Chapter 7 Empire Air Day: aerial theatre and airmindedness

Aerial theatre before Empire Air Day

Aerial theatre occupied an important place in the popular civic ritual of the interwar period and was key in promoting airmindedness among the British public. Air races such as the King’s Cup and the Schneider Trophy drew vast audiences, while huge crowds welcomed back pioneer aviators such as Sir Alan Cobham and Amy Johnson from their respective flights to Australia in 1926 and 1930. A range of local civil aerial pageants and displays were also held across Britain throughout the interwar years, often attracting thousands of spectators.⁸

The Air League itself had a long-standing interest in spectacle, pageantry and aerial theatre. In 1910, little more than a year after its inception, the league organised popular flying exhibitions at the Crystal Palace with the aviation pioneer Claude Grahame-White.⁹ While aviation was in its infancy prior to the First World War, Air League officials reflected that it was ‘only by ocular demonstration in the shape of flying meetings, popular lectures, theatrical shows, and such practical methods that public interest [in aviation] will be aroused’.¹⁰ After 1918, the league lobbied for an air day at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and later considered staging an ‘International Civil Air Week’.¹¹ It also discussed a number of schemes with Sir Alan Cobham who approached the league with a proposal for a ‘National Aviation Day Tour’. Writing to the league, Cobham stated that he ‘particularly wished to have the Air League associated with the undertaking’ as it would give it ‘an opportunity of getting in touch with the people’ and aid the organisation in its ‘general propaganda work’.¹² The tour ran from 1932 to 1935 and included flying demonstrations, aerobatics, parachute displays and the opportunity for members of the public to fly. The league offered little in the way of practical assistance, yet it was represented at both Cobham’s tour and at the British Hospitals’ Air Pageants Tour, which staged displays in towns and cities throughout Britain in the early 1930s.¹³

Prior to EAD, the largest and most influential form of aerial theatre was the Hendon Air Display that ran from 1920 to 1937. Held at Hendon aerodrome in north London, the annual display ‘turned the progress of British military aviation into a yearly ritual, and drew attention to one of the main justifications of an independent air force’.¹⁴ Hendon was highly politicised, distinctly militaristic and often ‘war-like’.¹⁵ Spectators witnessed formation flying, races, aerobatics, aerial combat, simulated aerial bombardments and even aeroplanes ‘swoop[ing] down upon hordes of many-coloured “Wot Knotts” … blowing everything up with terrific bangs’.¹⁶ Hendon has traditionally been interpreted as a ‘manifestation of popular imperialism’ and the imperial aspects of Hendon were certainly apparent, and objectionable, to many contemporaries.¹⁷ For instance, the anti-war Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom sent a telegram to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and Secretary of State for Air Lord Swinton urging the withdrawal of displays depicting the ‘Bombing of Natives’.¹⁸ However, as Holman has shown, while ‘nakedly imperialistic visual rhetoric’ was a feature of proceedings, only four out of sixteen set-pieces were staged in imperial contexts. Hendon was not, therefore, ‘primarily a vehicle for imperial propaganda’.¹⁹ Instead, most displays were set in industrial, and more distinctly European, settings. Like EAD, Hendon was thus a cultural projection of the warfare state and a way of underlining the RAF’s ability to wage wars independently of the Army and the Royal Navy.²⁰

The militaristic nature of Hendon was evident to numerous observers, with many expressing concern over the ‘abominable militarism’ of the event and the ‘martial impulses’ the display elicited in children.²¹ Accordingly, bodies such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the National Council for the Prevention of War and the PPU publicly objected to the presence of schoolchildren at rehearsals featuring bombing displays, while LNU members and branches shared such concerns privately.²² Alongside anti-war, pacifist and liberal internationalist organisations, individuals such as J.M. Kenworthy felt that Hendon constituted a ‘deliberate attempt’ to ‘familiarise the minds of school-children with the idea of war’.²³ An article in the LNU’s journal Headway seemingly confirmed such fears. Detailing one child’s response to the display, ‘ Oh, Daddy, can I join the Air Force? And please when can there be a war?’, the article declared: ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes justification of those who praise Hendon as a recruiting agency; and of those also who damn it as the supreme glorification of war’.²⁴ Beyond creating martial impulses in children, the ILP expressed concerns that Hendon was an ‘attempt to create a war-minded people’ more broadly, while the London Council for the Prevention of War described the display as a ‘glorification of war in its most modern and deadly form’.²⁵

Despite such opposition, others conversely suggested that audiences understood, and approved of, the militaristic and patriotic symbolism of Hendon. As The Aeroplane noted, ‘Judging by the vast crowds gathered to see a purely warlike Display without any civil interest in it whatever … there is still some difficulty in believing that we are a Pacifist … Nation.’²⁶ Another correspondent in the same journal similarly declared that despite the ‘soothing influence of Communist schoolteachers, children still love to see things blown up and burn’.²⁷ Hendon was well attended. The first display attracted 40,000 spectators, while attendance figures reached 195,000 for the final display in 1937.²⁸ However, following the success of the first EAD in 1934, the Air Ministry recommended that the day ‘be accepted as an annual institution and that it should be developed with a view to ultimately replacing the Hendon Display’. The Air Ministry thought that the greatest advantage of this was that ‘it enables the public from a wide area to come and see the Air Force instead of confining the occasion practically to the south-east of England’ and that ‘Empire Air Day also provides an opportunity of a more intimate and more informal inspection of Royal Air Force activities’.²⁹

‘At home’ with the RAF

EAD was based on a proposal from October 1933 by Chamier to Sir Edward Ellington, chief of the Air Staff from 1933 to 1937. Such an initiative, Chamier argued, would help to ‘get the public inside aviation’ and allow them to see ‘how the R.A.F. lives and works’.³⁰ The idea was ‘not to keep the public behind fences but to let them roam about like they do on board the battleships’.³¹ The Air Ministry agreed that the ‘object of R.A.F. participation in Empire Air Day’ should be ‘to afford some opportunity to the public of seeing the normal life and working conditions at R.A.F. stations’.³²

Designed to be an ‘at home’ day, The Times warned audiences that they ‘must not expect flying displays or any spectacular variation of the normal duties’. However, aerodromes hosted a variety of activities on EAD: dive bombing, formation flying, blind flying, aerobatics, artillery observation, defence tactics, air combats between bombers and fighters, attacks on towed targets and machine-gun attacks on ground targets.³³ While such activities were considered to come under the ‘normal programme of training’, they were nevertheless often visually spectacular.³⁴ Furthermore, there was confusion within many aerodromes about the form and nature of programmes staged on EAD, with one official noting that ‘the temptation to introduce items of a sensational character into their flying programmes is a very strong one for some unit commanders’.³⁵ In 1937, an Air Ministry memorandum stressed that the displays were supposed to fall ‘within the scope of training’ whereas exhibitions of ‘ “crazy” flying are not to be given’.³⁶ However, as an earlier Air Ministry memorandum conceded, ‘the term “normal training” … is elastic’.³⁷

While EAD aimed to provide an insight into both civil and military aspects of British aviation, it was the military side of flying that seemingly provided the greatest attraction. Interestingly, given the Air League’s wider activities, Chamier privately expressed misgivings about the form that EAD had taken by 1939. He felt that ‘the idea of an “At Home” [day] had rather been lost and the day was in danger of becoming a series of miniature “Hendons”’.³⁸ Chamier also articulated such sentiments publicly, writing that he regretted ‘more than anything else the complete militarisation of an event designed to embrace all aviation’ and desired ‘less pageantry’ from EAD.³⁹ Of course, as Adey remarks, while displays were ‘themed on the idea of being “at home” and opening up local RAF stations to their communities, their ambitions composed a far more extensive sphere of influence … the airshows aimed to stimulate interest in British aviation and its capabilities as a strategic and global force.’⁴⁰

The civil aspects of EAD were undoubtedly overwhelmed in later displays. In 1934, civil aerodromes comprised over a third of the aerodromes open on EAD; by 1939, of the seventy-eight aerodromes taking part, only four were ‘purely civil aerodromes’.⁴¹ Many of the events at civil aerodromes also merely reflected those at RAF aerodromes – mock battles, formation flying, bombing set pieces, aerobatics and so on – causing Chamier to lament that ‘[m]ost of the civil aerodromes seem to have been overawed by the magnitude and magnificence of the military air pageants and to have felt themselves unable to participate in the scheme – no doubt fearing that their own small shows would bring them into contempt’.⁴²

Like Hendon, EAD was not devoid of ideological or propagandistic content. The Air League made extensive use of public ritual and aerial theatre to legitimate its aims and objectives, to disseminate its message to the widest possible audience and to put the air force and the nation on a public stage.⁴³ The Air Ministry equally saw the propagandistic value of the displays. As EAD coincided with RAF expansion from 1934, the display provided a platform for the Air Ministry to project its increasing strength and modernity.⁴⁴ In many respects, EAD illustrates the increasingly harmonious relationship that existed between the Air League and the Air Ministry. The Air League required Air Ministry permission to use RAF aerodromes, with J.M. Spaight, then principal assistant secretary of the Air Ministry, dealing with the risks and necessary insurance behind the displays.⁴⁵ Prominent figures from the Air Ministry contributed to programmes, attended displays and, as we shall see, provided ringing endorsements of EAD. Although the Air League suffered from a lack of funding throughout the period, proceeds from EAD were donated to the RAF Benevolent Fund. After only two displays, Air Review claimed that the funds generated by EAD equalled two-thirds of the proceeds raised by all Hendon displays over a seventeen-year period.⁴⁶ By 1939, the figure raised by EAD was estimated to be over £35,000.⁴⁷

Alongside the substantial funds raised by EAD, the annual event served as an important recruitment tool for the RAF and many were reported to have joined the service as a direct result of the display. Two days prior to EAD in 1935, the Air Ministry announced a large-scale recruitment scheme with Londonderry appealing to ‘the youth of the nation to join the Royal Air Force’.⁴⁸ Recruitment efforts accordingly featured heavily in press coverage of the display that year. The Manchester Guardian described ‘a long queue of young men … asking for particulars of entry into the Air Force’ and a ‘rush of would-be recruits for the Royal Air Force’.⁴⁹ The Daily Mirror similarly suggested that young men ‘wanted to see what service life really was like, to examine the machine and apparatus and surroundings among which they would live before entering on a new career in the air’. The newspaper noted that EAD ‘gave them that opportunity, and for many of them the decision was made on the aerodromes there and then’.⁵⁰

Airmindedness and the militarisation of British youth

Attendance figures on EAD testify to the popularity of the display and were indicative of the airmindedness of many within British society. This is especially so as many aerodromes were difficult to get to and three of the six displays had particularly bad weather.⁵¹ This is important to note: poor weather meant that flying programmes could be curtailed or, in some cases, completely abandoned.⁵² Attendance (as measured by ticket sales) in 1934 was around 137,000; in 1935 it was 200,000; in 1936 it was 214,500; in 1937 it was 353,000; by 1938 figures had reached 500,000 and, by 1939, over one million people across Britain attended EAD.⁵³ Even if spectators went more than once, this figure of nearly 2.5 million across six displays is remarkable.

One would perhaps expect increasing international tension in the 1930s to limit enthusiasm for EAD. In fact, the creation of the Luftwaffe, the use of chemical weapons by aeroplanes in the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, the intensive aerial bombardment of Madrid, Guernica and other areas in the Spanish Civil War, and the increasing likelihood of another war following the Munich Conference in 1938 did little to deter visitors from EAD.⁵⁴ Attendance numbers thus confirm Helen McCarthy’s assertion that the ‘popular culture of militarism … remained an important presence in Britain despite the ravages of war … the new peace-mindedness of the inter-war decades did not attenuate the public thirst for military spectacle.’⁵⁵ Of course, figures were helped by low admission charges and cheap railway fares which were arranged in connection with the event. Tickets for EAD cost 1s for adults and 6d (reduced to 3d in 1935) for children, with schoolchildren in parties of twelve or over offered cheaper tickets and children under five years of age given free admission. Prices at Hendon, meanwhile, ranged from 2s to £7.⁵⁶

While Hendon catered to the social elite, the Air League was reluctant to do so on EAD. When the Air Ministry suggested that at EAD ‘there should be various prices of admission, the holders of higher priced tickets to receive extra amenities such as seats or special enclosures’, Chamier strongly protested. He pointed out that ‘one of the attractions of E.A.D. was the friendly atmosphere created by the mixing of all classes of people’.⁵⁷ The Air League felt that Britain could not ‘take its proper place in aviation “unless there is a proper public appreciation of air matters”. Empire Air Day is intended to interest the “man in the street.”’⁵⁸

Unlike Hendon, EAD was a nationwide event. Although roughly half of the aerodromes open on EAD were located in the Home Counties, it was celebrated in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and received coverage well beyond the London-based newspapers.⁵⁹ Indeed, newspapers from across the political spectrum reported on, and largely supported, the display: Air Review claimed that over 400 separate newspapers had covered EAD by 1936.⁶⁰ Alongside local and national newspapers, the aviation press – particularly Flight and The Aeroplane – discussed EAD in great detail. Newsreels and illustrated newspapers also depicted the impressive visual elements of the display.⁶¹ Reports of EAD initially focused on the promotion of airmindedness in a positive sense. Describing the first display as ‘an emphatic success’, The Daily Mirror deemed it ‘abundantly evident from the large contingents of visitors to these aerodromes that this country is becoming enthusiastically airminded’. The Daily Mail similarly declared that ‘[a]ll Britain must be air-minded … The first Empire Air Day marks a new epoch in the development of British flying.’⁶² However, by later displays, coverage underlined the importance of EAD for projecting images of military strength and security as we shall see.

Spectacle was important in drawing crowds – yet, so, too, was the materiality of EAD. As Flight reported, ‘[o]nce cajoled to an aerodrome, young and old alike become consumed by a raging curiosity to see, touch, sniff and scramble upon aeroplanes at close quarters – especially military aeroplanes’.⁶³ This sensorial and material engagement with aeroplanes particularly appealed to British youth. As The Times noted, ‘hundreds of small boys must have climbed into cockpits and worked bomb release gears for the first time’.⁶⁴ The same newspaper reflected on the ‘delight of the average boy at being able to handle a machine-gun and an empty bomb’.⁶⁵ The draw of the more militaristic aspects on display was further underlined by the Dundee Courier, who declared that boys were ‘Happy Among the Bombs’, and by The Aeroplane, who remarked that ‘youth is more warlike … at all stations the youngsters crowded round the machine-guns and bombs and weapons of offence’, describing ‘[y]oung England’ as being attracted ‘by the most warlike display’.⁶⁶

As well as engaging with offensive weapons of war, children were encouraged to learn about, and interact with, items of civil defence – particularly the gas mask. Understandably, this met with conflicting reactions. One journalist wrote that the ‘scene of schoolboys wearing gas masks was a reminder that the next generation may be obliged to wear these grim instruments of protection if gas attacks are launched by air in another war’.⁶⁷ Conversely, The Aeroplane stressed that youngsters ‘inspected with relish [the] gruesome drawings of gas blisters’ and got ‘a great thrill by being fitted with gas masks and being allowed to run about in them and get a whiff of tear gas’, although it admitted that this was ‘to the horror of their parents’.⁶⁸ The way that children engaged with the material and sensory world of conflict in the form of gas and gas masks illustrates the militarisation of the civil home front, and of British youth in particular, that occurred on EAD.⁶⁹

While the league primarily attempted to interest boys in aviation, it secured the support of notable female pioneer aviators on EAD. Both Amy Johnson and Jean Batten, the latter of whom completed the first direct solo flight from England to New Zealand in 1936, attended and championed EAD. Batten was present at Hornchurch aerodrome in 1938 in her record-breaking aeroplane, while Johnson saw the potential of EAD for fostering an interest in flying as a career for children, noting ‘I can imagine that before the day is over this question will be asked in all parts of the country: “Daddy, can I be a flyer when I grow up?”’⁷⁰

The widespread presence of children on EAD was not without opposition. While the anti-war National Union of Women Teachers accepted the ‘importance of accustoming children to modern methods of transportation’, it questioned the more ‘sinister aspects’ of EAD, particularly the ‘fostering of a warlike spirit’ among children.⁷¹ When the Air League displayed EAD posters in schools, certain educational authorities also reacted with hostility. For example, members of the Wood Green Education Committee felt that ‘these sort of things look like war’, and that EAD was little more than ‘disguised militaristic propaganda’. Like the National Union of Women Teachers, members of the committee feared that EAD would engender a martial and militaristic spirit among children, insisting that ‘we have got to keep education apart from what may be purely militaristic policies’.⁷² As EAD was an important recruiting ground for the RAF, children were undoubtedly among the intended audience of the displays and their vast numbers at aerodromes suggest that militarism, in the form of aerial theatre, proved attractive for British youth.

Empire and nation

The connection between empire and air power was a key trope in much of the discourse surrounding EAD, even if exhibitions were not, for the most part, imperially themed. As Bernhard Rieger argues, the ‘imperial leitmotif’ has ‘figured as an important, long-standard theme in British discussions about technology’.⁷³ EAD was no exception in this respect. The date chosen for EAD – namely Empire Day – reflected, of course, a conscious decision.⁷⁴ As Air Review stressed, it drew attention to ‘the lesson that the safety and prosperity of the Empire is connected with our place in the air’.⁷⁵ Air Ministry officials described EAD as ‘an Empire festival’, while Lord Londonderry wrote to the Air League expressing his satisfaction ‘that Air Day is being celebrated upon Empire Day, for this happy association shows clearly the great importance which aviation has for the Empire’.⁷⁶ Such was the significance of Empire Day for the display that the league even raised objections to the Army’s consideration for an ‘at home’ day falling on Empire Day.⁷⁷

The Air League’s appropriation of Empire Day indicated the importance it accorded to aviation’s imperial dimensions. At the organisation’s AGM in 1934, Sutherland stressed his desire for the event to become ‘an annual institution’ which would ‘spread beyond the borders of this country to the Empire beyond the seas’.⁷⁸ Such sentiments were evident in the published propaganda associated with the event: official souvenir programmes often included articles on the importance of aviation for the preservation and defence of empire.⁷⁹ In 1934, to promote imperial airmindedness further, EAD celebrations featured the new four-engined Imperial Airways airliner, the Diana (a de Havilland DH86), built especially for the Imperial Airways route from England to Australia.⁸⁰ By making it part of the programme on EAD, the league emphasised the strides being taken in civil aviation as well as the connections between Britain and its empire.

Links between empire and EAD were commonplace in the public pronouncements of many senior Air League members, the Air Ministry and politicians. However, the display also had resonance beyond Britain. Both Australia and South Africa celebrated EAD for the first time in 1935. The observance of EAD further spread to New Zealand and India, with the idea ‘taking root’ in Canada by 1937.⁸¹ EAD was even staged in Bermuda by 1939.⁸² The annual event emphasised the importance of aviation for imperial unity, communication and security. As we have seen, Hendon was markedly imperial on occasion and highlighted the importance of aerial bombing for imperial policing (even if set pieces were predominantly staged in European or industrial settings). By the first EAD in 1934, the RAF no longer lacked a strategic or ideological purpose with the threat of the bomber helping to preserve the RAF’s ‘institutional autonomy’.⁸³

Alongside its imperial role, EAD sought to instil a sense of pride among domestic audiences by displaying the aerial might of Britain. Yet, the annual event also emphasised the importance of the aeroplane for the preservation of the nation itself. While the aeroplane has been linked to notions of Britishness after 1940 – particularly in relation to the Battle of Britain and the Blitz – there was a strong relationship between the aeroplane, aerial theatre and the nation prior to the Second World War. As Peter Fritzche observes, ‘images of aviation’ could ‘validate claims of national prowess and technical mastery’.⁸⁴ EAD certainly provided an important platform to exhibit national prestige, modernity and technological mastery.

While images of nation and national identity formed part of EAD, deterrence was also key. In many respects, EAD was an arena of deterrence, projecting images of British aerial superiority to other nations. Speaking on Britain’s defensive forces in March 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared that the ‘sight of this enormous, this almost terrifying power which Britain is building up has a sobering effect, a steadying effect, on the opinion of the world’.⁸⁵ While such sentiments were not necessarily shared by all within the Air Ministry, EAD was undoubtedly intended as a performance of power visible to both domestic and foreign audiences.⁸⁶

The striking visual elements of EAD also lent themselves to film. British Pathé, Gaumont British and British Movietone all covered EAD, often in a ‘nationalistic and militaristic’ manner.⁸⁷ Newsreel coverage invariably focused on the spectacle and pageantry of EAD, particularly formation flying, dive bombing and aerobatics, pointing to the technological sophistication of the aeroplanes displayed. Discussion of EAD in a war-like manner was commonplace in much newsreel footage: Hurricanes in formation flight were described in one newsreel as keeping ‘their formation like a line of infantry’, while another newsreel noted the number of bullets a Spitfire could fire in a minute. Newsreels also showed demonstrations of fighters ‘repel[ling] the invader’ highlighting the ‘efficiency of British pilots and British machines’.⁸⁸ By 1939, newsreels assured their audiences that ‘the wealth, skill and determination of this little island has built up a stupendous fleet to take its place among the leaders … These pictures tell the world: the skies are safe for Britain.’⁸⁹ This shift in tone reflected the changing nature of both EAD coverage and of the day itself.

Debates about technology and the nation on EAD employed both defensive and offensive motifs.⁹⁰ For example, one EAD report in 1939 solemnly stated: ‘Look up to the skies and see how Britain is preparing to defend herself against her enemies in the air’.⁹¹ Others underlined the more offensive potential of the RAF. EAD programmes confidently declared that ‘Britain is Building an Air Armada’, while Chamier stated that the Air Ministry was ‘using Empire Air Day to show the country – and the world – the power of Britain’s reborn Air Arm’.⁹² Another reporter observed that crowds were ‘left in little doubt’ of the RAF’s efficiency after EAD, while The Aeroplane proclaimed that ‘service pageantry is an opportunity to reveal to friends and enemies in other lands the type of men and equipment we can put into the field, onto the high seas or in the air when the time arrives’.⁹³ Displays seemingly provided at least some encouragement to spectators. As one observer privately reflected after visiting Tangmere aerodrome in 1939, ‘there were a reassuring number of Hurricanes to show people where their money is going’.⁹⁴ While early descriptions of EAD centred on positive forms of airmindedness, by the late 1930s the tone of coverage was far more defensive in nature and linked EAD to the military preparedness of the nation. The Air League, the Air Ministry and many prominent politicians, as well as both the aviation and popular press, all saw the strategic and military value of EAD.

Of course, at this point the aim of the state and the Air Ministry was deterrence. In 1936, Chamberlain spoke of his ‘enthusiasm’ for an air force that, fully developed, would possess ‘terrific striking power’, which would be ‘the most formidable deterrent to war that could be devised’.⁹⁵ By 1938, Kingsley Wood wanted an air force strong enough ‘so that whatever the strength of the German air force, Germany itself would risk destruction if they attacked us’.⁹⁶ The presence of modern aeroplanes such as Hurricanes, Spitfires, Blenheims, Hampdens, Wellingtons and Whitleys provided an indication of the RAF’s increasing modernisation and power.

While the Air League and Air Ministry recognised the potential of aerial theatre for putting the air force and the nation on a public stage, the latter was conscious of just how much displays revealed. In one telling incident, an air attaché of the German embassy was questioned at an aerodrome on EAD after being found making notes on certain aeroplanes.⁹⁷ Members of the public were prohibited from carrying cameras at aerodromes and aeroplanes on the ‘secret’ list were not exhibited to the public. In later displays, the Air Ministry stressed that it did not want members of the public examining cockpits or being given information about the equipment of modern aeroplanes. Performance figures of aeroplanes were also prohibited from being included in EAD programmes.⁹⁸

In addition to showcasing British aerial power, EAD impressed upon the British public the more threatening aspects of aviation. Many aerodromes invited members of the public to wear gas masks and walk into a sealed gas chamber, where a ‘harmless’ gas would be released to simulate a gas attack. They could then walk through a mild concentration of gas without a mask, to see the effect of gas and the function and efficiency of the gas mask.⁹⁹ This blurring of civil and military spheres of society was another way of physically reminding ‘post-war inhabitants of the legacy of war waged against civilians at home’.¹⁰⁰ This militarisation of EAD increased when Sir John Anderson, tasked with the co-ordination of civil-defence preparations while lord privy seal in Chamberlain’s government, contacted the Air Council in 1939 regarding the inclusion of ARP exhibits on EAD. The Air Council subsequently approached local authorities ‘with a view to the provision, where practicable, of air raid precautions exhibits’.¹⁰¹ The Air Ministry undoubtedly felt that more could be done to incorporate ARP displays after only four stations included demonstrations of this kind in 1937.¹⁰² Although EAD initially promoted both civil and military aviation, the inclusion of civil-defence measures, the shift of tone in media coverage and the increasing militarisation of the display reflected the broader preparation of the warfare state for future conflict.

Reception and responses

The chapter so far has outlined the scope, scale and nature of EAD. Assessing how the annual event was received is more challenging. Of course, attendance levels are one important indication of approval: as we have seen, millions attended EAD over the six displays. Millions more would have read about the event in newspapers and the popular aviation press, while many would have seen the display in newsreels.

EAD – particularly the technological innovation and modernity on display – elicited complex and often contradictory emotional states: fascination, enthusiasm and excitement coexisted alongside fear, anxiety and even horror. As Rieger argues, British experiences of modernity were characterised by ‘ambivalence about the modern that resulted from perceptions of change as both creative and destructive’.¹⁰³ This understanding of technological innovation – and of the emotional response to the aeroplane – can be traced through EAD. While crowds marvelled at the speed and sleekness of modern machines – with the Spitfire being lauded as ‘an object of wonder’ by one reporter – the mass flights of fighters and bombers overhead provided a reminder of the threat posed by the aeroplane.¹⁰⁴ Indeed, while one report declared that ‘the giant all metal bombers’ inspired confidence in audiences that ‘England is prepared for emergencies and does possess some marvellous war weapons’, another noted that ‘spectators saw with mixed feelings the uncanny accuracy with which bombs can be dropped from attacking planes’.¹⁰⁵

Recent work has shown how pageantry – and the performance of war through pageantry – was a means through which many sections of the British public made sense of, and commemorated, the events of the First World War. In the aftermath of conflict, pageantry could ‘affirm and propagandize political ideas about wars and the nations that fought them’, showcase ‘patriotism and imperialism’ and convey ‘understandings of the nature of loss and sacrifice’.¹⁰⁶ In many ways, EAD – albeit pageantry of a different kind – provided the British public with an opportunity to engage with the possibility of another war. It was a setting in which political ideas about war, nation and empire could be affirmed; where patriotism, imperialism and nationalism could be showcased. More distressingly, through displays of the latest weaponry, it was a site in which potential loss and sacrifice was rendered tangible.

EAD stood in stark contrast to the ‘splendid anachronism’ of Britain’s wider public pageantry in the 1930s.¹⁰⁷ David Cannadine suggests that pageantry in England was the antithesis of the ‘technologically sophisticated forms of ritual’ found in Italy, Russia and, in particular, Germany whose use of aeroplanes in rituals ‘implied a commitment to technology and an impatience with anachronism’.¹⁰⁸ However, as a prominent feature of civic life, EAD undoubtedly pointed to a commitment to modernity and technologically sophisticated forms of ritual.

There was clearly an appetite within British society for martial spectacle in the form of aerial theatre, despite fears of a future war. While some may not have reflected on the more militaristic aspects of EAD, and attendance alone did not necessarily constitute an endorsement of militarism, spectators did not consume aerial theatre passively and would have been at least somewhat aware of the militaristic nature of EAD. Of course, this was not the only draw for spectators. As The Times noted, high attendance levels might have been due to ‘the growth of the class of people who have relations in the expanded Air Force, or by the increased interest of those who have been roused by recurrent threats from oversea, or simply by the desire for a fine afternoon’s entertainment’.¹⁰⁹ As EAD coincided with RAF expansion from 1934, the growth in attendance may also be explained by the increasing scale and modernity of each display, especially as the emphasis at most aerodromes was on the military, rather than civil, aspects of aviation. Higher attendance figures in 1938 and 1939 are also likely to have resulted from the conclusion of Hendon in 1937.

In comparison to public reactions, the response of the aviation community, the popular press and public figures is much easier to trace. EAD was endorsed not only by the Air Ministry, but by other aviation leagues, societies and manufacturers as well as by bodies on the far right such as the BUF.¹¹⁰ EAD also had the backing of newspapers from across the political spectrum. The event was described as ‘the biggest and certainly the best national air festival’ and as ‘the greatest nation-wide air display in the world’.¹¹¹

Moreover, EAD was publicly endorsed by an array of influential politicians, military figures and by senior members of the royal family. During their respective premierships, both Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin commended the Air League for its organisation of the event.¹¹² MacDonald’s support is particularly interesting given his prior assertion that ‘so long as militarism in any shape or form exists it is a menace to peace’.¹¹³ Militarism in the form of aerial theatre was seemingly more palatable. On his visit to Bircham Newton aerodrome on EAD in 1934, King George V was ‘greatly impressed with the remarkable efficiency of those who took part in the air display’.¹¹⁴ EAD was also praised by Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), who was ‘convinced of the extreme importance of flying as a means of national and imperial communication’ and stated that ‘it is impossible to exaggerate the importance for the country of the development of air-mindedness, not only among enthusiasts but among the whole population’.¹¹⁵ Likewise, King George VI felt that the event would ‘afford striking proof of the progress which is being made in aviation throughout the Empire’.¹¹⁶ The role of the royal family on EAD further points to the ‘conservative modernity’ of the displays and highlights the long-standing use of new media technologies, civic ritual and ceremony by the monarchy for projecting an image of accessibility and modernity.¹¹⁷

Perhaps unsurprisingly, successive secretaries of state for air championed EAD. Lord Londonderry suggested that EAD advanced ‘both the security of the Empire and the cause of peace’; Lord Swinton ‘did not think there could be anything better for recruiting for the R.A.F.’, and Kingsley Wood, whose first flight as Swinton’s successor was on EAD in 1938, asserted that it provided ‘a convincing demonstration of the power and efficiency of the R.A.F.’¹¹⁸

Despite widespread support, EAD did not attract universal acclaim. A leaflet issued by the left-leaning UDC outside aerodromes in 1934 criticised the Air League for its opposition to the abolition of civil and military aircraft and for its organisation of EAD:

You can easily see but for propaganda in the press and displays like the one you have just enjoyed, there would be a fearful danger of the abolition of bombing … Thank you for your support. You have not only helped in a small measure the R.A.F. Benevolent Fund, you have done more … You have dropped another British bomb to explode disarmament and peace.¹¹⁹

While The Aeroplane dismissed the leaflet as the work of ‘half-witted pacifists’, ‘anti-British Communists’ and ‘anti-Air Force agitators’, the UDC was not alone in its opposition to EAD.¹²⁰ Indeed, forty PPU members distributed posters and 5,000 ‘Burn the Babies!’ leaflets outside Castle Bromwich aerodrome in 1937.¹²¹ The leaflet declared that

There are some things no one would do – not even in the name of Patriotism. For instance, no one, however loyal, would put his neighbour’s baby on fire at the suggestion of the Secretary of State for War. Babies, we feel, are neutral. But modern warfare means war from the air. War from the air means bombing babies.¹²²

At Kenley aerodrome in 1938, PPU members again distributed leaflets and paraded in front of the aerodrome.¹²³ After EAD that year, the PPU’s journal, Peace News, warned its readers that ‘BOMBERS TODAY MEAN WAR TOMORROW’.¹²⁴

Like the UDC and PPU, the Communist Party of Great Britain was a notable critic of EAD, declaring that the ‘ “glories” of both the Empire and of the R.A.F., which the Government wants you to celebrate to-day, can only be exposed for what they are – mass murder, poverty, disease and grinding exploitation’.¹²⁵ The Communist Party of Great Britain’s Daily Worker also reported a number of protests outside aerodromes. At Bristol, members of the ‘Youth Anti-War Committee went to Filton Air Display with leaflets and posters, exposing its meaning’. This group was also reported to have dropped leaflets from an aeroplane at Romford. In Sheffield and at Hucknall aerodrome, large slogans were painted on the approaches to aerodromes reading ‘Displays To-day, Bombs To-morrow’ and ‘AIR PAGEANT TO-DAY, GAS BOMBS TOMORROW’.¹²⁶

In 1936, demonstrations against a planned bombing range at Penrhos on the Llŷn peninsula in Wales on EAD were similarly noteworthy. Organised by members of Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru, the national party of Wales, there were ‘hisses and boos from sections of the crowds’ as well as ‘free fights on a small scale’ before protests were reportedly drowned out by crowds singing ‘God Save the King’.¹²⁷ While the protest was seemingly limited in its impact, this was not an isolated incident. Following extensive and widespread opposition towards the bombing range, three prominent members of Plaid Cymru set fire to buildings at the range in September that year, before turning themselves in to the authorities. Imprisoned for nine months, the figures became martyrs for Welsh nationalism thanks to their ‘idealistic gesture committed on behalf of nationalist and pacific values’.¹²⁸

While EAD may have been intended as a way of fostering pride, patriotism and Britishness, at least in part, it also represented a site in which competing expressions of national identity could be articulated. Indeed, only two years later, members of Plaid Cymru again protested against EAD. On trees, bridges, telegraph poles and roads leading to the now operational bombing range at Penrhos, posters described the aerodrome as ‘an enemy and a curse to civilisation’, declaring ‘England’s glory; Wales’s agony’ and ‘The bombing school: the enemy of Wales; the enemy of Peace’.¹²⁹ Seven members of Plaid Cymru were subsequently summoned to court and ordered to pay a fine for having ‘disfigured the natural beauty of the landscape’. Although those charged with the offence did not appear in court, their representative argued that it was ‘difficult to see how any countryside upon which had been inflicted the unnatural spectacle of a training school for dealing out indiscriminate death could be disfigured by such small and eminently sensible posters’.¹³⁰

Alongside such opposition, prominent individuals connected to the peace movement including Dick Sheppard, founder of the PPU, expressed their disapproval of events such as EAD. Sheppard lamented the existence of military displays such as Hendon, the Aldershot Tattoo and EAD, instead calling for a ‘great Peace Circus’ to tour Britain that could help ‘shatter the solemn conventions of militarism’.¹³¹ Even Oliver Stewart, aeronautical correspondent for the Tatler and a First World War flying ace, wrote that he could not enjoy EAD as the ‘grim reality [of aerial bombardment] is so close … I cannot enjoy any kind of show in which modes and mechanisms for mangling human bodies are fed to the populace under a sugar-coating of brass bands and gold braid, pomp and pennants.’¹³²

While one might expect the LNU to publicly oppose EAD, it was careful to distance itself from a policy of distinct anti-militarism, for the most part refusing to condemn overt forms of popular militarism.¹³³ The LNU’s reluctance to criticise aerial theatre, however, prompted internal concerns that not only was the union not doing enough to combat popular manifestations of militarism, but that regular LNU speakers and contributors to Headway were being ‘entirely swept away by the joy and excitement of air-warfare’.¹³⁴ Ultimately, the fragmented and sporadic nature of opposition to EAD meant that it did little to affect its popularity. EAD, and the promotion of rearmament and popular militarism through aerial theatre, was seemingly acceptable to large sections of British society. As Holman notes, while 9.6 million people voted in favour of an international reduction of air forces in the Peace Ballot, such sentiments did not prevent huge numbers from attending air displays in the 1930s. Many spectators were ‘seemingly comfortable with the destructive power of the bomber that was soon to be unleashed on their behalf and, in some cases, actually upon them’.¹³⁵

The other principal objection to EAD focused on the risks surrounding the display. From an organiser’s perspective, Chamier felt that ‘the risks are very much less than those present at any ordinary flying pageant or by the Air Display at Hendon’.¹³⁶ However, EAD in 1937 involved the loss of seventeen lives. Four died in a mid-air collision while rehearsing, while thirteen people, including several civilians, died on the day itself. The deaths resulted from mid-air collisions, crashes during aerobatics as well as one aeroplane crashing into, and setting fire to, a house off the Isle of Man. One woman, who was already recovering in bed from surgery, was rescued from the house but later died of her injuries in hospital. Her husband and son fortunately survived, although had to receive medical treatment for burns.¹³⁷ The Morning Post described proceedings that year, with some justification, as one of the ‘blackest week-ends in the history of British aviation’.¹³⁸ The Hull Daily Mail also depicted the accidents in vivid terms, describing the ‘horribly charred’ bodies, ‘women and children scream[ing]’ with ‘two or three’ fainting from seeing the accidents.¹³⁹ Another newspaper described the ‘horror of the crowd’ when a man’s parachute failed to open during a display. It reported that women ‘screamed as the body hit the ground with a sickening thud and bounced upwards’. Fortunately, in this case, the figure was a ‘sand-stuffed dummy’.¹⁴⁰ Such incidents further highlight the ways in which EAD saw clashes of civil and military spheres of society. A death toll of seventeen was hardly insignificant – especially when contrasted with Hendon, which had only seen one death in seventeen years.

Conclusion

In an article for The Daily Mirror in June 1933, Lord Mottistone reflected on a series of apparent paradoxes:

The Briton is the most soberly dressed man in the whole world, yet he loves nothing more than a Pageant. He glories in being undemonstrative, and yet revels in national demonstrations like the Tattoo, the Hendon Display, and the countless historical pageants that are taking place up and down the country. He passionately denies being militaristic, and yet flocks in thousands to any display of the national uniform. What does it all mean? Is it dangerous militarism or just a harmless form of national pride?

For Mottistone, the ‘peace-loving Briton’ flocked in such numbers to naval, military and aerial displays because the division between the ‘Jingoes and the Pacifists’ had ‘well-nigh disappeared’. While in the ‘old days the Jingoes would have cheered the spectacle, and the Pacifists would have protested with equal vigour. Now we are all of one mind … Nowadays all sections of the British people love to see the precision, the skill, the manliness of those whose task it is to defend us.’¹⁴¹ While Mottistone may have overstated the erosion of any distinction between jingoist and pacifist, as evidenced by the opposition towards EAD, it is certainly the case that militarism in the form of theatre, spectacle and pageantry appealed to broad sections of British society.

EAD was employed to promote rearmament, popular militarism, technological innovation and the military capabilities of the state to the British public in the late 1930s. Linking themes of nation and empire, the Air League created an aerial theatre that, despite its militaristic nature, was supported by large sections of British society, key military figures, members of the royal family, newspapers across the political spectrum and influential politicians. While the Second World War halted aerial pageantry, it did not herald an end to such displays. Although the Air League was unable to secure Empire Day as the principal day for aerial demonstrations following the Second World War, it supported the organisation of Battle of Britain ‘at home’ days and continued to organise its own aerial pageants.¹⁴²

EAD afforded spectators a visual, material and sensorial engagement with weapons of war outside of conflict. Despite opposition, and the risk involved in the annual event, popular and cultural forms of militarism centred around military spectacle attracted genuine and widespread enthusiasm, especially among British youth. Aerial theatre enabled the British public to interact with the aeroplane in new, dramatic and often distinctly militaristic ways. Through EAD, the Air League ensured that ‘millions of eyes were turned skywards’.¹⁴³

Notes

1. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 May 1939, 5; The Western Morning News, 22 May 1939, 4.

2. Air Review, July 1939, 8.

3. The Aeroplane, 25 May 1939, 646.

4. Brett Holman, ‘Spectre and Spectacle: Mock Air Raids as Aerial Theatre in Interwar Britain’, in Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain Aviation, ed. Michael McCluskey and Luke Seaber (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 233; 235–8.

5. Scott H. Myerly, British Military Spectacle: From the Napoleonic Wars Through the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); Jan Rüger, The Great Naval Game: Britain and Germany in the Age of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

6. Alison Light, Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars (London: Routledge, 1991), 10–11.

7. Light, Forever England, 11.

8. Holman, ‘Spectre and Spectacle’, 234.

9. The Aero, 7 June 1910, 457.

10. The Times, 7 July 1913, 6.

11. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 13 October 1931, 3.

12. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 8 December 1931, 3.

13. For example, the league was unable to provide Cobham’s tour with exhibitions of model aeroplanes as requested, although it did offer Cobham its ‘moral support’. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 6 April 1933, 2; 14 June 1933, 2.

14. David E. Omissi, ‘The Hendon Air Pageant, 1920–1937’, in Popular Imperialism and the Military, ed. John M. MacKenzie (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 206.

15. Flight, 1 July 1932, 598.

16. Brett Holman, ‘The Meaning of Hendon: The Royal Air Force Display, Aerial Theatre and the Technological Sublime, 1920–37’, Historical Research, 93 (2020): 136; Flight, 1 July 1932, 598. Emphasis in original.

17. Omissi, ‘Hendon’, 199.

18. BLPES, Papers of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, WILPF/1/12, Executive Committee Minute Book, 1936, MEC, 14 July 1936, 1.

19. Holman, ‘The Meaning of Hendon’, 132; 142.

20. Holman, ‘The Meaning of Hendon’, 132.

21. Headway, September 1929, 180; Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend: A Social History of Great Britain, 1918–1939 (London: Faber & Faber, 1940), 269.

22. BLPES, WILPF/2/3, Women’s International League, Yearly Report, 1933, 10; Women’s International League, Yearly Report, 1934, 6; National Peace Council (NPC) 1/3, Council Minutes, 1924–1930, Council Meeting, 29 March 1928, 2; Minutes of the Annual Council Meeting, 5 July 1928, 2; Minutes of the Annual Council Meeting, 20 June 1929, 2; Peace Pledge Union Archive (PPU Archive), London, Peace Pledge Union Minute Book, MEC, 1 June 1937, 2; Peace News, 15 June 1937, 5; Bodleian Libraries, MS. Gilbert Murray 201, f. 94, Letter from K.D. Courtney to Gilbert Murray, 23 June 1927, 1–3; BLPES, LNU/5/26, LNU Education Committee Minute Book, Meeting of the Education Committee, 24 June 1935, 10.

23. J.M. Kenworthy, Will Civilisation Crash? (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1927), 187. Despite this, Kenworthy was part of a sub-committee created to consider proposals for an international air week after he joined the league. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 16 June 1931, 1; 8 December 1931, 3.

24. Headway, August 1929, 146.

25. BLPES, ILP Papers, ILP/10/10/41, Report of Committee on Hendon Campaign, 1935, 2; Headway, September 1929, 180.

26. Cited in Omissi, ‘Hendon’, 210.

27. Cited in Omissi, ‘Hendon’, 213.

28. Holman, ‘The Meaning of Hendon’, 136.

29. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Proposals for an Air Day by the Air League of the British Empire, Empire Air Day, 1934, Report, 29 October 1934, 2.

30. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Letter from Chamier to Air Chief Marshal Sir Edward L. Ellington, 25 October 1933, 1; AIR 2/4421, Empire Air Day Leaflet.

31. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Chamier to Ellington, 1.

32. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Empire Air Day, 1935. Memorandum, Object of R.A.F. Participation, April 1935, 1.

33. The Times, 11 April 1934, 11. For a fairly typical programme of events, see TNA, AIR 2/4445, Royal Air Force Official Programme, Empire Air Day, 1937.

34. Hansard, HC, 5th series, vol. 300, c. 966 (9 April 1935).

35. TNA, AIR 2/4422, Empire Air Day – Flying Regulations, 6 August 1937, 1.

36. TNA, AIR 2/4442, Empire Air Day Arrangements 1937, Memorandum No. 1, 12 March 1937, 4.

37. TNA, AIR 2/4449, Agenda for Conference on Empire Air Day Arrangements, 19 June 1935, 1.

38. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 13 April 1939, 1–2.

39. Popular Flying, June 1939, 101.

40. Peter Adey, Aerial Life: Spaces, Mobilities, Affects (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 61.

41. The Illustrated London News, 26 May 1934, 810–11; The Times, 1 April 1939, 12.

42. See, for example, Reading Mercury, 27 May 1939, 8; The Leighton Buzzard Observer, 23 May 1939, 5; Coventry Herald, 29 April 1939, 1. Flying, 27 May 1939, 7.

43. Much like naval theatre prior to the First World War: see Rüger, The Great Naval Game.

44. On RAF Expansion Schemes A–M, see N.H. Gibbs, Grand Strategy Volume 1: Rearmament Policy (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1976), 559–89.

45. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Letter from J.M. Spaight to Captain A.G. Lamplugh, 2 May 1934, 1.

46. Air Review, May 1936, 10.

47. AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 8 June 1939, 1.

48. The Morning Post, 24 May 1935, 13.

49. The Manchester Guardian, 26 May 1935, 19.

50. The Daily Mirror, 27 May 1935, 9.

51. The Aeroplane, 29 May 1935, 616; 27 May 1936, 654; Air Review, July 1938, 7.

52. See, for example, The Yorkshire Post, 24 May 1938, 5.

53. Air Review, March 1939, 7.

54. See Brett Holman, The Next War in the Air: Britain’s Fear of the Bomber, 1908–1941 (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2014), 55–80.

55. Helen McCarthy, The British People and the League of Nations: Democracy, Citizenship and Internationalism, c.1918–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), 137.

56. Brett Holman, ‘The Militarisation of Aerial Theatre: Air Displays and Airmindedness in Britain and Australia Between the World Wars’, Contemporary British History, 33 (2019): 490.

57. TNA, AIR 2/4435, Minutes of a Meeting held at the Air Ministry, 31 January 1938, 5.

58. The Times, 11 April 1934, 11.

59. The Times, 23 May 1938, 11. For example, in 1939, attendance at Aldergrove, Northern Ireland was 10,000; in Cardiff, Wales it was 15,000 while Turnhouse, Abbotsinch and Leuchars (all Scotland) had attendance figures of at least 15,000. Northern Whig, 22 May 1939, 11; Western Mail, 22 May 1939, 8; The Scotsman, 22 May 1939, 8.

60. Air Review, June 1936, 7.

61. See, for example, The Illustrated London News, 20 May 1939, 1; 4 June 1938, 1.

62. The Daily Mirror, 25 May 1934, 6; Daily Mail, 24 May 1934, 9.

63. Flight, 2 June 1938, 539.

64. The Times, 30 May 1938, 8.

65. The Times, 25 May 1936, 9.

66. Dundee Courier, 27 May 1935, 6; The Aeroplane, 29 May 1935, 616; 621.

67. The Western Morning News, 27 May 1935, 5.

68. The Aeroplane, 1 June 1938, 684; 29 May 1935, 633.

69. On the materiality of the gas mask and civil defence more broadly, see Susan R. Grayzel, The Age of the Gas Mask: How British Civilians Faced the Terrors of Total War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Chapter 1, in particular, of Gabriel Moshenska, Material Cultures of Childhood in Second World War Britain (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019).

70. Daily Mail, 28 May 1938, 7; 24 May 1934, 4.

71. The Woman Teacher, 6 May 1938, 255.

72. Air Review, June 1934, 36–7.

73. Bernhard Rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity in Britain and Germany, 1890–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 233.

74. To gain the highest possible attendance following proceedings in 1934, Chamier felt that EAD should be held on the Saturday of Empire Week (if Empire Day did not fall on a Saturday). TNA, AIR 20/594, Empire Air Day 1935, Letter from Chamier to W.L. Welsh, 21 September 1934, 1.

75. Air Review, May 1934, 20.

76. RA, PS/PSO/GVI/PS/RAF/391, Empire Air Day, Letter from P.J. Oldfield to Major Hardinge, 15 April 1936, 1; The Daily Telegraph, 19 May 1934, 13.

77. Londonderry subsequently wrote to Viscount Hailsham, secretary of state for war, arguing that a clash with EAD should be avoided and that the Army might instead use Waterloo Day. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Letter from Lord Londonderry to Viscount Hailsham, 2 January 1935, 1.

78. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 10 July 1934, 2.

79. See, for example, TNA, AIR 29/569, Royal Air Force Official Programme: Empire Air Day 1938, 28–31.

80. The Times, 25 May 1934, 14.

81. AL, AL Minute Book, AGM, 10 July 1935, 2; AGM, 14 July 1937, 2.

82. The Times, 28 March 1939, 13.

83. Tami D. Biddle, Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 2.

84. Peter Fritzche, A Nation of Fliers: German Aviation and the Popular Imagination (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1992), 138.

85. Cited in Zara Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 605.

86. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark, 607.

87. Robert M. Morley, ‘The Screen’s Threatening Skies: Aerial Warfare and British Cinema, 1927–1939’ (unpub. PhD thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 2014), 113.

88. ‘Hurricane Fighters Rehearsing for Empire Air Day Review’ (London: Gaumont British Newsreels, 16 May 1938); ‘Empire Air Day Rehearsal’ (London: British Movietone, 27 May 1937).

89. ‘RAF Demonstration at Northolt Aerodrome’ (London: Gaumont British Newsreels, 29 May 1939).

90. On debates surrounding technology and the nation, see Rieger, Technology, 224–75.

91. Daily Mail, 20 May 1939, 12.

92. RAF Museum, 006870, Royal Air Force Official Programme: Empire Air Day 1939, 17; Popular Flying, June 1939, 99.

93. Torbay Express and South Devon Echo, 20 May 1939, 7; The Aeroplane, 8 June 1938, 645.

94. East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Record Office at The Keep, Parish of East Chiltington, Correspondence Concerning Registers, PAR 293/2/3/1, Letter from John Widdows, Thomas Eggar and Son to Lancelot [Mason, rector of Plumpton], 22 May 1939.

95. The Times, 3 October 1936, 7.

96. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, 554.

97. The Yorkshire Post, 23 May 1939, 12.

98. TNA, AIR 2/4422, Empire Air Day: Policy, Letter from Charles Evans to the Secretary of the Admiralty, 28 March 1938, 1–2.

99. TNA, AIR 2/4445, Royal Air Force Official Programme, Empire Air Day, 1937, 8–9.

100. Susan R. Grayzel, ‘Defence Against the Indefensible: The Gas Mask, the State and British Culture during and after the First World War’, Twentieth Century British History, 25 (2014): 434.

101. TNA, MH 79/184, A.R.P. Department Circular No. 98/1939, Empire Air Day, 2 May 1939, 1.

102. TNA, AIR 2/4435, Letter to the Air Raid Precautions Department, 8 April 1938, 1.

103. Rieger, Technology, 11.

104. Alnwick Mercury, 26 May 1939, 5.

105. Boston Guardian, 3 June 1938, 20; Brechin Advertiser, 26 May 1936, 5.

106. Angela Bartie et al., ‘ “And Those Who Live, How Shall I Tell Their Fame?” Historical Pageants, Collective Remembrance and the First World War, 1919–39’, Historical Research, 90 (2017): 640.

107. David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2001), 130.

108. David Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition”, c.1820–1977’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 148.

109. The Times, 22 May 1939, 9.

110. RAF Museum, RAC Minute Book, MEC, 30 May 1934, 6; AL, AL Minute Book, MEC, 30 January 1934, 2; The Air Mail, April 1937, 17; The Fascist Week, 18–24 May 1934, 3.

111. The Observer, 24 May 1936, 21; News Chronicle, 19 May 1938, 9.

112. Daily Mail, 24 May 1934, 9; The Daily Telegraph, 23 May 1936, 8.

113. Ramsay MacDonald, National Defence: A Study in Militarism (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1917), 12.

114. RA, GV/PRIV/GVD, Diary of King George V, 24 May 1934; The Aeroplane, 30 May 1934, 861.

115. RA, EVIIIPWH/PS/MAIN/2161, Air League of the British Empire, Message from the Prince of Wales to the Air League, 9 May 1934, 1; Letter to the Air League on behalf of the Prince of Wales, 17 May 1935, 1.

116. RA, PS/PSO/GVI/PS/RAF/391, Empire Air Day, Telegram sent to the Duke of Sutherland on behalf of King George VI, 26 May 1937, 1.

117. Frank Mort, ‘On Tour with the Prince: Monarchy, Imperial Politics and Publicity in the Prince of Wales’s Dominion Tours 1919–20’, Twentieth Century British History, 29 (2018): 25–55.

118. TNA, AIR 2/449, Souvenir of Empire Air Day, 25 May 1935, 12; The Times, 22 May 1936, 11; The Manchester Guardian, 28 May 1938, 13.

119. Hull History Centre, Papers of Lt. Commander Edgar Young Rn (Retd), U DYO/11/1, Annual Report, Union of Democratic Control, 1933–4, 12; Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, Union of Democratic Control, MSS.78/5/14/159, A Souvenir of the Great Empire Air Day of 1934 (leaflet), 4.

120. The Aeroplane, 30 May 1934, 856.

121. Peace News, 12 June 1937, 5.

122. PPU Archive, ‘Burn the Babies!’ leaflet, 1937, 1.

123. Peace News, 4 June 1938, 16.

124. Peace News, 28 May 1938, 1. Emphasis in original.

125. Daily Worker, 24 May 1934, 2.

126. Daily Worker, 26 May 1934, 5; Air Review, July 1936, 38–9. Emphasis in original.

127. Sunday Mercury, 24 May 1936, 13; Air Review, July 1936, 38–9.

128. Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880–1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 254–5.

129. Western Mail, 11 August 1938, 7; The Liverpool Echo, 28 May 1938, 5.

130. Western Mail, 11 August 1938, 7.

131. H.R.L. Sheppard, We Say “No”: The Plain Man’s Guide to Pacifism (London: John Murray, 1935), 153; 156.

132. Cited in Holman, ‘Spectre and Spectacle’, 243.

133. McCarthy, The British People, 141–2; Headway, August 1932, 142.

134. Bodleian Libraries, MS. Gilbert Murray 207, f. 4, Letter from A. Ruth Fry to Gilbert Murray, 26 August 1929, 1.

135. Holman, ‘The Militarisation of Aerial Theatre’, 500.

136. TNA, AIR 2/4421, Letter from Chamier to Spaight, 24 April 1934, 1.

137. Daily Mail, 31 May 1937, 3.

138. The Morning Post, 31 May 1937, 11.

139. Hull Daily Mail, 29 May 1937, 3.

140. Ballymena Weekly Telegraph, 5 June 1937, 11.

141. The Daily Mirror, 24 June 1933, 10.

142. For example, see TNA, BT 217/1310, Air Display at Blackpool (Squires Gate) Airport by Air League of British Empire, 1947–1949.

143. The Western Morning News, 25 May 1934, 7.