Raid on Folkestone

On Friday 25 May 1917, on a fine afternoon before the long Whitsun weekend, a formation of more than twenty German twin-engined bombers flew in over England. They were meant to bomb London, but thick cloud hung over the capital, so the bombers turned over Kent. The worst hit was the seaside town of Folkestone, where a bomb exploded in a queue of women and children outside a greengrocer’s, and the nearby military camp at Shorncliffe, full of Canadian soldiers. According to the British official history of the air war, 95 people were killed and 195 wounded. The British chronology of the war gives a total of about 290 casualties, more than half of them civilians. It was the first raid by the new German bomber squadron and the first air attack on Britain to cause so many casualties.

A squadron to bomb England

In the autumn of 1916 the German air command came to the conclusion that airships could no longer attack London effectively. The commander of the new air service, General Ernst von Hoeppner, wrote in a memorandum that eighteen aeroplanes would carry as many bombs as three airships, and that three airships had never yet reached London together. The instrument was to be the new Gotha G.IV bomber: a biplane with a span of about 23 metres, two 260 hp Mercedes engines, a crew of three and three machine guns. By day it carried six 50-kilogram bombs and could operate at a height of about 5,000 metres, beyond the reach of most British home defence fighters.

A special squadron was prepared for the raids on England, the Kampfgeschwader 3 of the Supreme Army Command (Kagohl 3), popularly known as the England Squadron (Englandgeschwader). It was commanded by Captain Ernst Brandenburg, and its airfields lay at Sint-Denijs-Westrem and Gontrode (PL) near Ghent. The preparations, carried out under the code name “Türkenkreuz” (Turkish cross), dragged on because of technical and supply problems. According to H. A. Jones, author of the British official history The War in the Air, the squadron was not ready until the middle of May 1917. Until then London had been attacked only by single aeroplanes, most recently on the night of 6–7 May.

The flight over Kent

On the afternoon of 25 May 23 Gothas took off from the Belgian airfields. According to some accounts they refuelled at a landing ground on the coast so as to fly a roundabout route over the sea. Two machines turned back with mechanical faults. The remaining 21 crossed the coast of Essex high up between the estuaries of the Crouch and the Blackwater at about five in the afternoon. The roar of the engines was so loud that many people took them for airships. Thick cloud lay over London, however, and Brandenburg abandoned his main target. The formation turned south, crossed the Thames near Gravesend and flew over Kent west of Maidstone, along the railway line towards the coast.

The first bombs fell on fields at about 5.40 p.m. At Ashford a bomb burst in the air and killed an eighteen-year-old girl. Over Lympne the Gothas attacked the airfield but did not do much damage there. At Hythe two people were killed, among them the verger of St Leonard’s Church. Then the bombers reached Shorncliffe camp, spread out between Cheriton and Sandgate. Reserve and training units of the Canadian army were stationed there. According to Jones, the bombs killed 17 Canadian soldiers in the camp and at Cheriton and wounded 93. According to the British historian Ian Castle, author of detailed studies of the raids on Britain, one bomb that hit a tent between the huts killed 11 infantrymen preparing to move out.

Tontine Street

At about 6.20 p.m. the Gothas were over Folkestone. It was a busy port through which thousands of British soldiers crossed to France, but the bombs fell on ordinary streets. According to Castle, about 40 bombs fell on the town. People were killed on a school tennis court, outside the station and in houses in the centre. The worst happened in Tontine Street, a shopping street near the harbour. Outside the Stokes greengrocer’s a long queue had formed for freshly delivered potatoes, mainly women with children doing their shopping before the holiday. A bomb exploded right in front of the shop. According to Castle, 44 people were killed on the spot and another 17 died of their wounds later. No other bomb dropped on Britain during the war killed so many civilians. The chief constable of Folkestone later testified at the coroner’s inquest that he had seen dead and wounded lying in the street, dead horses in their harness and a fire in the rubble of a wrecked house.

According to Jones, 72 people were killed in Folkestone itself: 16 men (including one soldier), 31 women and 25 children, and 91 people were injured. In all, during the raid the Gothas dropped 59 bombs of 50 kilograms and 104 smaller ones, of which 27 failed to explode. Jones gives the toll of the whole raid as 95 killed and 195 injured, and Castle as 96 killed and 194 injured. At about 6.30 p.m. the formation went out to sea.

The defences taken by surprise

Folkestone and Shorncliffe received no warning, although Dover had reported the approach of the bombers an hour and a half earlier. British air defence was prepared for night raids by airships, not for a daylight attack by a formation of aeroplanes flying at great height. According to Jones, 37 pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service and 37 pilots of the Royal Flying Corps took off, but few had machines able to climb to the Gothas’ altitude, and each acted on his own. Only individual pilots managed to engage. The naval fighters from Dunkirk did better, intercepting the bombers on their way home. According to German records, one Gotha fell into the English Channel and another crashed in Belgium.

The raid caused anger across the country. Protest meetings were held in Folkestone, and residents demanded an inquiry from the government, asking how an enemy formation could bomb the town with impunity in broad daylight and why nobody had warned the people. The coroner’s jury expressed regret that the authorities had not warned residents of the approaching aircraft, and demanded that in future the town be warned by sirens. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff called a conference on the defence of the country against aircraft. Jones judged that the raid had revealed the “complete inadequacy” of the existing defences. It was only the opening of the Gotha campaign. On 13 June 1917 Brandenburg’s squadron reached London itself in daylight.