I have just been reading an interesting piece written in 1944 about the German bombing campaign of London and England in the First World War. It is fascinating. I had read a plaque at Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames saying it was hit by a bomb from a Zeppelin raider in WWI, but I knew nothing else till now.
I never even considered that they had bomber aircraft with enough range then to fly massed raids on the UK, even sometimes bombing quite inland. The article does not mention the aircraft types used – what were these?
It says a London raid on June 5, 1917 killed 160 people and injured 432, so these raids were certainly not insignificant. Why is so little remembered about them?
Did the English adopt air raid drills? Did they have shelters? Or siren warnings? Did fighters try to intercept the planes or Zeppelins of the Luftwaffe? Was there an observer corps? I know they had an equiv of the Home Guard, was there an equiv of A.R.P.?
Did the RFC have long range bombers and bomb Germany back?
I’d like to learn more about the ‘first’ blitz. Sadly the article I read was all too brief. Are there any photos about of the bombers, the Zeppelins or the bomb damage?
Cheers
Dave
Edit – I just found this site which talks about the Zeppelin raids. Really interesting. Amazing how little defence England had against them.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/bombers_zeppelins.htm
I’m keen to find more out about the bomber planes though
By: Growler - 2nd August 2004 at 15:57
The damage to Cleopatra’s Needle is still clearly visible, both to the stonework of the plinth, and the metalwork of the Sphinx, on, I think, the west end. I always assumed it was due to a Second World War bomb (I was told once it was from the first raid of the blitz) – I now know better!
By: Moggy C - 2nd August 2004 at 15:00
And indeed we built things like the Vickers Vimy and the big Handley Page jobbies to retaliate.
Moggy
By: Alistair - 2nd August 2004 at 14:55
Edit – I just found this site which talks about the Zeppelin raids. Really interesting. Amazing how little defence England had against them.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/bombers_zeppelins.htm
I’m keen to find more out about the bomber planes though
I recall from the “Charley’s War” strip I used to read in the “Battle” Comic a very long time ago that they were Gotha bombers.
There’s a description here:
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraft/WWI/gotha/gotha_info/gotha_info.htm
Cheers
Alistair
By: RadarArchive - 2nd August 2004 at 14:50
There was a couple of Zeppelin raids as far north as Edinburgh, although I don’t think the few bombs dropped caused any damage. Certainly, some were dropped on fields north of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
As well as Zeppelin attacks on London, in the latter part of WWI the Germans attacked with Gotha bombers. The War Office was responsible for air defence and set up a whole warning organisation with sound locators and observers. Fighter aircraft had difficulty in reaching the altitudes flown by Zeppelins, but several were shot down, especially after the introduction of incendiary ammunition.
The First World War isn’t my specialty but there are an awful lot of books on the subject which will go into the sort of detail you’re looking for.
By: Dave Homewood - 2nd August 2004 at 14:21
Wow. That’s really interesting, thanks Relightflynn9
I’m afraid Google hasn’t been much help as it picks up loads of WWII blitz sites but little about WWI
I’d always thought that the Spanish Civil War was the first in which cities were bombed en masse. Goes to show really. That article says on Oct 31 1913 the Germans sent 30 bombers to raid Kent and London. Quite a force for WWI as squadron activity was gernerally much smaller flights in that war, wasn’t it?
By: Arabella-Cox - 2nd August 2004 at 14:13
There’s a plaque in the ex industrial heart of Sheffield that notes a Zeppelin raid which killed quite a few people , also in 1917 i believe.
I,ll try to get a picture of it over the next few days and post it here.
Further proof that the raids were not merely nuisance or publicity stunts , but that they were actually aimed at (in Sheffield’s case) causing real damage to our manufacturing base etc.
I tried to find out if any home defence units managed to get any aircraft up to intercept , but there’s very little information on actual aircraft home defence from this period .
I did find out that my local village had a squadron flight based in a local field though !
Sign In
August 2, 2004 at 2:00 pm