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In May 1941, after nine months of German bombing and the evacuation of yet another British army from Europe, the Daily Mirror printed a fascinating little piece of futurism, in the form of a letter written as though it was May 1944, with Britain victorious and Germany prostrate. The headline itself gives some idea of this future shock: '"On our television set we saw CHURCHILL in BUSTED BERLIN!"'1 -- the television transmitters at Alexandra Palace had been switched off since September 1939. Invoking the early television experiments functions here as a promise of a better world to come, and not just because the 'bad old war days' will be over.

There isn't a lot about how the war actually went, but it would seem that it ended in 1943. There's no indication that the United States played any part in the war (though it is friendly to Britain; there are now no 'passports and visas and quotas' to bar travel between them). Or the Soviet Union for that matter (Barbarossa is still over a month away at this point). Britain seems to have won the war through bombing, or at least that's the only form of military activity mentioned:

My gosh, they've certainly got on with the work of rebuilding Berlin after those terrific winter blitzes by the R.A.F.! British authorities are directing the work. It hasn't so much been renovation as recreation, because just before the Germans sued for an armistice, there was precious little left of Berlin and it had been completely evacuated of everyone bar soldiers and A.R.P. people.

This (along with Wilhelmstrasse and Friedrichstrasse being 'just blotted out') suggests that British air raids became so heavy that Berlin had to be evacuated of all non-essential personnel. Hamburg too was hit hard: it 'was finished in the spring of 1942 and it isn't functioning as a port yet'. At some point Hitler died, though how isn't stated. It seems clear that the British air raids were the cause of the German armistice request (this was written long before unconditional surrender, of course), or perhaps that's just me.
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  1. Daily Mirror, 17 May 1941, 7. There's even an illustration showing Churchill's television appearance in front of the Brandenburg Gate, or at least that's what I think it is; sadly it isn't clear enough to reproduce here. [↩]

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Herbert Best. The Twenty-fifth Hour. London: Jonathan Cape, 1940. This must have been about the last flowering of that forgotten genre, the knock-out blow novel. More than that, it's an example of the exceptionally rare post-apocalyptic sub-genre, as it is set years after the end of civilisation and portrays the grim struggle for survival among the ruins. Fun!

David Edgerton. Britain's War Machine: Weapons, Resources and Experts in the Second World War. London: Allen Lane, 2011. A different kind of history of the war, one which places Britain's economic, industrial and scientific strength at its core: in other words, an application of Edgerton's 'warfare state' thesis. I particularly recommend page 375, note 87 and page 387.

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Daily Mail, 15 June 1917, 6

Previously, I identified a comparison between the reprisals debate in the First World War and the reprisals debate during the Blitz as something I could do that previous writers have not (except in passing, or implicitly). I won't have time in my AAEH paper for a full-blown comparative approach, or for that matter time before then to do the research; though perhaps I could for a version for publication. But it's something I can do briefly, and it helps that I already covered this in my thesis, where I looked at the British press reactions to the Gotha summer in 1917.1
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  1. The best published source for this is Barry D. Powers, Strategy Without Slide-rule: British Air Strategy 1914-1939 (London: Croom Helm, 1976), 81ff. [↩]

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Advertiser (Adelaide), 23 April 1918, 7

On 23 April 1918, this brief article, filed from Melbourne, was the lead story in a number of Australian newspapers:

Within the past 48 hours information has come to hand which points to the probability that the realities of war will soon be brought before Australians in a most convincing fashion. Steps have been taken by the Defence authorities to cope with a situation which may at any moment assume grave proportions. More than this cannot be said for the present.1

That's not much, but it seems to have created quite a stir: according to the Perth Sunday Times, 'Australia was startled out of its somnolence'.2 The Melbourne Argus reported that 'Uneasiness was caused in Melbourne and in other centres' by the previous day's story, giving rise to 'most exaggerated rumours in the city'.3 A report in the New Zealand press also dated 24 April (but not published for another week) noted that the public in Sydney 'fairly seethed in excitement' at this news when it was published in the Daily Telegraph.4 Why? The report explains that

At the moment, Australia is suffering an attack of nerves in the matter of raiders, and any old story is accepted and sent wildly circulating. Certain definite signs of uneasiness in official circles, and certain things which cannot be hidden from the people have given colour to the wildest rumours. There is "something doing" -- but nothing to justify the excited stories of an imminent enemy attack on Australia which are now current.

So it seems that rumour had already prepared Australians to think that German naval raiders were lurking off the coast, and when they were told that 'the realities of war' might soon be present to them 'in a most convincing fashion', they believed that this meant an 'imminent enemy attack on Australia'. Or, as the Sunday Times put it, they had 'Visions of a German squadron breaking the British blockade and landing an expeditionary force on the Commonwealth coast'.2
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  1. Advertiser (Adelaide), 23 April 1918, 7; reprinted in Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 23 April 1918, 2. A different version, originating in the Age (Melbourne) adds the sentence 'The uneasiness of the Defence authorities has been intensified by certain evidence which has come before them since Saturday morning' [20 April]: Sunday Times (Perth), 28 April 1918, 13. [↩]
  2. Sunday Times (Perth), 28 April 1918, 13. [↩] [↩]
  3. Argus (Melbourne), 24 April 1918, 9. [↩]
  4. Evening News (Wellington), 1 May 1918, 11; reprinted in Poverty Bay Herald, 4 May 1918, 7. [↩]

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At the end of March 1918, the NSW Minister for Education, Augustus James, gave a speech at North Sydney Boys' High School's prize day. No doubt with an eye on the press, he spoke rather gloomily about the war situation, especially in light of the continuing German offensive on the Western Front:

"We know to-day," he said, "that we are face to face with a crisis. At any time we may hear of the British forces being broken. The Germans may capture a portion of the French coast which the Allies are at present holding, and from it deal a blow at England. The safety of Australia depends on England. Where will Australia stand if England is beaten in this war? What would we be able to do in the event of an invasion by a foreign army? We have neither the rifles nor the trained men, nor have we a submarine or aeroplane capable of use in any attempt to drive off any enemy."1

James was not far wrong. After nearly four years of war, you might think that Australia was a vast armed camp, but in fact most men and materiel were sent overseas, to Europe or the Middle East, as soon as they were ready; much of the balance was used for training. It's unlikely that James had any inside knowledge, but at this time there was only a single aeroplane in Australia 'available for any offensive action', an F.E.2b purchased with funds donated by Alfred Muller Simpson of South Australia.2
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  1. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March 1918, 12. [↩]
  2. James Kightly, 'Australia's first domestic battleplane', Flightpath 20:4 (2009), 54. I'm indebted to James for providing me with a copy of his article. [↩]

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Flightpath, vol 22 no 4

I have an article in the May 2011 issue of Flightpath, an Australian warbirds magazine. It's on one of my pet interests, the fear of the commercial bomber between the wars. James Kightly, who will be familiar to regular commenters here as JDK, contributes a complementary look at the reality of transport-bomber conversions. There are many other articles of interest, including one on Tiger Force (also by James), along with some glorious photographs, so get into it! It's available in all good newsagents in Australia and New Zealand, and I suspect really, really good ones overseas.

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Wölfchen

While researching a possible British mystery aeroplane in 1936, which turned out to be nothing interesting, I came across a genuine mystery aeroplane scare which I'd never heard of before, from Australia and New Zealand in March and April 1918. I'm sure somebody else must have noticed it before now, as it was trivial to find using Trove and Papers Past. But I haven't been able to find mention of it in my usual sources, so here's what I've got so far.

Firstly, some context. In March 1918, it was getting on for four years since the start of the Great War. The soldiers of Australia and New Zealand had been engaged in combat for just under three of those years, two of them on the Western Front. The armies there seemed to be in a deadlock. All that can be done is to keep the two ANZAC corps supplied with men and munitions; but in Australia it is only a few months since the public rejected conscription for a second time, in a bitterly divisive plebiscite. If victory seemed to be a long way off, at least so did defeat.
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This post should probably be called 'Smugglers?' but like many people I owe an intellectual debt to Enid Blyton.

I've seen mentions of mystery aircraft in Britain in the 1930s but until now never a primary source reference. Thomas Bullard's most interesting The Myth and Mystery of UFOs notes that 'Mystery airplanes also appeared at this time over English locations, first to suspicions of criminal activity, then to worries over Nazi espionage', and provides two references.1 One of them is inaccessible to me (Daily Telegraph, 16 July 1937, 7) but the other is from The Times (16 April 1936, 9) which I can get online. And here it is:

WATCH FOR MYSTERIOUS AEROPLANE

Our Folkestone Correspondent telegraphs:--

A mysterious aeroplane has caused the authorities to keep a watch at Capel le Ferne during the past fortnight. It was reported that a machine had flown low over the village, which is between Folkestone and Dover, on two successive Thursday evenings. On the second occasion it appeared to land at a remote spot, but within a minute or so it was seen making its way across the Channel again. A large grey motor-car was seen to come from the place on the second occasion, and to go towards London. Since then the aeroplane, which is said to be of foreign origin, has not been seen.

Well, that's a bit underwhelming, it must be said. There's nothing in the report itself to suggest that it wasn't, in fact, an actual aeroplane, though that may be because of its brevity (perhaps a local newspaper would have more). Aircraft were reasonably common by the mid-1930s. Smaller ones could still land on improvised airstrips; and with a bit of ground assistance they could probably do so at night. The question is, though, why would anyone want to? The only sensible answer would seem to be to smuggle something into the country, whether it be contraband or people. And it's certainly noteworthy that Capel le Ferne is about the closest point on the English coast to the Continent (the Channel Tunnel passes underneath it; next door is the site of Hawkinge, one of Fighter Command's forward bases during the Battle of Britain). So in theory it would be a good spot to duck across the Channel, land, and take off again before anyone on either side noticed.

And such things did happen. Here's a prosecution for smuggling of cigars and brandy, reported in The Times (18 December 1936, 3) -- as the crimes took place only seven months later than and about five miles north from the Capel le Ferne incident, it could even be the same gang at work:

Mr. Stephenson said that it was a breach of regulations to unload any goods from an aeroplane unless at a proper Customs aerodrome [...] In this case [defendant Frederick] Hayter landed not at a Customs aerodrome but a place called Wickham Bushes, near Dover. He committed a breach of regulations by not reporting either to a police or excise officer that he had landed.

The pilot, Hayter, made a statement to Customs describing 'how he landed from Le Touquet in a field near Dover and hid a suitcase containing 12 bottles of old brandy under a haystack'. One of the accused was a local farmer and presumably the alleged haystack was in one of his fields.

So probably not a visiting spacecraft or even a projection of fears of aerial incursion, but: smugglers!

  1. Thomas E. Bullard, The Myth and Mystery of UFOs (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas), 115. [↩]

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In my reprisals paper abstract, I said that

It is often argued that there was little enthusiasm in Britain for reprisals against German cities in retaliation for the Blitz, unlike the First World War.

This is a historiographical claim. If I don't want to be accused of using weasel words or attacking strawmen, it's one that I need to be able to substantiate. So what have previous historians said about the reprisals question?
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