At the onset of the first World War, major powers on both sides each had a plethora of new weapons with which to wage war due to recent technological advancements. One of the most significant advancements in weaponry during the First World War was the introduction of airplanes and other airborne vehicles into warfare. Airplanes and airships such as Zeppelins allowed the warring nations to scout and attack their enemies from above for the first time in history. Many planes were outfitted with guns while airships were used for bombing runs and air raids. The first country to employ airships or Zeppelins in combat was Germany and they conducted their first bombing missions using airships in Britain in early 1915. Though the bombing missions were somewhat successful in that they caused some fear throughout civilian populations on mainland England, but from an actual damage and casualty perspective, the missions were not quite as successful.
German bombing raids failed for multiple reasons including the fact that the airships were hard to navigate at night and in bad weather, easy targets for airplanes and ground-based artillery (which were eventually outfitted with incendiary ammunition), were filled with highly flammable hydrogen, and were expensive to produce. The less effective airships were eventually supplemented with newly developed Gotha bombers in 1917, which were more effective, but by that time the British had already built up their aerial defenses enough so that the Gotha bombers couldn’t do enough damage to turn the tide of the war. All the pitfalls associated with the German airships and Zeppelins, along with the fact that Gotha bombers were developed too late into the war, led to the inaccuracy and ineffectiveness of bombing raids conducted on Britain. The bombing raids did not do enough damage to essential British military targets or factories and instead inspired the civilian population of Great Britain to encourage counter bombing missions on German soil.
The first bomb dropped on British “soil” was in December of 1914 by an airplane off the coast of Dover, which missed its target and dropped its payload into the ocean, marking the beginning of Germany’s air campaign against the British. Due to the fact that bombs had to be dropped manually from airplanes at the onset of the First World War, the Germans shifted to using primarily airships and Zeppelins to increase their bombing accuracy and effectiveness. Originally proposed in August of 1914 by the Deputy Chief of the German Naval Staff, the use of airships to bomb Britain was approved in January of 1915 by Kaiser Wilhelm II. One primary reason for the German air campaign’s lack of success was the lack a maneuverability of the airships at night and during inclement weather which caused the bombing runs to be inaccurate and not nearly as effective as the Germans had hoped they would be. This was evident on the very first planned bombing mission carried out by German airships in January of 1915. The two Zeppelins sent by the Germans were targeting Humberside, England but were instead diverted by strong winds and ended up unloading their payloads near King’s Lynn and other surrounding villages. The first bombing resulted in four civilians killed and sixteen others injured, which was much less of an effect than the German’s had initially hoped for.
The bombing of King’s Lynn served as a microcosm of the German air campaign against Britain in that it was somewhat effective but did not live up to the expectations of the German military and was not nearly as effective as they had hoped. Another example of airships struggling in bad weather conditions was in June of 1915, after bombing missions on London had finally been approved, one airship commander misjudged his ship’s position due to strong winds and dropped his ship’s payload onto Gravesend, England rather than London. Another mission to bomb London, just days later, was diverted to Hull, England due to wind, though this mission did cause considerable damage even though it was not successful in bombing its intended target. These examples, along with numerous bombing missions that were cancelled or delayed due to bad weather or nighttime flights with low visibility, demonstrate how Zeppelins’ and airships’ vulnerability to inclement weather and lack of maneuverability decreased the effects that German air raids had on Great Britain. The inability of the German bombers to hit their primary targets, which were usually factories and military outposts, also allowed the British to develop new means for deterring aerial attacks which further added to the lack of success that the Germans had while bombing Great Britain.
Though the German bombings that occurred on British soil during the first two years of the First World War did not go exactly as the German military had planned, they were still somewhat successful in damaging British cities and towns (usually just not the ones they were assigned to attack) and killing civilians. Due to the constant threat of German air raids, the British began to develop means to deter and stop the German Zeppelins and airships. This included diverting many resources from the Western Front back home to mainland Britain such as troops, artillery, and many airplanes. They also began developing and putting into service several new military technologies such as incendiary ammunition and ground-based spotlights to target the airships during nighttime raids. Though initially considered ineffective in 1915 and before, subsequent testing of newly developed incendiary bullets seemed promising, and in 1916 and most planes defending the mainland had their guns outfitted with incendiary rounds. The new bullets proved very effective against airships as British pilots would fly under the ships and shoot upward into the balloon ripping holes in the tough outer canvas. Most Zeppelins and airships were filled with hydrogen to keep them airborne and when met with incendiary rounds and oxygen from outside the balloon, the ships would burst into flames and crash.
The first instance of the British technological military advancements coming to fruition came in September of 1916. On September 2nd, 1916, the German army and navy conducted a joint bombing mission with the navy dispatching twelve of its airships and the army dispatching four of its own. Most of the airships were targeting London with hopes of striking a decisive blow to public morale that would have British civilians clamoring for their country to cease fighting in the war. Instead, weather off the coast of England caused most of the airships to go off course and all but two missed their targets. The two airships that got to their targets were both army commissioned ships, dubbed the LZ 98 and SL 11, respectively. Upon reaching its target the SL 11 was first targeted using ground-based spotlights that gave away its position to British fighter pilots.
Once the planes were airborne they engaged the airship and opened fire hoping to down the craft before it could do anymore damage. After being hit several times with the newly developed incendiary bullets that were present in machine guns on British planes, the airship caught fire and crashed, killing everyone aboard. The SL 11 was the first German airship shot down while on a bombing raid in Britain and the German army was subsequently dissuaded from dispatching anymore airships to bomb the British mainland. This did not mean that air raids using airships stopped, though. The German army and navy each had their own Zeppelins to dispatch, and though the army stopped conducting bombing raids using airships in September of 1916, the German navy continued to use them quite often during the rest of and 1916 and for the remainder of the war.
In 1916, Germany conducted more bombing raids on the British mainland than in any other year of the war and as a result, the British military had developed a system by which they would engage the airships to more effectively defend their mainland. The navy would engage airships spotted off the coast of Britain using artillery that was present on their ships (though this was mostly ineffective because the airships flew at altitudes that most ground based weapons at the time could not reach) and once the airships had flown over land, the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ground forces would engage them using airplanes, ground based artillery and rifles.
The guns on the planes in the RFC were loaded with the newly developed incendiary ammunition which had a greater effect against the airships. British defenses were not completely successful in destroying every airship that the Germans sent on bombing missions, but the new defenses were successful in making the bombing raids more inaccurate than they already were, further limiting casualties and damages. For example, the first bombing run in 1916 was conducted on January 31st by nine Zeppelins that were targeting Liverpool. A mixture of mechanical problems, bad weather, and British airplanes caused the airships to scatter and all miss their targets. They ended up all over around the “Black Country” and dropped their bombs on towns and villages in and around Tipton, Walsall, and Wednesbury, England. According to the London Times Paper published on February 5th, 1916, the bombings were successful in killing 61 people and injuring another 101. Bombings like this one and other subsequent failures that resulted in killing few but not an overwhelming number of civilians created the exact opposite effect of what the Germans had hoped to achieve by bombing mainland British cities.
Due to technological advancements that the British had made during 1916 to combat the frequent airship bombing raids by the German navy and army, the British had found much more success near the end of the year in shooting down German airships and limiting the amount of damage the airships could do. In order to overcome the newly developed defenses that the British had employed, the Germans first looked to improve the Zeppelins they had in service. To increase the altitude at which the airships could fly, they removed the second engine in already commissioned crafts and for newly made airships, they had the framework of the balloon lightened. This allowed the airships to ascend to previously unreachable altitudes, making them harder targets for both ground units and British planes. The goal in increasing the altitude capability of their airships was so the Germans could conduct daytime bombing runs with hopes of more accurately striking their targets.
One of the first daytime Zeppelin bombing runs was conducted in March of 1917 and was unsuccessful due to strong winds that blew the airships, which were now reaching a much higher altitude, off of their targets. Another daytime raid was conducted in May, again failing due to strong winds pushing the airships off target, though one of the six dispatched airships did drop a few bombs killing one and causing minor infrastructural damage. Having experienced more of the same difficulties conducting daytime raids as they did with nighttime raids, the German army submitted an order for a squadron of newly developed Gotha G.IV aircrafts. The Gotha was a military plane designed specifically as a bomber. They were much easier to maneuver than Zeppelins and could reach similar altitudes making daytime raids possible and much less likely to fail.
An operation using Gothas to bomb London called Operation Turkenkreuz commenced in May of 1917 with the first bombing mission occurring on May 25th, 1917. A squadron of Gothas was originally tasked with bombing London but diverted to their secondary targets, which were a military base in Shorncliffe and a port in Folkestone, due to cloud impeding cloud cover. Though they weren’t able to bomb their primary target, the bombings of their secondary targets were quite successful with 95 dead in Folkestone and 18 dead in Shorncliffe. This initial mission demonstrated the potential of the newly acquired Gotha bombers to adequately strike targets and the British military’s incapability to stop them. Gothas were more successful in hitting their targets because they were not nearly as susceptible to harsh weather conditions (mainly wind) as airships were. Also, the daytime raids they were used in allowed the bombers more visibility which made it much easier for them to successfully hit their targets.
A subsequent daytime bombing raid conducted using Gothas, and perhaps the most famous bombing of England in the First World War, occurred on June 13th, 1917 when Gotha bombers successfully reached and bombed London. The bombers were able to hit their designated targets and not a single bomber was lost. It was one of, if not, the most successful German bombing missions against the British during the entire war. The bombing (Britain’s deadliest bombing on home soil up to that point) resulted in 162 civilians dead and 432 injured, including 18 children that were killed when one of the bombs hit a school building, further adding to the infamy of this bombing mission. British civilians had become more vulnerable to accurate bombings by 1917 because they were not taken as seriously due to the many failures of airships up to that point. Lt. Charles Chabot, regarding the incident, later wrote, “Raids hadn’t become a very serious thing and everybody crowded into the street to watch. They didn’t take cover or dodge.” The lax attitude that the British had started to show towards bombings was gone after the bombing of London by the Gotha bombers and during subsequent bombings the Gothas were met with much heavier resistance from British fighter planes. The British began to effectively ward off daytime bombing missions by Gothas so the Germans were forced to go back to nighttime bombings.
Upon switching back to nighttime bombing missions, the Gothas were still more successful than Zeppelins in hitting targets but their effectiveness had started to subside. By 1918, the British were well versed in repelling bombing runs and Gothas began to get shot down or damaged with more frequency. Bombing missions conducted in early 1918 resulted in varying degrees of success but they were never enough to completely destroy civilian morale or completely halt British production. As the tide of the war started to shift in favor of the allies, many Gothas were recalled from their British bombing missions to instead support troops on the front, leaving German Zeppelins and small planes to conduct bombing missions for stretches of time.
During these stretches, German bombing missions were less successful and more airships were shot down. The final mission flown by the Gothas and accompanying airplanes was on May 19th, 1918 and it was met with heavy resistance from British fighters. The bombers were only able to drop a portion of their payloads and the British were able to ward them off and prevent significant damage and casualties. There was also one final Zeppelin mission on August 5th, 1918. The airships never reached their target because they were spotted by a British ship off the coast and one was shot down. After flying their final bombing mission over England, the Gothas and other airplanes were subsequently diverted to the western front to help support the Germans in their final offensive before the end of the war. This marked the end of the German strategic air campaign against the British and it hardly succeeded in completing either of its two primary objectives.
The Germans had two primary goals when they initially decided to begin bombing Britain. The first was to strike important military compounds and factories to halt productivity and availability of reinforcements for the allied troops on the Western Front. The second objective was to damage cities enough and kill enough civilians to discourage the British civilian population and have them demand an end to the war that would lead to British, and ultimately allied surrender. Though the bombing raids were somewhat successful in that they did slow British production at times, they didn’t slow production enough for it to make enough of a difference for the German infantry to turn the tide on the Western Front. More importantly, the German air raids were unsuccessful in fulfilling their objective of hurting the British civilians’ morale. Due to the inaccuracy of German bombing raids, they were not able to kill enough civilians to crush British morale. British citizens did become fearful of bombings, though not enough to dissuade them from supporting the war effort. On the contrary, and in direct contrast from the Germans’ initial hopes, the British citizens supported the war effort more passionately after the bombing raids began. Citizens supported and directly encouraged counter bombing raids by the British on German soil as retaliation for targeting British civilians which means that the German air campaign against the British most likely hurt their own war effort more than it helped them.
When all was said and done, the German aerial campaign against the British did about £3,000,000 in damages, resulted in around 1400 casualties and around 3000 injured, which, compared to the total monetary cost and number of casualties sustained in other theaters of the First World War, was relatively low in all three categories. The German air campaign against the British had potential but the Germans lacked the technological advancements necessary for them to be successful at the onset of the war. Perhaps if they had Gotha bombers and their other more sophisticated airplanes when they began their bombing runs against the British they would have been more accurate in hitting their targets and the citizens would have called for surrender as the Germans had initially hoped, though that is all conjecture.
The Germans were unsuccessful in their air campaign against the British because the airships that they used at the onset of the campaign were too vulnerable to being affected by weather, too hard to maneuver, and were much easier to shoot down once the British started using incendiary bullets. The Gotha bomber, a bomber accurate and maneuverable enough to hit its targets with more success than German airships, came along a couple years too late for the Germans as the British had already developed their aerial defenses enough to limit the amount of damage that they could do. Overall, the Germans’ lack of technological advancements when they began their air campaign was ultimately the reason why it was unsuccessful and why the British were able to repel many attacks and were not too badly affected by the ones they were unable to repel.
