In my article about the commercial bomber concept, I began my discussion of the idea that airliners could be turned into bombers in 1918, with the report of the Civil Aerial Transport Committee. But it turns out that it appeared some years earlier, though in a far more fragmentary and undeveloped form than in the […]
After outlining the Anglo-German naval rivalry and the tariff reform debate, Alfred Gollin, one of the few historians to discuss the subject in any depth, has this to say about the origins of the 1909 phantom airship scare: This was the intense condition of Britain affairs when the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, made his
Roland Garros is today mainly known for having given his name to the home of French tennis. But long before then he was famous as a pioneer aviator in both peace and war. In December 1912, for example, he set a new altitude record of 17,000 feet, while in September 1913 he made the first
‘Everybody’s Doing It’ was the name of a popular revue which opened in the West End in February 1912; the music and lyrics (including a near-eponymous song) were co-written by Irving Berlin. It was also the Manchester Guardian‘s stab at a contemporary pop cultural reference to describe just how widespread the phantom airship scare had
[Cross-posted at Society for Military History Blog.] Despite appearing in the Times Literary Supplement a month ago, Eric Naiman’s astounding exposure of independent historian A. D. Harvey’s fraudulent scholarship seems to have been little remarked upon by historians. (Naiman’s piece is quite long, but worth the read; for a much shorter version try here.) Admittedly,
John Ptak recently pinned a 1964 science fiction magazine cover depicting a ruined Statue of Liberty, predating the more famous ending of Planet of the Apes by four years. He wondered about earlier images along the same lines, and after a bit of digging I found not many at all. The above is the only
Yesterday’s post was, thankfully, the last entry in my post-blogging of the 1913 phantom airship wave. I’ve searched the available (to me) primary sources up until the end of April 1913 and can find no further references; and Watson, Oldroyd and Clarke’s exhaustive compilation of phantom airship sightings has only 7 entries from May onwards.
A rather belated mystery airship report appears in today’s Aberdeen Daily Journal (p. 4): It was reported a few days ago that on the evening of the 9th April [1913] an airship, steering north-west, was seen from the island of Stronsay, Orkney. Doubt was felt at the time as to the reliability of the report,
The Economist follows up last week’s third leading article about the airship scare with the fourth leading article today (an extract from which also appears in the Manchester Guardian). This time around the subject is ‘THE “DAILY MAIL’S” MANSION HOUSE MEETING FOR AIRSHIPS’ (925), which is planned for 5 May and will feature speeches by
The Manchester Guardian reports today on Germany’s naval aviation plans, as revealed in an official memorandum recently released to the public, which it judges to be ‘important as marking the first step from tentative experiments to a period of ordered growth’ (9). An ‘explanatory statement’ is likened to ‘the famous Introduction to the Navy Bill
