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Tinkering with a Typewriter – The Underwood No. 5 Standard – POST NO. 1

Yesterday I went to a huge antiques center and moseyed around. While there, I found an Underwood Standard No. 5 typewriter…Which I did not buy.

I did not buy it because I wasn’t convinced it was worth it. Given its condition and the price wanted for it, I couldn’t justify coughing up the cash and lugging the thing home.

Fast forward twenty-four hours, and while at my local flea-market, I spied for sale, one…Underwood Standard No. 5 typewriter!

What’s the chances of seeing two in two days?

This typewriter was in better condition, mechanically and cosmetically (which is saying a lot, when you see it). It had a few issues with it, which I was sure I could repair. So I got it for a decent price, and wheeled the thing home.

It’s currently on a table in my room, being restored.

You’ll notice at once that there’s a few issues with it. All the rubber needs replacing, the spacebar has to be glued back together, the right platen-knob is missing (I wonder if I can fix that somehow…) and it needs a damn good cleaning!

I spent most of the day working on this thing. And what a thing it is!

It weighs exactly 28.5lbs. It certainly ain’t light! The entire frame is cast iron, painted black. The mechanism inside the machine is in, so far as I can tell, perfect working order, barring the necessity for a serious cleaning. Once it’s cleaned and repaired, I’m confident that it’ll work significantly better.

The typewriter needs a lot of work. Here’s what has to be done:

– New rubber EVERYWHERE.

I had hoped that the platen was salvageable, but it doesn’t look like it. Heat-shrink tubing and rubber tubing or piping works best for applications such as this. I’ll have to remove the rubber from the paper-bales, the platen, and the feed-rollers underneath. None of the rubber on this machine is the least bit usable. Not even the feet underneath – they’ll have to be replaced as well.

– The space-bar needs to be glued back together.

I had considered replacing it, but I’ll only do that if the gluing doesn’t work first. It’s a relatively simple operation.

– Everything needs cleaning.

This is a very long, dirty and fiddly process. Recommended equipment: Needle-nosed tweezers, watchmaker’s bulb-puffer, flashlight, cotton-buds, tissues.

– Typing Mechanism requires Cleaning.

Methylated spirits in a bowl, and a brush to wash it through the machine. This is easily the most time-consuming part of restoring this machine. It can take days to do it properly.

– Everything needs lubrication.

Break out the sewing-machine oil. This thing needs hardcore lubrication. I oiled the tab-stops, the margin-stops, and anything else on this thing that moves. Normally oil isn’t recommended, due to its dust-catching properties, but when you’ve got a machine in front of you that hasn’t been used in 30-40 years, oil is the only thing that will free-up all the mechanisms that have frozen or jammed.

I even oiled the screws before I started pulling anything apart.

The Underwood Standard No. 5 Typewriter – A Profile in Print

I’ve been after a desktop typewriter (in their day, also called standard, or office typewriters) for a while. And the Underwood 5 was one of the main machines on my hit-list.

The Underwood 5 came out in 1900. Preceding it were the Underwood 1, 2, 3, and 4. All the machines were more-or-less the same, but with small changes and improvements made along the way. For example, the Underwood 3 is unique among Underwoods as coming with extra-long carriages as standard. Anywhere from 14 to 16 inches, all the way up to a foot or more!


This Underwood Standard No. 3, from 1923, has a carriage that’s over three feet long! 38 inches! It’s designed for typing out material for accounting ledgers. Photograph from Machines of Loving Grace

The No. 5 is famous for a number of reasons. First, the sheer quantity produced. Nearly four million of them in over 30 years of production.

Second, the quality of construction. This machine is 86 years old. It’s been unused for at least 40 years. It’s caked in crap and everything on it that can perish, has perished…but it’s still in essentially working order.

Name me something made today that’ll still work in 86 years’ time. Apart from cutlery, I can’t think of anything.

Third, the ease of use. Early typewriters were something of a hit-and-miss thing. You had downstrikes, sidestrikes, thrust-action, upstrikes, blind-writers, pocket typewriters…the Underwood Standard series was one of the first typewriters that took the best and most sensible innovations and put them all into one machine. The Underwood Standard was sturdy, strong, and pretty easy to operate.

You could type on an Underwood Standard at high speed without fear of anything jamming up or breaking. You could SEE what you were typing (not true of all machines of the era), and even when it wasn’t doing anything – it sat on your desk looking cute. Again, not something that could be said of other machines of the era.

The Underwood Standard had a famous, open-frame design. Originally a cost-cutting measure, it’s kinda like a skeleton watch – you can see everything working inside the typewriter. Cool, huh? It also makes cleaning it and checking out how things work, much, much easier!

In the 1910s, Underwood famously built a giant-sized Underwood No. 5 as a marketing gimmick. Yes, it’s a real typewriter, yes, it really did type! It was used to type out the daily attendance-figures of those who came to gawk at it, during the World’s Fair! 

The Underwood No. 5 was produced from 1900, all the way to ca. 1933. In that time, Underwood became a household name for typewriters, much like Royal, Remington, L.C. Smith, Corona, Woodstock, Olympia, Continental, and other famous manufacturers.

Back to My Typewriter…

The Underwood 5 came with a number of nifty little features, such as the fold-away paper-stay…

…the steel bar that sticks out, between the two ribbon-spools.

Manual ribbon-adjustment wheels, seen below, on the bottom left of the frame:

Margin-stops with ruler, at the front (on most typewriters, these things are at the back):

If you’ve never used one of these things before, then the margin-stops on the Underwood Standard will trip you up a bit – The LEFT stop controls the RIGHT margin (and therefore, when the bell rings). The RIGHT stop controls the LEFT margin (and how far back you push the carriage for each line). The settings of the stops correspond to the cursor and arrow which you see in the middle of the scale, sticking out of the carriage. On most typewriters, it’s left-stop, left margin, right stop, right margin – Not here!

Behind the typewriter, where the margin-stops usually are on other machines, we have the tabulation-stops, instead! Five in total:

These can be adjusted along the tabulation-rack to set predetermined indentations for sub-headings, lists, etc. Tabulations are operated from the front of the typewriter using the Tabulation Key (today called the ‘Tab’ key). It’ll run much more smoothly once I’ve replaced the crumbling rubber feed-rollers. Right now, the deteriorating rubber is jamming the mechanism.

At the bottom of the frame, you can see the long list of patent-dates:

Also on the Underwood, you have the handy seesaw ribbon-selector:

In that photograph, it’s currently set to “RED”. Pressing it down the other way, would set the machine to BLACK. A lot easier to use (and see!) than on some machines where the ribbon-selector is just some tiny little nub sticking inconspicuously out of the corner of the machine.

On the very left of the machine, you’ll see the margin-release button. It’s on the same level as the ribbon-selector. It’s in the same position on the much smaller Underwood Standard PORTABLE.

This machine was built in late 1927. It is Underwood Model 5, serial no. 2,284,724!

2,284,724…that’s a lot of Underwoods!

I wonder where the other 2,284,723 machines are?

As my restoration journey on this typewriter continues, I’ll update this story with future postings.

 
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What’s That Tune? The Stories Behind Famous Pieces of Music – No. 2

Title? “The Danse Macabre”
Who? Camille Saint-Saens.
When? 1874
What? Symphonic Poem

The Danse Macabre (the first word spelt with an ‘s’), is a medieval allegory; a representation of the universal nature of death. In the Middle Ages, when death was everywhere, and few people were expected to live beyond their mid-thirties, the theme of all-encompassing death was a grim comfort to the peasant classes. As dismal and short as their lives would be, they knew that sooner or later, even the great kings and lords would also follow them into their own graves, and that wealth, riches and power did not spare one from the scythe of the Grim Reaper of Death.

The actual ‘Danse Macabre’ or ‘Dance of Death’ is an ancient European superstition. It holds that every year, on the night of All Hallows’ Eve (“Halloween” in modern English), the Grim Reaper calls the souls and skeletons of the dead from their graves, to lead them in dance and merriment, from strike of midnight until break of dawn. This was another way of softening the harsh realities of life and death, and providing people with the belief that death, while universal, couldn’t possibly be so bad.

The Danse Macabre as written by French composer Camille Saint-Saens in 1874, is the most famous of the many musical representations of Death leading the spirits of the dead in dance on Halloween. Although this piece can be played on the piano, it was actually written for a full orchestra.

The piece starts with the twelve strokes of midnight. As the church-tower rings the last bell of midnight, Death enters a graveyard, tapping and knocking on all the gravestones, to rouse the dead from their slumber. The wavering, continuous melody throughout the majority of the piece (in orchestral arrangements, performed by a solo violin), represents the personification of Death dancing through the churchyard, playing his violin, with the ghosts and skeletons of the dead dancing around after him.

The piece ends several minutes later, with the gradual rising of the sun, the rooster’s crowing, and the souls and skeletons of the dead crawling back into their graves, to await the Halloween dance of the next year…

Title? “Omphale’s Spinning-Wheel”
Who? Camille Saint-Saens
When? 1872
What? Symphonic Poem

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Muahahahahaha!

The Shadow knows…

Composed in 1872, this is another of Saint-Saens’ most famous pieces. Another symphonic poem, it’s known to modern audiences mostly for the bridge in the middle of the piece, which was used in the 1930s radio program, “The Shadow”.

If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of that famous, slow, haunting theme, it came from here. In the video provided above, it starts at 3:22. It was performed on organ, for the radio-program by legendary organist Rosa Rio, who died in 2010…at the age of 107! 

Title? “Funeral March of a Marionette”
Who? Charles Gounod
When? 1872
What? Piano Solo

Fans of Alfred Hitchcock will probably recognise the slow, steady, rocking pace of this music as the theme to the 1950s TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents…“.

Composed in 1872 by Frenchman Charles Gounod (“Gouno‘”), also famous for “Ave Maria“, it was originally written as a piano solo, but was rewritten in 1879 as an orchestral piece. Hitchcock selected it as one of the pieces of music he would have a recording of, if he were trapped on a desert island.

Title? “Powerhouse”
Who? Raymond Scott
When? 1937
What? Novelty

Anyone who grew up watching Warner Brothers cartoons on weekend television will be familiar with the 1930s novelty tune “Powerhouse“, by Raymond Scott and His Orchestra.

Scott was famous for his whacky, novelty tunes which were highly popular in the 1930s and 40s. He used a lot of early electronic instruments to produce the weird sounds for which his music is famous. “Powerhouse” is best known for the bridge in the middle, with the slow, methodic, “Assembly-line” theme. It starts about a minute and a quarter, into the original 1937 recording, which is shown above.

Title? “Song of the Volga Boatmen”
Who? Unknown. Compiled by Mily Balakirev.
When? Unknown. Published by M. Balakirev in 1866.
What? Traditional Russian Folk-Song

Anyone who grew up watching Disney cartoons of the 30s and 40s is probably familiar with this ancient Russian folk-song, ‘The Song of the Volga Boatmen‘. Its origins are lost to history, but it was saved for posterity by Russian pianist and composer Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), who added it to his published book of traditional Russian folk-songs in the 1860s.

Barge-Haulers on the Volga (1873), painted by Ilya Y. Repin

The original lyrics tell the story of the Volga Boatmen, teams of peasant labourers who dragged barges and boats along the Volga River in Russia during the time of the Russian Empire. This backbreaking, thankless task worked many poor Russian peasants into their graves, but the song (used to help keep time during barge-hauling) was inspirational for its depiction of hard work and determination, and remained popular, even through the communist era of the 20th century.

The Volga is the longest and largest river in all of Europe, and runs through the hearts of many famous Russian cities, such as Moscow, and Volgograd (what used to be known as ‘Stalingrad’ during the Second World War).

 
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Now Boarding: A History of Airports

Every day, hundreds of thousands of people travel through airports and millions of people travel by airplane. You grumble and bitch and complain about everything, don’t you? It’s far to walk, your bags are too heavy. You can’t take this, that, the other, and another thing, onto the plane. The gates and terminals are miles apart and you’re running late. Security-checks, baggage snafus, X-rays, immigration, and that endless standing and watching and waiting and walking and running…and at all possible hours of the day and night!

Airports are such a pain in the ass.

So, who do we have to blame for this nightmare? While you’re waiting for that flight which is three hours late, and which will last twelve hours from London to Singapore, why don’t you sit back and find out about the history of airports?

Before Airports

From the 19th century up until the 1950s and 60s, almost all international travel was done by railroad or ocean-liner. You rode in comfortable and luxurious Pullman cars across the vast expanses of the United States. You rode the Orient Express across the Continent. From ports like Southampton, New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Calais, Port Sa’id, Tokyo and Bombay, your ship or ocean-liner took you all over the world. Shipping lines such as the Hamburg-America, White Star, Red Star, French, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (better known as the NYK Line) and Pacific & Oriental (better known today as P&O) were world-famous, and shipping lines were all in direct competition with each other to grab as big a slice of the customer pie as possible.

Ports and railroad stations were major hubs. Victoria Station in London, Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. The Port of Shanghai, New York Harbor, Grand Central Terminal, Union Station, King’s Cross, Paris Gare du Nord, Victoria Dock in Melbourne; all names which were once as familiar to us today as United Airlines, Qantas, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, and Pan-American.

We think that the Golden Age of Travel, the era when international large-scale passenger transport was possible for the first time, was confined solely to smoke-belching trains and ocean-liners, but even in the 1910s, airplanes and airports were beginning to make a name for themselves. And this is their story.

The Airfield

Starting in the mid-1910s, airplanes started becoming a serious form of transport. The First World War saw the first large-scale use of airplanes, for bombing, reconnaissance, artillery-spotting and the most thrilling of all – aerial combat – dogfights!

But what to do when the war was over?

Yes, airplanes had proved their worth, but for the large part, airplanes were still very experimental – most of them were made of nothing but wood and canvas, with struts and wire stays to hold the whole flimsy thing together.

But with the end of the war, there was suddenly a surplus of planes…and skilled pilots…who were suddenly out of a job!

So began the first experimental passenger flights, in the early interwar period.

With the first flights, came the first ‘airfields’.

Early airfields were nothing fancy – quite literally a field, with precious little besides, and usually belonging to, or purchased from a farmer. Fields owned by farmers were of necessity, flat, smooth, dry, and free of stones, tree-stumps and other impediments; ideally suited for aircraft landing. There were no terminals, no control-towers, not even any runways to speak of – nobody envisioned that air-travel would be used for anything more than the delivery of mail, anyway!

Early airfields were simply open fields…with grass. Handy for landing, not so great for taking off. Grassy fields created drag on the undercarriage and landing-wheels of early aircraft, which inhibited takeoff. Things were improved slightly when someone got out the lawnmower and the grassy field was replaced by dirt runways, but even these had issues – in wet weather, dirt runways turned to roads of sludge, making it impossible to take off, or land! It was clear that proper aircraft-handling facilities were required.

So when and where did the first airports pop up?

The World’s First Airports

The oldest airport still in operation was built so long ago, it was barely older than the machines it was built to handle! Opened in 1909 by Wilbur Wright, the College Park Airport, in Maryland, the United States, is the oldest airport in the world!

Originally, the College Park Airport was a training-ground, for the Wright Brothers to show off their new invention – the airplane! But by 1911, it had become an established airport, with wealthy civilians using the area to land and house their own machines. Among other historic events, College Park saw the first experimental helicopter test-flights in the 1920s.

In the postwar period of the 20s and 30s, large-scale passenger transport was still done with ocean-liners and steam-trains. But eventually, airlines started being formed, and they blossomed into the companies which we know today.

In Australia, a company called the Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services commences operations in 1921. In 1926, Germany establishes Deutsche Luft Hansa (three words). The same year, Northwest Airways is established…wasn’t that in a movie somewhere, starring Cary Grant?

A year later in 1927, in the United States, something called Pan American World Airways first takes to the skies, in 1927 with its famous seaplanes.

In Europe, where there was an established flying culture because of the First World War, and where short distances between countries made early passenger flights practical, the first airports were established.

In 1927, Tempelhof Airport was built near Berlin. Around the same time in England, land near an old race-course is used for aerodrome purposes. In 1930, it will become the famous London Gatwick Airport.

The old Tempelhof Airport, Berlin

Early Airlines and Airplanes

Aerial services were slow to catch on in the United States. With such vast amounts of land to cover between major cities from state to state, it wasn’t possible for many early airplanes to make the distance. They simply didn’t have the size or the fuel capacity to fly that far. Instead, the Americans focused on transatlantic flights.

With the establishment of the famous Pan Am Airways in 1927, America had an airline that could fly its passengers to countries like those in South America, but also to Europe and up and down the east and west coasts of the United States. The early passenger planes were romantically called the Pan Am Clippers. The word ‘clipper’ comes from a type of fast sailing ship, so fast that it ‘clips’ or skims along the water. The analogy was transferred to aircraft which would ‘clip’ through the air. An age of romantic and stylish air-travel had begun.


Pan American route-map, 1936

Travelling by Pan Am clippers was expensive, and could only be done from certain cities – all the planes were seaplanes, which took off from, and landed at, coastal regions. Pan Am was one of the first airlines to offer transatlantic flights.

The limitations of aircraft in the 1930s meant that not all flights were direct. Although Pan Am was flying the latest seaplanes, as designed by the famous Boeing aircraft-manufacturers, sometimes, a plane flying from America to Europe might stop at Newfoundland, Greenland and Iceland for refueling, before finally arriving in France or the United Kingdom. Some simply did not have the fuel-capacity or size to brave direct routes across the Atlantic Ocean. To restore passenger confidence, Pan Am had among the best pilots in the world – specially trained and carefully selected for their long-haul routes, where pilots were expected not just to fly the plane, but also fix it, if it had to make an emergency landing on the ocean, and get it back into the air again!

Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away…
A Pan American clipper seaplane, typical of the 1930s and 40s

Despite technological limitations of the times and low passenger-capacities, the old ‘clipper’ seaplanes did have one advantage which most modern aircraft do not. As they were designed to take off and land on water, the likelihood of surviving an emergency landing on water (a real possibility in those days!) was generally quite high. One such Pan Am aircraft, the Honolulu Clipper, flying Pacific Ocean routes, was forced to land in the middle of the ocean in 1945, when its starboard engines failed. The plane made a safe water-landing, but the pilots were unable to restart or repair their dysfunctional engines. Radio-contact with passing ships saw the passengers safely offloaded, but attempts to tow or fly the plane back to a coastal service-area failed, and it was left to drift and sink.

The same thing happened again in 1947, when another Pan Am ‘clipper’ (this time, the Bermuda Sky Queen) ran out of fuel halfway across the Atlantic! In the middle of a fierce storm, the aircraft was forced to make a crash-landing on the heaving Atlantic Ocean. Against all probability, the seaplane survives the impact with the water, and remained afloat for 24 hours! Long enough for pilots to send out distress messages, and to offload passengers into inflatable life-rafts stored on the airplane. The U.S. Coast Guard responds to the radio call for help, and rescue all passengers and crew.

It was incidents like this that assured the flying public of Pan America’s safety, boosting their numbers of passengers and increasing the need for better airports. Even if their ‘clipper’ got into strife, they knew that they would be able to land safely and be reliably rescued, thanks to radio communications.

Airships

From the 1900s until the late 1930s, what with airplanes being unable to travel long distances with safety, most people thought that the way forward for air-travel lay in the famous Zeppelin airships made famous by the Germans. Airships were slower than planes, but faster than ocean-liners, and could carry passengers in comfort. However, a series of devastating crashes in the 1930s, most famously, that of the Hindenburg, scared the flying public away from airship travel. And at any rate, by the end of the Second World War, aircraft design and capabilities had improved enough to make airships a thing of the past!

Airport Development

As air-travel becomes more and more appealing and romantic, the larger numbers of passengers all around the world means that serious thought must now be given to airport design and functionality. Below, we’ll find out about the origins of some of the features that would be found in any modern airport today.

Air-Traffic Control

A crucial component of all airports is one which most people never notice. Air-traffic control. Without it, no airport could possibly operate with any degree of safety or efficiency.

Air traffic control as we might know it today, has its origins in 1920s London. At Croydon Airport outside of the city, the first radio-operated air-traffic control systems are put in place in the early 1920s after two aircraft, one flying towards, and one away, from the airport, collide in midair.

To get better fixings on airplane-locations in the future, all airplanes are fitted with radio-beacons which send out waves. Three receivers around the airport bounce back the radio-waves, and by using three points of reference, are able to get an accurate fix on the location of any one aircraft at a time. This is the birth of modern aircraft tracking and positioning, which is eventually improved in the 1930s and 40s, with the arrival of 1st-generation RADAR.

Gates

As airports began to be more established in the 1930s, serious thought was finally being given to airport design. At the height of the Art Deco craze, airports of the 1930s were typically modeled after the only other example of large, passenger-handling buildings familiar to architects and designers at the time – grand railroad stations.

Modelling airports after the great railroad stations of Europe and the Americas had their pluses and minuses. Having large halls and gathering areas was convenient, but it could be tricky when it came to separating arriving and departing passengers. It would be too easy to get lost in the big central terminal which comprised the bulk of early airports. It was now that architects realised that some way of separating and organising passengers would need to be inbuilt into any future airport designs.

The idea of airport gates as we might know them today, came about in the 30s with London’s Gatwick Airport.

In order to load, offload and service as many airplanes as possible, Gatwick’s main terminal was built in a stylish “Beehive” shape:

The ‘Beehive’ meant that planes could circle around the central terminal, load up or offload passengers, and then taxi away smoothly, without the danger of crashing into other aircraft. This also allowed for passengers to be spread out, and be more easily organised, instead of being huddled up and being channeled through two or three doors. Corridors, walls and partitions inside the circular building could divide passengers into arrivals and departures. Now, they could move smoothly through the building, and in and out through multiple entrances and exits, speeding service and easing congestion.

Welcome to…’The Beehive’!

The first prototype gates were introduced at Gatwick. Previously, boarding a plane was an unpleasant experience – you left the terminal and crossed the tarmac and climbed a set of boarding-stairs onto the aircraft. This was bearable during good weather, but when it was rainy or windy, or even snowing, you probably felt more comfortable taking a train!

To provide passengers with greater comfort and protection from the elements, Gatwick Airport installed the first retractable, telescopic corridors ever to be used in airports – and which are the grandparents of all the covered boarding-ramps which we have today.

Numbering six in total, the telescoping corridors slotted neatly into each other and could be retracted when a plane was taxiing into position, and then rolled out once the aircraft was in place for boarding. Having six gates allowed for greater passenger organisation, and prevented overcrowding.

As airports boomed in the 1950s and 60s, with the arrival of the jet-age and the ‘jet-set’, and the vast advances made in aircraft design during the Second World War, airport improvements struggled to keep up. Organising passengers, providing amenities, providing parking, baggage-handling and other services became constant struggles.

Terminals

Terminals, large buildings which organise passengers, and provide them with the facilities and amenities which they need and require, are a key part of every airport in the world.

Imagine trying to board a plane, when you have to run from one building to another, to another, to another, then out onto the tarmac, and then onto the plane…

You’d rather walk from San Francisco to Chicago.

It was buildings such as the ‘Beehive’ (mentioned further up) that showed how all airport facilities could be housed, and how passengers could be sorted, all inside one building – comfortably, efficiently and without wasting time or money.

Airport terminals continued to evolve in the postwar period. Larger passenger-numbers meant that organisation was crucial. New York’s famous La Guardia Airport, which opened in the late 1930s, took the Gatwick model and upgraded it for even larger passenger loads, and better organisation.

The difference was that the ‘Beehive’ terminal at Gatwick is just one level – restaurants, ticket-counters and facilities are all on the ground floor – and upstairs is all offices. And arriving and departing passengers are all handled in that one, ground floor area. Yes, you can sort them out as they enter or leave, but not while they’re in the actual building. For the city which coined the phrase a ‘New York Minute‘, having thousands of passengers wandering around aimlessly inside their new airport terminal is a huge waste of time!

La Guardia Airport, 1940s. Note the seaplane dock, for Pan Am ‘clippers’

To nip this problem in the bud, the terminal at La Guardia is built on two levels! Departures are upstairs, arrivals are downstairs! They never mix, they never mingle, there’s no chance for someone to get lost. Passengers arriving at La Guardia can go straight in, where waiting friends or relations can meet them on the ground floor, without having to find their way upstairs and get lost. Departing passengers head to the upper level when they reach the airport, and wait for their aircraft, well out of the way of arrivals from overseas or other parts of the country. Also located in the departing area were restaurants, bathrooms, shops, lounges, public telephones and other facilities which allowed a departing passenger to kill the time between arriving at the airport, and actually sauntering out to his airplane.

Airport Security and Baggage Check-In

The one thing which everyone can’t stand – airport security. Metal-detectors, x-ray machines, dipweeds standing around waving wands up and down trying to find stuff on your body that ain’t there, and all eating up valuable time which you could be using to buy duty-free items. Like those chocolates. Or wine. Books for the flight, or CDs for your friend back home.

In the postwar era, airport security became a serious issue. With more and more people boarding aircraft and with more people flying, it became increasingly difficult to run security checks. Skyjackings forced the hands of many airports to try and find ways to stop terrorists at airports, before they boarded the planes.

Skyjackings were at an all-time high in the 60s and 70s; up to forty attempts were made on American aircraft in 1969 alone! Airports could not turn a blind eye to this. If people were afraid to fly, then airports would be bleeding money and losing customers nonstop, which would be a disaster.

The first airport metal-detectors and luggage-scanners entered terminals in the 1970s, taking inspiration from the log-scanners used at sawmills, to detect foreign bodies buried in tree-trunks, such as nails and bullets. Electromagnets on all sides scan a person as he goes through the metal-detector, and any metal on the body is reflected back to the magnets, which triggers that annoying beeping sound that we all hate so much!

At around the same time that airport security started becoming an issue, airport baggage-handling was taking a step up.

Previously, all luggage was handled by human bag-handlers. And generally, most of it still is. But the innovation came in how bags were sorted and organised in the airport. The way forward was shown in the mid-1970s, when barcodes, like those found on almost every type of consumer-product today, started becoming commonplace.

The idea of barcodes started back in the 1940s, but it wasn’t until the 70s that reliable printing methods (which didn’t smudge the ink, rendering the codes illegible) allowed barcodes to become part of everyday life. Poor printing of barcodes meant that the laser-scanners which read the codes could not distinguish between the different bars, when the ink smudged or ran together.

Now, when you check in, a tag is stuck onto your suitcase or roller-bag, with a barcode on it. And a simple scanning of the code tells the conveyor belts and baggage-handling systems where any particular bag is meant to be, and which flight it is destined to.

The Golden Age of Flight

The 1930s-1960s was the ‘Golden Age’ of commercial aviation. The time when it was new, exciting, and changing all the time. Yes, it’s still changing, but now it’s part of everyday life, and it’s frustrating and boring and just a means for getting from A to B. How much air-travel has changed since this period up to the modern day is staggering. And not just because now, we all have our own little movie-screens in our seatbacks, and can no-longer pack knitting-needles and crochet-hooks into our carry-ons.

Differences between aircraft travel then, and now, is the incredibly relaxed nature of older air-travel. Not just in security and luggage-allowances and whatnot, but also in the positioning of seats and greater attention being paid to style and passenger comfort, which to a certain extent doesn’t exist anymore.

For one, aircraft interiors were designed to be much more open-plan, in a manner which most (unless it’s a private aircraft) are not, today. This flexibility and openness is sadly missing, from much of modern air-travel, where people have to fight for leg-room and moving-space, instead of being crammed into airplanes like sardines. The idea that ‘legroom’ was an issue on older aircraft is probably laughable! And before the days of personal video-screens, passengers had much more creative ways of killing time during those long flights.

Bored? Why not show off your music chops on the keys, and provide some live entertainment for fellow passengers? If they vote you off, a parachute is stored under the piano-bench.

Our Final Approach

The next time you’re hauling your luggage through the terminal, patting yourself down to make sure you didn’t forget your tickets, passport, wallet, photographs, iPad, pens, favourite book, keys, or other essentials, spare a thought for the long, trial-and-error journey that the modern airport took.

It’s come a long way from a farmer’s field that’s had a once-over with a lawnmower. The modern airport has everything from hotels, restaurants, shops, medical clinics, cinemas, internet-access and prayer-rooms. Even a multistory slide, if you’re stuck in Singapore’s Changi Airport for a few hours with nothing to do.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Few other buildings have had the challenges of airports – organisation, people-management, security, luggage-handling, segregation and amenities. And yet without them, modern air-travel would be thoroughly impossible.

Want more information?

Documentaries:

Big, Bigger, Biggest:

Episodes – ‘Aircraft’, ‘Airports’.

Modern Marvels: ‘Airports’

Ten Things We Miss About Air-Travel

 
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Wierd World Wars – Things You Probably Never Knew about the two World Wars

Did you know that…

During the First World War…

Soldiers used urine for almost anything! They pissed on their boots to soften the leather. They pissed on their handkerchieves to make gas-masks. They even pissed on their machine-guns to stop them warping from overheating! Urine was ideal for several applications in the trenches. It was easily accessed and in plentiful supply. Any duties where water was not absolutely required, or where urine was an acceptable substitute, this freely available fluid was utilised. Pee for victory!

Australia had the only 100% volunteer army. While other nations that participated in WWI had standing armies, the newly-federated (1901) nation of Australia did not have an army of its own. All its troops and officers sent to fight in the Great War were volunteers drawn up from ranks of civilians. Most of them had no prior combat-experience, and received only the most basic of outdated infantry training!

The first air-raids on a large population center were carried out. In 1915, the first-ever air-raids over a major city were carried out by the German ‘Zeppelin’ airships. Although highly inaccurate, these raids brought war to a civilian population that was previously untouchable. But for the first time, the people of Britain realised that the Channel was no guarantee of safety. The raids were carried out on London and other major British cities, starting in January 1915, and lasting until August of 1918.

The Underwood Typewriter Company manufactured a gigantic, working typewriter as a marketing gimmick in 1915!…It was later melted down for the war-effort. 

Despite the fact that the war started in Europe, the first allied shot was fired from Fort Nepean in Victoria, Australia!

Just two and a half hours after the declaration of war, Australia, a country on the other side of the world, fired the first allied shot of the war, using the coastal artillery cannon at Fort Nepean.

During the Second World War…

Despite the fact that the war started in Europe, the first allied shot was fired from Fort Nepean in Victoria, Australia!…Again! 

Just as in July of 1914, on the 3rd of September, 1939, the first allied shot was fired by the coastal artillery cannon at Fort Nepean, in Victoria, Australia, on the other side of the world! By the same gun, from the same fort…and the shot was even ordered by the same man! In both instances, gun-captain, Commander Veale, ordered shots fired across the bows of two ships which refused to heave-to. In both instances, just hours after the official declarations of war.  And before any other allied nation had fired so much as a flare gun.

Cities were bombed with pianos! Okay, not really. But…Starting in 1944, pianos were parachuted into bombed out, but liberated cities across Europe, as the Allies advanced eastwards towards Berlin. Manufactured by Steinway & Sons, and called “Victory Verticals“, these lightweight, cheap, upright pianos were designed to provide a form of entertainment for troops and liberated civilians, whose own instruments were damaged by air-raids and artillery-barrages during the earlier years of the war. 2,436 Victory Vertical Steinways were manufactured.

A Steinway ‘Victory Vertical’ piano, sourced from pianoworld.com

The British tried making aircraft carriers out of ice! Those crafty Limeys. They tried concealing convoy ships as icebergs, and tried to make aircraft-carriers out of ice, to save up on precious steel.

No such ships ever made it off the drawing-board.

American psychologists produced a Freudian-style profile of Adolf Hitler. As part of trying to understand their enemy, the Americans drew up a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler. Theories about Hitler’s personality and possible future actions were built up from known facts about the Fuhreur. These were gleamed from his published works, body-language in films, and from the few people who knew him intimately and had escaped to America. One of them was Dr. Eduard Bloch!

Dr. Eduard Bloch in his medical office in Austria, 1938. Two years before he fled to America with his family

Bloch (1872-1945) was the Hitler family doctor…and a Jew. For Bloch’s attempts at treating Hitler’s mother for breast-cancer (from which she subsequently died), Hitler gave Bloch special protection from Nazi antisemitic persecution. Despite this, Bloch felt unsafe, and fled from Austria to America in 1940.

Over a three year period, from 1941-1943, he was interviewed extensively by the Office of Strategic Services or “O.S.S.”, the precursor to the CIA. He provided the Americans with valuable insight into Hitler’s personality and early life, which helped them produce their psychological profile. He told them about such things as the death of Hitler’s mother, how Hitler reacted to the news, and details about Hitler’s childhood and upbringing.

Bloch settled in New York City. He lived long enough to see the defeat of Germany, and Nazism in Europe. He died on the 1st of June, 1945, at the age of 73.

The profile drawn up by the Americans was surprisingly accurate. It correctly predicted the July 20 bomb-plot of 1944, Hitler’s increasing withdrawal from public life, and even Hitler’s suicide in 1945!

During the war, many companies ceased production of their peacetime consumer-goods, and started manufacturing materials for the war-effort. Where possible, companies were asked to build things using materials or techniques and qualities which they already had. It wasn’t always a great success.

Steinway & Sons, the piano-manufacturers, produced lightweight wooden gliders for the Allies. These were used during D-Day, for the invasion of Normandy.

The Singer Manufacturing Company, world-famous producers of sewing-machines, was tasked by the Americans to produce sidearms for the army. They were given a contract to produce 500 Colt .45 automatic pistols. The pistols did not all pass muster, and Singer did not produce any more guns for the duration of the war. It produced bomb-sights instead!

Singer lost the pistol contract to Remington-Rand, the famous typewriter manufacturer! Remington was producing M-1911 pistols from 1942 until the war ended in 1945. In total, it cranked out 877, 751 firearms for the U.S. Armed Forces!

The Royal Typewriter Company ceased all production of civilian typewriters during WWII. From 1942 until the war ended in 1945, it cranked out rifles, bullets, machine-guns, and spare parts for airplane engines! It didn’t start making typewriters again until the war had been over for two months!

The Underwood Typewriter Company produced M1 carbines for the war-effort. In the late 1930s, it manufactured a gigantic, working typewriter as a marketing stunt for the World’s Fair:

Just like in 1915…this too, was melted down for the war-effort! This typewriter was a giant version of the Underwood Master standard typewriter:

Rationing on the British Home-Front was so severe, some people came up with interesting substitutes for some rare, rationed foodstuffs and goods…

Makeup for women was in short supply. Beetroot-juice was used for lipstick, gravy and pencil-marks were used to create the illusion of stockings.

Eggs were almost nonexistent. And if you wanted them, you had to open a can of egg-powder, instead! (Eugh…) Egg-powder was mixed with water, and the resultant slurry was fried on the pan.

Restaurants continued to operate throughout the War, but were not allowed to charge more than 5s (five shillings) per dish. Vegetables were not rationed in any way at all.

Fish and Chips were not rationed. But getting plaice, cod and other regular varieties of fish was almost impossible. Instead, Britons had to eat Snoek, (“Snook”), imported from South Africa.

Winston Churchill was an impossible workaholic. He worked day and night. He worked on the toilet. He worked in the bathroom. He worked in bed. He would stay up for hours and hours at a time, working. By comparison, Hitler enjoyed his shut-eye.

The British Army had its own magician! No, I’m serious. It really did.

His name was Jasper Maskelyne (1902-1973). Born into the famous Maskelyne stage family, Jasper was originally a magician performing in London’s West End theaterland. When war broke out, Maskelyne was recruited by the British Army to provide morale-boosting performances to allied troops. He soon grew bored of this, feeling that he was not doing enough for the war-effort. He offered his services to the army as an expert in camouflage and deception. The Army was not exactly taken by the idea. They thought Maskelyne was mad!

Maskelyne’s argument was that as a stage magician, he had a lifetime of experience in deception, trickery and illusion, which could surely be handy for the Army! But they weren’t interested. To this, Maskelyne famously retorted:

“If I could fool an audience only twenty feet away, I could certainly fool the enemy, a mile away, or more!” 

Maskelyne supposedly convinced the army that he had something to offer, when he successfully created the illusion of a German battleship. He was employed as a camouflage expert, and together with his team of men (the “Magic Gang” as they were called), Maskelyne set to work putting on his greatest show ever.

Among other things, Maskelyne disguised tanks as trucks, to make military-buildups look like harmless goods-deliveries. He set up blackouts, and fake lights at night, to shift the position of Alexandria Harbour (a key attack-point for the German air-force), and most amazingly, shrouded the Suez Canal (a vital link between Britain and its Empire) beneath ‘dazzle-lights’.

Dazzle-lights were powerful searchlights aimed at the sky. Twenty-one massive search-lights would have revolving heads, each head with two dozen smaller lights. Aimed at the sky and constantly spinning, the hundreds of lights created a glittering, dazzling effect. It was very pretty, but its purpose was to disorientate German pilots. Blinded by the dazzle, they wouldn’t be able to look down from their aircraft to spot the canal, and therefore wouldn’t be able to bomb it.

The canal is still here, so it obviously worked.

So there you have it. These are just a few of the weird, whacky little facts about the two World Wars which you probably won’t find in your history books.

 
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Neither Rain, nor Snow, nor Sleet, nor Hail: A Compact History of the Components of Mail

These days, more people send emails than letters. They use the telephone more than they send telegrams. And yet, in this day and age of frantic internet buying, with sites like eBay and Gumtree, and the countless other online businesses offering all kinds of goodies with which to suck the money out of our wallets, mail delivery is just as important now as it has ever been before.

Postal systems have been around since the dawn of writing, and to cover the development of a mail-delivery system would take an entire book…which I’m not going to write. Instead, this posting will look at the history of the various aspects which make up the modern postal system.

Why is it called a “Postal System”?

We all get mail. We all send, deliver and receive mail. But people also tend to call it ‘post’. There’s the Royal Mail in England, Australia Post in Australia, the United States Postal Service in the U.S.A. Why does it switch between ‘mail’ and ‘post’?

‘Mail’ is the cargo which a postal system transports and delivers. Letters, postcards, parcels, packets, boxes, crates and so-forth. The system which delivers this cargo is the ‘postal system’. But why is it called a postal system?

The very word comes from the earliest days of mail delivery. Back in the 1500s, when Henry VIII developed the Royal Mail in England, mail-couriers or despatch-riders literally rode, on horseback, between mail-posts, set into the roadside from town to town. To send something by the postal service was to literally meet the post-rider…at the post, the wooden stake in the road…and give him your letter which you wanted to have delivered. These days, we might be familiar with the position of “Postmaster General“. This came from the original Tudor office of ‘Master of the Posts’, literally the man who was in charge of ensuring that the post-officers remained…at their posts!…and delivered mail in a safe and efficient manner.

Mail Delivery

Ever since the first mail-services were created, delivery was extremely slow for an extremely long time. A letter posted in London could take days to reach Edinburgh, or Paris, or Berlin. A letter posted in New York could take weeks to reach San Francisco. And a letter written on one side of the world to be sent to the other, could take months to get there, often relying on trade or naval ships to transport it in their cargo-holds, if they happened to be going in that particular direction.

One of the first attempts at prioritising the delivery of mail was made in the 1700s. For a roughly seventy-year period between the early 1780s until the late 1850s, the British Royal Mail relied on a fleet of mail coaches to speed deliveries of mail throughout the United Kingdom.

Mail delivery had previously been very slow, and dangerous! Post-riders transported not just mail, but also parcels and packages, which might contain valuable or expensive items. It wasn’t uncommon for lone post-riders to be set upon by highwaymen who would relieve them of their cargoes, steal their valuables and even kill them!

The coordinated system of mail-coaches changed this. Not only was delivering mail by coach relatively faster, but also safer. The mail-coach always had at least four men riding on it: A driver, his assistant, and two armed post-guards, who rode on the back running-board. This way, anyone attempting to rob the coach would have to deal with four armed men, first!


An actual British mail-coach from the early 1800s. This one ran the route between London and York. Note the huge storage-trunks over the axles for carrying mail

The mail coach was also used as a sort of long-haul public transport system. Passengers could pay a fee, and ride along inside the mail-coach during its journeys, to get to their destinations much faster than what they might ordinarily. Also, since the mail-coach was working for the Royal Mail, a government agency, it was illegal for anyone to stop a coach. Toll-men, highwaymen, nobody could halt a mail-coach, and they didn’t stop for anything less than a broken axle!

Steam-Powered mail took over from horse-drawn mail in the 1850s. With the improvement and expansion of railway networks around the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and America, mail-coach services were eventually phased out when the postal-services realised that these newfangled wood- (later, coal-) fired, steam-powered locomotive engines could speed mail to every part of a given country. Soon, post-offices and railway stations merged, so that post could be transported by rail and steam as far and as fast as was necessary and possible.

Special mail-trains were used in most cases, and their only task was the delivery of mail. To save time, letters and parcels were often sorted en-route by the mail-handlers, so that when the train reached its next drop-off point, or station, the necessary mail-sacks could just be dumped off on the platform, without time wasted in needless waiting and sorting.

To save even MORE time and to further improve the efficiency of mail-delivery, rail-mail was collected and dropped off even when the train was on the move! Specially-designed mail-cranes were built next to major railroad-routes:

Different types of mail-cranes or mail-hooks were used. Some simply held up sacks of outgoing mail for the train to snatch off it as it rocketed past. More complex ones would collect incoming mail, and send off outgoing mail at the same time.

As sacks of mail were prepared onboard trains, they were hung on hooks outside the mail-carriage. At the same time, sacks of mail waiting to be picked up were hung onto the arm of the mail-crane. As the train whizzed past the crane, the crane-arm whipped the sorted mail-sack off the side of the train. At the same time, the arm swung around, and a second hook or arm on the railroad carriage yanked the outgoing mail-sack off the crane, throwing it into the mail-carriage! Later on, the local postman would show up and pick up the dropped-off mail, and possibly hang another sack of outgoing mail onto the crane, to be collected by the next train that came hurtling by.

This silent film from 1903 shows a mail-crane in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lVSC4jt2R8

Steam-power also changed the nature of international mail-delivery. With faster, steam-powered ocean-ships, mail delivery was cut from months to weeks, or even days! In the United Kingdom, ships with the prefix “R.M.S.” (“Royal Mail Ship/Steamer”) were officially licensed to transport shipments of British mail. As on trains, mail-clerks onboard ships would sort the mail en-route to their port of destination.

With all these innovations, it’s not surprising that the Victorians were the ones who had among the most efficient postal systems in the world. Up to twelve deliveries a day! No worries about not getting that contest-entry form in on time, huh?

In the interwar period of the 1920s and 30s, the first experiments were made in air-delivered mail. Not having to worry about signals and tracks and waves and oceans, an airplane could fly mail from city to city, dropping it by parachute, and then landing to pick up more mail to speed onto its next destination.

Envelopes

For much of history, whenever you posted a letter, not only did you have to write it by hand, you also had to produce your own envelopes by hand! Most people would fold their letters into envelope-shaped forms, write out their letter onto it, and then simply fold the letter up and sealed it with wax, so that the letter and envelope were one and the same, which saved time.

It wasn’t until the invention of the first purpose-made envelope-folding machine in 1845, that envelopes could be purchased separately from stationer’s shops.

The classic envelope was cut and folded so that when it was assembled, it created a neat rectangular or square shape:

But have you ever wondered why envelopes have four, triangular flaps meeting in the middle?

Although you could glue the flaps down with regular paper adhesive, envelopes were originally folded and set in this manner so that a single wax seal, placed in the center of the envelope, was all that was needed to hold the entire packet neatly closed.

Most of us don’t seal our envelopes anymore, and generally rely on the paper glue that comes with the envelope, to do that for us, or we simply lick the glue to moisten it and then smash the thing shut, but nevertheless, the triangular, X-form on the back of envelopes has remained to the present day.

Stamps

It used to be that when letters were sent by post, it was the duty of the recipient to pay for the letter’s delivery. This was seen as inefficient, difficult to enforce, and frankly – rude. Why should YOU have to pay for a letter which you might not have been expecting, or which you wouldn’t want to receive, anyway?

This widespread dissatisfaction with the payment of mail-delivery charges led to widespread corruption, abuse, frustration and distrust of the postal system. To combat these issues, and to ensure payment for poastage, the introduction of the postage-stamp was made in England in the 1840s. With the new ‘Penny Black’, the first-ever postage-stamp, the sender purchased the stamp along with his envelopes, and pre-paid for the delivery, which cost…one penny!

With payment taken care of before the letter was even picked up by the mailman, there were far fewer complaints from customers about who had to pay for postage, how much and when.

Mail Boxes

With their twelve-a-day system, you can bet that it was the Victorians who invented the concept of the mail-box! There would be no other way to organise the millions of letters, envelopes, cards and parcels that sped around the U.K. at the time!

Mail-slots for incoming mail came about in the 18th century in Paris, but it wasn’t until the 1800s in Britain that the idea of a mail-slot, or a mailbox for each residence or business really took off. As part of the reforms of the postal-service (which also saw the introduction of the penny-post), Britons were encouraged to have a mail-drop point somewhere on their residence for the convenience of themselves, and the postman! In more built-up areas, a simple letter-slot, sometimes with a basket hanging on the side of the door, was sufficient. In more suburban parts of town, actual kerbside mail-boxes were installed.

Pillar-boxes, or public post-boxes for the depositing of outgoing mail came about in the Georgian era. The oldest one thought to exist dates back to 1809 in England.

In the United States, mail-boxes became popular in the 1880s, when the U.S.P.S. encouraged people to have individual mail-boxes outside their houses for the speedy delivery and pick-up of mail. Instead of large, bulky public boxes that might take up space on the street, residential mailboxes in the ‘States were used for both incoming, and outgoing mail. Raising the red flag on the mailbox told the postman that there was outgoing mail which was to be collected.

The Mail Always Gets Through…

Mail has existed for thousands of years. But the icons of mail-delivery such as stamps, envelopes, mailboxes and dedicated postal-delivery men are all relatively recent developments. Where once mail took weeks and months to get anywhere (and sometimes still does!), technological advancements have meant that in the 21st century, mail is delivered faster and with less hassle. All the more important with the heavy reliance that all of us place on the postal-service, even now in the 21st century.

 
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A Story on Two Wheels: The History of the Bicycle

In the history of transport, fewer inventions were more compact, innovative, liberating, practical and enjoyable than that of the bicycle. And yet, the bicycle as we know it today is only just over 100 years old. What is the story behind this invention? Why was it created? And how did it reach the design which we know so well today? Let’s take a ride…

The World Before the Bicycle

Before bicycles came onto the scene with their dingling bells and rattling drive-chains, transport was slow, dependent, and/or crowded. You had ships, boats, carriages, horseback, or your own two feet.

When it came to pre-bicycle travel, you had three options available when it came to the characteristics of the journey that you were likely to receive:

Fast, Private, Comfortable.

You may pick only two.

If it was fast and comfortable, such as a railroad-train, you were resigned to sharing the carriage, and even the compartment, with others.

If it was private and comfortable, such as a carriage, then it certainly wasn’t fast. The average speed of horse-drawn transport in the 19th century was about seven or ten miles an hour at best. In the same bag is walking. Private and relatively comfortable, but don’t expect to get anywhere in a hurry.

If it was fast and private, such as riding on horseback, alone, then it certainly wasn’t going to be very comfortable, being jolted around in a saddle for hours on end.

What was needed was a fast, relatively comfortable, individual mode of transport, that relied purely on the rider for propulsion, and which didn’t need to fed, fired, stabled, stoked, sailed, steamed or otherwise externally operated.

With the internal combustion-engine still a dream, and coal-fired steam-carriages being large, loud, slow and unpredictable (to say nothing of dangerous), there was a serious market for a convenient, fast, practical machine which a rider could use for individual transport: The Bicycle.

The First Bicycles

The first serious attempt at a bicycle-like machine was the German-made ‘hobby-horse’ or ‘dandy-horse‘ machine of the 1810s.

The ‘Dandy Horse’ bicycle was a fascinating…um…experiment. It was hardly what you could call a bicycle, and it was never utilised as a serious mode of transport. It was seen more as a toy, for the use and amusement of the ‘dandy’, the well-dressed, leisured, upper-class gentleman of Regency-era Europe. As you can see, the Dandy Horse has no seat to speak of, no driving-mechanism, no pedals, not even a real handlebar! Steering and propulsion are rudimentary at best, and without any form of suspension, riding one of these on the rough, dirt roads of 1810s Europe would’ve been hard on the back and spine!

You didn’t so much ‘drive’ or ‘operate’ the dandy-horse as you ‘glided’ on it, similar to a skateboard. You kicked it along the ground with your feet to build up speed and then coasted along until the momentum gave out. An amusing gimmick for a Regency garden-party, but hardly a practical form of transport!

During this time, the word ‘bicycle’ was not even coined. And wouldn’t be for several decades. Human-powered, wheeled land-machines were called ‘Velocipedes‘, from the Latin words for ‘Fast’ (as in ‘Velocity’), and ‘Foot’ (as in ‘pedestrian’). And as the 1800s progressed, there was a growing range of fantastical and ridiculous ‘velocipede’ machines with which to delight the population of Europe.

The next advancement in bicycle technology came from France, and we look to Joseph Niepce and his contraption known as the…um…’velocipede‘.

Any long-term readers of this blog may fancy that they’ve heard the name ‘Niepce’ before on this website. And you’d be right. Apart from tinkering with bicycles, he was also instrumental in the development of modern photography. 

Joseph N. Niepce’s contribution to the bicycle came in the early 1860s, although it wasn’t a great departure from what had existed before.

The Niepce ‘velocipede’ differed from the earlier ‘dandy-horse’, but only a couple of ways: The front wheel now had pedals, and a proper seat or saddle which was adjustable to the height of the rider, along with proper handlebars and steering. But other than these minor additions and improvements, the French velocipede was not much of an improvement.

A French ‘velocipede’, as invented by Joseph Niepce. Note the presence of the handlebars and steerable front wheel, and the centrally-mounted saddle

The Ordinary Bicycle came next. Invented in the late 1860s, the Ordinary was the first machine to be specifically called a ‘bicycle‘, using the two words ‘bi’, meaning ‘two’ and ‘cycle’.  The Ordinary also introduced something which has become commonplace among all bicycles to this day: Wire-spoked wheels!

The Ordinary was variously called a High Bicycle, a Boneshaker (due to its lack of suspension), or, most famously of all – a Penny Farthing, after the largest, and smallest denomination coins in circulation in Britain at the time.

The Ordinary was the first bicycle for which there was any serious commercial success, and they became popular for personal transport, as well as being used as racing-machines!

Despite its relative popularity, the Ordinary had some serious shortcomings: There were no brakes, there was no suspension, and they were incredibly dangerous to ride! The immense front wheel could tower up to six feet in the air, which made mounting and riding these machines quite a feat of acrobatics in itself! Accidents could cause serious injury and stopping, starting, mounting and dismounting were all big problems. Something better had to be devised!

The Safety Bicycle

The Ordinary or ‘Penny Farthing‘ was one of the first practical bicycle designs, but its many shortcomings and dangers meant that something better had to be found. Enter the ‘Safety Bicycle’.

The ‘Safety Bicycle’ is the direct ancestor to all bicycles manufactured today.

The prototype ‘safety bicycle’ came out in the late 1870s, in response to the public dissatisfaction with the fast, but dangerously uncontrollable Penny Farthing.

Henry John Lawson (1852-1925) developed the first such machine in 1876. Lawson, the son of a metalworker, was used to building things, and loved tinkering around with machines.

Lawson’s machine differed from others in that the rider sat on a saddle on a metal frame. At each end of the frame were spoked wheels of equal size, with a handlebar and steering-arrangement over the front wheel. The rear wheel was powered by the use of a simple crank-and-treadle-mechanism, similar to that used on old treadle-powered sewing-machines, a technology familiar to many people at the time.

The great benefit of Lawson’s bicycle was that the front wheel was used solely for steering, and the rear wheel was used solely for propulsion, and the rider’s legs were kept well away from both of them! On top of that, the wheels were of such a size that the rider’s feet could easily reach the ground, should it be necessary to stop, or dismount the machine in an emergency. Lawson was certainly onto something!

Lawson updated his machine in 1879, with a more reliable pedal-and-chain driving-mechanism, but sadly, although innovative, his bicycle failed to catch on. All the extra parts and the radical new design meant it was hard to produce and too costly to be sold to the general public.

Although Lawson’s machine was a commercial failure, his invention spurred on the development of this new contraption: The Safety Bicycle! Building on what Lawson had already established, over the next few years inventors and tinkerers all over the world started trying to produce a bicycle that would satisfy the needs of everyone. It had to be practical, fast, easy to use, safe to ride, mount and dismount, it had to stop easily, start easily, and be easily controlled.

All manner of machines came out of the workshops of the world, but in 1885, one man made something that would blast all the others off the road.

His name was John Kemp Starley.

Starley, (1854-1901), was the man who invented the modern bicycle as we know it today. And every single one that we see on the road today, is descendant from his machine.

Building on the ideas of Mr. Lawson, Starley rolled out his appropriately-named ‘Starley Rover’ safety bicycle in 1885.

The Starley Rover was revolutionary. Like the Lawson machine, it had equal-sized (or near-equal), spoked wheels, a diamond-frame made of hollow steel, a seat over the back wheel, handles over the front wheel, and a pedal-powered chain-drive in the middle, linking the drive-wheel and the rear wheel with a long drive-chain.

By the late 1880s, the modern bicycle had arrived. It was Starley who had brought it, and he cycled off into the history books on one of these:

This model from the late 1880s has everything that a modern bicycle has, apart from a kick-stand. And this is the machine that has revolutionised the world of transport ever since!

The ‘Rover’ was so much better than everything that had come before it. It was easy to ride, easy to mount, easy to dismount. It was close to the ground, but did not compromise on speed with smaller wheels, because of the 1:2 ratio between the pedal-wheel and the rear wheel. You could reach tremendous speeds without great exertion, and you could stop just as easily!

The Bicycle Boom!

At last! A functional, fun, fast machine. Something you could ride that was safe, quick, light, portable, quiet, comfortable, practical, and which could get you almost anywhere you wanted to go!

With machines like the Rover, and the ones which came after it, all other bicycle-designs were considered obsolete! The Rover had shown the way, and others would follow.

With the success of this newly-designed bicycle came the cycling boom of the the 1890s! For the first time in history, you didn’t need a horse to get anywhere! You needn’t spoil your best shoes in the mud! You didn’t have to worry about smoke and steam and soot! Just roll your bicycle onto the road, hop on it, kick off, and down the road you went. What a dream!

With a truly practical design, the true practicality of the bicycle was at last, fully realised. At last, the ordinary man or woman on the street had a machine which they could ride anywhere! Although, that said, most bicycles in the late Victorian era were expensive toys for the wealthy. But nonetheless, they were used for everything from cycling through the park, cycling around town running errands, cycling to and from work, cycling to visit friends and relations across town, cycling to take in the sights! What a wonderful invention!

The ‘Gay Nineties‘, as this period of history is fondly called, saw the first big boom of the bicycle. Or a medium-sized one, at any rate. There were still a few problems: Bicycles were still rather expensive. And it was considered scandalous for a woman to ride a bicycle! Women opened their legs for one thing, and one thing only. How dare they sit, mounted…on a bicycle! Lord knows what other things they might be mounting next!

Women and Bicycles

A woman on a bicycle? Who’da thunk it?

The mere idea of this radical collaboration sent Victorian men into a tizz! Famously straitlaced and buttoned-up, Victorian morality dictated that a woman’s legs remained covered and obscured at all times. In fact, legs of ANY kind had to be covered at all times. Some people even draped floor-length covers over their pianos to prevent offense to visitors!

Women were generally expected to ride a horse side-saddle. But it was impossible to do this on a bicycle, since both legs were required to drive the pedals. And it was also impossible to ride a bicycle with the huge, floor-sweeping dresses and skirts of the era.  Something had to be done!

Fortunately, tailors came up with a solution!

The second half of the 1800s saw the arrival of the Rational Dress Movement, also known as the Victorian Dress Reform. Aimed mostly at women, this movement said that it was impractical for women to wear the clothes that they did, and still be expected to do all their wifely and womanly duties. The clothes were too bulky, too restricting and far too uncomfortable! Especially for such activities as sports, riding, walking and bicycling! Something had to be done! And fortunately, something was.

It came about in the 1850s, when Elizabeth Smith Miller of New York State, invented a sort of pair of baggy trousers for women. When their legs were together, they looked like a full skirt, but they parted company quite easily, for greater comfort and freedom of movement.

Women’s Rights advocate Amelia Bloomer, a strong supporter of more sensible women’s attire, liked the idea of these newfangled trousers, and they were eventually named after her: ‘Bloomers‘.

With bloomers, a woman could ride a bicycle safely and comfortably. But even if she didn’t have bloomers, a woman could still ride a bicycle in a skirt. She simply had to buy a woman’s bicycle!

Instead of a regular bicycle with a diamond-shaped frame, a woman could buy a step-through bicycle, like this one:

A step-through was identical to a regular bicycle in every way, except one. Figured it out yet?

Without a central bar between the handles and the seat, it was possible for a woman wearing a skirt to ‘step through’ the frame, so that she could get her feet either side of the pedals. Then, she simply hopped onto the seat, put her feet onto the pedals, and cycled away!

If that wasn’t handy enough, a woman could also purchase bicycle-clips, or ‘skirt-lifters’, which clipped onto the waist of her dress or skirt, and trailed down the sides of her skirt. Here, they were clipped onto the fabric to keep the hem of the skirt or dress off the road, but also, away from the pedals, where the fabric might get caught and tangled in the drive-chain!

The Safety Bicycle was ideal for women. Even with bloomers or bicycle-clips or skirt-lifters, it was almost impossible for a lady dressed in Victorian or Edwardian garb, to operate a Penny Farthing! The bikes were too big, too cumbersome, far too unstable, and generally unladylike to ride!

With the safety bicycle, a woman was able to ride with much greater comfort and security. The risk of accidents was smaller, they were easier to mount and dismount, and much easier to operate and control.

The Social Impact of the Bicycle

From the mid-1880s onwards, the bicycle became more and more popular, as safer, easier-to-ride models were invented, produced, and put on sale to the general public around the world. Bicycles caught on quickly, and were popular then, as they are now, for the very same reasons.

They provided free, motorless, quiet, smooth, quick transport, without the need of a horse. They were relatively easy to ride and control, and with a little practice, you could use one to get almost anywhere, and so much faster than walking!

A bicycle also had load-bearing capabilities, and could be used to transport and carry all kinds of things, provided that they could either fit in the front basket, or were strapped securely enough to the rear luggage-rack. Some bicycles even had side-satchels which hung over the back wheel for even greater storage.

Bicycles allowed people who previously couldn’t travel very far, the chance to explore much further afield. Women and children were no-longer restricted to riding in carriages or on railways, or horseback – they could climb onto a bicycle and ride around the village, go to the park, cycle through town, ride along the canal-paths. They did not need men, or older people around, to operate a horse and carriage, or a railroad train, or a steam-powered canal-boat. They simply needed two functional legs, and a decent sense of balance.

This ease of use and versatility allowed the bicycle to be used for almost anything. It was a commuting vehicle for office-workers and labourers. It was a cargo vehicle for anything from the weekly trip to the high street, to a day on the town. With the spread of bicycles came the rise of home-delivery and advertising. Now, bicycles could be used by butcher’s boys and apprentice bakers, shop-boys and telegraph-delivery boys, to provide effective and swift home-delivery of everything from bread, to meat, parcels, mail, telegrams and pre-ordered items of clothing or other items that might be small enough to be delivered safely on a bicycle.

Their open, light frames meant that it was possible to hang signs from the horizontal connecting-bars between the seat and the handlebars. Local businesses could paint advertisements on these signs, or on the mudguards of their store-owned bicycles. At the same time, a business could deliver merchandise or produce, and tell strangers where these things could be purchased.

Cycling clubs became incredibly popular. Friends and relations would gather and ride around the countryside for a day’s outing. They might go picnicking, or they might ride from town to town, visiting new shops, restaurants and public houses. This kind of freedom of movement had never been possible before. Not with a horse, that you had to feed and rest and saddle, not with a carriage which was slow and cumbersome. Not even with a steam locomotive and carriages, which was restricted to the railway lines. Before the rise of the automobile, only a bicycle allowed this level of freedom. No waiting, no fuss. Jump on, kick off, and pedal down the road.

Bicycles in Literature

The impact of the bicycle can be seen by its inclusion in literature of the late Victorian and Edwardian age. In ‘The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist‘, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes’ client is a piano-teacher who uses her bicycle as her main mode of transport, and who is shadowed everywhere by another cyclist.

In the mid-1890s in Australia, Andrew Barton ‘Banjo‘ Paterson, wrote the famous comic poem, “Mulga Bill’s Bicycle“. The cocky Mulga Bill declares that he can control absolutely any form of transport, even this newfangled ‘safety bicycle machine’. He purchases it from the local store and cycles off down the street with it, before losing control of the machine and spectacularly crashing it into a pond, deciding thereafter to stick to riding a horse!

The Bicycle in Wartime

During times of war, the bicycle proved to be a very popular mode of transport. Driving off-road was almost impossible, and at any rate, petrol was often in short supply and severely rationed. On the home-front and on the battlefront, civilians and soldiers often left motor-vehicles behind and fell back to the old-fashioned, reliable bicycle to get themselves around. During the First World War, British soldiers even formed bicycle infantry units! Bicycles didn’t need to be fed like horses, they were quieter, and they could get troops moving a lot faster!

During the Second World War, bicycles were used extensively by both sides. The Allies developed folding bicycles which soldiers could strap to their backs and jump out of airplanes with. Once they landed, they threw away their parachutes, unfolded their bicycles, braced them up, and cycled off to their rendezvous points.

The soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army, maybe even to mock the British and their severe lack of preparation, invaded the Malaysian Peninsula and Singapore…on bicycles! It was impossible to drive tanks through the thick Asian jungles, but a bicycle on a dirt track could go anywhere!

As well as being used for military transport, bicycles were also highly popular on the home front. With petrol-rationing strictly enforced, driving became almost impossible. Unless you were in a reserved occupation (you had a job which was essential to the war-effort), or had some other important status which allowed you a larger petrol-ration, chances were that your car was going to be up on blocks for the duration of the war.

Bicycles don’t need petrol. They only needed whatever strength you could muster from your new diet of rationed food. At any rate, it would be easier to cycle through the bomb-shattered streets of London, Coventry, Singapore and Shanghai, than to drive a car! Most roads were so covered in craters, downed powerlines or the rubble from collapsed buildings that even if your car had fuel, it wouldn’t be able to make it down the road for all the obstructions!

Bells and Whistles

As bicycles became more and more popular during the Edwardian era, more and more features were added to them. One of the most famous additions is the bicycle-bell!

The idea of some variety of warning-device on a bicycle goes back to the 1870s, when the safety bicycle was in its infancy. The modern, thumb-operated bicycle-bell, which you clamp onto the handlebars of your machine, was invented in 1877 by John Richard Dedicoat, an inventor and eventual bicycle-manufacturer in his own right.

The bicycle bell works on a very simple spring-operated lever system. Pressing the button on the side of the bell rotates gears inside, which vibrates a pair of discs which jangle and ring when they move, a bit like a tiny pair of cymbals. This dingling noise is amplified by the bell-housing. Then, the spring simply pushes the bell-button back, ready for the next ring.

Dedicoat also invented a sort of spring-loaded step for helping people mount their bicycles. When Penny Farthings were still the rage, the step was designed to give the rider a boost into his seat. It worked rather well, but if the spring was more powerful than the rider was heavy, it might accidentally shoot him over the handlebars, instead of giving him a helping leg up onto his bicycle-seat!

The popularity of the safety bicycle meant that it was ridden at all times of the day, and night! To make it safer to ride at night, bicycle lamps were clipped to the front shaft, underneath the handlebars.

As with automobiles of the Edwardian era, bicycle headlamps were gas-fired calcium-carbide acetylene lamps. The reaction of water and calcium-carbide produced a flammable gas which could be ignited, and produced a bright, sustained glow. These lamps and their reaction-chambers were small enough to clamp onto the handlebars of early safety bicycles.

Pellets or chunks, or even powdered calcium-carbide was stored in the lower reservoir of a two-chamber reaction-canister. Water was poured into the upper chamber, and a valve between the two chambers allowed water to drip from the top canister onto the calcium-carbide stored in the lower canister. The reaction caused the production of acetylene gas, which escaped through a valve into the headlamp, where it could be ignited, producing light.

Increasing or decreasing the amount of light coming from your bicycle lamp was a simple process of adjusting the opening of the water-valve on the reaction-canister. The more water, the greater the reaction, the greater the amount of gas, which caused the flame to burn brighter. Less water meant fewer chemical reactions, which reduced the overall supply of gas to the headlamp.

At the dawn of the 20th century, bicycles could also be fitted with dry-cell battery-powered headlamps, and alternating-current dynamo-systems. A dynamo really works very simply: You clip the headlamp to the front of the bicycle, and clip the dynamo and its lead, near to a wheel on your bicycle, usually on the mudguard, or on the frame if there isn’t a guard. Engaging the dynamo presses a small wheel against one of your bicycle wheels. As the bike wheel spins, it rotates the dynamo generator, which produces the electricity necessary to power the lamp.

The Bicycle Today

Whether it be a racing-machine, a manner of commuting, an A-to-B mode of transport, a delivery-wagon, a cargo-bicycle or a method of exercising, the humble 1885 safety bicycle remains essentially unchanged since its entrance onto the transport stage back in the closing decades of the Victorian era. The bicycle remains popular because of its simplicity, ease of use, and its seemingly endless practical advantages over various other forms of transport.

The Bicycle World Record


‘Flying Pigeon’ bicycle manufactured in China

Based in Tianjin, in northeast China, the Flying Pigeon is the most popular make of bicycle in the WORLD. In fact, it’s the most popular VEHICLE in the world. That includes motor-cars. The Flying Pigeon company was established in Tianjin in 1936. The Flying Pigeon model, after which the company was renamed, came out in 1950. The communist government in China demanded that the company produce a strong, practical, easy-to-use, and aesthetically pleasing bicycle. It had to ride good, and look good. And it’s been doing that for the past sixty-odd years. Cars were expensive in China, and bicycles were far cheaper and more practical for the average working Chinaman. So much so that the Flying Pigeon was seen as a sign of prosperity in China.

Echoing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Chinese president Deng Xiaoping said that prosperity in China meant that every household would own its own Flying Pigeon bicycle.

Most popular car in the world: Toyota Corolla
Units made: 35,000,000+

Most popular bike in the world: Flying Pigeon
Units made: 500,000,000+

I think we have a winner.

More Information?

I found the documentary “Thoroughly Modern: ‘Bicycles‘”, to be very helpful. I wonder why…At any rate, it’s fascinating watching.

World’s Top Five Most Successful Cars

 
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The Bombing of Darwin – Australia’s First Taste of War

Countries considered virtually untouched by the ravages of the Second World War include the United States, the Dominion of Canada, New Zealand, and the Commonwealth of Australia, even though this was not entirely true. About all that most people know about the bombing of Darwin is what’s featured in the film “Australia“, starring Hugh Jackman.

The United States naval-base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii was hit hard in 1941 by a surprise Japanese air-raid which killed thousands of American servicemen, planes and ships. But while the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor has gone down in history as one of the most famous surprise-attacks of all time, most people have completely forgotten about another, similar, and even more devastating attack, which took place in northern Australia, in the early months of 1942.

This posting will look at the famous Darwin air-raids, the two Japanese airborne attacks on the town of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory during the Second World War, and the effects that these raids had on the city and its inhabitants, and the rest of Australia.

Darwin, 1942

Darwin, named after the famous naturalist, Charles Darwin, is the capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia. It was founded in 1869, and was originally named “Palmerston”. It gained the name “Darwin” in 1911. Darwin was a small-fry among Australia’s bigger and more prominent cities. Population-centers such as Melbourne and Sydney were famous around the world, they were major ports and trading-centers. Darwin, by contrast, was a sleepy backwater town that most people had never even heard of!

In the 1940s, Darwin was little more than an isolated country town at the top end of Australia. Its population in 1940 was a minuscule 5,800 people. By comparison, Melbourne at the same time had a population of over a million. This, when the population of Australia numbered some 6,900,000 people in 1939.

Darwin and the Second World War

Darwin in 1939 was an isolated country town, at the top of the nation, but at the bottom of the population-ladder. War seemed far away, and any notion that Australia might be threatened by enemy action were laughable. Germany was on the other side of the world! Who cared what happened? If anything did happen, it wasn’t going to happen in Australia, anyway! Apart from the blackout, rationing and military service, life went on more or less as it had always done.

It’s widely believed that Australia was largely untouched by the War, which is more or less true. Air-raid sirens never wailed across the city center of Melbourne, and Sydney was never rocked by Japanese bomb-blasts, but the threat, real or not, hung in the air.

In the early years of the war, the idea that Australia might be threatened were passed off as sensational and unfounded. The main aggressor, Germany, was on the other side of the world. And Japan was more interested in China than Alice Springs. But in 1941, everything changed.

With the attack against Pearl Harbor, Australia realised that its safety was threatened…probably. The Japs were never going to reach this far south! They’d be stopped at Singapore, and blasted into the sea! End of story. Roll over and go back to sleep.

Posters like this one from 1942 are believed to exaggerate the Japanese threat to Australia. However, they were probably closer to the truth than most people knew, or were willing to admit

However, the swiftness of Japanese advances struck terror into the hearts of Darwinians. Since 1937, Japan had taken Peking and Nanking. It had bombed Hawaii, invaded Shanghai, in less than a month, it had invaded and captured British Hong Kong. It invaded American possessions in the South Pacific, and was making sweeping advances down the Malay Peninsula.

In February, 1942, the island nation of Singapore, the “Gibraltar of the East”, Australia’s first, last, and only line of defense against Japanese aggression, collapsed and surrendered in just one week!

Suddenly, Darwin felt very exposed.

The Threat Against Darwin

To protect against Japanese aggression, Darwin was to be Australia’s first mainland line of defense. To this end, it had been equipped with anti-aircraft guns, an airbase with fighter-planes of the Royal Australian Air Force, and there was even a small naval-base run by the Royal Australian Navy. These were to be the two main fighting forces which would meet the Japanese threat if they ever came south to Australia.

With the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese advances through Southeast Asia being swift and brutal, Australia began to feel increasingly threatened. In the days and weeks after the Japanese December-1941 offensive in the South Pacific, the vast majority of Darwin’s civilian population had been evacuated, and the town’s already small population shrank from 5,800 in 1939, to just 2,000 people in 1942. Most of the 2,000 people were essential civilians, government and military officials, and servicemen. The majority of the women and children had been evacuated from town by railway, or else, had boarded specially-charted evacuation-ships, which would steam them south, to Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne, well out of harm’s way.

Darwin’s location at the top of Australia, its harbour, and its proximity to Japan made it a natural target for the Japanese. But as with many defense-plans in the South Pacific at this time, Darwin was not prepared for any kind of substantial and sustained attack.

British colonial bastions such as Hong Kong and Singapore had been overrun in days and weeks. The very might of the United States Navy had been challenged! What chance did a tiny, sparrow-fart town in the middle of nowhere have, against such a superior enemy?

Why the Japanese Attacked Darwin

If Darwin was such a tiny, insignificant town, with barely any armed forces or defenses to speak of, why did the Japanese see it as such a threat and target?

As with any real-estate…location, location, location.

Darwin’s location and its large harbour made it a natural base for the Allies. Any British, American or Australian forces in the area would surely gather there. They would use the harbour for their warships, and the flat ground around the town for its flak-guns and airforce bases. At the time, the Japanese wanted to destroy any and ALL competition in the area, no matter how large or small. Their next target, after China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya and the islands of the South Pacific, was the Dutch East Indies (what is today, Indonesia).

To take Indonesia without any opposition, the Japanese had to attack Darwin, to knock out any chance of the Allies to mount some sort of counterattack. And this is why Darwin became a target.

Darwin’s Defenses

Despite the threat against Darwin, the town’s defense was ridiculously small. Darwin Harbour had 45 ships, and the surrounding airfields had only 30 airplanes. Of the 45 vessels in Darwin Harbour, 21 were merchant-ships. Of the other 24 ships, five were destroyers (one of these was the U.S.S. Peary), and another ship was the U.S.S. Langley, a primitive vessel launched in 1912! This was the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft-carrier, a role into which it had been converted in the 1920s.

To protect against the threat of a Japanese air-attack, Darwin was more than capably defended by 18 anti-aircraft cannons, and a smattering of WWI-era Lewis-style machine-guns.

But they had hardly any ammunition between them. And hadn’t for weeks. As a result, the guns had never been fired, and the crews to operate the guns had never been trained!

On top of everything else, Darwin had almost no air-raid precautions. It had only one operational air-raid siren, barely any shelters, no radar, and barely any lookout posts.

At any rate, even if everything was working, they still wouldn’t have been able to mount any sort of serious defense. It was estimated that to defend Darwin effectively, the town would require at least three dozen anti-aircraft cannons or guns, and at least 250 aircraft.

Instead, it had barely twenty guns, and only thirty aircraft.

In the event of an enemy air-attack on Darwin, civilian aircraft-spotters on nearby Bathurst Island (namely the local priest, Father John McGrath), were to sight the aircraft, identify them, count their numbers, and then relay this information via radio, to the authorities in Darwin. Radio-operators in Darwin would then sound Red Danger over the air-raid sirens (the famous, classic high-low wail of an air-raid siren), signalling for the population to seek cover.

The warning would only give people a few minutes to duck and cover, but it gave them a fighting chance to seek shelter before the Japanese reached Darwin. At the sound of the sirens, the flak-cannons would be manned and loaded, and the aircraft on the ground would be readied for take-off, to engage the incoming enemy.

That was how it was supposed to happen.

The Darwin Raid: 19th February, 1942

Less than a week after the fall of Singapore, on the 15th of February, Australia was about to  find out how vulnerable it really was. With a flimsy northern defense, and nearly all its soldiers fighting in Africa or the Middle East, or captured in the South Pacific, and hardly any air-power and hardly two ships to race together, Australia was ripe for the taking.

On the 19th of February, Japanese aircraft carriers sailed south towards Australia. They parked themselves a few miles off the coast, and sent in over 200 fighter and bomber aircraft. 242, to be precise.

242 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Air Force, against just 30 aircraft belonging to the Royal Australian Air Force.

As the planes flew south towards Australia, they passed over Bathurst Island. Father McGrath, the mission priest on the island, spotted the aircraft, and radioed his warning to land-stations near Darwin, that a large concentration of aircraft were headed their way. Another aircraft-spotter on Melville Island also spotted the aircraft, and he too, sent a radio-warning to Darwin.

However, much like at Pearl Harbor, the authorities believed the aircraft to be returning American fighter-planes, which had been out on practice-runs and recon-missions. So, no heed was taken of these radio-warnings. The sirens remained silent and no guns were manned in preparation. Darwin was a sitting duck.

The First Raid

The first raid against Darwin was at 10:00am that morning. Even though the town had been warned well in advance by its aircraft spotters, no action was taken in the time between about 9:15, when the first radio-warning was sent out, and 10:00am, a period of forty-five minutes. Then, the bombs began to fall.

With no warning at all, the remaining civilian population of Darwin was bombed relentlessly by the Japanese. After the first explosions, the town’s single operational air-raid siren went off, sounding out the alarm, but it was already too late.

The ships in the harbour were bombed and strafed, and among the casualties were the U.S.S. Peary, which was hit, and sunk. It was just one of eight ships destroyed. In the town, bombs rained down, destroying vital structures as the docks (where 21 longshoremen were killed when the quays received a direct hit), and Government House. The Darwin Post Office was obliterated in a direct hit. The postmaster and his family, sheltering in the nearby air-raid shelter, were killed instantly.


The town post office after the raid

The anti-aircraft defenses of Darwin were woefully unprepared for the raid. For nearly all the soldiers there, this was the first time they’d fired any sort of gun at all! Most of the ground units had no rifles. And if they had rifles, they had no ammunition. And if they had ammunition, they had no training, so most of the shots went wild. Nevertheless, of the 188 aircraft that struck Darwin in the first raid of the day, seven were shot down by Allied flak-guns. A paltry number. The 188 planes in the first wave decimated much of the town, and destroyed the two airbases nearby, as well as wreaking havoc on the harbour and ships therein.

The Second Raid

At 10:40am, the first raid ended. But another one came at a few minutes before midday. This raid, consisting of the remaining 54 of the full force of 242 Japanese airplanes, attacked  the airbases  and town yet again, in a smaller raid lasting just 20 minutes.

At the end of the second raid, the All Clear sounded and the damage was examined. 23 of the 30 airplanes had been destroyed, and in all, 10 ships had been sunk, and another 25 were damaged. 320 people had been killed, either from drowning, burns or bombing, and another 400 people had been injured.

The Aftermath

The air-raids on Darwin were devastating on many levels. Although the majority of the population had been evacuated before the raids, poor preparations and management meant that even with a reduced population, the town suffered high casualty-rates and significant damage. Electrical power was cut, water and gas-mains destroyed and telecommunications disrupted.

The town post-office was blown to oblivion, along with the town postmaster and his family.

What followed after the raids was a complete breakdown of civil and military leadership. Soldiers raided empty houses, and evacuation-marches were bungled up. This last with the result that soldiers and airmen were scattered all over the Northern Territory with no definite rallying point.

The damage and disaster was on such a huge scale that for days, weeks, months, years and even decades after the bombings, the full extent of the catastrophe was hidden from the public.

A Dog Named Gunner

Out of the raids on Darwin came one remarkable story about a dog. An Australian Kelpie puppy called ‘Gunner’. Gunner’s claim to fame was being the canine radar for Allied military forces in the Darwin area during the Second World War.

Gunner possessed remarkably sharp hearing, and was able to detect the sound of incoming aircraft from miles away. Furthermore, he was able to differentiate between friendly Australian and American airplanes, and enemy airplanes flown by the Japanese, based on the sounds of their engines.

Gunner was injured during the raid on Darwin and was taken to the nearby hospital for treatment. The doctor on duty insisted that he couldn’t treat the dog without knowing its name, rank and serial-number! Gunner’s owner, Percy Westcott, fired off that the dog’s name and rank was that of Gunner, and that he held serial No. 0000 in the Royal Australian Air Force!

Gunner’s remarkable ability for accurately alerting ground-crews to incoming enemy attacks was soon noticed. And his success-rate at accurately picking up on enemy aircraft was so high that Westcott’s commanding officer gave him permission to operate a portable air-raid siren whenever Gunner started whining and whimpering, to alert his comrades of an incoming Japanese raid.

Gunner’s extremely sharp hearing meant that he was literally better than radar and on more than one occasion, accurately picked up on the presence of an incoming raid up to twenty minutes in advance, far outside the capabilities of radar-equipment at the time!

During the later stages of the war, Gunner’s owner, Westcott, was posted to Melbourne, and had to leave Gunner behind in Darwin. What happened to the dog remains unknown.

The Affect of the Raids

Australia had previously considered itself untouchable by the hand of war. The war was happening in Europe, anyway! And in Asia, the might of the British Empire would protect Australia from harm.

After these first raids, Australia realised its own vulnerability, and made moves towards securing its own defence. One of the most significant moves was to recall thousands of Australian troops (then fighting in the Middle East and Africa) back to their homeland, a decision made by prime minister John Curtin.

Curtin’s decision was a popular one…but only with Australians. He encountered fierce resistance from both the American and British governments, especially from Winston Churchill, who wanted to send the Australian troops to Burma to fight against the Japanese. However, Curtin was so worried about Australia’s position in the war that he insisted on overruling Churchill and to have the troops steamed home as soon as possible, something which did happen, after many lengthy exchanges through letters and telegrams.

Future Raids on Darwin

Darwin, along with other cities and town in northern Australia, were bombed repeatedly throughout the war during 1942-43. By the time the war ended, the Australian mainland had been hit by no fewer than 62 separate air-raids in the space of two years.

More Information?

Looking for more information? I strongly suggest watching the documentary: “The Bombing of Darwin: An Awkward Truth”, about the air-raids, and the cover-up which followed.

Anzacday.org website-entry.

 
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Tales of Robin Hood – The History Around an Outlaw

Whether or not Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw of English folklore ever really ever existed…is entirely up in the air. At best, Robin Hood can be said to be an amalgamation of a variety of actual outlaws from the period, at worse, he would be seen as the romanticised figure of the age. But while Robin Hood may not have been a real person, his world and everything about it, still fascinates us to this day. Just a few years back, we watched Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood”, in 2010. So, centuries after the time he lived, we remain enthralled with this fantastical figure who may never even have lived.

Robin Hood was an outlaw, who lived in Sherwood Forest in the English midlands county of Nottinghamshire. So famous is his legend that the flag of Nottinghamshire even has a picture of Hood on there! Hood was known as an archer, a swordsman, and as a crusader of sorts, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Here, we’ll look at the various parts of his legend and just how romantic and brave they really were.

Robin Hood: Outlaw at Large

Before Robin Hood was anything else, an archer, rider, horseman and all-round good-guy, he is most famously known as being an outlaw, living in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire. Gee, it must be nice, living in the midst of nature with your band of merry men and the Maid Marion, holding up stagecoaches, and giving money and food to the needy.

…Not really.

In Medieval times, being an outlaw was a real problem. To become an outlaw, you had to have committed a crime, of course. And if the prosecuting party (the king, the local sheriff or landlord) did not want you executed, he could simply declare you to be an outlaw. Or, in the Latin legalese: Caput Lupinum.

To be an outlaw meant that the law no-longer applied to you. You were literally ‘outside’ the law. You had no obligation to follow it. However, this also meant that the law had no obligation, thereafter, to protect you! Enter ‘Caput Lupinum‘.

It literally means ‘Head of the Wolf‘, or ‘Wolf’s Head’. To be branded a wolf’s head outlaw meant that, not only were you outside the law, and its protection, it also meant that you would forever be hunted…like a wolf. And, like a wolf, anyone who killed you, no matter how it was done, no matter where it was done, automatically received the king’s royal pardon. There was no price or penalty to be paid by anyone for the death of a wolf. Or an outlaw. They were considered scum, and anyone who successfully killed an outlaw was seen as doing the king (and his subjects) a favour.

Robin Hood: The Archer

In the days of Robin Hood, the main long-range weapon was the bow and arrow. Known since antiquity, bows and arrows were simple, but lethal weapons, able to bring death to its target from several yards away. Robin Hood was supposed to be an excellent archer, able to hit targets from impossible distances with remarkable accuracy.

But what was the reality of medieval archery?

To be an archer took great skill. Skill and experience gained over years of practice. It took skill to aim and shoot reliably. But it also took great strength. No weakling would be able to simply pick up a bow, load an arrow and fire it. Considerable arm-strength was required to force the bowstring back to produce the energy required to fire an arrow over dozens of yards, and hit with enough force to kill or at least injure your enemy, or quarry.

Before the age of firearms, archers were essential in any army. Able to stand well back from the field of battle and rain down volley after volley of lethal fire from above, from the relative safety of a hilltop, or behind a castle wall. Since archers were so important, in England, the practice of archery was made a law. Anyone desirous of becoming an archer had to train from the age of seven (co-incidentally, the same age that a boy training to be a knight, also had to start from!), to build up the speed, strength and accuracy required to reliably fire a bow and arrow. In villages and towns, archery-practice was mandatory; at least two hours a day, at least once a week. Usually, this was two hours on Sundays, since that was the one time that people in the community gathered together, for church. After religious services, the men would go out for target-practice every week.

Although bows came in several shapes and sizes, for a full-grown male, the weapon of choice was usually the military longbow. Made from the wood of the yew tree, the longbow was not named-so for nothing. Up to five or six feet high, a longbow was generally designed to fire an arrowshaft up to nearly three feet long!

The first book written in English, on the subject of the longbow, and on archery in general, was produced in the mid-1540s, by Roger Ascham (1515-1568). An educated man of letters, Ascham was a private tutor, and a university lecturer. He also happened to be Princess Elizabeth’s Latin tutor; so when he wrote his book, (titled “Toxophilus“), he dedicated it to King Henry VIII, Elizabeth’s father.

The Sheriff of Nottingham

We don’t generally associate sheriffs with England, do we? They’re something you find in the United States, along with their cohorts, the sheriff’s deputy. But the sheriff actually originates in England.

Originally, areas of land in England were governed by Ealdormen. Literally ‘Elder Man’ or ‘Older man’, meaning a man of age, and therefore, experience. These men were royal officials and were in charge of keeping law and order within their allotments of land. The position survives today in the word ‘alderman’.

Eventually, the alderman died out in that capacity, and his duties were taken over by another man: The Sheriff.

The original title was “Shire Reeve”. A shire is a stretch of land, synonymous with the word ‘County’. A shire reeve was the administrative official responsible for the preservation of law and order within that shire. Eventually, the two words were melted into the one word: “Sheriff”.

Much like a modern sheriff, the sheriff of Robin Hood’s day was responsible for the upholding of the law, such as the capture of outlaws like Robin Hood.