Chris Ballance

20 May 1948. First flight of the first production North American Aviation, Inc., P-86A-1-NA, Sabre (47-605).

The winter of late 1914/early 1915, and a candid shot of French soldiers eating their rations by a fire close to the Battle of the Marne. I have cleaned-up this fascinating Autochrome, which was taken in colour around 112 years ago by Jules Gervais-Courtellemont. It is particularly interesting as it shows the period of transition with the French uniform: from their traditional navy blue blazers & scarlet trousers, to their new cornflower blue coats. It was taken using an early colour glass-plate process and isn't colourised.

Life aboard HMS/M Taku (N 38). Lt. (E) R. S. Bailey, RN, Engineer Officer. Malta 04.02.43.

In Okinawa, coastal fishermen have acted upon coral reefs' decline, banding together to become coral farmers, much like planting trees to restore a damaged forest.

Le 20 mai 1927, il y a 99 ans jour pour jour, un pilote de 25 ans décolle de New York avec cinq sandwichs, un litre d'eau et aucune radio. Destination : Paris. Charles Lindbergh. Pilote de courrier aérien, ancien cascadeur, mécanicien obsessionnel. Il a convaincu une poignée d'hommes d'affaires de Saint-Louis de financer un avion sur mesure. Un monoplan monomoteur. Pas de parachute, pas de pilote automatique, pas de copilote. Juste un homme, un moteur et 1 700 litres d'essence. L'avion s'appelle le Spirit of St. Louis. Le cockpit est si étroit qu'il ne peut pas voir droit devant. Il navigue par les côtés, à la boussole et au calcul mental. Le décollage est un cauchemar. La piste est boueuse, l'appareil trop lourd. Il frôle les arbres et les fils électriques au bout de la piste. Puis c'est l'Atlantique. 6 300 kilomètres d'océan. Seul. La fatigue est le vrai ennemi. Il n'a pas dormi la nuit précédente. Au-dessus de l'océan, il lutte contre le sommeil en ouvrant la vitre pour que le vent glacé le gifle. Il s'endort et se réveille quand l'avion frôle les vagues. 33 heures et 30 minutes plus tard, il aperçoit les côtes irlandaises. Puis la Manche. Puis la Seine. Il la suit jusqu'à Paris. Au Bourget, plus de 100 000 personnes l'attendent dans la nuit. Treize jours plus tôt, les Français Nungesser et Coli avaient tenté la traversée dans l'autre sens. Ils ne sont jamais arrivés. Lindbergh se pose à 22 heures. La foule envahit la piste. La France est le premier pays à le toucher après l'Amérique. Il n'a mangé qu'un seul de ses cinq sandwichs. Au-dessus de la France.

Hunt class minesweeper HMS Widnes (J 55) Lt.Cdr. Robert Bruce Chandler, RN: Lost 20.05.41. Bombed & sunk by Ju 87 a/c off Cape Drepano in position 35.26.42N 24.12.24E. Subsequently raised, repaired & commissioned into the Kriegsmarine as UJ 2109. Sunk by Allied forces 10.43.

@CdrEricson I found this image of UJ2209. Given the German & Italian oil shortages, the coal fired 'Smoky Joes' might have been the ideal escort/anti-submarine vessel. But she didn't stand a chance agains British destroyers HMS Jervis and HMS Penn on 17 October 1943 off Kalymnos.

20 May 1664 Up and to my office, whither by and by comes Mr. Cholmely, and staying till the rest of the company come he told me how Mr. Edward Montagu is turned out of the Court, not [to] return again. His fault, I perceive, was his pride, and most of all his affecting to seem great with the Queene and it seems indeed had more of her eare than any body else, and would be with her talking alone two or three hours together; insomuch that the Lords about the King, when he would be jesting with them about their wives, would tell the King that he must have a care of his wife too, for she hath now the gallant: and they say the King himself did once ask Montagu how his mistress (meaning the Queene) did. He grew so proud, and despised every body, besides suffering nobody, he or she, to get or do any thing about the Queene, that they all laboured to do him a good turn. They also say that he did give some affront to the Duke of Monmouth, which the King himself did speak to him of. But strange it is that this man should, from the greatest negligence in the world, come to be the miracle of attendance, so as to take all offices from everybody, either men or women, about the Queene. Insomuch that he was observed as a miracle, but that which is the worst, that which in a wise manner performed [would] turn to his greatest advantage, was by being so observed employed to his greatest wrong, the world concluding that there must be something more than ordinary to cause him to do this. So he is gone, nobody pitying but laughing at him; and he pretends only that he is gone to his father, that is sick in the country…. spent some time walking, and putting care as much as I could out of my head, with my wife in the garden, and so home to supper and to bed. Edward Mountagu (Ned) 1635-1665. Son of the 2nd Baron Mountagu of Boughton and Master of the Horse to the Queen Mother. He is the first cousin twice removed of Sir Edward Mountagu, Lord Sandwich. Montagu monopolized the Queen’s attention with long private sessions (2–3 hours), seen as overreaching in the tightly controlled court. He grew arrogant, blocking everyone from serving her, which alienated the household and united them to secure his dismissal. Sam notes the irony: his sudden shift from negligence to obsessive diligence fueled suspicions of romantic impropriety. What could have been savvy career-building instead caused his downfall through gossip and envy. Gossip about a "gallant" risked making the King a laughingstock. “His fault, I perceive, was his pride” Like Icarus who flew too close to the sun, Edward Montagu’s proud overreach and obsessive intimacy with the Queen brought about his sudden and humiliating fall from court. Peter Paul Rubens, The Fall of Icarus (1636)

Summer Isles

@Fusoteitoku Torpedo from a USN PBY on 12 June 1942?

#日本海軍 1942年7月11日、大湊工作部にて仮艦首を取り付けた駆逐艦響

Gabrieli ci proietta nella maestosità del primo Seicento veneziano. Proprio a proposito di In ecclesiis, brano in ascolto, Bruno Maderna lo definì di «voluttà sonora». Una musica intensa, solenne, che però spesso tocca anche corde più intime. Buon ascolto! #20maggio #ascolto

🗓82 years ago, the Polish Home Army captured Hitler’s top-secret V2 rocket, the "Wunderwaffe.” After infiltrating the German V2 program at Peenemünde and helping expose it to the Allies, Polish resistance fighters achieved something even more unbelievable in occupied Poland. On 20 May 1944, a German V2 rocket launched from Blizna near Dębica failed to explode over its target zone near Sarnaki. Instead, it crashed intact into the muddy waters of the Bug River. Local villagers immediately alerted the Home Army. Before German recovery teams arrived, Polish resistance fighters secretly secured and camouflaged the site so effectively that the Germans found nothing. Days later, the rocket was recovered from the river and transported to a nearby barn, where Polish scientists and engineers dismantled it piece by piece. Among them were: • Prof. Janusz Groszkowski, who examined the rocket’s guidance system • Prof. Bogdan Struszyński, who analysed the fuel • Antoni Kocjan, pilot, engineer, and resistance operative who studied the aviation systems Their findings were compiled and smuggled to Britain aboard an RAF Dakota aircraft. Instead of delivering destruction, the V2 delivered intelligence that helped the Allies understand Germany’s most advanced weapon.

The Sherman Crab mine flail was so much more than a mine clearer. The spinning drum was equally at home wrecking barbed wire and, on Sword Beach on D-Day, Sgt Walter Smyth used it to destroy a German 75mm AT gun. 🎥 IWM A70 5-2, A70 85-3, A70 5-1 & A70 14-8

86 years ago Today, Igor Sikorsky demonstrated his helicopter invention to the public.

@CdrEricson This a great photo of HMS/M Taku (N 38)! She had a long war carrier. It's amazing that she surrived hitting a mine as at 220 ft as she attemped to passed under the Skagerrak mine barrier on 13 April 1944. uboat.net/allies/warship…

T (1st Group) class submarine HMS/M Taku (N 38): Launched at Cammell Laird Shipyard Birkenhead, England 20.05.39. Departing from Beirut for Malta in January’43.

As the Apollo 11 vehicle was rolling to the launch pad in Florida OTD in 1969, across the country in the California desert NASA test pilot Bill Dana (right) was flying the wingless HL-10 lifting body (left). NASA's lifting body program paved the way for the space shuttle by showing that a wingless craft could glide to a landing like an airplane.

In 1988 McDonnell Douglas added pitch vectoring/reversing nozzles and canards to its demo F-15 STOL/MTD to test landing from wet, bomb damaged runways. It rotated at 42mph, reduced takeoff roll 25%, landed in 1,650ft vs 7,500 for a standard Eagle, and reversed thrust in flight.

Swedish warship Vasa sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea in 1628. In 1961 it was salvaged and the wood was still strong enough to be able to walk the decks. Today is the world's best-preserved XVII century ship.