The Command of the Air

CHAPTER IX. Operations of June 17

CHAPTER IX Operations of June 17 ABOUT 1 A.M. of the seventeenth, the cities of Kaln, Mainz, Koblenz , and Frankfurt were bombed by the 4 night-bombing brigades of the French Independent Air Force. During the sixteenth , these brigades had completed their mobilization and come up to their regular war strength (12 squadrons, 72 planes in each brigade), so that each one carried out the bombing of one of the four cities, releasing about one hundred tons of explosive, incendiary , and poison bombs. The damages were very serious. Great fires were caused everywhere, and, as the spreading of poison gas prevented the bringing of help, the four cities were almost completely destroyed. About 6 o'clock the German Command issued the following communique: During the night, between 1 and 2 o'clock, the Allies bombed Koln, Koblenz, Mainz, and Frankfurt. Consequently, today, between 4 P.M. and 5 P.M., the German Independent Air Force will completely destroy the cities of Namur, 'Soissons, Chalons, and Troyes, and their inhabitants are hereby warned to evacuate them. In case another German city should be bombed to any degree by the Allies, the Independent Air Force will be ordered to destroy Brussels and Paris completely. In the meantime, at 7 o'clock, the first wave of the German Independent Air Force had crossed the frontier. There were 250 great battleplanes (exactly 288, of which 72 were of 2,000-horsepower and 216 of 3,000), and it was against them that the few surviving pursuit units, reorganized during the night by the Allies, hurled themselves. A few German planes were brought down by this attack, but the task assigned to the columns was performed. 390 The War of I9- 391 In fact, by 8 o'clock, over more than 150 centers, where road and rail communications passed through, an average of 20 tons of bombs each had·been released. Since 6 o'clock in the morning the explorer squadrons of the Independent Air Force had been flying over the cities of Namur, Soissons, Chalons, and Troyes, dropping leaflets of the threatening German communique. Several thousands more of these leaflets had been scattered over Paris, Brussels, and several other Allied cities. News reports which began to arrive at 6 o'clock in the morning to the Allied governments appeared at once as most ominous. They helped to convince them of the physical impossibility of preventing and counteracting the enemy's aerial action, which was evidently developing according to a predetermined plan which soon became clear. There was no doubt that the enemy's purpose was to make the mobilization and concentration of the Allied armies as difficult as possible. The interruptions of road and railroad communications , in fact, were already numerous and widespread, and at many points they were stopping or severely hindering railroad traffic. From everywhere civil and military authorities had begun to ask anxiously for means of aerial defense. More than 100 important centers crossed by railroad lines or great arterial roads were in flames and smothered in clouds of poison gas, which in some cases were carried by the wind, spreading death and terror all around the countryside. Many detachments of troops had been compelled to stop, finding themselves unable to advance and bring help to the stricken cities. Impressed by the terrible effects of the bombings and by the sight of the enemy planes flying freely and unopposed in their own sky, though they cursed the barbarous methods of their enemy, they could not help feeling bitter against their own aeronautical authorities, who had not taken enough protective measures against such an eventuality. Under such conditions the Allied authorities had to take seriously the threat contained in the German communique, and the 392 The Command of The Air question gave rise to a sharp divergence of views between the political and military authorities. The latter viewed the evacuation of the threatened cities as a public admission of aerial helplessness on their part, and were absolutely opposed to it. But, when asked whether they were in a position to guarantee an adequate defense of those same cities, they were compelled to admit that they were not. Who, then, was going to shoulder the responsibility of not ordering the evacuation of cities which could not be defended? The reality, the terrible reality, of their aerial impotence had to be faced and acknowledged . It was only the second day of the war; during the first day already great masses of enemy battleplanes...