bombing action' against the German invasion forces assembling on the Continent (and the gale helped to disrupt them too), which the above map shows. An article from the Air Ministry News Service highlights the work of Coastal Command yesterday -- possibly because the bad weather precluded any Bomber Command raids (or am I just being cynical?)

These operations were supplementary to routine anti-submarine and convoy escort patrols, on which the aircraft flew 15,000 miles in a few hours, notwithstanding general bad weather.

To-day Coastal Command aircraft gave escort to many large convoys of merchant vessels, and there was not a single enemy attempt at molestation by air or by sea.

Not that this meant there was no action: one Coastal Command aircraft attempted to attack a convoy off Zeebrugge, but was fended off by three He 113s ('the new German fighters'). It then attacked barges in Zeebrugge harbour itself; it encountered heavy AA fire and the Heinkels came for it again but 'the raider had now completed its mission and made out to sea'.

The first leading article today discusses Churchill's speech on the war situation, covering 'the joint German-Italian effort against this country, here and in the Mediterranean' (4):

Here the indiscriminate bombing of London and the long battle with the R.A.F. are the preliminary to an attempt at invasion which Mr. Churchill believes the enemy will make "at what he judges to be the best opportunity." [...] No one ever attached more importance than Hitler to the principle of demoralising an enemy before striking at him; if he thinks that he has gained substantial successes over the mind of his enemy he will then look for the right wind and tide and light to fix the day.

Italy is advancing against Egypt, though it may have missed its chance there. Still, 'the two attacks go strictly together', with the aim of doing 'all they can to create new troubles for us'. Creating strain and confusion is indeed the key to German strategy.

By bombing London she aims at cutting off supplies, dislocating life and shaking the individual nerve, even (if her newspapers are to be believed) at driving the population out into the countryside -- a success that she has had elsewhere but will not have with us -- and at diminishing the military production of the country. The comparison is rough, but Hitler is trying to do in London as a prelude to invasion what, by bombing, parachutists, and troop carriers, he succeeded in doing at Rotterdam and the Hague as a support to the attack of his army from the east.

This strategy is not working: the damage done to production has been 'surprisingly small', Churchill said. German bombing by night is inaccurate and at day 'they risk meeting the R.A.F.'

With practice and day-time reconnaissance they may improve, but at present they are far from the standards reached by our own bombers. All told, Mr. Churchill could sum up that we can regard the air struggle "with sober but increasing confidence."

Churchill also talked about civilian welfare in the raids. The Guardian thinks that there needs to be more central control here:

Many different authorities are involved, and there ought to be some reconciling and directing force that can take in a complex situation as it develops day by day and take the necessary measures [...] with speed and efficiency.

All 'the great towns and industrial centres' should look at London's experience and revise their own ARP plans.

There may or may not have been excuse for whatever was inadequate in London's preparations. There will be no excuse in future for inadequacy there or elsewhere.

I'll close with an effective and quite moving 'open apology to children' on page 3:

Wake up children. I'm sorry -- you are terribly sleepy, I know, but the sirens are going. Come along, do try to waken. No, dear,, don't huddle down again. You really must get up and hurry downstairs. Lift your head. We are taking the pillow with us, and the eiderdown. Here are your slippers and gowns -- never mind the sleeves; you can get into your siren suits and your socks in the cellar. Yes, you gas masks are already down. Now wait for me; you are much too unsteady to rush down yourselves.

The heart of the piece is here:

There. All settled and cosy and nearly asleep again! I'll put out the light. Good night. Yes, I'm going to listen for a while and you can forget about the air raid.

Fortunately you can forget. You have forgotten even now, fast asleep in deck-chairs in a windowless cellar, in utter darkness. Your acceptance of all this shames us. You are not even frightened, because you still, strangely enough, trust grown-up people to provide you with the security you have always known to be your right to demand and their privilege to give; and it never occurs to you to challenge us to declare which of our failings have upset your ordered world or to say what part we have had in letting such things happen.

The author is M.R.H., who I also quoted last week. I wish I knew who she was.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2010/09/18/wednesday-18-september-1940/feed/ 5 http://airminded.org/2010/09/15/sunday-15-september-1940/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sunday-15-september-1940 http://airminded.org/2010/09/15/sunday-15-september-1940/#comments Wed, 15 Sep 2010 13:22:03 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=5171

If it's Sunday, this must be the Observer. Here are all the headlines from the main news page, page 7.

• R.A.F. HAMMER NAZI INVASION SHIPS

In Friday's raids, RAF bombers 'wrecked' massed invasion barges and fired dockyards at Calais, Boulogne, Dunkirk, Ostend and Antwerp. A convoy of tankers off Zeebrugge was also bombed. This represents the 'fiercest and most prolonged bombardment yet of Germany's invasion bases'.

• NEW TRAP FOR NAZI AIRMEN

An improved balloon barrage design extending to a greater height was responsible for downing a German bomber on Friday.

• "OVER 2,000 TONS ON LONDON"

German press estimates of the amount of bombs dropped on London since the beginning of reprisal raids a week ago come to more than 2 million kilogrammes.

• "INVASION IS NOT NECESSARY"

Official sources in Berlin are now suggesting that 'Britain can be brought to her knees by the destruction of her economic life by the air attacks and blockade' instead of an invasion.

• "OIL TANKS NEAR THE PALACE"

The Petrol Department of the Ministry of Mines has officially denied the German statement 'that the bombs which dropped on Buckingham Palace were at oil storage tanks [...] There are, of course, no oil storage tanks in the heart of London'.

• MIDDAY RAID ON GERMANY

Italian radio reports that 'British planes flew over Reich territory at midday on Friday' but were driven off by anti-aircraft fire.

• BERLIN'S ADMISSION

German radio reports that London's anti-aircraft defences have strengthened over the last few nights.

• U.S. ADMIRATION GROWING

A selection of quotes from the American press, including this one by Anne O'Hare McCormick in the New York Times:

"Whitechapel, Poplar, and Putney have a very small stake in the British Empire. They are are not equipped for war. They can't manoeuvre, retreat, or bring up reinforcements.

"They can only stand where they are and take the most infernal punishment ever meted out to a civilian population. Somehow they endure, somehow they crawl out from the rubble and flames and carry on.

"Invincible fortifications built by man have crumbled -- but man himself is the line that holds."

• R.A.F. BLOWS AT GERMANY

A list of the last week's targets.

• MR. EDEN THANKS BOMB DISPOSAL UNITS

"I wish to express my warmest appreciation of the courage and devotion to duty exhibited by all ranks of the bomb disposal units. Your cheerful acceptance at all hours of hazards which might well daunt the stoutest heart is beyond praise. Your work has aroused the admiration of your fellow countrymen and is worthy of the high traditions of the Army."

• QUEEN HELEN'S RETURN

The former wife of King Carol has returned to Romania after an exile of ten years.

• TIME BOMB AT THE PALACE

One of the bombs which hit Buckingham Palace on Friday had a delayed-action fuse. It landed on the road in from of the Victoria Memorial, and exploded early yesterday 'with terrific force, blowing down one of the massive stone pillars in front of the Palace and a section of the black and gold Palace railings'. Due to sandbagging, neither the Memorial itself nor any of the Palace's windows suffered any damage.

• IN THE PALACE CHAPEL

One of the other bombs smashed up the Palace chapel pretty well, although Queen Victoria's family bible, the King's colour of the Third Battalion of the Scots Guards and a 'priceless Gobelin tapestry depicting the baptism of our Lord by St. John' came through unscathed.

• MORE RAIDS ON LONDON

London had five alerts yesterday between 9.28am and 7.50pm, though the first three were fairly quiet. A delayed-action bomb which embedded itself into St. Paul's Churchyard in a previous raid still has not exploded (as of yesterday evening) and 'still menaces Wren's masterpiece' -- hopefully it is a dud. The Law Courts have been hit hard in recent raids, shattering some of the 'valuable large stained-glass windows in the Great Hall'.

"You're a great King," shouted a man within arm's length during His Majesty's visit to the East End on Friday.

That was after the second attack on Buckingham Palace, and in a flash came the King's answer: "You are a great people."

• GERMANY'S BILL TO FRANCE

The cost of the occupation: 20 million Reichsmarks per day, backdated to 23 June.

• MR. HEARST PRAISES THE NAVY

In an article 'universally attributed to Mr. W. R. Hearst', the Royal Navy is praised for sweeping the Italian fleet from the Mediterranean, enabling a 'mighty convoy, laden with soldiers from the Dominions' to land at Egypt to defend the Suez Canal.

• CONSCRIPTION IN U.S.A.

Congress has approved the Conscription Bill, which has been sent to the White House for the President's signature. The first intake (of 75,000) is expected to be called up on 1 November.

• WAR RELIEF WORK BY U.S.A.

The British ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian, has praised the work of American war relief societies, which have raised a million dollars (in cash and kind) to help British civilians.

• FRENCH WARSHIPS AT DAKAR

Three French cruisers with destroyer escorts have arrived at Dakar from Toulon, the first big naval movement since the armistice.

• NEW GERMAN AIR STRATEGY

According to the air correspondent, Major Oliver Stewart, this new strategy is 'clearly revealed as a preparation for invasion':

A "swinging" attack is being made in which mass formations alternate with single raiders in the attempt to maintain a continuous pressure in which there come at intervals the heavier thrusts which are intended to do most of the damage.

When it attacks in force the Luftwaffe suffers so heavily at the hands of the Royal Air Force that it must have intervals of recuperation, and during these intervals single machines or small formations, working mostly at night or in cloud, seek to preserve the continuity of the offensive.

There is of course much more war news in today's issue of the Observer. I'll just note two more items. On page 6, the editor J. L. Garvin has a pair of lengthy articles, one entitled 'The Battle of London', the other 'What of invasion? Now or never'.

And here's an advertisement from page 2 for war bonds.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

]]> http://airminded.org/2010/09/15/sunday-15-september-1940/feed/ 1 http://airminded.org/2010/09/01/sunday-1-september-1940/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sunday-1-september-1940 http://airminded.org/2010/09/01/sunday-1-september-1940/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:26:36 +0000 Brett Holman http://airminded.org/?p=4970

The New Statesman was a little off in its belief that the Germans have given up 'blitzkrieg' tactics, as yesterday they renewed their heavy daylight assaults against RAF aerodromes. According to the Observer (above, 7) they also targeted 'women shoppers' in two places near or in London.

On page 8, there's a handy map to help readers keep track of the strategy of the 'Battle of Britain' -- the hatched areas are the 'principal industrial areas' in each country.

Germany is now known to have moved a large part of her air force to advanced bases in occupied territory in order to reduce the range for her onslaught on Great Britain. The general run of these advance bases is shown by the heavy dotted line.

The essential fact emerging from this map is that although Germany has an advantage for attacking our coasts and shipping by using bases in occupied territory our command of the sea places the Royal Air Force in a favourable position for striking at her industrial centres.

Here, the Battle of Britain seems to encompass not just Britain but Germany too, not just the attacks made on Britain but the attacks made by Britain. It's interesting to note that the assumption that Britain rules the waves -- itself somewhat questionable -- leads to a further assumption that this somehow is a big advantage in bombing Germany. Why is unclear.

Every week the Observer has a column called 'The people and the air raids' (10), These 'stories of calmness and resource' are very much in the 'We can take it' vein.

The sirens continue to sound, the raids become longer -- six and seven hours at a stretch -- and the spirits of the people remain entirely undamped.

Here are a few examples:

Extract from letter written by a London woman aged ninety, after the recent air attack on Croydon: "Last evening's raid did us no harm -- in fact, Hitler would be shocked to learn that, au contraire, it caused us personally much entertainment ... The villains will probably be around again to-night, as they want to get the aerodrome. Their attempt has helped our Fighter Fund, which is something that arch-fiend did not expect."

Woman in North London at height of raid: "I liked last night's searchlights better. These patterns aren't so good."

A woman crawling out of a shelter found her house had toppled down around her. Asked whether she had been frightened, she replied, smilingly: "It's all in the game."

There has been surprisingly little keeping-calm-and-carrying-on like this in the rest of the press so far -- at least the parts I've read -- but that may change.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the Battle of Britain, the Blitz and the Baedeker Blitz. See here for an introduction to the series.

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