In the opening days of the Great War when it erupted in August 1914, the Germans began to employ aircraft to deliver bombing attacks on civilian targets. Indeed, history's very first bombing raid on a city or town took place on August 6th when the Zeppelin Z.6 bombed the Belgian city of Liege, an attack that claimed the lives of nine civilians.

A more famous attack took place weeks later on August 30th when a lone German Etrich Taube monoplane flew over the centre of Paris, the pilot, Leutnant Ferdinand von Hiddessen, dropping several small bombs by hand over the side of the cockpit, which killed at least one civilian, and a bundle of propaganda leaflets. The French capital was bombed daily by a lone aircraft over the next three weeks, prompting Parisians to dub the attackers 'the 5 o'clock Taube'.

It was not long before the Germans set their sights on Britain. In November 1914, small-scale bombing raids were carried out on coastal targets in south-east Britain by German naval planes. The German high command wished to begin bombarding England with airships but Kaiser Wilhelm II initially forbade such attacks, fearing his relatives in the British Royal Family would be harmed. However, under pressure from his generals, he eventually relented and the first airship raid on Britain took place in January 1915. Between then and August 1918, there were a total of 51 raids on England by German airships. The attacks, almost always nocturnal, reached their peak in the late autumn of 1916.

These raids had no significant material impact on the Allied war effort as the bomb-loads able to be carried by the airships was too modest to have any appreciable effect. However the psychological impact of these raids was far greater.   The attacks of the dreaded and much-hated Zeppelin 'Baby-Killers' as the British Press soon dubbed them caused much fear, anger and panic among the civilian population. The actual number of civilian casualties caused by airship raids during the Great War was relatively modest when compared to the enormous military losses on the Western Front (and to strategic bombing in the Second World War). In the 51 airship raids mounted between January 1915 and May 1918, total civilian casualties were less than 2,000 including 557 dead. As grim as this total was, it can be put into perspective when compared to the over 57,000 casualties suffered by the British army in a single day on 1st July 1916 on the Somme. Although the British Press made much of the children listed  among those civilian losses, cynical observers pointed out that  far more children died of malnourishment and disease in London's poorer districts during the same period yet these preventable deaths merited far less attention from the authorities.

  Nonetheless there were immense pressure on the government and the army to do more to stop the Zeppelin threat. Soldiers and airmen on leave from France were more than a little bemused to listen to Londoners complaining of how tougher life was under the threat of the airship raids than the supposedly 'safer' war on the Western Front. The government was eventually forced to cave in to such pressure and it diverted precious resources and aircrew from France to form Home Defence units in south-east Britain.   Mounting losses during the latter months of 1916 saw the airship units forced to change their tactics. Zeppelins now operated at a higher altitude in order to avoid attacks by British fighters. However this also reduced accuracy of the bombing, especially in cloudy weather, made navigation more difficult  and rendered the crews more exposed to cold and oxygen deprivation. After October 1916, the German army refused to send any more airships on raids against London but their counterparts in the German navy remained determined to go on attacking the English capital.

Aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air-Service, operating as night-fighters (a dangerous pursuit considering the limited technology of the time), patrolled the night skies and occasionally managed to extract revenge from the hydrogen-filled leviathans. The first such incident took place in the early hours of 3rd September 1916 when the Schutte-Lanz Airship, SL-11 was destroyed by the BE2c flown by Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson of No 39 Home-Defense Squadron RFC over north-east London. Robinson made three attacks, emptying a drum of Lewis MG ammunition on each pass, aiming for the airship's exposed belly. The airship ignited and burst into flames, crashing into a field in Cuffley, killing all 16 of the SL-11's crew. Robinson was awarded a Victoria Cross for his feat.

On the night of 23/24 September, the Germans sent a flotilla of four Zeppelins across the Channel to bomb London. One of the airships, L.33, making its operational debut, was damaged by AA fire after dropping its bombs on the English capital. Turning for home, it was attacked by a BE2c of No 39 Squadron, piloted by a New Zealander, 2nd-Lt Alfred Brandon who inflicted further damage on the huge airship. Too crippled to make it home, the L.33's Captain chose to crash-land in a field in Essex. All of the crew survived and the Germans had time to set fire to the Zeppelin before British troops arrived.

Around the same time, another Zeppelin, the L.32, was caught by another No 39 Squadron pilot, 2nd-Lt Frederick Sowrey, who made three passes with his BE2c along the underside of the airship before it burst into flames. The burning Zeppelin crashed into a field in Billericay. By dawn, the field, not far from London, was descended upon by thousands of civilian sightseers, eager to visit the wreckage of one of the hated 'baby-killers'. Londoners arrived on foot, bicycle, motor-car and horse & cart or paid for a seat on one of the numerous chartered buses. Enterprising retailers even set up lemonade and confectionery stands. The local constabulary and the army had difficulty in holding the crowds of eager onlookers and souvenir-hunters back. (Some must have gotten through, even the Museum of Victoria has a piece of the L.32 in its collection). The blackened, shriveled corpses of the L.32's crew were taken to a nearby church and were later buried with full military honors by the RFC although angry civilians jeered and spat at the funeral parade as it went past.

A total of 84 German airships participated in the attacks on Britain, the final raid taking place over northern England on 5th August 1918. Of this total, 30 airships were lost, either shot down or lost due to accidental crashes or navigational errors.

 In early 1917, there were plans to commence large-scale attacks by fixed wing bombers, the first of which, the Gotha G.IV, was now available.  The large and rugged Gothas, protected by three machine-gunners, were more challenging targets for defending British fighters and the German High Command determined that daylight raids could be carried out, allowing for far greater accuracy of bombing.

The first raid on London by a fixed-wing aircraft had taken place on November 28th 1916. A lone LVG two-seater of the German naval air-service, had departed its base in German-occupied Belgium. The crew, pilot Paul Brandt and observer Walter Ilges, had reached the centre of London un-detected, shielded by hazy weather, the intended target the Admiralty building. Mis-identifying the target, the crew dropped six bombs which landed in south-west London. One bomb exploded in a dressing room of the Victoria Palace Music Hall, injuring Louisa Cameron, a cleaning lady, the only serious casualty of the raid. The attack aroused little reaction, passing un-noticed amidst the noise and bustle of the city, nearby citizens assuming the detonations to be accidental gas explosions which occurred frequently. The LVG crossed the coast at Hastings and was already half-way across the Channel before the RFC or RNAS managed to even scramble any aircraft. The German two-seater suffered engine trouble and had to force-land on a French beach, the two crew becoming POWs.

After this incident, there were no more raids by fixed wing aircraft on London for the next six months. But the Germans prepared for much larger attacks on the English capital. The planned raids would be carried out by the new Gotha G.IV heavy bombers of K3 Bomber Wing under the command of Hauptmann Ernst Brandenburg.   Kagohl-3, under the command of Brandenburg, began its first bombing mission on 25th May 1917, sending a formation of 23 Gothas to attack London. Thick cloud over the city forced the attackers to switch targets and they bombed the Channel Port of  Folkestone instead, killing 95 people, including 77 civilians, and injuring another 195. One Gotha was shot down by Sopwith Pups of the RNAS and two more turned back early with engine problems.

  A second attack on London was mounted on 5th June but bad weather and dense cloud again diverted the attackers who dropped their bombs on Sheerness in Kent.  The third attack, on 13th June, got through to the English capital. This assault, comprising 20 Gothas, proved to be the most deadly single bombing raid on Britain during the entire war. Two of the Gothas suffered engine trouble over the Channel and had to turn back, and four others, also experiencing mechanical problems, had to divert to secondary targets and bomb those. But the remaining 14 aircraft reached the city and this time the skies over London were clear.   There had been no Zeppelin attacks on London  since the previous October and there had never been any attacks during daylight. As a result, Londoners had grown complacent after a relatively quiet nine month spell and they believed themselves to be safe during daytime. Large numbers of people ignored the air-raid warnings and instead crowded out onto the streets, gazing at the strange new big aeroplanes droning overhead.   The Gothas released their ordnance, each aircraft dropping six 110lb bombs. They detonated throughout the city, killing 162 people and injuring another 462. One bomb struck a primary school, killing 18 children. As one historian later wrote 'This was the beginning of a new epoch in military history'.

  The RFC and the RNAS flew over 90 sorties in an attempt to intercept the attacking formation but the technical limitations of their aircraft meant that few of the pilots were able to reach sufficient altitude in time to even get near the German bombers. One plane, a Bristol F2B of No 25 Training Squadron, managed to make several passes at the Gothas, braving the heavy fire from multiple gunners on the bombers. But the British fliers  inflicted no damage and the Bristol's observer, Captain C H Keevil, was killed by return fire from the Gothas.   All of the Gothas returned to their bases and Hauptmann Brandenburg, who had personally led the raid, was decorated with a Pour le Merite. Ironically he was badly injured in an accidental crash several days after the raid whilst returning home from the awards ceremony.

  On 7th July 1917, the German bomber wing Kagohl-3 launched their fourth major daylight raid on London. It was the second attack to actually reach the city. A formation of 22 Gotha G.IVs crossed the Channel. Like the previous raid in June, the attackers were blessed with clear skies and the bomber formation arrived over the capital, scattering their bombs across London's East End and the city centre. The death-toll was fewer than on the June attack- this time 57 Londoners perished and another 193 were injured. But the attack provoked just as much, if not more, anger and panic than the previous raid as the air-raid warnings had been too few and too late and the city's fire and rescue services were overwhelmed and slow to respond to some of the affected areas. Despite their experiences of the destruction of the June raid, many Londoners again refused to seek shelter, instead standing out in the open streets, gazing at the attackers droning overhead. Some people refused to believe the attackers were German, insisting they were British planes.....until the bombs started falling. 

    A young office worker employed in a firm located in central London described the effects of a bomb landing less than a hundred metres from where he was working:- "(there was) a blinding flash, a chaos of breaking glass, and the air thick-yellow dust and fumes. Five men had been struck by bomb fragments and a boy of my own age, also hit, died in the afternoon. Outside was a terrible sight, the horses twisted and mangled (the carts had disappeared except for a few burning bits of debris), the front of the office next door, which had caught the full force, blown clean away.   They brought into our building people from the ruins there and I helped to carry them     it was a relief to do something. All the unfortunates had ghastly wounds. I had never seen a dead man before and I was too dazed to realise until afterwards that they must have been stone dead. A fireman, with his axe, put the last horse out of its anguish. The curious thing is that I did not hear the bomb at all and yet I was quite deaf for three days."   The RFC flew nearly 100 sorties against the raid but again, only a handful of fighters were able to achieve sufficient altitude in time to intercept and most were kept at bay by the fierce defensive fire of the Gotha's gunners. One Gotha was shot down and three others damaged in exchange for two British fighters lost, either due to fire from the Gothas or from 'friendly fire' by AA gunners on the ground.     After the raid, anti-German hysteria swept through the city. The capital's few remaining German-born citizens were expelled to quieter parts of the country and anyone with a foreign-sounding accent or surname found themselves targets of abuse and assault- Dutch, Poles, Danish and numerous others all felt the lash of angry prejudice. More productively, the city's authorities worked to improve the air-raid warning systems, fire-fighting services and public air-raid shelters whilst the military committed more defenses to the city.  

  K-3 continued to mount daylight raids on Britain but losses steadily increased, although more bombers were lost to accidental crashes, bad weather or navigation errors than to enemy fire. A raid on August 12 cost K-3 five aircraft but only one was lost to the British defenses, the other four were written off in crashes on landing. On 18th August, K-3 attempted their largest attack yet with a force of 28 Gothas. However the formation encountered severely high head-winds, the commanders having dis-regarded weather reports warning them of such. The winds were so strong, it took the formation three hours to even come within sight of the English coast by which time they were running dangerously low on fuel and the formation leader ordered the raid to be cancelled and his men to turn back. Two Gothas went into the sea after running out of fuel, two more veered off-course and landed in Neutral Holland where they were interned and five more were written off in crashes on landing. Another raid comprising 15 aircraft on August 22nd also met with heavy cost with three Gothas shot down and five more turning back en route.     The Germans abandoned daylight raids and staged their first night raid with fixed-wing bombers on the night of 3/4 September. Five Gothas bombed Chatham, a number of bombs hitting the Royal Navy training academy. Of the 152 people killed, 130 were young naval cadets who were lost when their dormitories were hit. Encouraged by the success of this, K-3 staged nocturnal raids between September 1917 and May 1918. Some raids achieved success but others were disrupted by weather conditions such as fog or high winds or by navigational errors.

  On 2030hrs on the evening of September 4th 1917, a force of eleven Gotha bombers of Kagohl-3  took off from their bases in Germany and headed individually across the Channel towards London. This was the first night-raid by fixed wing heavy bombers on the English Capital. Flushed with the success of the Chatham raid, the first nocturnal raid by Gothas, the Germans decided to hit London the next night.   Two of the Gothas suffered engine trouble en route and turned back which was nothing un-usual as bombing formations often suffered attrition from mechanical or navigational problems.  Of the remaining nine bombers, the  first  reached the British coast at 2240hrs, the last arrived overland just after midnight. Before they reached London, the attackers encountered anti-aircraft fire near Rochester. One of the Gothas was fatally hit, the aircraft spiralling down to vanish in the waters of the Thames Estuary. Less successful was the Royal Flying Corps who flew nearly 20 sorties but none of the fighters managed to locate the bombers to make an interception.   The first Gotha arrived over London at 2330hrs, releasing its bombs over West Ham & Stratford. One bomb struck a dis-used factory which, ironically, had up until recently been used as an internment centre for German-born British citizens. Another Gotha arrived at 1145hrs, its ordnance falling on Woolwich and Greenwich Park. As searchlights pierced the clear night sky over London and AA guns opened fire, many Londoners rushed to seek shelter in the underground train platforms. A third Gotha appeared over Oxford Circus shortly before midnight, one of its bombs narrowly missing Charing Cross Hospital. One man named Stockman was sheltering in a  hotel entrance  on Charing Cross Rd  with two other men when a terrified woman appeared, desperate for shelter. With no room for a fourth person, Stockman gave up his place for the woman. Seconds later, a bomb exploded nearby, the impact knocking Stockman to the ground. Dazed but unhurt, he looked up to see the woman and the other two men all lying dead nearby. Stockman entered the demolished front of the hotel, looking for any injured survivors he could assist, only to find two Canadian soldiers sitting upright still in their chairs stone dead. Another bomb hit Victoria Embarkment near Cleopatra's Needle, shrapnel scything through a nearby tram, killing two of the passengers and slicing the legs off the driver who managed to apply the brakes and stop the tram before he died.   A fourth bomber released its bombs just prior to midnight, doing little damage. Half an hour later, a fifth Gotha appeared, dropping its load on Edmonton and Crouch End. One house was badly hit on Wellesley Rd, a soldier home on leave found dead in the passageway alongside the bodies of his young wife and 5-year-old child. The final bombs landed just before 1am, exploding in Norfolk Crescent. An 11-year-old girl walking to the end of her street to see the raid was bowled over by a bomb-blast. She got to her feet and walked home, thinking herself free of any injury until she realised upon examining herself that she now had a sizeable hole through one of her knees.   It is believed that only five Gothas actually reached London. It is difficult to be certain because some German Gotha crews would often choose to 'tour' their targets, dropping some of their bomb-load on one location and then drop the rest on at least one other target, sometimes several miles apart. Such tactics indicated the utter indifference some Gotha crews showed to the anti-aircraft fire by contrast to bomber crews of the Second World War who would hurriedly dump their bombs onto one target and then get out.  Bombs were also dropped on several locations around Dover so it is likely that some of the bombers diverted to secondary targets. Total casualties on the ground amounted to 19 killed (16 of those in London) and 71 injured (including 56 Londoners). This toll was considerably less than other raids, thanks largely to the scattered bombing,  the more prompt response of most Londoners to the air-raid warnings and the more effective operations of the fire-fighting crews. The single Gotha shot down near Rochester was the only loss suffered by the Germans.

London's AA batteries proved in-effective and falling stray AA shells caused a number of civilian casualties. But the RFC proved increasingly effective at night-interceptions although accidental crashes on landing on darkened airfields continued to cause more bomber losses than the British defenses. In late September 1917, K-3 began using the new and massive Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI bombers, the largest bomber of the Great War, with a wingspan only slightly smaller than the Boeing B-29s of the Second World War! The bomber proved resistant to fighter attack, mostly due to its sheer bulk and heavy defensive firepower, and none were lost over England but they were only available in small numbers, too few to have any strategic impact.   On 19th May 1918, K-3 launched their largest and final raid of the Great War. A total of 43 aircraft took part, including 38 Gothas, three Zeppelin-Staakens and a pair of two-seaters acting as weather-spotters. The Royal Air-Force flew over a hundred sorties in what was the largest aerial battle fought over Britain in the Great War. Six Gothas were shot down and a seventh force-landed on a British aerodrome and was captured. London was bombed with at least 1,250kg of explosives and 49 people were killed with another 177 injured. It was the swansong of the German strategic bombing campaign as afterwards K-3 was designated to provide close support for German ground troops in France.     There were a total of 27 raids on England by fixed wing aircraft, dropping over 111,000 kg of explosives. The raids caused total casualties of 835 dead and 1,972 injured with over 1.4 million-pounds worth of material damage. In return, the Germans lost a total of 62 aircraft.