The bombing of the Royal Hospital, 16th February 1918

Next to the National Army Museum, Chelsea, west London, is the Royal Hospital, home of the Chelsea pensioners. On the night of 16th/17th February 1918, five Zeppelin Staaken ‘Giant’ R.VI bombers departed their base at Ghent, Belgium and bombed London and Dover. According to German records, all five ‘Giants’ attacked, but according to British records only three did. 4,250 kilograms of bombs were dropped that night, killing twelve and injuring six. Although sixty sorties were undertaken by British aircraft to intercept the raid, none were shot down.

This was partly due to the huge size of the Giants (the wingspan was almost twice that of a Gotha, and one metre less than that of a B29 Superfortress from WW2), meaning that intercepting aircraft often confused them for Gothas and fired at too long range to be effective. They were also heavily armed with up to five machine guns, including captured British Lewis guns, still fitted with the cooling jacket (Lewis guns in aviation service usually had the cooling jackets removed, as the rush of air over the barrel was thought to have been more than adequate)

One ‘Giant’, R39, was the only one to be converted to carry a 1,000kg bomb (the plaque incorrectly says it was a 500lb bomb), and only three were ever dropped on the UK. The first to be dropped was on this raid, hit the north east wing of the Royal Hospital on the night of the 16th. Five were killed, and three children were pulled out of the rubble.
Rebuilt in 1921, the Royal Hospital was to be destroyed by a V2 rocket in 1945, and rebuilt yet again in 1965. Despite the fact the building was rebuilt identical to its previous design, the bricks are clearly lighter in colour than that of non affected buildings.

It was this part of the building (up to the darker shade of brickwork) that was destroyed

R39, like all other 18 Zeppelin Staaken R.VI’s, clearly showed its companys airship background in the design of its fuselage resembling a gondola (credit goes to my friend Lynsey for pointing that one out!). It took part in twenty bombing raids whilst in the service of Riesenflugzeug-Abteilung 501. It survived the war, and was lost in 1919 whilst flying to the Ukraine. Unfortunately, nothing but a few parts of these extremely impressive aircraft survive