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Before the 20th Century, civilians in Britain were largely unaffected by war, but this was to change on 19 January 1915 with the first air attacks of World War One by the German Zeppelin. Historian and aerial specialist Ben Robinson has traced the attacks for Inside Out East.

The creation of Count von Zeppelin, a retired German army officer, the flying weapon was lighter than air, filled with hydrogen, and held together by a steel framework.

When the war started in 1914, the German armed forces had several Zeppelins, each capable of travelling at about 85mph and carrying up to two tonnes of bombs.

With military deadlock on the Western Front, the Germans decided to use them against towns and cities in Britain.

The first raid took place on the eastern coastal towns of Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn, on 19 January 1915.

'No military advantage'

Residents reported hearing an eerie throbbing sound above them, followed shortly afterwards by the sound of explosions in the streets.

The full horror of aerial warfare was unleashed. When the smoke cleared, Britain's first ever air-raid causalities were revealed - 72-year-old Martha Taylor and shoemaker Samuel Smith.

Kate Argyle, from English Heritage, said: "There was no military advantage. It was all about instilling terror and really that's what these aerial bombardments did.

"The Zeppelins would come out of the dark - you couldn't see them and it was totally random. You didn't know if you were running towards danger or away from it."

The aim of the Zeppelins was clear - the Germans hoped to break morale at home and force the British government into abandoning the war in the trenches.

But there was not the sort of chaos and panic that the Germans had wanted.

"The people reacted very stoically, they got on with the job of clearing up - that British sense of not being fazed by this," Ms Argyle said.

As the people of Great Yarmouth counted their dead and injured, a second Zeppelin was already bombing King's Lynn.

Propaganda value

A further two people were killed, but once again there were no scenes of panic.

Despite this, the propaganda value of the bombings was enormous. Now Britons were not only dying on the battlefields of Flanders but also in their beds at home.

For the next couple of months Zeppelins would hit towns across the east - Southend, Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds were all attacked and six more people were killed.

But the Germans were still no nearer to breaking the British spirit, so they aimed for the capital.

A house in Stoke Newington was the first ever in London to be attacked from the air, hit by an incendiary bomb.

Albert Lovell, who owned the house, dragged his family out before alerting the fire brigade.

Aviation historian Ian Castle said: "There had been no raids before, there's never been anything like this. Suddenly a blazing bomb is coming out of the sky and setting light to a house, it's almost science fiction."

The first death happened in Cooper Road at the house of a man called Samuel Legget who had five children. Three-year-old, Elsie, died on her bed.

In 20 minutes a Zeppelin had dropped 3,000 pounds of bombs, 91 incendiaries that had started 40 fires, gutted buildings and left seven people dead. Not a single shot was fired in retaliation.

From that day forward the Zeppelins were known as the "baby killers".

One person who remembers the attacks vividly is 102-year-old Doris Cobban from Bedfordshire.

She was only five-years-old and living in Lewisham when London came under attack.

"I remember my father coming up to the bedroom and he picked me up and wrapped me in a blanket and he said 'this is history, you must see this'," she said.

The airships were more than twice as long as a modern day Jumbo Jet and thousands of people took to the streets to see them.

"My mother took my elder sister who was two years older than I was by the hand and we went out into the road and he [her father] said 'look up there' and over London I saw this long thing and it looked like a huge cigar to me," Mrs Cobban said.

"We were all out there - as far as I remember it was cheerful, but probably the grown-ups were absolutely petrified."

On 8 September, Germany's most successful Zeppelin commander, Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Mathy was to lead the most destructive attack of the war.

Zeppelin shot down

London was ablaze, buildings were ripped apart and by the time the attack was over 22 people were dead, 87 had received horrific injuries and the Zeppelin had escaped into the night completely unharmed.

Gradually better defences were brought in to defend the skies, but it was another year before the tide began to turn.

At the beginning of September 1916 more than a dozen German airships headed for Britain in their largest raid.

Bombs fell in Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Kent but only one airship made it through to London.

It immediately came under heavy anti-aircraft fire and was shot down by 19-year-old William Leefe Robinson.

While Britain celebrated, the Germans stepped things up with the so-called Super Zeppelins, but Britain had found the Zeppelin's Achilles heel - explosive bullets which could set the hydrogen alight.

This would prove to be the Zeppelin's undoing.

During their brief, but deadly dominance the airships killed more than 500 people and injured more than a thousand in places all down the east of the country.

The last ever attempt to bomb Britain by a Zeppelin was over the Norfolk coast on 5 August 1918.

Three years earlier, when a Zeppelin first appeared in the skies above Great Yarmouth, it was an invincible force, but now they were outclassed and dealt with swiftly.

But the Zeppelin exposed those at home who were now as vulnerable as those on the front line. The government became acutely aware they needed an aerial defence system that operated in depth.

It led to the formation of the RAF in 1918 and to the development of operations rooms such as the one at Duxford that proved so crucial in 1940 during the Battle of Britain and ultimately victory in World War Two.

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World War One: How the German Zeppelin wrought terror

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Before the 20th Century, civilians in Britain were largely unaffected by war, but this was to change on 19 January 1915 with the first air attacks of World War One by the German Zeppelin. Historian and aerial specialist Ben Robinson has traced the attacks for Inside Out East.

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Britain's blockade across the North Sea and the English Channel cut the flow of war supplies, food, and fuel to Germany during World War I. Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies. The formidable U-boats ( unterseeboots) prowled the Atlantic armed with torpedoes. They were Germany's only weapon of advantage as Britain effectively blocked German ports to supplies. The goal was to starve Britain before the British blockade defeated Germany.

On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 torpedoed the Lusitania, a Cunard passenger liner, off the coast of Ireland. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. The Allies and Americans considered the sinking an act of indiscriminate warfare. The Germans asserted the Lusitania was carrying war matériel and was therefore a legitimate target.

Faced with the possibility that the U.S. might go to war over the incident, Germany backed down and ordered its U-boat fleet to spare passenger vessels. The order, however, was temporary.

Germany built new and larger U-boats to punch holes in the British blockade, which was threatening to starve Germany out of the war. In 1914, Germany had just 20 U-boats. By 1917, it had 140 and the U-boats had destroyed about 30 percent of the world's merchant ships.

At the dawn of 1917, the German high command forced a return to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, engineering the dismissal of opponents of the policy that aimed to sink more than 600,000 tons of shipping a month. Germany was already experiencing food shortages and had imposed unpopular compulsory service either in armed forces or war industries. They hoped to break the British stranglehold blockade of crucial German supply ports and knock Britain out of the war within the year.

U-boats resumed unrestricted attacks against all ships in the Atlantic, including civilian passenger carriers. Although concerned the U.S. might react with intervention, German military leaders calculated they could defeat the allies before the U.S. could mobilize and arm troops to land in Europe.

Although President Wilson formally broke diplomatic relations in February 1917 when the unrestricted submarine warfare resumed, he was still unsure how far public support had moved. He declined to ask Congress for a declaration of war at that time, arguing that Germany had still not committed any "actual overt acts" warranting a military response.

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At the dawn of 1917, the German high command forced a return to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, engineering the dismissal of opponents of the policy that aimed to sink more than 600,0

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On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line.

Toxic smoke has been used occasionally in warfare since ancient times, and in 1912 the French used small amounts of tear gas in police operations. At the outbreak of World War I, the Germans began actively to develop chemical weapons. In October 1914, the Germans placed some small tear-gas canisters in shells that were fired at Neuve Chapelle, France, but Allied troops were not exposed. In January 1915, the Germans fired shells loaded with xylyl bromide, a more lethal gas, at Russian troops at Bolimov on the eastern front. Because of the wintry cold, most of the gas froze, but the Russians nonetheless reported more than 1,000 killed as a result of the new weapon.
WATCH: World War I: The First Modern War on HISTORY Vault
On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Known as the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the enemy's line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across no-man's land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front with the wind-blown poison gas and decimated two divisions of French and Algerian colonial troops. The Allied line was breached, but the Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies held most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back, and by May they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however, would have great significance in World War I.

Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, France and Britain began developing their own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches of World War I. Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the enemy's ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that essentially negated the strategic importance of chemical weapons.
READ MORE: Tech Developments of World War I
The United States, which entered World War I in 1917, also developed and used chemical weapons. Future president Harry S. Truman was the captain of a U.S. field artillery unit that fired poison gas against the Germans in 1918. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical weapons agents were used in World War I, some 500,000 troops were injured, and almost 30,000 died, including 2,000 Americans.

In the years following World War I, Britain, France, and Spain used chemical weapons in various colonial struggles, despite mounting international criticism of chemical warfare. In 1925, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in war but did not outlaw their development or stockpiling. Most major powers built up substantial chemical weapons reserves. In the 1930s, Italy employed chemical weapons against Ethiopia, and Japan used them against China.

In World War II, chemical warfare did not occur, primarily because all the major belligerents possessed both chemical weapons and the defenses-such as gas masks, protective clothing, and detectors-that rendered them ineffectual. In addition, in a war characterized by lightning-fast military movement, strategists opposed the use of anything that would delay operations. Germany, however, did use poison gas to murder millions in its extermination camps.

Since World War II, chemical weapons have only been used in a handful of conflicts-the Yemeni conflict of 1966-67, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88-and always against forces that lacked gas masks or other simple defenses. In 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to cut their chemical weapons arsenals by 80 percent in an effort to discourage smaller nations from stockpiling the weapons. In 1993, an international treaty was signed banning the production, stockpiling (after 2007), and use of chemical weapons. It took effect in 1997.

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On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

flame thrower, military assault weapon that projects a stream of blazing oil or thickened gasoline against enemy positions. As used in World War II and later wars it consisted basically of one or more fuel tanks, a cylinder of compressed gas to supply the propelling force, a flexible hose connected to the tanks, and a trigger-nozzle equipped with some means of igniting the fuel as it was spewed forth. The portable type, carried on the backs of ground troops, had a range of about 45 yards (41 metres) and enough fuel for about 10 seconds of continuous "firing." Larger and heavier units installed in tank turrets could reach out more than 100 yards (90 metres) and carried enough fuel for about 60 seconds of fire. To achieve maximum results, several short bursts were usually fired rather than one long blast.

Modern flame throwers first appeared in the early 1900s when the German army tested two models, one large and one small, submitted by Richard Fiedler. The smaller Flammenwerfer, light enough to be carried by one man, used gas pressure to send forth a stream of flaming oil for a distance of about 20 yards (18 metres). The larger model, based on the same principle, was cumbersome to transport but had a range of more than 40 yards (36 metres) and enough fuel for 40 seconds of continuous firing. The German army adopted these weapons and used them with surprise effect against Allied troops in 1915. The British and French soon countered with flame throwers of their own, but all the World War I types had limited range and duration of fire. Their chief effect seems to have been to terrorize the troops that they were used against.

All major powers employed flame throwers in later years, both the back-pack type and the tank-mounted variety. Based on the same principle as Fiedler's early models, they incorporated technical refinements that made them more effective. British and U.S. flame throwers were fuelled with napalm, a type of thickened gasoline that carried much farther than ordinary gasoline, burned with intense heat, and clung like jelly to whatever it touched. These fearsome weapons were valuable for attacking enemy troops, burning away camouflage material, and probing underbrush or the gunports of enemy positions. They were especially effective in World War II against the defensive-type warfare of the Japanese who defended their caves and coconut-log bunkers on Pacific islands. During the 1950s the U.S. army chemical corps developed a lightweight, one-shot portable flame thrower that could be used against fortified positions at close range.

Amy Tikkanen.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

napalm, the aluminum salt or soap of a mixture of naphthenic and aliphatic carboxylic acids (organic acids of which the molecular structures contain rings and chains, respectively, of carbon atoms), used to thicken gasoline for use as an incendiary in flamethrowers and fire bombs. The thickened mixture, now also called...

weapon, an instrument used in combat for the purpose of killing, injuring, or defeating an enemy. A weapon may be a shock weapon, held in the hands, such as the club, mace, or sword. It may also be a missile weapon, operated by muscle power (as with the javelin, sling, and bow and arrow),...

military technology, range of weapons, equipment, structures, and vehicles used specifically for the purpose of warfare. It includes the knowledge required to construct such technology, to employ it in combat, and to repair and replenish it. The technology of war may be divided into five...

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flame thrower, military assault weapon that projects a stream of blazing oil or thickened gasoline against enemy positions. As used in World War II and later wars it consisted basically of one or more fuel tanks, a cylinder of compressed gas to supply the propelling force, a flexible hose

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The land war in Europe became a destructive machine, consuming supplies, equipment, and soldiers at massive rates. Resupply ships from the home front and allies streamed across the Atlantic, braving submarine attacks, underwater mines, and aerial bombardment. Battleships clashed with each other from the Indian Ocean to the North Sea, competing for control of colonial territory and home ports. New technologies were invented and refined, such as submarine warfare, camouflaged hulls, and massive water-borne aircraft carriers. And countless thousands of sailors, soldiers, passengers, and crew members were sent to the bottom of the sea. I've gathered photographs of the Great War from dozens of collections, some digitized for the first time, to try to tell the story of the conflict, those caught up in it, and how much it affected the world. This entry is part 7 of a 10-part series on World War I.

View this page Hints: full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

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Moving troops and supplies by sea was vital to all armies involved in the war. The battle for control of the seas led to an arms race, new deadly tactics, and unprecedented loss of life at sea.

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Machine Gun / 1.0 / encyclopedic - 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia

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Between 1914 and 1918, the machine gun played an ever-increasing role on the battlefield. Today, even though artillery was responsible for the majority of deaths, the machine gun is the weapon most commonly associated with the First World War in the popular imagination. This overestimates its importance, but also fails to comprehend real advances made in the field of automatic weapons during the First World War.

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In World War I, hand grenades were also known as "hand bombs." The general philosophy for their use in the fighting armies was that grenades could kill the enemy underground or behind cover. They could also force the enemy into the open, providing targets for rifle and machine gun fire.

Offensive grenades used concussion, or shock-waves, to wound, while defensive grenades exploded, scattering shell fragments. Gas, smoke and illuminating grenades were also used in World War I. These grenades were made of brass, iron and steel, some with handles of wood and even cardboard. They went by many names: Battye bombs, Citron Foug, Newton-Pippin, Petard, Besozzi, Kugel, Cigaro and Sigwart; and took on many shapes.

The term "grenade" comes from the Latin, granatus, literally "filled with grain." The "grain" in grenades was explosive mixtures and compounds contained in metal canisters and set off by spark, fuse, mechanical or percussion ignition. Some sources relate that the term is derived from the Spanish word granada or pomegranate, for the resemblance between the fruit and the weapon. When grenades first came into use in warfare is unknown. But legend has it that the first grenade was a small box of live vipers (snakes) which ancient warriors threw into the enemy's camp.

The first recorded use of the word "grenade" came in 1536, from the siege of Arles in southern France by French forces under King Francis I. The early grenades were made of glass globes, jars, kegs and firepots. A 1665 reference related that grenades were carried in a pocket called a grena-diere.

Excerpt from the Signal Corps motion picture 'Training in Flanders and Ypres-Lys Operation, May 24 to September 3, 1918, 30th Division' Co. I, 120th Inf., 30th Div., 2nd Lt. M.W. Veach and 2nd Lt. J.R. Boston commanding, at hand grenade practice with Mills bombs. Lt. M.W. Veach showing the actions performed in throwing the bomb.

By 1667, the French army had regular companies of grenadiers. Grenades did not play a large part in warfare, although the French used some 3,200 of them at Sebastopol in 1854-55, and got some Russian ones in return. Some were used in the American Civil War, but they came into prominence in the Russo-Japanese war, just a decade prior to WWI. The Russians established three factories in Port Arthur, China to turn out a thousand grenades a day.

On that fateful day of June 28, 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated, several of the Black Hand conspirators carried and used Kragujevac hand bombs, named for the Serbian army depot. Their explosions caused a verbal explosion from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Mayor of Sarajevo after early attempts on his life "What is the use of your speeches? I come here to pay you a visit, and I am greeted with bombs. It is outrageous!"

At the start of the war the Germans only trained special infantry troops, or "pioneers," to use hand grenades. Soon two types of grenades became standard for the Germans: stick (with the explosive can attached to a wooden handle) and egg (because it resembled an egg). German stick grenades were also called "potato mashers" again for their shape.

Early in the war, the French were not prepared for the use and production of grenades. One report in January 1915 stated that while the soldiers were completely lacking in factory-produced grenades that they were not lacking in ingenuity in fabricating remarkable projectiles made from canned beef, sardines, tuna and foie gras cans. After eating the delectables they took the cans, loaded them with stones collected from the trenches, shrapnel balls and explosive materials of all sorts, and inserted wick fuses that lasted less than 6 seconds.

The early British front-made grenades were similar to the French, although few were as exotic as foie gras cans. They were mostly jam pots. British development of rifle grenades early in the war was fragmentary. The rod was inserted down the barrel of the service rifle and launched with a special blank cartridge. Rifle grenades were designed to land head-first, but often failed to do so. They carried high explosives, smoke, signals and messages. Late in the war, anti-tank rifle grenades were developed.

British brigade orders issued for the Somme attack on July 1, 1916, stated that the grenade or bombing squads: each non-com would carry 6 mills bombs, 4 rifle grenades and 2 smoke; the 2 bayonet men would carry 12 mills bombs and 4 smoke; the 2 throwers carried 24 mills and 4 smoke; the 2 carriers (reserve throwers) carried 24 mills and 4 smoke and the 2 rifle grenadiers carried 8 mills and 20 rifle grenades for a total of 74 mills bombs, 24 rifle grenades and 14 smoke grenades.

The Russians utilized a small variety of grenade types. There is a Russian Model 1914 hand grenade, dated 1914. Made of sheet metal attached to a wooden handle, the square head resembles a lantern, thus its nickname. The Russian Model 1914 was also called a "bottle" grenade for its shape.

The U.S. Army War College in early 1917 described the development of grenades in the war: "Grenades used in the early part of this war were improvised on the field of battle, but the success obtained by their use led to the invention of many new standard types and their subsequent adoption by all modern armies."

Many grenades types were used by American troops. The main ones utilized were the American Mark I, French VB rifle grenade with discharger, French Model 1916 Smoke and suffocating grenade, British Type No. 27 combination hand and rifle grenade (white phosphorus), French Model 1916 Lachrymatory and Irritating Grenade and French Model 1916 incendiary grenade.

Whether factory-produced or made in the field from sticks of dynamite and shrapnel balls, hand and mechanically launched grenades had established their place in modern technological warfare. A long way from a box of vipers.

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In World War I, hand grenades were also known as "hand bombs." The general philosophy for their use in the fighting armies was that grenades could kill the enemy underground or behind cover. They could also force the enemy into the open, providing targets for rifle and machine gun fire.

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World War I was a war of artillery - The Big Guns. Rolling barrages destroyed the earth of France and Belgium and the lives of many. Millions of shells were fired in single battles, with one million shells alone fired by the Germans at the French Army in the first day at the 1916 battle of Verdun, France.

Different types of weapons made up the artillery of WWI. Guns had a long barrel and shot almost directly at their target. Howitzers had a shorter barrel and a fired their projectiles in a curved trajectory. Mortars had a short barrel, a higher curved trajectory and were mainly placed in trenches.

60% of the battlefield casualties in WWI were caused by artillery shells exploding. Shrapnel wounds were particularly brutal for soldiers. The word 'shrapnel' comes from the small lead balls placed in an artillery shell that would spread out over the battlefield when exploded. It was named for English officer Henry Shrapnel, who invented the design in the late 18th century.

Artillery was more destructive than ever before. The largest bore of an artillery piece in WWI ('bore' meaning the diameter of the barrel or tube) was on the French 520mm. (French artillery was always pointed toward Germany - even in practice.) The Big Bertha was a German 420mm howitzer, named for a family member of the Krupp Arms manufacturer. A shell hole left by a 15 cm 'Jack Johnson' (a German howitzer named after the famous boxer Jack Johnson because of its 'punch') had a diameter of 28 feet across and roughly 6 feet deep in the center.

Soldiers under fire could identify artillery by specific noises they made: One combatant noted that the French 75mm gun had a "sharp decisive note ... which speaks quickly and in anger." Soldiers also spoke of the "peculiar crack, crack they make." The German 105mm howitzer was called a whizzbang. British soldiers said, "If you happened to be near the receiving end, you first heard the thing burst, then the whizz of its approach and lastly the boom of the gun that fired it."

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World War I was a war of artillery - The Big Guns. Rolling barrages destroyed the earth of France and Belgium and the lives of many.

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History >>World War I

Aviation and Aircraft of WWI

World War I was the first major war where airplanes were used as a significant part of the military. The airplane was invented by the Wright Brothers in 1903, just 11 years before the start of World War I. When the war first began, aircraft played a small role in warfare, but, by the end of the war, the air force had become an important branch of the armed forces.

German Albatros by a German official photographer
German fighter planes lined up for takeoff

Reconnaissance

The first use of airplanes in World War I was for reconnaissance. The airplanes would fly above the battlefield and determine the enemy's movements and position. One of the first major contributions of airplanes in the war was at the First Battle of the Marne where Allied reconnaissance planes spotted a gap in the German lines. The Allies attacked this gap and were able to split the German armies and drive them back.

Bombings

As the war progressed, both sides began to use aircraft to drop bombs on strategic enemy locations. The first planes used for bombings could only carry small bombs and were very vulnerable to attack from the ground. By the end of the war, faster long-range bombers were built that could carry a much larger weight of bombs.

Machine Guns and Dogfights

With more planes taking to the skies, enemy pilots began to fight each other in the air. At first, they tried throwing grenades at each other or shooting with rifles and pistols. This didn't work very well.

Pilots soon found that the best way to shoot down an enemy plane was with a mounted machine gun. However, if the machine gun was mounted at the front of the plane, the propeller would get in the way of the bullets. An invention called an "interrupter" was invented by the Germans that allowed the machine gun to be synchronized with the propeller. Soon all fighter planes used this invention.

With mounted machine guns, pilots often fought enemy pilots in the air. These fights in the air were called dogfights. The best of the pilots became famous and were nicknamed "aces."

The British Sopwith Camel fighter plane

Types of WWI Aircraft

Each side used a number of different airplanes throughout the war. Constant improvements were made in the design of the planes as the war progressed.

Bristol Type 22 - British two-seater fighter plane.

Fokker Eindecker - Single-seat German fighter plane. The Fokker was perhaps the most famous fighter plane during WWI as it introduced the synchronized machine gun and provided Germany with air superiority for a period of time during the war.

Siemens-Schuckert - Single-seat German fighter plane.

Sopwith Camel - Single-seat British fighter plane.

Handley Page 0/400 - Long range British bomber.

Gotha G V - Long range German bomber.

WWI Airplane Markings

When the war first started, the planes were just regular planes without any military markings. Unfortunately, ground troops would try to shoot down any plane they saw and sometimes shot down their own plane. Eventually, countries began to mark their planes under the wing so that they could be identified from the ground. Here are some of the markings used during the war.

Airships

Floating airships were also used during World War I for both reconnaissance and bombings. Germany, France, and Italy all used airships. The Germans made the most use of airships, using them extensively in bombing campaigns over Britain. Airships were often used in naval battles as well.

Famous WWI Fighter Pilots

The best fighter pilots in World War I were called "aces." Every time a fighter pilot shot down another plane, he claimed a "victory." Aces kept track of their victories and became heroes in their respective countries. Here are a few of the most decorated and famous fighter pilots.

Manfred von Richthofen: German, 80 victories. Also known as the Red Baron.

Ernst Udet: German, 62 victories. Famous for using a parachute to survive getting shot down.

Werner Voss: German, 48 victories.

Edward Mannock: British, 73 victories. The most victories of any British ace.

William A. Bishop: Canadian, 72 victories.

Rene Fonck: French, 75 victories. The most victories of any Allied ace.

Georges Guynemer: French, 53 victories.

Eddie Rickenbacker: American, 26 victories. The most victories of any American ace.

Interesting Facts about the Aviation and Aircraft of WWI

The Fokker Eindecker airplane became known as the Fokker Scourge when it was first used against the Allies by the Germans.

The Germans called their airships Zeppelin's after their builder Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

The first aircraft carriers were constructed during World War I. The first time a carrier-based airplane attacked a land target was in July of 1918 near the end of the war.

The planes used in WWI were much slower than the planes used today. Top speeds were usually just over 100 miles per hour. The Handley Page bomber topped out at about 97 miles per hour.

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History >>World War I

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Learn about aviation and aircraft of World War I. Airplanes were first used in WW1 for reconnaissance and bombings. Famous fighter pilots called aces fought each other in the sky.