Below are current event articles that relate to events, topics, and people found in Attack of the Hawkmen.
The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I
Smithsonian.com
6/16/2015
On December 5, 1930, just over 12 years after the end of World War I, German moviegoers flocked to Berlin’s Mozart Hall to see one of Hollywood’s latest films. But during the movie, a cadre of 150 Nazi Brownshirts, nearly all too young to have fought in World War I, were led into the theater by propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Spewing anti-Semitic invective at the screen, they repeatedly shouted “Judenfilm!” as they tossed stink bombs from the balcony, threw sneezing powder in the air, and released white mice into the theater. A somewhat shocking turn of events, considering the movie was the highly anticipated adaptation of countryman Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the blockbuster novel that had transfixed the nation months earlier.
Sunken Wrecks Of Epic WWI Naval Battle Revealed
news.sky.com
6/16/2015
They show the battered wrecks of several of the 25 warships - 14 of them British - that were blown up during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, 1916. Among them is HMS Invincible which was torn apart by a German shell, killing more than 1,000 sailors. HMS Defence and HMS Queen Mary were also scanned during the survey.
Will the Search for Amelia Earhart Ever End?
Smithsonian.com
1/1/2015
Do you want to see it?” Ric Gillespie asks, reaching for a black portfolio resting on the floor of his Pennsylvania farmhouse. He extracts a sheet of aluminum, about 18 by 24 inches—bent, dented, scratched and crisscrossed by 103 rivet holes, whose size, position and spacing he has studied for almost 25 years the way assassination buffs pore over the Zapruder film. And with good reason: If he’s right, this is one of the great historical artifacts of the 20th century, a piece of the airplane in which Amelia Earhart made her famous last flight over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937.
Chocks away! British and German fighter planes from the First World War unveiled as part of new RAF Museum display
dailymail.co.uk
11/27/2014
The Royal Air Force Museum is set to open a new permanent exhibition to commemorate the role British airmen and aircraft played during the First World War. The First World War in the Air exhibition, which opens a week today, will tell the incredible stories of men and women who served and protected our nation with the air force.
World War One time capsule discovered in Germany
telegraph.co.uk
11/21/2014
A hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War, builders renovating a historic castle in Germany’s Ruhr valley have found a time capsule that appears to have been left in memory of soldiers who died in the conflict.
WWI Canadian soldiers' remains identified
cbc.ca
10/5/2014
Nearly a century after they died in battle, the remains of unidentified Canadian soldiers who fought in the First World War are still being found in Europe.
Today the Department of National Defence released the names of four who died during the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.
Their resting place was discovered in 2006 by then 14-year-old Fabien Demeusere, while digging in his back garden in Hallu, France, 120 kilometres north of Paris.
Trench Warfare in World War I Was a Smarter Strategy Than You Realize
io9.com
9/22/2014
History remembers trench warfare as wasteful, futile, and uninspired, but in reality it was a deeply thought-out system that underwent constant revision. Here's how it worked during World War I.
Top image: A painting by Captain Kenneth Keith Forbes shows a Canadian 6-inch howitzer supporting British troops in the attack on Thiepval on 16 July 1916 during the Somme offensive. Via Canadian Artillery in Action.
It was around this time 100 years ago that the mobile battlefield along the Western Front ground to a screeching halt — a 440 mile stretch that barely moved in the ensuing four years.
The Legend of What Actually Lived in the "No Man's Land" Between World War I's Trenches
Smithsonian.com
9/8/2014
During World War I, No Man’s Land was both an actual and a metaphorical space. It separated the front lines of the opposing armies and was perhaps the only location where enemy troops could meet without hostility. It was in No Man's Land that the spontaneous Christmas truce of December 1914 took place and where opposing troops might unofficially agree to safely remove their wounded comrades, or even sunbathe on the first days of spring.
First World War: how Telegraph readers saw it
telegraph.co.uk
9/2/2014
Everyone knows about the horrors of life in the trenches of the First World War, but it’s only recently that the anxieties of people back home in Britain have started to be talked about.
At long last, those feelings are being aired more widely, thanks to a new anthology of letters written, at the time, to The Daily Telegraph. The message these missives impart is of a nation that was desperate to provide support, of any kind, to our brave boys fighting on just the other side of the Channel.
The Blockbuster World War I Film that Brought Home the Traumatic Impact of War
Smithsonian.com
8/21/2014
The United States had entered the war with high hopes and dreams—aiming to make the world “safe for democracy” as President Woodrow Wilson would proclaim, but by the 1920s there were strong feelings that the U.S. should never have gotten itself involved in the byzantine affairs of the European powers. Isolationist sentiments grew across the country especially after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the U.S. Congress in 1920. These feelings of bitterness and disappointment found their fullest expression in the literature of the day, written by members of what has become known as the “Lost Generation,” most notably John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
This Riveting Art From the Front Lines of World War I Has Gone Largely Unseen for Decades
Smithsonian.com
8/12/2014
In the words of one historian, “Art and war are old companions.” The United States government proved that nearly a century ago when it commissioned eight artists to go to war. Armed with sketchpads, charcoals, pastels and little to no military training, the artists embedded with the American Expeditionary Forces and sketched everything from rolling tanks to portraits of German prisoners. The War Department coordinated the program in the hopes that the artists could provide a historical record and galvanize support for the war.
First World War centenary: how the events of August 2 1914 unfolded
telegraph.co.uk
8/2/2014
Britain went to war on August 4 1914. In the second part of a four-day series, we document the dramatic events leading up to the declaration of war as they happened, hour-by-hour.
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: ‘We desire no conquest, no dominion. The world must be made safe for democracy’
independent.co.uk
6/5/2014
A light rain was falling on the evening of 2 April 1917 as Woodrow Wilson was driven from the White House to Capitol Hill, escorted by a unit of the United States cavalry, to address a specially convened joint session of Congress. According to contemporary accounts, the 28th president looked pale and nervous. But his words betrayed not the slightest doubt or hesitancy.
For men used to mining - fighting in trenches was seen as an escape FROM HELL
express.co.uk
6/1/2014
These days, however, Big Pit digs tourism, not coal; the party descending into the earth are American visitors. There are no working deep-mines remaining in South Wales; already in decline, the area's coalfield was annihilated in the wake of the 1984-5 Miners' Strike, the names of the closed collieries to toll like funeral bells. Mardy. Tower. Deep Navigation. Markham. Lady Windsor. How black was my valley a century ago, on the eve of the Great War, when there were a dozen collieries within sight, and another 600 coal mines across South Wales, employing 232,000 men, who hewed 57 million tons a year, a fifth of the entire output of the United Kingdom. The very earth vibrated to the metronomic percussion of thousands of subterranean men wielding the pick. Coal for the Navy. Coal for industry. Coal for locomotives. Coal for homes.
We all know the classic First World War films - but what of flops and political embarrassments?
independent.co.uk
5/28/2014
Movie legends including Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg have attempted to tackle the First World War, but while some have achieved Oscars and box-office success, others have delayed peace talks and enraged renowned world leaders. One of the most famous films, A Farewell to Arms (1932), directed by Frank Borzage, has been digitally restored and is due for re-release in UK cinemas tomorrow.
The ten men who shaped the road to war
independent.ie
5/10/2014
1 HORATIO KITCHENER As the first British troops marched whistling off to the front in autumn 1914 the cliche of the hour was: "It'll be all over by Christmas." An experienced campaigner on three continents, Horatio Kitchener from Ballylongford, Co Kerry, knew it would be a long haul. As Secretary of State for War he put together the largest volunteer army the world had ever seen, and put industrial production on an efficient war footing.
World War One author's life-saving helmet returns to Flanders
bbc.com
5/7/2014
A helmet which saved Eric Linklater's life during World War One has returned to the battlefields of Flanders. The Orkney writer had a miraculous escape in 1918 when the tin helmet was pierced by a German bullet. The helmet, which is now displayed in the Orkney Museum, has been loaned back to the Linklater family who took it to Belgium as part of commemorations by the Black Watch regiment. BBC Scotland's Fionn McArthur has been speaking to Eric's son, Magnus Linklater.
Help Transcribe Diaries From World War I
Smithsonian.com
3/18/2014
The National Archives currently has in its collection 1.5 million pages of handwritten diaries kept by soldiers of World War I. They're some of the most requested documents in the National Archives reading room, but until now have been accessible only to anyone who's made the trip to D.C. But now the archivisits are working to put them online, and you can help them. The project is called Operation War Diary, and it comes from a partnership between the National Archives, the citizen science initiative Zooniverse and the Imperial War Museum in the UK. The diaries have all been scanned and posted online for citizen historians to look at and transcribe. According to the project: "The war diaries contain a wealth of information of far greater interest than the army could ever have predicted. They provide unrivalled insight into daily events on the front line, and are full of fascinating detail about the decisions that were made and the activities that resulted from them."
World War One: 10 interpretations of who started WW1
bbc.com
2/11/2014
No one nation deserves all responsibility for the outbreak of war, but Germany seems to me to deserve most. It alone had power to halt the descent to disaster at any time in July 1914 by withdrawing its "blank cheque" which offered support to Austria for its invasion of Serbia. I'm afraid I am unconvinced by the argument that Serbia was a rogue state which deserved its nemesis at Austria's hands. And I do not believe Russia wanted a European war in 1914 - its leaders knew that it would have been in a far stronger position to fight two years later, having completed its rearmament programme.
The Spirit of St. Louis’ Amazing Journey
Smithsonian.com
11/15/2013
To fly between New York and Paris, in either direction, in a single flight. Lindbergh was not the first to take the dare. Dozens had flown the Atlantic in stages, as early as 1919; and several had lost their lives in pursuit of the prize. By the spring of 1927, while others were outfitting $100,000 tri-motor planes with deluxe interiors, Lindbergh determined that the key to success would be simplicity: a single-engine monoplane with only one pilot. He found eight civic-minded businessmen in St. Louis to back his endeavor.
World War One: The circus animals that helped Britain
bbc.com
11/10/2013
On the cobbled streets of industrial Sheffield an Indian elephant dutifully lumbered along. Her task was important - she had to cart munitions, machines and scrap metal around the city, a job previously done by three horses taken off to war. Lizzie - as she was known - was used to performing tricks as part of a travelling menagerie. But with the outbreak of World War One she was conscripted to help with heavy labour, fitted with a harness and sent to work at a scrap metal merchants.
German Subs: Sunken WWI U-Boats a Bonanza for Historians
abcnew.com
6/21/2013
British archaeologists recently discovered more than 40 German U-boats sunk during World War I off the coast of England. Now they are in a race against time to learn the secrets hidden in their watery graves. On the old game show "What's My Line?" Briton Mark Dunkley might have been described with the following words: "He does what many adventurers around the world can only dream of doing." Dunkley is an underwater archeologist who dives for lost treasures. His most recent discoveries were anything if not eerie.
8 Famous People Who Missed the Lusitania
Smithsonian.com
5/2/2013
When the First World War began, in the summer of 1914, the Lusitania was among the most glamorous and celebrated ships in the world—at one time both the largest and fastest afloat. But the British passenger liner would earn a far more tragic place in history on May 7, 1915, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.
How the DC-3 Revolutionized Air Travel
Smithsonian.com
4/1/2013
On an early evening in late 1938, a gleaming American Airlines DC-3 departed Newark Airport, bound for Glendale, California. The takeoff, wrote a Fortune magazine reporter aboard to record the still-novel experience of cross-country air travel, was effortless. “Halfway along the runway,” he recounted, “she left the ground so smoothly that none of the first fliers in the cabin realized what had happened until they saw the whole field rushing away behind them and the factory lights winking through the Jersey murk ahead.” By the time the flight crossed over Virginia, passengers had already polished off a dinner of soup, lamb chops, vegetables, salad, ice cream and coffee. After a refueling stop in Nashville, the DC-3 continued west. Beyond Dallas, the journalist added, “visibility was limited only by the far horizons of the curving earth.” Despite head winds, the plane arrived on schedule at 8:50 a.m. Total time was 18 hours 40 minutes, including several ground stops.
A History of the Parachute’s Earliest Days
Smithsonian.com
3/7/2013
I recently went skydiving for the first time. It was possibly the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done in my life. A couple days later, once I had time to process everything, my thoughts turned to that backpack that kept me alive. When was it designed? Who was the inventor that made it possible for me to survive a fall of 10,000 feet? Some quick research told that that I owed my life to a Russian actor named Gleb Kotelnikov, who is credited with inventing the first backpack parachute in 1911. Surprisingly little is written about Kotelnikov –at least in English– but assuming Google translate can be trusted, he was compelled to create the parachute after witnessing the death of pilot Leo Matsievich during an air show in St. Petersburg. From that horrible moment, Kotelnikov, a former theater actor, dedicated the rest of his life to preventing the unnecessary deaths of airplane pilots. By the early 20th century, basic parachutes were already widely used to perform jumps from hot-air balloons, and of course the idea of the parachute famously goes back all the way to Leonardo da Vinci, but these early parachutes were elaborate and cumbersome, and the high speed at which planes traveled required a more efficient design.
Rare World War I Images Found Inside Antique Camera By Photographer Anton Orlov
huffingtonpost.com
1/11/2013
A blogger passionate about historic photography techniques serendipitously found some old photos inside his newly-purchased camera. As in, World War I old. Last week, Anton Orlov of the Photo Palace blog was cleaning the Jumelle Belllieni stereoscopic camera that he'd bought at an antique store a few days prior, and found the images completely by accident. According to his blog, he opened the film chamber and saw the negatives on a stack of glass plates.
Disturbing Pathe footage from World War One reveals devastating effects of shell shock on soldiers as they were treated in pioneering Devon hospital
dailymail.co.uk
11/8/2012
Uncontrollable shaking, terrifying nightmares and severe convulsions were among the most devastating symptoms suffered by the many First World War soldiers who suffered shell shock. By the end of the war, more than 80,000 men who had endured the horrors of battle were struggling to return to normality. And here, disturbing footage compiled by British Pathé film archivists and released to MailOnline today, brings home the terrifying reality that for many the war never really ended. At the time, most shell shock victims were treated harshly and with little sympathy as their symptoms were not understood and they were seen as a sign of weakness. But at Newton Abbott's Seale Hayne in Devon, the approach was very different due to the revolutionary approach of a doctor called Arthur Hurst, an army major, who believed he could cure every shell shock victim.
Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down
dailymail.co.uk
9/7/2012
In the skies above northern France they were the deadliest of enemies. Yet there still remained time for chivalry among the First World War flying aces. When a British plane was shot down in 1916 the German pilot followed the stricken aircraft and landed nearby to check the two-man crew had survived. He then braved French and British fire to cross enemy lines and drop a letter to Allied forces telling them the pair were alive.
Gentlemen of the skies: German flew behind enemy lines to deliver letter from Brit he shot down
dailymail.co.uk
9/7/2012
In the skies above northern France they were the deadliest of enemies. Yet there still remained time for chivalry among the First World War flying aces. When a British plane was shot down in 1916 the German pilot followed the stricken aircraft and landed nearby to check the two-man crew had survived. He then braved French and British fire to cross enemy lines and drop a letter to Allied forces telling them the pair were alive.
Document Deep Dive: What Did the Zimmermann Telegram Say?
Smithsonian.com
8/21/2012
On January 17, 1917, British code breakers in Room 40, the cryptoanalysis office of Great Britain’s Naval Intelligence, intercepted a telegram from Germany. At first, they suspected the coded message was a routine communication. But, soon enough, the cryptologists found that what they held in their hands was a top-secret missive that would shift the tides of World War I. Chances are that you have studied the Zimmermann Telegram in a history class, but have you ever actually seen the coded message? German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent the diplomatic message to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador in Mexico City, instructing him to speak to the president of Mexico. He proposed that the two nations strike an alliance; if Mexico waged war against the United States, thereby distracting Americans from the conflict in Europe, Germany would lend support and help Mexico reclaim Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.
Aircraft Design Inspired by Nature and Enabled by Tech
Smithsonian.com
8/16/2012
As if it weren’t already mind-bending enough to envision yourself hurtling through the skies in a metal canister at 500 miles per hour, now Airbus wants you to imagine your gravity-defying journey in an aircraft with transparent skin. Tapping into some of the most cutting-edge design thinking today, the aviation leader has developed a concept plane that is not intended for flight—at least not in this iteration—but is an innovation tool that “stretches the imagination of engineers, and…highlights some of the challenges and decisions that lie ahead for air travel.”
The original air aces
bbc.co.uk
5/7/2012
In most accounts of WWI, mention of the Royal Flying Corps goes hand-in-hand with stories of the fighter aces, men like Albert Ball and James McCudden, who downed dozens of enemy planes. The romance of gladiatorial combat in the air - initially firing revolvers at one another from the cockpit, and then shooting machine guns through the propellers of the aircraft - makes their adventures against such legendary foes as the Red Baron some of the most stirring tales of the Great War.
Hitler postcard found in World War I project
bbc.co.uk
5/2/2012
A previously unknown postcard sent by Adolf Hitler when he was a soldier in World War I has been uncovered in a European history project. Hitler's postcard, sent in 1916 when he was recovering from a war wound, was found in Munich, Germany. Oxford University is providing expert advice to the Europeana 1914-1918 project which runs history roadshows. When the postcard was identified, the university's Dr Stuart Lee said he "felt a shudder run through me". "I found it hard to believe that at a local event to record ordinary people's stories, I was seeing a previously unknown document in Hitler's own hand," said Dr Lee.
Closing the Pigeon Gap
Smithsonian.com
4/17/2012
At midnight on November 12, 1870, two French balloons, inflated with highly flammable coal gas and manned by desperate volunteers, took off from a site in Monmartre, the highest point in Paris. The balloons rose from a city besieged "the Franco-Prussian War had left Paris isolated, and the city had been hastily encircled by the Prussian Army" and they did so on an unlikely mission. They carried with them several dozen pigeons, gathered from lofts across the city, that were part of a last-ditch attempt to establish two-way communication between the capital and the French provisional government in Tours, 130 miles southwest.
The Flying Ambulance of Tomorrow
Smithsonian.com
4/10/2012
In the 1920s, just as some imagined rooftop airports for the aeroplane commuter of the future, others figured there would soon be a market for flying automobiles. The Roaring Twenties brought Americans a new era of mass-produced goods and, with it, an emerging middle class clamoring for newly affordable automobiles. In 1925 you could buy a Ford Model T for just $290 (about $3,700 adjusted for inflation). That same car would cost you $850 when it was first introduced in 1908 (about $20,400 adjusted for inflation). This steep drop in the price of cars - coupled with a national fascination with flight - had every small futurist dreaming up the flying car of tomorrow.
The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an Allied shell
dailymail.co.uk
2/10/2012
The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter, but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them. Nearly a century later, French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front in eastern France during excavation work for a road building project.
End of an era as last surviving First World War veteran dies just days before her 111th birthday
dailymail.co.uk
2/8/2012
The world's last surviving First World War veteran has died - marking the end of an era in British history. Florence Green, who joined the war effort in September 1918, when she was aged just 17, passed away in her sleep at a Norfolk care home just two weeks before her 111th birthday. The great-grandmother, who lived through all but 400 days of the 20th century, signed up to the Women's Royal Air Force two months before the end of the First World War. She was the last surviving person to have seen active service in the Great War following the death of British-born sailor Claude Choules in Australia last year.
Inside the real Birdsong tunnels: Never-before-seen images of the mines dug by British 'clay-kickers' under German lines in First World War
dailymail.co.uk
1/27/2012
Flanders fields today bears little sign of the four years of war that claimed so many thousands of lives and ravaged this small corner of the Western Front. But further down, deep below the surface there remains a constant reminder of the bravery and daring of the men who risked their lives for their country.
Peace on the Western Front, Goodwill in No Man's Land - The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce
Smithsonian.com
12/23/2011
Even at the distance of a century, no war seems more terrible than World War I. In the four years between 1914 and 1918, it killed or wounded more than 25 million people, peculiarly horribly, and (in popular opinion, at least) for less apparent purpose than did any other war before or since. Yet there were still odd moments of joy and hope in the trenches of Flanders and France, and one of the most remarkable came during the first Christmas of the war, a few brief hours during which men from both sides on the Western Front laid down their arms, emerged from their trenches, and shared food, carols, games and comradeship.
Remembering Henry Johnson, the Soldier Called "Black Death"
Smithsonian.com
10/25/2011
Like hundreds of thousands of young American men, Henry Johnson returned from World War I and tried to make a life for himself in spite of what he had experienced in a strange and distant land. With dozens of bullet and shrapnel wounds, he knew he was lucky to have survived. His discharge records erroneously made no mention of his injuries, and so Johnson was denied not only a Purple Heart, but a disability allowance as well. Uneducated and in his early twenties, Henry Johnson had no expectations that he could correct the errors in his military record. He simply tried to carry on as well as a black man could in the country he had been willing to give his life for.
Gavrilo Princip's Sandwich
Smithsonian.com
9/15/2011
It was the great flash point of the 20th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: two World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb. Yet it might never have happened - we're now told had Gavrilo Princip not got hungry for a sandwich.
WWI underground: Unearthing the hidden tunnel war
bbc.co.uk
6/10/2011
Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare. For WWI historians, it's the "holy grail". When military historian Jeremy Banning stepped on to a patch of rough scrubland in northern France four months ago, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Australia's oldest man, World War I veteran Claude Choules dies at 110
perthnow.com.au
5/5/2011
WA's national treasure Claude Choules, Australia's oldest man and the world's last surviving World War I veteran, has died in Perth aged 110. Mr Choules was a man who made the best of life and devoted himself to his family and country. His fighting spirit helped him survive two world wars, and also live long enough to become the oldest man in WA and the last World War I veteran living in Australia.
The Aussie WWI flying ace who had Hermann Goering in his gunsights
theaustralian.com.au
4/25/2011
What if the young West Australian had managed to out-fly Hermann Goering, then a brash young pilot with the Luftstreitkrafte, and two other German fighters who were hot on his heels over Belgium in June 1917?
CIA recipe for invisible ink among newly released WWI-era documents
washingtonpost.com
4/19/2011
So you want to open sealed envelopes without getting caught? Here's the secret, according to one of the six oldest classified documents in possession of the Central Intelligence Agency: "Mix 5 drams copper acetol arsenate. 3 ounces acetone and add 1 pint amyl alcohol (fusil-oil). Heat in water bath - steam rising will dissolve the sealing material of its mucilage, wax or oil." But there's a warning for the intrepid spy: "Do not inhale fumes."
Frank Buckles, last American veteran of World War I, dies at 110
latimes.com
3/1/2011
Frank Woodruff Buckles, a onetime Missouri farm boy who was the last known living American veteran of World War I, has died. He was 110. Buckles, who later spent more than three years in a Japanese POW camp as a civilian in the Philippines during World War II, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Charles Town, W.Va., family spokesman David DeJonge said.
Devastation From Above
Smithsonian.com
1/3/2011
J. Henry Fair was stumped. He couldn't figure out how to photograph whatever might be hiding behind the walls and fences of industrial plants. Then, on a cross-country flight about 15 years ago, he looked out the window and saw a series of cooling towers poking through a low-lying fog. "Just get a plane!" he recalls thinking.
Those Magnificent Men
AmericanHeritage.com
12/22/2010
On November 14, 1910, a professional aviationist named Eugene Ely stood by his plane on a temporary platform built over the foredeck of the USS Birmingham, a scout cruiser moored at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. On this rainy day, the 24-year-old pilot proposed to be the first man to fly an aeroplane from a ship at sea, seven years after the Wright Brothers initial flight.
Holiday Delivery From the Graf Zeppelin
Smithsonian.com
12/1/2010
On December 8, 1934, the dirigible Graf Zeppelin - named for one inventor of hydrogen airships, Graf (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin - departed its Friedrichshafen, Germany, home base on its 418th flight, bound for Recife, Brazil. At the height of the Christmas season, the 776-foot-long dirigible carried 19 passengers, holiday mail and a load of freshly cut Christmas trees.
The forgotten father of mechanized warfare
torontosun.com
11/6/2010
Remembrance Day seems appropriate to remember the remarkable story of the French officer in the Canadian army in the First World War who invented mobile mechanized warfare. Raymond Brutinel, who died in France at age 82 in 1964, altered forever the face of war. An as-yet unpublished book tells how Brutinel, a reserve officer in the French army, made a fortune in Canada in Edmonton, and when the First World War started along with Sir Clifford Sifton and others financed the formation of what was to become the 1st Motor Machine Gun Brigade, (the Emma Gees), commanded by himself.
Flower beds that meant death for German WWI soldiers
bbc.co.uk
11/2/2010
World War I saw the first widespread use of aerial reconnaisance in combat including one unfortunate group of German soldiers, who were discovered because they maintained flower beds outside their barracks. In the catacombs of the Imperial War Museum, there is a collection of about 150,000 images taken from the air during World War I, documenting the tales of devastation that ripped through Europe between 1914 and 1918.
World War I: the amazing work of aerial photographers
bbc.co.uk
11/2/2010
See a slideshow of amazing photographs taken from the air during World War I.
China's WW I Effort Draws New Attention
voanews.com
9/23/2010
World War I drew in people from around the world, including 140,000 Chinese workers who served on the Western Front. A new museum exhibition in Flanders, Belgium, highlights China's role in the war. It appears the curators have had to cancel plans to take it to China.
Ten Inventions That Inadvertently Transformed Warfare
Smithsonian.com
9/19/2010
Bayonet: In the early 17th century, sportsmen in France and Spain adopted the practice of attaching knives to their muskets when hunting dangerous game, such as wild boar. The hunters particularly favored knives that were made in Bayonnet a small French town near the Spanish border long renowned for its quality cutlery.
Discovered after 90 years: Diary complete with amazing paintings and drawings that bring to life the horror faced by Tommies in the WWI trenches
dailymail.co.uk
9/14/2010
A fresh insight into life in the trenches in World War One has been discovered in a series of amazing sketches and drawings found in a soldier's diary hidden away for 90 years. Lieutenant Kenneth Wootton's 120-page journal vividly brings to life the horror of major WWI battles, and even includes detailed ink drawings of tanks and battle movements.
The Shock of War
Smithsonian.com
9/5/2010
In September 1914, at the very outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose. It was said that at the Battle of the Marne, east of Paris, soldiers on the front line had been discovered standing at their posts in all the dutiful military posturesbut not alive. Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men, according to the patriotic serial The Times History of the War, published in 1916. The illusion was so complete that often the living would speak to the dead before they realized the true state of affairs. Asphyxia, caused by the powerful new high-explosive shells, was the cause for the phenomenonor so it was claimed.
Americas Bloodiest Battle
AmericanHeritage.com
7/26/2010
On October 11, 1918, late in the afternoon, a platoon of American doughboys marched to the front in eastern France, passing shattered villages, forests reduced to matchsticks, and water-filled shell craters. At every step the Americans struggled to free their boots from the slopping mud. Icy wind and rain slashed at their clothing, and water poured in steady streams from the rims of their helmets, somewhat obscuring the devastation.
Bravery of British WWI 'suicide club' whose fighter pilots took on Germany and the Red Baron with only 15 hours' training and lasted on average just 11 days
dailymail.co.uk
6/4/2010
September 17, 1916. The sky above the Somme was quiet and still, and golden sunlight was seeping over the horizon, lighting up the mud, blood and broken bodies below. High in the sky, the German pilot in the Fokker Eindecker bi-plane had a knot in his stomach. But it was not borne of fear, even though this was his first combat mission - and could easily be his last. No, this pilot was excited to finally have made it to the killing zone.
Tinkering With History: Historic Aircraft, Winged Survivors
AmericanHeritage.com
5/3/2010
On April 26, 1944, the 72-year-old Orville Wright posed for a photograph at the controls of a Lockheed Constellation, a triple-tailed, four-engined behemoth that could reach 340 miles per hour and had a ceiling of 24,000 feet. Only four decades earlier, Wright had taken the Flyer, a fragile creation of wire, wood, and muslin, on the first controlled, powered, and human flight in a heavier-than-air vehicle.
America's 'Ace of Aces'
washingtontimes.com
12/31/2009
It was undoubtedly fortunate for Britain that America declared war on Germany on April 2, 1917, with the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by Gen. John Pershing, arriving in France in June of that year. But well before then, brave young Americans were engaging in deadly duels with German pilots in the skies above France.
'Red Baron' death certificate turns up in Poland
telegraph.co.uk
12/6/2009
Ninety-one years after Von Richthofen died after being shot down near the River Somme in France Maciej Kowalczyk, a genealogist, found the document in archives belonging to the western Polish town of Ostrow Wielkopolski.
First flapping, two-winged aircraft takes flight
MSNBC.com
7/24/2009
The world's first successful flight of a self-powered, rudderless, flapping aircraft has been achieved by engineers from AeroVironment. The NAV, or nano air vehicle, operates by using two flapping wings, which also function as the rudder, elevators, ailerons and engine. With its two wings, the NAV is able to hover, move forward and backwards, and change its elevation. In flight, the NAV almost appears to replicate the movements of a hummingbird.
Henry Allingham: Haunted by the Great War
telegraph.co.uk
7/18/2009
He was haunted by a nightmare memory of falling into a trench on the Western Front. With a clear mind, even as he reached his 113th birthday, he could recall the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Wright brothers' first flight two years later and seeing WG Grace bat sometime between 2003 and 2006, though he could not remember how many runs Grace scored. His experience of the trenches came was when he was looking for the remains of aircraft that had been shot down.
Bringing the Wright Flyer to Life
Smithsonian.com
5/20/2009
The Wright Flyerperhaps the most famous airplane in the worldrests in a place of honor on the second floor of the National Air and Space Museum. In 1903, with Wilbur Wright at the controls, it flew at an altitude of ten feet in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. More than a century later, museum curator Bob van der Linden watched in awe as the Flyer zoomed down the museum's upstairs hallway before diving over the balcony and soaring out of the building. "Here," he says, "is where you bite your lip and remember: this is a fantasy."
Red Baron puzzle is missing a piece
Ottawacitizen.com
5/19/2009
Soldiers have taken keepsakes from the battlefield for hundreds of years, so Lieut. John Alfred Pope Haydon was only following military tradition when he brought back a swatch of fabric from the wing of a British aircraft, possibly downed over Vimy Ridge in April 1917.
A Camel's life
www.modelflying.co.uk
4/27/2009
Of all the terrible innovations with which the Great War ushered in the age of mechanised conflict, perhaps the most remarkable were the fighting machines that allowed the cavalry to take to the air. They brought with them a new concept - air power - to describe the struggle for technical and numerical advantage in this new arena.
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