Air bombing

“ If they are not bombed out of existence, air-attack will at least force them to disperse and take cover so frequently as to slow up their rate of advance to a snail’s pace, while days of bombing by hostile aircraft will hardly be a tonic for their moral. ”

“ Once those tons of explosives have been released and the noise of their dreadful havoc has aroused the anti-aircraft gunners of the enemy, those bombing planes will find the earth an uninviting sort of region and they will be glad to spring into the protecting silence and darkness of the upper air. And this they can do easily, for, rid of their load, they possess unusual climbing powers. ”

“ From above the French, American and British airmen were dropping tons of explosives on the emplacements of the big guns and on the railway spurs that brought them to the firing points. It might seem an easy matter for an airship flying over a place to drop an explosive bomb on it and destroy it. But, on the contrary, it is very difficult.
The bombing plane must be constantly on the move, and it takes a pretty good eye to calculate the distance from a great height sufficiently well to make a direct hit.
But a certain percentage of the bombs find their mark, and they did in this case. ”

“ Because of America's opposition to attacking civilians or non-military targets, this bombing would be aimed not directly at an enemy's will, but at the machines and industries that supported that will and its military defenses. The destruction of an enemy's vital industries would destroy its ability to continue to wage war. ”

“ Some of them had reached their objectives, and had dropped the bombs on the German positions in spite of the withering fire poured upward at them. Others had failed. There is always a certain percentage of failures in a night bombing raid. And some were unable to say with certainty what damage they had caused. ”

“ The formation was not broken even then, each battleplane continuing to cover its individual bombing plane with the shelter of its wings, so to speak, though at the same time fighting off the aggressors.
Of course the bombers were also fitted to ward off attack, each being armed with two machine-guns, one forward, and the other aft where the [151] man who handled the bombs could manipulate it. Slower and much less agile than the fighting planes, they were expected to defend themselves but not to attack. ”

“ In Germany airmen sought to restore mobility to the battlefield, joining aircraft and tanks to create blitzkrieg warfare. In America airmen strove for the coup de grace―strategic bombing directly against the vital centers of a nation's war-making capability. ”

“ Never had the world seen such a variety of bombing targets and aircraft. Air Force crews dropped laser-guided bombs down air shafts in hardened buildings and on oil tank valves when Saddam Hussein ordered millions of gallons of oil poured into the Persian Gulf. ”

“ We hear ALL transmissions from aircraft in the strike package, perhaps 48 aircraft. In this case Mongol 4 has announced that he has passed the Intitial Point in this bombing attack of the assigned strike target, perhaps the air field. 01:28 UGG UGG Heavy breathing
Throughout the threat area all aircraft are generating 3 to 4 Gravities or "Gs" to make aimed shooting at them difficult. It is extremely tiring, an athletic event. 01:43 xxxx I'm right over Hoa Loc
01:48 Great bombing there Kaiser
Dive Bombing is visual where others can see the results. ”

“ The powers we have considered will therefore push their air equipment on a quite different scale; they will be bound to deliver their chief blows with it; we may certainly reckon on the biggest long-range airplanes possible, on the largest bombs and the deadliest contents for them. We may certainly reckon that, within three or four hours of a declaration of war between France and England, huge bombs of high explosive, or poison gas, or incendiary stuff, will have got through the always ineffectual barrage and be livening up the streets of Paris and London. ”

“ Single British aeroplanes have been coming and going since the bombardment started. I have not seen any German plane. The distant landscape is becoming fainter. The flashes of our guns can be seen at intervals all over the slopes immediately below us, and their blast is clearly shown by the film of smoke and dust which hurries into the air. The haze makes a complete screen between us and the battle. ”

“ Day and night, bombs thrown by the German air fleet exploded in all parts of the city, doing great damage to property and killing and wounding hundreds of innocent noncombatants. Day and night could be heard the roar of the artillery fire, and nightfall brought the additional terror of the fiery reflection from bursting shrapnel. The peasants from the villages to the west and south streamed into the city in vast numbers. Thousands of wounded coming from all directions added still more to the horror and excitement. ”

“ A bomb, dropped from an aeroplane, would, very likely, be only a sort of round affair, set to explode on contact or by a time fuse. But if it was a shell fired from a long-range gun, there might be enough of it left, after the explosion, to observe the rifling."
"There isn't a gun with a range long enough to reach Paris from the nearest German lines, unless they have broken through," said Jack. ”

“ The man heaves his bomb over a parapet at a dummy dressed in German uniform. The whistle blows and we all duck. There is a terrific explosion like a small cannon and you hear the pieces whizzing through the air. Every man is holding in his hand and wielding a terrible power. Wrongly used, it is death to himself and his comrades. The other day a boy's hand was moist with perspiration and the bomb slipped, killing the group. Another prematurely exploded as it was being thrown, carrying away the man's own hand and killing the instructor. So it is a dangerous business. ”

“ On the home front we have long been accustomed to the sound of guns, small and great, but it has come from training camps and inspires confidence rather than anxiety. We have been spared the horrors of invasion, occupation, wholesale devastation. In certain areas the noise of bombs and anti-aircraft guns has grown increasingly familiar, and on our south-east and east coasts war from the air, on the sea, and under the sea has become more and more audible as the months pass by. ”

“ Why, it's like boomerang-throwing, for this last, you'll swear, circled round you before it sank nestling under the edge of the plate of steaming pork-stew in front of you. The air is thick with these doughy missiles. Nobody is the least surprised except us, and we become quite absorbed in watching the friendly bombardment. ”

“ There are heavy, slower-flying day “bombers,” and—silent this morning but waiting patiently for the curtain of night to descend,—enormous night bombing machines, the fiercest and hugest of all the great birds of the flying force. To-night, under cover of darkness these machines will speed upon their way, far over the enemy's lines. They carry fuel for a journey of many hours' duration, and heavy bombs which they will drop upon railway junctions, ammunition factories, staff headquarters and important positions deep in the territory of the Hun. ”

“ Towards sundown the occupants of the various bomb-proofs used to emerge and sit on the steps or the sandbags of their shelters, conversing with their neighbours and discussing the day's damage. All of a sudden the bell would tinkle, and down would go all the heads, just as one has often seen rabbits on a summer evening disappear into their holes at the report of a gun. In a few minutes, when the explosion was over, they would bob up again, to see if any harm had been done by the last missile. ”

“ We were in one of the finest bomb-proofs in that entire sector. After more than three years the direct hits of high explosives had not penetrated it. To its original thickness and strength had been added [92] the tumbled-in walls of the glorious old building which once stood above it. Now and then shells bursting near the entrance to our shelter forced in the heavy curtains with the rush of air following the explosion.
The firing from our own guns became more intense and rapid. What did it mean? Were we under general attack? Was a raid to be received, or were our lads to deliver one? ”

“ Something in the direction of the mastery of the air already has been gained in pursuance of the principle that the main object of military aviators is the collection of information.
"Bomb dropping has not been indulged in to any great extent. On one occasion a petrol bomb was successfully exploded in a German bivouac at night, while from a diary found on a dead German cavalry soldier it has been discovered that a high explosive bomb, thrown at a cavalry column from one of our aeroplanes, struck an ammunition wagon, resulting in an explosion which killed fifteen of the enemy." ”

“ Whenever you fool a man with a bomb, you’re playing a practical joke on him that he’ll never forget. Even, probably, he’ll never get a chance to remember it.
[Pg 95]
When the Canadians first introduced bombing, the bombs were improvised out of jam tins, the fuses were cut according to the taste and judgment of the individual bomber, and, just when the bomb would explode, was more or less problematical. Frequently, the Germans have tossed our bombs back into our trenches before they went off. ”

“ The Boches must certainly want to come unobserved, and the French must certainly want to chase them without being seen. How can either side tell which is friend and which is enemy, lights or no lights? How can even an anti-aircraft gun hope to hit a tiny moving plane way up in the air? How can a moving plane hit another in the dark? Which of the deep booms were guns and which bombs?
The Air Raid on Paris on the Night of January 30, 1918
This thought was dreadful. Bombs actually being dropped in the suburbs of Paris on buildings, on our friends, on the refugees, on anybody. ”

“ We could hear the guns barking close by and occasionally the louder boom that told us one of the German bombs had landed. Particles of shrapnel began falling in the garden beneath the windows of our ward and we could hear the rattle of the pieces on the slate roof of a pavilion there. It is most unpleasant, it goes without saying, to lie helpless on one's back and grapple with the realisation that directly over your head—right straight above your eyes and face—is an enemy airplane loaded with bombs. ”

“ For nearly ten minutes rifles, machine-guns, and artillery kept up a steady fire. The nurses who had rushed out to see the aeroplanes soon came running back, as bullets were falling on the hospital roof.
The sequel of this first air raid was long a subject of discussion. The Germans allege that bombs were dropped by the aviators. The French declare that German guns fired at them from outside the town, and that the shells fell and exploded in the town.
The casualties were 7 civilians and 15 Germans killed, and a number of wounded. Seven horses were killed on the Place du Marché. ”

“ The acting prime minister urged the nation to be calm. He said he did not entirely discount the possibility that the threat was a hoax or a bluff, although radar did confirm that an unidentified aircraft was circling high overhead.
As a precaution the Air Ministry ordered all planes, civil and military, grounded.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 (WW) —The question of why El Spaniola's O-bombers can't be shot out of the air was answered today by Pentagon sources. Each of the terrible bombs is encased in a virtually indestructible shell and cannot be detonated by another explosion. ”

“ If, however, one happens to be directly underneath where the shrapnel shells are bursting and realizes that all that goes up comes down again, one takes more than a spectacular interest in such an incident. By night aviators afford one even greater excitement, trying to spot the hostile machine and locate it by the sound of its engine. Then perhaps a terrific crash as it drops an incendiary bomb, the explosion of which lights up the whole neighbourhood with a dull red glow. ”

“ The passage overhead of German aeroplanes made nights uneasy. Darkness was lit by those huge flashes in the sky, which denoted explosions of our dumps of shells. The ground shook many times an hour with great concussions. Sometimes the crash of bombs and patter of machine-guns firing at our transport lasted till pale dawn appeared or its approach was heralded by the bombardment of our guns, whose voice pronounced the prologue of attack. ”

“ When anticipating trench raids, or on a raiding party, a handy trench knife and carefully slung grenades were added to his equipment.
Airplane bombing ultimately changed the whole character of the war. It extended the fighting lines miles behind the battle front. It brought the horrors of night attacks upon troops resting in billets. It visited destruction and death upon the civilian population of cities scores of miles back of the actual front.
Germany transgressed repeatedly the laws of humanity by bombing hospitals far behind the battle front. ”

“ Emil placed my coffee before me with shaking hands, and disappeared.
Another crash, and another, both very close!
There is nothing that I know of more hideous than an aërial bombardment. It requires an entire mental readjustment. The sky, which has always symbolised peace, suddenly spells death. Bombardment by the big guns of an advancing army is not unexpected. There is time for flight, a chance, too, for a reprisal. But against these raiders of the sky there is nothing. One sits and waits. And no town is safe. One moment there is a peaceful village with war twenty, fifty miles away. ”