The Christmas Day Raid on Cuxhaven

On 25 December 1914 aircraft of the Royal Naval Service conducted the world’s first bombing raid launched from the sea.  Three cross-Channel steamers were especially converted to carry seaplanes and together, twelve miles north of Heligoland ,they launched seven seaplanes.  Their target was the Zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven.  Unfortunately, the raid was hampered by low cloud and thick fog inland, so the aircraft had to approach the target at very low altitude, exposing them to anti-aircraft fire.  Only three of the aircraft were able to return to their carriers and another three were lost. 

Three of the pilots were rescued by a Royal Navy submarine and my novel, ‘The Custom of the Trade’ fictionalises the event.  As a bombing raid the operation wasn’t a success, but the crews brought home valuable intelligence on the disposition of the German forces.  Moreover, it demonstrated the concept of being able to launch air strikes against enemy targets from the sea.  The Germans responded by bombing one of the carriers, HMS Empress, and this was the first air attack on a British warship.

The machines, weapons and tactics of the early days of the Royal Naval Air Service were very rudimentary at the beginning of WW1, only eleven years after the Wright brothers’ first powered flight.  Matters were to change very quickly!  I describe these early days in my novel, ‘The Wings of the Wind’.