Zeppelin Inferno

The Forgotten Blitz, 1916

Ian Castle

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2022
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399093934
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

At the beginning of 1916, as the world entered the second full year of global conflict, the cities, towns and villages of Britain continued to lay vulnerable to aerial bombardment. Throughout that period German Zeppelin airships and seaplanes had come and gone at will, their most testing opposition provided by the British weather as the country's embryonic defences struggled to come to terms with this first ever assault from the air. Britain's civilians were now standing on the frontline — the Home Front — like the soldiers who had marched off to war. But early in 1916 responsibility for Britain's aerial defence passed from the Admiralty to the War Office and, as German air attacks intensified, new ideas and plans made dramatic improvements to Britain's aerial defence capability. While this new system could give early warning of approaching raiders, there was a lack of effective weaponry with which to engage them when they arrived. Behind the scenes, however, three individuals, each working independently, were striving for a solution. The results of their work were spectacular; it lifted the mood of the nation and dramatically changed the way this campaign was fought over Britain. The German air campaign against Britain in the First World War was the first sustained strategic aerial bombing campaign in history. Despite this, it has become forgotten against the enormity of the Blitz of the Second World War, although for those caught up in the tragedy of these raids, the impact was every bit as devastating. In Zeppelin Inferno Ian Castle tells the full story of the 1916 raids in unprecedented detail in what is the second book in a trilogy that will reveal the complete story of Britain's 'Forgotten Blitz'.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Frightfulness
• Chapter 2 ‘Attack England middle or south, if at all possible Liverpool.’
• Chapter 3 ‘Gott strafe England’
• Chapter 4 A New Beginning
• Chapter 5 ‘This is not war — but ghastly work of Hell’
• Chapter 6 ‘Dante’s Inferno’
• Chapter 7 ‘Why, haven’t you heard – our boys brought the Zeppelin down!’
• Chapter 8 A Zeppelin Moon
• Chapter 9 ‘Such a rain of destruction… so little harm’
• Chapter 10 Germany’s Old Problems — Britain’s New Weapons
• Chapter 11 The Coming of the Super Zeppelins
• Chapter 12 A Fruitless Summer
• Chapter 13 The Return to London
• Chapter 14 A Bright Flare of Light
• Chapter 15 ‘One Glowing Blazing Mass’
• Chapter 16 ‘Mother, they have got me this time’
• Chapter 17 ‘They are all someone‘s sons’
• Chapter 18 ‘A scene of woebegone desolation’
• Chapter 19 ‘I have a really bad feeling about this’
• Chapter 20 ‘They’ve got her! She’s hit!’
• Chapter 21 A Portent for the Future
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Notes
• LIST OF MAPS
• Plates Section