It was with these machines—employed in mass formation—that the Germans attempted their great bombing operations in the Autumn of 1917, notably the expedition in November, when in a single night seven groups of airplanes made successive attacks on English cities; also the raid of Dec. 19 on London, when twenty machines took part in the attack on London and caused serious damage, including the work of an incendiary bomb that set fire to a factory and burned it to the ground. It is with these machines which they are still improving, and which they are multiplying by the bold creation of series, that the Germans have vainly sought to hold command of the air during their offensive in Picardy.
The example and threat of the enemy had their effect in France. The French bombarding groups, which, born at the end of 1914, had in 1915 achieved famous flights into the heart of Germany, were compelled, with the advent of aerial combats, to renounce daylight operations, as these had become impossible or too uncertain for their slow and heavy machines, insufficiently armed, and had turned their attention to perilous night expeditions. But, despite successful raids and effective destruction, the French bombing operations remained more or less unsatisfactory.
In the course of 1917 the use of the flying squadrons was finally adapted to the diverse needs of the battle front. In the French offensive at Verdun, while tactical aviation guided the waves of assault, regulated the artillery fire, and furnished information to the General Staff, while the swift airplane chasers, by a vigilant barrage, prevented all observation by enemy machines, the bombarding groups daily took part also in the action by hurling flames and destruction on railway stations, munition depots, storehouses at the rear, and sowing panic among the troops that were preparing to attack.
Equipped at length with machines that combined the indispensable characteristics of speed, power, and armament, enabling them to hold the air in daytime, the French bombardiers attacked arsenals in the interior of Germany, and the British war dispatches of Dec. 25 mentioned a daylight raid of allied air squadrons upon Mannheim, where several fires followed, with heavy explosions at the central railway station and in the factories.
The night groups, which had long made their raids only by moonlight, at length grew accustomed to flying in complete darkness. They multiplied their expeditions against enemy cantonments, railways, aviation fields, factories, and military and industrial centres. The task that remained at the opening of the Spring of 1918 was the fuller co-ordination of the groups of bombardiers.
By that time the French had an excellent daylight airplane as well as successful night machines, and announced the early completion of still better ones. Their projectiles were not inferior to those of the Germans, and their supply was up to the demand. Thus they faced the German offensive fully equipped to hold their own so far as air supremacy was concerned.
RAIDS ON LONDON
London, as well as Paris, received frequent visits from enemy airplanes in February and March, 1918. On the three successive nights of Feb. 16, 17, and 18 German raiders attacked the British metropolis. Twenty-seven persons were killed and forty-one were injured. Many of the German machines failed to reach the city owing to the great improvement which had been effected in the aerial defenses both on the coast and around London itself. Both the anti-aircraft guns and the airmen helped to diminish the casualties. The third night's raid resulted in an entire absence of both casualties and damage to property.
Seven or eight German airplanes made a raid over England on the night of March 7. Two of them reached London and dropped bombs in various districts. Eleven persons were killed and forty-six injured in the metropolitan area. In addition a certain amount of damage was done to dwellings and some people buried under the wreckage.
Zeppelins were again employed by the Germans in a raid on the east coast of England on March 12. One of them dropped bombs on Hull, while the two others wandered for some hours over remote country districts at great altitudes, unloading their bombs in open country before proceeding out to sea again. This was the first Zeppelin raid on England since Oct. 19, 1917. The Germans had sustained such heavy losses in Zeppelins that they had substituted airplanes. [An account of the fate of the Zeppelins is included elsewhere in this issue.]