…r war and other international news, as well as reporting on national and local issues. (In fact, it almost seems more interested in what’s happening overseas than it is in London or even Edinburgh.) Its highmindedness is also evident in its lack of interest in trivialities (no sports section today!) and in its rather staid appearance, with the outside pages taken up with classified ads, and the news and editorials at the centre of its twelve page….
…nal Waterfront Museum, which explores the industrial history and technological of Wales. Of which there is quite a lot! But if you actually approach the museum from the waterfront, the first exhibits you see are actually part of the (separate) Swansea Museum‘s collection (on which, see below). This is Lightship 91, which guarded the Helwick sandbank in the Bristol Channel from 1937. But since it couldn’t move unless it was towed by something else,…
…m Sydney to be closer to his three sons serving on the Western front. Ironically, two of them had been wounded in the Dardanelles but survived Gallipoli and the Western front while their father (and an uncle of theirs he was staying with) died in W9 from German fire. His mother had died at No. 62 six years earlier. See http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/27471694 and http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/15388474 Brett Holman Thanks, Ro…
…the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, discussed the claims (and some of the political posturing behind them) for us in Flightpath V21N1 last year. Brett Holman Dumb question, but why don’t they put the original on display? And why didn’t you plug your own post on the Houdini flight? :) JDK Good question! I don’t know, as the replica is actually an airworthy one, and therefore has a number of variations that make flying it more viable, but less accurate….
…ly battalion drills (together with volunteer companies from nearby McLaren Vale and Noarlunga.) The battalion then broke into open column right in front, marching past in quick time. The Companies were then closed and the march past in close column was gone through and exceedingly well executed, the circle round the wheeling points being performed with much steadiness. Various battalion movements were then gone through, after which the Willunga Co…
…pectacle to project images of future warfare, national power and technological prowess, was a key method for creating an airminded public in the early 20th century. The most significant and influential form of aerial theatre in interwar Britain was the Royal Air Force (RAF) Display at Hendon, in which military aircraft put on impressive flying performances before large crowds, including an elaborate set-piece acting out a battle scenario with an i…
…I have volume 1; this covers the Blitz proper, September 1940 to May 1941. Massively detailed; a geek’s delight. Barbara Stoney. Twentieth Century Maverick: The Life of Noel Pemberton Billing. East Grinstead: Bank House Books, 2004. P-B is a fascinating figure and it’s surprising he hasn’t had a biography (other than an auto– one, published in 1917) before now. Unfortunately it’s not an academic biography, so it’s light on references, but it looks…
…te time to reflect on how useful the whole thing is. I was initially sceptical, but I find that Twitter does complement blogging very well. It’s a good place to post links to useful or interesting links which I think are worth sharing, but aren’t worth a blog post (I don’t like just posting links: I feel I should say something insightful to go along with it, but I don’t always have something insightful to say!) Ditto for things I come across in my…
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 any detail: D-Day 1944: Air Power Over the Normandy Beaches and Beyond by Richard P. Hallion (1994), Preemptive Defense: Allied Air Power Ver…
…ett Holman The scan quality is quite good — better than the microfilm equivalents for the Express and Mirror which I’ve used. In those, photos are often impossible to make out whereas here, although they’re far from reproduction quality, you can at least see what’s going on! And yes, full keyword searching is supported and the interface is user-friendly (until the NewspaperARCHIVE one which would be a pain to use for serious research). The PDFs y…
