The Sky on Fire

[AndyHollinger]

I am struck by the little book, I've noted before, from the Smithsonian Press ... by Raymond Fredette, purchased at the IWM about the Gotha raids on Britain and the extreme damage they did to popular morale and the disruption of the war effort.

It seems that maybe, just maybe, this was why Goering switched in the second war ... unlike the popular conception of a "Stiff Upper Lip" and surviving the Blitz, this book makes the British reaction to be one of extreme reaction bordering on panic. The book makes out that the German's studied the cost/effect of these raids and judged them successful.

If one takes this evidence and adds it to the Spanish experience ... whalaa ... you get the abandonment of the airfields and the terror bombing of the cities ... (thus saving the aircraft engine plants in the nick of time and the Brits hanging on)

Any thoughts on this?

If I am awed by the courage of the sailors in the first war ... ie you're either okay or die a horrible death ... the courage of these fliers - particularly the Germans flying over the channel at night is breath-taking.

[Tim Birch]

Andy

You make an interesting observation here. The first Gotha and Zeplin Raids did cause panic out of all proportion to their actual effect. Quite why this was so in the light of the subsequent effects of bombing is a bit of a puzzle, but probably had a lot to do with the novelty of the concept. There was in fact nothing new about terrorising civillian populations - look at the behaviour of Alexandra the Great.

In WW2 there was some initial near hysteria at the concept of city bombing, and in particular thousands of British children were evacuated into the country or sent to Canada.

Once the raids started in earnest though, they had the opposite effect on the civillian population than that expected, by uniting people in their resolve to resist. Without being melodramatic the spirit of the British people was at an extraordinary high level during the dark days of the Blitz. There is nothing like adversity to pull people together.

I believe this was a lesson Air Marshal Harris overlooked when he emarked on his strategy to bomb Germany into submission. America attempted a similar strategy with B52s against the Viet Cong in Vietnam, but their moral and resolve was not broken.

So far as I know the only time that mass destruction of cities has brought about a total collapse of an enemy was the A bombing of Japan, and that took two to jolt the leadership into submission.

Tim

[Guest Pete Wood]

I have to agree that in WW1, the Gothas and Zeppelins did indeed cause panic for the first two years of the war - when British anti aircraft techniques and aeroplanes improved and German craft were beign destroyed.

But I question the cost/effects of the raid. The German airships were very expensive to build - and it took a long time to train the crews. The vast majority of craft and crew were lost, against a relatively small financial loss to Britain - in terms of property. There was also, compared to the Spanish Civil war and bombing campaigns of WW2, only a small number of civilian casualties.

In terms of propoganda, though, the Zeppelin campaign was IMHO successful. The Parisian population suffered in terms of morale, also.

The Gothas were always difficult to shoot down, even though their build quality was poor. More Gotha crews were killed on landing (difficult to handle when light on fuel and bombs), than downed by allied fire. But I think the bomber certainly started to prove its worth, and as the bombs got bigger towards the end of the war, the potential to cause damage was increasing month on month. The bomber tactics were also created, and lessons learnt that would (one generation later) be used against towns/cities all over the world.

By the spring of 1918, the Germans were realising the retaliatory (and superior?)nature of the RFC/RAF and its Independent Force - and German bombing raids against the UK were scaled down and eventually halted, for fear of more reprisals.

[andigger]

This is an interesting discussion... hopefully I can bring it to the top and breathe some new life into it.

I have always found the concept of breaking civilian morale by air assault very puzzling, primarily because so many through history have sworn by it, and there is no evidence that it ever worked. The concept of flying planes to a destination loaded with bombs to destroy a target can only have limited cost benefit in itself. If you figure the cost of the fuel and maintainence of the aircraft there is a lot of responsibilty resting on the shoulders of that little bomb to do its job. Not to mention the risk to resources (human and materiel) should the plane be damaged or shot down.

Of course with todays precision bombing the affects of this type of warfare are measured differently than the raids of WWI, but honestly some of the detials are still out. What do others think? This is a big picture discussion, but I'd be curious to know if there is research to prove the benefit of air assaults.

Andy

[AndyHollinger]

The book cited above actually makes the case that "terror bombing" by the Germans on the English in London worked. It also said the Germans knew it worked ... thus (contention) the bombing of civilians in the Spanish Civil War and WWII ...

Which is the question ... was this connected?

[andigger]

It also said the Germans knew it worked

Andy,

Does the book site an example which the Germans believed was an example where terror bombing worked?

Andy

[AndyHollinger]

What it says is that the German staff did a study and drew the conclusion that it was a cost effective way of affecting the British effort on the continent.

[Guest Pete Wood]

I think it was a campaign with merit.

At its peak in early 1917, the combined attacks of the Gotha bombers and Zeppelins, required a force of some 17,000 people (based in the UK) to man the guns, searchlights, and keep the aeroplanes in the skies.

Their bombs caused £3,000,000 of damage, and the result was riots in many towns and cities - plus political unrest, and low morale (especially early in the war).

It was covered up, at the time, but I have found countless examples that local manufacturing production was affected for 24 hours (and often 48 hours) after a bombing raid. People just didn't come to work.

Cheesman and Cole, In their book 'Air Defence' did a profit/loss chapter and, apart from the fact that more German air crew were killed than British (over mainland Britain, which you'd expect), the German bombing campaign was 'in the black.'

There was an interesting study, I believe in The Pity Of War, which worked out how much it cost to kill a soldier on the ground (in France). The German air campaign on Britain, in terms of pounds, shilligs and pennies, was more cost effective too.

[182 CEF]

In "Fire over England" they also mention the "Giants" an other German aircraft that seems to have been larger and more effective than the Gothas. I had never heard of them before I read the book. I think the Gothas were part of the "England Squadron" whose task was to bomb GB.

Dean

[AndyHollinger]

The real key find would be that the WWII Luftwaffe staff SAW the report and changed tactics because of it ... wouldn't that be key!

[Adrian Roberts]

"Giants" an other German aircraft that seems to have been larger and more effective than the Gothas.

Surely a point here is that the "Giants" (Riesenflugzeug) were mostly built by the Zeppelin company at their Staaken works (the aircraft are often refered to as Staakens). I have heard it said that this programme was initiated by old Count Zeppelin himself, in 1915, when he saw that the airships were less than ideal for warfare. I can believe that a man of his vision and originality would accept the need for change before the Army and Navy staff. Or should we take the cynical view that he knew a good business venture when he saw one?

Adrian

[chrisharley9]

The real key find would be that the WWII Luftwaffe staff SAW the report and changed tactics because of it ... wouldn't that be key!

At the end of the day it did work.....not in the fact that it terrified civilians, but that it tied down resources that could have been used elsewhere..look at the WW2 bombing campaign of Germany which a lot of people regard as a failure....well it tied down at least 1 million Germans.....that could have changed the eastern front or D Day

All The Best

Chris

[andigger]

Adrian, Could you expand upon your idea a little more? I think it would seem odd that airships would have been considered for other than military purposes in 1915. But I must also include that I know little to nothing about this area of the war effort.

Andy

[Guest Pete Wood]

Count Zeppelin was, as you say, a man of vision. But the Giant aeroplanes were not built in sufficient numbers to make him, or his family, any money.

In fact, none of his initial ventures made money. He used up all of his personal funds building his first one or two airships. In fact, when one of them was destroyed, and the German government weren't prepared to invest any money in his experiments, Zeppelin appealed to the public for donations.

And the public DID support him.

His airships, such as the Viktoria Louise, were being used very succesfully as tourist attractions. Many thousands of people, pre-war, made flights over the picturesque area of Friedrichshafen. The company running these airship pleasure flights was DELAG.

DELAG always saw there was a market for long distance trans-atlantic flights. Remember, there was no aeroplane that could fly long distances - or any that had been built which could carry a number of passengers in comfort. DELAG were promoting the idea that the airship would be the luxurious and quicker rival to the luxury ocean liners plying the route from Hamburg to New York.

When the war started, the DELAG airships were used for training purposes, while the Zeppelin factory went into serious production. The airship then had two main roles - spotting (protecting the shipping fleet, and patrolling for mines) and aerial bombing.

It was only because of the massive investment in, and rapid development of, the aeroplane that put an early end to the airship. I firmly believe that if WW1 had not started, airships would probably have had a much longer life.

[AndyHollinger]

The real key find would be that the WWII Luftwaffe staff SAW the report and changed tactics because of it ... wouldn't that be key!

At the end of the day it did work.....not in the fact that it terrified civilians, but that it tied down resources that could have been used elsewhere..look at the WW2 bombing campaign of Germany which a lot of people regard as a failure....well it tied down at least 1 million Germans.....that could have changed the eastern front or D Day

All The Best

Chris

Where I was going with this was in WWI the terror bombing of London closed down the city and literally had panic in the streets. The German staff studied and documented this.

NOW ... much has been written about the Luftwaffe attacks on Britian during the early part of the battle suddenly switching to cities vrs Aircraft plants and airfields ... what the literature seems to say is if they HADN'T switched, they might have won ... it was their terror bombing effort that brought the Battle of Britain to an English victory ... So if the German High Command switched after reading this report it wouldn't simply be put down to Goering's folly or Hitlers attempt at revenge for British bombing of German cities ... to me that would be very interesting and a bit of Historical Revisionism that would make sense.

[andigger]

Where I was going with this was

Andy are you suggesting a thread hijack?

[Adrian Roberts]

Adrian, Could you expand upon your idea a little more? I think it would seem odd that airships would have been considered for other than military purposes in 1915.  But I must also include that I know little to nothing about this area of the war effort.

Andy

Andy

Racing Teapots has said pretty well what I would have said in reply. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's vision was originally to use promote his airships at least as much for civilian work as military purposes. Delag was the first airline; its 6 airships (Deutschland, Erzatz Deutschland, Schwaben, Sachsen, Hansa and Viktoria Luise) carried nearly 20,000 passengers from 1910-14 without killing one of them. (Though they had some very lucky escapes: the first three of these crashed due to weather conditions - but without catching fire). Viktoria Luise, for instance, carried 9783 passengers in 489 flights.

Actually, I was a bit hasty to say that airships were "no good" for warfare. There's a whole debate here, but certainly they were the only form of aircraft capable of carrying a significant payload over a significant range in 1914, and although the gap with aeroplanes had narrowed by 1918, airships still had the edge. For example, the "Afrika-Zeppelin" L59 made a non-stop round trip from Bulgaria to Tanganyika in late 1917 (I'm not sure of exact date) in an attempt to resupply German troops there - this was only frustrated by the British sending false radio messages. Look how difficult aeroplanes found trans-Africa trips until well into the 1920s.

What they were useless for, of course was daytime battlefield reconnaisance - the Germans discovered this the hard way in the first couple of weeks of the war. However the British used the much smaller non-rigid blimps for convoy escort very successfully - it is said (almost truthfully) that no convoy escorted by blimps lost a ship. The Germans used Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the Norht Sea. It has been said that they could have brought Britain to its knees by scouting for convoys and leading U-boats to them, and this would have been more effective than suicidal bombing missions. But to get to the Atlantic they would have had to fly over France or up the Channel, within range of our Fighters. If they had succeeded, there might have been airship vs airship encounters with our blimps - in which case the blimps would have come off worst as the Zepps were faster and better armed!

Adrian

[AndyHollinger]

Where I was going with this was

Andy are you suggesting a thread hijack?

No ... what I am looking for is a connection between the WWI bombing assessment and the WWII decision to Terror bomb cities ... nobody says that ... but if proved could be a great explanation for the sudden Luftwaffe target switch in 1940 when Britain was very close to disaster.

[Guest Biplane pilot]

Goodness...lots of ground (and sky!) to cover here. Just a coupla thoughts.

The German Giants were extremely efficient machines for the day--their loss rate over Britain was almost 0.00 and they delivered more bang for the buck. But I'd say that their long-term effect was further proof (after Igor Sikorsky's landmark Grand and Ilya Mourmets) that large, multi-engine aircraft were practical. (Sergei Sikorsky has a marvelous presentation on that subject, though of course he's more often asked about helos.)

As for terror bombing--very very very few people ever place the tactic in chronological context. The plain fact is, a city was about the only target that high-level bombers could hit, even with radar. Until the precision revolution of the 80s and 90s, planners calculated the number of sorties needed to destroy a target. Now it's the number of targets per sortie: typically four, depending on the jet's loadout.

One backwards benefit of city bombing occurred during the Battle of Britain. When Fighter Command was on the ropes in 11 Group, a few more days of strikes against the airfields might have borne fruit. In a roundabout way, I suspect that Hugh Dowding was grateful for every Brit killed in London, because that was a load of bombs diverted from more beneficial targets.

[Adrian Roberts]

In a roundabout way, I suspect that Hugh Dowding was grateful for every Brit killed in London,

Oh, Come on - I hear what you're saying, I'm sure he was grateful that the airfields were under less pressure, but I think most of us would want a lot more proof that he was actually happy about the slaughter of civilians in the blitz.

Andyh and andigger have been debating the precise reasons for the Luftwaffe's switch in tactics, and whether the First World War lessons had any bearing on it, with a lot more learning than I could.

Adrian

[BlackSeptember1918]

Hijacking the thread for a moment . I just think that Dowding was the sort of guy that didn't confuse sentiment with tactics . He showed that in many ways , not least his plea to not send anymore fighters to France , even though it was an unpopular stance to many .Lets not forget in 1940 the mood was that Britain stood alone and that invasion was imminent . Dowding would have seen the switch from Fighter Command bases to civilian targets as a poor stategy move . I think he would have accepted the civilian casualties without being overly sentimental about it . Even if in later years people have questioned weather or not there would have been a successful invasion , at the time they believed that the defeat of Fighter Command would have meant invasion ..and many more civilians slaughtered and oppressed .

From the moment the strategy was changed , Fighter Command went from strength to strength .

Funny though that the night blitz , and Dowdings perceived inability to halt it was used as a good reason to give him the boot shortly after .

[Guest R Pope]

I think if Hitler and his tacticians had studied the WWI tactic of terror bombing enemy populations into submission, they would have concentrated on large, long-range bombers a lot more, rather than going for "the numbers" and building lots of He111's and Dorniers. The trouble with history is, nobody ever learns from it!

[AndyHollinger]

I don't think that needs to be the case ... the distances for European bombers are short and, believe it or not, fighter bombers give a lot more bang for the buck ...

I think the tactics switch may have "saved" Britain and that switch's author and reasoning is what I was looking for ... and may have found in this little book ...

[AndyHollinger]

It has always been related to me by my studies that the change in German air targets from military (airfields, aircraft manufacture and, of course the radar) to civilian targets (London and other cities) coming at the moment it did "saved" GB ... the reasoning these sources gave was that Hilter was infuriated at the British night time bombing of German cities, etc.

The switch if it came from the post WWI bombing (getting back to the WWI theme of this board) analysis would be interesting. The German experts (then) said that the civilian reaction (something close to panic) was more devastating to the war effort than the military destruction - which was True in WWI!

This change - if it was attributable to the WWI Gotha bombings - would be an interesting piece of knowledge ... in that it was a "false" "learning" from WWI and, of course, put a dent in the German military superiority armor almost always given to them by historians.

[Guest Pete Wood]

So when you weigh up the casulty figures you will find that only a small percentage became victims.

I think it is worth remembering that, in WW2, Britian suffered 60,000 civilian deaths from air raids.

Hardly a small percentage, compared to about 330,000 military deaths.

Compare this figure to Canada's military deaths, which amounted to 40,000.