Death in the Air - The Cockburn-Lange Hoax. Wesley David Archer, an American who had been a World War One pilot with No. 40 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, and was wounded in 1918, later perpetrated a fraud based on his experiences. The anonymous text and 48 photos of 'Death in the Air' purport to be his diary and to depict aerial combat in W W 1. The author claimed to have rigged a one-shot camera on his aircraft and with it he claimed to have captured the images of planes and pilots in life and death combat situations. The diary is unfinished, implying that the author had been killed in combat. The pictures first appeared in North America at the First International Exhibition of Aviation Art. In 1932 they appeared in England in the Illustrated London News and later in the Sunday Pictorial. William Heinemann published the book in 1933; it was re-printed in 1936. The book, and especially the photographs, were controversial for years; questions were raised over the quality of the shots, the large number of aircraft in many of the pictures, the feasibility of accomplishing the task and the Royal Air Force's silence on the topic. In 1984 Peter M. Grosz (an international authority on German W W 1 aircraft) and Karl S. Schneide (working in the Aeronautics department of the National Air and Space Museum) debunked the affair. It transpired that Archer had had a post-war career as a aircraft model-maker for the film industry. His diary and photos of him making the aircraft depicted in the book came to light. Archer, having collected a tidy sum of money at the height of the Depression from the sale of his book, moved to Cuba in 1952 where he died in 1955 a the age of 57. (The fact that he made money on the project technically makes this a fraud, rather that the hoax which it is commonly called). The book, in addition to the 'diary', 48 photographs and a Glossary contains a verse of poetry. [1]
References edit
- ^ Death in the Air. The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot London: William Heinemann LTD, Windmill Press, 1933
External links edit
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