Cecil Day Lewis, ‘Bombers’ (1938): Through the vague morning, the heart preoccupied, A deep in air buried grain of sound Starts and grows, as yet unwarning — The tremor of baited deepsea line. Swells the seed, and now tight sound-buds Vibrate, upholding their paean flowers To the sun. There are bees in sky-bells droning, Flares […]
The word ‘reprisals’ popped up during my 1940 post-blogging quite frequently. After one post I had the idea of checking whether it could be used as an index of British attitudes towards the bombing of Germany throughout the rest of the war. The short answer is: not really. But it was still worth trying. With
7 October was not the end of the Blitz or even of the Battle of Britain, but it is the end of my post-blogging of 1940, at least for now. The main reason for this is because I’m running out of primary sources, especially the Daily Mail. But as I think I’ve shown, in the
‘RAF PREPARING A GREAT NEW BOMBING OFFENSIVE’, Daily Mail, page 1: POWERFUL new R.A.F. bombers now being produced in great numbers and an amazing new long-range fighter are likely to be used, in the immediate future, for a greatly intensified bombing offensive over Germany. Hitler’s people can look forward to more than a taste of
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
