Monthly Archives: June 2006

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[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Photographs of actual combat in the First World War are exceedingly rare, in the air as well as on the ground. Both of these are purportedly of Zeppelins flying over Britain. Are they fake or not? My answers are below.

The low down thing that plays the low down game

`The low down thing that plays the low down game'. Source: British postcard, Zeppelin im Krieg.

Over London's roofs

'Over London's roofs. London's defences against Zeppelin raids were never adequate. Searchlights sometimes succeeded in spotting the raiders, as in the actual photograph by an amateur shown in the impression on the opposite page, but the anti-aircraft guns never secured a direct hit. Zeppelin raiders were only checked and finally defeated by aeroplane attack'. Source: Hamilton Fyfe, "Early Zeppelin nights of terror", in John Hammerton, ed., War in the Air: Aerial Wonders of our Time (London: Amalgamated Press, n.d. [ca. 1935]), 17.

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If you were wondering what the biggest and loudest air raid siren of all time is, then wonder no more, because it's the American Chrysler Victory Siren, made in the 1950s. Well, I don't know for sure that it was -- I'd like to see what the Soviets had to offer -- but it was clearly a mighty impressive piece of hardware: 12 feet long; 3 tons in weight; and 138 decibels at a distance of 100 feet! (120 dB is the pain threshold.) These were dotted all over the United States -- 20 in Detroit alone.

You can hear one of the few remaining examples in action here. It certainly sends a chill down my spine, which is perhaps strange as nuclear drills were not a feature of my youth here in Australia, so I only know the sound of such sirens second-hand. But I can't help but imagine what would have been happening to the communities these sirens were meant to warn, as the missiles (or in the 1950s, the bombs) rained down. Which in turn leads one to marvel at the optimistic choice of the name Victory Siren ... though I suppose the Defeat Siren ("If you can hear this, you're already dead") might not have sold so well!1

  1. Of course, nuclear war looked somewhat more winnable in the 1950s, and civil defence correspondingly less pointless, than was later the case. But still. []

[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Via Deltoid: the higher education supplement of The Australian newspaper this week has a couple of articles on academic blogging in Australia. (Choice quote from the first link: 'A spate of studies has shown that making articles available online boosts citations by 50 to 250 percent.')

Hopefully this will encourage more Australian academics and students to take up this noble pursuit -- there are disappointingly few of us, even though the term "weblog" was (apparently) coined by two Australian academics in 1995! As far as I know, I'm the only history blogger in the Australian academy (and as a lowly PhD student, I'm only just in the academy :) If there are any others out there, give us a cooee in the comments.

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zeppelin and hendon

My laptop is my primary workhorse, and I've just upgraded -- a very exciting time in any computer geek's life! On the left, my old 12" 1.0 Ghz G4 Powerbook, "zeppelin"; on the right, my new 13" 2.0 GHz Core Duo MacBook, "hendon". Zeppelin has been a rock-solid little machine for me these last couple of years, but it was starting to lose pace with my needs. Switching over to hendon been a very smooth process (other than getting Instiki to work again), and it's just so nice and fast -- it's better in every way (except for the size, I prefer the smaller formfactor). It should see me through me through the rest of the PhD in style.

This seems to be a snippet from a documentary made in New Zealand.1 The main point of it is to show a Camel and a Spitfire flying side by side, but I found the first half more interesting, about the practical aspects of flying a First World War-vintage aeroplane. For example, I hadn't realised that the scarves worn by the pilots were not fashion accessories!

  1. No doubt the film crew were off eating fush and chups shortly afterwards. []

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H. G. Wells. The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind. London: Macmillan and Co., 1914. The novel that unleashed atomic warfare upon the world. I actually already have a copy but it's a modern edition, and I'd prefer to reference an original edition, where possible. Besides which, the University of Nebraska Press inexplicably changed the title of their edition from The World Set Free to The Last War, which abomination I don't want stinking up my bibliography!

I've recently read a trilogy of novels about the next war, by Sydney Fowler Wright, a prolific but largely forgotten poet and novelist: Prelude in Prague (London: Newnes, 1935), Four Days War (London: Robert Hale, 1936), and Megiddo's Ridge (London: Robert Hale, 1937). Only the first is a true knock-out blow novel: in 1938, after a brief period of sabre-rattling, Nazi Germany launches a huge aerial attack on Prague and pretty much flattens it in one night.

And it was true that Prague had ceased to exist. Its chemical devices for fighting fire had proved utterly inadequate to overcome the hundred conflagrations which had burst out in so short a time, and had been recruited continually as new bombs rained from the sky.

And, from an early hour of the night, the supply of water had failed, after the German air-fleet had made a concentrated attack upon the great pumping-station, which was built conspicuously on the river bank, as though to invite its fate.

When the fires died, as they did not wholly do for a space of days, not the commercial city alone, but all on river-valley and hills which had been the beauty of Prague, was an ended dream. Cathedral, castle, and palace were broken and blackened shells.

Classic knock-out blow stuff. Czechoslovakia is doomed before the war has even begun: there's nothing anyone can do about it, despite brave resistance by the Czech fighters.

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The War Room reports the short list of names for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter:

  • Black Mamba
  • Cyclone
  • Lightning II
  • Piasa
  • Reaper
  • Spitfire II

As noted at the War Room, most of these names are really, really bad, and sound like something a 12 year old boy would come up with.1 Of interest here is the homage to great fighter planes of yore -- the Spitfire and the P-38 Lightning. (At least, I assume that Lightning II refers to that and not the English Electric Lightning, itself one of the great post-war fighters.) Presumably, Spitfire II is on the list because of the British participation in the project (though their US$2 billion is just a drop in the bucket, when compared with the projected total cost of US$244 billion). Cyclone sounds like it would have fitted in well alongside the Hurricane, Tempest, Typhoon and Whirlwind, too. Other than those choices, these are some pretty silly names. Piasa is more likely to evoke feelings of slight puzzlement than dread.

Still, fair's fair: the British have made some aircraft with pretty silly names too. Such as the Fawn. The Flycatcher. The Tabloid. The Iris. It's lucky the next war didn't start in 1931, when the Blackburn Iris (a seaplane) entered service; imagine how dreadfully embarassed the aircrew would have been to have been seen by the enemy flying around in something named after a flower.

Of course, the name of a combat aircraft is irrelevant to its actual performance. I guess the only real purpose is for propaganda, particularly on the home front. In that light, it's interesting that the names given to British fighters2 become more aggressive-sounding over time -- think of the difference between the Siskin III (a 'small songbird', according to the OED) of the mid-1920s and the Spitfire of the late 1930s. If you are staring total air war in the face, you might as well put yourself in the mood ...

  1. Of course, the only people, other than 12 year old boys, who will care what the JSF is called are 12 year old boys at heart anyway :) []
  2. Bombers generally were generally named after places -- Overstrand, Bombay, Wellington, Manchester. []

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[I posted this last Wednesday, but somehow, it was marked as "private" rather than "published", so nobody saw it but me! So I'm fixing that and bumping it to the top.]

The talk went off pretty well, I think -- at least I didn't hear any snoring and got some good questions at the end. The best part, though, was that "Four" Meaher (whose own paper on the political uses of the myth of the "great betrayal" -- ie of Australia, by Britain, in 1941-2 -- was one of the highlights of the day for me) put me on to this most amusing song called "The Deepest Shelter in Town", the lyrics of which are below. Googling, it turns out that it was sung by an English comedienne, Florence Desmond (whose first husband, incidentally, was one of the winners of the 1934 London to Melbourne Centenary Air Race, Tom Campbell Black). The reference to Herbert Morrison dates it to his early days at the Home Office (where he was responsible for air raid precautions), ie from October 1940, when he took over from John Anderson -- the height of the Blitz, which fits (though otherwise, the late 1930s might be an even better fit, when the left were attacking the government over the lack of deep air raid shelters).

Don't run away, mister,
Oh stay and play, mister.
Don't worry if you hear the siren go.
Though I'm not a lady of the highest virtue,
I wouldn't dream of letting anything hurt you.
And so before you go,
I think you ought to know

I got a cozy flat,
There's a place for your hat.
I'll wear a pink chiffon negligee gown.
And do I know my stuff?
But if that's not enough,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

I've got a room for two,
A radio that's new,
An alarm clock that won't let you down.
And I've got central heat,
But to make it complete,
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Ev'ry modern comfort
I can just guarantee.
If you hear the siren call,
Then it's probably me.

And sweetie, to revert,
I'll keep you on the alert.
I won't even be wearing a frown.
So you can hang around here
Until the "all clear,"
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, honey, I don't sing
Of an Anderson thing,
Climbing in one, you look like a clown.
But if you came here to see
Why Sir John would agree
I've got the deepest shelter in town.

Now Mr. Morrison
Says he's getting things done,
And he's a man of the greatest renown.
But before it gets wrecked,
I hope he'll come and inspect
The deepest shelter in town.

Now, I was one of the first
To clear my attic of junk.
But when it comes to shelters,
Now-a-days, it's all bunk.

So, honey, don't get scared,
It's there to be shared!
And you'll feel like a king with a crown.
So please don't be mean,
Better men than you have been
In the deepest shelter in town.

Now, what she meant by 'I've got the deepest shelter in town' I'm sure I don't know, but I imagine she looked something like this when she was singing it!

Florence Desmond

Image source: Virtual History Film.

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[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.]

Recently, I read a book review which has left me scratching my head. It's by Trevor Wilson (English Historical Review, 71 (2006), 629-31) and is about, among other books, K. W. Mitchinson, Defending Albion: Britain's Home Army, 1908-1919 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) -- according to the publisher, 'the first published study of Britain's response to the threat of invasion from across the North Sea in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century', particularly during the First World War.

Firstly, I just want to say that I admire Trevor Wilson's work greatly -- he is one of Australia's pre-eminent military historians, and I think it is fair to say one of the world's, certainly when it comes to First World War studies. I'm very much looking forward to reading his most recent work (with Robin Prior), The Somme (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2005); and his classic The Myriad Faces of War: Britain and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986) is a treasure-trove of information on all sorts of aspects Britain's participation in the First World War. To my mind, it marks him as someone with a broad conception of what constitutes military history, not just war-fighting and high politics but cultural and social history as well.

That's why I was surprised by his review. The first work he examines is, he judges, 'a thoroughly worthwhile book'. But 'The same can hardly be said with similar enthusiasm of Defending Albion'. This is not because it is a bad book, in and of itself: 'Mitchinson tells his story appropriately'. It's, apparently, because it's a boring subject: 'But a war book which contains no battles (except for the internal, non-violent sort) is of decidedly limited interest ... it must be wondered how necessary this journey has been'. I find this attitude very difficult to understand!
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