Had some good luck browsing in secondhand bookshops this week … Lee Brimmicombe-Wood. The Burning Blue: The Battle of Britain, 1940. Hanford: GMT Games, 2006. NOT a book, a wargame simulating the “plotting table” war, if you like. Product page. Well-researched, as the support page shows. DOES have Boulton-Paul Defiants, does NOT have Gladiators. Donald […]
Twenty years ago this week, Sting’s song “Russians” entered the US top 40: In Europe and America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria Conditioned to respond to all the threats In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you I don’t subscribe to this point of view It would be
Andrew P. Hyde. The First Blitz: The German Air Campaign against Britain 1917-1918 . Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 2002. A bit disappointing, looks like your standard pot-boiler account (and no references to speak of). Still, it was dirt cheap. Joseph Morris. The German Air Raids on Britain, 1914-1918. Darlington: Naval & Military Press, 1993 [1925]. Unlike
Among other things, the Fathom Archive has an online seminar on Early Contributions to Aviation. Of most interest to me is this 1960 oral history interview with Sir Thomas Sopwith (of Sopwith Camel fame, among other things): he highlights the role of the First World War in forcing aviation technology. Whoever transcribed the interview clearly
A flying machine is an aeroplane (qv). A dirigible balloon (or just dirigible) is an airship (qv). An aeroplane is the wing of a flying machine (qv). Airship collectively describes both flying machines and dirigible balloons (qqv). Get it? (Got it.) Good! Seriously, I’m glad the meanings of these words were rationalised within a few
It’s been way too hot this week to blog, whatever energy I could muster I put towards that thesis thing. Instead, there’s this: David Edgerton. Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Expands upon the suggestion put forward in England and the Aeroplane that the fabled British welfare state is more aptly described
Can any better sport or amusement be imagined that could be obtained with an airship of the Zodiac type, endowed with a speed of 40 miles an hour for four hours, or 20 miles an hour for eight times this period, and so on in cubic proportion? Always able to reach a desired goal, but
I noticed that I had a few inches of spare shelf space last week, so … Claude Grahame-White and Harry Harper. The Aeroplane in War. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1912. A big survey of military aviation before the First World War – keeping the reading public informed about such innovations as the ‘engine-in-front biplane’. Grahame-White
Via Early Modern Notes comes the news that Gordon Brown wants to turn Remembrance Sunday into British Day. Aside from Sharon’s remarks to the effect that this would obscure what is supposed to be remembered on that day – the human costs of war – to me, it seems like a pretty negative choice for
David List added a most informative comment on my About page the other day, responding to an old post, which I thought I would highlight and respond to here. Regarding my post on a claimed insertion of a German spy by parachute in 1917 (which I doubted), David notes that there were Allied experiments in
