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1910s, Archives, Australia, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Plots and tables

When, what, where?

In my previous post, I threatened more statistics about Australian mystery aircraft scares of the First World War, and here they are. What I’ve been doing is collating all the sightings recorded in two NAA files, MP1049/1, 1918/066 and MP367/1, 512/3/1319. The former is the Navy Office’s file pertaining to ‘Reports of suspicious aeroplanes, lights

1910s, Archives, Australia, Books, Conferences and talks, Periodicals, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics

Planning ‘Dreaming war’

Like Gaul and probably some other things, my mystery aeroplanes paper will be divided into three parts: An overview of the 1918 Australian mystery aeroplane scare itself. The immediate historical context which helps explain the scare, namely the threats from German raiders and of Allied defeat. The bigger picture into which the scare fits, namely

Charles Kingsford Smith
1910s, 1920s, 1930s, Aircraft, Archives, Australia, Phantom airships, mystery aeroplanes, and other panics, Pictures

Smithy and the mystery aeroplane

Charles Kingsford Smith was and remains Australia’s most famous pioneer aviator. Among his feats: the first trans-Pacific flight, in both directions in fact (1928, east to west; 1934, west to east); the first non-stop trans-Australian flight (1928); the first trans-Tasman flight (1928). It’s probably fair to think of him as the Australian Lindbergh in terms

The Times, 11 June 1940, 9
1940s, Archives, Ephemera, Periodicals, Pictures

See, we told you so

This advertisement was placed by the Air League in The Times, 11 June 1940, on page 9 (it also appeared in the Daily Telegraph). The British Expeditionary Force had been ejected from France just a week before; Germany now occupied Belgium and the Netherlands. France was still fighting, but Paris had been declared an open

1910s, 1940s, Archives, Books, International law, Nuclear, biological, chemical, Periodicals, Rumours

Black death rain

In a discussion of the activities of MI5’s Port Control section during the First World War, Christopher Andrew mentions German musings about using biological weapons against British civilians: The most novel as well as the most sinister form of wartime sabotage attempted by Sektion P was biological warfare. At least one of its scientists in

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