The Flatpack Bombers

The author of The Yompers details the history of Great Britain’s innovation in combatting the German Zeppelin during World War I.

Our vision of aviation in the First World War is dominated by images of gallant fighter pilots dueling with each other high over the Western Front. But it was the threat of the Zeppelin thatspurred the British government into creating the Royal Flying Corps, and it was this menace, which no aircraft could match in the air at the beginning of the war, that led Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy to set about bombing these airships on the ground. Thus in 1914, the Royal Naval Air Service, with their IKEA-style flatpack airplanes, pioneered strategic bombing. Moreover, through its efforts to extend its striking range in order to destroy Zeppelins in their home bases, the Royal Navy developed the first true aircraft carriers.

This book is the story of those largely forgotten, very early bombing raids. It explains Britain’s first interest in military and naval aviation, and why it was that the Navy pursued long distance bombing, while the Army concentrated on reconnaissance. Every bomber raid, and every aircraft carrier strike operation since, owes its genesis to those early naval flyers, and there are ghosts from 1914 that haunt us still today.

“Well written and very informative, this really is one of those books you go though from cover to cover as you learn so much more about those early men and machines.” —The Great War Magazine