At the outbreak of the First World War, the United Kingdom had no aerial
defense capability worthy of the name. Britain had just thirty guns to
defend the entire country, with all but five of these considered 'of
dubious value'. So when raiding German aircraft finally appeared over
Britain the response was negligible and ineffective. Of Britain's
fledgling air forces, the Royal Flying Corps had accompanied the British
Expeditionary Force into Europe leaving the Royal Naval Air Service to
defend the country as best it could. That task was not an easy one.
From the first raid in December 1914, aerial attacks gradually increased
through 1915, culminating in highly damaging assaults on London in
September and October. London, however, was not the only recipient of
German bombs, with counties from Northumberland to Kent also
experiencing the indiscriminate death and destruction found in this new
theater of war - the Home Front. And when the previously unimagined
horror of bombs falling from the sky began, the British population was
initially left exposed and largely undefended as civilians were killed
in the streets or lying asleep in their beds. The face of war had
changed forever and those raids on London in the autumn of 1915 finally
forced the government to pursue a more effective defense against air
attack.
This German air campaign against the United Kingdom was the first
sustained strategic aerial bombing campaign in history. Yet it has
become the forgotten Blitz.
In Zeppelin Onslaught Ian Castle tells the complete story of the 1915
raids in unprecedented detail in what is the first in a planned series
of three books that will eventually provide a complete history of
Britain's Forgotten Blitz of 1914-18.
