Author name: Brett Holman

Brett Holman is a historian who lives in Armidale, Australia.

Pictures, Travel 2009

Shuttleworth Collection

The final stop on my trip was London, where I stayed for most of a week (thanks, Jakob and Sarah, for putting me up!) I had big plans, but ended up spending most of my time at British Library Newspapers doing research for an article. But first I got to spend a weekend looking at […]

Blogging, tweeting and podcasting

Military History Carnival 21

[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.] Welcome to the restored Military History Carnival, a round-up of the best military history blogging of the last month. Since history is just one damn thing after another, let’s try this as a chronology. 327-5 BCE: Alexander the Great’s army fights yeti in India. 122 CE: Construction of Hadrian’s wall begins in

1940s, Archives, Nuclear, biological, chemical, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Rumours

The red balloon scare of 1940

I hadn’t come across this before. @ukwarcabinet recently linked to some informal notes of a War Cabinet meeting held on 8 February 1940. It was pretty quiet, even for the Bore War, and ‘Some of the subjects discussed were rather discussed by way of filling in time’. Including this: At the end of the Meeting

1940s, Plots and tables, Videos

The wind vs. the whirlwind

It must be time for some plots. The data here is taken from Richard Overy, The Air War 1939-1945 (Washington: Potomac Books, 2005 [1980]), 120, and represents the bomb tonnage delivered between 1940 and 1945 by Germany on Britain (including V-weapons) in blue, and by Britain and the United States on Europe as a whole

Blogging, tweeting and podcasting, Ephemera, Pictures

The trumpet calls

[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.] Airminded is hosting the next edition of the Military History Carnival on 15 February. Please send me suggestions for the best military history blogging since 17 January, either by email (bholman at airminded dot org), by web (here or here) or by twitter (@Airminded or tagged #mhc21). Thanks! Image source: Wikipedia.

1930s, 1940s, Air defence, Books

A Japanese death ray?

If anyone came close to creating a death ray weapon by the end of the Second World War, it was the Japanese army. It wouldn’t have helped them much, however, as they weren’t at war with rabbits. According to Richard Overy in The Air War 1939-1945 (Washington: Potomac Books, 2005 [1980]), 195: The lack of

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