Ian Kikuchi
@curatorian
Historian & curator at the Imperial War Museum in the UK - history of war, conflict and IWM collections, with digressions into #judo and #videogames. 日本語を勉強している。Posts are personal views.
Clearly anticipating #SharkAwarenessDay by decades, this Second World War poster designed by the great Abram Games warns ex-servicemen to avoid scammers who might seek to prey on their gratuity payments. Poster: IWM PST 2980 / www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
Struck by how relatively lightly armed the early destroyers seem, especially when compared to later types - just three guns and two tubes.
A US M1A1 carbine, modified with a German ZF41 telescope, presented to British Major General Sir Colin Gubbins of the Special Operations Executive on behalf of the Norwegian Resistance 'as a sign of appreciation and thanks for what he did for Norway during the war'. 🇬🇧🇳🇴 Pic: IWM FIR 6251
If I had fewer qualms about messing around with an artist's work I'd be inserting Binface in genrō Marquis Saionji Kinmochi's place in this Orpen painting, on the far right.
John Major also came back from the Gulf War with an ex-Iraqi Army AKM, now in the Imperial War Museum.
The RAF's Typhoon screams past. Despite *knowing* how loud jets are, the sheer sky-ripping noise of them (not really captured here) is always amazing.
A Lim-5, a Polish-built variant of the Soviet MiG-17, screaming past with its afterburner blazing.
Sally B cruising past, with simulated smoke pouring from her engines. Always so difficult to imagine hundreds of these aircraft forming up for raids on Germany and occupied Europe.
In flight over the India-Burma border, crew of a Royal Air Force Sunderland flying boat enjoy cups of tea and biscuits. In northern Burma, Indawgyi Lake comes into view, where the crew will rescue wounded troops of 111th Indian Infantry Brigade, part of the 'Chindit' raiding force. #AvHist #SWW #WW2
Join cameraman Wallie Hewitson aboard a Sunderland flying boat taking off from the Brahmaputra River in India, June 1944. The mission is to rescue British troops wounded while fighting behind enemy lines in Japanese-occupied Burma. #filmcataloguing Film: IWM MWY 25 / www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
Reminded - by a brill presentation by a colleague - of this piece of film. Shot by a Royal Air Force cameraman at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in 1945, it captures a majestic fly past and landing by a Sunderland flying boat #filmcataloguing Film: IWM ABY 139 / www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...
This is absolutely marvellous. I'm sure they'll take appropriate conservation advice on this point, too - wouldn't be wise for a book to stay open on one page for a very long time.
Bloody Somali refugees, coming over here, winning gold medals with a Union flag on their chest....
Isn't it striking how, even though battle maps turn brutal combat violence into abstractions, this map of Pickett's Charge still looks absolutely horrendous. (Acknowledgment here to Hal Jespersen, who made this map)
Was amused to learn - from a friend who gave me the cap - that the sporting motto of Gettysburg College is Go Bullets. And not, as I suggested 'Fuck you George Pickett'.
Also reading this. Interesting so far but am intensely irritated that this new edition has cut all the chapter notes and endnotes and hived them off to the author's website. Very annoying.