They carried a crew of nineteen to twenty-one aviators. Armaments included seven or eight machine guns and approximately 1, kg of high explosive and incendiary bombs. Although civilian factories and cities were bombed, the navy saw this as a more legitimate form of warfare than starving the innocent German women and children who were the indiscriminate targets of the British blockade.
This campaign heralded 20 th century ideas of total war and forever changed the nature of warfare. The first navy attacks on Britain occurred on the night of January , when two German navy Zeppelins bombed Yarmouth and King's Lynn. Both airships returned to base safely, having killed four and injured sixteen people. Although the attacks were somewhat destructive, the incendiary bombs did not cause any great fires. The technology was rudimentary and the bombs sometimes did not ignite, but they burned fiercely when they did.
Aiming was crude and high explosive bombs often missed their targets. Even on good days, successful bombing missions were difficult to accomplish. German naval strategy ultimately centered on a bombing campaign against London.
The first successful Zeppelin attack on London was carried out by a military airship, LZ 38, in May Afterwards, naval airships began their onslaught. A frequent and distinct target were the Thames docks at the East End. Zeppelins attacked with impunity. Despite poor bombing accuracy and great difficulty navigating and fixing position, Zeppelins were somewhat destructive. Their attacks caused terror and work stoppages in war factories. By January , they had made twenty-one raids, dropped 1, bombs totaling over 32, kg, killed , and wounded By , Zeppelin attacks had killed some people and injured 1,, a total of 1, casualties.
They were virtually unstoppable until 6 June , when the British developed a rudimentary air defense system that was the precursor to the system used in World War II, including twelve air defense squadrons scattered over thirty aerodromes across Britain. The British created a reliable warning network based on sound detection and ranging. They established rings of observers, searchlights, and anti-aircraft guns in belts around the capital.
They produced more night-fighting pilots, anti-aircraft guns, and shells ; and they developed better night-fighting pursuit aircraft equipped with luminous instruments, an upward-canted Lewis gun, and efficient incendiary and explosive bullets that could ignite the hydrogen gas and bring the Zeppelins down in flames.
Twelve pursuit squadrons with aircraft around London were dedicated to air defense. Although German Zeppelins at last began to fall to British aircraft, some German airmen thought more Zeppelin attacks might pressure the British government to the point of collapse. After massive Allied casualties at Verdun and the Somme in , there were shakeups in both British and French leadership. David Lloyd George cobbled together a coalition government which seemed weak to German eyes.
Russia collapsed in and the Germans reinvigorated the Western Front with at least a million hardened combat veterans from the east. All these things aside, the airships were fantastically successful at at least one thing: scaring the hell out of people.
Zeppelins "scared the living daylights" out of the British. The Germans believed that bombing civilians would bring panic in the cities, leading the British government to collapseor at least pull out of the fighting and leave the French on their own on the Western Front.
By the end of the war, however, the British had grown accustomed to the bombardments and begun taking precautions to protect themselves, lessons that would prove useful against much deadlier German aerial attacks during World War II. Zeppelins were also used for surveillance. Both sides used them to spot submarines , which were nearly invisible to ships but relatively easily seen from the air. And airships were exceptionally useful for fleet maneuvers, carrying radios that could convey information to commanders on the ground.
They also provided a measure of aerial protection for convoys. No less important was their tremendous cargo capacity. Zeppelins could carry men and munitions great distances, something that was not possible with the fixed-wing aircraft of the day. The Zeppelins seemed to be invincible, attacking at will and without loss. Defences against them seemed inadequate, morale was low amongst the public and people were terrified of these raids. At first there was not much the British could do to counter this new airborne threat.
The Zeppelins flew too high for the aeroplanes of the time to reach them to shoot them down. Their only real vulnerability was that the hydrogen gas bags used for lift were highly flammable. Ordinary bullets might pierce the gas bags but something different was needed if the Zeppelin was to be made to explode. With the invention of the Buckingham incendiary bullet which not only pierced the gas bags but also ignited the hydrogen the Zeppelin threat was effectively neutered.
In June the German military stopped using Zeppelins for bombing raids over Britain. Although a tremendous psychological weapon, they had actually caused little damage to the war effort.
Of the Zeppelins used by the German military, 53 were lost and 24 were damaged beyond repair. In Britain people, mostly civilians, had been killed and more than wounded during the Zeppelin attacks.
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