The last time Britain nuked Australia was at Maralinga on 9 October 1957, over half a century ago. The last of the Antler series of tests, code-named Taranaki (above), involved the detonation of a 25 kiloton fission bomb from a captive balloon at a height of 300 metres. The fallout ‘moved east and then north-east […]
In July, 1917, a new scheme for warning the people of London of impending air raids was adopted. When enemy aircraft were approaching, policemen with a notice warning passers-by to “take cover” went out on bicycles, blowing their whistles to attract attention. When all danger had passed, Boy Scouts went round blowing bugles.
I’ve sometimes wondered if the air raids on Belgrade during the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 can be considered as a knock-out blow from the air. From the accounts I’ve read it seems that the Luftwaffe launched a surprise attack before the declaration of war, intended as a punishment for the pro-British coup.
[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.] As Alan Allport has noted, Winston Churchill’s famous speech of 20 August 1940 was and is remembered for a ‘single, unrepresentative sentence’, i.e.: Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. The speech was given during the Battle of Britain, and ‘the Few’
Some photos I took while in Perth for the AAEH. I didn’t have a lot of time for sightseeing in Perth itself; apart from a bit of a wander through the CBD and a look at the Museum of Western Australia (disappointing after seeing the Fremantle branches), my main outing was to Kings Park. This
As I’d never been out west before, I allowed myself a couple of days after the Perth conference for sightseeing. First I travelled down to Fremantle, not far south of Perth.
A couple of months ago, Alun Salt did a very nice thing for me: he unexpectedly assembled some of the posts I’ve written here about phantom airships into an e-book. Using that as the basis, I’ve had a go at learning how to do e-books myself. (Alun recommended using Jutoh, an e-book project manager, and
This was one of several colour images of wartime London published by the Daily Mail (for which see a much bigger version; but do not read the comments). I have nothing interesting to say about it; I just like it, is all. (Via @lucyinglis and @fleming77.)
This photo appeared on the front page of the Sunday Express on 6 October 1940, a month into the Blitz. A caption explained, or rather asked: WHO PUT UP THIS POSTER? This mystery poster has appeared in the streets of London. It is about six feet high and ten or twelve feet across, and bears
I noted in a previous post that the debate about reprisal air raids during the First World War largely revolved around two questions: are reprisals moral? and are reprisals effective? The same was true in the Second World War. Taking the question of effectiveness, how this was answered by participants in the debate depended partly
