fad.” A government committee concluded that planes posed no serious threat but endorsed the Royal Navy’s proposal to acquire an airship to explore its military potential. The craft—named Mayfly —had a short life. As she was being readied for her maiden flight, crosswinds ripped her apart and British interest in airships waned.
However, on November 1, 1911, an Italian pilot demonstrated the airplane’s potential. In the world’s first bombing raid Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti dropped four five-pound bombs over Turkish lines near Tripoli in Libya during an Italo-Turkish conflict. The next day, patriotic Italian papers rejoiced in exaggerated headlines such as AVIATOR LIEUTENANT GAVOTTI THROWS BOMB ON ENEMY CAMP. TERRORISED TURKS SCATTER UPON UNEXPECTED CELESTIAL ASSAULT . The Turks claimed wrongly that the bomb hit a hospital. Italian pilots went on to conduct the world’s first night bombing. In Morocco in 1912 the French dropped bombs from airplanes as did pilots during the 1912–13 Balkan conflicts. Aware of the limited effects of such bombings and planes’ obvious vulnerability to ground fire, Britain concentrated on building large, slow-flying, stable craft suited to the reconnaissance role that they and most other governments, including Germany’s, saw as their most promising application. In 1914, General Douglas Haig, who at the end of 1915 would become commander in chief of British forces in France, was still unconvinced airplanes were even useful for reconnaissance: “There is only one way for a commander to get information . . . and that is by the use of cavalry.”
Churchill worried about Britain’s vulnerability to air attack and supported the Aerial League of the British Empire set up by those who believed that, just as Britannia ruled the waves, so it must rule the skies. League members, who included H. G. Wells, highlighted the potential risk to London from enemy aircraft, identifying the Houses of Parliament as a likely target. Lurid German publications depicting airships laden with explosives crossing the North Sea to hover menacingly above the capital fed public fears. In June 1914, an author claiming to be a former member of “the German Secret Service” described a fleet of zeppelins waiting to attack England: “huge cigar-shaped engines of death . . . ready to drop explosives to the ground.” “Picture the havoc a dozen such vultures could create attacking . . . London. They don’t have to aim. They are not like aviators trying to drop a bomb on the deck of a warship. They simply dump overboard some of the new explosives of the German government, these new chemicals having the property of setting on fire anything that they hit . . . They do not have to worry about hitting the mark . . . If they do not hit Buckingham Palace they are apt to hit Knightsbridge.”
As Churchill later wrote, at the time he did not rate airships highly: “I believed this enormous bladder of combustible and explosive gas would prove to be easily destructible. I was sure the fighting airplane . . . would harry, rout and burn these gaseous monsters.” He did his best “to restrict expenditure upon airships and to concentrate [Britain’s] narrow and stinted resources upon airplanes.” Nevertheless, recognizing that even if Britain was wise not to invest in airships it needed to guard against the zeppelin threat, he encouraged experiments with devices like the “Fiery Grapnel”—a four-pronged grappling hook loaded with explosives to be swung by airplane pilots against the sides of airships—and “flaming bullets.” Test flights were made with a semiautomatic cannon mounted on a plane. However, the gun’s powerful recoil when fired caused the plane to stall and plunge five hundred feet. Dropping small explosive or incendiary bombs on airships seemed more promising.
As the war began, Britain’s meager air power was divided between the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) for which
However, on November 1, 1911, an Italian pilot demonstrated the airplane’s potential. In the world’s first bombing raid Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti dropped four five-pound bombs over Turkish lines near Tripoli in Libya during an Italo-Turkish conflict. The next day, patriotic Italian papers rejoiced in exaggerated headlines such as AVIATOR LIEUTENANT GAVOTTI THROWS BOMB ON ENEMY CAMP. TERRORISED TURKS SCATTER UPON UNEXPECTED CELESTIAL ASSAULT . The Turks claimed wrongly that the bomb hit a hospital. Italian pilots went on to conduct the world’s first night bombing. In Morocco in 1912 the French dropped bombs from airplanes as did pilots during the 1912–13 Balkan conflicts. Aware of the limited effects of such bombings and planes’ obvious vulnerability to ground fire, Britain concentrated on building large, slow-flying, stable craft suited to the reconnaissance role that they and most other governments, including Germany’s, saw as their most promising application. In 1914, General Douglas Haig, who at the end of 1915 would become commander in chief of British forces in France, was still unconvinced airplanes were even useful for reconnaissance: “There is only one way for a commander to get information . . . and that is by the use of cavalry.”
Churchill worried about Britain’s vulnerability to air attack and supported the Aerial League of the British Empire set up by those who believed that, just as Britannia ruled the waves, so it must rule the skies. League members, who included H. G. Wells, highlighted the potential risk to London from enemy aircraft, identifying the Houses of Parliament as a likely target. Lurid German publications depicting airships laden with explosives crossing the North Sea to hover menacingly above the capital fed public fears. In June 1914, an author claiming to be a former member of “the German Secret Service” described a fleet of zeppelins waiting to attack England: “huge cigar-shaped engines of death . . . ready to drop explosives to the ground.” “Picture the havoc a dozen such vultures could create attacking . . . London. They don’t have to aim. They are not like aviators trying to drop a bomb on the deck of a warship. They simply dump overboard some of the new explosives of the German government, these new chemicals having the property of setting on fire anything that they hit . . . They do not have to worry about hitting the mark . . . If they do not hit Buckingham Palace they are apt to hit Knightsbridge.”
As Churchill later wrote, at the time he did not rate airships highly: “I believed this enormous bladder of combustible and explosive gas would prove to be easily destructible. I was sure the fighting airplane . . . would harry, rout and burn these gaseous monsters.” He did his best “to restrict expenditure upon airships and to concentrate [Britain’s] narrow and stinted resources upon airplanes.” Nevertheless, recognizing that even if Britain was wise not to invest in airships it needed to guard against the zeppelin threat, he encouraged experiments with devices like the “Fiery Grapnel”—a four-pronged grappling hook loaded with explosives to be swung by airplane pilots against the sides of airships—and “flaming bullets.” Test flights were made with a semiautomatic cannon mounted on a plane. However, the gun’s powerful recoil when fired caused the plane to stall and plunge five hundred feet. Dropping small explosive or incendiary bombs on airships seemed more promising.
As the war began, Britain’s meager air power was divided between the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) for which
Similar Books
