Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz, 1914–1915

The Forgotten Blitz #1

by Ian Castle

At the outbreak of the First World War, the United Kingdom had no aerial defense capability worthy of the name. Britain had just thirty guns to defend the entire country, with all but five of these considered of dubious value. So when raiding German aircraft finally appeared over Britain the response was negligible and ineffective. Of Britains fledgling air forces, the Royal Flying Corps had accompanied the British Expeditionary Force into Europe leaving the Royal Naval Air Service to defend the country as best it could. That task was not an easy one.From the first raid in December 1914, aerial attacks gradually increased through 1915, culminating in highly damaging assaults on London in September and October. London, however, was not the only recipient of German bombs, with counties from Northumberland to Kent also experiencing the indiscriminate death and destruction found in this new theater of war the Home Front. And when the previously unimagined horror of bombs falling from the sky began, the British population was initially left exposed and largely undefended as civilians were killed in the streets or lying asleep in their beds. The face of war had changed forever and those raids on London in the autumn of 1915 finally forced the government to pursue a more effective defense against air attack.This German air campaign against the United Kingdom was the first sustained strategic aerial bombing campaign in history. Yet it has become the forgotten Blitz.In Zeppelin Onslaught Ian Castle tells the complete story of the 1915 raids in unprecedented detail in what is the first in a planned series of three books that will eventually provide a complete history of Britains Forgotten Blitz of 1914-18.

Genres: Aviation, History, Nonfiction, World War I, Military History

516 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 19, 2018

About the author

Ian Castle began writing military history some thirty years ago but for the last ten years has focused on Germany’s First World War air raids against Britain. Initially exploring the London raids, his later research extended to include attacks across the whole country. In addition to writing books, Ian regularly contributes articles to magazines and journals and has been involved in a number of television documentaries detailing this early air campaign. Besides giving regular talks on the subject, Ian is also building an extensive website highlighting these early air raids.

Reviews

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just a few days ago I finished reading the final page of “Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914 – 1915” by Ian Castle. It was a book that I saw in a Sydney bookshop and picked up and browsed through over a number of days. I couldn’t decide it I really needed another book on the Zeppelins of the Great War. I’ve read and enjoyed a number of books on this subject by authors like Douglas Robinson (The Zeppelin in Combat), Wilbur Cross (Zeppelins of World War I), and a few others. However in the end I decided why not and purchased a copy.

I started reading the book the very next day and discovered that it was to be the first volume of three books covering the Zeppelin offensive against England during the Great War. Not only that, I found the book was a delight to read, well written and extensively researched. You can follow the path of each Zeppelin on its raid over England (eight maps provided) and then follow the path of nearly every HE bomb and incendiary dropped. The author then describes the results of each and every bomb that landed, the destruction it caused and the death and misery the Zeppelins left behind as they made their way back to their bases across the Channel:

"Another incendiary bomb fell on 3 Broadway Market, the house of a boot repairer, John Pateman. It crashed through the roof, igniting in the bedroom of his 7-year-old daughter Marion, known to everyone as 'Queenie'. Fiercely burning liquid quickly soaked into her bedding as the terrified girl screamed. The little girl's mother and her 16-year-old sister, Minnie, were standing at the front door watching the raid when the bomb struck. Horrified, they bounded upstairs: 'Mrs Pateman … found the child's clothing well alight. She endeavoured to put the flames out, but without avail. Minnie then gallantly clutched the flaming bundle and literally squeezed the flames out.' One newspaper optimistically told its readers that they expected Queenie to make a good recovery, but they were wrong. Two days later she died in hospital from terrible burns to her head, back and legs."

This has been one of the first books that I have read on the subject that covers the results of these Zeppelin raids in detail. The author has utilized first-hand accounts, newspaper stories, Police and government reports along with the results of the numerous coronial inquests into the deaths caused by this bombing. The findings are sometimes hard to read and quite heart breaking. It’s easy to understand why there were numerous riots in the streets of London and other places that attacked alleged German business and ‘foreigners’. You also come to agree with the many people who labelled the Zeppelin crews as ‘baby killers’.

Like the results of the bombing of Hull in East Yorkshire by L 9 under command of Heinrich Mathy on the 6th June, 1915: "Close to the Humber Dock, an incendiary smashed through the roof of 39 Blanket Row, the home of the Mullins family and the site of their grocer's shop. The bomb ignited in the bedroom where the Mullins boys slept: George, aged 15, Norman, 10, and Horace, just seven. His father battled to rescue the boys but he was too late to save Norman. George and Horace were pulled out alive but George, in a state of shock, ran off. At the Monument Bridge, about 500 yards away, he collapsed. People in the street picked him up and carried his to the infirmary but he died there later."

Or this account from the aftermath of the first Zeppelin raid on London in May 1915 by LZ 38:

"Only around midnight was the whereabouts of Henry and Caroline Good finally revealed. With the flames extinguished, Constable Barnett placed a ladder against the house again and peered into the blackened smoking room at the back. There, kneeling by the bed as if in prayer, were two figures. But they were not in prayer, they were dead.

Henry and Caroline Good were naked, their clothes burnt from their bodies. All that remained was a small band of woollen jersey on Henry's arm. That arm was tenderly around his wife's waist. The flames had burnt all the hair from Henry's body, while Caroline gripped a large piece of her own hair in her hand. The doctor who attended the scene gave evidence at the inquest and agreed that she probably snatched at her own hair in agony. He pronounced death due to suffocation and burns. How tragic their last moments must have been. Unable to effect an escape from the fiercely burning building, the couple, married for 27 years, knelt down together by the bed and died in each other's arms."

The book is full of stories like this, which really made me realise the horror of these raids that I had always found fascinating from a different perspective.

This is a well-presented book with numerous B&W photographs showing the results of the Zeppelin raids along with appendices (3) covering German Airship numbering systems, Airships raids in 1915 and the individuals killed in air raids in 1915.

This is a book of great stories and of the horror experienced by those under the Zeppelins as they flew over England. I think if you enjoy books on aviation or the Great War you will love this account. I for one can't wait for the next volume and I am so glad that I took the chance to buy this copy.

For those interested below is a link to the home page of the author of "Zeppelin Onslaught", Ian Castle, and has references to multiple Zeppelin raids against England listed by date:

http://www.iancastlezeppelin.co.uk/ho...

[Jonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The bomb – the first dropped on British soil – landed in the kitchen garden of an auctioneer, Thomas A. Terson, gouging a five feet deep crater in the well-turned earth, blasting his cabbages asunder, wrecking a summerhouse and shattering the glass in his greenhouse. The concussion of the blast blew John Banks, the gardener, out of the tree but fortunately a bush broke his fall and he escaped serious injury. One of the many sharp metal fragments of the bomb case stuck into the tree close to where Banks had been moments before."

The first German raid on British civilian targets took place in December 1914; it was undertaken by an aircraft, but by the following month Zeppelin missions against the British mainland started, with the eventual intention of targeting London.

Mr Castle's eminently readable book charts the growth of both the German force and of the British air defences, and charts the path of each raid over England, the points at which each Zeppelin releases their payload and the effects of these bombs once they're dropped.

The effect of these attacks is followed and range from the grossly ineffective:

"L 11 circled around Ashford at about 9.55pm then moved away before returning and flying over the south side of the town. Near the Canterbury Road she turned again and, flying from east to west, began releasing 19 incendiary and two HE bombs. Six incendiary bombs fell in gardens on the east side of the Canterbury Road, one landed in the cemetery and two in Queen’s Road, also on the east side of the Canterbury Road. The only damage caused by these bombs was a partly burnt chicken run and two dead chickens. At Barrow Hill nine incendiaries and two HE bombs fell in cornfields owned by a Mr Bridge, resulting in the death of some of his sheep. The final bomb, an incendiary, landed in the grounds of a sanatorium on the Maidstone Road without causing any damage."

to the heartbreaking:

"Breithaupt and L 15 passed Liverpool Street Station on their port side as they prepared to release their final bombs on London. The first crashed down on 1 Minories, a large building standing on the corner of Aldgate High Street and Minories. The explosion partly demolished the building, which housed the London & South Western Bank on the ground floor and Trubilsky and Harris’ hotel on the upper floors. The buildings on either side – John Pearce’s restaurant at 2 Minories and the Rose and Crown public house at 79 Aldgate High Street – also suffered badly. At the Rose & Crown, Jacob Shilofsky, a tailor from Mile End, was having a drink with his wife, Hettie, when the sound of gun fire reached them. The Belgian landlord shouted for everyone to get down to the cellar and about 30 of his customers reached safety as the bomb exploded, but Hettie and Jacob did not. The blast collapsed the ceiling above them before they could reach the cellar steps. Although injured, Jacob managed to extricate himself, but when he called for his wife, she answered from below the rubble, ‘I am killed; I can’t come out’. He managed to pull his wife free but her pain must have been excruciating as a fragment of the bomb had buried itself deep in her left thigh, shattering her femur into a great number of pieces, leaving muscle and tendons exposed. The fragment extracted from the wound measured two and a quarter inches by an inch wide and weighed 17 grams. Hettie, a mother of six, died in hospital the following day. Seven other people close by were also injured by the bomb and a horse in the street was killed. "

What is definitely apparent is that the book is an excellent, incredibly well researched examination of the birth of aerial bombing and it's maturation from an irritant, more dangerous to crops than to people, into the beginnings of a form of warfare that would ultimately lead to the dawn of nuclear warfare. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series immensely.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a part of WW1 I had never ead about before so I found it really informative. After a while the flights started to sound very similar so it was the stories of what happened on the round that kept it interesting. You can tell there was a lot of research done by the amount of detail about each raid.

[Adam Nowicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so excited to dive into this book. I absolutely love learning about WWI and all its intricacies. And I’ve always had a fascination with airships. I just think they are so cool, and the fact there was a legitimate struggle between heavier and lighter than aircraft that has all but been forgotten is a shame (the tragedy of the R101 shows that government interference and incompetence is nothing new). These two topics together in one book should have been chocolate and peanut butter.

Unfortunately, this was not the delicious Reese’s Cup I was hoping for. The beginning was promising, laying out how England was no longer an island, talking about the reluctance of the Kaiser to fully begin bombing London, and the competition between the German Army and the German Navy. The initial raids are fascinating, especially when learning that the early airshipmen were exposed to the elements, 6000 feet in the air, during winter. Plus there are some great stories of the British striking against the German airship sheds to varying degrees of success.

The problem, for me, fully sets in about a third of the way through. The beginning raids are harrowing for the people who experienced them, as well as the reader, with vivid detail as to where bombs fell, what was damaged, and who was hurt. However, chapters turn into a brief page or two on the crew of an airship, or perhaps Germany getting new airships, or the navy or army alternating who is raiding next, and then the following pages are just endless description of people hurt and places damaged. At times it feels like reading a CVS receipt. Building A, broken windows, Building B, damage to the roof, street A, bomb recovered - did not detonate, and so on. The people who were hurt or killed feels so hollow to learn about because it feels like reading bullet points. The bright points are the first-hand accounts. Reading the actual statements people made was the best part, for me, after learning about the military actions.

The author does an incredible job detailing the history of the raids, but the descriptions of almost every bomb dropped and their effects are not necessary to the detail he goes through. Confusingly, the author does attempt to spice up the way he delivers the deaths of innocents in the raids in at least one chapter by name dropping some victims, then detailing the entire event, ending with the deaths of the people he name-dropped earlier in the chapter. This kind of narrative flair stood out in all the wrong ways personally. I feel as if future volumes will correct the issue, as the final chapter indicates that there will be movement from both militaries as each government learns and adapts.

I hope my review does not seem too harsh. I greatly enjoyed the history surrounding the two governments, the tactics of the raids, the responses to the raids, and the responses to the responses. I fully plan on purchasing the next books, but also fully plan on skimming some of the more monotonous bullet point/CVS receipt type descriptions of people and buildings.