Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War an Illustrated History [Paperback]

Ces Mowthorpe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

Affectionately named "battlebags" by their crews and "pigs" by the local civilian inhabitants, Royal Navy Air Service airships were a familiar sight around Britains's shores. At least 226 airships of all types were built and operated by the Royal Navy during the war in a bid to beat the deadly German U-boat menace. This book describes the development of the airship in the years leading up to World War I and the part it was destined to play in the years that followed. The background to each class is given together with details of individual airships, including where they were built and stationed, their crews and technical information.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750915188
• ISBN-13: 978-0750915182
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,578,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an excellent ship-by ship history of british WWI blimps, March 25, 1999

By 

b snider ([e-mail]) (ottawa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War an Illustrated History (Paperback)

This book is an excellent technical history of WWI British airship design. You will find here the design, service history, and a photo of every British airship that entered naval service from pre-war beginnings to the end of military airship operations in the twenties. Included is a detailed map of all airship base locations, a description of mooring techniques before the mooring mast was invented, and a description of flight operations. It is not a campaign book, or a memoir book, but the wealth of technical information should satisfy most ardent blimp buffs.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly Informative and Bland, January 18, 2005

By 

Peter Schmidt (Orlando, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War an Illustrated History (Paperback)

This book seeks to cover, by text and picture, every single British airship used in WWI. And it does this. But this is not a story-book, and one should not purchase this expecting to read a thrilling history of British Airships of the First World War.

Let's start with the good:
1. There are a lot of original black and white pictures of the blimps and airships. There are no artist's paintings or sketches; these are the real thing. Included near the back are a few technical diagrams of some of the airships.

2. Class by Class analysis of the ships, along with a thumbnail history of each ship (trial flight date, service record with highlights, sometimes with hours flown, who commanded the ship, and where it was wrecked, or when it was de-serviced).

3. Coverage: The book does what it says it will do: cover the 211 British Airships of WWI.

The drawbacks:
1. Writing Style: I'd love to meet the author of this book. He has an obvious fascination with the subject, has done a lot of research, and possesses much knowledge about British airships. Unfortunately, it is just knowledge that is transmitted on the pages of this book. It's very technical, and quite impersonal, focusing on the airships themselves and not much about the people that flew them. Which is fine, but to me it just isn't all that captivating to read simply where a ship flew, when it had engine trouble, and when it was deflated. Some stories of the missions and personal background about the men who flew these airships would have greatly heightened the reading experience.

2. Misleading Title??? Perhaps this is just a matter of semantics, but when I think of "airship" I usually think of rigids. The Title is: Battlebags - British Airships of the First World War. I think most airship enthusiasts make a distinction between airships and blimps. This is primarily a book about BLIMPS, not big airships. Now I know we cannot really go back into history and give the British more rigids in WWI to write about, but the title (and especially the picture of the rigid "R27" on the cover of the book) gave me the impression that much of the book would cover rigids. The fact of the matter is that 90% of the coverage is about blimps. And if the book is entitled "Battlebags," then I suppose I am buying this expecting to read about some of the battles these bags were involved in, instead of a few scouting missions and engine failure before deflation or destruction. (and yes, the author states near the beginning that British crews affectionately named their crafts "battlebags," but to put this as the title of the book is misleading, I believe, unless there are going to be stories of battles these airships were involved in)

3. Layout: Many other illustrated histories of airships and other events almost read like a magazine. Here and there will be a full-page color picture, maybe a brief personal story is inserted in a text box near the margin. The editors of this book showed absolutely no imagination for eye-appeal, which contributes to the bland nature of the book.

Will I get rid of this book now that I have it? No, it has a lot of great information. Would I have bought it in the first place had I known what it was going to be? No, I would not have been interested in buying simply a reference book on the subject. I'd love it to have more of a storyline. But it is what it is, and I commend the author for his investigation and documentation of this little-known subject.