Air raids on the Western Front

[Marilyne]

Good Morning pals,

 

Within my overall research about the women who died in Belgium and France, I would like to dig a bit deeper into the bombing raids on the Western front and am looking for documentation on this: when, how many raids? Primary objectives? consequences?

Is there anyone who could point me to some litterature or share some reports with me… most sources on the internet (as do a lot of threads here on the forum) talk about the strategic bombing Campaign on Britain: zeppelin raids , gothas over London … but very rarely about the bombings on the Western Front and even less on the bombing of hospitals, be it deliberately or not. St Omer in September 1917 and Etaples May 1918 are well documented, but others a bit less… so I do wonder about a certain pattern … and of course the legality of it all (yes, i know, both sides did it)

If anyone has some primary sources on the various raids, also from the German side, could you share them?

 

Thanks for your input,

 

M.

 

[AOK4]

I've went through most of the (British) bombing reports at TNA in Kew years ago for my book about Bissegem. It is possible to combine those reports to reports of what happened in occupied Belgium. It's often very interesting to read how they thought about civilian targets...

German sources are scarce as Herr Meier collected all archives from WWI air units to write some kind of elaborate history of the German air force in WWI. Of course everything is now considered to be lost (no German researcher has ever found any trace whether anything has survived).

 

Jan

 

 

[mebu]

 

Marilyne, if it's of any use, there is still existing at least one air raid shelter constructed to protect nurses from aerial bombing. The bunker named Tasmania, at Belle Croix, near Hazebrouck, is documented.  I do not have the original documents to hand but I'm fairly sure there were some nurse casualties.

Copies of info attached. 

 

Peter