Strategic bombing during World War I
Strategic bombing during World War I (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918) was principally carried out by the United Kingdom and France for the Entente Powers and Germany for the Central Powers. Most of the belligerents of World War I eventually engaged in some form of strategic bombing. The aerial bombing of cities, intended to destroy the enemy's morale, was introduced in the opening days of the war. A multi-national air force to strike at Germany was planned but never materialized.
Early strategic bombing attempts led to the development of specialized bomber aircraft, during World War I. Initially bombs were dropped by hand and aimed by the naked eye, but by the end of the war bombsights had been developed. The introduction of air raid warnings and shelters can be dated to World War I, as can the design of anti-aircraft artillery and the development of methods for coordinated aerial defence. Many of the advocates of strategic bombing during the interwar period, such as Italy's Giulio Douhet, America's Billy Mitchell, and Britain's Hugh Trenchard, had commanded aircraft during World War I. The improvements in aircraft technology during and after the war convinced many that "the bomber will always get through", and this belief influenced planning for strategic bombing during World War II.
Britain[edit]
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) undertook the first Entente strategic bombing missions on 22 September 1914 and 8 October, when it bombed the Zeppelin bases in Cologne and Düsseldorf. The airplanes carried twenty-pound bombs, and at least one airship was destroyed.[2][3] On 21 November 1914, the RNAS flew across Lake Constance to bomb the Zeppelin factories in Friedrichshafen and Ludwigshafen.[3] On 25 December the Cuxhaven Raid was the first attack by sea-based airplanes launched from ships against a strategic target. The RNAS also attacked Constantinople in 1915 and 1917. The aviator John Alcock was captured when he was forced to ditch on one of these missions. On 18 October 1917, the British hit a mosque and killed 54 Ottoman civilians. By the end of the war, assisted by Germany, the Ottomans had implemented an air defence system in Constantinople.[6]
When William Weir, the President of the Air Council in 1918, told Hugh Trenchard that it was not necessary to worry about accuracy during strategic bombing raids, the general replied that "all the pilots drop their eggs into the centre of town generally."[3] After the formation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George promised to repay Germany for its air raids "with compound interest".[3] On 19 July, the first aircraft carrier-based air raid in history, the Tondern raid, was launched against the German Zeppelin base at Tondern.
On 6 June 1918 the British formed the Independent Force under Major General Hugh Trenchard to engage in long-range bombing directed at industrial targets deep in German territory. Missions were undertaken with De Havilland DH9s and Handley Page O/400s, but the war ended before Britain's four-engined Handley Page V/1500 bomber, designed to drop 7,500 lbs on Berlin, entered service. Ultimately, retaliatory bombings on German cities provoked German retaliation against not British but French cities, which led to disagreement between British and French leadership concerning the strategy of such bombing and allocation of resources away from the Western Front.[2] The British dropped 660 tons of bombs on Germany, more than twice what Germany had managed to drop on England.[3] The first raid against Berlin, scheduled for November, was cancelled with the armistice.[6]
Italy[edit]
On 1 November 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, the Kingdom of Italy had carried out the first aerial military mission in history, when Giulio Gavotti dropped bombs by hand on Turkish positions in the Libyan desert. During World War I Italy, like France, did not wish to bomb centres of civilian population, because many of the obvious targets had a high number of Italian residents or were in territories Italy had plans to annex after the war. Like Russia, Italy possessed heavy bombers before its entry into the war, Giovanni Caproni having built the multi-engine Caproni Ca.1 in 1914 which carried four modest bombs.[2]
In August 1915, the Ca.1s were placed in the 21° Squadriglia of the Corpo Aeronautico Militare. In October–November 1915, the Ca.1s attacked Austro-Hungarian railroads and supply depots.[3] Later in the war, photographic reconnaissance and offensive actions were conducted by Ansaldo SVA aircraft, which launched a four-aircraft strike from Ponte San Pietro against Innsbruck on 28 February 1918, strafing and bombing railroad marshalling yards.[7] Innsbruck, along with Bolzano, was again the target of an air strike by SVA bombers on 29 October 1918.[8]
Gabriele D'Annunzio's flight over Vienna in August 1918 dropped only leaflets threatening to return with bombs. No second raid occurred before the end of the war.[6]
Russia[edit]
The Russian Empire possessed the only long-range heavy bomber to be operational in the first year of the war, the Sikorsky Ilya Muromets (IM). This could carry 1,100 lbs of bombs, and remain in the air for up five hours with a reduced bomb load. In August 1914 the Russians grouped their four Sikorskys in a unit dedicated to strategic bombing and based them near Warsaw in December. Cities were not the main targets on the Eastern Front: the principal targets were supply depots, troop concentrations and transportation networks, especially railway yards and stations.[2][3] By March 1918, when Russia left the war, around seventy Ilya Muromets had been constructed, and they had flown over 350 bombing or reconnaissance missions along the entire Eastern Front.
In August 1915, Russian aircraft bombed Constantinople, killing 41 Ottoman citizens.[6]