THE BOMBING OF LONDON

Evening Star, Issue 19127, 19 December 1925, Page 23

THE BOMBING OF LONDON

GERMANY'S “WAR UPON HERVES " TOTAL 0F1.413 KILLED The German air raids upon England have a special interest because they wore essentially an assault upon British nerves. Their 9,000 bombs inflicted much destruction of life and property — there was a total of 1,413 killed and 3,408 injured, of whom London provided 670 and 1,962 respectively—but it was not thoso casualties, but their moral effect, by which the enemy set store. The chief of the German Naval Staff wrote in the first year of the war; “ I hold the view that wo should leave no means untried to crush England, and that successful air raids on London, in view of the already existing nervousness of the people, would prove a valuable means to this end.” It is in the light of this psychological aim that the whole campaign of aerial invasion has to be studied, and it is kept fully in view by Captain Joseph Morris in his history of ‘ The German Air Raids on Great Britain,’ in which fifty-one airship and fifty-two aeroplane attacks are described or epitomised. That the raids constituted a severe test of moral goes without saying. Captain Morris estimates that, as a result ol interruption of work and nervous disturbance in munition factories “ some one-sixth of the total normal output of munitions was entirely last, and the quality of a less proportion was affected.” But the net result was to give the civilian a visual appreciation of the war such as he would not otherwise have gained, to impress him with the importance of victory, and to brace his nerves and will for effort and sacrifice. DRIVEN TOO HIGH. The story divides itself into two periods, in which the Zeppelin and the Gotha were respectively the main weapons of offence. With many German records now at our disposal, it becomes apparent that even the primitive means of defence at first available were more damaging to tho Zeppelins than was realised at the time. They were frequently hit by rifle fire, and from the first were obliged to operate from a greater height than their purposes made desirable. With the development of anti-aircraft gunnery and aeroplane defence, the raiders recognised, after twelve months’ experience, “ that in future with a clear sky airships tvould only he able to remain quite a short while over the city, and that it would be hardly possible to seek out special objectives.” The complaints of the time that our defences w'ere inept are heavily refuted by the particulars which Captain Morris gives of the numerous repulses of airships before ever coming within reach of their target. Tho public at tho time knew what it suffered, but did not know w’hat it was saved. It was the ineffectiveness of detailed attack that drove Germany, in the summer of 1916, to attempt a concentrated stroke with whole beets of Zeppelins. After some preliminary raids sixteen Zeppelins started together on September 2, the night on which Lieutenant Leefe Robinson brought down one of them in flames at Culfley. This success was the turning point of the campaign, and also settled the fate of the whole night’s enterprise, for the other Zeppelins within sight made for homo as soon as they witnessed the destruction of their consort.

In the same way the burning of L 34 in the North of England later in the year also gave the signal for flight upon the part of her companions. H became demonstrated that “ unless the airship could get completely out of roach of the aeroplane she ceased to he of any military use whatsoever,” and at extreme heights there were crippling complications of cold, air sickness, and unfamiliar atmospheric phenomena to bo encountered. The most serious influence the Zeppelins had was in detaining at home for defence purposes air squadrons for which there was more than ample work elsewhere.

THE LARGEST HOLOCAUST. As tho Zeppelin sank into subsidiary importance, the Gotha took its place as a menace, and, being less visible and less vulnerable, soon proved itself a “more sinister and deadly weapon.” The heavy casualties inflicted by the earlier daylight raids proved the necessity for a further great development of defensive measures; the greatest holocaust of any individual raid was suffered by London on June Ki, 1917, when 162 people wore killed and L‘l2 maimed. When the defence had been so far organised that day raiding had to bo conducted at a, height of 17,000 ft or not at all, the series of moonlight raids began. This involved the organisation of night flying by defensive fighters, and evoked scientific assistance in the detection of approaching raiders by delicate sound instruments., Thov devised instruments for locating the raiders both as to direction and altitude, and soon learnt to distinguish the note of the friend from the noise of the foe. Curiously enough, blind men proved most efficient at tin's work. From these aural observations tho | paths of the invaders were followed 1 and plotted on square maps, which enabled the average speeds also to he found. By constant practice controlling officers wore able to tell where an attack would take place within a minute. It was during this phase that all the fish in the Serpentine were killed by the concussion of a bomb falling in Hyde Park. But the last development of the attack was still to come—that of Giants carrying enormous loads of bombs and escorted by Cotlias, flying light, to defend them nr distract fhe attention of the defence by feinting movements. This had incidentally the effect of confusing fhe system of mu d • indication. It was 1918 by fhe rime that tho Giant campaign was launched, and it reached its culmination—- 11 the greatast air raid of all time ” —iu an attack on London by forty machines, on May 19. Eleven tons of explo-i ms were dropped and forty-eight people killed and 172 injured; hut that vas the last organised effort of the war.