Review: National Museum of Flight, Scotland
"To be of full value to its user, a parachute must inspire absolute and implicit confidence in its correct functioning." - Air Ministry Manual. A masterclass in under-statement!
Tag Archives: WW2
Malta Mystery
Here’s an interesting and puzzling piece of history that I stumbled across recently. It makes me think it might be time for a return visit to Malta! I came across the anecdote in Stuart R. Scott’s 1996 book: Battleaxe Blenheims – 105 squadron RAF at war 1940-1 *...
The Other Baders
I’ve been looking recently for references to the legendary WW2 pilot Douglas Bader in and around the Pas de Calais where he was shot down and captured in August 1941. (For some time, I’ve been encouraging the local tourism office in St. Omer to put together a...
Review: RAF Cosford Museum
RAF Cosford is still an operational airbase and most importantly, it’s the home of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering (DCAE), which sets the tone & style for the museum and gives it a unique atmosphere. It’s not that in Hangar 1, for example, you’ll find loads...
D-Day Landings Museum Opens in Dorset
A brand new museum focused on D-Day and its connections to the American servicemen that left Britain in 1944 for the Normandy beaches, has just opened in Portland, Dorset. The Castletown D-Day Centre has been in the planning for several years and it is perfectly placed within...
Listening out for aircraft
This audio detection set, now in the Swedish Army Museum in Stockholm, is billed as a Listening Device M/1928 manufactured by a British company, Barr & Stroud Ltd. Sweden bought a number of these ‘ear trumpet’ devices in the 1920s to detect and pinpoint aircraft. Barr &...
Review: Musée de la Reddition, Reims
It’s not a spectacular building. In fact it’s what it always used to be – a college. But this nondescript building next to the station in Reims is historic. This is where World War II ended in Europe. This is where the Germans signed their (first) unconditional...
Ardennes War & Peace Museum to re-open in Nov
The build-up to the 100th anniversary of the end of The Great War continues to grow and so do the associated memorials, museums and interpretation centres in Belgium & France. In the French Ardennes, the War & Peace Museum is due to re-open on 11th November 2017...
The Killing Fields of Wiltshire
Zeroing in on central Wiltshire for a weekend escape to the country has opened my eyes to a time in history that, when I lived there, seemed to have passed me by. Staying in Marlborough, a town with the widest high street in the UK and a...
Battlefield Tours in Finland
2017 is an important year for Finland – the 100th Anniversary of Independence. Finnish nationalism developed in the east of the country, on what is now the border with Russia, and after the country’s birth on 6th December 1917, its independence was first tested in the Winter...
The Mitchell Monument, Oregon
I had heard of the Japanese WW2 balloon bomb campaign, but until I was reading David Hambling’s new book, Swarm Troopers – How small drones will conquer the world *, I hadn’t been aware that there had been civilian casualties. In fact these were the only deaths...
Review: Yorkshire Air Museum
I’ve got a special place in my heart for the Yorkshire Air Museum. I visited a lot of aircraft museums this summer (well… four!) and they’ve all got amazing exhibits and displays to talk about, but the Yorkshire Air Museum made me the happiest. There’s something special...
When Italy attacked mainland Britain
The WW2 ‘Battle of Britain’ is etched deep in the collective memory of Brits, whether alive at the time or not. As everyone knows, it was an intense struggle between the RAF “few” and the massed aerial fleets of Germany’s Luftwaffe. What most people, including me, don’t...
Review: IWM Duxford Air Museum
The Air Museum at Duxford, one of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) sites, is probably the most important, ‘must-see’ aircraft museum in the UK. If you haven’t been, you really should, it is excellent. There are a number of things that set it apart. Firstly, its history....
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