NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 403 is a copy of a telegram from the District Naval Officer (DNO), Fremantle, Western Australia. He is passing on information from the editor of the Bunbury Herald (by way of the military censor) that at Bunbury a girl reports having seen a balloon or zeppelin at 2200 21st April in […]
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 468 is a copy of an order to the Officer Commanding, Central Flying School (i.e. Point Cook), from Major A. J. Boase on behalf of the Chief of the General Staff (i.e. Major-General J. G. Legge). It orders the detachment of two aircraft: (a) one aeroplane to TOORA, South GIPPSLAND or
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 183 is a report from Constable G. T. Moyle of the Hamilton police station, in the Western District of Victoria. It concerns ‘an aeroplane’ seen near Macarthur in the early hours of 11 April 1918 by John Sutton, a drover. Sutton had told several people in Hamilton of his strange encounter,
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, pages 191 and 192 are a report submitted by Constable A. E. McLean of Dartmoor police station. He is passing on information about a mystery aircraft and a ship offshore, seen or heard by multiple witnesses at Nelson, on the southwestern coast of Victoria, near the South Australian border. His informant is
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 109 is a copy of a letter from A. M. Black to Major Hogan of the ‘Intelligence Service’. It’s undated, but NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 108 (a cover letter from military intelligence to naval intelligence) says that it was written on 10 April 1918; the incident it relates to seems to
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 1011 is a police report from Sergeant W. Morris of Gosford, north of Sydney in the NSW Central Coast region. It’s an account of a mystery aeroplane sighting made by Lily Moir, a 23 year old woman living with her mother on a farm 1.5 miles east of Gosford. Shortly after
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 556 is an extract from a weekly military intelligence report compiled for the Australian section of the Imperial General Staff, which has been forwarded on to the Navy. (It contains information up to 30 March, but it’s possible that it was compiled a day or two later.) It summarises a report
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 871 is a copy of an anonymous letter sent to the Minister of Defence in Melbourne in reference to reports ‘in the press on Saturday that two aeroplanes were seen flying over Nyang’ — likely either the Argus or the Age. Probably the latter, since it added a report from the
NAA: MP1049/1, 1918/066, page 878, is a report submitted by Constable J. Wright of Ouyen police station, in the Mallee region of northwestern Victoria: I have to report that whilst I was in the vicinity of Nyang about thirty miles from Ouyen at 4 30 pm on 21.3.18 I saw two flying machines pass overhead.
When casting about for some way to mark the centenary of the 1918 Australian mystery aeroplane panic, an obvious idea was to post-blog it, especially since it’s something I haven’t done in a while. For new readers, post-blogging is my term for taking a historical event spanning weeks or months and posting about how it
