…uffocation; then numbness and even boredom at the repetition; and finally crushing despair as the enormous extent of destruction became clear. Much of this material was new to me also, as too were the later sections (“Protection”, on Germany’s civil defence system, was especially fascinating to me). It’s constructed, as you say, but at least it’s artfully so. DT: I absolutely agree, and I think that this is a primary reason to recommend the book t…
…Bureau of Naval Weapons issued a report on the airship tests, entitled “Structural Response and Gas Dynamics of an Airship Exposed to a Nuclear Detonation”. The abstract reveals that the aim was to see how an airship employed on anti-submarine duties — the USN was still using these into the 1960s — would fare after dropping a nuclear depth charge: Four Model ZSG-3 airships, U. S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics Nos. 40, 46, 77, and 92, participated du…
…Bloody Red Baron’, is about WW1 air aces. Obviously, Der Baron is not all human… TheBrummell Somebody needs to make this film today. Right now. With anachronistic trapeeze fighters and weirdo alternate history (very alternate) and everything else. C’mon, SkyCaptain and the World of Tomorrow got made on a big budget with A-list actors, why can’t some low-rent just-out-of-film-school production company throw this together? Zeppelin V. Pterodactyl…
…ut it still doesn’t sound like the traditional blitzkrieg: where are the onrushing tanks, the surprise paratroop landings, the columns of weary refugees trudging along dusty country roads being strafed by Messerschmitts? The missing element is the anticipated German invasion of Britain, thought most likely to take place in mid-September. The Spectator thought that even though the RAF remained undefeated, a desperate Hitler could still attempt inva…
…and to this day the battle-fields and bomb fields of that frantic time in human history are sprinkled with radiant matter, and so centres of inconvenient rays…” “For the whole world was flaring then into a monstrous phase of destruction. Power after Power about the armed globe sought to anticipate attack by aggression. They went to war in a delirium of panic, in order to use their bombs first. China and Japan had assailed Russia and destroyed Mos…
…Germany’s literature about, and generally its reaction to, the massive destruction unleashed upon it by the CBO. The insights are stunning, on the one hand not pulling punches about the horror of it all, and noting the natural human reaction of denial in the face of the unimaginable, but also raising the spectre of what has become referred to as Vergangenheitsüberwältigung. In similar vein to glastnost-perestroika – this is soul searching – was th…
…ting crowds, clashing with troops. An upper and middle-class fear of the unruly mob goes back at least to the time of the French revolution; more recently, since 1918 there had been an increase in working-class assertiveness and the example of the Russian Revolution to worry about. So the fear of the knock-out blow was not only about the possibility of war but also reflected other anxieties about British society. Now, I’ll show you a clip from the…
…o more than Germany does to Belgian balloons which land in its territory. Frustratingly, there is nothing here about what evidence there is for such visitations. It’s not clear if Belgium has been experiencing something like the British scareships or whether the Belgian army routinely detects Zeppelins flying over its borders. Either seems plausible. Otherwise, the press seems to be reverting to its more usual defence preoccupation: dreadnoughts….
…You’re quite right, I elided ‘political cost’ with ‘financial cost’ with ‘human cost’. That’s what I get for writing a post at 1am. Erik Lund The whole security issue in postwar Iraq was ….something else. The Official History’s account of the “Mesopotamian” campaign starts out with a a discussion of geography and logistics that ranked beside Bunskill’s account of the logistics of the 1941 Greek campaign as an eye opener for me. Blowing silt and…
…much fonder of its walls. Rather than pulling down a section of wall, an archway was cut for the trains, and the other rail exit is through a tunnel. So, as with the bridges near the castle, a fine balance was struck between heritage and industry. So that’s it for Wales. And if you’re sick of crumbling old masonry, you may be pleased to know that my last few travel posts will be considerably more aerospacey!…
