Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's aerial warfare force. Formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world. Following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. Since its formation, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history. In particular, it played a large part in the Second World War where it fought its most famous campaign, the Battle of Britain; the RAF's mission is to support the objectives of the British Ministry of Defence, which are to "provide the capabilities needed to ensure the security and defence of the United Kingdom and overseas territories, including against terrorism. The RAF describes its mission statement as "... an agile and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission". The mission statement is supported by the RAF's definition of air power.
Air power is defined as "the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events". Today the Royal Air Force maintains an operational fleet of various types of aircraft, described by the RAF as being "leading-edge" in terms of technology; this consists of fixed-wing aircraft, including: fighter and strike aircraft, airborne early warning and control aircraft, ISTAR and SIGINT aircraft, aerial refueling aircraft and strategic and tactical transport aircraft. The majority of the RAF's rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Helicopter Command in support of ground forces. Most of the RAF's aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on operations or at long-established overseas bases. Although the RAF is the principal British air power arm, the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and the British Army's Army Air Corps deliver air power, integrated into the maritime and land environments. While the British were not the first to make use of heavier-than-air military aircraft, the RAF is the world's oldest independent air force: that is, the first air force to become independent of army or navy control.
Following publication of the "Smuts report" prepared by Jan Smuts the RAF was founded on 1 April 1918, with headquarters located in the former Hotel Cecil, during the First World War, by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. At that time it was the largest air force in the world. After the war, the service was drastically cut and its inter-war years were quiet, with the RAF taking responsibility for the control of Iraq and executing a number of minor actions in other parts of the British Empire; the RAF's naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm, was founded in 1924 but handed over to Admiralty control on 24 May 1939. The RAF developed the doctrine of strategic bombing which led to the construction of long-range bombers and became its main bombing strategy in the Second World War; the RAF underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed "Article XV squadrons" for service with RAF formations.
Many individual personnel from these countries, exiles from occupied Europe served with RAF squadrons. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations approximately a quarter of Bomber Command's personnel were Canadian. Additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine percent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe. In what is the most prolonged and complicated air campaign in history, the Battle of Britain contributed to the delay and subsequent indefinite postponement of Hitler's plans for an invasion of the United Kingdom. In the House of Commons on 20 August, prompted by the ongoing efforts of the RAF, Prime Minister Winston Churchill eloquently made a speech to the nation, where he said "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".
The largest RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. While RAF bombing of Germany began immediately upon the outbreak of war, under the leadership of Air Chief Marshal Harris, these attacks became devastating from 1942 onward as new technology and greater numbers of superior aircraft became available; the RAF adopted night-time area bombing on German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden, developed precision bombing techniques for specific operations, such as the "Dambusters" raid by No. 617 Squadron, or the Amiens prison raid known as Operation Jericho. Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, as technological advances in air warfare saw the arrival of jet fighters and bombers. During the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the Royal Air Force was in 1948 and the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Between 26 June and the lifting of the Russian blockade of the city on 2 May, the RAF provided 17% of the total supplies delivered du
Bodyline
Bodyline known as fast leg theory bowling, was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia's Don Bradman. A bodyline delivery was one where the cricket ball was bowled at the body of the batsman, in the hope that when he defended himself with his bat, a resulting deflection could be caught by one of several fielders standing close by. Critics considered the tactic intimidating and physically threatening, to the point of being unfair in a game, supposed to uphold gentlemanly traditions. England's use of a tactic perceived by some as overly aggressive or unfair threatened diplomatic relations between the two countries before the situation was calmed. Although no serious injuries arose from any short-pitched deliveries while a leg theory field was set, the tactic still led to considerable ill feeling between the two teams when Australian batsmen suffered actual injuries in separate incidents, which inflamed the watching crowds.
The controversy spilled into the diplomatic arena. Short-pitched bowling continues to be permitted in cricket when aimed at the batsman. However, over time, several of the Laws of Cricket were changed to render the bodyline tactic less effective. Bodyline is a tactic devised for and used in the Ashes series between England and Australia in 1932–33; the tactic involved bowling at leg stump or just outside it, pitching the ball short so that it reared at the body of a batsman standing in an orthodox batting position. A ring of fielders ranged on the leg side would catch any defensive deflection from the bat; the batsman's options were to evade the ball through ducking or moving aside, allow the ball to strike his body or play the ball with his bat. The last course carried additional risks. Defensive shots brought few runs and could carry far enough to be caught by the fielders on the leg side. Bodyline bowling is intimidatory, was designed as an attempt to curb the prolific scoring of Donald Bradman, although other prolific Australian batsmen such as Bill Woodfull, Bill Ponsford and Alan Kippax were targeted.
Several different terms were used to describe this style of bowling before the name "bodyline" was used. Among the first to use it was former Australian Test cricketer Jack Worrall. Other writers used a similar phrase around this time, but the first use of "bodyline" in print seems to have been by the journalist Hugh Buggy in the Melbourne Herald, in his report on the first day's play of the first Test. In the 19th century, most cricketers considered it unsportsmanlike to bowl the ball at the leg stump or for batsmen to hit on the leg side, but by the early years of the 20th century, some bowlers slow or medium-paced, used leg theory as a tactic. Two English left-arm bowlers, George Hirst in 1903—04 and Frank Foster in 1911—12, bowled leg theory to packed leg side fields in Test matches in Australia. In the years before the First World War, several bowlers used leg theory in county cricket; when cricket resumed after the war, few bowlers maintained the tactic, unpopular with spectators owing to its negativity.
Fred Root, the Worcestershire bowler, used it and with considerable success in county cricket. Root defended the use of leg theory—and bodyline—observing that when bowlers bowled outside off stump, the batsmen were able to let the ball pass them without playing a shot; some fast bowlers experimented with leg theory prior to 1932, sometimes accompanying the tactic with short-pitched bowling. In 1925, Australian Jack Scott first bowled a form of what would have been called bodyline in a state match for New South Wales. Other Australian captains were less particular, including Vic Richardson who let Scott use those tactics when he moved to South Australia, he repeated them against the MCC in 1928–29. In 1927, in a Test trial match, "Nobby" Clark bowled short to a leg-trap, he was representing England in a side captained by Douglas Jardine. In 1928–29, Harry Alexander bowled fast leg theory at an England team, Harold Larwood used a similar tactic on that same tour in two Test matches. Freddie Calthorpe, the England captain, criticised Learie Constantine's use of short-pitched bowling to a leg side field in a Test match in 1930.
The Australian cricket team toured England in 1930. Australia won the five-Test series 2–1, Donald Bradman scored 974 runs at a batting average of 139.14, an aggregate record that still stands. By the time of the next Ashes series of 1932–33, Bradman's average hovered around 100 twice that of all other world-class batsmen; the English cricket authorities felt that new tactics would be required to prevent Bradman being more successful on Australian pitches.
Freddie Calthorpe
Frederick Somerset Gough Calthorpe, styled The Honourable from 1912, was an English first-class cricketer. Born in London, Calthorpe was a member of the Gough-Calthorpe family, the son of Somerset Frederick Gough-Calthorpe, who inherited the title of 8th Baron Calthorpe in 1912. Freddie Calthorpe was educated at Windlesham House School and Jesus College, Cambridge. Calthorpe played cricket for Sussex, Cambridge University and England, he captained England in his only four Test matches: on the first Test tour of the West Indies in 1929–30, drawn 1–1. This tour was played to another England Test tour to New Zealand, where England were captained by Harold Gilligan, his first-class career extended from 1911 to 1935. He captained Warwickshire from 1920 to 1929, led a strong Marylebone Cricket Club team on a tour of the West Indies in 1925–26, he died of cancer in Surrey. Calthorpe is distantly related to the cricket commentator Henry Blofeld, more to the England captain H. D. G. Leveson Gower and the early cricket patron John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset.
Media related to Freddie Calthorpe at Wikimedia Commons Freddie Calthorpe at ESPNcricinfo
Douglas Jardine
Douglas Robert Jardine was a cricketer who played 22 Test matches for England, captaining the side in 15 of those matches between 1931 and 1934. A right-handed batsman, he is best known for captaining the English team during the 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia. During that series, England employed "Bodyline" tactics against the Australian batsmen, wherein bowlers pitched the ball short on the line of leg stump to rise towards the bodies of the batsmen in a manner that most contemporary players and critics viewed as intimidatory and physically dangerous. Jardine was the person responsible for the implementation of Bodyline. A controversial figure among cricketers, he was well known for his dislike of Australian players and crowds and was unpopular in Australia for what was perceived to be an arrogant manner, after the Bodyline tour. Many who played under his leadership regarded him as an dedicated captain, he was famous in cricket circles for wearing a multi-coloured Harlequin cap. After establishing an early reputation as a prolific schoolboy batsman, Jardine played cricket for Winchester College, attended the University of Oxford, playing for its cricket team, played for Surrey County Cricket Club as an amateur.
He developed a defensive method of batting, unusual for an amateur, receiving occasional criticism for negative batting. Despite this, Jardine was selected in Test matches for the first time in 1928, went on to play with some success in the Test series in Australia in 1928–29. Following this tour, his business commitments prevented him from playing as much cricket. However, in 1931, he was asked to captain England in a Test against New Zealand. Although there were some initial misgivings about his captaincy, Jardine led England in the next three cricket seasons and on two overseas tours, one of, the Australian tour of 1932–33. Of his 15 Tests as captain, he lost one and drew five, he retired from all first-class cricket in 1934 following a tour to India. Although Jardine was a qualified solicitor he did not work much in law, choosing instead to devote most of his working life to banking and on, journalism, he spent most of it posted in India. After the war, he worked as company secretary at a paper manufacturer and returned to journalism.
While on a business trip in 1957, he became ill with what proved to be lung cancer and died, aged 57, in 1958. Douglas Jardine was born on 23 October 1900 in Bombay, British India, to Scottish parents, Malcolm Jardine—a former first-class cricketer who became a barrister—and Alison Moir. At the age of nine, he was sent to St Andrews in Scotland to stay with his mother's sister, he attended Horris Hill School, near Newbury, from May 1910. There, Jardine was moderately successful academically, from 1912, he played cricket for the school first eleven, enjoying success as a bowler and as a batsman, he led the team in his final year, the team were unbeaten under his captaincy. As a schoolboy, Jardine was influenced by the writing of former England captain C. B. Fry on batting technique, which contradicted the advice of his coach at Horris Hill; the coach disapproved of Jardine's batting methods, but Jardine did not back down and quoted a book by Fry to support his viewpoint. In 1914, Jardine entered Winchester College.
At the time, life at Winchester was austere. Sport and exercise were vital parts of the school day. In Jardine's time, preparing the pupils for war was important. According to Jardine's biographer, Christopher Douglas, the pupils were "taught to be honest, impervious to physical pain and civilised." All pupils were required to be academically competent and Jardine was able to get along without exhibiting brilliance. Jardine enjoyed a better position than some pupils possessing a reputation as a cricketer and excelling at other sports, but it was at cricket. He was in the first eleven for three years from 1917 and received coaching from Harry Altham, Rockley Wilson and Schofield Haigh, the latter two of whom were distinguished cricketers. In 1919, his final year, Jardine came top of the school batting averages with 997 runs at an average of 66.46. He became captain despite some doubts within the school about his ability to unify the team. Under Jardine, Winchester won their annual match against Eton College in 1919, a fixture in which Eton held the upper hand.
Jardine's batting and captaincy were key factors in his side's first victory over Eton for 12 years. After his retirement from cricket, he named his 89 in that match as his favourite innings. Jardine went on to score 135 not out against Harrow School. Jardine's achievements in the season were reported in the local and national press, he played two representative matches, for the best schoolboy cricketers, at Lord's Cricket Ground, scored 44, 91, 57 and 55 and won favourable reviews in the press. Wisden, in 1928, described Jardine at this time as being of a much higher standard than his contemporaries in defence and on side batting. However, he was criticised for being too cautious and not using all the batting strokes of which he was capable—his good batting technique gave the impression that he could score more quickly. Jardine entered New College, Oxford, in September 1919 at a time when the university was more crowded than usual due to the arrival of men whose entrance had been delayed due to th
Stumped
Stumped is a method of dismissal in cricket. The action of stumping can only be performed by a wicket-keeper and, according to the Laws of Cricket, a batsman can be given out stumped if: the wicket-keeper puts down the wicket, while the batsman is: out of his ground. Being "out of his ground" is defined as not having any part of the batsman's body or his bat touching the ground behind the crease – i.e. if his bat is elevated from the floor despite being behind the crease, or if his foot is on the crease line itself but not across it and touching the ground behind it he would be considered out. One of the fielding team must appeal for the wicket by asking the umpire; the appeal is directed to the square-leg umpire, who would be in the best position to adjudicate on the appeal. Stumping is the fifth most common form of dismissal after caught, leg before wicket and run out, though it is seen more in Twenty20 cricket because of its more aggressive batting, it is governed by Law 39 of the Laws of Cricket.
It is seen with a medium or slow bowler, as with fast bowlers a wicket-keeper takes the ball too far back from the wicket to attempt a stumping. It includes co-operation between a bowler and wicket-keeper: the bowler draws the batsman out of his ground, the wicket-keeper catches and breaks the wicket before the batsman realises he has missed the ball and makes his ground, i.e. places the bat or part of his body on the ground back behind the popping crease. If the bails are removed before the wicket-keeper has the ball, the batsman can still be stumped if the wicket-keeper removes one of the stumps from the ground, while holding the ball in his hand; the bowler is credited for the batsman's wicket, the wicket-keeper is credited for the dismissal. A batsman may be out stumped off a wide delivery but cannot be stumped off a no-ball as bowler is credited for the wicket. Notes: The popping crease is defined as the back edge of the crease marking (i.e. the edge closer to the wicket. Therefore, a batsman whose bat or foot is on the crease marking, but does not touch the ground behind the crease marking, can be stumped.
This is quite common. The wicket must be properly put down in accordance with Law 28 of the Laws of cricket: using either the ball itself or a hand or arm, in possession of the ball. Note that since the ball itself can put down the wicket, a stumping is still valid if the ball rebounds from the'keeper and breaks the wicket though never controlled by him; the wicket-keeper must allow the ball to pass the stumps before taking it, unless it has touched either the batsman or his bat first. If the wicket-keeper fails to do this, the delivery is a "no-ball", the batsman cannot be stumped
Johannesburg
Johannesburg is the largest city in South Africa and one of the 50 largest urban areas in the world. It is the provincial capital and largest city of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa. While Johannesburg is not one of South Africa's three capital cities, it is the seat of the Constitutional Court; the city is located in the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills and is the centre of large-scale gold and diamond trade. The metropolis is an alpha global city as listed by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. In 2011, the population of the city of Johannesburg was 4,434,827, making it the most populous city in South Africa. In the same year, the population of Johannesburg's urban agglomeration was put at 7,860,781; the land area of the municipal city is large in comparison with those of other major cities, resulting in a moderate population density of 2,364/km2. The city was established in 1886 following the discovery of gold on; the city is interpreted as the modern day El Dorado due to the large gold deposit found along the Witwatersrand.
In ten years, the population grew to 100,000 inhabitants. A separate city from the late 1970s until 1994, Soweto is now part of Johannesburg. An acronym for "South-Western Townships", Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg, populated by native African workers from the gold mining industry. Soweto, although incorporated into Johannesburg, had been separated as a residential area for Blacks, who were not permitted to live in Johannesburg proper. Lenasia is predominantly populated by English-speaking South Africans of Indian descent; these areas were designated as non-white areas in accordance with the segregationist policies of the South African government known as Apartheid. Controversy surrounds the origin of the name. There was quite a number of people with the name "Johannes" who were involved in the early history of the city. Among them are the principal clerk attached to the office of the surveyor-general Hendrik Dercksen, Christiaan Johannes Joubert, a member of the Volksraad and was Republic's chief of mining.
Another was Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, president of the South African Republic from 1883 - 1900. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility. Precise records for the choice of name were lost. Johannes Rissik and Johannes Joubert were members of a delegation sent to England to attain mining rights for the area. Joubert had a park in the city named after him and Rissik has his name for one of the main streets in the city where the important albeit dilapidated Rissik Street Post Office is located; the City Hall is located on Rissik Street. The region surrounding Johannesburg was inhabited by San people. By the 13th century, groups of Bantu-speaking people started moving southwards from central Africa and encroached on the indigenous San population. By the mid-18th century, the broader region was settled by various Sotho–Tswana communities, whose villages, towns and kingdoms stretched from what is now Botswana in the west, to present day Lesotho in the south, to the present day Pedi areas of the Northern Province.
More the stone-walled ruins of Sotho–Tswana towns and villages are scattered around the parts of the former Transvaal province in which Johannesburg is situated. The Sotho–Tswana practised farming and extensively mined and smelted metals that were available in the area. Moreover, from the early 1960s until his retirement, Professor Revil Mason of the University of the Witwatersrand and documented many Late Iron Age archaeological sites throughout the Johannesburg area; these sites dated from between the 12th century and 18th century, many contained the ruins of Sotho–Tswana mines and iron smelting furnaces, suggesting that the area was being exploited for its mineral wealth before the arrival of Europeans or the discovery of gold. The most prominent site within Johannesburg is Melville Koppies, which contains an iron smelting furnace. Many Sotho–Tswana towns and villages in the areas around Johannesburg were destroyed and their people driven away during the wars emanating from Zululand during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as a result, an offshoot of the Zulu kingdom, the Ndebele, set up a kingdom to the northwest of Johannesburg around modern-day Rustenburg.
The main Witwatersrand gold reef was discovered in June 1884 on the farm Vogelstruisfontein by Jan Gerritse Bantjes that triggered the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886. The discovery of gold attracted people to the area, making necessary a name and governmental organisation for the area. Jan and Johannes were common male names among the Dutch of that time. Johannes Meyer, the first government official in the area is another possibility. Precise records for the choice of name were lost. Within ten years, the city of Johannesburg included 100,000 people. In September 1884, the Struben brothers discovered the Confidence Reef on the farm Wilgespruit near present-day Roodepoort, which further boosted excitement over gold prospects; the first gold to be crushed on the Witwatersrand was the gold-bearing rock from the Bantjes mine crushed using the Struben brothers stamp machine. News of t
Walter Read
Walter William Read was an English cricketer, a fluent right hand bat. An occasional bowler of lobs, he sometimes switched to quick overarm deliveries, he captained. Read was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1893. Read took part in the original Ashes series of 1882–3 and is commemorated by the poem inscribed on the side of the urn: When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn, he played for Surrey from 1873 to 1897, scoring 338 for them against Oxford University in 1888. At the time, it was the second highest first-class score made, he was a member of the side that won the County Championship in 1890-2, 1894 and 1895. After W. G. Grace he was the most prolific amateur of his day, he became the first number 10 to score a hundred in Test cricket when he made 117 against Australia at The Oval in 1884. His match-saving innings remains the highest score by a No. 10 in Tests. He reached his century in 113 minutes with 36 scoring strokes, his partnership of 151 with William Scotton remains England's highest for the ninth wicket against Australia.
According to Sir Home Gordon, Read was furious at being held down so low in the order. History of Test cricket History of Test cricket History of Test cricket "Walter Read". Keith Booth, Walter Read: A Class Act, ACS Publications, 2011, ISBN 978-1-908165-11-4. CricketArchive page on Walter Read
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