…sickened and died. Mawson continued on alone, making it back to camp in February. As he trudged along, he might have wished he’d accepted Scott’s invitation to join the Terra Nova expedition instead; he wouldn’t have known that the entire expedition was already dead. So he was lucky, really. A seriously heavy-duty slide projector used by Mawson when giving talks about his expeditions. The obligatory Egyptian room and the coffin of Osiris-Nakht, a…
…ne of the town’s churches’ as a ‘burned out ruin’, spire crashing into the ruins and all, it’s possible that some readers drew the wrong conclusion and feared the worst. The morning papers the following day still weren’t commenting on the cathedral’s fate, in fact they largely avoided admitting that it existed at all (though they did mention that the Archbishop was safe, which would seem to imply the existence of his cathedral). Instead, the Daily…
…infinitely more terrible. The Courier‘s proposed remedy is the urgent construction ‘of an aerial flotilla numerous enough to promise a warm reception to hostile airships bent on destruction’, as well as, in due course, a fleet of ‘large “ocean-going” dirigible airships […] essential to us if we are to be in a position to return with interest any attack made upon us by foreign air-craft’. There is some socialist commentary on the scareships today….
…d enormously to the burden of the taxpayers (to say nothing of the loss of human life*), and, incidentally, in all probability, will promote a flotation of companies for the manufacture of airships and aeroplanes’. Now the Stock Exchange is beginning to talk of an airship boom, whose sole basis will be the prospect of diverting huge sums of money from the pockets of the public into those of existing or prospective airship concerns. We cannot help…
…amored for a… reprisal that would sound our rancor. It was then I suggested, as part of the “war on nerves,” that warning leaflets be dropped on London and half a dozen bombs be unloaded on its beachheads, with care taken to prevent human casualties’; but I haven’t been able to consult the book myself. [↩] J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion: The Fight for Israeli Independence (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1996), 112. [↩] The Times, 9 September 1947…
…ars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations. The spirit of Anzac, with its human qualities of courage, mateship, and sacrifice, continues to have meaning and relevance for our sense of national identity. But the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland probably gets closer to its real significance for Australians: one day in the year has involved the whole of Australia in solemn ceremonies of remembrance, gratitude and national pride for al…
…r the supposed Kaiser’s birthday attack which caused the most alarm and disruption to people’s lives rather than the rumours which were were circulating. Authority still mattered, when it was available. I’ll probably write one more post in this series, to try to sum it up. James Munson (ed.), Echoes of the Great War: The Diary of the Reverend Andrew Clark, 1914-19 (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1985), 41. [↩] [Leeds University Library, Liddle C…
…rash to earth in the vicinity of Rushcutters Bay.3 These stories were not true; but it was true enough that Roberts had lost power after accidentally shutting the engine off. As he was the only person on board for this flight, to restart it would have required walking down to the other end of the nacelle, which in turn would have upset its balance (presumably because the counterweights were still left off after the tethered test). So, while he sti…
…y, 2015), 108. [↩] Brett Holman, The Next War in the Air: Britain’s Fear of the Bomber, 1908-1941 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 74. [↩] Devon and Exeter Gazette, 6 August 1937, 11. [↩] Ibid. [↩] [↩] Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 4 February 1938, 26. This article appears to have been originally published in the British press. [↩] Telegraph (Brisbane), 7 May 1938, 18. [↩] Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 4 February 1938, 26. [↩] [↩] Telegraph (Br…
…he Chowder Bay machine; according to a later account it was ‘a bird-like structure with four scythe-like wings, having a spread of 16ft, covering an area of 46 square feet’.6 In February, a wing was damaged while being pushed over the cliff, preventing the trial from taking place; but the following month it actually flew: The model, taking an almost straight dive from the cliff, sailed horizontally 150ft out, till the wind, or more probably the st…
