…ually so utterly out-of-touch with developments in historiography. So (for instance) someone writes a book suggesting that British morale during the Blitz was less than wholeheartedly positive; the Red Tops’ inevitable response is to portray it as a provocative, irreverent work of revisionism. Leaving unmentioned the fact that Angus Calder was saying it in, oh, 1969 … More on ‘the Few’ | Airminded […] few years ago I argued that ‘the Few’ in Win…
…aware of the real-life possibilities of the knock-out blow. I wonder, for instance, if there are other fantastical stories from the same period that employ a similar trope? Gavin Another thing is that Lake-town, like Britain, is surrounded by water which is supposed to keep it safe from attack, but air power changes that. Brett Holman Alan: Looking at The Hobbit’s reception by critics and readers is something I probably would have done if my prop…
…h a good deal of additional material and demands (colour illustration, for instance) will cost more; something leaner with wider readership will cost less and be likely to sell more at a lower retail price. As to Erik’s incisive cut to the chase, I’ll be the first in line to cheer on ‘Brett the tellydon’. Alan Allport It’s sometimes possible to get at the price issue indirectly by, for example, getting the publisher to commit to a cheaper paperbac…
…slates as: England, London. Aircraft Heinkel He 111 over industry and port installations on the Thames. Nick Beale Just to add that if anyone wants to do the work of correlating the smoke trails with the bombs, The Guardian published a spreadsheet and interactive map of the bomb incidents on 7 September 1940: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/06/london-blitz-bomb-map-september-7-1940. It might be possible from that to establish a t…
…d help. Soz. Brett Holman Ian: As JDK says, there have been claims made of instances where British civilians assaulted German airmen but as he also says, there seems to be no firm evidence for it either. One case which is often mentioned is that of Robert Zehbe, who parachuted from his Do 17 over Kennington on 15 September 1940. He was supposedly set upon by a civilian mob and, though rescued, died of his wounds later that day. A story about this…
…sitioned in particular relatively standard positions on airliner wings for instance, we all know how big a person is, so a visible head and shoulders adds scale, although that close other clues become evident). It would be fair to say the residents of Clidebank would not have the prior knowledge of pervious sightings of dirigibles to know what they were not looking at. At a distance, even today, with all the air activity we get, it’s known for exp…
…n. A man was lying in bed, his face away from the camera. He groaned and I instantly thought ‘That sounds like Richard Attenborough’ and it was! Hard to think of a use for this ability but I’ll keep it in reserve. #humblebrag Narmitaj The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp had its genesis in a dropped subplot of One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing (or OOOAIM). P&P apparently planned to have the old air gunner (Godfrey Tearle, in his late 50s) explaining t…
…ing schools near Sydney and Melbourne, and a couple of other aircraft, for instance an F.E. 2b used to look for enemy ships in the SE Victoria area. There was no official civil aviation in Australia in the period, and most pre-war flying machines were either dismantled or unable to fly or be flown (Australia’s first, the Duigan was dismantled and Duigan himself was in Europe at the war – like most of his fellow airmen.) It would actually be easier…
…After six years, I’ve decided to try out a new look for Airminded by switching to the Elemin theme. There’s still a bit more tweaking to be done before I decide whether it will stay or not, but I think it’s a pretty clean and minimalist style. It’s also ‘responsive’, which means it reformats gracefully to suit the screen size, which is especially important for smartphones and tablets. Feedback welcome!…
…ctive dust as a weapon (the RAF uses it to deliver a knock-out blow against Germany). An article I cite in the post mentions something similar: If a quantity of radium were dispersed by a bomb, for instance, the area affected would not be habitable for countless years. That was in the Australian press in March 1945. So the idea of a radiological weapon was out there….
