Hector Hawton. Night Bombing. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1944. A rather interesting secondhand bookshop find. Hawton was a novelist, rationalist and during the war a flight lieutenant in the RAFVR. Here he has written an explanation, a history, and a justification of British bombing strategy in the Second World War. It’s less overtly propagandistic […]
Today I made my ninth contribution to ABC New England’s Road to War series, talking about U-boats (AKA ‘the Zeppelins of the sea’) and their advantages and disadvantages in warfare. More specifically, I spoke about the German declaration on 4 February 1915 of unlimited submarine warfare in the seas around Britain, switching from their previous
John A. Moses and Christopher Pugsley, eds. The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions 1871-1919: Essays on the Role of Australia and New Zealand in World Politics in the Age of Imperialism. Claremont: Regina Books, 2000. The outcome of a conference held at the University of New England (i.e. where I am, which is how
Or, that time the Stern Gang tried to bomb London from the air. In early September 1947, the Parisian police arrested ten people connected with the Stern Gang, nine of them Jews including Baruch Korff, an American rabbi who was head of the Political Action Committee for Palestine.1 Press reports claimed that the group’s aim
Ian Mackersey. The Wright Brothers: The Remarkable Story of the Aviation Pioneers Who Changed the World. London: TimeWarner Paperbacks, 2004. Somewhat surprisingly, I’ve never bought any books about the Wrights (apart from Alfred Gollin’s No Longer an Island: Britain and the Wright Brothers, 1902-1909, obviously). I still haven’t, but thanks to a gift from a
For my eighth contribution to The Road to War on ABC New England, I spoke about the first Zeppelin raid on Britain, on the night of 19 January 1915; certainly more consequential than the first air raid on Britain as it actually killed people in Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in Norfolk. I talked about
Bernhard Rieger. Technology and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890-1945. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. A cultural history of the responses to three particular types of ‘modern wonder’: aviation, passenger liners, and cinema. I read this back when I was doing my PhD, but I’ve moved to a different
Paris has, unfortunately, been in the news lately, which has made me think back to my visit in December 2013. Happier days. I never got around to posting any photos from that trip, so now seems like a good time to rectify that. But because you can find far more beautiful pictures of Parisian landmarks
[Horatio] Barber. How to Fly a Plane: The First World War Pilot’s Manual. Stroud, Amberley Publishing, 2014 [1917]. Christmas present! Barber was a British aviation pioneer, holder of Aero Club Certificate no. 30, the first occupant of Hendon Aerodrome, the first Briton to get a degree in aeronautics. During the First World War he did
Back to back Roads to War! This week’s topic is the most airminded yet: the first German air raids on Britain. I had to cheat slightly to fit them in, as technically I’m supposed to talk about the centenary events in the week leading up to the broadcast date, i.e 23 December, but the first
