Gotha raid on Kent Anniversary memorial

10 September 2006, 12:19 PM

I thought I would post this as I just saw it on the news. Basically there was a sizable military ceremony at Chatham Naval base today remembering the Gotha raid on the 3rd Sept 1917 in which 130 sailors were killed. Was this the largest amount of deaths recorded by a single aircraft in WW1?

Following report from the the BBC today

Honour for sailors bombed in beds

A memorial to 130 Royal Navy sailors killed by German bombs during World War I has been re-dedicated at a service. The ratings were asleep in the drill hall of the barracks at HMS Pembroke, in Chatham, Kent, on 3 September 1917 when a German bomber attacked.

A commemorative plaque went missing in the two decades between the Royal Navy leaving the site and the Universities of Greenwich and Kent taking it over. A plaque was unveiled in the Drill Hall Library, at the Universities at Medway.

The Medway campus took over the site in 1984, when the Navy left following the closure of Chatham Dockyard. HMS Pembroke, a shore base of the Royal Navy, was completed in 1903, and housed almost 5,000 officers and men.

Sunday morning's ceremony included a short memorial service, march past and a parade. Among those taking part were the Royal Marines band from HMS Raleigh in Devonport, a Naval Honour Guard from HMS President, and veterans and standard bearers from the Royal Naval Association.

Professor Alan Reed, from the Universities at Medway, said the aim of the re-dedication ceremony had been to show that it respected the history of the site. The aim was also to "acknowledge the sacrifice made by those sailors nearly 90 years ago", he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/5332316.stm

Graeme · 10 September 2006, 01:40 PM

Britace

Different sources, ie Gotha Summer, Air Defence of Great Britain etc, differ in the number of aircraft that took part, varying from four to 10 and in the number of reported casualties, ie 131 naval ratings killed and 90 wounded out of a total of 132 killed and 96 wounded/injured (the other casualties being sustained in Margate and Dover).

Certainly the number of deaths sustained in this raid was surpassed on only one occasion - 13 June 1917 - when 22 Gothas bombed Margate, Shoeburyness, Greenwich and London; 162 people were killed and 432 wounded/injured.

Graeme