You might think that the first Blitz was the Blitz, i.e. the German bombing of British cities in 1940-1941, at the time was understood as a form of blitzkrieg, which was then shortened to ‘blitz’ or ‘Blitz’. Of course, that doesn’t mean a blitz couldn’t be retrospectively recognised, and indeed it was soon applied, for […]
While looking for something else, I came across this rather incredible photo in the Imperial War Museum collection. That’s a seaplane stuck 300 feet up a 350ft tall radio mast! If that’s not amazing enough, the pilot was rescued by three men who climbed up to retrieve him. And he survived.
John Llewelyn Rhys, The Flying Shadow (Bath: Handheld Press, 2022). John Llewelyn Rhys, England Is My Village and The World Owes Me a Living (Bath: Handheld Press, 2022). John Llewelyn Rees was born on 7 May 1911, got his pilot’s license on 4 July 1934, and was killed in a flying accident on 5 August
When is an mystery aeroplane panic not a mystery aeroplane panic? When it’s a mystery sampan panic, obviously.
For the last (?) time: all RAAF, all the time; from Bristol Fighters through Sunderlands and Sabres to Super Hornets.
UPDATED 18 NOVEMBER 2024 After 14 years and 7 months, I’ve deleted all of my Twitter/X accounts. The best place to find me now (other than here!) is Bluesky: But you can also find me on Mastodon: NB: the code for my bots can be found on Github: trovebot-mastodon2 and ttaships. Twitter has been both
A mixed bag as the end of the year of reading airmindedly approaches. (I think there’ll be one more edition, though.)
After thirty-six (!) months, ‘Spectre and spectacle: mock air raids as aerial theatre in interwar Britain’, my chapter in Michael McCluskey and Luke Seaber, eds., Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain, is now available for a free download under green open access (in this case, pre-copy editing). Here’s the abstract: You can
American airpower; Australian air force; all airlines.
The world is a bad place right now, and a lot of that has to do with bombing civilians. And it’s impossible for me to look at the news from Gaza, or from Ukraine, and not think of my own current book project on the bombing of British civilians in the First World War. But
