Bombers, Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft 1914 -1919

It is difficult to establish with certainty when bombs were first dropped from an aeroplane in the furtherance of a military cam­paign, but the earliest recorded occasion was on i November 1911, when Giulio Gavotti of the Squadriglia di Tripoli, flying a Rumpler Taube of the Italian Air Service, released four small bombs over the North African townships of Tagiura and Ain Zara. At any rate it is certain that, as a type, the use of the aeroplane as a bomber ante­dated the fighter by several years, for machines capable of such activity were in service or being designed some time before the outbreak of World War 1. One of the leading types at this time was the French Voisin, and the first bombing attack of the war was made by Voisins of the Aviation Militaire which bombed the Zeppelin hangars at Metz-Frascaty on 14 August 1914. During the early part of the war Germany and Austro-Hungary relied almost exclusively upon the Zeppelin airship as their main vehicle for bombing raids, and many of the first offensive sorties made by the Allies were directed at the factories or airfield sites where these 'monsters of the purple twilight' were built or housed. Before the end of 1914 a few successful bombing raids were also carried out by aircraft of the Royal Naval Air Service. It is probably fair to say that their morale value was higher than that of the actual de­struction caused, for they were made mostly by small aircraft carrying only a modest load of the lightest bombs.

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