History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days. ~Winston Churchill

27 March, 2011

Up in the Air, 1915

Today's photos don't actually feature people, but I feel these photographs bring one closer to the experience of being a pilot in the First World War than anything else could, and I find that experience fascinating. Half are from the National Library of Scotland's collections, while the others come from the Dutch National Archive [many thanks to the Flickr Commons for introducing us!]. I get quite a lot of feeling from these photographs, and I hope my readers will too.




A surveillance flight over the German lines. Source




And again. Source



Third in that series [I'm sure these were all the same flight]. Source

Biplane stuck in a tree, 1915. This photograph emphasizes how delicate these early planes were, almost kites! You can see the pilot getting out of the cockpit and another man climbing up to help him. Source


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