The immediate reaction to the raid on Folkestone, Hythe and Shorncliffe was one of words not deeds. Understandably the residents of Folkestone were outraged by the loss of life and damage to property, while the calm confidence that had permeated to all corners of Britain after the success against the Zeppelins in autumn 1916 had evaporated in an instant. The fact that the Gothas had been over Britain for about 75 minutes before they bombed Folkestone, yet the town received no warning caused angry debate at a public meeting in the town. On 30 May, a delegation had an audience in London with Lord French to deliver a resolution that bemoaned the lack of warning. It ended by urging the government to ‘take such steps as will prevent further attacks of a similar nature and the wholesale murder of the women and children of the town’.
Lord French offered calming words and assured the delegation that, ‘measures being taken would make any future raid a very risky operation with heavy losses to the enemy’.1 Yet at that moment this was an empty promise. Nothing had been done, the ban on anti-aircraft guns firing except in certain locations remained in place and French’s own concerns over a lack of home defence pilots had not been addressed. But a conference planned for the next day, 31 May, had as its purpose: ‘… to consider and report upon the question of the defence of the United Kingdom against attack by aeroplanes.’2 The conference did not discuss the anti-aircraft guns, but did resolve to transfer 24 trained aircraft spotters from the Western Front to lightships at the mouth of the Thames Estuary and elsewhere, to take up this now vital role from the untrained lightship crews. There was no progress on airborne communications. Sir David Henderson, Director-General of Military Aeronautics, put forward a proposal that aircraft should be fitted with wireless equipment to allow information to be passed to pilots from the ground, but the Admiralty blocked it, believing this traffic could potentially interfere with fleet communications, relegating this important step to further discussion. The conference also considered the shortage of aircraft and pilots for the RFC Home Defence squadrons. Although no new squadrons were authorised, plans were approved for pilots based at training squadrons, experimental stations and aircraft parks to fly daytime patrols when needed.
Concerns were expressed outside the conference too. On the following day, Colonel Thomas C.R. Higgins, commanding Home Defence Group, wrote to Lord French of his unease over the creation of two night-flying squadrons destined for the Western Front. Since February, he asserted, 77 trained pilots had been transferred from Home Defence squadrons, with the loss of 420 trained mechanics and engineers about to follow. He wanted both squadrons delayed to give him time to replace his losses. Lord French backed Higgins and forwarded his letter to the War Office, adding his own comments. He pointed out that the previously unsatisfactory reliance on training squadrons filling the gaps in Home Defence had been one of the reasons that led to the creation of Home Defence Wing the previous year, and with the drain on its manpower, ‘the object with which the Home Defence Wing was originally constituted appears in danger of being lost sight of’. French concluded: ‘I cannot too strongly impress on the Army Council my opinion that the means placed at my disposal for aeroplane defence are now inadequate and that a continuance of the present policy may have disastrous results.’3
Lord French’s comments were written on 5 June, but before anyone had the opportunity to digest them, Brandenburg’s Englandgeschwader returned.
***
In Ghent, Brandenburg had kept the pressure on his meteorological officer, Leutnant Cloessner; those above Brandenburg were demanding to know when he would make his first strike against London. On 5 June the weather offered a chance for a raid, not London but a closer target might be possible. As he had already shown his hand, Brandenburg reasoned he had nothing to lose and advised his crews to prepare for a raid that afternoon. This time he would target Shoeburyness and Sheerness, about 6 miles apart on opposite banks of the Thames Estuary. Both were military targets, Shoeburyness with its artillery testing and instructional facilities, and Sheerness, a dockyard town with an army garrison.
5 June 1917, 6.20pm: Shoeburyness, Essex, and Sheerness, Kent
Brandenburg mustered 22 Gothas for the raid, all fitted with auxiliary fuel tanks so refuelling on route became unnecessary. Having been alerted to the threat from the RNAS aircraft at Dunkirk, he initially followed a more northerly course, keeping away from the coast, but even so a routine patrol from No. 4 (Naval) Squadron spotted Kagohl 3 and gave chase but without any success. At 5.55pm, observers on the Kentish Knock lightship telephoned news of the appearance of the German bombers, with the alert received at GHQ, Home Forces within five minutes. At 6.15pm Kagohl 3 crossed the coast between the estuaries of the rivers Blackwater and Crouch, fired at by a mobile anti-aircraft gun positioned near Southminster. Directly in the path of the raiders, pilots from No. 37 (Home Defence) Squadron, rushed to get airborne. From airfields at Goldhanger, Stow Maries and Rochford, five Sopwith 1½ Strutters and two BE12as took off between 6.15 and 6.19pm, with more following, but they had no time to reach the Gothas’ height. The other Home Defence squadrons protecting the London area, No. 39, No. 50 and No. 78, also had pilots climbing as rapidly as they could. Training squadrons and aircraft parks offered limited assistance too. The RNAS were quick to respond, however, with two Bristol Scouts and a Sopwith Pup taking off from Manston at 6.05pm. Defence aircraft flew 62 sorties, but 20 of those were not in the air until after the last bombs fell. While the first aircraft from No. 37 Squadron were rumbling across their airfields, Brandenburg, in the nose position of the leading Gotha, fired a pre-arranged signal flare and the formation banked to port, towards the Thames and Shoeburyness.
The first two bombs fell in fields at Great Wakering at about 6.20pm, followed by one at North Shoebury. Directly ahead lay South Shoebury and the Shoeburyness artillery complex. Only two of the 20 bombs landed within the military area. One, on the gun park, killed Gunner William Staines and Driver Thomas Toone of the Royal Field Artillery.
A handful of bombs landed in the town within 150 yards of the artillery barracks but had no more serious impact than breaking a few windows. At 6.23pm, two 3-inch, 20cwt guns at the Artillery School of Instruction and one from the Experimental Ranges opened fire; they were in the permitted fire zone. The Gotha formation broke up as the guns fired 172 rounds at the receding target.
Startled by the explosions, local people had emerged from their homes.
From doorways and windows hundreds of excited inhabitants watched the wonderful air battle. ‘The silver sprats,’ as someone aptly called the German aircraft, dived and rose, twisted and turned, as though thoroughly surprised.4
As Kagohl 3 crossed the Thames, two Gothas left the formation and turned back east, leaving 20 bombers with Sheerness in their sights. As they approached the town six guns opened fire from the south side of the river. Although not mentioned in the official report of the raid, at least one of the paddle minesweepers anchored nearby, the London Belle, also engaged.5
The Gothas made a quick and confusing attack on Sheerness, approaching from two directions. Five bombs hit the dockyard where one caused a huge fire which burnt out the top floor of the Grand Store, and another exploded on the quay of No. 3 Dry Dock, narrowly missing a ship but killing dockyard worker, George Frier, and injuring others. Another man also died; Joseph Davies, an officer’s steward serving on the battleship HMS Dominion. Beyond the dockyard more bombs fell.
In Blue Town High Street an eyewitness saw the next one.
I was standing outside my place of business, when a huge bomb dropped within 50 yards of me. There was a terrific explosion, and the air was filled with dust and flying pieces of road metal. The bomb had fallen in an open space, which was paved. It made a great hole in the ground.6
The explosion, outside Messrs Gieves, Military and Naval Outfitters, destroyed the premises. The manager of the shop, Edward Perry, had been away in Plymouth visiting his sick wife and only returned the previous day. Rescuers worked overnight sifting through the rubble to finally recover his body at 9.00am the following morning. Two days later, with the inquest underway, rescuers discovered another body in the ruins, that of a customer, Herbert Gandy, a gunner serving on HM Torpedo Boat No.7.
Beyond Blue Town another bomb killed three soldiers of 5th Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Regiment at Well Marsh Camp, besides injuring six others and an officer of the 6th Battalion. Bombs also fell among the tents at the Botany Road camp, killing two more soldiers and injuring 11.
The civilian population did not escape unscathed either, as more bombs fell across the streets in the Mile Town and Marine Town districts of Sheerness. Samuel Hawes, Chief Armourer at the Royal Navy’s shore establishment, HMS Actaeon, left a meeting at his Masonic lodge when the guns began firing, worried about the safety of his wife and daughter at home. As he emerged from an alley into Cavour Road, a bomb exploded in the street. Samuel Hawes’ family were fine but he died instantly. Many houses were damaged by the bombs, which caused further injuries and another man, Herbert Lucas, a launchman employed at the docks, met a gruesome end at the corner of Clyde Street and Richmond Street: ‘… a man standing on the kerb had his head blown off, and his body was hurled some yards across the road.’7
The Gothas were only over Sheerness for five minutes but throughout that time anti-aircraft guns on the Isle of Sheppey and across the Medway on the Hoo Peninsula bombarded the sky, the six guns firing 330 rounds at the swirling, confusing mass of aircraft. One of the shells, fired by the 3-inch, 20cwt gun positioned at Barton’s Point, just to the east of Sheerness, claimed success.
Gotha G.IV 660/16, out over the Thames, had descended to about 9,000ft, apparently to attack the gun, when hit: ‘The machine fell in spirals into the sea, taking 4½ minutes to fall.’ Rescue boats picked up two of the crew, but the pilot, Vizefeldwebel Erich Kluck, could not be found. His lifeless body washed ashore two days later. The commander, Leutnant der Reserve Hans Francke, barely alive when picked up, died soon after. Miraculously the gunner, Unteroffizier Georg Schumacher, survived, with just a broken leg to show for the Gotha’s fall from a height of 1.7 miles.
Various attempts were made by pilots of the RFC and RNAS to close and engage the raiders as they headed away, but most struggled to approach the heights of 17,000 to 18,000ft that the now lightened Gothas were flying at, although one, Squadron Commander Charles Butler, RNAS, flying a Sopwith Triplane from Manston made a spirited effort, attacking two of the Gothas. As the formation neared the coast of Belgium, pilots of the RNAS patrolling from Dunkirk also attacked, but this time Brandenburg had the foresight to arrange for fighter cover as he neared home and a confusing dogfight broke out with the RNAS claiming a couple of victories, but they were never confirmed in German records.
After two damaging bomber raids in less than two weeks it became clear to the War Office and the Admiralty that the air war over Britain had taken a new direction and, inevitably, London would soon be targeted. On 7 June, two days after the raid on Shoeburyness and Sheerness, and three months after its introduction, the order banning most anti-aircraft guns from engaging enemy aeroplanes was scraped. As a mark of urgency, GHQ, Home Forces issued the order verbally rather than wait for written orders to circulate. Lieutenant Colonel Simon retrieved his plan to deal with enemy bombers, shelved in March, and immediately issued it to all gun commanders. They did not have long to wait to put it into practice.
On 12 June, German weather experts unanimously predicted ideal conditions for the following day, but Leutnant Cloessner added a note of caution; he advised of a possibility of thunderstorms in Belgium after 3.00pm. Kagohl 3 would need to be back before then, which demanded an earlier start than on the two previous missions.
13 June 1917, 11.40am: City of London
At 9.00am (British time) on Wednesday 13 June, after months of preparation, the Englandgeschwader made ready to strike London, the hub of the British Empire. Twenty Gothas fired up their engines at Sint-Denijs-Westrem and Gontrode (see map, p.xiv). One by one they rumbled across the grass airfields and with engines roaring they soared into the sky. Two soon developed engine problems and dropped out but for the rest, as one Gotha commander described, the mood was one of expectation and exhilaration, the culmination of all their hard work.
We can recognize the men in the machine flying nearest to us and signals and greetings are exchanged. A feeling of absolute security and an indomitable confidence in our success are our predominant emotions.8
At about 10.30am, when about 10 miles north of the Kent coast, one bomber left the formation to make a diversionary attack on Margate. Six bombs were dropped over the town and one in the sea. They caused no major damage, smashing 120 windows and injuring four people. Local anti-aircraft guns opened fire and four RNAS aircraft from Manston (two Bristol Scouts, a Sopwith Pup and a Sopwith Triplane) along with a Sopwith Baby floatplane from Westgate, took the bait and pursued the lone Gotha out to sea without result.9
From within the main formation, confidence remained high as they neared the British coast.
We notice our comrades in other machines pointing to the coastline. They nod at each other and seem highly enthusiastic. We pass the cloud bank… and through the hazy veil the mouth of the Thames appears.10
News of the attack on Margate and a sighting at 10.50am of the main formation approaching the mouth of the River Crouch had reached GHQ, Home Forces leading to the issue of the ‘Readiness’ order to the RFC, RNAS and guns, followed by ‘TARA’ (Take Air Raid Action). The first RFC and RNAS aircraft were airborne a few minutes after 11.00am. Between them the two air forces flew 94 sorties that day but none would be able to climb fast enough to engage the Gothas on their way to London.
On a pre-arranged signal, three more Gothas left the main formation. One engaged in photo reconnaissance to the south of the Thames, while the other two made a diversionary feint towards Shoeburyness. Anti-aircraft guns engaged as they dropped their bombs. Although no damage of note occurred, two people suffered injury. Their job complete, the two Gothas headed back down the Thames Estuary.
The remaining 14 bombers now grouped into what eyewitnesses described as a wide diamond formation. Regular reports on their progress reached GHQ, Home Forces, but with a hazy sky not all aircraft were always in view, leading to a wide variety in estimates of the formation’s strength. The great volume of sound created by their engines also added to the confusion, with some reporting the unseen presence of Zeppelins.
At the village of Great Leighs in Essex, the Reverend Andrew Clark stood mending a fence at the rectory when he heard a peculiar sound, as he noted in his diary.
This forenoon we heard an unusual drumming noise in the E. and S.E. It went on for a considerable time. My daughter heard it about 11.15 a.m. I thought it was drums in Terling Camp, or a regiment on a route-march on the road beyond that. My daughter thought it was an aeroplane, but out of order.11
Only later, at 6.15pm, did they discover that the sound had been generated by the Gothas on their way to London.
From Romford, north of the Thames, the first of the guns defending London opened fire at 11.24am, followed three minutes later by the gun at Abbey Wood, south of the river. The commander of one of the Gothas remained unperturbed.
Suddenly there stand as if by magic here and there in our course little clouds of cotton wool, the greetings of enemy guns. They multiply with astonishing rapidity. We fly through them and leave the suburbs behind us; it is the heart of London that must be hit.12
Gunners all over London were now hammering the sky but, estimating the Gothas height at between 12,000 and 14,000ft, most were firing short; Kagohl 3 approached at around 16,000ft. A few minutes after the gunfire commenced, the first bombs fell between East Ham and the Royal Albert Dock. And the killing began.
A girl who lived in Alexandra Road, East Ham, attended school in an adjoining road.
We were all busy when I chanced to look out of the window, and saw what appeared at first to be a large flock of silver birds. We all stood watching the aeroplanes, and saw a black object fall from amongst the crowd of them. There was a terrible explosion. Then we realised it was an air raid.13
Two bombs exploded in Alexandra Road damaging 42 houses and killing four people. Among them were the girl’s mother, Christina Clarke, and her 4-year-old brother, George. At the docks a single bomb claimed eight lives and injured nine other men. Two of the victims, George Larkins and Arthur Simmonds, were amongst a group working in an office at the docks who went outside when they heard the guns commence firing.
With the Gothas back in formation, Brandenburg fired another flare on reaching Regent’s Park, and they banked again, heading towards the City of London, the financial hub of the capital. Kagohl 3 now abandoned its formation, with Brandenburg describing his squadron ‘flying back and forth and in circles’.14 Now to make the raid count.
At last it is time. I give the signal, and in less time than it takes to tell I have pushed the levers. I anxiously follow the flight of the released bombs. With a tremendous crash they strike the heart of England. It is a magnificently terrific spectacle, seen from mid-air. Projectiles from hostile batteries are spluttering and exploding beneath and all around us, while below the earth seems rocking and houses are disappearing in craters and conflagration in the light of the glaring sun.15
Vera Brittain, a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse home on leave and staying with her parents in London, had just returned from shopping and saw the sky full of aeroplanes ‘as the uproar began’: ‘I saw the sinister group of giant mosquitos sweeping in close formation over London.’ Then, as her family huddled helplessly in the basement, they ‘listened glumly to the shrapnel raining down like a thunder-shower upon the trees in the park’.16
In the space of two minutes, commencing at 11.40am, the main attack developed with 72 bombs falling within a 1-mile radius of Liverpool Street Station. Despite the danger, not everyone sought shelter, as an American journalist travelling on an open-topped bus reported.
From every office and warehouse and tea shop men and women strangely stood still, gazing up into the air. The conductor mounted the stairs to suggest that outside passengers should seek safety inside. Some of them did so.
‘I’m not a religious man,’ remarked the conductor, ‘but what I say is, we are all in God’s hands and if we are going to die we may as well die quiet.’
But some inside passengers were determined that if they had to die quiet they might as well see something first and they climbed on top and with wonderstruck eyes watched the amazing drama of the skies.17
Three bombs smashed through the glass roof of Liverpool Street Station, with one exploding on the edge of Platform 9 as the 11.50am train to Hunstanton prepared for departure, blasting apart the restaurant car and causing fierce fires in two other carriages. Another struck a special train opposite where a medical board were carrying out examinations of men for military service, causing it to burst into flames. The bombs killed 16 and injured another 15. One of the victims aboard the departing train, Thomas Ivor Moore, Assistant Director of Barrack Construction at the War Office, died from a wound to his neck, while 27-year-old Francis Reeves, waiting for his medical examination, lost his life in the burning carriage.18
On leave and at the station that morning stood the soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon. He looked on, shocked, and struggled to make sense of it all.
In a trench one was acclimatized to the notion of being exterminated and there was a sense of organized retaliation. But here one was helpless; an invisible enemy sent destruction spinning down from a fine weather sky; poor old men bought a railway ticket and were trundled away again dead on a barrow.19
About half a mile west of the station, at Barrett’s Brass Foundry off Beech Street, nine men were working on the roof when the bombing commenced. One of them, C. Murphy, shouted a warning but before they could find shelter an explosion knocked him unconscious. When he came to, all his colleagues were dead.20
About three quarters of a mile north-west of Liverpool Street Station, Police Constable Alfred Smith was on duty in Central Street, a road off Old Street. The previous night he had lain awake due to terrible pains in his legs. His wife urged him not to report for work in the morning but he went in because ‘it was his duty to go’. Later that morning Rhoda Pipe, one of 150 women working in the basement of Debenham & Co in Central Street, puzzled over a distant noise. When she heard another, however, she shouted ‘Bombs!’ Everyone rushed to get out into the street.
Outside, PC Smith also heard the thunderous booms. When the door burst open and staff started to emerge, he leapt forward. Rhoda described the policeman putting up his arm to hold them back – as he did so two bombs exploded in the street. The concussion of the blast struck PC Smith. All of those crowded in the doorway escaped injury but Alfred Smith lay dead at their feet. The bombs killed 13 people in the street, including 80-year-old Elizabeth Cain, but the death toll would have been greater but for PC Smith’s selfless act.21
At 65 Fenchurch Street, about 750 yards south of Liverpool Street Station, more bombs exploded. Thomas Burke, in his office on the third floor, heard ‘ominous rumbles’, then came ‘two deafening crashes’ as the building swayed and trembled before half of it came crashing down. Burke crawled to a window.
Looking out… on to a street that seemed enveloped by a thick mist – the rising dust of debris… Excited shouts of ‘Come out!’ and ‘Keep in!’… Safes, burst open, with their scattered contents, piles of books and papers and other debris, in the roadway… A girl, who had been standing in the doorway of a provision shop, having now lost both her legs… An unknown man lying dead against the wall of an A.B.C. shop opposite… A number of dead (probably having taken refuge in our building) who were unknown to the office tenants… A small cat mewing piteously, with its fur blown away.22
From the rubble they extricated 19 bodies, 14 others bore cruel injuries.
About 350 yards north-east of Fenchurch Street a bomb smashed down on Aldgate High Street, shattering the 200ft frontage of the Albion House Clothing Company occupying the block between Minories and Jewry Street. It also wrecked a bus, blowing the driver, J.T. Wise out into the street but, although terribly shaken by his experience, he helped with the removal of his passengers. Bill Goble, a messenger in a shipping office, rushed out into the street.
A bus conductress lay on the pavement – her leg appeared to be severed from the knee. A policeman sat on a chair, his trouser legs ripped away and one leg covered in blood. To add to the horror of the occasion, a number of [shop] window dummies had fallen out onto the pavement amongst the bodies of the dead and the injured. A… bus stood silently by the kerb, every window shattered; a solitary figure of a man was hunched up in the seat immediately behind the driver’s seat. He sat motionless, a piece of glass was said to have pierced his neck and we were told he was already dead.23
About 500 yards south-east of Aldgate High Street, a bomb struck a wall at the Royal Mint, partially destroying a mechanic’s workshop, killing four people working there – Howard Avery, William Beadle, Albert Crabb and George Cavell – and injuring 30 more.
After the main attack the Gotha formation split into two again, either side of the Thames. Passing over Southwark, the southerly group dropped more bombs, one of which stuck tea merchants British and Beningtons on Southwark Street. About 30 women workers had taken shelter in a basement strongroom which had a concrete ceiling, but the bombs shattered it, burying the refugees. Help arrived quickly but it came too late to save Phyllis Barker (aged 15), Winifred Churchill (14) and another girl, who all died; rescuers pulled the rest from the rubble, although only three escaped uninjured.24
The Gothas that kept north of the Thames also marked their path with tragedy. A bomb in Gibraltar Walk, Bethnal Green, caused widespread damage, but at No. 18, the home of bootmaker Joseph Moss and his family, it produced a charnel house. While Mr Moss was away at the market the bomb demolished his home. A soldier on leave, J. Lynch, tried to help.
On account of the dust it was very difficult to see, but by sheer luck I saw an arm sticking out of the debris. Clearing the dirt away as carefully as I could, I at last uncovered a woman’s face. She must have been nearly dead, but she managed to gasp, ‘My babies are here, too!’ So I again started to pull the rubbish and stuff away with my hands, and had the satisfaction of uncovering her two little kiddies, twins. I could not release their bodies as they were pinned down by the roof rafters and other stuff, so I wiped the dirt out of their mouths and eyes.25
Despite Mr Lynch’s efforts, the mother, Rebecca Moss, died in the wreckage and the 9-month-old twins, Bessie and Cissie, later died in hospital. The couple’s two other daughters, Hettie (11) and Esther (5) also died in the rubble, as did a lodger. In an instant, Joseph Moss had lost his entire family and his home. Outside in the street two other children, out with their grandmother, also died – Annie Stanford (3) and her 9-month-old sister, Ivy.26
There were other child victims too. At 35 Woodville Road, Dalston, the home of the Reynolds family, Mrs Reynolds was downstairs with three of her children – Ivy, Hilda and Robert – while the grandmother was upstairs with the youngest, 18-month-old Lilian. Mr Reynolds, a munitions worker, was at work. When Mrs Reynolds heard the sound of explosions she shouted to the grandmother, ‘Bring baby down here; they are dropping bombs’. Almost immediately a bomb dropped outside the house. Rescuers recovered the adults, injured but alive, all four children, however, ‘crushed with bricks and mortar’ were dead.27
There were countless more stories of death and destruction in London that day; from Clerkenwell, the westernmost point bombs had fallen, north to Dalston, south to Bermondsey and east to Stratford; they had inflicted 588 casualties (162 killed and 426 injured – the most in any single raid in the war) and inflicted damage estimated at about £125,000. But of the 118 bombs dropped on London, one above all others filled the city’s population with horror and repulsion – it wrecked the Upper North Street School in Poplar, in the East End of London.
The crew did not deliberately aim to hit the school, the commander of the Gotha, like all the others, wanted to make sure he had released all his bombs before commencing the return flight. He may have been tempted by the sight of the West India Docks about 500 yards to the south of the school. Whatever the reason for dropping the bomb at that precise moment, fate determined that it struck the school, where the three storeys of the building were packed with children at their lessons. Two older children – Edwin Powell (12) and Rose Martin (11) – were killed as the bomb made its way down through the building before exploding on the ground floor among two classes of 64 young children aged 5 and 6. When desperate rescuers had finished their work, 16 of these infants were dead and 30 others, as well as four teachers, injured. The funeral, a week later, brought that part of London to a halt.
The East End of London yesterday paid a sorrowful last tribute to the children who were killed in their class-room at school last Wednesday.
A hard life had not hardened the dwellers in dockland. Behind the dingy and often squalid exterior of the East End there lies a rich fount of human emotion. Sometimes it wells up and makes one marvel at the great heart of the toilers in these mean and crowded streets. Yesterday all Poplar and the neighbouring boroughs were charged with an overflowing sympathy for the mothers and fathers whose children have been slaughtered on the alter of German ruthlessness, and while the little ones were being carried to the grave all who were able came out to mourn with the mourners. The pulsing industrial and commercial life of the district was stilled for a while, and in its place there appeared a throbbing community of sorrow.28
The Gothas, heading east, ran the gauntlet of the anti-aircraft guns and Home Defence aircraft. The guns defending London along the Thames and at Margate fired 360 rounds while aircraft flew 94 sorties, but only 11 managed to open fire, without bringing down any of the raiders. At the same time the pilots of Kagohl 3 claimed two kills although none were shot down. One of the incidents may refer to a Bristol Fighter of No. 35 (Training) Squadron piloted by Captain Con Cole-Hamilton, with Captain Cecil Keevil as his observer/gunner. They attacked three straggling Gothas over Ilford, themselves coming under return fire. A bullet struck Keevil in the neck and killed him, and with his forward-firing gun jammed, Cole-Hamilton dived away – his attackers may have believed him shot down.29
Safely back on the Ghent airfields, Brandenburg sent a dramatic report to von Hoeppner. He replied enthusiastically.
The squadron has fulfilled its mission. That is the highest recognition I can accord to you and your crews. The squadron attack on London has been for years an objective of our fliers and our technology. With the execution of the attack Kagohl 3 has provided a new basis for air attacks. I thank you and your brave crews… Good luck in future deeds under the symbolic slogan: Brandenburg over London.30
That ‘symbolic slogan’ would be short-lived.