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 […]
[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
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
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
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
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,
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,
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,
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
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
