For the third week in a row the Observer reserves its biggest headlines for a story about diplomacy rather than war — here the Hitler-Mussolini Brenner Pass meeting and subsequent threats made against Britain in the Axis press. This is deemed by the diplomatic correspondent to be a ‘bogy-war’ aimed at European neutrals, an ‘elaborate […]
The Daily Mail today leads with changes at the top of the RAF. The Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Cyril Newall, has been kicked upstairs to the Governor-Generalship of New Zealand. His replacement, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal, has come from commanding Bomber Command; and his replacement there
Politics intrudes onto the front page of the Daily Mail today, in the form of a Cabinet reshuffle. But this being wartime, people are perhaps more likely to invest these normally mundane ministerial changes with great significance. The Mail certainly does, leading with the story that Sir John Reith, former Director-General of the BBC (and
Let’s look at how the British aviation press is covering the air war, by way of today’s issue of Flight, its longest-running periodical (and official organ of the Royal Aero Club). The front cover, along with the first and the last few pages, carry advertisements for various aviation-related products. Here Titanine Ltd is promoting ‘the
The Times reports (4) that Monday night’s raids on Germany included one on the railway yards at Mannheim, where aircrew reported seeing ‘a terrific explosion, “the biggest we have seen on any raid so far”‘ after dropping their bombs; and a long raid on Berlin: An Air Ministry News Bulletin says that the West power
The Luftwaffe launched several large air raids in daylight hours yesterday. They had little success, and lost 47 aircraft. Fighter Command lost 22, but 12 of the pilots are safe (though the category ‘safe’ includes those alive but maimed, alive but burned, alive but psychologically scarred). Night attacks took place on London and the north-west
Patrick Deer. Culture in Camouflage: War, Empire, and Modern British Literature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Argues that Britain developed a ‘war culture’ in the Second World War which was very different to that of the First and which ‘colonised’ the national consciousness in the rest of the century. It’s from a
Noel Monks, air correspondent of the Daily Mail, is in a confident mood today (1). He is essentially declaring victory for the RAF in the Battle of Britain: THE R.A.F. have weathered with the passing of September, the “crisis month” of the war. On the first of the month that ends to-day a high Air
Friday witnessed the signing of the ‘Axis-Japanese Pact’ in Berlin. The Observer‘s diplomatic correspondent believes the pact is ‘chiefly aimed at the United States’, and ‘is intended to steal a march on what is regarded as the inevitable alignment of Britain, America, Russia, and China’ (7): Under it, the Axis and Japan pledge each other
The Luftwaffe launched mass daylight raids against London and Bristol yesterday, ‘the most widespread of the war’ according to the Daily Mail (1), and with the largest losses since 15 September, too. German losses are reported to be 130 aircraft and about 300 aircrew, while the British lost 34 fighters and 19 pilots. Many people
