ISSUE 91 : Nov/Dec - 1991 - Australian Defence Force Journal

38 AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE JOURNAL NO. 91 NOVEMBER DECEMBER 1991
The RNAS, on the other hand, already had a
number of air stations favourably situated to intercept
any raiders, and also the aircraft to go with
them. Very few of these would be able to go to sea
with the fleet. Thus it looked as if the air defence of
Britain would pass to the Admiralty by default. The
government then agreed that the entire responsibility
should officially pass to the Admiralty on 3rd
September. As part of this new role, it soon followed
that the Admiralty was to man all anti-aircraft guns
for the defence of London and other centres. The
army was only to be responsible for manning the
guns at defended ports and other vulnerable points,
and then solely against surface attack from the land
or sea.
At the time the Admiralty took over, there was a
total of only 33 guns available for air defence. Of
these a mere three light pom-poms had been allotted
for the inner defence of London. One each was
allotted for protection of the Admiralty, the Foreign
Office and the Crown Agents. The remaining 30
guns were spread out at vulnerable points throughout
the country. Nevertheless, extra guns and some
searchlights were quickly obtained and put into
position. London was'dimmed-out'on 1st October,
and by this time the defences of the city had been
increased by an additional twelve heavy guns and
twelve searchlights to go with them.
Although now responsible for home defence
against air attack, the navy believed that the real
safeguard was to set up a vigorous offensive against
the airship sheds and to intercept the enemy well
before they reached the shores of Great Britain.
They already had an RNAS force of three squadrons
at Dunkirk in support of a marine brigade. Plans
were drawn up to bomb the sheds at Dusseldorf and
Cologne at the earliest opportunity, but bad weather
intervened. Even so, the first attacks were launched
on 22nd September, but were not successful. On 8th
October the raids were repeated and one shed at
Dusseldorf and the airship inside it were completely
destroyed. On 21st November a raid was carried out
against the sheds at Friedrichshafen. All aircraft
reached their objective and bombed the shed causing
severe damage to the Zeppelin inside. These raids
were to continue.
All these preparations, and the raids, had been
carried out with an extreme sense of urgency.
Airship raids continued to be expected against
England at any moment, but still the zeppelins did
not come. Fortunately for the defence, the German
airship service was not yet in a position to begin their
attacks.
1
The Zeppelins
At the outbreak of war, the German Navy had
only one Zeppelin, having just lost two others in
accidents. However, they quickly acquired a further
seven from commercial sources. The German Army
had a strength of six, but in the first month of the
war they lost four in flying accidents and two by fire
in their sheds. A building programme was started at
once, with the production being shared between the
two services. New designs were also initiated, with
the object of improved performance, particularly in
speed and lift capacity. However, the need for ever
higher altitudes soon became the top priority.
Despite the initial shortage of airships, the German
Navy and Army fully intended to use the Zeppelins
against England at the first opportunity. However,
there were constraints placed on them quite apart
from their operational readiness. Offensive use of
the Zeppelins was prohibited by personal direction
from the Kaiser. For the time being they were to be
used solely for reconnaissance work.
As far back as 1899 there was a Hague Declaration
that prohibited combatants from "launching projectiles
or explosives from balloons or other kinds of
aerial vessels." Another agreement was the Land
War Convention of 1907 which stated, simply, that
the bombardment of undefended places "by any
means whatever" was forbidden. The Naval Convention,
however, did modify the bombardment of
otherwise undefended places by stating that: "Military
works, military or naval establishments, depots
of arms or war material, workshops or plant which
could be utilised for the needs of a hostile fleet or
army, and ships of war in the harbour are not
included in this prohibition." In the spirit of the
times it must be considered that, at least in the
beginning, there were really strong moral considerations
on both sides about the bombing of cities and
towns as opposed to obvious military targets which
lay apart from them. For the time being, therefore,
the Kaiser's prohibition remained in force.
The German Navy in particular disagreed strongly
with this restriction, saying London was a highly
important target with its docks, arsenals and military
establishments. Their arguments were reinforced by
the British raids from Dunkirk. It was now feared
that these continuing attacks might well mean the
eventual destruction of the zeppelin fleet while still in
their sheds. This view gained further impetus from a
special raid by the RNAS on 24th December 1914
against the German naval base at Cuxhaven.