Air raid

“ Result of Monday’s Raid. Fifteen persons were killed and seventy injured in last night’s air raid over London.
The following official report was given out by Lord French, commander of the home defenses:
Airplane Raid.—The latest reports concerning last night’s airplane raid show that the group of raiders which approached London was driven off by the fire of anti-aircraft guns. Only one or at the most two machines penetrated the defenses. The casualties in all the raided districts, reported by the police up to the present, are: Killed, 15; Injured, 70. The material damage was not great. ”

“ Air-craft for this purpose have been likened to long-range guns, with the advantage of greater precision, because the target is in view, and very much longer effective range—the Germans, for example, used to raid London, and on one occasion Edinburgh, from bases situated in North Germany and on the Schleswig coast. Air-raids are of great value in affecting the moral of the enemy country by bringing home the effects of war in its most terrifying aspect to the civilian population at home, and thus causing the dislocation of traffic and diminishing the output of munitions. ”

“ An Air Raid on London. One night of brilliant moonlight, I had just come in from a visit to a theatre and was glancing through the evening papers before turning in, when my telephone bell rang. On replying, I found the caller was Madame Gabrielle, and in consequence of the cryptic message she gave me I abandoned the idea of going to bed and remained keenly on the alert. For a full hour nothing occurred. Then I heard the air raid warnings for which I had been waiting and soon after the guns, distant at first, but gradually drawing nearer, began to boom out their defiance of the aerial invaders. ”

“ I sat still for a long time after my tea, looking out at the familiar view; the trees, the wide road, and the river. Then I paid my bill and walked up the street to my bus.
XXV
A few days after this the Air Raids began.
We had heard, of course, that they would come. There had been the Zeppelin raids; people had talked of bombardment from the air; of London being destroyed; of German plans for more and larger aeroplanes than anyone had seen; but it had not seemed very real. And now, when the first raid came, I did not realize what it was.
I was undressing in my bedroom ”

“ Frank, as he contemplated what a thrilling adventure lay before them, fancied that this wish on the part of Major Nixon was in a fair way of coming 114 true. It certainly would be difficult to imagine a more exciting experience than taking part in an aërial raid, where more than thirty seaplanes started out to bombard strongly fortified coast defenses of the enemy, each raider subjected to a continual fire from every known species of anti-aircraft gun known to modern warfare. ”

“ Apparently there had been an air raid. And there has indeed! There was a bad air raid here at 6.30 last night. There is a good deal of damage done in Folkestone: I have seen it while walking about the streets this morning. There have been a good many casualties.
"The weather is glorious, delightful sunshine and hot. I am now having breakfast in a cafe in Folkestone with another officer. We sail on the Princess Clementine at 2 this afternoon, and so will be in Boulogne about 3.30." ”

“ 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 last slowly flying machine came to a landing finally, and there was a rush on the part of the other aviators to see what had happened. When Tom and Jack saw a limp form being lifted out, and heard murmurs of admiration for the pilot who had brought his machine back with a crippled engine, they realized what had happened. ”

“ The price of currants stirs them to revolt far more rapidly than that disgrace to civilisation which are the slums. Air raids were the greatest injustice of the war—air raids, when they never knew from one moonlight night to another if they might not join unwillingly the army of the heroic dead in heaven. That is why so many of them secretly believe that they endured far more at home than the ordinary common soldier did in the front-line trenches. They cannot realise his tragedy; they can, however, fully realise their own. ”

“ Arrowman, the Flight Leader, noticed something else that made him decide very quickly to concentrate the Flight's frightfulness on the two-seaters. The three were bombers, and from their slow and heavy flight obviously fully loaded with bombs, and from the direction they were taking were clearly out on a bombing raid over the British lines.
Now these Hun raids and bomb-droppings had been becoming unpleasantly frequent for a little time before this, and all our patrols had special orders to keep a sharp look-out for bombers and make things as hot for them as possible. ”

“ Is it not possible to press the air war so hard, so to concentrate on the air attack, as to bring the German air arm to breaking point?
It is possible that people’s minds are sometimes overexercised by the thought of air raids and counter-raids. ”

“ We were greeted by other prisoners: "American planes have been making daily bombing raids on the port area only a few blocks away and on the ships in the harbor - Manila Bay." We thought, "That's good! Maybe they won't be able to get
us out."
"MacArthur must be getting close! When the air-raid alarms sounded, the guards have been chasing all of the prisoners inside the buildings."
"We were able to find peepholes where we could watch the U.S. planes dive down through heavy flak of anti-aircraft guns, to drop their bombs on important targets." ”

“ An officer was killed at the arsenal, so they had a military funeral for him this afternoon. The other portion of our unit may go to the front any time now; they are only waiting for orders.
Friday, October 1, 1915.
This morning at 6.45 we had another air raid. We soon cleared the camp of the patients. Three aeroplanes came over in all, and dropped about fifteen bombs on Kragujevatz. Five fell in the arsenal, but little damage was done; several fell round about the station. Several of the station men got into a truck for shelter. ”

“ Upon these points enemy aircraft made frequent attacks, imposing delays, occasionally causing minor destruction, always adding to the effects of the existing congestion. An excellent piece of work reduced very considerably the effect of one successful enemy air-raid. ”

“ The raid, as practised by the Confederate, General Morgan, in the American Civil War, is no longer healthy because there are aircraft about. Detached units cannot, as in past times, be left in the air to forage for themselves; and yet mobility of the screen and wings may prove as useful an aid to a marching army as claws are to a crab. ”

“ The over sea raid will have greater terror than any ordinary invasion. A fleet of dreadnaughts dirigibles, assisted by fast cruisers of the air, and many aëroplane scouts, would be extremely formidable. An enemy’s base line would be at the mercy of such an invasion. ”

“ These airplane operations differed from the Zeppelin expeditions in being carried on in the daytime, and this raid took place while the schools were in session and large numbers of people were in the street. Only one of the attacking airplanes was brought down. The raiding machines were of a new type, about three times the size of the ordinary machine, and there were twenty-two such machines in the squadron. The battle in the air was a striking spectacle and in spite of the danger was watched by millions of the population. ”

“ It is no good for either side to produce hundreds of thousands of common aviators, if the other side has a surplus of these special fighters who can put down machines by the score. that would be only sending up pigeons to be shot at. On the other hand, if either side does possess that air superiority, then it can send its common, ordinary aviators by the hundred, properly protected by fighters, to raid, bomb and destroy with impunity. ”

“ Night after night we were roused by the whistling of sirens and the bursting of maroons, thin shells that made a big noise, warning all that an air raid was in progress, and giving pedestrians and others a chance to take shelter from enemy bombs and the shrapnel of the anti-aircraft guns, the latter even a greater menace to those in the open than the former. On one of these nights I, with two Canadian chums, sightless like myself, had just entered the Bungalow when the maroons began to explode and the whistles to shriek. Bed was out of the question. Besides, the matron, Mrs. ”

“ From the cables is suspended a network of steel wires, which is invisible to the hostile air-craft, and in which they may become entangled and so brought down. These have been raised to a height of as much as 12,000 feet. For raiding purposes two types of aeroplane—in addition to air-ships—have been developed. 'Day bombers' carry out raids in daylight at heights of 12,000 to 20,000 feet on points from 50 to 100 miles behind the lines. 'Night-bombers' are slower machines which raid well into the enemy's territory—up to 200 or more miles—at heights varying from 8000 to 12,000 feet. ”

“ But whether undertaken as part of a general programme of frightfulness or as reprisals for cruel and indefensible outrages air raids upon defenceless towns, killing peaceable citizens in their beds, and children in their kindergartens, are not incidents to add glory to aviation. The mind turns with relief from such examples of the cruel misuse of aircraft to the hosts of individual instances in which the airman and his machine remind one of the doughty Sir Knight and his charger in the most gallant days of chivalry. ”

“ Air-raids were, however, one of the horrors of war rather than a means of achieving victory, and the military importance of aircraft never attained proportions corresponding to the space the subject occupied in the public press and the popular mind. ”

“ Still, they saw the mass of wreckage, and even watched a corps of workmen digging away part of the piled-up airships in search of other bodies supposed to be still unfound.
All that day Tom and Jack went around London seeing what they could of the city. They eame upon several other places where damage had been done by the air raiders, and never would they forget the horror and detestation that filled their souls when they saw other hospital vans removing still more of the victims of that atrocious method of conducting war upon defenseless men, women and children. ”

“ The farther such air-raids spread over the country the greater would be the efforts made to defend the most important places, involving the withdrawal from the principal scene of war of guns, airmen, gunners and munitions to protect England from danger from the air. ”

“ The later raids were made by squadrons of airplanes which had greater chances of escape. German air raiders found it increasingly difficult to get past the defenses, and in 1918 the raids on England became infrequent. ”

“ It is true, however, that the persistent raiding has compelled England to withhold from the fighting lines in France several thousand men and several hundred guns in order to be in readiness to meet air raids in which Germany has never employed more than fifty machines and at most two hundred men, including both aviators and mechanics. ”

“ Both sides paid much attention to bombing, and our Airmen freely besprinkled enemy territory with their bombs by day, whereas the foe rarely attempted raids over our lines during daylight. However, after dusk, the air was filled with the planes, as the weather was particularly favourable, and the hum of the machines coming and going was incessant throughout the whole night. At times one could scarcely get any sleep for the continual drone they made, like the hum of gigantic bees around their hives. ”

“ A sickening pause—then a deafening detonation, followed by another and another, cut the stillness, and the earth beneath was aflame with light as the high explosives and shells stored in the concealed ammunition depot were set off. Nothing escaped destruction; flesh and blood, mortar and brick went skyward together, and a great gash in the earth was all that was left to tell the story of the enemy's successful raid.
From a safe height the German airman and his observer watched their handiwork. Suddenly the latter caught sight of an aeroplane winging its way toward them. ”

“ No doubt the crack battery has been given credit for disabling an enemy plane. The honor, such as it is, belongs to our aerial godfather, among whose lesser vices may be included that of practical joking.
The remnants of the post were immediately confiscated for firewood by some poilus who were living in a dugout near by.
IX [200] “LONELY AS A CLOUD”
The French attack which has been in preparation for the past month is to begin at dawn to-morrow. It has been hard, waiting, but it must have been a great deal worse for the infantrymen who are billeted in all of the surrounding villages. ”

“ The three sisters were eventually spotted by aeroplanes, and silenced by some of our heavy artillery in the mountain sector. In the valley itself, it was almost impossible to locate the enemy guns. Owing to the very broken nature of the country, the damp atmosphere and the constant dust, our aeroplanes were unable to spot them, even when firing, and they caused us constant annoyance, while remaining almost immune from our fire. Flying over the valley was at all times most hazardous work, owing to the innumerable vortices and pockets in the air, and there were many bad accidents. ”

“ But hard fighting was going on, and the line was getting badly hammered, so that every balloon which could get up was in the air, and every observer was hunting for hostile battery positions, directing the fire of our guns on to them, and doing all they could to lessen the shell-fire that was pouring down on our infantry in their scanty trenches. At times a swirl of mist or cloud came down and shut off the view altogether from the balloons ”