gradually climbing, until they were about 13,000 ft. over Brentwood. The course of the raid ran by Enfield, where the formation turned S., over Edmonton and Tottenham. On the way to the
City, St. Pancras and Shoreditch were bombed. The City itself
received 26 bombs, one of them starting a small fire in the
General Post Office.
The German formation was well handled in the way of making
it a difficult target for the anti-aircraft guns. The machines flew
in two divisions, which drew apart as they came under fire. The
majority of the shell fired into the brown of the enemy burst harm-
lessly in the interval thus left. Individual machines flew with a
switchback movement, alternately diving and climbing in order to
make the task of prediction at the guns more difficult. The anti-
aircraft guns fired a very large number of rounds, but produced no
effect at all on the enemy. The aeroplane defences again showed a
lamentable lack of plan. Eighty-seven machines went up, of all
sorts and sizes. A few were efficient fighting machines. Many of
them, for all the good they could do, need never have left the
ground. No scheme existed by which a combined attack could be
delivered. In consequence, the enemy were quite well able to beat
off such isolated, though gallant, attacks as were made. They
brought down two machines. All that the British pilots were able to
accomplish was to finish off one lame duck, a machine that was in
difficulties from engine trouble. It fell into the sea off the coast of
Essex and the crew were drowned.
The failure of the defensive arrangements, or rather the
complete lack of efficient arrangements, began to cause consider-
able agitation in the public mind. The Germans were touching
the nerve centre, and the British Government found it necessary
to order a complete reorganization. The London Air Defences
were to be formed as a separate command. It was to include all
the means o{ defence, both from the ground and in the air.
General Ashmore was brought from France to take charge.
On the formation of this new command several distinct problems
presented themselves. Night raids on London by airships, al-
though not very likely, were still possible; it was obvious that
night raiding by aeroplanes would have to be faced. But the
most threatening danger lay, for the moment, in day raiding by
aeroplanes in force. To meet this, a line of guns was established
to the E. of London some 20 m. out; and inside this line strong
patrols of aeroplanes, working in formation, were organized.
Careful plans were laid to ensure that the guns and aeroplanes
would really cooperate and not interfere with each other.
A system of signals and directing arrows on the ground was
installed to assist the pilots in finding the enemy. Outer patrols
of aeroplanes near the coast could deal with the homeward
journey of the raiders.
The new arrangements were soon tested; on Aug. 12 a party
of nine Gothas made the land near Harwich. After following
the coast to the Blackwater, they turned inland for London.
The communication system of the defence control worked well,
and the squadrons immediately defending London were at the
required height in plenty of time to meet the enemy formation.
The German commanderj however, would not face the defences
of London itself, and turned his formation about before they
reached the outer line of guns. A number of bombs were un-
loaded on Southend as the enemy made off, and 32 people were
killed. The Germans were pursued out to sea, but an exaspe-
rating series of gun-jams robbed the British pilots of success,
and the only bag was one Gotha that was flying badly and was
brought down in the sea by a naval machine.
An attempt on Aug. 18 was frustrated by bad weather. Many
of the German machines were blown over Holland, where some of
the pilots, thinking they were over England, dropped bombs!
An abortive attack on the Midlands by eight airships on the
night of Aug. 21 was followed by the last day attack on England
on Aug. 22, when Capt. Kleine, commander of the 3rd Squadron,
started out with 13 Gothas to bomb Sheerness and Dover. A
number of naval machines turned the Sheerness bombers from
their objective, and the German formation, harassed by the
British pilots, wheeled south by Ramsgate. Here the anti-air-
craft guns, working with great accuracy, shot down two of the
raiders. A third was shot down off Dover.
The increased efficiency of the defences, both in machines and
guns, decided the Germans to abandon day attacks, and they
turned their attention to raiding with aeroplanes by night.
Practically no answer had been found at the time to this form
of attack, which had been carried on for more than a year on the
western front in France. Searchlight staffs, in their then state
of training, found great difficulty in picking up or holding an
aeroplane in their beams. Gunfire, which could only be aimed
roughly in the direction of the enemy, was so inaccurate as to be
negligible. It was not thought possible to fly during darkness
fast scout machines of sufficient climb and performance. Further-
more, it must be remembered that a pilot in the air at night
can only see another machine when he is close to it, and that
the noise of his own engine deafens him to other sounds. At the
time there was no way in which the pilot could receive information
from the ground. For these reasons it seemed difficult to find
any means on which to base plans of defence against night
aeroplane raiding.
The first group of night attacks came in the beginning of
Sept. 1917, and one of these reached London itself. The raid
on Sept. 2 was a quick affair at Dover and of little importance.
On the following night, Sept. 3-4, about 10:30, hostile aeroplanes
were reported near the North Foreland, and warnings were sent
out by the central control a few minutes later when it was clear
that they were coming up the Thames. Unfortunately there
was serious telephone delay in getting the warning out at Chat-
ham, and before cover could be taken a bomb had fallen on a
drill hall in which a large number of naval ratings were asleep.
No fewer than 130 were killed and 88 wounded.
Although on this night the defence was ineffective, certain
points emerged which gave hope for the future. Three stout-
hearted pilots went up in Camels, fast scout machines, and
found that it was by no means impossible to handle them at
night. In fact, being small and light, they were even easier to
land than heavier machines, which would run on longer on the
ground. The idea also was evolved of barrage fire, a curtain of
bursting shell to be put up in the path of the raiders.
The last raid of this moon period, on Sept. 4, reached London.
The attacking machines, between 20 and 30 in number, began to
come up to the coast soon after 10 P.M. While isolated attacks
were made on Dover and Margate the majority of the raiders
made for London. The barrage fire, organized since the previous
night, turned some of the pilots, but 10 raiders reached the met-
ropolitan area, and bombs were dropped in widely separated
localities. The City, Paddington, Stratford, Hornsey, Holloway
and Regent's Park, all suffered. One bomb narrowly missed
Cleopatra's Needle. Considering the magnitude of the raid, the
damage caused was small, and the total casualties for the night
included only nine killed.
Favourable weather and good moon conditions at the end of
Sept. and beginning of Oct. 1917 produced a sustained series
of raids, opening on the night of Sept. 24th with an attack
on London by aeroplanes, in conjunction with an airship raid on
Hull and the north.
The first aeroplanes were reported approaching Kent as
early as 7 P.M., and by 8:10 P.M. some 21 machines in seven
groups had come over the coasts of K,ent, Essex and Suffolk.
Dover was heavily attacked, the gas-works were hit and several
houses were damaged. Nine at least of the pilots attempted to
attack London itself, but considerable improvement had by this
time been effected in putting up barrage fire, which was success-
ful in turning back all but three of the attackers. Of these three,
one dropped bombs about Deptford and Poplar, doing but little
damage; the other two passed right over London from north to
south. A bomb dropped in Southampton Row killed 13 people
who had not taken proper cover; others fell near the Ritz Hotel
and into the river opposite the Houses of Parliament. Although
27 English machines went up they failed to find any of the enemy;
the gunfire brought down one of the Gothas, which fell in the
river near Sheerness.
The attack on the north was carried out by 10 airships under
Capt. Strasser. After concentrating off Flamborough Head
six of them came over land. Although Hull was found, the raid
had very little success. This was partly owing to the cloudy
Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/132
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AIR RAIDS