GUARDING PARIS FROM THE HUN
Observation post fitted with instruments for gauging the height and speed of enemy aircraft, a giant searchlight, a listening post and a “75” gun installed on the outskirts of Paris.
London, practically unarmed, seemed to them an easy mark. But the British Lion was now awake. The English had been taken by surprise. They attempted at first, in an unorganized way, to protect their city, and, though occasionally successful in destroying an airship through the gallantry of some individual hero, they soon found that their defense must be organized, and Admiral Sir Percy Scott was entrusted with the task. Regulations were introduced whose object was to darken London. Lights were extinguished on the streets and screened on the waterfront. Illumination for advertising purposes was forbidden; windows were covered, so that London became at night a mass of gloom. The Zeppelins, compelled to fly at a very great height, because of anti-aircraft guns, were blinded. As in Paris airplanes were constantly kept on the alert and searchlights and anti-airship guns placed at every convenient point.
The suggestion was made that the English should undertake reprisals, but the suggestion was strongly opposed on the ground that the British should not be a “party to a line of conduct condemned by every right-thinking man of every civilized nation.”
The effect of the English improved defenses was soon obvious, when the German expeditions began to lose airship after airship. Under the new régime, when such an attack was signaled, the whole city immediately received warning and the sky was swept by dozens of searchlights. Safe retreats were ready for those who cared to use them, but ordinarily the whole population rushed out to watch the spectacle. Airplanes would dash at the incoming foe; the searchlights would be switched off and the guns be silent to avoid hindering the aviators. Then would come the attack and Zeppelin after Zeppelin would be seen falling, a great mass of flames, while their companions would hurry back across the Channel. Even there they would not be safe, for many an airship was brought down on English fields, or on the waters of the sea.
The Germans, however, did not confine their policy of frightfulness in the air to the performances of their Zeppelins. Before the Zeppelins had crossed the Channel their airplanes had visited England. On Christmas Day, 1914, an airplane attacked Dover, doing, however, no damage. Other airplanes also visited the British Isles from time to time, dropping bombs, and as the Germans began to lose faith in the efficacy of their Zeppelin fleets they began more and more to substitute airplanes for their airships.
On some of these expeditions much more damage was done than had ever been done by the Zeppelins. The airplane expedition grew serious in the year 1917; between May 23d and June 16th of that year there were five such aerial attacks. The airplanes could not only move with greater speed but with better direction. An attack on May 25th resulted in the killing of seventy-six persons and the injuring of one hundred and seventy-four, the principal victims being women and children. This was at the town of Folkestone on the southeast coast. In this attack there were about sixteen airplanes, and the time of the attack was not more than three minutes. Scarcely any part of Folkestone escaped injury. The attack was methodically organized. Four separate squadrons passed over the city, following each other at short intervals. It was impossible to tell when the attack would end, and people in shelters or cellars were kept waiting for hours without being able to feel certain that the danger had passed.
It is probable that one of the motives of these raids was to keep at home fleets of English airplanes which might be more useful on the front. Indeed, many Englishmen, alarmed by the damage, urged such a policy, but the good sense of the English leaders prevented such a mistake from being made. Pitiful as must have been the suffering in individual cases, the whole of the damage caused by the German frightfulness was but a trifle as compared with the usefulness of the English air-fleets when directly sent against the German armies. Nevertheless, every squadron of German airplanes sent to England was attacked by British aviators, and in those attacks the Germans suffered many losses.
The worst raid of all those made was one on June 13th, which was directed upon the city of London. On that occasion ninety-seven persons were killed and four hundred and thirty-seven wounded. 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. The raiders were easily seen and their flight seemed like a flight of swallows as they dived and swerved through the air.