Oh My Lover, The Chiffons (1963)
“Throughout rock and roll history, vocal groups have spent entire careers in search of hit bound melodies and captivating lyrics. In the reverse of that equation, the Chiffons garnered their greatest success because a hit song was in search of a group.” That song was not it. Their cover of Tonight’s The Night was.
Sound or acoustic mirrors were one of the first early warning detection systems invented to give advanced notice of an approaching enemy aircraft. These worked by focusing the sound from the plane’s engine so it could be heard before it was visible.
Sound mirrors worked using a curved surface to concentrate sound waves into a central point, which were picked up by a sound collector and later by microphones. An operator using a stethoscope would be stationed near the sound mirror, and would need specialist training in identifying different sounds. Distinguishing the complexity of sound was so difficult that the operators could only listen for around 40 minutes.
At right: Baron Manfred Freiherr Von Richthofen sits in the cockpit of his Albatros fighter for a photograph with his squadron, Jagdstaffel III. Richthofen was credited with downing 80 Allied aircraft before being shot down over the Somme, Northern France, during what was known by pilots on both sides as ‘Bloody’ April, 1917. Manfred’s brother, Lothar, is seated at front (fur collar).
At left:
Album cover art from 1969, with silhouette of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster and a bit of proto-photoshopoopage.
The Fokker D.VII is the only aircraft mentioned by name in the Armistice demands of November, 1918. Germany was ordered to surrender “1,700 airplanes (fighters, bombers – firstly, all of the D 7’S and all the night bombing machines)” (number of aircraft to surrender are not always the same).
In the end, not all D.VII’s were handed over. Some were flown back to Germany by their pilots and hidden in sheds. From the ones that were flown to the collection points of the Inter-Allied Control Commission, some were wrecked during landings or taxiing. After the war, some were sold abroad. Anthony Fokker flew from Germany and smuggled six trains with sixty wagons each full of aeroplanes and tools to Holland. Among these were 120 D.VII’s.
Graphical Record of the End of the War. Gunfire was ongoing up until the last minute before 11am 11 November 1918.
1 November 1918
On the Front
Mom and Dad:
“Soldier Bill” in souvenir German uniform, France 1918
Well a few lines. I received two letters from you last evening, and they made an excellent way for me to spend “Halloween.” Reading and rereading them.
A new drive started last night. The fellows called the start, “Holly even”, the Kaiser. Some noise. I suppose our kids tore off the usual stunts didn’t they.
The Star Spangled Banner, The Diamond Four (ca. 1898) Berliner 4258, 7-inch 70 rpm record found here. Under the Berliner Gramophone trademark, German inventor and audio recording pioneer Emile Berliner began marketing 7-inch diameter disc records in the United States in 1894. The Diamond Four recorded several other songs for Berliner.
Stars And Stripes Forever, Kendle’s First Regiment Band (1901)Possibly the first recording of John Philip Sousa‘s “The Stars And Stripes Forever March.” Sousa wrote in his autobiography that he composed the march on Christmas Day, 1896, while crossing the Atlantic, after he learned of the death of his band’s manager. In 1987 an Act of Congress declared the song to be the Official National March of the United States of America.
Also known as (I’m A) Yankee Doodle Dandy, the melody goes back to folk songs of Medieval Europe. The earliest words of Yankee Doodle came from a Middle Dutch harvest song of the same tune, possibly dating back as early as 15th-century Holland. It contained mostly nonsensical words in English and Dutch.
In 1978 Yankee Doodle was adopted as the Official Song of the State of Connecticut.
The sign on the front of the truck reads, “The Kaiser’s Funeral.”
26 September 1918
“We are in a camp near Auzeville and the big drive is to start. In fact the one that finished the ‘Boches’. Then the morning of the 26th dawned but dawn was preceded by a terrific barrage which was as loud as thunder and lighted up the whole skyline for miles. We were not flying ours but were held in reserve. Hundreds of “planes” were now flying over head. One bunch had over 150 in it.
Along about 8 a.m., along comes a boche plane and he burned three of the balloons all observers landed safe but one and his parachute burned and he fell to his death.
A fellow by the name of Barnett and I started out to see the fun. Put our guns on and started for the front line trenches which were about 5 miles north. After a short while we hit the trenches but of course our boys had advanced and were chasing the boche for a fare you well. We hit several mine craters where the boche had mined the roads but already our engineers had started to budge them. After another hour’s walk and dodging a few pieces of shrapnel we hit the town of Varennes and were keen for souvenirs. The boche were still in one side of the Varennes and we were in the other.
Machine guns were crackling with a steady roar and long streams of ambulances carrying away the wounded. Dead Boche were laying every where. The roads were filled with them. Long about then a Boche 77 took my ….. but never touched us. Then we started going through the dugouts and it was there that I got the general’s helmet. Also was almost lucky enough to capture a Jerry but a doughboy beat me to it. He was hiding in a dug out. Looked like he wasn’t as old as “Bugs” and he was scared almost to death.
After monkeying around a while we hopped an ambulance and rode back toward Auzeville. So that finished the day’s fun. But you ought to have seen the dead Huns. Some had legs blown off. Some had their heads and shoulders off and some were in pieces only. A great many had been burned by mustard gas and were burned to a crisp.”
[The] catapult was installed on board the U.S.S. North Carolina during the late summer of 1915. The first test was made with a plane which carried no pilot, with the controls lashed in flying position. The experiment was successful so far as the catapult was concerned, although the plane stalled at the end of the track and spun into the water. This was sufficient proof for Lieutenant Commander Mustin, commandant of the station, and he ordered the second plane aboard to be prepared for a catapult shot. Climbing in and warming up the engine he flew the first plane off a catapult mounted on a ship. After several live shots, the next attempt was to catapult a plane while the ship was definitely under way. Lieutenant A. A. Cunningham, U.S. Marine Corps, was selected for this experiment. This shot, however, failed and the plane struck the water with one wing and turned over. Fortunately, the pilot swam out from under and was picked up by a boat.
– A Curtiss HS-2L at U.S. Naval Air Station Halifax, circa 1918. Crates containing the first two HS-2L flying boats arrived at the station on 17 August 1918. The first aircraft was assembled and successfully test flown two days later.
The second-oldest military airfield in Canada, the Shearwater air station at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has been home to Canada’s naval or RCAF maritime air squadrons since its inception in 1918.
Tacky Raccoons 