The London area was raided on May 19. Forty-four persons were
killed and 179 wounded. Five German airplanes were brought down by
the British.
On May 22 the Germans made an ineffectual attempt to raid Paris.
Three persons were killed and several were injured in the
outskirts of the city, and one German machine was brought down. In
another raid, on May 23, one German machine succeeded in reaching
the city. One woman was killed and twelve persons injured. The
city was raided again on June 1 and June 2, and several persons
were wounded.
Cologne was raided by allied airplanes on May 18. Fourteen persons
were killed and forty injured. On the nights of May 21 and May 22
British aviators bombed railway stations in German Lorraine, a
chloride factory in Mannheim, and the railway near Liége. In an
allied air raid over Liége, on May 26, the railway station was
destroyed and twenty-six persons were killed. Karlsruhe was bombed
by the British on June 1, and tons of explosives were dropped on
Metz, Seblon, and other towns. Twenty-seven German machines were
downed. Metz and Seblon were again attacked on June 6. During the
period from May 30 to June 12 the British carried out many raids
against Bruges, Zeebrugge, and Ostend. On June 13 British aerial
squadrons made raids into Germany, bombarding the railway station
at Treves, in Rhenish Prussia, and factories at Dillingen, Bavaria.
A British official statement issued May 21 announced that 1,000
German planes had been downed in two months.
On the night of May 19 four squadrons of German airplanes raided
British hospitals behind the battlelines in France. Hundreds of
persons were killed or wounded. Hospitals containing French and
American wounded were again raided on the nights of May 29 and
May 31. One nurse was killed, several persons were injured, and a
number of civilians died of their wounds.
Two hundred and fifty-two German airplanes were brought down by
allied aviators on the western front in the week ended May 23. In
the first two days of June the French downed fifty-seven German
machines and dropped 130 tons of explosives in the battle area.
British airmen destroyed or damaged 518 German airplanes and seven
observation balloons in the month of May.
Major Raoul Lufbery, the foremost American air fighter, was killed
May 19 in a combat with a German armored biplane back of the
American sector north of Toul. The plane which brought him down
was later downed by a Frenchman.
On May 25 announcement was made that the first airplanes to be
furnished to the American Army from the United States had arrived
in France and were in use in a training camp.
The first American bombing squadron to operate behind the front
raided the Baroncourt railway on June 14, at a point northwest of
Briey and returned safely in spite of German attacks. A second
excursion was made later in the day, when the railway station and
adjoining buildings at Conflans were bombed.