Today is Remembrance Day. Today I remember Private John Joseph Mulqueeney, of Tumut, New South Wales – my great-grand uncle. A labourer in civilian life, he enlisted in the 4th Battalion of the 1st AIF (Australian Imperial Force) on 9 October 1915, embarking for Egypt on 3 February 1916. His unit was soon redeployed to […]
Dan Todman has an interesting series of posts at Trench Fever on how the First World War prepared the British to fight the Second – here, here and here. The last post is about a newspaper ad from 1942, and although it’s only one element among several, of course it’s the Zeppelin that leaps out
As mentioned at Early Modern Notes, it’s Archive Awareness … something … in the UK. Lots of events showcasing different archives and themes. There’s even a nice aviation-related image on their front page (though it’s not obvious what archive it’s from, the RAF Museum perhaps). It’s an advertisement for the first official British air mail
‘R101 RIDING AT HER HOME MAST. Set in a frame of typical English countryside beauty, R101, product of modern engineering and cornerstone of Britain’s hopes of commercial air supremacy, rides at her mast at Cardington, in Bedfordshire. This mooring mast was specially built to facilitate the handling of Britain’s largest airships, R100 and R101, which
This is a real oddity, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. In 1910, a Romanian named Henri Coandă built and flew the world’s first jet aircraft. Yes, 1910! That’s two whole decades before Frank Whittle. And less than a decade after the Wright brothers!
Well, as has kindly been pointed out to me, I missed Mers-el-Kebir day, and I missed Battle of Britain day – but I haven’t forgotten Henri Giffard day! On this day in 1852, near Paris, Giffard (sporting a top hat for the momentous occasion) made the first ever airship flight, covering a distance of 17
Check out Rosebud’s WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive for thousands of wonderful contemporary images of pre-1920 aircraft. Here are a couple, particularly relevant to my interests. According to the caption, these are the Zeppelins “L 13, L 12, and L 10 on a bombing mission” – clearly taken from a fourth Zeppelin. If this
