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Over at The Appendix, 'a new journal of narrative & experimental history' to which you can subscribe, Felipe Fernandes Cruz has reproduced some intriguing declassified US documents from the early 1940s concerning rumours of clandestine German airfields in Brazil. The reason for the US interest in any evidence of German activity in South America, apart from the Monroe thing, seems to have been the possibility of an air raid on the Panama Canal. It's not clear how the three documents relate to each other, as they're from different agencies (FBI, US Army) and dates (October and December 1941, July 1942) and don't appear to directly refer to each other. It seems that they reflect an ongoing concern about the possibility of German aerial activity in the Amazon rather than a response to any particularly credible information.

The first document, dated 3 October 1941, is simply J. Edgar Hoover informing the Assistant Secretary of State, Adolf A. Berle, of 'rumors current in Brazil as to a secret German air base, reported to exist in the Rio Negro district of the upper Amazon' and promising to forward any further information as it was received. The second chronologically is dated 18 December 1941 and appears to be an intelligence summary for the US Army Chief of Staff (George C. Marshall) from the Assistant Chief of Staff. It's actually a bit sceptical of the idea, saying 'It is our opinion that the danger from secret landing fields in this region is much less than has formerly been rumored', due to the difficulty in shipping the large quantities of fuel required up the Amazon. However, it also identifies a group of Germans already established in Amazonia who could have been gathering supplies for years:

In this region at the present time is a large group of German monks and their abbeys. They have been firmly established in this region for the past 80 years, and know this region possibly better than any Brazilian. There is a possibility that for some time past air supplies may have been secretly built up at points in this region which might be used for attacks on the Canal. It is to be remembered that this is a vast region, the single State of Amazonas being two and one-half times larger than the State of Texas.

The final document appears to be a report to the War Department from someone named Abbott in Manaos, and is dated 8 July 1942. This is the one that interests me the most:

Reliable reports huge quantity gasoline unknown quality in transit up Beni River in May believed destined Germans Riberalta Bolivia. Small bits unverified information many separate sources indicates possible Axis planeed [sic] series ground facilities for long range planes reach Venezuela: one from Beni River with one halt enroute. Two from Mato Grosso Area with probably two halts. SUch [sic] program logical for approach to Panama but no reports unknow [sic] planes such localities. Major Harlow taking both planes Belem ninth for minor repairs. Plan flight up Rio Negro next week using fuel sent from here. No instructions received except cables.

These rumours about secret German airfields in the Amazon in 1942 are clear analogues to the rumours about secret German airfields in Australia in 1918. So why were there 'no reports [unknown] planes', as there certainly were in Australia? This looks like it could be another useful test case.

It's possible that Brazilians, even in the remote Amazon, were by 1942 reasonably familiar with aircraft and so less likely to mistake non-aircraft for real ones, or to be surprised by real but non-German ones. Mystery aircraft scares were increasingly scarce by this time around the world, for I think just this reason, and were only reinvigorated by the imminence of new jet and rocket technology. I don't know enough (or anything) about aviation in Brazil at this time to say whether this is the case, but there is evidence even in these documents that aircraft were already an essential tool for mobility in what was very inhospitable terrain.

But there's also the question of the source of these rumours: they may not be such a clear analogue to the earlier Australian episode after all. Just who was passing these stories of secret German airfields around? Was it ordinary Brazilians? Brazilian military personnel? Expatriate American or German residents? It makes a difference, because such stories would mean different things, and would be used for a different purpose, by different audiences. Did Brazilians themselves fear German infiltration? I doubt they were as worried about a German air raid on the Panama Canal as the Americans were. I need to know more!

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[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.]

In the published version of his 2008 Lord Trenchard Memorial Lecture, Richard Overy concluded that now

air power is projected for its potential political or moral impact. In Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan it is the political dividend that has been central to the exercise of air power, just as it was when Trenchard’s Independent Force flew against German cities in 1918 with the hope that a demoralised urban population might pressure the German government to make peace. In this sense it might be possible to argue, without stretching the history too far, that the RAF has begun to forge a new sense of identity in the past two decades more compatible with the traditions of Trenchardism.1

My interest here is in that last word, 'Trenchardism'. Overy nowhere defines it -- in fact, it's the only time it occurs in his article -- but as an airpower historian I have a pretty good idea what he means, despite the fact that it's actually a relatively uncommon term. Marshal of the Royal Air Force (as he ended up) Lord Trenchard is well-known for his belief in strategic bombing as a war-winning weapon, particularly through its effects on morale, and as the RAF's Chief of the Air Staff from 1919 to 1930 he was in a position to promote it. This sense of Trenchardism, something like Douhetism, seems straightforward enough, and it's the sense in which I've encountered it in the secondary literature.2 But here I'm interested in other uses of this word Trenchardism: specifically the way it is used in a a Wikipedia article of that name which was created recently by Jo Pugh of The National Archives, who invites additions and comments (as discussed on Twitter).3 There, Trenchardism is taken beyond simply an enthusiasm for bombing, indeed beyond the military sphere entirely. The dilemma is that in so doing it risks diluting Trenchardism past the point of usefulness. But equally, it highlights a contemporary understanding of Trenchardism which is very different to that we understand now. Are they reconcilable? And if not, which should we prefer?
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  1. Richard Overy, 'Identity, politics and technology in the RAF's history', RUSI Journal 153 (2008), 74-7. Thanks to Ross Mahoney for this reference. [↩]
  2. E.g. Tami Davis Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Strategic Air Warfare: The Evolution and Reality of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 239, 291. [↩]
  3. I won't here discuss the question of whether Wikipedia is an appropriate place for original research. See also Richard Jenson, 'Military history on the electronic frontier: Wikipedia fights the War of 1812', Journal of Military History 76 (2012), 1165-82. [↩]

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Another update to my list of early 20th century British newspapers online. There are a number of new titles available:

Dundee Courier
Gloucestershire Echo
Hereford Times
Herts Advertiser
Lincolnshire Echo
Surrey Mirror
Yorkshire Gazette

In addition, the coverage for another dozen titles has been increased, though in some cases only by a year. There's additional coverage of at least some of the First World War period for seven newspapers, and of the Second World War for five.

Because it was getting a big long I've reorganised the list slightly, with separate sections for English, Irish/Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh newspapers. Which highlights the fact that there are no Welsh newspapers in the list at all. (The BNA does have a very few for 1900; hopefully they will be extended in future.)

All of the updates are due to the BNA; none of the other major newspaper sources I'm aware of have added anything for this period in the last three months. If you know of any I've missed, please let me know in the comments. However, I did recently come across UNZ.org, which has a huge amount of early 20th century periodicals (as well as books and other things) scanned and available for free, without even any ads. ('A New, Vast and Slightly Right-Wing Archive of Magazines, Books and TV Shows' is a pretty accurate description.) It's nicely organised too; a search function would be nice but you can use Google for that. Unfortunately for my purposes, all of them are American or monthly or both -- well, okay, these are interesting and useful too, but they don't fit into my list. But UNZ.org does have several British literary journals from the early twentieth century: Cyril Connolly's Horizon, F. R. Leavis's Scrutiny, and The Bookman (though this was a Hodder and Staughton publication, it published general reviews and cultural commentary too). For example, here's George Orwell's 'Wells, Hitler and the World State' from the August 1941 Horizon, which I had to pester some poor interlibrary loan librarian to find for me when I was doing my PhD. So this is a good thing.

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He 111 over London

A very long time ago, I wrote a post about the claim that this (here, in cropped form) truly iconic image of the Blitz was a German propaganda fake. The claim was made by Gazza, a Millwall FC fan who maintains a website about the history of the club; and the basis for his claim was that the former Millwall home ground, the Old Den, is apparently missing the roof built over its northern terrace in 1938. Since the photograph was purportedly taken by the Luftwaffe in 1940, it must therefore be a fake. After looking at it and thinking about it far too much, I went back and forth on the issue several times while writing the post, and several more times during the ensuing discussion in the comments; ultimately, I tentatively agreed with Gazza that it was indeed a fake. But since there's only so much that can be told from the image itself, the only way I could see to resolve the question would be for somebody to go into the archives and look at its context and provenance.
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I've updated my list of online sources for early twentieth century British newspapers. There are forty new titles, bringing the total up over one hundred, and more years are available for another couple of dozen newspapers.

Most of the new titles are from the British Newspaper Archive (BNA), which now has a very helpful list of all newspapers they have along with the range of years available. But I've noticed that those ranges are misleading because the years in between the start and end dates have not necessarily all been digitised. So the BNA describes Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser, one of the new titles, as being available for the years 1833 to 1949. But the only years actually available after 1900 are 1947, 1948, and 1949 (the rest will be added in due course). It's probably difficult to display information about gaps in the coverage without cluttering up the page and making it harder to use (and I do exactly the same on my list), but perhaps they could take another leaf out of Trove's book and put a little histogram on every newspaper's page to show what's available.
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The indefatigable Ross Mahoney, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham's Centre for War Studies, has written a briefing paper proposing the creation of an Air Force Records Society (AFRS), which he has circulated among some of the senior academics studying the history of British airpower, and has also posted on his blog. Briefly, the idea is that the AFRS would exist solely to publish one volume annually of significant but hard-to-find primary sources relating to the history of the RAF and its predecessors: perhaps unpublished memoirs written by key figures, or selections from their papers, or themed collections of documents from various sources. The models are the Navy Records Society and the Army Records Society, which are both well-established by now; indeed the Navy Records Society predates the formation of the RAF by a quarter of a century. Obviously I think this is a great idea, but it's easy to say that; the question is how to get it done, and good on Ross for asking that question. There's not much I can do directly to help from where I am, but what I can do is help drum up support for an AFRS.

I have a few comments. One, which I've already passed on to Ross, is that the brief for the AFRS be expanded. In the current proposal it covers the RAF, the RFC and the RNAS. But organised airpower started before then, with the brief existence of the Air Battalion (1911-2) and the less ephemeral Balloon Factory/School of Ballooning (1878-1912). These seem like logical subjects for an AFRS. But because they were part of the Royal Engineers and hence the Army, there is a potential for stepping on the toes of the Army Records Society. But this jurisdictional problem exists anyway; indeed the Navy Records Society has already published at least one volume on the topic of the RNAS. And I think there's plenty of history to go around. Another possible area to expand into might be the Royal Aircraft Factory/Royal Aircraft Establishment, which was separate from the RFC/RNAS/RAF but had a principally military character.

Another question is whether the volumes published should be actual physical books, or whether the AFRS should be 'born digital' and just publish ebooks or perhaps just online. I don't know much about the financing of the existing societies, but I expect most of the membership fees go to the publisher. If the costs of physical distribution could be eliminated that would lower the fees and hopefully broaden the membership base. Of course, digital does not always equal cheap; and I must admit I prefer real books -- to this day I have never bought an ebook!

Finally, it's fun to think of possible archives to plunder. From my own experience, I think P. R. C. Groves's papers (at KCL and the IWM) have some potential, covering topics such as early air control operations in the Sudan in 1916, the RAF's operations in the first year of its existence, air policy at the Paris Peace Conference and the League of Nations, and, after his RAF service, his airpower advocacy (and I would argue that he was the most influential of all the British airpower writers between the wars), including his time heading the Air League of the British Empire; there's also an unpublished book manuscript he finished just before the Second World War, 'This air business'. But that's just me, I don't expect anyone else to share in my obsessions… and there are plenty of more obvious places to start.

Any thoughts?

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So, to the mystery aeroplane sceptics. Again, there are some sceptical opinions to be found in the press and police reports, but relatively few. Very early on, the Age, one of Melbourne's leading newspapers, wrote on 25 March 1918 that

the defence authorities are inclined to laugh at the story told by Police Constable Wright, of Ouyen, that at Nyang on Thursday last [21 March] he saw two aeroplanes flying in a westerly direction at a high altitude. The constable insists that he was not mistaken, but the authorities, being able to account for the movements of all Australian aeroplanes, jokingly suggest that the constable's story is on a par with those told about the Tantanoola tiger.1

It did go on to say that 'the authorities very rightly recognise that it would be unwise not to investigate [...] and inquiries into the reported occurrence are being made by special intelligence officers'.2 This was true, though in the event the 'special intelligence officers' (actually Detective F. W. Sickerdick, Victoria Police, and Lieutenant Edwards of the Royal Flying Corps) weren't despatched from Melbourne until 13 April as part of a broad sweep around western Victoria interviewing witnesses and suspects which took several weeks to complete. The conclusion of Sickerdick's report was unsurprisingly negative:

In my opinion and from the observations taken and from information received, the opinion of the residents, and the country travelled through, I do not believe that aeroplanes ever flew over the MALLEE, and I believe the objects seen at different times and by different people, were either hawks or pelicans.3

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  1. Age (Melbourne), 25 March 1918, copy in NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066. The article also refers to reports 'earlier in the war of a mythical fleet of eight enemy aeroplanes which flew over Hobart'. This would seem to refer to an incident in October 1914 when 'a battery of artillery in training near Hobart observed "several aircraft"': NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, minute, Director of Military Intelligence (Major E. L. Piesse) to Chief of the General Staff, 'Report of aeroplane at Towamba, N.S.W.', 16 May 1917. [↩]
  2. Age (Melbourne), 25 March 1918, copy in NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066. [↩]
  3. NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, report, Detective F. W. Sickerdick (Victoria Police) to Major F. V. Hogan (Intelligence Section, General Staff), 1 May 1918. [↩]

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What did Australians in 1918 make of the mystery aeroplane scare? What did they think the aeroplanes meant? This is a question I've already answered in part. There is evidence from the press that in the days before 24 April wild rumours were circulating that Australia was about to be attacked somehow by German raiders, perhaps even to the extent of a landing by enemy troops. These rumours were attributed (at least by the New Zealand press) to anxiety caused by the rash of mysterious aeroplanes seen primarily in Victoria, which were generally presumed to be flying from and hence evidence of said raiders. (The watershed I keep mentioning, the date when the press largely stopped publishing mystery aeroplane reports was 23 April, and this probably is not a coincidence if censorship was involved. Which, alas, I still cannot prove and may not be able to.) In my previous post I discussed some examples of rumours about mystery aeroplanes, which by their nature can give us insights into what people thought the aeroplanes were and what they were doing. James French's letter, for example, shows that he certainly believed that the mystery aeroplanes were connected with German raiders off the coast, but also that he thought they were cooperating with German spies and operating from hidden aerodromes.
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If the wave of reports of mystery aeroplanes after late April 1918 wasn't sustained by newspaper reports (i.e. because there were none) then how was it sustained? Why did people from all over Australia come to hold the same belief, that German aircraft were filling the skies? There are several possible explanations. One is that to interpret odd things in the sky as aeroplanes was simply obvious. But as I argued in the previous post, most Australians had never seen a real aeroplane before, so why would they start thinking like this now? A related explanation is that the press played a role in initiating the scare, but by the time it stopped reporting on the mystery aeroplanes it was no longer necessary: the idea had taken root and the scare was now self-sustaining. That is certainly possible. But there is another vector which, although often hard to trace definitively, did play an important role: rumour.

I don't think Australians are any more prone to rumourmongering than anyone else; on the other hand, we apparently did invent the bush telegraph. And there is some evidence for rumour in a number of the naval intelligence files contained in NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066/378. Here are three.
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NAA: A1194, 19.03/6255

This is from a document issued by the Air Council in October 1918, 'Identification marks on all aircraft', FS Publication 89. I think it's available from the National Archives in London as AIR 10/128 and AIR 10/129, but I found it in the National Archives of Australia as NAA: A1194, 19.03/6255, and because I paid to have it digitised you can see it on their website. It portrays the national identification markings for every country from America (a red, blue and white roundel) to Turkey (a black square inside a white square). I'm not sure how germane it is to the mystery aircraft scare earlier in the year: it probably wouldn't even have arrived in Australia before the Armistice. But it did follow a series of official determinations in the autumn about how to recognise German aircraft and, indeed, how to recognise aircraft at all.
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