Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times, May 1918: Vol. VIII, Part I, No. 2Various
History
Current History: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times, May 1918: Vol. VIII, Part I, No. 2
Various
World War, 1914-1918
By that time the French had an excellent daylight airplane as well as
successful night machines, and announced the early completion of still
better ones. Their projectiles were not inferior to those of the
Germans, and their supply was up to the demand. Thus they faced the
German offensive fully equipped to hold their own so far as air
supremacy was concerned.
RAIDS ON LONDON
London, as well as Paris, received frequent visits from enemy airplanes
in February and March, 1918. On the three successive nights of Feb. 16,
17, and 18 German raiders attacked the British metropolis. Twenty-seven
persons were killed and forty-one were injured. Many of the German
machines failed to reach the city owing to the great improvement which
had been effected in the aerial defenses both on the coast and around
London itself. Both the anti-aircraft guns and the airmen helped to
diminish the casualties. The third night's raid resulted in an entire
absence of both casualties and damage to property.
Seven or eight German airplanes made a raid over England on the night of
March 7. Two of them reached London and dropped bombs in various
districts. Eleven persons were killed and forty-six injured in the
metropolitan area. In addition a certain amount of damage was done to
dwellings and some people buried under the wreckage.
Zeppelins were again employed by the Germans in a raid on the east coast
of England on March 12. One of them dropped bombs on Hull, while the two
others wandered for some hours over remote country districts at great
altitudes, unloading their bombs in open country before proceeding out
to sea again. This was the first Zeppelin raid on England since Oct. 19,
1917. The Germans had sustained such heavy losses in Zeppelins that they
had substituted airplanes. [An account of the fate of the Zeppelins is
included elsewhere in this issue.]
BRITISH REPRISALS
Reprisals by British aviators have been frequent and drastic. The
British Air Ministry, in one of the detailed statements which it issues
from time to time, presented the following list of raids into Germany
from Dec. 1, 1917, and Feb. 19, 1918, a period of eleven weeks:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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