#Air war Museum

[admiralgiggles]

[emaadsidiki]

Fortresses Under Fire🎨 Keith Ferris🖌️ Thunderbirds🛩️

[nocternalrandomness]

Fairchild A-10A Cockpit -The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, Ohio

[usafphantom5]

On #TDIH in 1950, the first all-jet air-to-air combat took place. Lt. Russ Brown, flying an F-80C of the 16th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, shot down a North Korean MiG-15.

📷: Original XP-80 prototype: s.si.edu/44dVZMO

@airandspace via X

[thatsrightice]

“…the rosebush that Major Cleven had planted almost two years before, now sprawling alongside the building. It had a rose on it this summer for the first time.”

—Jack Sheridan in his book, They Never Had It So Good: The Personal, Unofficial Story of the 350th Bombardment Squadron (H), 100th Bombardment Group (H) USAAF, 1942-1945

[hyper-coasters]

DO NOT ROLL, TUMBLE OR DROP

The Sparrow missile is a medium range air-to-air missile with semi-active radar homing that was used by the US Air Force, Navy, and Marines. Developed by Raytheon and used in the Vietnam and Gulf wars. Pictured above is the Sparrow II, which, when developed, came with the new freedom of being able to fire at multiple different targets back-to-back. The small size and type of radar used in the Sparrow II model led to poor performance and was abandoned in 1956.

[belovedastolove]

indiana military museum pt.1 !

marines uniform (the pacific moment):

101st airborne uniforms:

look in the corner of the photo! signed “from edward babe heffron”:

signed photo of lieutenant dick winters:

motorcycle that reminded me of that scene with malarkey and i think alley(?):

uniform of easy company soldier herb suerth with a mention of band of brothers:

air force uniform (mota moment):

[usafphantom2]

In October 1940, the Vought XF4U-1 Corsair prototype made history as the first single-engine U.S. fighter to fly faster than 400 mph. This F4U-1D, is on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center: s.si.edu/3Sfsx4E

@airandspace via X

Tap Title bar to view☝️

[radarsteddybear]

On the left is a Douglas B-26C Invader; this plane actually served in WWII as an A-26, but was re-designated the B-26 after WWII (even though there was already a Martin B-26 Marauder, because what's an Air Force without a little confusion once in a while?).  I love the nose art.  

[flapperdame16]

Us army air corps WW2 window display volo museum August 29 2024

[admiralgiggles]

Riding off into the sunset.

[emaadsidiki]

The Air Gallery 👨‍✈️🛩️ NASM

[nocternalrandomness]

A B-36 Peacemaker Bomber on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona

[marleebeeb]

“America’s fighting men need meat!”

“The best meat! Plenty of it!”

[intheshadowofwar]

20 June 2023

A Royal Fellowship of Death

London 20 June 2023

Sometimes a memorial becomes so ubiquitous in the landscape that you forget its a memorial. Take the Arc de Triomphe. It’s as ‘top down’ as a memorial ever was, but it is technically a war memorial, commemorating Napoleon’s battles and marshals. Arguably the Washington Monument is the same. And so, of course, is the Wellington Arch. In fact, the Wellington Arch doesn’t just commemorate Old Nosey’s victories in Flanders, Portugal and Spain, it serves as the epicentre of a small cluster of war memorials, just down the road from Buckingham Palace.

We started today at Victoria Station, visiting the memorial to the war dead of both the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway during the First World War and the Southern Railway of the Second. (For the uninitiated, the LBSCR was amalgamated with several other south coast railway companies to form the Southern in 1923, as a direct result of the war.) We then proceeded one stop up the Victoria Line to Green Park, and walked from there to the Bomber Command Memorial, the newest member of this little community of memorials.

The Bomber Command Memorial was always going to controversial, even divorced from it’s commention to Tory political operator Lord Ashcroft. For seventy years after the war, RAF Bomber Command existed in between the moral necessity to commemorate its more than 55,000 dead, and the politicial impossibility of raising a monument to the men who destroyed Hamburg and Dresden. Proportionally, both for Australia and the Empire generally, serving in Bomber Command was the most dangerous and deadly occupation of either world war, with a staggering 44% death rate. (Not casualties. Deaths.) To fly a Lancaster (or a Halifax, a Wellington, a Stirling or any of the other less fashionable bombers) took immense courage. Yet this courage was used to pursue what Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris called ‘dehousing’ - the deliberate targeting of civilian areas. This was controversial at the time, to the point where the Americans took it as a point of moral pride that they didn’t bomb in the British fashion (until towards the end of the war, where the gloves came off, particularly against Japan.) Today, it’s a huge issue that a lot of people are very sensitive towards.

I think the Bomber Command Memorial does it’s job as tastefully as is possible to do so - bearing in mind that it is not possible to do this in a way that would be tasteful for everyone. Yes, the men on the pedestal are elevated, and we look up at them, but we look up at figures with a distinct sense of weary resignation to doing an awful job. It is the statues that turn what could be seen as - and what Ashcroft probably intended to be - a blandly nationalistic piece. They give it a human quality. It’s also worth noting that once a memorial, like any other piece of art, is finished, the interpretation of the beholder becomes just as valid and important as that of the artist.

I won’t get into whether or not I think strategic bombing was tactically or strategically justified, although I will say that for a long time there weren’t many other ways to prosecute the war, and I’m hestitant to judge Harris or Churchill too harshly.

We crossed the road to the Wellington Arch, and here split up so that each group could examine a chosen war memorial. I’m not in a group, so I got to wander around and look at whatever took my fancy, so instead of the insightful commentary of my cohorts about WWI memorials, you get to hear me moan about a Napoleonic statue. Specifically, there’s a statue of Wellington that faces Aspley House, and a handsome statue it is, but there is something about it that bothers me intensely. On the base, standing guard at each corner, are soldiers from various regiments of Wellington’s Army - probably intentionally, they represent England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This is good - what bothers me is their choice of representatives. The Scots soldier is an infantryman of the 42nd (Black Watch) Foot, as is good and proper. The Welshman is of the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, the Englishman is of the 1st Foot Guards, and the Irishman is of the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons. And therein lies the problem - they’re all from elite regiments. (Additionally, the Fusilier is a sergeant.) Were it up to me, I’d swap the Foot Guard for, say, one of the light infantry regiments - let’s say the 52nd Foot, just for an example - and the dragoon for the 28th (Inniskilling) Foot. Both of these regiments deserve recognition, and neither of them are part of the social elite of the army.

Some might say this leaves out the cavalry. Well, bugger the cavalry. It’s the infantry and the artillery that win wars, and the cavalry that take the credit.

As for the other memorials, most of them were handsome enough. The Australian Memorial is a clever design; a wall in which, from a distance, one sees the name of battles, and when one comes closer they can see the small names of towns across Australia. The Machine Gun Corps Memorial is classical to the point that nobody would ever know what it was a memorial to unless they took a close look - it just looks like a naked Achilles making a jaunty pose. The New Zealand Memorial looks like somebody left their giant tent pins sitting in the side of a small rise, while the memorial to the Indian, African and Caribbean troops of the world wars is handsome but a little generic. It’s the Royal Artillery Memorial that really stands out, with it’s stone 9.2in howitzer and the weary figures of artillerymen standing sentinel around it. At the back is the stark image of a dead gunner, his body covered by his cloak and helmet. Below this anonymous casualty is an inscription - ‘here was a royal fellowship of death.’ It’s an outstanding memorial, and one of the standouts of the tour so far.

After presentations, we caught the Piccadilly Line from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly Circus, and from there took the Bakerloo down to Lambeth North. Here was the Imperial War Museum; it almost needs no introduction. Before the Australian War Memorial, before the hundreds of local memorials across the Empire, before the war had even ended, there was the everpresent IWM. Perhaps appropriately, the premises of the IWM used to be the infamous Bedlam asylum. We lunched here, and then looked around.

The IWM is undoubtedly a world class institution, and there was much to like about its famed First World War exhibit - it’s clearly global in scope, pays attention to the civilian as well as the military dimension, and has a number of artefacts one would never find elsewhere. Yet I could not help but see serious problems. A museum needs to keep things simple and accessible to the public, but some of the placards were so simplified that they actually made it more difficult to work out what things were. Take the Ottoman shoe one of our groups examined - it’s fascinating, but would it not be more fascinating to know where it came from? Was it recovered after the disaster at Salakamish, and does it thus have a connection to the ensuing extermination campaign against the Armenians? Or perhaps it came from Gallipoli, Mesopotamia or Palestine? Was the wearer a soldier, or a labourer behind the lines? Was he Turkish? Armenian? Arabian? Knowing where it came from could help us answer these questions and increase our understanding of history, all without making the placard unacceptably complicated.

There was also a giant naval gun standing in front of and obscuring the international uniforms (Italy, the Ottoman Empire and so on), and I just have to wonder what genius came up with that placement.

The Second World War wing had a lot of the same problems, but I can’t help but feel it was just a little better - less cluttered, slightly more context and information. It also had a lot of profiles of ordinary people involved in the wars - very quick blurbs about people to give the objects a more human touch. There’s also a bit on the Australians in New Guinea, complete with Owen Gun, so naturally that’s a big point in it’s favour. Upstairs there’s a temporary exhibit on the Troubles - I saw someone on Twitter who was absolutely infuriated that a British museum was talking about this, and I think they ought to look at it for themselves because I thought it was brilliant. At the top is the Lord Ashcroft Gallery of VCs, and all I’ll say about that is that I find the fact that Lord Ashcroft personally has the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses to be very disconcerting. As a great archeologist once said, ‘it belongs in a museum!’

(Yes, I know technically already in a museum, but the museum should own them.)

We finished around 4.30. I had dinner with mum at the Victoria Wetherspoons (review - it’s a Wetherspoons, you know what to expect) and then headed back in to write this. Tomorrow we get most of the day to ourselves, so I plan to duck down for a cheeky visit to the National Army Museum. But first an early rise, because there might - and I cannot absolutely confirm this - be something special in at Paddington…