CAPTIVE OF ANCIENT EGYPT

 

Negro Captives, Abu Simbel

 

Captives taken in war were depicted in many ways in ancient Egypt: on royal footstools, on the soles of royal sandals, on thrones, statues, and figurines, on floor tiles, and on monumental architecture. In the case of royal furniture, footwear, and flooring, the symbolism was clear: the pharaoh sat or walked upon the prisoners, crushing them, and by association, crushed the countries from which they were taken. Statues and figurines of prisoners of war were often captioned with magical texts (the so-called Execration Texts) that were meant to cause death to the countries and enemies they represented, and these also acclaimed the pharaoh’s political dominance in the region.

 

Temples such as Medinet Habu, the funerary temple of Rameses III at Thebes, depict battles and their aftermath on the walls, and these monuments provide details not only of wars led by the pharaoh, but also of the entire range of the processes of war, from the preparation of troops, to the battles, to the capture and return to Egypt of booty and its subsequent distribution into Egyptian society. Booty included noncombatant men, women, and children, as well as prisoners of war. Since the captured combatants are rarely distinguished in the records from captured noncombatants, it is difficult to distinguish between the treatment of the two groups.

 

Egyptian sources record large numbers of prisoners of war in various campaigns. One of Amenhotep II’s campaigns recorded over 100,000 captives; Thutmose III’s Megiddo booty lists (as such records are known in Egyptological literature) note 340 living prisoners, 43 officers, 84 children, 1,796 male and female slaves including children (these were presumably already slaves), and 103 pardoned persons who had surrendered; Merenptah’s troops captured more than 9,000 people in the war against the Libyans; and the temple estates in the reign of Rameses II had nearly 5,000 workers “of his majesty’s capturing.” One campaign of Amenhotep II took so many captives that he ordered a palisade to be built in order to contain them until he could deal with them, an unusual occurrence. While some of these numbers were probably inflated for propaganda purposes, it is clear that ancient Egyptian wars produced many prisoners.

 

When battle was over, victorious Egyptian soldiers systematically checked the battlefield for the dead, the dying, and the living. Enemy soldiers who had fled the battle site were rounded up and brought back. The dead were counted, the dying were executed, and the prisoners, including those who had surrendered, were processed. Not only combatants were captured; whole families, and sometimes whole towns, were captured and treated as booty, along with their livestock and other possessions.

 

The prisoners of war were presented to the pharaoh, sometimes in large groups and sometimes individually, by the soldiers who had captured them. Prisoners automatically belonged to the pharaoh, who had the power of life and death over them, as over all other war booty, and they were disposed of in several different ways. In some cases, prisoners were returned as slaves to their captors as a reward. In other cases, the prisoners were allowed to plead for their lives and were given their freedom after taking an oath of loyalty to the pharaoh. These men thus became vassals of the Egyptian administration and were returned to their homes after being disarmed.

 

Several temple walls display scenes of prisoners of war being executed, and others show that captured high officials or royalty were ceremonially executed and their bodies paraded throughout both the conquered country and Egypt as illustrations of the pharaoh’s power. Other royal captives were returned to Egypt as laborers or as hostages to guarantee the good behavior of the vassals. Defeated soldiers were sometimes allowed to join the Egyptian army after swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh. One such group was the Sardinians, who were captured by the troops of Rameses II and then fought the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh (c. 1295 B.C.E.) as part of the Egyptian army.

 

Those prisoners whom the pharaoh decided to keep as workers were branded and then transported to Egypt, either by forced march or by boat. That the forced marches caused hardships for the captives, especially the women and children, is made clear in the Papyrus Deir el-Medina from the Twentieth Dynasty: “The captives going to Egypt are handed over to His Majesty. The foreign woman faints because of the marching. She is placed on the soldier’s shoulder. His haversack is cast aside; others take it—he is saddled with the captive.”

 

In Egyptian temple scenes, prisoners of war are typically depicted bound with their elbows touching behind their backs or above their heads, positions that would be impossible unless their shoulders were dislocated. Since this would cause the prisoners to be injured and unable to work, this is probably an exaggeration; the bonds were probably not tight enough for the elbows to actually meet. Statues of prisoners show them tied at the elbow, with the arms as far back as they could go, but without the elbows actually touching. Other methods of restriction included a type of wooden handcuff, attached to the captive’s hands and neck, by which the captive was often linked to others. The prisoners were bound during transport to ensure they did not escape. These methods of containment are described in the Harris Papyrus I (77.4–6): “I have brought back in great numbers those that my sword has spared, with their hands tied behind their backs before my horses, and their wives and children in tens of thousands, and their livestock in hundreds of thousands. I have imprisoned their leaders in fortresses bearing my name, and I have added to them chief archers and tribal chiefs, branded and enslaved, tattooed with my name, and their wives and children have been treated in the same way.”

 

On arrival in Egypt, prisoners of war were presented by the pharaoh to the gods of Egypt, who were believed to have brought victory to the Egyptian forces. Here the chiefs of the prisoners were expected to plead for their lives and to pledge allegiance to the pharaoh in public. They were then allocated to their new lives in captivity: to quarries as miners, to temple estates as field laborers or animal herders, to the army as slave soldiers. Women joined the pharaoh’s harem or worked as weavers, clothing makers, or house servants, and presumably their children went with them. Large groups were often kept together in settlements of their own, but with food and supplies provided by the pharaoh in return for their labor. Full repatriation as we know it did not occur; most prisoners of war who survived became members of Egyptian society. Some of them even rose to positions quite high in the Egyptian administration.

 

The influx of large numbers of prisoners of war and other war captives over the many years of ancient Egyptian military activity ultimately influenced Egyptian language and culture, even though the prisoners were forced to learn and speak Egyptian. They brought to Egypt foreign gods, and foreign words, customs, and values, thereby enriching the culture of their adopted homes.

Fokker T. VIII -W series

 

A reconnaissance seaplane in service with the Royal Netherlands navy, the Fokker T. VIII could do little to stem the German invasion in 1940.  Eight T. VIIIs reached England and formed the nucleus of No. 320 (Dutch) Sqn, which operated over the Western Approaches.

 

Designed to Netherlands naval air service specifications for a torpedo-bomber/reconnaissance aircraft suitable for home and the Netherlands East Indies service, the Fokker T.VIII-W floatplane was built in three versions: the T.VIII-Wg of mixed wood and metal construction, the T.VIII-Wm which was all metal and the T.VIII-Wc, a larger version of mixed construction. The T.VIII W/G was a mid-winged monoplane with a three-part fuselage of oval cross-section which consisted of a light alloy nose, a centre section of wood and a tail of steel frame with a fabric covering. The wing was constructed with two cross-beams with bakelite ribs and clad in plywood. In the T.VIII W/M variant the tail, as well as the wings, were constructed from light alloy. The undercarriage consisted of two floats of rustproof Duralumin with six waterproof compartments and a reserve fuel tank in each.

 

An initial order for five aircraft was placed, and all were completed by June 1939, when a further batch of 26 was ordered, most of them intended as replacements for T.IVs in the East Indies, but none was delivered there. A total of 36 T.VIII-Ws was built, these comprising 19 T.VIII-Wgs, five T.VIII-Wcs and 12 T.VIII-Wms, the difference of five being accounted for by a Finnish order which was not delivered. These were of the T.VIII-Wc variant which had a 1.83m longer fuselage, 2.01m increase in wing span, an additional 8.00m2 of wing area, and power provided by 664kW Bristol Mercury XI engines. In the event, the Fokker factory was overrun by the Germans before completion of this order, but the aircraft were finished and subsequently delivered to Germany along with 20 ex-Netherlands navy aircraft. A one-off landplane variant, the T.VIII-L built for Finland, was also seized by the Germans.

 

Meanwhile, eight T.VIII-Ws had been flown to England along with other Dutch floatplanes on 14 May 1940, and on 1 June 1940 No. 320 (Dutch) Squadron RAF was formed at Pembroke Dock, to operate the T.VIII-Ws on convoy escort work. These aircraft carried RAF markings, plus a small Dutch triangle badge. Three of the aircraft were lost, and with no spares available the remaining aircraft were flown to Felixstowe for storage. They were joined by another in May 1941, when four Dutchmen escaped from Amsterdam and brought their T.VIII-W down on the sea near Broad-stairs. German navy operations with their group of T.VIII-Ws were confined mostly to patrol work in the Mediterranean.

 

Variants

 

T.VIII W/G

    Mixed wood and metal construction. 19 built.

T.VIII W/M

    All-metal construction. 12 built.

T.VIII W/C

    Larger version with more powerful engines. Five had been ordered by Finland, but were captured and used by the Luftwaffe.

 

Specification

 

MODEL	T.8-Wg
CREW	3
PASSENGERS	6
ENGINE	2 x Wright Whirlwind R-975-E3, 336kW
WEIGHTS
Take-off weight	5000 kg	11023 lb
Empty weight	3100 kg	6834 lb
DIMENSIONS
Wingspan	18.0 m	59 ft 1 in
Length	13.0 m	42 ft 8 in
Height	5.0 m	16 ft 5 in
Wing area	44.0 m2	473.61 sq ft
PERFORMANCE
Max. speed	285 km/h	177 mph
Cruise speed	220 km/h	137 mph
Ceiling	6800 m	22300 ft
Range	2750 km	1709 miles
ARMAMENT	2 x 7.9mm machine-guns, 605kg of bombs or one torpedo

Fokker Aircraft Company 1910-45

 

Fokker E.V: Unit: Jasta 6, JGI

 

 

 Fokker F.XVIII: Air baptism of mariner Jan Kooijman.

 

 

Fokker D.XXIII: First flew in November 1939. Sole prototype was tested in 1940 till German invasion.

 

Definition: Aircraft designed and produced by Anthony Fokker or by companies under his ownership or direction or that bear his name.

 

Significance: Fokker aircraft have played a significant role in the history of aviation. Innovative designs and construction techniques, combined with foresight into the needs of both military and civilian aviation, kept Fokker companies at the forefront of aircraft design and manufacture for nearly ninety years.

 

Anthony Fokker was born in Kediri, Java, in 1890. After his family returned to the Netherlands, Fokker began a lifelong commitment to aviation. When he was twenty-one, he started an aviation company in Wiesbaden, Germany. Fokker’s first two attempts to build viable aircraft ended in crashes; the Spin I hit a tree in 1910, and the Spin II crashed in 1911. In 1913, however, Fokker’s Spin III model tested successfully and was purchased by the German military. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Fokker made overtures to both the British and Dutch governments concerning purchase of his aircraft for military purposes. He was rejected by both, and so turned his attentions to designing exclusively for the German military authority.

 

World War I

 

The first true fighter aircraft to appear in World War I were Fokkers. Fokker produced 7,600 aircraft for Germany during World War I. Of these, his most famous designs include the Fokker Eindecker series, the Fokker Dr-I triplane, the Fokker D-VII, and the Fokker E-V/D-VIII.

 

The Fokker Eindecker monoplanes caused a revolution in concepts of employing aircraft as weapons. Fokker produced about 450 Eindeckers in four versions, E-I to E-IV, with the E-III produced in the greatest numbers. The Eindecker was the first aircraft to effectively employ a fixed, forward-firing machine gun that was synchronized with the engine to fire bullets through the propeller arc, an innovation credited to Anthony Fokker. The machine gun was aimed by pointing the entire plane at the target. The results achieved with these machinegun- equipped Fokkers were so spectacular that during 1915, when they reigned over the Western Front, the era is referred to as the “Fokker Scourge,” and Allied aircraft referred to as “Fokker Fodder.”

 

The Fokker Dr-Iwas the result of a triwing design concept first built by the British Sopwith Company in 1917. No less than thirty-four prototypes were tested by the German military to counter the Sopwith. Of the planes tested, only the Fokker Dr-I triplane was produced. The plane was small, light, and exceptionally agile. The Fokker design was unique in that it had no wire bracing between the wings, only a single strut connecting the lifting surfaces near the tips. It was the first aircraft to employ the Göttingen 298 airfoil with a 13 percent thickness ratio, a feature adopted on almost all subsequent Fokker designs. This airfoil gave the Dr-I one of the lowest zero-lift drag coefficients of all World War I fighter aircraft. The Dr-I was issued to elite fighter squadrons and used in combat for less than a year. The Dr-I is one of the most recognizable of all aircraft ever manufactured, inexorably linked to its most famous pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, the “Red Baron.”

 

In 1917, Fokker and Reinhold Platz designed a new aircraft using input from Manfred von Richthofen. The result was the Fokker D-VII. The plane had a squarish airframe equipped with an in-line engine and an air-cooled radiator. The most advanced feature of the D-VII was its internally braced cantilever wings with thick airfoil sections and a wooden structure. The first of these planes reached the front in April, 1918, and by October, eight hundred were in active service. Popular with German pilots, the D-VII was strong and fast, and it performed superbly at high altitudes. Most aviation historians view the D-VII as the most advanced and outstanding fighter plane of World War I. The quality of the Fokker D-VII was acknowledged by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Article IV stated that all Fokker D-VII planes had to be handed over to the Allies, the only aircraft to be specifically targeted by the armistice. After the war ended, Fokker managed to smuggle two hundred dismantled aircraft, five hundred engines, and other machine parts to the Netherlands, where he started his own factory at Sciphol outside of Amsterdam. During the 1920’s, the Fokker D-VII became the mainstay of the Dutch Air Force.

 

Fokker Between the Wars

 

In 1918, the German Air Force sponsored a fighter design competition. Twenty-five prototypes were submitted; five were Fokker-designed monoplanes. The Fokker D-VIII parasol monoplane was the winner. It entered production too late to affect the war’s outcome, but its design concepts were a significant change in aircraft theory. Unlike earlier aircraft, the D-VIII had a wing that was tapered in both platform and thickness ratio, and it was covered entirely in plywood, giving it great strength and rigidity. The tapered wing reduced wing weight and stress, while increasing aerodynamic efficiency and strength, giving the plane a higher rate of roll.

 

In July, 1919, N.V. Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek was incorporated in Amsterdam. Although Anthony Fokker was its managing director, his name was not included in the company name because people had not forgotten that during the war, Fokker had designed some of the most effective German military aircraft at his Fokker Flugzeug - Werke GmbH factory in Germany. Often accused of choosing the wrong side during the war, Fokker always pointed to the fact that before the outbreak of hostilities, both Great Britain and Holland had turned down the aircraft he had offered them. Because of his notoriety, however, it was not until much later that the name Fokker was included in the corporate title. A number of well-known civilian and military aircraft were produced by Fokker between the World Wars.

 

In October, 1919, another aviation company was incorporated in the Netherlands, N.V. Koninklijke Maatschappij (KLM). Fokker became KLM’s main supplier of aircraft and remained so for years. Due to contracts with KLM, orders for Fokker civilian aircraft increased worldwide. Fokker set up factories in the United States and by the late 1920’s had become the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. Numerous aircraft were built under license, and Fokker planes were used by airlines the world over.

 

The success of postwar Fokker aircraft was linked to a simple construction technique in which the fuselage and the tail section were made of welded steel pipe. In 1933, Douglas Aircraft Company began marketing a modern, streamlined, all-metal aircraft with a retractable undercarriage, and Fokker realized too late that he had stuck with his cheap and simplistic design theory for too long. The DC-2 and DC-3 forced Fokker from the airliner market, when KLM made Douglas their main supplier. It was not until 1958 that Fokker placed a new passenger airliner on the market.

World War II

 

During World War II, production of Fokker aircraft came almost to a standstill. Between 1940 and 1945, when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany, the Fokker factory was used for the repair and construction of German military aircraft. By the war’s end, Allied bombing had reduced the Fokker factory to ruins, and salvageable tools and machines had been plundered by the retreating Germans.

 

Events in Fokker History

1910: Aviation pioneer Anthony H. G. Fokker builds his first aircraft, named Spin (Dutch for “spider”)

 

1912: Fokker establishes an airplane factory at Johanneshal, Germany, where he develops the Dr-I triplane flown by Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron, during World War I.

 

1914-1918: Fokker develops German pursuit planes during World War I and invents a timing mechanism for the shooting of forward-mounted machine guns through an airplane’s propeller blades.

 

1919: Fokker builds a factory in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

 

1920: Fokker designs the F.II, one of the first passenger transport planes.

 

1922: Fokker moves to the United States, where he eventually builds three more aircraft factories.

 

1939-1945: Fokker’s company designs several successful military aircraft used during World War II, including the Fokker G-1.

OPYT ARMORED GUNBOAT 1861

The first Russian experimental armoured ship was put into service on 22 June, 1861 was a gunboat. It was named “Opyt” (“Experience”) and entered the Baltic Fleet being manned by a guards company. The 1854-1856 Crimean War revealed the vulnerability of unarmored wooden-hulled ships to bomb-throwing guns and incendiary grenades and necessitated armor protection for the most vital parts of a ship.

 

The Admiralty proposed an armored gunboat. Carr & MacPherson of St. Petersburg in collaboration with Baltic Naval Yards designed and built the vessel. The OPYT was the first armored gunboat launched at the Baltic shipyard in September 1861. The gunboat had a displacement of 270 t, length of 38.9m between perpendiculars, beam of 6.78m and draught of 1.83 m. The hull was partitioned by 6.2 mm transverse bulkheads to five compartments. The steam engine, built by Thomson & Company, rated at about 200 bhp ensured a speed of up to 6 knots. The fore mounted a raised parapet fitted with a gun port for a 196mm smoothbore bomb-throwing gun. The parapet was attached to the bottom. The deck portion from the parapet to the fore represented a spherical slope for bomb deflection. The parapet was protected by 115-mm armor, imported from England, over the «slope», while below 65 mm armor placed on 305mm teak lining was mounted. The bomb room and ammunitions storeroom were located behind the parapet and protected on the sides by drinking water tanks.