About this talk: This talk will show how the RFC - who together with the RNAS - developed from a select group of 2000 men and 270 machines to a strength of 300,000 servicemen and women and 22,000 planes of the Royal Air Force in April 1918. Dr Hanna will show how the personnel of the RFC dealt with the quotidian aspects of everyday life on active service. How they organised their mess arrangements, of how they dealt with incidences of indiscipline through official and unofficial channels, how they maintained their morale in the face of fear and great losses. Dr Hanna will explore the granular details of everyday life, examining the habits and routines of ground crew, pilots and observers as they worked to keep planes in the air for a multitude of military purposes, including reconnaissance and photography, meteorological measurements, bombing raids and fighting. She will also look at their experiences of death, of burying and commemorating their comrades during and after the conflict, and of how the men of the RFC were remembered by their families, their governments and the wider public in the postwar years.
About this speaker: Emma Hanna is Senior Lecturer in the School of History and Deputy Director of Graduate Studies (History) at the University of Kent. She has published widely in international journals and edited collections on themes of the First World War including contemporary memory and memorialisation, the media, wartime music and cinema. She was a Co-Investigator on two major research projects: Gateways to the First World War (AHRC, 2014-2019) and Reflections on the Centenary of the First World War: Learning & Legacies for the Future (AHRC, 2017-2020). She is the author of The Great War on the Small Screen: Representing the First World War in Contemporary Britain and Sounds of War: Music in the British Armed Forces During the Great War
Where we meet: We meet at the Royal British Legion Club, Queensway, Petts Wood, Orpington, Kent BR5 1DH. Meetings are held on the last Thursday of each month (except August and December). They start at 19:30, with the doors (and the bar) opening at 18:30. No entrance fees but we do welcome donations of £5 or more towards our costs.
How to get there: The club is next to Morrison's supermarket and Petts Wood railway station (trains from Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and Victoria). Parking at the rear of the club is free but you need to enter your car registration into the machine (on the left as you enter the club). Failure to enter your registration can lead to a £50 fine. There's easy free parking in adjacent side streets.