I’m planning a trip to the UK1 in the July/August/September period. I’ll be based in London for a couple of months or so, and aside from taking in a conference or two, will be spending much of my time at British Library Newspapers at Colindale (yes, I know … cue the violins!); other places of […]
Mark Connelly. Reaching for the Stars: A New History of Bomber Command in World War II. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001. Since I had this on semi-permanent loan from the library, it seemed only logical to buy my own copy. Only partly an operational history, so not the place to turn to
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] Guernica, the most ancient town of the Basques and the centre of their cultural tradition, was completely destroyed yesterday afternoon [26 April 1937] by insurgent air raiders. The bombardment of this open town far behind the lines occupied precisely three hours and a quarter, during which a powerful fleet of
During the Second World War, several million foreign servicemen and -women were stationed in Britain for varying periods of time. These included many Australians, for most of whom it was their first glimpse of Britain.1 In 1940, one of them described his impressions of the mother country in an article for the Spectator entitled “An
John D. Anderson, Jr. The Airplane: A History of its Technology. Reston: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2002. As an aviation historian I should have some understanding of the technology of flight, and this seems a more enjoyable avenue into the subject than some dry textbook. It’s a bit US-centric, though that’s justifiable to
At the end of October 1940, while the British and German air forces were nightly striking at each other’s cities, Captain Norman Macmillan (a decorated RFC veteran and former head of the National League of Airmen) argued in Flight that Britain’s greatest need was for the development of a bomber which was possessed great speed
The US Air Force Historical Studies Office has put up several dozen monographs on the history of the USAF and its predecessors, PDFs available for free download. It seems to be more narrowly focused than the similar effort by Air University Press, as only a few titles look like they might discuss the RAF in
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] … is up at Investigations of a Dog, and it’s huge. Gavin’s intention was that it would be as inclusive as possible, using a very broad interpretation of “military history”; since only about a fifth of the blogs included were in the survey of the military historioblogosphere I did less
One of the pleasures of reading period newspapers and magazines, as I am doing now, is chancing upon reviews of old films I know and (usually) love. Here’s what Graham Greene (yes, that Graham Greene) had to say about The Wizard of Oz: The book has been popular in the States for forty years, and
[Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent.] I haven’t written much about General Giulio Douhet, the Italian prophet of airpower whose name is — almost — synonymous with strategic bombing. His 1921 (revised edition, 1927) book Il dominio dell’aria (usually translated as The Command of the Air) is one of the most definitive expressions of airpower extremism
