Noel Pemberton Billing has received a bit of criticism around here, and mostly for good reason. He couldn’t design a decent aeroplane for toffee, he peddled lurid conspiracy theories, he was a relentless self-promoter. But I don’t think he was a complete fool. He clearly had a fertile imagination (overly so, Maud Allen would have
A belated Anzac Day post. Here’s C. E. W. Bean, the official historian of Australia’s involvement in the First World War, on why the infamous Suvla landings on 6 August 1915 didn’t cut the Gallipoli peninsula and open the road to Constantinople: The reasons for the failure, which affected the fate of the Australian and
I’ve been reading a little about the Dardanelles campaign of 1915; not the famous landings in April but the failed naval campaign which preceded them in February and March. The basic idea was that British and French forces would sweep the Bosphorus clear of mines, knock out the Turkish naval guns on either side of
I’ve added another biography to the sidebar, that of devil-may-care flying fool Claude Grahame-White. He is probably most remembered today for his daring night flight in 1910 while attempting to win the Daily Mail London to Manchester prize. (His film career seems to have attracted somewhat less attention.) But for me Grahame-White’s main significance is
The Tarrant Tabor, a prototype bomber designed and built in 1918-9. There were high hopes among strategic bombing advocates (including P. R. C. Groves) for this giant machine, but by the time it was ready for its maiden flight in May 1919, the war was over and its purpose now unclear. Not that this mattered
A few articles have been appearing in the British press over the last few days about Harry Grindell Matthews, who (among many other things) claimed in 1924 to have invented a death ray. There’s no actual news attached to these stories, as far as I can tell, other than the fact that a new biography
No. But let me explain … One of the nice things about tutoring is that you’re getting paid to learn things (unless you happen to know everything about whatever it is that you are tutoring already, which I don’t). And one thing I’ve learned recently is that the First World War started because French aircraft
Some more navel-gazingpost-thesis analysis. Above is a plot of the number of primary sources (1908-1941) I cite by date of publication. (Published sources only, excluding newspaper articles — of which there are a lot — and government documents. Also, it’s not just airpower stuff, though it mostly is.) I actually have no idea if it’s
Here’s an explanation for phantom airships which I haven’t come across before: whales! The way in which rumours start and grow is shown by the following incident recorded by the Daily Telegraph correspondent at Harwich:— “It was rumoured in Harwich this evening that a Zeppelin had been seen flying on the North Sea to-day, surrounded
Some perfectly ordinary banter, c. 1917: First “Hun”: “Did you see old Cole’s zoom on a quirk this morning?” Second “Hun”: “No, what happened?” First “Hun”: “Oh, nothing to write home about … stalled his ‘bus and pancaked thirty feet … crashed completely … put a vertical gust up me … just as I was
