London, as well as Paris, received frequent visits from enemy airplanes
in February and March, 1918. On the three successive nights of Feb. 16,
17, and 18 German raiders attacked the British metropolis. Twenty-seven
persons were killed and forty-one were injured. Many of the German
machines failed to reach the city owing to the great improvement which
had been effected in the aerial defenses both on the coast and around
London itself. Both the anti-aircraft guns and the airmen helped to
diminish the casualties. The third night's raid resulted in an entire
absence of both casualties and damage to property.
Seven or eight German airplanes made a raid over England on the night of
March 7. Two of them reached London and dropped bombs in various
districts. Eleven persons were killed and forty-six injured in the
metropolitan area. In addition a certain amount of damage was done to
dwellings and some people buried under the wreckage.
Zeppelins were again employed by the Germans in a raid on the east coast
of England on March 12. One of them dropped bombs on Hull, while the two
others wandered for some hours over remote country districts at great
altitudes, unloading their bombs in open country before proceeding out
to sea again. This was the first Zeppelin raid on England since Oct. 19,
1917. The Germans had sustained such heavy losses in Zeppelins that they
had substituted airplanes. [An account of the fate of the Zeppelins is
included elsewhere in this issue.]