The First Blitz

"An interesting account of the German air raids of the First World War, with a better focus on the human face of the raids." —HistoryOfWar.org

 


In 1917, the Germans launched a major air campaign against the British mainland, which shocked the whole nation and terrorized the southeast of England.


 


These attacks by German bombers caused hundreds of deaths and injuries, but until now, the full details of these raids have never before been told. These range from the massacre of Canadian troops resting in Folkestone on May 25, 1917 to the widespread carnage of shoppers a couple of miles away in the city center. Sheerness, then a major dockyard for the Royal Navy, barely escaped a similar fate when it too was singled out for the same treatment, and a 50kg bomb struck Upper North Street School in London's Poplar on June 13, 1917. It not only took the lives of eighteen schoolchildren, many as young as five years, but also crippled and mutilated twice as many again. Terrible as this was, it was just one of scores of similar tragedies, which terrified the populace of London and horrified the world.


 


The account of this campaign—plus the political and military circumstances surrounding it—follow years of original and painstaking research, interviews, and correspondence with those who remember that period.


 


"This is a tight and carefully crafted piece of history. It has drama and a slice of shock and awe." —War History Online

 


"A clear winner from the first page." —Indy Squadron Dispatch