STEVE SNELLING describes how
the bombs which fell on Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in 1915 heralded
the haphazard beginning of the world’s first strategic bombing
offensive, and tells why although geography and bad weather played
a part, much of it was down to plain and simple bad luck.
The wintry wind chills the soul as it chases litter round the grim
Victorian church walls.
A stream of people shuffle by, their faces worn and weary, in sad
harmony with the melancholy mood of the place.
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| The results of the bombing in Yarmouth (top)
and King's Lynn, where 26-year-old war widow Alice Gazeley was
killed. |
On a grey afternoon in January, St Peter’s Plain, just a
short walk away from Yarmouth’s Golden Mile, seems bleak beyond
words. And perhaps that is the way it should be. For it is here,
amid a clutter of homes and businesses, that history in all its
shocking and random brutality was made 90 years ago.
The faded plaque above the door of No 25, St Peter’s Plain,
one of the few distinguishing features in an otherwise unremarkable
area, scarcely does justice to the significance of the events which
took place here all those years ago.
It simply reads: “The first house in Great Britain to be
damaged by a Zeppelin Air Raid, 19th January, 1915.” Behind
that bald statement lies the tragi-comic saga of an epoch-making
military mission which in a single night transformed the face of
war forever.
For the bombs which fell on Yarmouth - and later on King’s
Lynn and across a swathe of West Norfolk - heralded the haphazard
beginning of the world’s first strategic bombing offensive.
Less than 20ft away from the plaque is the spot, near Drake’s
Buildings, where Martha Taylor, an elderly spinster, and 53-year-old
shoemaker Sam Smith, became the first British victims of this new
and terrifying form of warfare which placed civilians firmly in
the firing line and would ultimately go on to claim millions of
lives and lay waste to entire cities.
If Total War may be said to have a birthplace, then, unlikely
as it might seem, Yarmouth, more famous for its bloaters and tourist
amusements, has a strong case for claiming that dubious honour.
But how did it come about that two towns in Norfolk were singled
out for such unwanted attention? Well, geography and bad weather
played a part, but much of it was down to plain and simple bad luck.
The seeds of destruction in Yarmouth and Lynn were, in fact, sown
months before the raid was mounted.
The first world war was only three weeks old when Konteradmiral
Paul Behncke, deputy chief of the Imperial German Navy staff, contemplated
attacks by airships laden with bombs against Britain with the objective
of cowing the population into submission. Potential targets ranged
from London to Glasgow, with the naval bases at Portsmouth and Dover
and ports along the Humber, Tyne and Firth of Forth also cited.
The proposals drew a mixed response. Some senior officers expressed
serious reservations about departing from the normal code of warfare.
Although international law ruled that “all military installations”,
including docks and armaments factories, “might be bombarded”
even in “undefended places”, they feared the consequences
of civilian deaths and damage to historic monuments.
For a while, their concerns coupled with a shortage of airships,
stayed the hand of those commanders anxious to prove the effectiveness
of their revolutionary new weapon. Not until January, with the warring
armies deadlocked in their frozen trenches on the Western Front,
did the Kaiser bow to renewed pressure from the navy. And even then,
he insisted on only a limited operation: “Targets not to be
attacked in London but rather docks and military establishments
in the Lower Thames and on the English coast.”
Eager to make up for lost time, Fregattenkapitan Peter Strasser,
the bold and charasmatic Chief of the German Naval Airship Division,
immediately issued orders for raids to begin against objectives
in the Thames estuary, the mouths of the Humber and Tyne, and the
East Anglian ports of Harwich, Lowestoft and Yarmouth.
The first attempt, mounted on January 13 by four Zeppelins, was
aborted when the airships ran into foul weather off the German coast.
A six-day delay followed before conditions were considered propitious
enough for a second try. A little after 9.30am on January 19, 1915,
the first of three airships rose from its base on the north German
coast bound for what its commander cryptically called “a distant
mission to the west”. Strasser’s own participation in
the operation, however, was shortlived. His airship, L6, developed
engine trouble off the Dutch coast and, “with a heavy heart”,
he was forced to turn away from his objective along the Thames estuary.
The remaining two airships, L3, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Hans
Fritz, and L4, skippered by Kapitanleutnant Magnus von Platen-Hallermund,
pressed on. Together with their 15-man crews housed in primitive,
unheated gondolas, they were about to make history... though not
quite where they intended. Their orders were to attack dockyards
and port installations along the shores of the Humber. But as the
two airships, flying independently and without radio contact, ploughed
on through mist and snow squalls, they were blown off course to
make their separate landfalls over the north-east coast of Norfolk.
It was the start of a night of mayhem and, understandably, much
bewilderment. Some unsuspecting witnesses talked of seeing aircraft,
while others correctly identified the raiders as airships, although
the numbers reported varied.
Coastguards at Bacton counted four airships, “resembling
huge sausages and carrying two gondolas each”, while fishermen
at Mundesley claimed to have seen six, three of which were last
seen heading for Yarmouth with the remainder making for Cromer.
The confusion was not confined to those on the ground, although
Fritz, aboard L3, did at least correctly identify his position,
which was no mean feat given the darkness and the rudimentary navigational
aids available to him. Preceded by what witnesses called “mysterious
lights and flashes” but were probably parachute flares dropped
by the crew, L3 set course for Yarmouth, its docks and small naval
base making it an objective of the previous aborted raid. On the
way, L3, according to one report, narrowly avoided crashing into
Martham church tower and disgorged one incendiary bomb into a waterlogged
field near Little Ormesby.
By 8.20pm, Fritz had Yarmouth in his sights and five minutes later
launched his trailblazing bomb run, from north to south, across
the town. During the course of the next 10 minutes he is thought
to have dropped eight explosive bombs, three of which failed to
detonate, and two incendiaries, causing an estimated £7000
of damage and killing and wounding a handful of innocent bystanders.
Most of the destruction was wrought by two bombs, one that fell
in the densely-populated St Peter’s Plain area and another
which burst near the Fish Wharf. The scene at St Peter’s was
one of “considerable ruin”. A two-storey building which
housed an undertaker’s and construction business was so badly
damaged it had to be demolished.
The front of St Peter’s Villa was blown out, its sole occupant
escaping from the debris with only cuts and bruises. There were
many other lucky escapes. But 72-year-old Martha Taylor, who was
returning from a grocery store, and Sam Smith, who was working in
his shop, were not so fortunate. Both were dead even before L3 disappeared
into the murk from whence she came. Later, Fritz claimed to have
come under anti-aircraft fire during his attack. But, in fact, the
only retaliation came from a sentry guarding Trinity Yard who reported
firing at the airship as it passed overhead.
The truth was that the people of Yarmouth had been caught completely
unawares. And it was much the same story for the hapless citizens
of King’s Lynn. Only in their case, the confusion was shared
by their attackers.
Crossing the Norfolk coast near Bacton, which von Platen-Hallermund
mistook for a landfall south of Grimsby, L4 blundered along the
northern shore, scattering incendiaries and explosive bombs, as
it passed over Sheringham, Thornham, Brancaster, Heacham, Hunstanton
and Snettisham on its way to Lynn which the Zeppelin commander took
to be “a big city” somewhere between the Humber and
the Tyne estuaries.
Shortly before 11pm, L4’s muddled and meandering progress
took on an altogether more lethal appearance. Even as officials
in Lynn were attempting to “black out” the town, bombs
began raining down.
As in the case of Yarmouth, most fell harmlessly, but one, the
third to hit the town, exploded with devastating effect in the congested
Bentinck Street area. Many homes were reduced to rubble, trapping
people in the debris.
Among them was John Goate. “I was in one room and my wife
and children in the other, and we all slipped through into the ground
floor and were buried in bricks and mortar and woodwork,”
he later recalled. Goate, his wife and baby daughter were all rescued,
but his 14-year-old son, Percy, was killed.
Not far away, the morning light revealed another fatality - 26-year-old
widow Alice Gazley, whose husband had been killed in France - was
last seen running out of a neighbouring house as the bombs fell.
Though of shorter duration, L4’s attack caused greater damage
and more casualties than L3.
In all, the eight bombs dropped on the town left two dead, 13 people
in hospital and many more suffering from superficial injuries. Retreating
across Norfolk, L4 passed over Norwich before making its unhindered
return to base, arriving seven minutes after L3.
The trailblazing raid was over. In military terms, it had achieved
little. The damage, most of it to private property, was estimated
at a little under £7500. But reports that the airships had
deliberately targeted railway stations, a drill hall and, most nonsensically
of all, Sandringham House were as spurious as claims by the Zeppelin
crews that they carried out their attacks in the face of enemy fire.
The significance of the raid, however, ran far deeper than material
destruction. Most damaging of all was the shattering realisation
that a British Isles, protected by the most powerful navy in the
world, was no longer immune to attack.
Though primitive and, at times, farcical, the wayward assault
on Norfolk 90 years ago blazed a trail that would ultimately lead
to the fire storms which consumed such cities as Dresden, Hamburg
and Hiroshima. |