Enemies of Rome
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Enemies of Rome
Aztec Empire – Conquest of America
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The mighty Aztec warrior priests were not only important figures in society but also fearsome warriors who were more than capable of wielding a macuahuitl with deadly intent on the battlefield.
In normal life Aztec priests would be responsible for many tasks, and often occupied high positions in society. They would be the life and blood of the Aztec religion, but also worked in government, created calenders, and were the primary record keepers. In addition they would teach in the schools and warrior training structures like the Calmecac and the Telpochocalli.
As a warrior priest however their role was different, they would fight alongside the Aztec warriors blow for blow. The warrior priests were armed with weaponry capable of inflicting severe injury, and they were protected with armour and shields and were more than capable or holding their ground.
A Warrior Priest who had taken four captives wore a “Tlahuiztli” known as the Cicitlallo Cuextecatl, which roughlty translates as “Starry Night”. This unique war suit really made the warrior priest stand out.
- AZ-004 Aztec Warrior Priest
- AZ-005 Aztec Eagle Warrior – Eagle warriors or eagle knights were a special class of infantry soldier in the Aztec army, one of the two leading military special forces orders in Aztec society.
The eagles were soldiers of the Sun, as the eagle was the symbol of the Sun. Eagle warriors dressed like eagles, adorning themselves with eagle feathers, and wearing headgear with an eagle head on it
Aztec Empire – Conquest of America
Wars of the Roses
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Wars of the Roses 1455-1487
Raid on Saint Francis
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Captive-taking by Native Americans was surprisingly common in Colonial times.
It was also common for captives to choose their Native communities over their Colonial families. This puzzled the European Americans. They came to America believing that conversion would be easy once Natives saw the superiority of the Europeans’ religion, clothing, agriculture, dwellings, and every comfort known so far to man.
Yet there were very few Indians who converted to English culture, while large numbers of English chose to become Indian. Even Benjamin Franklin pondered,
“When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. [But] when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.”
Amongst the many who were captured was Mary Jemison. Mary Jemison was born on the ship that brought her Irish parents, brothers and sisters to America in 1743. A few years later her family moved from Philadelphia to a homestead on the Pennsylvania frontier. The family toiled on the edge of civilization transforming the wilderness to cultivated soil. Each new day brought with it the fear of attack by wild beast or hostile indian.
Those fears became a reality on the morning of a spring day in 1758. The British colonies were engulfed in a war against the French. On that spring morning in 1758 a small raiding party made up of French and Indians swooped down on the frontier settlement capturing a number of British colonists including Mary Jemison and most of her family. From that day until her death 78 years later, she was never to leave the Indian culture. Her story of her capture and life amongst the Seneca was first published in 1824.
Raid on Saint Francis, 1759
WWI British Forces
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British Forces
Battle of Gallipoli
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Battle of Gallipoli 1915
Knights Of The Skies
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Another colourful Albatross from Jasta 46.
The Albatros D.III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) during World War I. It was the pre-eminent fighter during the period of German aerial dominance known as “Bloody April” 1917.
Early D.IIIs featured a radiator in the center of the upper wing, where it tended to scald the pilot if punctured. From the 290th D.III onward, the radiator was offset to the right, on production machines while others were soon moved to the right as a field modification. Aircraft deployed in Palestine used two wing radiators, to cope with the warmer climate.
Von Richthofen and most other German aces won the majority of their victories on the D.III, and it even turned out to be more successful than its alleged successor, and continued in production for several months after the introduction of the D.V.
Peak service was in November 1917, with 446 aircraft on the Western Front. 1,866 Albatros D.III planes were produced.
The D.III did not disappear with the end of production, however. It remained in frontline service well into 1918.
As late as March 1918, there were still nearly 200 D.IIIs in service on the Western Front, eight months even after the introduction of its successor.
Royal Prussian Jagdstaffel 46 was a “hunting group” (i.e., fighter squadron) of the Luftstreitkräfte, the air arm of the Imperial German Army during World War I. As one of the original German fighter squadrons, the unit would score 20 confirmed aerial victories over enemy observation balloons, plus thirty more over enemy aircraft. The Jasta paid a price of ten killed in action, one lost in a flying accident, six wounded in action, and three injured in accidents.
This plane was possibly flown by Leutnant Helmut Steinbrecher was the first pilot in history to successfully parachute from a stricken airplane, on 27 June 1918. He was a World War I flying ace credited with five aerial victories. Although Steinbrecher was flying a different aircraft at the time, an Albatross DV or a Pfalz D.III which was hit by British flying ace Captain Edward Barfoot Drake, 209 Squadron Royal Air Force in his Sopwith Camel over Warfusée. Captain Drake was just 20 years old, from Goodwick in Pembrokeshire, and himself was reported missing in action, presumed killed, just two months later on 29 September 1918.
The WW1 German lozenge patterns are some of the most interesting and distinctive camouflage schemes ever devised.
During the early stages of the Great War, the Germans were looking for a way to effectively camouflage the aircraft of the Luftstreitkräfte to inhibit enemy observation of the aircraft while it was in the air as well as when at rest on the ground. Large, irregular blotches with two or three colors were used on the upper surfaces of the wing which led to the development of the Buntfarbenanstrich, the lozenge camouflage made up of repeating patterns of irregularly shaped four-, five- or six-sided polygons. Because painting such a pattern was very time consuming, and the paint added considerably to the weight of the aircraft, the patterns were printed on fabric, and the fabric was then used to cover the aircraft. This printed fabric was used in various forms and colors from late 1916 until the end of the war.
Lozenge camouflage was a German military camouflage scheme in the form of patterned cloth or painted designs, used by some aircraft in the last two years of World War I. It takes its name from the repeated polygon shapes incorporated in the designs, many of which resembled lozenges. In Germany it was called Buntfarbenaufdruck (multi-colored print) but this designation includes other camouflage designs such as Splittermuster and Leibermuster, and does not include hand-painted camouflage. Some modern German sources refer to lozenge camouflage as Lozenge-Tarnung, as tarnung means concealment, cloaking or camouflage.
Knights Of The Skies – WWI
Inter-War Aviation
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Life on the flight deck is dangerous and taxing. Spinning propellers, grease everywhere, and a stiff sea wind that never stops are just a few of the things that must be endured for many hours at a time. The night and bad weather throw a whole other set of problems into the mix.
Yellow shirts are also worn by aircraft handlers and aircraft directors that shuttle aircraft around the carrier’s tight and chaotic deck.
Plane Handlers, who work under the direction of the yellow shirt wearing aircraft handlers, assist in moving aircraft around the deck. They also can operate the carrier’s massive aircraft elevators, drive tractors and work as messengers and verbal liaisons.
Inter-War Aviation Collection
WWII
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JJ WWII
Collection
Knights Of The Skies
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In 2013 a collection of 130 rare photographs, some showing German pilots from the First World War enjoying Champagne-fuelled parties was discovered. It is thought they were the possessions of a British soldier who acquired them at the end of the First world war, and were found by a man in Essex when searching through personal effects bequeathed to him by a relative.
Many of the photographs show the men in various states of inebriation, several of them at Christmas time, drinking wine, Champagne, beer and schnapps
Only 11 years after the Wright brothers pioneered flight, a young airman was as likely to be killed or kill himself in his flimsy aeroplane as be killed in action by the enemy.
RFC pilots lived by the motto “live for today, tomorrow we die,” and their German counterparts were little different.
Knights Of The Skies – WWI
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