Christmas attack

Christmas attack

Part of: First World War

date	December 25, 1914
place	Cuxhaven and Nordholz , Germany
output

Parties to the conflict
United Kingdom	German Empire
Commander
Reginald Tyrwhitt
Troop strength
3 aircraft mother ships 3 light cruisers 8 destroyers 11 submarines 9 seaplanes	Some seaplanes 2 airships
losses
4–5 seaplanes	no

The Christmas attack was an unsuccessful British attack during World War I with naval aviation forces on the naval base Cuxhaven and the airship port of Nordholz on December 25, 1914 (Christmas Day). In English it is referred to as the Cuxhaven Raid (German: Cuxhaven attack). The company gained its special significance through the first use of sea-based aircraft.

prehistory

Thanks to zeppelins , which flew at heights inaccessible for aircraft, Germany could have attacked England unhindered. In contrast, the British airmen were unable to reach Germany. The advance of zeppelin development became a British trauma. In 1910, various newspapers let themselves be carried away by sensational headlines such as "The Airship Threat", "The Black Shadow of the Airship" or "Germany: Lord of the Air" and reported on a supposed zeppelin force armed with machine guns, cannons and bombs, which in turn led to supposed sightings of zeppelins over Sheerness, Portland, Dover and Liverpool. In reality, only 26 zeppelins had been made by the outbreak of war, seven of them with machine guns, but without any combat or bombardment experience or targeting or dropping devices. The rest of the zeppelins were mostly smaller test ships. With the siege of Antwerp (1914) the fears of the British increased.

In response, the Royal Navy planned a preventive strike (called "Plan Y") on the largest airship port in northern Germany in Nordholz, including the Cuxhaven naval base. For this purpose, three canal ferries ( Engadine , Riviera and Empress ) were converted as carriers ( aircraft mother ship) for seaplanes, which Cecil L'Estrange Malone , the commander of the Engadine , commanded - the aircraft mother ships were accompanied by three light cruisers , eight destroyers and eleven submarines under the command of Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt . The association ran to about twenty nautical miles off the German coast near Heligoland . Lieutenant Commander Cecil L'Estrange Malone was in command of the aircraft mother ships, the aircraft and the combat operations, the submarines were commanded by Commodore Roger Keyes . The planes, each armed with three 20-pound bombs, were launched on the morning of December 25th at 6 a.m. with the help of loading booms. These were seaplanes of the Short "Folder" type (four Improved Type 74 , three Type 81 and two Type 135. The order was to destroy the revolving Nobel hall and other halls and the zeppelins parked in them, as well as the gas works. ~ 0 ° C) only the engines of seven of the nine aircraft could be started at 7:10 am After the seven attacking aircraft had taken off and the two non-started machines had been taken off, the ships moved to the west undetected and undisturbed, despite the imperial The Navy was warned and had sent patrol boats. Only the ship of the line Mecklenburg , which was used for outpost and security service on the Lower Elbe , discovered and shot at a supposed enemy, who turned out to be a friendly fishing trawler. At 07:30 the German U- Boat U 6 disbanded the formation and triggered the alarm, but the German Admiralty assumed an enemy reconnaissance attempt. The German outpost boat Wega discovered five planes, but could not alert because of the lack of radio telegraphy. Only the outpost steamer Seefahrt , ordered as a lightship, was able to send a message to Heligoland. Airships L 5 and L 6 were launched in Nordholz for reconnaissance, the latter of which discovered three double-deckers over the Outer Weser and warned the base by radio.

• 

  HMS Riviera with the early canvas hangars

• 

  HMS Empress

• 

  HMS Engadine

attack

The attack was marred by clouds and fog. The planes had to fly lower and became an achievable target for the German air defense, which had been warned in advance, but the damage was limited. The base in Cuxhaven was hit by chance when a pilot who was disoriented according to British sources scored a lucky hit.

Photo of the aircraft after the attack

Because of the strong defenses in Cuxhaven and Nordholz and the resulting limited possibilities, targets were attacked on the way back instead: Bombs were thrown on Wilhelmshaven , on a base for seaplanes near Norderney , and on the small cruisers Graudenz and Stralsund .
The attack ended at 9:35 a.m. Two or three aircraft (here the details differ) returned to the floating formation, including the aircraft led by Flight Commander Cecil Francis Kilner with Lieutenant Erskine Childers as navigator and observer. The sailor and author of the spy novel Riddle of the Sands , was familiar with the sea area and had briefed all crews before the mission. Four or three others dived due to lack of fuel off Norderney, where the pilots were picked up by submarines and escort ships and the planes sunk. The seventh machine was reported missing. At 11:45 a.m. the order to withdraw was given. Some cruisers and submarines searched for the missing pilot until 8 p.m. Because of an engine failure, he had sailed eight nautical miles from Heligoland and was found by the Dutch trawler Marta van Hattem . Since the engine could not be repaired, and this aircraft was sunk and the pilot to catch the end of the New Year according to IJmuiden in the Netherlands spent, where he sent a congratulatory telegram from King George V received. The pilot was then disembarked to England on January 2, 1915 via Hook of Holland .

The attack occurred without any loss of life.

epilogue

Some of the units in Cuxhaven were relocated to the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal after the attack , air defense was set up on the ground , including the Seeheim and Nordheim positions, and a small squadron of six fighters was stationed at the Nordholz airship port.

For the course of the First World War, the Christmas raid, which took place only in the fifth attempt due to bad weather conditions, was militarily meaningless. The attack was the first strategic use of aircraft mother ships in wartime .

In the spring of 1915 eight other similar raids took place. No further air raids took place in Cuxhaven during the First World War. The airship port in Tøndern was attacked several times, as was the domestic airports in Düsseldorf , Cologne and Friedrichshafen .

Web links

Commons : Christmas Attack  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Christmas attack on StadtWiki Cuxhaven
• Christmas attack on Cuxhaven-Seiten.de

literature

• Ian Castle: The Zeppelin base raids, Germany 1914 . Osprey, Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-1-84908-243-3 .
• Otto Groos : The War in the North Sea. Volume 3. In: The War at Sea 1914–1918. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1923.
• RD Layman: The Cuxhaven Raid, the world's first carrier air strike . Conway, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-327-3 .
• Joachim Pattberg: Naval fortress Fort Kugelbake, and neighboring coastal fortifications of the 19th century in the Ritzebüttel office . Hardewiek, Cuxhaven 1992, ISBN 3-929337-00-2 .
• Douglas H. Robinson: German naval airships 1912-1918 . ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg, Berlin, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-8132-0786-2 .
• Horst Treusch von Buttlar Brandenfels: Zeppelins against England . Amalthea, Zurich 1931.
• Arch Whitehouse: The Zeppelin fighters . Hale, London 1968.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ L'Estrange Malone (1890-1965), later first Communist Member of Parliament in Great Britain
2. ^ Kilner (1883-1925), most recently aide-de-camp of the British King
3. ↑ Childers, (1870-1922), Irish writer, politician and prominent supporter of the Irish independence movement, was executed
4. ^ The Rescue of Flight Commander Hewlett.
5. ↑ The war against Germany's cities began in Cologne
6. ↑ There were air raids on Friedrichshafen as early as the First World War
7. ^ The air raid on the Zeppelin shipyard in Friedrichshafen on November 21, 1914: a documentation by Walter Dürig