Hauksbee

Jaysus! My understanding of French pronunciation is worse than I thought. But if you're sure, Jim, then 'Ber-tong' it is.

Tonight while watching "Aces of the Western Front" on YouTube (Part 2 of 4) I ran into these screenies of MvR. In the book Jim Miller recommended ("The Red Baron's Last Flight"), the authors point out that both von Richtofen and Roy Brown had similar leadership styles. In both cases, they would lead their squadrons into the fight, then climb above to watch its development. That's how Brown could see Wilfred May get into trouble. It's how von Richtofen saw his cousin Wolfram be set upon by May. Part of the Red Baron's legend is that, upon return to base, he could tell each pilot where he was in the fight and what he had done right, or wrong. The authors disclosed that von Richtofen carried a pair of small binoculars around his neck in order to do this. And sure enough, in these two shots, there they are. .

Basically, we just miss the old place. There was an atmosphere here that just didn't carry over to SimHQ

The "Fauntleroy Effect" lingered on in America in the person of "Buster Brown", a comic book character who was licensed to many different products, (including bread) the most widely known of which was "Buster Brown Shoes". By the time I was born, Buster Brown was coming to the end of his popularity (b.1938) and by the time I was watching kid's television (early '50's) he existed only as a logo for the shoe company. At the end of each commercial there would be an animated tag-line with a head-and-shoulders Buster and dog saying, "Hi! I'm Buster Brown. I live in a shoe! That's my dog, Tige (teeg), he lives there too!" Knowing nothing of his former popularity, I remember being repelled by this strange girl/boy with the buggy, staring eyes, odd clothes and a dog with a shark-like mouthful of teeth...like in the ad at far right when the company was trying to modernize their image. . Wikipedia: . Buster Brown was a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard F. Outcault. Adopted as the mascot of the Brown Shoe Company in 1904, Buster Brown, his sweetheart Mary Jane, and his dog Tige, an American Pit Bull Terrier, were well-known to the American public in the early 20th century. The character's name was also used to describe a popular style of suit for young boys, the Buster Brown suit, that echoed his own outfit. The name "Buster" came directly or indirectly from the popularity of Buster Keaton, then a child actor in vaudeville. .

Ahh, clever Japanese.

Thus, for a United Europe, there should be an across-the-board return to using Latin.

I understand using the Chrysanthemum, it being the Imperial symbol. But I would expect the Japanese would favor the Cherry Blossom which symbolizes the brevity and fragility of life.

We can't see what else he's wearing in this pic., but chances are good that it was some version of the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" costume popularised by Frances Burnett in her book of the same name. It was a rags-to-riches story (also very popular at the time) about a little boy living in genteel poverty with his mother in New York. One day they are visited by an English lawyer who informs them that he is now heir to a vast fortune, but that his curmudgeonly grandfather wants him to live with him in England and be properly educated there. The grandfather intends to raise the boy in his own mean-spirited image, but the boy's sunny nature and passion for decency and fair play ends up converting the old man. The book was wildly popular. Frances Burnett was the J.K.Rowling of her day, and Fauntleroy her Harry Potter. From Wikipedia: Little Lord Fauntleroy is the first children's novel written by English playwright and author Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was originally published as a serial in the St. Nicholas Magazine between November 1885 and October 1886, then as a book by Scribner's in 1886 The Fauntleroy suit, so well-described by Burnett and realised in Reginald Birch's detailed pen-and-ink drawings, created a fad for formal dress for American middle-class children: "What the Earl saw was a graceful, childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with lovelocks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship." (Little Lord Fauntleroy) The Fauntleroy suit appeared in Europe as well, but nowhere was it as popular as in America. The classic Fauntleroy suit was a velvet cut-away jacket and matching knee pants worn with a fancy blouse with a large lace or ruffled collar. These suits appear right after the publication of Mrs. Burnett's story (1885) and were a major fashion until after the turn of the 20th century. Many boys who did not wear an actual Fauntleroy suit wore suits with Fauntleroy elements such as a fancy blouse or floppy bow. Only a minority of boys wore ringlet curls with these suits, but the photographic record confirms that many boys did. It was most popular for boys about 3–8 years of age, but some older boys wore them as well. It has been speculated that the popularity of the style encouraged many mothers to breech their boys earlier than before and was a factor in the decline of the fashion of dressing small boys in dresses and other skirted garments. Clothing Burnett popularised was modeled on the costumes she tailored herself for her two sons, Vivian and Lionel. . . Below: My Dad, (b. 1911, Goffstown, New Hampshire) Not quite the full black-velvet treatment, but I think I see the influences. .

Both these films show the Mosquito as being at the mercy of fighters. (very often Me-108's standing in for 109's.)

I was struck by the comment that the Mossie had a bomb load 'comparable' to the B-17. Checking on this, I found that the B-17 could carry 4, 800 lbs.. The Mossie: 4,000. Impressive.

There y' go!

Thanks, guys, for the explanation(s). Over here we'd call the 'racist smear'='racist graffitti'. The Poppy Installation at the Tower of London is particularly impressive. I recall when I was young, we used to celebrate "Armistice Day" on Nov.11. Veteran groups would have guys on every street corner selling red paper poppies to raise money, and everyone would being wearing one in their lapel button hole. People would look at you oddly if you didn't have one. Now, Armistice Day has become Veteran's Day (remembering all our wars) and nobody sells poppies any more. More's the pity. When I watched Olham's video, at first I thought I was seeing those old paper poppies, no doubt delivered by the truck-load and dumped around the tower. But at the end of the video, where it defaults to a YouTube selection of similar vids, there was one on the making of that installation. It turns out that each poppy was not a little paper one, but a life-sized flower done in ceramic, mounted on a metal rod and carefully pressed into position by hundreds and hundreds of people. Suddenly the statement got much bigger and deeper. It was a very powerful way, not only to remember the dead, but to get your mind around the enormity of the number. On occasion, a similar tribute is created on battlefields of the American Civil War, with votive candles in paper bags. Particularly on fields where the butcher's bill was especially high: Antietam, Shiloh, and Gettysburg. Seeing these, one wonders how anyone could will himself to go forward across such withering fields of fire. But they did. .

I don't understand this line. What could be racist about poppies? What's a smear? (a slur?)

Looks like Errol Flynn to me.

Try flying with a Unit Insignia like this these days! .

OK. Got it. Thanks.

Agreed. Fanatical, "true believer" types are often prickly because so few come up to their exalted standards. Jim: Thanks for the run-down. I guess he wasn't as bullet-proof as I had thought. I'll have to read his accounts someday

I am very much out of my depth here, but how can you play WOFF in FSX?

Speaking of Rudel, (I've not read his biography) how did he stay alive flying Stukas? I thought that from the Battle of Britain onward, flying a Stuka was a death sentence. . (Another "Cliffs of Dover" screenie...

Agreed. It's not the end of the world; just a bit of a shock that this new reality is now on our horizon.

The 109 set the bar very high in the Spanish Civil War. It was a sharp 'wake-up call' to aircraft designers of other nations...as was the Zero fighter in the Pacific. Both gave the rest of the world target goals to shoot for, and, in life, nobody can lead the pack forever. What came as a big surprise to me was the P-40 in the hands of the British. We considered it out of date and handed over hundreds and hundreds of them to England. In the Pacific, Chennault defeated the 'turn and burn' tactics of the Zero with 'boom and zoom'. But in North Africa, the British started out using the P-40 as a ground attack fighter. They quickly discovered that it could go toe-to-toe with the Me-109's and continued to do so well into 1943 when, at last, it started to show its age.

...a digital Götterdämmerung.

I find it odd that the bulk of French knighthood (who are inextricably tied to horses) elected to fight dismounted. Widowmaker: I recall that you have a son who took up jousting. Has that association given you any insights into their reasons?

Allright! The Historian Comes In From The Cold. By the way, Jim, my copy of "The Red Baron's Last Flight" arrived. As you promised, a great book. I've barely scratched the surface, but was pleasantly astounded by the maps. They alone put the whole incident in much better perspective. .