Some more plots from the talk I gave the other way. I was trying to think of a way to illustrate in concrete terms the problem of speed for the air defence of Britain. I came up with the following: Simply put, it shows the length of time it would have taken for an attacking […]
An illuminated tram-car which is touring Blackpool as a recruiting agent for the A.R.P. services.1 Every autumn in Blackpool, the promenade is festooned with miles of multicoloured lights — the ‘Blackpool Illuminations‘. Part of this display involves similarly-decorated trams — the ‘Blackpool illuminated trams‘. (Or so I read, I’ve obviously never been.) This particular example
The 14th Military History Carnival is up at Investigations of a Dog. It’s a big one! I direct readers’ attention particularly to a series of posts by Paul Brewer at The War Reading Room: here, here, here, here, here, and here. The subject is a new book by Nicholson Baker called Human Smoke: The Beginnings
The talk at Earth Sciences went well, I think. It was a good-sized audience and they seemed interested in what I had to say, judging by the questions afterwards. I also found out that one of the honorary fellows had actually lived in London during the war, and though only a child could remember watching
Via Museum of Hoaxes, the Nazi air marker hoax — though it seems to me that it was not a hoax in the sense of a deliberate attempt to deceive, but rather an honest misinterpretation. And taking into account the role of the press in the story’s rise and fall, it looks a lot like
This year, because I don’t have enough to do I’ve joined the editorial collective of the Melbourne Historical Journal. Here’s the call for papers for Volume 36: Call for Papers Submissions Due: 1st June 2008 Published since 1961, Melbourne Historical Journal (MHJ) is a refereed journal for the publication of Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand
Admittedly, not very much! I’m giving a talk at 4pm, next Friday, 16 May 2008, in the Fritz Loewe Theatre at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne. The title is “Facing Armageddon: Britain and the Bomber, 1908-1941” and it will be a broad overview of my thesis topic. It should be fun, for
A GIANT OF THE AIR. A HANDLEY-PAGE FOUR-ENGINED BIPLANE. A Handley Page V/1500, the Kabul bomber. Below is (I think) a S.E.5a. Image source: Harry Golding, ed., The Wonder Book of Aircraft for Boys and Girls (London: Ward, Lock & Co, 1919), frontispiece. Painting by Geoffrey Watson.
I’m currently looking at the air menace as portrayed in the press during the Sudeten crisis in late September-early October 1938. The interesting thing is that there isn’t much, at least not directly. There was very little scaremongering material of the type so prevalent in 1934-5, or even earlier in 1938, for example, even in
Air Raid Precautions. Stroud: Tempus, 2007. Another one of those books where the publishers have obviously asked themselves, Who’d buy this book? and answered, Well, there’s that Airminded bloke — that’s one copy at least. A collection of facsimile reprints of various Home Office/Lord Privy Seal’s Office ARP booklets and leaflets: The Protection of Your
