Female casualties Etaples Cemetery

[Marilyne]

I stand corrected WRT my previous post. 

@mbriscoeshared a the page pf the book with me and I have launched quickly into another set of official sources and indeed, requests were made. I'll have to adapt ... but AFTER my course!! 

 

Everyday's a schoolday! 

 

M.

[kenf48]

7 hours ago, mbriscoe said:

The book does not come out a say directly, but I presume they were quite deliberately targeted by the Germans?

The Base Depot at Etaples was a vast sprawling camp and in Wilfred Owen's notable description, "a kind of paddock where the beasts are kept for a few days before the shambles".  As well as the concentration of hospitals, which could treat over 20,000 patients, at any one time up to 100,000 troops were held there as reinforcements for the Front.  The rail ine was used to transport these soldiers to the front, as well as receiving  and embarking the wounded, and therefore was a legitimate target.  It was so far behind the lines the only way it could be attacked was by air. 

 

The authorities were so complacement that for convenience, as after attack photos show, they located the hospitals close to the railway line.  There were no air raid precautions in place and the whole encampment was lit up.  There were clear 'Red Cross' markings and for propaganda purposes the raids were dubbes,'The Hospital Raids' and the nursing casualties (there were many more) highlighted to show the 'beastliness of the Boche', who were engaged in their Spring Offensive so would seek to disrupt reinforcements from joining the fray. 

 

I am no apologist for the Germans, in fact a great uncle was killed in the raid, but nevertheless the concept of 'strategic' bombing was yet to be developed and the weapons and delivery mechanisms were far from accurate.  As history shows while the raids had propaganda value for the Allies and in the formulation of the conventions on warfare developed in the subsequent decade they had little material effect on the course of the war.

 

You can find a more detailed account here

https://geographicalimaginations.com/2016/09/25/the-hospital-raids/