Gotha Terror: The Forgotten Blitz 1917-1918 by Ian Castle

Gotha Terror by Ian Castle cover (author's photo)

As regular readers will be aware, Ian Castle has been writing about Germany's air raids on Britain during the First World War for some seventeen years now and he must surely be regarded as one of the foremost authorities on the subject, which has invariably been somewhat overshadowed by the better-known and more destructive Blitz of the  Second World War. Nevertheless, this was certainly the first sustained strategic bombing campaign in history and the author has taken great strides in documenting this campaign over the years.

Ian's most recent project has been to meticulously research every raid and incursion during this conflict and his latest book, entitled Gotha Terror forms the final part of his Forgotten Blitz trilogy and covers the final two years of the war from 1917-1918.

This period saw the transition from the Zeppelin being the primary means of attack, to the conventional aeroplane, mainly in the form of the Grosskampfflugzeug, perhaps better known as the Gotha but also the Riesenflugzeug, the aptly named Giant and it was the raids by these latter two types of aeroplanes in squadron strength, initially by day but latterly by night, that was to bring renewed terror to the civilian population of the United Kingdom.

Apart from the Gotha and Giant raids, the Zeppelins continued their campaign against Great Britain when circumstances permitted, still under the command of the redoubtable Fregattankapitan Peter Strasser, the splendidly titled Fuhrer der Luftschiffe, who continued to believe in these weapons and who commanded a fierce loyalty from those who served under him.

On the Allied side, the year 1916 had closed with the British under the illusion that following what seemed to be the defeat of the Zeppelins, the threat of future air attacks from Germany had evaporated and as a consequence of this complacency, the country's air defences were downgraded accordingly but following a report commissioned by the War Cabinet, written by Jan Christian Smuts, the air defence system was thoroughly overhauled and reconstituted to meet the renewed threat.

As in his previous volumes, the author records each raid in meticulous detail, using a mixture of official sources as well as many contemporary eyewitness personal accounts, the majority of which have never been previously published. The book also tells the story of the re-establishment of Britain's air defence system in the shape of the London Air Defence Area, or LADA, under Major General Edward Ashmore and follows the evolving system in the face of experience gained during the campaign.

This volume completes what is an invaluable triptych of reference works, each meticulously researched and written in an extremely readable style. 

This volume will appeal to both the serious military historian as well as anyone interested in the history of air warfare and I have no hesitation in recommending it to you.

Published by Frontline Books/Pen & Sword

RRP £29.99

hardback, pp392

 

Book Review - "Unbroken Glory" The Great War Story of Anson Battalion, The Royal Naval Division by Dr Robert Wynn Jones

 

This is Dr Jones’ second foray into the world of military history and as with his first book, “Soldiers and Sportsmen All”, the subject matter has a definite family connection for the author, as his paternal grandfather, Able Seaman Francis Wynn Jones served in both the Nelson and Anson Battalions of the Royal Naval Division, spending the final eight months of the war in captivity, having been captured on 23 March 1918, during the German Spring Offensive.

The author begins by explaining the raison d’etre of the Royal Naval Division and telling us something of his paternal grandfather, who in normal life was a Post Office clerk in London, although he hailed from Llandrillo in North Wales.

The book charts the formation of the Royal Naval Division, which immediately became known to some as “Churchill’s Private Army” or perhaps worse as the “Tuppeny untrained rabble” and explains the makeup of the various battalions, all named after Royal Navy heroes of the past and how, perhaps confusingly to those on the outside, the men all retained their naval ranks, ensuring that Able Seaman, Leading Stokers and Chief Petty Officers could be found far away from their usual maritime locations!

We hear about the training process for war, something that is vividly illustrated by letters written by Rupert Brooke, himself a member of Anson and later Hood Battalions and includes a hilarious description of the latter Battalion’s Christmas celebrations in 1914 at Blandford Camp.

A wider description of the war on the Western Front follows, with interesting comparisons of the arms, equipment and organisation of the combatant nations involved, as well as a good description of how life on the Western Front would have been for the typical British soldier in the dugouts and trenches along the front line – “either frightened to death or bored to tears” – as one contemporary account succinctly put it.

The bulk of the remainder of the book is taken up with descriptions of the various actions that the Division were involved with starting with the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend Antwerp, followed by the Gallipoli and Salonika Campaigns, before we return to the various campaigns on the Western Front that occupied the Division for the remainder of the war, culminating in the German Spring Offensive of 1918 and the Allied “Hundred Days” Offensive that resulted in the ultimate German collapse. The author vividly describes not only the Anson Battalion’s involvement but also the battles in the wider context of the war and has drawn not only from War Diaries but also from contemporary publications and letters from those involved.

The author has visited many of the battlefields himself and as any of us who have trodden the ground can testify, has found it often to be a profoundly moving experience.

The book concludes with an extensive and comprehensive series of maps, photographs and biographical sketches of men from the Anson Battalion, as well as a chapter covering the life of the author’s paternal grandfather (or “Taid) Francis Wynn Jones. Without wishing to give away too many “spoilers”, we last heard of Wynn, as he was universally known, ending the war in captivity but before this was confirmed, he had in fact been posted as “missing” on the Flesquieres-Havrincourt Salient on 23 March 1918 and it was not until over a month later on 25 April, that word was received that he was still alive and was being held in captivity.

The author’s description of his grandfather as an elderly man, whom he regularly met during his childhood in the late 1960s, is heart-warming and ends this book on a suitably optimistic note.

As with this author's previous military history volume, this is a well-research and fascinating read which I have no hesitation in recommending to you.

 

Available from www.amazon.co.uk 

RRP £9.99

softback, pp 314

Book Review: Zeppelin Inferno: The Forgotten Blitz by Ian Castle

This is the second book in a planned trilogy by author Ian Castle and is a detailed study of the German air offensive against Great Britain during 1916.

As with the previous volume which covered the years 1914-1915, the author deals with each individual raid in some detail, whether it was carried out by conventional aircraft, or as was more often the case, by airships either the lesser-known wooden-framed Schütte-Lanz type, or those constructed by the Zeppelin Company, which give the book it’s title. The descriptions of these raids are enlivened by eyewitness personal accounts by those on the ground and in the air, as well as reports from contemporary newspapers.

As well as describing each raid, the author also deals with the countermeasures introduced by the British such as the improvement of the anti-aircraft defences on the ground and the work done to bolster the squadrons devoted to home defence. We also learn about the work done to develop and introduce into service incendiary ammunition for the fighter aircraft that was capable of bringing down the hydrogen-filled airships.

We also read about the personalities on the German side, vilified by the British press as “Baby Killers”, such as Joachim Breihaupt, Heinrich Mathy and Peter Strasser, the commander of the Imperial German Navy’s Airship Division. We also learn about the development and introduction into service of the “R” Class Zeppelins, known to the British as the “Super Zeppelins”, impressive machines that were 198 metres long, with a diameter of 24 metres, capable of carrying a bomb load of up to four tons.

Although the British had brought down their first Zeppelin on 31 March 1916, it had crashed into the sea off the Kent coast. The British public had to wait until 3 September before an airship was shot down over British soil, when the SL-11 was brought down by the guns of a B.E.2c aircraft piloted by Lieut. William Leefe Robinson, who was awarded a VC for his work. The fact that this was a Schütte-Lanz airship rather than a Zeppelin was kept from the public as this stage of the war, as it was felt that this might detract from the achievement!

This was a portent for the future and during the remainder of 1916, the German side lost a further five Zeppelins and although the British weren’t to know it at this stage, 1916 marked the peak of the Zeppelin offensive against the United Kingdom; the majority of future air attacks against this country would be made by conventional aircraft.

The book is well illustrated and also contains many useful maps charting the location of German airship bases in 1916, Air Raid Warning Districts, the penetration of the various Zeppelin raids during the year, location of RFC Home Defence squadrons, and tracks of the final flights of many of the destroyed airships. There are also several useful appendices, which explain the airship numbering systems used by both the German Navy and Army, lists of airship and conventional aircraft raids in 1916, which give the numbers of casualties and the values of material damage caused. The final appendix follows the pattern introduced by the author in the first book, by providing a list of the names of those killed in Britain by enemy air attacks during the year in question. Unlike the later Blitz, there is no central register as such and Mr Castle has done a considerable amount of detective work to identify all but six of the 300 British deaths on the ground in 1916.

As one would expect from this author, this is a superbly-researched and well-written work that will interest anyone who wishes to discover more about this sometimes overlooked aspect of the air war in 1914-1918 and I have no hesitation in recommending it to you.

Published by Frontline Books

RRP £25.00

hardback, pp 382

Football & War and The Football of Loos at Champion Hill

Poster signed by all of the participants (author's collection)

Regular readers of this blog will know that in June of 2018, I had the honour to be invited to speak at The University of Wolverhampton as part of their Football and War Project. This fascinating initiative, convened by Dr. Alex Alexandrou, researches, studies and disseminates subjects such as the role of football during the two world wars, footballers who have been involved in armed conflict, the relationship between the armed forces and football clubs and the social impact of the game upon the public during times of war.

In the aftermath of that talk, Alex floated the idea of opening up the seminar talks to a wider audience outside the Wolverhampton campus and suggested that we might like to host such an event at Dulwich Hamlet FC. As the club was still in enforced exile at this point, staging the event in our own clubhouse was out of the question, although it was thought that perhaps the event could be held in a local pub to act as a fundraiser. This all changed when the momentous news was received towards the end of last year that the club would be returning home to Champion Hill; the whole complexion of the event had changed - we could now pay tribute to our own players and those of other clubs in the comfort of our newly revamped clubhouse and hopefully attract a much larger audience into the bargain.

The idea of taking the seminar talks on the road was to open them up to a wider football audience, as we know that supporters of all clubs have a genuine interest and affection for the history and heritage of not only their own clubs but also of the game in general and care deeply for it. It was with this in mind that we set out to make it an evening that would appeal not just to the many Dulwich Hamlet fans with an interest in history but to fans of all clubs and so Alex devised a programme of events that would hopefully achieve this ambition.

Our speakers from left to right - Steve Hunnisett, Roger Deason, Jack McInroy, Alex Alexandrou, Tony Robinson (with the Football of Loos) and Tim Godden (photo courtesy Mishi Morath)

In the event, we provided three speakers from within the Dulwich Hamlet community - Jack McInroy, aka The Hamlet Historian, spoke eloquently about Hussein Hegazi, the first Egyptian footballer to play in England, a hundred years or so before Mo Salah became big news in this country. Jack has just completed writing a fantastically informative book on Hussein Hegazi, which was released on the night of our seminar.  Jack recalled that when he began his research into the player, he had made a phone call to the Egyptian Embassy in London to obtain contact details of the Egyptian Football Association in order to further his research. When Jack answered the question as to which player he was investigating, he was astonished to be told that "Hussein Hegazi is the greatest footballer this country has ever produced - he was the father of the game in our country." Such is the esteem that he is still held.

Hussein Hegazi: Dulwich Hamlet's Egyptian King by Jack McInroy

Roger Deason told us of the club's history during the turbulent years of The Great War between 1914 and 1919 and spoke of the casualties from amongst the playing staff, numbering twenty two fatalities and numerous others who suffered life changing injuries, both physical and mental. Roger also explained how the club took an early decision to actively involve themselves in the recruiting process and so encourage all players, officials and supporters to join up in order to help the war effort and declaring that it was everyone's patriotic duty to do so.

Quite appropriately in view of the major involvement of our playing staff who served as Royal Air Force aircrew in the 1939-1945 conflict, I acted as "Tail End Charlie" and brought the evening to a close by discussing the club's history during the Second World War and of the four players - all aircrew - who feature on the Roll of Honour. We also looked at how we had two club officials who served as Air Raid Wardens, one player in the Fire Service and at least one who had served as a Bevin Boy. We also looked at the impact of the war on the immediate locality and how the Borough of Camberwell was the fifth most bombed borough in London. We closed by revealing how two further players appeared to have been accidentally omitted from the Roll of Honour and our hopes of adding these two men at some point in the future. One of those omitted players, Alan Adams was covered in the November 2018 edition of this blog.

Alan Adams - one of our 'missing men' (Luuk Buist)

Interspersed between the in-house speakers, we were honoured to have two guest speakers with us. Firstly, Tim Godden, the well-known artist and illustrator, who went above and beyond the call of duty by driving up to Southeast London from Devon and back home again on the night.  Tim gave a fascinating talk on "Footballers of The Great War - The Stories Behind The Drawings" in which he provided insights not only about the subject matter of the drawings and the reason for choosing them but also something as to the technical aspects of how the drawings are produced. Tim had recently produced wonderfully evocative drawings of Edgar Kail and Hussein Hegazi, as well as Adolf Jager of our good friends at Altona 93 in Hamburg and showed us these portraits along with many others that he has produced. Tim is most generously ensuring that ten percent of the proceeds of all sales of his Dulwich Hamlet portraits goes to our Twelfth Man Scheme, thus helping the club financially.

Our other guest speaker had something of a shorter journey to reach us, as Tony Robinson of the London Irish Rifles Association had come from the Regimental Museum at Camberwell and had brought with him an artefact that perhaps most easily demonstrates the connection between football and war. This was the actual "Football of Loos", secreted about his person by Rifleman Frank Edwards of the 1st Battalion, London Irish Rifles and dribbled by him towards the German front line on 25 September 1915. Edwards himself was injured early in the advance but the task was taken up by several of his colleagues as they advanced but sadly, the ball became impaled on barbed wire and so was never actually kicked into the German trenches.

Tony explained that the London Irish succeeded in achieving their objective of holding the village of Loos and when they were relieved after a few days and were proceeding back down the line, one of the soldiers of the regiment retrieved the ball from the barbed wire, thus ensuring its survival.

Lady Butler's famous but inaccurate portrayal of The Footballer of Loos (author's collection)

Tony also explained that following the Christmas Truce of 1914, when a few impromptu games of football were played between British and German soldiers, senior officers had taken a dim view of this activity and promptly banned any such contact in the future, regarding it as something approaching mutiny. As a result, in the immediate run-up to the Battle of Loos, officers of the London Irish had gotten wind of what the men had planned and had succeeded in locating three other footballs, all of which were deliberately punctured by bayonet. Frank Edwards managed to keep his deflated ball a secret and had hidden it beneath his his tunic. As the battalion was preparing to advance, he managed to inflate the ball and once the order was given to "go over the top" history was made as the ball was revealed and the epic dribble toward the German line began, immortalised by Lady Butler's famous but inaccurate painting of the event. Inaccurate, because as Tony explained, the Battle of Loos saw the first use of poison gas during the Great War, used not by "The Nasty Germans" but actually by the British and as a result, Frank Edwards and his colleagues were all wearing gas hoods, as correctly depicted in Tim Godden's drawing, which appeared for the first time on the night of our event, in which Tim was able to photograph the image as a backdrop to the actual football itself.

Tim Godden's Tweet showing his new (and accurate) portrait of a gas-hooded Frank Edwards forming a backdrop to the actual Football of Loos

Tony went on to explain the regiment's role during the Second World War in which they played a prominent part during the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, becoming part of the "D-Day Dodgers" - the response to a supposed comment by Viscountess Astor that somehow the men fighting in this theatre were having a relatively easy time of things compared to those fighting in Normandy, despite the steady stream of casualties incurred at places like Salerno and Monte Casino. Tony closed by telling us of how the regiment still exists as part of the Army Reserve and is now of Company strength, based at Camberwell and informed us that "You don't have to be Irish to join but you'll become Irish by adoption!"

The talks were of a universally high calibre, well researched and presented, which all seemed to be well received by an excellent attendance of over sixty supporters from not only Dulwich Hamlet but also from other clubs as widespread as Exeter City, Charlton Athletic, Epsom & Ewell, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Ipswich Town and Sutton United. I understand from Alex that future seminars are planned in the summer and autumn for Exeter City and Charlton Athletic but such was the successful nature of the evening, both with content and attendance, that the event will be returning to Champion Hill sometime in 2020. We look forward to doing so and will be actively thinking of new subjects to cover!

Thanks are due to Alex Alexandrou of the Football and War Project for choosing Dulwich Hamlet FC to host the first of these 'on the road' events, to all of our speakers, Roger Deason, Jack McInroy, Tim Godden and Tony Robinson for giving of their time so freely and to Tom Cullen, Managing Director of Dulwich Hamlet FC and to Davey Wade-Brown, Bar Manager of Dulwich Hamlet FC and his staff for making the clubhouse available to us and for ensuring the evening ran smoothly and of course, many thanks to all who came along and supported the event on the evening.


Web Links:


Football and War Network

The Hamlet Historian

Tim Godden Illustrations 

London Irish Rifles Association

Book Review: Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914-15

Ian Castle is perhaps our foremost historian and author on the air raids mounted against the United Kingdom by Germany during the Great War. Last month, I was lucky enough to attend a fascinating talk by Ian organised by the Friends of Lincoln's Inn during which he spoke about the raids that affected that particular area of London. I already have several of Ian's books and after the talk, took the opportunity to purchase a copy of his latest offering, Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914-15 which is intended to be the first in a series detailing the German air war against the British "Home Front" during the Great War.

In this meticulously researched book, Ian tells the story of not only the raids themselves but of the planning and rationale behind them, of the British attempts at countering the raids and of the personalities involved on both sides. Each raid is also mapped so as to give the reader a good visualisation of the areas bombed and distances covered.

The book starts by giving the reading some insight into the development of manned flight and how, despite the rapid developments in Europe, Britain lagged behind the advances. Indeed, the first powered flight in this country only took place in October 1908, which was some five years after the Wright Brothers made their initial flight. Ironically, this was achieved by an American, Samuel Cody, who made a 27 second flight across Farnborough Common in Hampshire, covering a distance of 1,390 feet. Despite this, the British still trailed in aviation and matters only began to be placed on a more official footing in 1911 when the Royal Engineers Balloon Section evolved into the Army Air Battalion, later to become the Royal Flying Corps in April 1912, which at this time had both an Army and a Naval Wing. Developments continued apace and even in 1912, there were official fears that the opinion voiced in 1906 by newspaper tycoon Lord Northcliffe that "England is no longer an island" was indeed the case, such was the deadly potential of the German Zeppelin airships.

On the eve of the Great War, in July 1914, the Royal Flying Corps or RFC became exclusively an Army controlled organisation, with the erstwhile Naval Wing becoming the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), which as the name suggests, was under the control of the Admiralty. We learn that most of the RFC aircraft at the outbreak of war were either obsolete, or were worn out and only fit for the scrapyard. It was clear to those in power that the RFC was not at that time able to effectively defend the skies over Great Britain.  Fortunately, the RNAS did have suitable aircraft available and with bases near the coast, it was clear that they would initially form the first line of defence against any future German air attacks. We also learn of the organisation on the German side, the air arms of which, like the British were divided between the Army and Imperial Navy, both of which controlled Zeppelins.

The author then goes on to describe the efforts, under the direction of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, at organising static anti-aircraft defence in the form of guns and searchlights. As with the aircraft, initially there were too few available and what there were, were invariably obsolete or not fit for purpose. In the meantime, Churchill, ever one to look to take the offensive, decided to take the attack to the Germans with preemptive strikes against German Zeppelin hangars and airfields in Belgium and Germany itself. These raids had mixed results, with one raid in particular against Cologne yielding spectacular results. However, the German advances on the ground in Belgium soon rendered German targets beyond the range of British aircraft at this time and were not to be repeated.

From this introduction, which provides important background, Ian then switches to the raids mounted against British targets, predominantly by Zeppelin airships but also the occasional raids by conventional aircraft. Each raid is covered in meticulous detail, from the planning stage, to the courses flown by the aircraft on the raid and is brought to life by the use of personal accounts of eye-witnesses, both on the ground and in the air. Official reports and records are also used to provide the most detailed record of the German air offensive ever put into print.

The era of air raids upon Britain began in Dover on Christmas Eve 1914 at around 10:45 in the morning, when a German floatplane dropped a single 10 kg bomb, probably aimed at Dover Castle but which instead fell in the garden of a nearby house of an auctioneer, a Mr Terson. Fortunately, the damage was limited to the destruction of a summerhouse and some uprooted cabbages and there was no loss of life but Britain had suffered the first air raid in its history and was the precursor of many much more serious and destructive raids, culminating in attacks upon the capital city.

At first, the Kaiser, fearing death or injury to his cousin King George V and many other English relatives, forbade attacks on London from a line west of the Tower of London but notwithstanding this order, on 31 May 1915, the German Army Zeppelin LZ38 under the command of Hauptmann Erich Linnarz dropped bombs - both High Explosive and Incendiaries upon Stoke Newington, Dalston, Hoxton, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Stratford and Leytonstone. Some 41 fires were reported to the London Fire Brigade and more importantly seven civilians and a RNAS pilot were killed in the raid, with a further 35 people injured. Damage to property was estimated at £19,000 (in 1914 prices) and reaction to the raids on the ground was one of outrage. Some of this was aimed at those people and businesses thought to have German connections - mob rule in fact but fortunately, this was short-lived and the anger began to be aimed at the lack of meaningful response, both by the anti-aircraft guns and by the aircraft that were supposed to be defending the capital. It was at this time that the phrase 'Baby Killers' at first coined by Churchill in response to the German Navy's bombardment of Scarborough in December 1914, began to used by the popular press in connection with the raiders from the air.

Heinrich Mathy (author's collection)

Another German Zeppelin commander, this time Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Mathy from the Imperial Navy, was to become a household name in Great Britain and gain notoriety as one of Germany's leading 'Baby Killers' before he met his death over Potters Bar in October 1916. Ian's book also examines Mathy's early raids with the same attention to detail.

This is an excellent book, which should appeal to both the serious Great War history buffs and also to the more general reader. It covers absolutely every angle of the story, from the planning and execution of the raids, to the countermeasures and the experiences of those involved in the 'front line' both on the ground and in the air. I thoroughly recommend it to you and look forward to the eventual companion volumes.

Zeppelin Onslaught: The Forgotten Blitz 1914-15 by Ian Castle, is published by Frontline Books and costs £25.00

Remembering a Charlton hero: The Jim Mackenzie Story

Jim Mackenzie at right of photo (Charlton Athletic Museum)

This blog usually concentrates on events and people from the Second World War but to commemorate Remembrance Week 2017, we look back at the 1914-18 conflict and visit the story of a young man who was one of those involved in the formation of Charlton Athletic FC and whose death took place one hundred years ago this year. This article is a modified version of a piece I wrote last year for the club's museum and is reproduced here with acknowledgements.

Even though Jim Mackenzie was only fifteen years old at the time of the formation of Charlton Athletic FC, he can now be rightly seen as one of the 'Founding Fathers' of the club and to commemorate the centenary of his death, it seems a good time to re-visit his story, which I have been able to update, having unearthed some more information covering his final days.

Although I no longer attend matches as regularly as in previous years due to the various issues connected with the club's ownership, they are still 'my club' and will always be so. Over the years, Charlton Athletic have gained a justifiably superb reputation for community involvement and for our awareness of the club's proud heritage and one such initiative is the excellent Charlton Athletic Museum, an entirely self-funded charity founded and operated by a team of trustees and volunteers.

On an early visit of mine to the museum, my friend, fellow battlefield guide and Addicks fan, Clive Harris drew my attention to what was then a newly produced marble plaque which was to be added to the club's war memorial and which featured the names of the three Charlton Athletic players and officials who lost their lives during the First World War.

Detail of the Charlton Athletic FC Roll of Honour (Author's Photo)

One name, or perhaps rather a ship’s name, immediately caught my attention when looking at the finely crafted plaque. This was the steamship Heron, a name I recognised as being a vessel from the General Steam Navigation Company, a London based short sea and coastal shipping concern that later became a part of the shipping company for whom I once worked, the P&O Group. So apart from the connection to Charlton Athletic, there was also a link, albeit a slightly tenuous one to my first employer, with whom I had spent some of the happiest working years of my life. I had to learn more.

Of course, it wasn’t just a ship’s name on the plaque, for the Heron was merely providing background to the story behind the loss of a human life. The individual’s name was somebody who had been involved with the club literally right from the very start, for he was none other than Jim Mackenzie, the very first Honorary Secretary of the embryonic Charlton Athletic when the club was formed by a group of young lads from the East Street area of Charlton in time for the beginning of the 1905-06 season and whose name and home address at 5 York Street, Charlton was shown in the Kentish Independent newspaper advertisement of 27 October 1905, as the person to contact for potential opponents looking for a friendly fixture.

John Alexander Mackenzie, as his surname suggests, was a Scot, born in 1890 in Dundee to parents William and Annie Mackenzie. Jim, as he seems to have been universally known, was eventually the eldest of five children, with a younger brother and three sisters. By the time of the 1901 Census, the family had moved to 36 Cedar Grove, Charlton as Jim’s father William had taken a job as a Dockyard Labourer, no doubt at one of the many wharves that lined the Thames in the area at that time. By 1905, the family had moved to York Street, today called Mirfield Street and which connected East and West Streets (now Eastmoor and Westmoor Streets respectively) at the heart of the area from whence the young players of the newly formed football club were to be found.

Jim was Honorary Secretary of Charlton Athletic FC during it's formative years but in November 1908 at the age of eighteen, he decided to join the Merchant Navy, being engaged by the General Steam Navigation Company, often referred to simply as the GSN, or ‘The Navvies’. Although the company’s headquarters were at Trinity Square in the City of London, they also had a wharf and engineering works at Deptford, at that time a short tram journey away from Charlton. Perhaps it was the locality of his new employers, together with the relatively short routes covered by the company that attracted Jim to this type of work, which would have permitted him to watch at least the occasional home match when time and voyage schedules permitted.

The s.s. Heron of 1920 - the replacement for the vessel sunk in our story (author's collection)

The 1911 Census found Jim on board the steamship Heron, berthed at Weaver’s Wharf, North Dock, Swansea, when his rank was Mess Room Steward. By 1915, Jim was still aboard Heron and by this time, his rank was shown as the Ship’s Cook. In those days in the Merchant Navy, it was not uncommon for crew members to serve aboard the same vessel for voyage after voyage, for if the seaman was good at his job and conducted himself well, the Ship’s Master would encourage these men to form the nucleus of a trusted and competent crew. We can therefore assume from his long service with the company and aboard the Heron in particular, that Jim was both well liked and a decent Ship’s Cook.

Despite his somewhat nomadic life at sea, Jim kept his roots in Charlton and surely must have kept in contact with his friends at the football club he had helped to set-up during his periods of leave. In the 1911 Census, the family had moved to 93 East Street but by the time the 1913 Electoral Register was printed, the family had moved again to a newer and larger home at 57 Delafield Road, adjacent to Charlton Railway Station and ironically a short walk from what was to become Charlton Athletic’s future home at The Valley.

The Heron was the second of the company’s vessels to bear the name and was an iron hulled steamship of 879 gross register tons delivered to the company in 1889 by Gourlay Brothers of Dundee, so coincidentally the Heron had the same birthplace as her Ship’s Cook and was just a year older. She was engaged on one of the GSN’s regular routes from London and other UK ports to Oporto, carrying general cargo as well as having provision for some passengers. Sadly, no photograph of the vessel seems to have survived the passage of time. The third Heron was built in 1920 and although she was a larger vessel than her predecessor, her general layout was quite similar and gives the reader a good idea as to the type of vessel Jim served aboard.

The First World War saw the emergence of a new form of warfare at sea in the form of the submarine. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the submarine had been damned by many and the opinion of Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson RN, who described submarines as “Underhand, unfair and damned un-English” was typical for the time. Attitudes changed however, and by the outbreak of the War in 1914, submarines had been adopted by both the Royal and Imperial German Navies as an integral part of their respective fleets.  

Kapitanleutnant Walter Remy of U-90 (author's collection)

German submarines made an immediate impact in the war, with one notorious incident in September 1914 seeing the loss of the British cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy with heavy loss of life. The repercussions the following year of the torpedoing of the Cunard liner Lusitania, including the deaths of 128 American civilians, who at that time were citizens of a neutral country, caused the Germans to scale back their submarine operations for fear of further alienating public opinion in the United States and thus drawing them into the war. The submarine flotilla was duly withdrawn from the commerce war and was given strict instructions to attack enemy warships only.

However, on 31 January 1917, with the war beginning to go against Germany and the effect of the Allied blockade having a disastrous effect on food supplies, the Kaiser ordered that unrestricted submarine warfare should be recommenced with immediate effect. As a countermeasure, the British reluctantly instigated a convoy system, initially only on the shorter supply routes to France and across the North Sea but later extended to cover the Transatlantic and Gibraltar routes as well. The exigencies of war meant that there were frequent alterations to loading schedules and diversions to convoy assembly points.

The Heron was no exception in being a part of the new convoy system and having loaded a cargo of coal at Newcastle, topped up with general cargo in London, the little coaster found herself at Falmouth on 27 September 1917 as part of Convoy OF6, which comprised of nineteen vessels bound for Genoa, Gibraltar, Alexandria, Savona, Tunis and Oporto, which was the destination of the Heron, the smallest vessel in the convoy and the only one destined for the Portuguese port. The convoy sailed at 16:00 and was escorted by nine warships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla under Commander Francis Twigg RN in HMS Lysander, who was the Senior Officer in command of the escort, which comprised the destroyers Porpoise, Hind, Achates, Cockatrice, Unity, Christopher, Brave and Lyra. Considering the size of the convoy, this was a powerful escort on paper but it must be remembered that unlike their Second World War counterparts, the destroyers of this era could not detect submerged submarines whilst they were underway as their hydrophone systems would only work when the destroyers were stopped. The destroyers would therefore hope to catch the submarines on the surface and deal with them either using their gun armament, or as a last resort, by ramming. Conversely, the attacking submarines would often surface at night to sink their prey using their own guns and to avoid wasting torpedoes, which at this time, were not always the most reliable of weapons and could only be guided visually. A large destroyer escort was also required as ships would be detached to cover the merchantmen departing for their individual destinations along the convoy route.

Jim Mackenzie remembered on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill (CWGC)

On the night of 30 September whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay, the Heron’s company sister ship, Drake, was sunk by the gunfire of U-90, under the command of 34 year old Kapitanleutnant Walter Remy. The U-90 had only been commissioned at the beginning of August 1917 but Remy was an experienced commander, who had previously commanded the U-24 and who was already responsible for sinking over 31,000 tons of Allied shipping when he took command of his new U-Boat at the Kaiserliche Werft, Danzig. The U-90 was quite a large submarine for the time and displacing 998 tons, was actually slightly heavier than the Heron. She was armed with six 50 centimetre torpedo tubes, four at the bow and two astern and carried sixteen torpedoes. She was also armed with a 10.5 centimetre gun, with 240 rounds for surface attacks.  

The entire crew of the Drake were able to take to the ship’s boats and were eventually picked up the following morning but two hours after her sinking, a single torpedo fired at close range from U-90 slammed into the hull of the Heron adjacent to the engine room and with disastrous results. The impact of a heavyweight torpedo upon the small and elderly iron built coaster must have been devastating, as the Heron with her cargo of coal, sank like a stone. The Engine Room crew along with anyone else caught below decks would not have stood a chance and of the crew of twenty three, there was just one survivor. 

The remaining members of the s.s. Heron commemorated at the Merchant Navy Memorial, Tower Hill (author's photo)

He was a Japanese crane operator by the name of Higo, who had been off duty and taking a bath when the torpedo struck. He quickly realised that the ship was rapidly sinking and ran out on deck, grabbed a life belt and jumped naked over the side. Higo later recalled that it was a beautiful night with a calm sea and bright moonlight. He could hear the cries of other survivors in the water but they were too far away to be visible. After about twenty minutes in the sea, he was picked up by the submarine and a short time later, whilst in captivity but safe aboard the U-90, he was joined by Captain Carter, Master of the Drake, who had also been picked up, doubtless to try and obtain knowledge of the convoy and of the ships they had sunk. 

The remainder of the Drake’s crew were later rescued by the escorts and other ships in the convoy and landed at Gibraltar but of the other twenty two crew members of the Heron, including the 27 year old Jim Mackenzie and of the vessel herself, there was no trace save for a few fragments of wreckage floating on the surface. Jim and his shipmates lay at position 46⁰ 27’ N, 11⁰ 14’ W, some 300 miles southwest of Ushant, in the Bay of Biscay.

The Charlton Athletic FC Memorial and Roll of Honour (Author's photo)

The crew of the Heron represented the British Merchant Navy in microcosm, being a very cosmopolitan bunch.  As might be expected, there were men from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales on board but there were also crew members from Denmark, India, Portugal and Sweden as well as Japan. Coincidentally, apart from Jim Mackenzie, there was one other resident of Charlton on board; Charles Davey the First Engineer was from Eversley Road, whilst the ship’s Master, Captain RS Bristow hailed from nearby Beckenham in Kent. 

The men of the Heron are commemorated on the Merchant Navy Memorial at Tower Hill, a stone’s throw from the GSN Company’s former headquarters at Trinity Square and where 12,210 British Merchant Seaman from the First World War who have no grave but the sea are remembered. Unfortunately, the panel bearing Jim’s name is located quite high up on the memorial and is difficult to photograph well but is clearly visible to those wishing to pay their respects.

The poem “No Roses Grow on a Sailor’s Grave” could have been written for Jim Mackenzie and his crewmates and it is a fine achievement by the Museum that one of the original ‘East Street Boys’ without whom we would not have a Charlton Athletic, is now commemorated at the home of the football club that he helped to set in motion back in 1905.

The Charlton Athletic Museum is not connected to the club and is run by a volunteer team of trustees and helpers who are committed to preserving the club's heritage and history for a wider audience. The Museum is located within the North Stand at The Valley and is open on Fridays from 11:00 to 15:00 and on matchday Saturdays between 11:00 and 13:00.

Unpublished Sources:

Greenwich Heritage Centre - Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich, Electoral Registers, various 
National Archives - ADM 137/2628 - Admiralty Historical Section: Records used for Official History, First World War: Convoy Records, Outward Convoys Falmouth OF1 - OF21
National Maritime Museum Archives - GSN/1/43 - Minutes of the GSN Company - October 1917
National Maritime Museum Archives - GSN/41/24 - GSN Newsletter issue 93
National Maritime Museum Archives - RSS/CL/1915/3444/12 - ss Heron crew list 1915

Published Sources: 

Birds of the Sea: 150 Years of the General Steam Navigation Company - Nick Robins, published Bernard McCall, 2007
Business in Great Waters - John Terraine, published by Leo Cooper Ltd, 1989
The Story of Charlton Athletic 1905-1990 - Richard Redden, published by Breedon Books, 1990

Heinrich Mathy, Blackheath and the 'First Blitz'

Tranquil Vale, Blackheath in 1916 (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

Whilst looking through my photograph collection for something else, it is all to easy to become sidetracked and end up looking at something completely unrelated to one's original search. On this occasion, it was rather uncanny as the photograph I came across is one that features regularly in my Blackheath and Greenwich Blitz walk but which happened to be on the exact anniversary of the subject incident taking place. The photo in question is reproduced above and comes courtesy of the excellent Greenwich Heritage Centre, from whose archives it comes. It is actually a reproduction from an unknown local newspaper of the period which perpetuates an error in the caption but which offers a fascinating insight into the 'First Blitz' on London, during the Great War when the Zeppelins of the Imperial German Navy brought the war right to the doorsteps of the British civilian population.

The raid in question actually occurred on August 24th 1916 when thirteen airships headed for London, including the L31, commanded by 33 year old Kapitanleutnant Heinrich Mathy. Due to a combination of adverse weather conditions, poor navigation and technical problems with the craft, twelve of the Zeppelins turned back without finding their targets. Only Mathy in the L31, skillfully flying through the low cloud cover, managed to reach London to make a successful bombing run and in the space of ten minutes, proceeding at it's maximum speed of 65 mph, the L31 dropped a total of thirty six bombs on the Isle of Dogs, Deptford, Greenwich, Blackheath, Eltham and Plumstead before heading back to it's base in Northern Germany. The L31 was one of the new generation of so-called 'Super Zeppelins' and at nearly 200 metres in length and 24 metres width, it was truly a monster. Although the L31 had been undamaged in the raid, it suffered from a heavy landing upon it's return to Germany, which required repairs putting it out of action until October 1916.

Heinrich Mathy (IWM)

The raid in which Blackheath had been hit, albeit unwittingly caused in excess of £130,000 worth of damage, which at 1916 prices, was no mean sum. 

Heinrich Mathy was by 1916, a veteran of fifteen bombing raids on Great Britain and had made his first attack on London in 1915 in command of an earlier and smaller airship, the L13. These raids on British cities and the indiscriminate nature of them, a precursor of what was to come during the next conflict, led to the Zeppelin crews being dubbed by the British press as the 'Baby Killers' and in the eyes of the British, Mathy was one of the leading exponents.

During his enforced absence whilst L31 was being repaired following it's heavy landing, Mathy learned that the British had shot down their first Zeppelin, when Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson flying a BE2C fighter, brought down the SL11 near Cuffley, Hertfordshire. The hydrogen filled gasbags of the airships made them hugely vulnerable to the newly developed incendiary bullets and the fact that German airmen, in common with their British counterparts, were not issued with parachutes at this time, ensured that they faced an awful choice; death by fire in the crashing airship, or jumping to avoid the flames but still facing the same end result. For his skill, determination and no little bravery in carrying out this first successful downing of a Zeppelin, Leefe Robinson was awarded the Victoria Cross, only for him to later die from influenza at the end of 1918, his health having been weakened by a period of captivity in Germany from April 1917, during which time he was singled out for rough treatment by his captors.

 

Wulstan Tempest, William Leefe Robinson VC & Frederick Sowrey (IWM)

Hearing of more and more Zeppelins being destroyed saw Mathy make the following diary entry:

"It is only a question of time before we join the rest. Everyone admits that they feel it. Our nerves are ruined by mistreatment. If anyone should say that he was not haunted by the visions of burning airships, then he would be a braggart."

Rather strangely, Mathy himself had previously sent a somewhat bragging letter to the New York Times in which he stated that he and his comrades were going to "smash London", so it was somewhat ironic that on the newly repaired L31's next raid to London, Mathy and his crew did indeed "join the rest" as predicted in his own diary entry.

Zeppelin L31 (IWM)

On October 1st 1916, L31 was once again heading towards London with Mathy in command and once more, his skill in navigation through questionable weather had ensured that his machine was the only one of eleven that had originally set out from Germany to near it's intended target. This time however, they were picked up searchlights over Kelvedon Hatch in Essex and turned away to try and avoid further detection. Taking a course over Stevenage and Hatfield, the L31 was once again picked out by searchlights over Cheshunt and three BE2C fighters of 39 Squadron, based at Hornchurch Aerodrome intercepted the giant airship. One fighter, piloted by the splendidly named 2nd Lieutenant Wulstan Tempest, engaged the Zeppelin shortly before midnight. Three long bursts from the fighter's Lewis gun set fire to the airship and the burning monster crashed into a field near Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, resulting in the death of all nineteen on board, including Mathy. The commander had faced the awful choice mentioned earlier and elected to jump from his blazing Zeppelin; his body was found quite close to the wreckage, embedded some four inches into the ground.

The Zeppelin raids continued into 1917 but their days as a terror weapon were finished and the Germans would make increasing use of their giant biplane Gotha bombers to continue their bombing campaign against the British.

Combined deaths from both airship and aircraft raids against Britain during the Great War caused 1,392 deaths, which compared to what was to come in the Second World War, are small beer but it has to be remembered that almost one hundred years ago, the bombing of civilians was a new and terrifying method of waging war. The deaths of 60,000 British, 600,000 German and possibly a similar number of Japanese civilians are testament to how this embryonic new form of warfare in 1914-18 was to develop in later conflicts.

Printed sources:

A Wander Through Wartime London - Clive Harris & Neil Bright, Pen & Sword 2010