Holderness in old photographs

Holderness in old photographs by Ian and Margaret Sumner (Stroud, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1995; ISBN 0750907630)

Historic photos of the towns and villages of Holderness in East Yorkshire, from Barmston in the north to Spurn Point in the south, and including Hedon, Hornsea and Withernsea.

Kings of the Air: 'War, German style' 1

The first German air raid on Paris was at 12.45pm on 30 August 1914, when a Taube overflew the city at a height of 1,000 metres and dropped five bombs, killing one civilian and wounding four others, before flying off untouched by the guns of the Camp Retranché de Paris (CRP). Four armed Farmans operating as HF28 were immediately allocated to the CRP, but they too proved ineffective and the raids continued over the next three months, killing eleven and wounding fifty. On 2 September one Farman managed to get within range, but its machine gun jammed on the tenth round and the intruder escaped unscathed. Better defences were required. Lack of available chassis made the mobile motorized AA units favoured by General Gallieni (the commander of the Paris garrison) unviable; instead an outer ring of listening posts was set up about a hundred kilometres from the city, with an inner ring of fifteen fixed batteries – each deploying two 75mm field guns, four machine guns...

Kings of the Air: A Matter of Reputation

When dealing with the history of the development of the French Air Force before and during the Great War, you cannot go far without coming across the name of Charles Tricornet de Rose. A dragoons officer, he was the first man to get his military wings. He was immediately snapped up to work at Estienne's research establishment at Vincennes, where he worked on aircraft armament (even though the Minister of War thought it a waste of time), coming to the conclusion that the gun had to placed in the nose, firing forwards. The problem was the firing through the arc of the propellor, and, with Roland Garros, he was working on a synchronizer system when war broke out. Garros went his own way, towards the dead end that were his deflector plates. Meanwhile, de Rose, the commander of Fifth Army's aviation, created the first all-fighter squadron, MS12, and filled it with the best pilots he could lay his hands on, including Jean Navarre. Until a viable synchronizer system was work...

Kings of the Air: Clément Ader

This is the first of a series of biographical sketches based on the research I am doing for my new book Kings of the Air: French aces and airmen of the Great War , to be published by Pen & Sword. Clément Ader (1841-1925) was a French inventor, whose attempt at heavier-than-air flight some years before the Wright brothers was so nearly successful. Ader had a restless mind, and his inventions covered a wide range of fields. In 1868, he began as a velocipede manufacturer. Instead of conventional iron tyres, his machines used a rubber tubular tyre of his own invention, resulting in a much lighter frame, and a much more comfortable ride. The war against German in 1870 brought an end to his work. He then began working for a railway company in the south-west of the country, the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Midi. In 1875, he designed an engine that laid rails, that saw service for several years. He then turned to the new telephone, commercialising the inventions ...

Ian Sumner

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