For my third Turning Points talk for ABC New England radio, I chose a topic I ought to know something about: the Battle of Britain! In some ways it’s an obvious choice, and not only for the obvious reason; there are few years in history as dramatic as 1940, and Hitler’s conquest of Britain has […]
I did my second Turning Point for ABC New England radio today, and chose to talk about the founding the League of Nations in 1920. The League is usually considered to be a failure, because it didn’t prevent the Second World War or even play any significant role after the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. But
This photograph purportedly shows a squadron of Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55X flying boats over the Alps on 1 July 1933, during the second and last of the long-distance formation flights led by the Fascist air minister, Italo Balbo (hence ‘balbo‘, briefly in vogue to describe a large formation of aircraft), Rome to Chicago and back. These
After taking some time to recover after the marathon Road to War, I’m taking part in a new series of talks with ABC New England North West‘s Kelly Fuller, along with fellow members of the UNE School of Humanities Nathan Wise (who came up with the concept), Sarah Lawrence and Richard Scully (and more, if
It’s 10 years to the day since I put up Airminded’s first post, imaginatively entitled ‘First post!’ That is a long time ago, a very long time in internet years. Still, Airminded wasn’t one of the first history blogs. In fact, Ralph Luker (of Cliopatria fame, alas long since retired from blogging) made a start
An Australian view of the 1913 phantom airship scare in Britain, from the Sydney Globe, 8 March 1913, p. 7: A scare was created in England last week by the reported appearance of a mysterious airship at night over the East Coast. Two residents of Ipswich separately saw the searchlight of the airship, and one
For my twelfth (and last?) contribution to ABC New England’s Road to War series, I spoke about what was undoubtedly the most important battle to take place in late April 1915, the Second Battle of Ypres in Flanders. The reason why this was so important is because it opened with the first successful, large-scale poison
David Payne sent me this great photograph of Malaya XV Cheon Teong, Ngoh Bee, a B.E.2c which was donated to the British war effort as part of the Imperial Aircraft Flotilla I blogged about last year. David’s grandfather, Arthur Chapman, is in the cockpit; he was an engineer at Shorts on the Isle of Sheppey,
In my eleventh contribution to ABC New England’s Road to War series, I took another look at how the economic war at sea was working out. My particular focus this week was the sinking of the Dutch freighter Medea (above), the first neutral casualty of Germany’s unrestricted U-boat campaign. I also discussed the difficult position
I found this pro-disarmament poster on eBay (at US$1985, I won’t be buying it!) The text reads: THE TRANSPORT OF THE FUTURE. FOR WHAT? DEATH AND DESTRUCTION OR FRIENDSHIP AND PEACE Abolish All War Aeroplanes This is the seller’s own description: An incredibly rare original vintage anti-war poster circa 1938 in fine condition, archivally mounted
