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Biggles
James Charles Bigglesworth, nicknamed "Biggles", is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the Title role#Title character, title character and Protagonist, hero of the ''Biggles'' series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance in the story "The White Fokker", published in the first issue of ''Popular Flying'' magazine and again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, ''The Camels Are Coming'' (both 1932). Johns continued to write "Biggles books" until his death in 1968. The Book series, series eventually included nearly a hundred volumes – novels as well as short story collections – most of the latter with a common setting and time. The chronology of the canon, spanning both world wars, set up certain inconsistencies over the unavoidable ageing of Biggles and his friends. Also later editions had to be somewhat edited in line with changing norms of acceptability, especially regarding race, and in vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neil Dickson
Neil Dickson (born 26 November 1950) is an English actor, who has worked extensively in both American and British film and television. Biography At the age of five, Dickson contracted polio, but made a complete recovery a year later. He attended Worksop College in Nottinghamshire playing Coriolanus (play), Coriolanus in the Junior Play 1966. He graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and spent several seasons working in repertory theatres in Sheffield, Manchester, Leicester and Oxford among others. Career In 1975, he made his West End debut in ''The Gay Lord Quex (play), The Gay Lord Quex'', opposite Judi Dench, which was directed by Sir John Gielgud at the Albery Theatre. While playing Dean Rebel in ''Trafford Tanzi'' at London's Mermaid Theatre, he was spotted by the producers of the NBC mini-series ''A.D. (miniseries), A.D.'', who cast him in the lead role of Valerius. He spent the following nine months on location in Tunisia working opposite James Mason, Sus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sopwith Camel
The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the best-known fighter aircraft of the Great War. Pilots flying Camels were credited with downing 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the conflict. Towards the end of the war, Camels lost their edge as fighters and were also used as a ground-attack aircraft. The Camel was powered by a single rotary engine and was armed with twin synchronized Vickers machine guns. It was difficult to fly, with 90% of its weight in the front two metres (seven feet) of the aircraft, but it was highly manoeuvrable in the hands of an experienced pilot, a vital attribute in the relatively low-speed, low-altitude dogfights of the era. Its pilots joked that their fates would involve "a wooden cross, the Red Cross, or a Victoria Cross". T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Bigsworth
Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth & Bar, AFC was an aviator who had a distinguished military career in the service of the British armed forces. Career Bigsworth received training as a Mercantile Marine officer, later joining the Royal Naval Reserve as a sub-lieutenant, being promoted to lieutenant on 19 January 1913. He attended the first course at the Central Flying School, gaining his Aviator's Certificate no. 396 on 21 January 1913. He transferred to the Royal Navy at this rank with effect from 1 April 1913, achieving the rank of wing commander in the Royal Naval Air Service on 31 December 1916. On 1 April 1918 he was appointed Officer Commanding No. 10 Group RAF; a year later he was awarded a permanent commission as a lieutenant colonel and was appointed Staff Officer First Class (Air) in Headquarters, Mediterranean District. At this point Bigsworth was awarded a Permanent Commission with the RAF and was removed from the Navy Lists while remaining in his post with HQ Mediterr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyril Lowe
Cyril Nelson "Kid" Lowe, (7 October 1891 – 6 February 1983) was an English rugby union footballer who held England's international try scoring record for over sixty years, a First World War flying ace credited with nine victories, and supposedly the inspiration for W. E. Johns' character "Biggles". Early life Lowe was born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire. He attended Dulwich College where he was a boarder in Orchard House. He edited the school magazine, ''The Alleynian'', from 1910 to 1911, as his fellow alumnus P. G. Wodehouse had done previously. At Dulwich, he excelled at a number of sports, and represented the school in boxing, athletics, swimming, cricket and rugby. He captained the Athletics squad in 1911 and in the same year played for the first XI cricket squad. In this same cricket side, he played alongside future England captain, Arthur Gilligan, the future Essex wicket-keeper Frank Gilligan and R. K. Nunes; the future captain of the West Indies. Eclipsing these spor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Flying Corps
The Royal Flying Corps (RFC) was the air arm of the British Army before and during the First World War until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1 April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC supported the British Army by artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance. This work gradually led RFC pilots into aerial battles with German pilots and later in the war included the strafing of enemy infantry and emplacements, the bombing of German military airfields and later the strategic bombing of German industrial and transport facilities. At the start of World War I the RFC, commanded by Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson, consisted of five squadrons – one observation balloon squadron (RFC No 1 Squadron) and four aeroplane squadrons. These were first used for aerial spotting on 13 September 1914 but only became efficient when they perfected the use of wireless communication at Aubers Ridge on 9 May 1915. Ae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scout (aircraft)
The term scout, as a description of a class of military aircraft, came into use shortly before the First World War, and initially referred to a fast (for its time), light (usually single-seated) unarmed reconnaissance aircraft. "Scout" types were generally adaptations of pre-war racing aircraft – although at least one (the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.2) was specifically designed for the role. At this stage the possibility of air-to-air combat was considered highly speculative, and the speed of these aircraft relative to their contemporaries was seen as an advantage in gaining immunity from AA gun, ground fire and in the ability to deliver timely reconnaissance reports. Almost from the beginning of the war, various experiments were carried out in the fitting of armament to scouts to enable them to engage in air-to-air combat – by early 1916 several types of scout could fire a machine gun forwards, in the line of flight, thus becoming the first effective single-seat fighter ai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flying Officer
Flying officer (Fg Offr or F/O) is a junior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence. Flying officer is immediately senior to pilot officer and immediately below flight lieutenant. It is usually equivalent to the rank of sub-lieutenant in the navy and of the rank of lieutenant in other services. The equivalent rank in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force was "section officer". Canada The rank was used in the Royal Canadian Air Force until the 1968 unification of the Canadian Forces, when army-type rank titles were adopted. Canadian flying officers then became lieutenants. In official Canadian French usage, the rank title was . United Kingdom Origins The term "flying officer" was originally used in the Royal Flying Corps as a flying appointment for junior officers, not a rank. On 1 April 1918, the newly created RAF adopted its officer rank titles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main Theatre (warfare), theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Imperial German Army, German Army opened the Western Front by German invasion of Belgium (1914), invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in Third Republic of France, France. The German advance was halted with the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trench warfare, trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this Front (military), front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Havilland DH4
The Airco DH.4 is a British two-seat biplane day bomber of the World War I, First World War. It was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland (hence "DH") for Airco, and was the first British two-seat light day-bomber capable of defending itself. It was Bomber#The first bombers, designed and developed specifically as a bomber, as well as aerial reconnaissance missions. The DH.4 was to have been powered by the new Beardmore Halford Pullinger (BHP) engine, but problems with that resulted in numerous other engines being used, perhaps the best of which was the Rolls-Royce Eagle engine. The DH.4 first flew in August 1916 and it entered operational service in France on 6 March 1917 less than a year later. The majority were manufactured as general purpose two-seaters in the United States for the American expeditionary forces in France, becoming the only American made plane to see combat in WW1. Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918, many DH.4s were sold to civil operators where it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neville Whiting
Neville may refer to: Places *Neville, New South Wales, Australia *Neville, Saskatchewan, Canada * Néville, in the Seine-Maritime department, France * Néville-sur-Mer, in the Manche department, France *Neville, Ohio, USA *Neville Township, Pennsylvania, USA People and fictional characters * Neville (name), including a list of people and characters with the given name or surname *House of Neville, a noble family of England *Neville (wrestler), ring name of Benjamin Satterley, a British professional wrestler *Naomi Neville, pseudonym of American songwriter and musician Allen Toussaint (1938–2015) Other uses * USS ''Neville'' (APA-9), a Heywood-class attack transport in the United States Navy *Concrete Aboriginal, a lawn ornament in Australia also known as a "Neville" See also *Fifehead Neville, Dorset, England *Tarring Neville, East Sussex, England *Neville's algorithm, used for polynomial interpolation *The Neville Brothers, American band *Naville, a surname *Nevil (disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain (land)
The army rank of captain (from the French ) is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to the command of a company of soldiers. The rank is also used by some air forces and marine forces, but usually refers to a more senior officer. History The term ultimately goes back to Late Latin meaning "head of omething; in Middle English adopted as in the 14th century, from Old French . The military rank of captain was in use from the 1560s, referring to an officer who commands a company. The naval sense, an officer who commands a man-of-war, is somewhat earlier, from the 1550s, later extended in meaning to "master or commander of any kind of vessel". A captain in the period prior to the professionalization of the armed services of European nations subsequent to the French Revolution, during the early modern period, was a nobleman who purchased the right to head a company from the previous holder of that right. He would in turn receive money from another nobleman t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
