Air raid on Chatham

On the night of 3/4 September 1917 German Gotha bombers attacked England after dark for the first time. Their target was the main Royal Navy base on the River Medway at Chatham. Two bombs fell on the glass roof of the drill hall in the naval barracks, where several hundred sailors were sleeping in hammocks. About 130 of them were killed. According to the British historian of the raids Ian Castle, no other single hit on one target in Britain during this war caused so many casualties.

The Gothas’ first night expedition

After the failure of the daylight raid of 22 August, Captain Rudolf Kleine’s bomber wing Kagohl 3, based near Ghent, underwent brief training in night flying. The day before, another German unit had bombed Dover by night, but the raid on Chatham was the first planned night attack by the Gothas. Kleine called for volunteers. Five bombers took off, his own among them, one after another at intervals of several minutes, because flying in formation in the dark risked collisions. One machine turned back with engine trouble.

At about 10.35 p.m. two aircraft crossed the coast over Westgate-on-Sea. One dropped its bombs on fields near Margate, breaking only windows, and turned back out to sea. The other bombers flew over the Thames estuary and the Isle of Sheppey. At about 11.10 p.m. the first bombs fell on marshes and gardens around Chatham. A few minutes later, according to the clock on the tower, which stopped at 11.12 p.m., the drill hall of the naval barracks was hit.

Death in the drill hall

The barracks were overcrowded. The large drill hall with its glass roof served as an overflow dormitory. According to the Western Front Association 698 men were sleeping in it, according to other accounts at least 700 or even 900. The crowding was caused among other things by an epidemic of meningitis in the barracks, which forced other dormitories to be thinned out, and by sailors who had remained at Chatham after the explosion of the battleship Vanguard in July.

Two 50-kilogram bombs pierced the roof. The explosions and a shower of heavy glass splinters killed and maimed the sleepers. The rescue work went on for more than ten hours. Jones, author of the British official history of the war in the air, gives 130 sailors killed and 88 wounded, Castle 130 killed and more than 90 wounded. Some of the wounded died later, so other accounts speak of 131 or even 135 victims. Among the dead were also naval reservists from Newfoundland. Other bombs destroyed a house in the district of Luton, where a woman was killed, and damaged a school and houses in Chatham. One more sailor was also killed, and several people were injured.

A defence without a chance

The anti-aircraft guns at Chatham did not fire a single shot, because no one spotted the bombers. The same night other bombs fell harmlessly near Sheerness. Sixteen Royal Flying Corps aircraft went up, but no pilot saw the Gothas. A bright moon in a clear sky even weakened the searchlight beams. British reports spoke of ten raiders, although in reality four reached England.

That night, however, something happened that changed the defence. Major G. W. Murlis-Green, commanding No. 44 Squadron, obtained permission to try night flying in Sopwith Camel fighters, considered too temperamental to fly in the dark. He and two of his pilots patrolled for forty minutes and landed safely. Soon other fighter pilots began to learn night flying. The very next night the Gothas flew to London. On Thursday 6 September 98 sailors from the drill hall were buried with military honours in Woodlands Cemetery in neighbouring Gillingham.