Balloons on Helmet Make Targets for Cavalry Combat (Jul, 1931)
Filed under: Impractical, War — @ 12:17 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1931
| Buy on Ebay
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1931
| Buy on Ebay
Balloons on Helmet Make Targets for Cavalry Combat
PUNCTURING a balloon on the head of an opponent with the skillful thrust of a rapier is the unique means employed by cavalry students to score points when engaging in “armed combat” at Urban Military Academy at Beverly Hills, California. The balloons are tied to the helmets of the combatants, and the first fighter to burst the balloon of an “enemy” wins the encounter.
Although swordsmanship is a thing of the past, as far as modern warfare is concerned, this kind of practice is of service in teaching agility, alertness and horsemanship. The contest is a part of the training for the annual spring maneuvers of the academy.
From wikipedia:
Urban Military Academy was a boarding and day school in Hollywood, California, for boys between the ages of six and fifteen, founded in 1905 by Mary McDonnell (on Melrose Avenue at Wilcox; it later moved to 11600 Beverly Blvd.) and at the time it opened “the only private school for boys in the City.” Its commandant was Major Harry Lee Black, who in 1928 helped found Black-Foxe Military Institute on Urban’s original site.
Among its well-known students were Jackie Coogan? (Uncle Fester!), John Coleman Burroughs (son of Edgar Rice Burroughs), and (70s TV writer- including ST TOS) John Meredyth Lucas.
Comment by StanFlouride — April 30, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Good catch! I see that the property then became the Black-Foxe Military Institute which included Gene Wilder as a student! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B....._Institute
http://www.bfmi.org/history.html
Comment by Firebrand38 — April 30, 2009 @ 4:25 pm
I wish I’d gone to school there. I always lost boardroom sword fights.
Comment by Harry — May 1, 2009 @ 4:29 pm