The Nieuport 11 entered service with the Aviation Militaire in the summer of 1915. A small, single-seat biplane which quickly earned the nickname of ‘Bebe’ it was also used by the RNAS and from March 1916 served with the RFC on the Western Front providing more than a match for the Fokker monoplanes. The Macchi Company built 640 in Italy where they became standard fighters and were also used in Albania. Others served in Belgium and Russia.
Sopwith 1 ½ Strutter
This aircraft was used extensively during the Great War by the RNAS, RFC, French, Belgian and United States air services on a range of duties whcih included fighter-reconnaissance, bombing, ground attack, coastal patrol, anti-submarine work and photo reconnaissance. It operated on the Western Front, in Macedonia, Italy, the Aegen area and Russia and was flown from aircraft carriers, battleships and battle cruisers. the 1½ Strutter was the first British service aircraft with an efficient syncronised forward-firing armament. About 1500 were built by eight British manufacturers and some 4500 completed by the French.
Hannah was a munitions worker at Gretna from 1917 to 1918. She heard about the plant from a friend, and they both signed up together, in Tudhoe, which is near Spennymoor.
The two travelled by train to the plant, and were initially billeted in a hut with several other girls from the North East of England. She remembers that a lot of the girls came from Sunderland. Unfortunately the hit was not wind and watertight, and many of the girls began to have serious doubts about their decision to come to the plant. However, the next day, they were moved to a complex of huts which varied in size, but which were connected by a communal dining hall. The food provided as of a very hight standard, but the constant repetition of kippers for breakfast led to a half day strike by the girls, until this was varied.
Hannah was given a works number, 3-11-39, and was sent to work in the gun cotton plant. There were two sections of this plant, which included a wet and dry area. Her strongest memories are of the drying out process, in which the cotton was removed from the large zinc pans and placed in bags.
This was a dusty job, and the workshop had to be continually hosed down. As a result, the girls were provided with rubber boots, and face masks. Due to the impregnation of this dust, on to their clothing, immediately after the shift had finished, the girls’ trousers and tunics were replaced.
After a while, Hannah became a chargehand, and supervised a group of girls, including some Gaelic speakers from the Islands. Her main task was to teach them how to dry the cotton. Included in this job was also a section about training in fire fighting by the local Fire Briagde, and the girls were taught to handle hoses, scale ladders etc.
Hannah also remebers that she was supervised in turn by a femal supervisor, who was provided with a distinctive khaki uniform, consisting of a wide brimmed hat, belted jacket, skirt and tie, with a shirt and dark stockings, and shoes.
Many of the girls obtained late passes, and travelled to Carlisle and Dornock, to attend dances and variety shows. Moreover the girls often entertained each other by producing their own shows, with each girl doing a turn. There were also sporting events, such as the Dornock Hockey Team.
Hannah worked at the plant throughout the running down period of 1919, and then returned to Spennymoor, where she went into domestic service prior to her marriage.
This is an example of a 5 million German Mark note from 1923 when Germany was going through hyperinflation after the First World War when trying to pay off their repatriation debts. The hyperinflation was caused by the German Government printing too much money to try and pay off their debts this caused the money to be worthless which then caused the hyper inflation.
To pay for the Large costs of the ongoing First World War, Germany suspended the gold standard (the convertability of its currency into gold) when the war broke out. Unlike France, who imposed its first income tax to pay for the War, German Empoer Wilhelm II and the Riechstag decided unamimously to fund the war by entirely borrowing, a decision criticized by financial experts such as Hjalmar Schacht as a dangerous risk for currency devaluation.
The government believed that it would be able to pay off the debt by winning the war and plundering the defeated allies. This was to be done by annexing resource-rich industrial territory in the west and east and imposing cash payments to Germany, similar to the cash idemnity that followed German victory over France in 1870. Thus, the exchange rate of the mark against the US Dollar steadily devalued from 4.2 to 7.9 marks per dollar, a preliminary warning to the extreme postwar inflation.
This strategy failed as Germany lost the war, which left the Weimar Republic saddled with massive war debts that it could not afford, a problem exacerbated by printing money without any economic resources to back it. The demand of the Treaty of Versailles for repatriations further accelerated the decline in the value of the mark, with 48 paper marks required to buy a US Dollar by late 1919.
In April 1921, the “London Payment Plan” ordered the German Government to pay repatriations in gold or foreign currency in annual installments of two billion gold marks plus 26% of the value of Germany’s imports. The first payment was made when it came due in June 1921, and marked the beginning of an increasingly rapid devaluation of the mark, which fell to approximately 330 marks per dollar.
By December 1922 the value of the mark fell to 7400 marks per US Dollar. The hyper inflation increased the prices of everyday items drastically, for example, a loaf of bread went from costing around 160 marks at the end of 1922 to costing 200,000,000,000 Marks by late 1923. By the end of November 1923, the US Dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German Marks. This meant that very large notes had to be created which ranged from 50,000 to 50 trillion by 1923.
The German Government decided that the only way to solve this was to create a new currency called the Rentenmark which was backed by bonds indexed to the market price of gold. The gold bonds were indexed at the rate of 2790 gold marks per kilogram of gold, the same as pre-war gold marks. The plan was adopted in monetary reform decreaces on October 13-15, 1923. By 1924 one dollar was equivelant to 4.2 Rentenmarks.
The Suffolk Regiment was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army with a history dating back to 1685. It saw service for three centuries, participating in many wars and conflicts, including the First and Second World Wars, before being amalgamated with the Royal Norfolk Regiment to form the 1st East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk) in 1959 which, in 1964, was further amalgamated with the 2nd East Anglian Regiment (Dutchess of Gloucester’s Own Royal Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire), the 3rd East Anglian Regiment (16th/44th Foot) and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to create the present Royal Anglian Regiment.
Royal Lincolnshire Regiment
The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20th June 1685 as the Earl of Bath’s Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army Regiments and named the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. After the Childers Reforms of 1881, it became the Lincolnshire Regiment after the county where it had been recuriting since 1781. After the Second World War, the regiment was honoured with the name Royal Lincolnshire Regiment, before being amalgamated in 1960 with the Northhamptonshire Regiment to form the Second East Anglian Regiment which was later amalgamated with the 1st East Anglian Regiment (which the Suffolk Regiment was a part of), 3rd East Anglian Regiment and the Royal Leiscestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. A company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglians continues the traditions of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment.
The Short 184 was designed to meet a requirement for a torpedo bomber. It was developed from the Short 1913 circuit of Britain airplane with a 225hp Sunbeam Maori engine and was notable for its rearward folding wings and three-float landing gear. A major production programme began in the spring of 1915 involving 9 contractors in addition to Short. A variety of engines powered the Short 184 including the 240hp Renault and Sunbeam units. Production totalled more than 900 aircraft of which 300 were still in service at the end of the Great War.
Lohner L
The Lohner L, a slender, elegant flying boat, was produced by the Jakob Lohner Werke of Vienna. Powered by either a 140hp Hiero or by an Austro-Daimler of 140 or 180hp, this two-seater aircraft could carry up to 200kg of bombs or depth charges and also operate quite effectively as a fighter armed with a Schwarzlose machine-gun on a rotable mounting. It was used in the Austro-Hungarian Navy against Italian targets from 1915 until the end of the war in the reconnaissance, night bombing and anti-shipping roles.
The Taube or ‘Dove’ was so-called because of its swept-back wing tips and long fan-shaped tail. It had inherent stability, was pleasant to fly and had a reasonable performance. The Rumpler company took over the manufacturing rights from the designer, Etrich, and many makes of Taube were produced by the Albatros, Gotha and Rumpler firms. All civilian versions were pressed into service at the outbreak of the war and, on August 30th 1914, Paris was bombed from Taube with five 6.6lb bombs. In the same month a Rumpler Taube was instrumental in saving the day for the German 8th Army at the Battle of Tannenberg by observing an unexpected Russian advance. Approximately 500 Tauben were built for the German armed forces.
Avro 504
The Avro 504 first appeared in 1913, an airplane considerably in advance of most of its cotemporaries in design, construction and performance, despite this, only 13 Avro’s were used by front-line units in France. One Avro of No.5 Squadron RFC was the first British machine to be brought down by the enemy while another, from the same squadron, armed with a Lewis gun, made the first ground strafing attack of the war during the first Battle of Ypres, October 22nd 1914. The most audacious action by this type occurred two days later when four Avro’s bombed the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. Later marks saw some operational service until the Avro 504 came into its own as an excellent training aircraft.
These two Memorial Death Plaques or ‘Death Coins’ from WW1 were given to the families of George Sloan Brown and Alexander Cumming for their sacrifices during the First World War.
It was in October 1916 that the British Government set up a committee for the idea of a commemorative plaque that could be given to the next of kin for those men and women whose deaths were caused by the First World War from 1914-1918. The first a family would know of the death of a family member was the arrival of a telegram from the War Office. This would then be followed by the First World War Death Plaque and any medals the serviceman would have earned serving his country.
Production of the plaques, which was supposed to be financed by German reparation money, began in 1919 with approximately 1,150,000 issued. They commemorated those who fell between 4th August, 1914 and 10th January, 1920 for home, Western Europe and the Dominions whilst the final date for the other theatres of war or those who died of attributable causes was April 30th 1920.
The next of kin of the 306 British and Commonwealth military personnel who were executed following a Court Martial did not receive a memorial plaque.
When HM Factory Gretna was built in WW1 they needed a place to house all of their workers, they came up with the idea to build two new townships near the Factory site. These two townships were Eastriggs and Gretna, many houses and hostels were built to house all of the workers during WW1 some of which you can see in the photo below of Dunedin Road in Eastriggs.
The photo below shows the temporary wooden huts which were eventually converted into proper houses using brick after the war built in Gretna along with some of the permanent hostel buildings which have now been converted into houses.
Below is a photo of the girls reading room which would be used some of the 12,000 female workers who worked at HM Factory Gretna during their spare time. The interior looks very nice but some reports we have of girls who worked at the Factory say that it was very cold inside during the winter as there was no heating.
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.
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