Monthly Archives: November 2011

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Flight, 1 July 1932, 599

The week before the 1932 RAF Display, Flight's editor commented on the rationale behind the theme chosen for the finale:

Sometimes the story composed for the set piece has been framed with some object, such as to obviate the criticisms of pacifists. Thus at one Display the enemy were called Pirates, so that nobody could object to their flaming end. This year we are to have a battle piece, pure and simple, which is the best thing of all. The R.A.F. exists to defend us, so we may as well get some idea (so far as sham fighting can give it) of what our aircraft would do to those who may attack us.1

But on the day (Saturday, 25 June 1932), the set piece seemed to disappoint Flight's correspondent. The set-up (above) was described as follows:

The scene this year represented a main aerodrome of the Enemy, situated alongside a disused fort in which large quantities of bombs were stored [...] The Enemy squadrons having been somewhat worrying, it was decided to carry out a heavy air attack to destroy this base.2

A squadron of 'our Single-Seater Fighters' strafes the aerodrome, drawing off 'the Enemy Fighter Squadron' in pursuit.3 Reconnaissance aircraft (Hawker Audaxes) report the scene to be clear, and so the bombers (Hawker Horsleys and Fairey IIIFs) are sent in.
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  1. Flight, 24 June 1932, 542. [↩]
  2. Ibid., 1 July 1932, 598. The illustrations are from ibid., 599. [↩]
  3. Ibid., 598. [↩]

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I may or may not have been right in guessing that the Soviet Union was the pretend enemy in the 1928 RAF Display set-piece, but as we shall see I think I'm on safer ground with the next year's edition (for some reason held slightly later in the summer than usual, on Saturday, 13 July 1929). The tenth 'Grand Finale or Set Piece' had an unusually elaborate geopolitical backdrop and an unusually elaborate set.1 The scene was 'Hendon Sea Port' AKA 'Hendon-by-the-Sea', which

represented a foreign defended port overseas, and consisted of a harbour with a quay terminating at a fort at the seaward extremity and various buildings at the landward end. Alongside the mole with waves rippling against its sides (these waves, by the way, were the silk of old parachutes, pegged to the ground and fluttering in the wind), was an imposing troopship, with smoke already issuing from its black and orange funnels; troops were embarking and stores were being transferred from lorries.

Outside the harbour various vessels, complete with waves, cruised about, while other craft, including an ammunition lighter, were anchored inside. This was the "peaceful" but active scene we looked upon at the start, and one could hardly believe it was not real.2

It's clear that the RAF put a lot of effort into these sets which were destined to be blown up (see the British Pathé newsreel above), even allowing for the fact that they were built from scrap metal and old parachutes.
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  1. Flight, 18 July 1929, 682. [↩]
  2. Ibid. 'Hendon-by-the-Sea' is from ibid., 683. [↩]

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Flight, 30 June 1927, 431

The seventh RAF Display was held on Saturday, 3 July 1926. By now it was, as Flight noted, 'amongst the foremost of the functions of the London social season'.1 Their Majesties the King and Queen were in attendance, along with representatives of three other royal houses (including the King, Queen, Infante and Infanta of Spain, possibly drawn by the appearance of the Cierva autogyro), 'Several Indian Princes', nearly one in three of the combined Houses of Parliament, and about 150,000 less exalted guests. (The graphic above shows the growth of 'Miss Popularity Hendon' since the beginning.)2 The main feature of the day was massed formation flying: at one point, six fighter squadrons comprising fifty-four aircraft in total were in the air. The set-piece seems to have suffered by comparison. Flight's description seems rather muted when compared to previous years:

After this came the Set Piece -- during which the Royal Party made a tour of inspection of the machine park. The "Story" this year was the combined attack on a hostile aerodrome by fighters and day bombers. It commenced with a low bombing attack with light bombs by the fighters, which followed up with a machine-gun attack to silence the ground defences. Next came along, higher up, the day bombers, with the fighters above them in attendance. The bombers then very effectively finished off the aerodrome and previously-damaged aircraft.3

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  1. Flight, 8 July 1926, 399. [↩]
  2. Ibid., 30 June 1927, 431. [↩]
  3. Flight, 8 July 1926, 406. [↩]

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Eric Ash. Sir Frederick Sykes and the Air Revolution 1912-1918. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1999. An excellent study of a important figure in the early days of the RAF who has been overshadowed by his rival, predecessor and successor Trenchard: he was certainly a stauncher supporter of strategic bombing at this time. Sykes was also the friend and patron of P. R. C. Groves.

Anthony Christopher Cain. The Forgotten Air Force: French Air Doctrine in the 1930s. Washington, D.C., and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. Cain argues that while French air doctrine was unsound, the reason was not that French airmen were decadent, traitorous or stupid (to paraphrase the title of his concluding chapter), but that they were let down by non-airmen who didn't understand airpower. (The Armée de l'Air didn't become independent until 1933.) Some glorious photographs of interwar French bombers.

John R. Davis with Susanne Everill. Grants for History 2012: A Guide to Funding. London: Institute of Historical Research, 2011. Don't laugh.

A. D. Harvey. Body Politic: Political Metaphor and Political Violence. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. Harvey has written a number of articles on airpower history, but this is something completely different. It's a history of the notion that the organisation of human societies resemble human bodies, and in some way therefore work in the same way. Hobbes's Leviathan is probably the most famous example, but it wasn't the first and it wasn't the last.

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Brian Madison Jones. Abolishing the Taboo: Dwight D. Eisenhower and American Nuclear Doctrine, 1945-1961. (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2011).

I found Brian Jones's Abolishing the Taboo interesting for two reasons. Firstly, the subject matter: the Cold War fear of nuclear war was the successor to the interwar fear of strategic bombing. Secondly, it's the book version of a PhD dissertation, which is something I'll be tackling myself.

The Eisenhower presidency (1953-61) was when the United States created its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, rising from the roughly 800 warheads inherited from Truman to over 18,000 by the time Kennedy came into office: as Jones notes, even after recent disarmament measures this number has never since fallen below the level when Eisenhower came into power.1 So this was the critical period when we (meaning the world) had to learn how to live with the Bomb. Jones's intention is to explain how and why this happened, through a focus on Eiseinhower's attempts to make nuclear technology normal: that is, as just another way of making the United States stronger and safer. Speaking as a non-specialist in this area, I think he largely succeeds in this. But I do have some criticisms.
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  1. Brian Madison Jones, Abolishing the Taboo: Dwight D. Eisenhower and American Nuclear Doctrine, 1945-1961 (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2011), 122. [↩]

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I'm very pleased to be able to say that I have signed a book contract with Ashgate Publishing. This contract has two key components: firstly, that I will revise my PhD thesis for publication as a book; and secondly, that Ashgate will publish said book so that people can read it. A thesis is not a book: there's much which needs be changed to make the text accessible to an wider audience. And apart from updating and revising the text, I may be making some structural changes and/or introducing some new material. It will probably be published in 2013 (apocalypse permitting, of course). Ashgate have a great record in academic history (soon to be enhanced by the publication of Gavin Robinson's book) so this is a Very Good Thing.

I don't anticipate that my blogging will fall off dramatically (at least until the deadline looms!), so I hope that you all will continue to stop by!

Edit: I should have at least mentioned the book's proposed title: The Next War in the Air: Britain's Fear of the Bomber, 1908-1941.

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RAF Pageant, 1923

The fourth RAF Pageant took place on Saturday, 30 June 1923. The 'turn of the afternoon', as in the previous year, was 'another little Eastern drama, based on actual happenings during the War'.1 Once more the Wottnotts were the enemy, and once more the co-operation of air and ground forces was the theme. The main difference with 1922 was that this time the RAF was coming to the aid of a besieged garrison:

On the centre of the "stage" one saw an impressive railway bridge and sundry buildings. The small military garrison protecting this post was suddenly attacked by our old friends (or enemies?), the Wottnott Arabs. The garrison, being outnumbered, W.T.'d for help, which, before you could say "Jack Robinson," appeared in the form of three Vickers troop carriers, escorted by five Sopwith "Snipes."2

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  1. Flight, 5 July 1923, 365. [↩]
  2. Ibid. [↩]

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Flight, 8 July 1920, 703

I recently said that I've been meaning to write about the spectacular and dramatic set pieces which usually marked the climax of the RAF Pageants, held at Hendon aerodrome every summer from 1920 to 1937. So here goes! The themes chosen for these set-pieces tell us something about what ideas about airpower the RAF wished the public to absorb.1 Flight had good coverage of the pageants, and where possible I'll reference British Pathe newsreels. As there were so many I'll have to make this a series.

First, a bit of context. In 1910, Hendon (or London) aerodrome was established on the outskirts of London by Claude Grahame-White as a place where pioneer aviators could come to build, to train and to fly. But it was also the site of hugely popular aerial derbys and flying displays for the public, who came up from London in their many thousands to watch Grahame-White and others stunting over the airfield: the so-called 'Hendon Habit'. During the war, Hendon was requisitioned by the RFC for the purposes of training, test flying and occasional air defence. Grahame-White never got it back after the war, but he did manage to convince the government to allow it to be used once more for airminded propaganda: the Aerial Derby was re-established there in 1919.2
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  1. See David E. Omissi, 'The Hendon Air Pageant, 1920-1937', in John M. MacKenzie, Popular Imperialism and the Military: 1850-1950 (Manchester: Manchester University press, 1992), 198-220, for more. [↩]
  2. On Hendon generally, see David Oliver, Hendon Aerodrome: A History (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1994). [↩]

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Mary Couchman, ARP warden

MRS. MARY COUCHMAN, twenty-four-year-old warden in a small Kentish village, sat smoking a cigarette in the wardens' post. She was resting between warnings.

Suddenly the sirens sounded again.

She saw her little boy, with two friends, playing some distance away.

The cigarette still in her hand, Mrs. Couchman ran out of the post. Bombs began to fall as she ran.

The children, Johnnie Lusher, aged four, Gladys Ashsmith, aged seven, and her four-year-old son Brian, stood in the street, frightened by the scream and thud of the bombs.

Gathering them in her arms, she huddled over them, protecting them with her own body.

Bombs were still thudding down only a short distance away.

There she crouched, to save the children from flying shrapnel and debris.

A "Daily Mirror" photographer was on the spot when the incident occurred.

He took this picture.

Afterwards, when the planes had passed over, he told Mrs. Couchman, "You are a brave woman."

"Oh, it was nothing. Somebody had to look after the children," was her reply.

Even allowing for journalistic exaggeration, it's a great photograph.

Source: Daily Mirror, 17 October 1940, 1 (though this copy of the photo is from In Focus).

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Nominations for the 2011 Cliopatria Awards are now open! This year, there are some very important changes. The usual categories will still be awarded for the best in history blogging: best group blog, best individual blog, best new blog, best post, best series of posts and best writer. But there are two new categories for other forms of history social media: best Twitter feed and best podcast episode. And, even more significantly, I'm one of the judges (along with Katrina Gulliver and Shane Landrum) for two categories, best group blog and best new blog. So please make our decision as difficult as possible by nominating many excellent group and/or or new history blogs for our consideration! Also for the other categories, too, I suppose.

NOTE: HNN is having technical difficulties at the moment, so there are alternate sites for making nominations for each category: best group blog, best individual blog, best new blog, best post, best series of posts, best writer, best Twitter feed, and best podcast episode.