Editorial: The First Air-Raiders (1936)

Editorial from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lord Londonderry, the Minister for Air, speaking in the House of Lords on May 22nd, 1935, declared that at the 1932 Disarmament Conference, when total abolition of air forces, or at least of bombing planes, was discussed, he “had the utmost difficulty . . . . amid the public outcry, in preserving the use of the bombing aeroplane even on the frontiers of the Middle East and India " (quoted by Dr. Dalton, M.P., House of Commons, March 9th, 1936. See Hansard, March 9th, column 1922).

Lord Londonderry, in a letter to The Times (December 30th, 1935), has explained that his statement did not mean what at first sight it appears to mean. His explanation was that an international Convention to abolish bombing from the air would be of no value unless it was possible at the same time so to control civil aviation as to make it impossible to convert civil aircraft into bombing planes—in other words that the capitalist States do not for one moment accept each other's pledges as of any account—and, consequently, that it was his duty as Air Minister to take the long view and maintain an efficient air force “with its necessary bombing strength."

It must be said that Lord Londonderry's letter does, not put him in any better light, for the fact remains that dropping bombs on almost defenceless frontier tribes is a fiendish act, whether ordered by a Mussolini, a Lord Londonderry or by the two Labour Governments we have had in this country, and which maintained the doctrine of “continuity" in this matter of bombing.

Those who face the future with fear because of the possibility that an outbreak of war may see foreign bombers destroying the city in which they happen to live should not forget that successive Governments have tolerated the bombing of native tribesmen.

Another thing they should remember is that it was the British, not the Germans, who started the whole business of air-raiding. At least, that was the boast made by an official body in 1917. The following notes are extracts from a lantern lecture entitled “War in the Air,'' issued by the National War Savings Committee and being shown during the year 1917.

Slide 32.—"The Navy's land machines went over to Belgium, and it is to the credit of the R.N.A.S. that the first hostile missiles which fell on German soil were bombs dropped by the R.N.A.S. at Cologne and Dusseldorf. . . ."

Slide 34.—". . . Unfortunately the German advance in Belgium drove our bases so far back it became impossible to reach German towns with the aeroplanes then available.”

Slide 35.—". . . It is interesting to note that these early raids by the R.N.A.S. were the first example of bomb-dropping attacks in any war. . . ." (our italics).

If true, these statements give patriotic Britishers something else to be proud of. We say “if true" because, although given on official authority, cold calculated lying from official quarters was so boundless and impudent during the War that this may just possibly be another example of the latter military art.

When Heinrich Heine wrote nearly a century ago "It is printed, then it is untrue," he might well have been describing any Government Department in any country in time of war.