Operation Chastise was the codename for the famous ‘dambusters’ raid carried out against three German dams by 617 Squadron on the night of 17 May 1943. The idea was to breach the dams and thereby deprive the factories of the Ruhr of their electricity. As far as the standard story goes — which everyone knows […]
The above photograph, and all of the following, are from Poison Gas (London: Union of Democratic Control, 1935).
Sunday no. 4 was the occasion (after the spooky Big Ben) for my visit to the Imperial War Museum London, which of course was always going to be a highlight of my sightseeing here.
The other day I came across a fascinating article by H. L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore. Mencken was very interested in colloquial English, and to this end penned “War words in England”, published in the February 1944 American Speech, about new words coming into use in the British press as a result of the
If you were wondering what the biggest and loudest air raid siren of all time is, then wonder no more, because it’s the American Chrysler Victory Siren, made in the 1950s. Well, I don’t know for sure that it was — I’d like to see what the Soviets had to offer — but it was
[I posted this last Wednesday, but somehow, it was marked as “private” rather than “published”, so nobody saw it but me! So I’m fixing that and bumping it to the top.] The talk went off pretty well, I think — at least I didn’t hear any snoring and got some good questions at the end.
Yesterday was the 63rd anniversary of the Bethnal Green Tube disaster. On the evening of 3 March 1943, 173 people — men, women and children — died at the Bethnal Green Tube station, the greatest loss of life of any single incident during the German bombing campaign against Britain. The tragedy took place during an
A new addition to the historioblogosphere — and one very close to my own interests! It’s called The Blogger will always get through… and is the work of the indefatigable Peter Hibbs, who runs the amazingly exhaustive and informative NBCD (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence) site, primarily (but not exclusively) covering Britain in the era
Boing Boing has a link to a very interesting and oddly beautiful set of Japanese air raid precautions posters at the National Archives of Japan. (Boing Boing says they are from the Second World War, but according to the page itself, they date from 1938.) I am myself somewhat ignorant of Japanese history, but as
