Built at first by Rene Hanriot and Pierre Dupont at Billancourt, Paris, this attractive French fighter found little interest with the Aviation Militaire, who did not use it operationally. The Italian Air Force thought otherwise; producing large numbers at the Nieuport-Macchi factory at Varese and adopting the aircraft as its most widely-used fighter, in Italy, Albania and Macedonia. it also equipped the Belgian Aviation Militaire and was used by the French and United States Navies.
Fokker E-111
During the early months of the Great War the Dutchman, Anthony Fokker, supplied three monoplane designs to the German Army. In April 1915 Fokker was asked to develop one of these to be armed with a fixed machine gun firing forwards through the propeller. Three months later an interrupter gear was devised by Fokker and Lubbe and fitter into the Fokker M5k single-seat monoplane already in service. The airplane was then given the military title of Fokker E-1. The E-1 was powered by the 80hp Oberursel rotary engine and was soon replaced by the E-11 and the E-111 both with the 100hp Oberursel. At first, armament was a single Parabellum gun but the standard equipment soon became the Spandau. The E-IV, a larger machine, powered by the 160hp Oberursel was armed with two Spandau’s. The Fokker Eindecker entered service in later 1915 to start the ‘Fokker Scourge’ that gave German’s air superiority. 258 were built and used by the German’s, Austro-Hungarians and Turks. Production ended in July 1916 when the airplane had become thoroughly obsolete.
This WW1 Trench Art from the Museums store shows what soldiers could create with used objects while they were stuck in the trenches.
The first item is an Ash Tray which has been made from the bottom of a shell. As you can see some of the pieces of the shell have been melted and folded outwards to fit cigarettes in them.
The next item is what we think is a lamp or heater. But could also possible be another ash tray looking at the design.
Trench art is any decorative item made by soldiers, prisoners of war or civilians where the manufacture was directly linked to armed conflict or its consequences. It offers an insight into not only their feelings and emotions about the war, but also their surroundings and the materials they had available to them.
Not limited to the World Wars, the history of Trench Art spans conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day. Although the practice flourished during World War One, the term ‘trench art’ is also used to describe souvenirs manufactured by service personnel during World War Two. Some items manufactured by soldiers, prisoners of war or civilians during earlier conflicts have been retrospectively described as trench art.
In the Museums store we have many different kinds of medals and badges from different regiments and wars. These three badges and medals are all from WW1. These include a badge from The Royal Scots, a WW1 Allied Victory Medal and the 1914-15 Star.
The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment), once known as the Regiment of Foot, was the oldest and most senior infantry regiment of the line of the British Army, having been raised in 1633 during the reign of Charles 1 of Scotland. The regiment existed continuously until 2006, when it amalgamated with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers to become the Royal Scots Borderers, which merged with the Royal Highland Fusiliers (Princess Margaret’s Own Glasgow and Ayrshire Regiment), the Black Watch, the Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons) and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to form the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
The WW1 Allied Victory Medal as awarded to all those who received the 1914 Star or the 1914-15 Star, and to most of those who were awarded the British War Medal. It was not awarded singly. To qualify, recipients need to have served in the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom or the British Empire, or with certain recognised voluntary organisations, and to have entered any theatre of war between 5 August 1915 and 11 November 1918. While home service did not count, United Kingdom based members of the RAF who were actively engaged in the air against the enemy did qualify, as did those who flew planes to France. Women qualified for this and other First World War campaign medals while serving in nursing and auxiliary forces in a theatre of war. It was also awarded for mine clearance in the North Sea between 11 November 1918 and 30 November 1919 and for participation in the Allied intervention of the Russian Civil War up to 1st July 1920.
The 1914-15 Star is a campaign medal of the British Empire which was awarded to officers and men of British and Imperial forces who served in any theatre of the First World War against the Central European Powers during 1914 and 1915. The medal was never awarded singly and recipients also received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. The 1914-15 Star was instituted in December 1918 and was awarded to officers and men who served between 5 August 1914 and 31 December 1915, provided they had not already received the 1914 star. The period of eligibility was prior to the Military Service Act 1916, which introduced conscription in Britain.
The Caudron G4 came into service during the spring of 1915 as a bombing reconnaissance airplane with a good useful load of about 220lbs, an extraordinary rate of climb and even equipped with a wireless set. G4s were assigned to 38 escadrilles of the French Air force and used extensively throughout the war. At first they operated on reconnaissance duties then, in November 1915, they undertook daytime bombing sorties attacking targets beyond the Rhine. By the autumn of 1916 they were withdrawn from this duty because of the greatly improved German fighter defences. The RNAS used the Caudron G4. 43 were imported from France and 12 were built in the British Caudron plant. They were used to raid the German Zeppelin, submarine and seaplane bases along the Belgian coast. The G4 was also built in Italy and used by the Italian Air Force while 10, acquired by the American Army Air Force, were used as training aircraft.
Vickers F.B 5
Vickers Ltd were one of the first companies to design fighter aircraft. Their Type 18 ‘Destroyer’ was featured at the 1913 Aero show at Olympia armed with a belt-fed Maxim gun. The production aircraft, the FB 5, was bought by the RFC armed with a drum-fed Lewis Gun. No.11 Squadron RFC was the first specialised fighter Squadron to be formed with FB 5s in February 1915 and was soon in action with its ‘Gunbus’ used as a fighter, ground-strafer and sometimes a bomber. On 7th November 1915, 2nd Lieutenant G.S.M. Insall of No.11 Squadron RFC won the Victoria Cross for an action in a Vickers FB 5. This slow airplane, with a meagre performance, remained in service until July 1916, by then being no match at all for the German Fokker monoplanes.
These two objects are being kept in the Museums store so I thought I would do a bit of research on them. One of the items are .303 British shell casings from WW1 and the other is an officers side arm holster also from WW1.
The .303 British bullets were first developed in Britain as a black-powder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee-Metford rifle. In 1891 the cartridge was adapted to use smokeless powder. It was the standard British and Commonwealth military cartridge from 1889 until the 1950’s when it was replaced by the 7.62x51mm NATO. During a service life of over 70 years with the British Commonwealth armed forces the .303-inch cartridge in its ball pattern progressed through ten marks which eventually extended to a total of about 26 variations. The bolt thrust of the .303 British is relatively low compared to many other service rounds used in the early 20th Century. During World War One British factories alone produced 7 billion rounds of .303 ammunition. Factories in other countries greatly added to this total.
The other item is a leather WW1 British Officers sidearm holster which we believe used to hold a Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver which was used by British Army officers as their side arm. The Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver was designed in 1895 and was produced from 1901-1924, the revolver is easily recognisable by the zig-zag grooves on the cylinder. Though Webley viewed this weapon as an ideal sidearm for cavalry troops, the Webley-Fosbery was never adopted as an official government sidearm. Several models of the Webley-Fosbery revolvers were produced, and the type saw limited action in the Boer Wars as well as World War One, where some privately purchased examples were carried by British Officers in the .455 service bearing. Reports from the field suggested that the Webley-Fosbery, with its precisely machined recoil surfaces, was more susceptible to jamming in wartime conditions of mud and rain than comparable sidearms of the period.
The Lloyd C1 produced by the Ungarishe Lloyd Flugzueg and Motorenfabrik immediately before the outbreak of the Great War achieved instant fame by reaching an altitude of 20,243 feet at Aspern near Vienna. The aeroplane was already in service when the war started and between four and five hundred of the Lloyd C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5 were built and used extensively by the Austro-Hungarian Air Services during the first half of the war. No armament was first carried but the observer later had a schwarzlose machine gun. Some we fitted with a second machine gun mounted on the top wing. With its good rate of climb the Lloyd was a popular aircraft in the mountainous Italian front. It was stable and easy to fly even in the roughest weather. It then served well as a trainer after its operational life had ended.
Morane-Saulnier L
The Morane-Saulnier L was developed from the Type G which appeared together with three other excellent Morane designs at the Salon Aeronautique in Paris in 1911. The Type L, powered with either a Gnome or Le Rhone rotary was ordered in large numbers at the outbreak of war as a reconnaissance machine but, as it was found to be appreciably faster than German two-seaters, pilots were encouraged to arm their aircraft with pistols, cavalry carbines and other small arms. Nearly 600 Type L’s were built and used by Escadrilles MS3, 12 and 23 whose pilots and observers were successful in brining down many German aircraft during the first half of 1915. It was also used by No.3 Squadron RAF and No.1 Wing RNAS which accounted for the destruction of Zeppelin LZ37 on 7th June 1915. In the reconnaissance role it was operated by 8 French escadrilles and the Russians.
This First World War bayonet was recently brought into the Museum by one of our volunteers and is an American M1917 bayonet which was used in World War One, World War Two, Korean War and in the Vietnam War.
It was first used by American soldiers in WW1 on the Western Front. A sword bayonet design, the M1917 bayonet design was based on the British pattern 1913 bayonet. While designed specifically for the M1917 rifle, the bayonet was fitted for use on all the ‘trench’ shotguns at the time. The US continued to use the WW1-made M1917 bayonets during World War Two because of large stockpiles left over. The new trench guns being procured and issued were still designed to use the old M1917 bayonet.
The bayonet was then called upon again during the Korean war for issue due to the various trench guns still being in use. In 1966 procurement orders were let for brand new production M1917 bayonets. Stockpiles had finally run out, and new Winchester 1200 trench shotguns were being issued. These were issued in limited quantities during the Vietnam War. It was not until towards the end of the Vietnam War that new military shotguns were designed to use the newer knife bayonets.
M1917 bayonets were still used by the US Army as late as the early 2000’s for use with the M1200 shotgun.
In the Museums store we have postcards with images of these two WW1 Warships and thought we would do some research about them to see what impact they had in the First World War.
HMS Indomitable was one of three invincible-class battlecruisers built for the Royal Navy before World War One and had and active career during the war. She tried to hunt down the German ships Goeben and Breslau in the Mediterranean when war broke out and bombarded Turkish fortifications protecting the Dardenelles even before the British declared war on Turkey. She helped sink the German armoured battlecruiser Blücher during the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915 and towed the damaged HMS Lion to safety after the battle. She damaged the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger during the Battle of Jutland in mid 1916 and watched her sister ship HMS Invincible explode. She was then deemed obsolete after the war and was sold for scrap in 1921.
HMS Neptune was a dreadnaught Battleship built for the Royal Navy in the first decade of the twentieth century, the sole ship of her class. She was the first British Battleship to be built with superfiring guns. Shortly after her completion in 1911, she carried out trials of an experimental fire control director and then became flagship of the Home Fleet. Neptune became a private ship in 1914 and was assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron.
The ship became part of the Grand Fleet when it was formed shortly after the beginning of the First World War in August 1914. Aside from participating in the Battle of Jutland in May 1916, and the inconclusive Action of 19 August several months later, her service during the war generally consisted of routine patrols and training in the North Sea. Neptune was deemed obsolete after the war and was reduced to reserve before being sold for scrap in 1922 and subsequently broken up.
HMS Lion was a Battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy in 1910. She was the lead ship of her class, which was nicknamed the ‘Splendid Cats’. They were significant improvements over their predecessors of the indefatigable class in terms of speed, armament and armour. This was in response to the first battlecruisers, the Moltke class, which were very much larger and more powerful than the first British Battlecruisers, the Invincible class.
Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet battlecruisers throughout World War One, except when she was being refitted or under repair. She sank the German light cruiser Cöln during the Battle of Heligoland bight and served as Vice-Admiral Beatty’s flagship at the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port and was under repair for more than two months. During the battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant fire that could have destroyed the ship if it had not been for the bravery of Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, the turret commander, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded. The fire destroyed one gun turret which had to be removed for rebuilding while she was under repair for several months. She spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea, although she did provide distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917. She was put into reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1924 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.
The worlds first 4-engined aeroplane, Russkii Baltiski was designed and flew in 1913. From this was developed the Ilya Mourometz flown early in 1914 and was capable of carrying 16 passengers to an altitude of 2000m, at a speed of 62mph and able to remain airborne for 5 hours. Ten examples were ordered for the Imperial Russian Air Service at the outbreak of war and, eventually 80 aircraft were built. The first operational sortie was made on 15th February 1915 over East Prussia and, up to the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, some 400 bombing raids were made over German and Lithuanian territory for the loss in action of only one aircraft.
SPAD A2
Before the days of the introduction of interrupter mechanism for Allied fighter aeroplanes to enable a machine gun to be fired between the revolving blades of the propeller., British and French designers chose to develop aircraft with pusher engines armed with a machine gun which could be operated from the front cockpit by either the pilot or the gunner. An interim solution which used the more efficient tractor biplane was the complicated SPAD A2 with a pointed front nacelle placed directly ahead of the of the propeller containing a gunner and Lewis Gun. The pilot sat in a cramped cockpit behind the propeller. Designed by M. Bechereau of the Societe pour les Appareils Deperdussin the aeroplane first flew on 21st May 1915 powered by an 80hp Le Rhone 9c. 96 SPAD A2’s were constructed; 42 for the French Aviation Militaire and 57 for the Imperial Russian Airforce, now engined with the 110hp Le Rhone 9j. The A2’s operational life with the French was brief as faster and lighter aircraft were now coming into service equipped with guns firing through the propeller. The Russian Air Force with a general shortage of equipment retained the SPAD A2 much longer and used it with limited success in most battle areas.
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The Devil's Porridge Museum is closed from 9th December 2024 for the festive season and will re-open on 6th January 2025. Please be aware any online shop orders made while The Devil's Porridge Museum is closed will not be posted until the museum re-opens in January. Thank you for your understanding and support! Dismiss
