Last night I watched Threads, an extremely affecting BBC film from 1984 about the effects of a full-scale nuclear war on one British city, Sheffield.1 One might say it’s a very British ‘kitchen sink’ approach to the subject, following the lives of two ordinary families during the international crisis (involving Iran — so what else […]
Executive Council of the New Commonwealth. An International Air Force: Its Functions and Organisation. London: The New Commonwealth, 1934. A submission to the International Congress in Defence of Peace, February 1934, detailing the organisation and role of an international air force. Lawrence Freedman. The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Third edition. An
As promised, here are a couple of captures from the 1939 propaganda film The Lion Has Wings, which dramatised the RAF attack on Wilhelmshaven of 4 September 1939. The actual results of the raid were meagre; one Blenheim crashed into the fo’c’sle of the cruiser Emden, while the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was hit by
Chronomedia is a very nicely done chronology of developments in just about all forms of audio-visual mass media, covering a wide span but inevitably concentrating on Britain and America in the 20th century. Lots of interesting little tit-bits: the first film shot from an aircraft in flight was in September 1908; while in September 1939,
This logically should have gone into the previous post about archives, but I got carried away working out what that air mail poster was about! But I had intended to mention two online archives of British newsreels: British Pathe and Movietone (slogan: “It speaks for itself”). These are great. You can search the descriptions for
Richard Griffiths. Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. I love this book. So I bought it. A brilliantly readable study of who liked the Nazis and why, including a few pages specifically on ‘the world of aviation’ (137-41). Adrian Brunel, Brian Desmond Hurst, and Michael
