Eleven, Eleven, Eleven — II
As I discussed in a previous post, the arrival of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 suddenly made the Aerial League of the British Empire's foray into wartime propaganda films irrelevant. Yet the...
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The lost Gotha of New Farm Park
The lost Gotha of New Farm Park is lost in two senses. Firstly, because I'm fairly sure that it no longer exists. Secondly, because I'm quite sure that it never existed. Chris O'Regan pointed out on...
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Gospel airships, heroic hearts and holy scriptures
Proselytisers are famously early adopters of communications technology (see: the Gutenberg Bible). It shouldn't be surprising that missionaries were intrigued by the development of aviation: a Baptist...
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The man in the high aeroplane
Swastika Night was written by Katharine Burdekin under the pseudonym Murray Constantine. It's a dystopian novel in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan have conquered the world and divided it between...
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Britannia must rule the air!
This stirring scene is the cover for the sheet music for a song published in 1913, Britannia Must Rule the Air, written by Frank Duprée and composed by Charles Ashley. It shows a reasonable (if...
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The world will [checks notes] tremble? #HATMAus
At 8pm AEST/GMT+10 this Sunday, 30 August 2020, I'm co-hosting the Australian version of Historians At The Movies (#HATMAus) along with fellow historians Joel Barnes and Chelsea Barnett as we...
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Dieselpunk dreaming #HATMAus
Here's my contribution to last night's livetweet of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow for #HATMAus. It was fast, furious and not always particularly accurate -- much like the film itself......
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Victory Through Air Power via Aviation Cultures Mk.V and #HATMAus
Back in the depths of last winter (and the great Melbourne pandemic lockdown of 2020) I had great fun as the co-host for the Historians at the Movies Australia (#HATMAus) livetweet of Sky Captain and...
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Victory through Disneyfication #HATMAus
A few weeks back I previewed my cohosting of the 1943 Disney film Victory Through Air Power for History at the Movies Australia and Aviation Cultures Mk.V. Both the conference and the livetweeting...
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The most air-raid-minded town in Britain
A cloud of smoke billows up from a building during a low level bombing attack carried out by biplanes. The First World War? Air control in the Middle East? Fascist bombers over Spain, or Japanese...
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