Today’s Poster follows on from yesterday’s, also featuring a symbolic nearly Hawker Hurricane. This poster is even more unusual, and somewhat enigmatic. It’s printed in Britain (‘Nott’m’ – Nottingham in fact) and is clear enough in its aim, as the catalogue notes state it reads ‘On to Japan!’, written in Arabic. Going beyond the obvious…
Tag: Xenophobia
Hell Dogs Over England
In the current (September 2019) issue of Aeroplane Monthly, here, artist Ian Bott and I have out latest ‘Briefing File’ feature on the defences against the V-1 bomb in 1944. While researching the history, it became evident that the comfort of hindsight has stripped away the fact that at the time, no-one really knew what…
WAAF in Hebrew
Here’s a remarkable item, a 9 x 21 cm recruitment brochure for the British Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) of the Second World War in Hebrew, aimed at a Jewish audience. Found on e-Bay, and passed onto me by Kiran Toor, the sales details give the background: “The Yishuv [Jewish community in the land of…
Frights in Finland
Today’s posters from Finland are rather eerie civil defence ones from World War Two. In Suomi, it reads: “Ilmasta uhkaa vaara! Kaikki kansalaiset väestönsuojelutyöhön!” or “Danger Threatens from the sky! Take Air Raid Precautions”. The figure is obviously intended to seem protective, sheltering a blue clad family from the bomber aircraft that looks somewhat like…
RAAF Roundel – Red Gone
In recognition of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) History & Heritage Symposium this week, let’s take a look at two aspects of the RAAF roundel. Originally the RAAF’s roundel design was based on the British Royal Air Force’s, itself a derivative of the French air arm’s roundel, featuring red white and blue. The red…
Soviet Glory
Today’s Poster by V. Solovyov, ‘Glory to Soviet Aviation!’ is the title in English. Ranks of Soviet bombers (top Myasishchev M-4 ‘Bisons’, with, possibly the Ilyushin Il-30 or Ilyushin Il-54 in the middle – neither type going beyond prototypes) with escorting Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG 15 or 17 fighters soaring to the heavens, you can almost hear…
Posters of Interesting Times
Today’s Posters are a set of Chinese aviation instructional posters, an to western eyes, a very different mix of style, content and approach to anything we’ve seen here before. This one below of ‘Active Air Defences’, with the Smithsonian’s source detail here. Is it meant as a ‘how to behave?’, or ‘how you are being…
It’s an Air France World
Today’s Poster. When an airline ‘owned’ the world. Today we are used to a diversity of airlines and cheaper carriers, so it’s easy to forget where each nation basically had one, national flag carrier. Here it’s Air France, by Lucien Boucher. As you’d expect, this brings not just their routes (almost an afterthought) but their…
Paper Tigers
Today’s Poster is often listed online as ‘Defend Singapore’. It’s apparently a British Empire issued poster, with Chinese text (and no English in the main message). According to the details on the bottom margin, it was designed and printed in Singapore. In the 1930s, Singapore, a British possession, part of the Straits Settlement, had a…
Denouncing to the Point
Today’s Poster. A reproduction, found in a charity shop, of a North Vietnamese anti-American propaganda poster. From Dr Peter Hobbins on Twitter: “Another airpower image for you, @JDKightly – a Vietnamese reproduction poster found in an op shop… Feel free to RT!” Very simplistic artwork, almost more like a design brief to western eyes, although…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 