The Little World

The construction of a Little World can be a casual thing – a few paper dolls and a cereal box becomes an entire population in a city. Or endless years of painstaking research and modelling yields a vast empire. There can be accuracy and fantasy in anything…but for those of us who were raised on ” The Prisoner of Zenda ” and the sequels, there is really only one European country worthy of modelling – Ruritania.

We are fortunate in that Anthony Hope left us such a detailed history of the Kingdom, but it was at a time before the developments of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s, and Mr Hope could not foresee the way the RRAAF – The Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force – rose to the challenge of defending the skies over their native land.

This was a daunting task in the 1914-1918 war and an impossible one in the 1939-1945 conflict. Fortunately the difficulty of accurately mapping the borders of the kingdom prevented it from appearing on many of the operational plans of both the Axis and the Allies. It was never quite annexed to the Greater Reich, not included in Soviet plans, and of less than marginal interest to the Eighth Air Force. One bomb did fall on Ruritanian territory from a Polish aircraft early in the war but it was a practise one made of wood and the RRAAF posted it back to them after the war.

The fact that most of the bombing raids passed well to the north, south, east, and west of the kingdom – in many cases in fog – prevented any serious engagements. However the RRAF/KRL was ready for all eventualities. The interceptors of the Spring And Autumn Squadron were on hour and a half scramble status at the main airfield in Strelsau – the time needed to get the planes started, warmed up, and the inevitable fuselage fires extinguished was not wasted – the pilots always had a hot meal and a nap before taking off, and not one of them suffered indigestion.