I have been asked to write an article for Stand To on the subject of the first air raids.

I have a lot of information, but I seem to remember that there was a German air raid on a town in France sometime in mid/late August 1914. I know I came across the name some years ago (it was something like Longuyon although not that town). Now, of coruse, I can't find anything in my archives. Does anyone know any thing about this?

Can't say whether this is the first, but The Times of August 16th reports, with a dateline of the 14th, a solitary aircraft dropping three bombs on the sidewalk of a bridge at Namur, Belgium injuring five (three 'very severely') at 6.30 in the evening; the same piece with a dateline of 9am on the 15th reports that the station roof there had just been hit with a ticket collector having received burns to a hand. 'Six or seven bombs have also fallen in other quarters of the town'. The article concludes with comments of 'Intense indignation' by the population at 'this dastardly outrage on a town which is not under siege, especially as for the point chosen for the dropping of the bombs the victims were almost sure to be civilians' but that, despite this, there was no panic and 'the population were all going about their ordinary occupations. So If the Germans had wished to strike terror by what they have done they have utterly failed'

Apparently, the Germans overran Namur nine days later on the 25th.

NigelS

Thanks for that. It's the first mention of it that I have seen.

The first ever air raids took place in 1911 in North Africa and in Mexico. Air raids also took place in the Italo Turkish war and in the 1st Balkan war. If you want more I can post tonight

I have those prior to 1914, thanks. It's the early raid in France that is bugging me.

looking slightly later in The Times

A report from Brussels of the 22nd August (datelined 19th) mentions a German aeroplane overhead but no bombs dropped; later the same piece mentions an eyewitness account of fighting close to Louvenjoul & Louvain which looks rather like the name you might have been thinking of, but again, it doesn't mention 'planes or air raids (although that's not to say there weren't any)

The next mention of an air raid that I've come across - no guarantees that I haven't overlooked some - is on Aug 26: five people killed and several others injured, also a hospital damaged in a Zeppelin attack in the early hours of August 25th on Antwerp (a further report on the 31st reports the contents of a telegram from the German HQ which appeared in the Cologne Gazette, apparently reporting the same raid, which gives that 'the gas works were struck and part of the town was at once plunged into darkness'

I did wonder whether the lights going out might not have been due to the bombing at all, but to the supply being shut off in order to cause a blackout as I would have thought that damage to a gasworks, as it mentions that to the hospital, would have warranted comment in the earlier Times report.

Hope this is useful

NigelS

The first British Air Raid on Germany was a month later on 22 September.