Newspaper
extract: On
13th June, German aircraft carried out the first bombing raid on London.
168 were killed and 432 injured in the 15 minute daylight attack on
the East End and the City. The raid, just before midday, marked a sinister
new role for the Aeroplane which only three years ago was used solely
for reconnaissance flights over enemy lines. Previous air raids over
London were made by Zeppelins, which were easy targets to hit. About
16 aircraft took part in the raid, countered by anti-aircraft fire from
the ground. One bomb fell on Upper North Street school,in Poplar killing
18 children, another crashed onto a railway station, hitting a train.
People climbed onto roofs to catch a glimpse of the aircraft, and although
some MP's reacted by pressing for air raid hooters and sirens to be
installed, the Government felt they may lead to more chaos or people
using the warnings as an excuse to take time off work.
All Died
13th June 1917 and all buried 18th June 1917. Many are buried in Plashet
United Synagogue Cemetery.
Extract
from the Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald 16 June 1917:
Air
Fighting: London Bombed
There
had been much air fighting this week and our machines have scored some
rembarkable success exspeically at the Front. But the Germans brought
off a distastrous raid on London - so far as child life was concerned
- on Wednesday. The raiders were about 15 in number, and came in across
the Essex coast-line. Reaching the East-end of London, they dropped
a number of bombs. One fell in a railway station, hitting an incoming
train, killing seven people and wounding 17. Another bomb fell on a
school, killing 10 and injuring 50 children. The raid over LOndon lasted
about 15 minutes. The casualries are stated to be 97 killed and 439
injured. Only one hostile aeroplane seemsm to have been brought down
by our airmen and anti-aircraft guns.
Extract
from the Surrey Advertiser 16 June 1917:
THE
AIR RAID: A CONTRAST IN FRIGHTFULNESS
On
Thursday last week British troops attacked and smashed the formidable
German positions at Messines, capturing during that and the next few
days 7,342 German prisoners, 47 guns, 242 machine guns, and 60 treanch
mortars, and inflicting other terrible but unascertainable losses upon
the defenders. On Wednesday this week a party of German airmen bombarded
London, killing and wounding some 500 or so men, women and children,
almost esxclusively civilians, and inflicting no military damage of
any sort or kind. The two events, set side by side, afford an illumibnating
study in contrasts, significant of much. Our attack at Messines was,
by the admissions of captured and terror-stricken prisoners, frightful
in the extreme; but it was carried out in the legitimate course of the
war. The attack on London stands in a different category altogether.
We would not go so far as to say that any attack on London is absolutely
unjustifiable, The War Office, the Admiralty, the docks, and other stablishments
in or near the Metropolis would be held to be legitimate objectives
of and enemy attack; but there is no particl of evidence to show that
these objectives were definitely aimed at. The bombs were dropped indiscriminately
over densley congested areas, the attacking airmen being careless as
to results so long as they fulfilled their mission of frightfulness
- the killing and maiming of anyone - man, woman or child, combatant
or non-combatant. Regarded from a purely military standpoint no comparison
between the results ahcieved is possible. One gallant troops pulverised
the German soldiers in their well-prepared and strongly fortified trenches,
dealt them such a stunning blow that their attempts to hit back have
been feeble in the extreme, and won valuable ground from which the Huns
thought they could never be ousted. These results we can exhibit with
pride, knowing that they have been gallantly and fairly and honourably
won. What achievements can the raiding airmen report to their Imperial
masters? They can lay before him as a votive offering a pitcure of 500
murdered or maimed civilians, with the mutilated bodies of 120 innocent
little children in the foreground! It is an offering that should please
this modern Attila. Thank God British airmen have no such shameful record
to their eternal discredit. There is one incident in the sad and terrible
narrative of the raid that we like. MR. WILL CROOKS states that during
the three or four hours thatn he was helping to remove the dead and
ten the wounded children in the schoool struck by a bomb he did not
hear man or woman ask: "When is peace coming?" If the KAISER
has been anxious to deal the peace propaganda of the pacifists a mortal
blow he could hardly have done it more effectively. Peace will come
only when the spirit which conceives and exults in such orgies of frightfulness
is completely and finally crushed. Upon that the heart of the people
will be set more firmly than ever.
Extract
from Gloucestershire Echo 16 June 1917:
LONDON
AIR RAID
MORE INQUESTS
MOTHER AND FOUR CHILDREN KILLED
Fifty-one
victims of the German air raid over London were the subject of inquests
on Saturday. They were mostly men, who were killed in the City. Some
ghastly stories were told of the effects of the raid.
At
another inquest in an East End borough the victims included a mother
and two daughters, and the bereaved father stated that twp opther ababy
children (twins) were lying dead together in the mortuary of lOndon
Hospital. Every bone in the woman's body was broken. The babies were
in a pushcart in the ruins. The foreman of the jury said they all considered
reprisals should be adiopted and that watning should be given.
