Tondern raid

The Tondern raid or Operation F.7, was a British bombing raid by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force against the Imperial German Navy airship base at Tønder, Denmark, then a part of Germany. The airships were used for the strategic bombing of Britain. It was the first attack in history by aircraft from an aircraft carrier. On 19 July 1918, seven Sopwith Camels took off from HMS Furious, a converted battlecruiser. For the loss of one man and several aircraft, the British destroyed Zeppelins L 54, L 60 and a captive balloon.

Tondern Raid
The seven Sopwith Camels on the flight deck of HMS Furious en route to the Tondern raid
Date 19 July 1918 Location Tondern, German Empire (now Tønder, Denmark) 54°56′N 8°51′E Result British victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Richard Phillimore	None
Strength
7 aircraft	2 airships 1 captive balloon
Casualties and losses
1 drowned 3 interned 1 aircraft damaged 3 aircraft interned 2 aircraft abandoned 1 aircraft lost at sea	4 wounded 2 airships destroyed 1 captive balloon destroyed 2 hangars damaged
class=notpageimage| Location of Tondern (now Tønder, Denmark)

Background

Naval aviation

Britain, Japan, and Russia had conducted ship-based air raids since 1914 but these by were seaplanes lowered into the water by cranes. Furious was designed for aircraft to take off from its forward flight deck.

HMS Furious

In March 1918 the battlecruiser HMS Furious joined the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, flying the flag of the Rear Admiral Commanding Aircraft (RAA), Richard Phillimore. Furious had been converted for use as an aircraft carrier during her construction, with a flight deck forward of her main superstructure. During 1917 the carrier had been equipped with Sopwith Camel 2F.1a, naval variant of the Sopwith Camel. These partially replaced the Sopwith 1½ Strutter. In late 1917 a second flight deck was fitted aft, landing on which proved "almost as hazardous as ditching in the sea". Until such need arose she was dispatched on reconnaissance missions off the Heligoland Bight, searching for minefields and looking for evidence of counter-mining by the Germans.

Plan

An attack on the bases of the Naval Airship Division of the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) was suggested to Rear Admiral Phillimore by his Royal Air Force staff officer Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clark-Hall and one of his pilots, Squadron Commander Richard Bell-Davies, VC. Clark-Hall received Phillimore's approval and that of the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral David Beatty. It was originally planned to use 1½ Strutters in an attack but these were too valuable for reconnaissance and Sopwith Camels were substituted, whose range meant an attack on the airship base at Tønder.

Prelude

Example Sopwith Camel F.1, similar to those on the raid

Operation F.6 was a plan for two waves of four aircraft, each pilot receiving special training. Major Moore, was posted away before the scheduled date of 29 June 1918, by which time it was too late to train a replacement. Training consisted of bombing runs on the airfield at Turnhouse, where the outlines of Tondern's three airship sheds were marked. The pilots were Captains W. D. Jackson, William Dickson, Bernard Smart and T. K. Thyne and Lieutenants N. E. Williams, S. Dawson and W. A. Yeulett. On 27 June Furious sailed from Rosyth, escorted by the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron and eight destroyers from the 13th Destroyer Flotilla. On 29 June the ships reached the flying off point but with Force 6 [22–27 kn (41–50 km/h; 25–31 mph)] winds blowing, flying was deemed impossible and the operation was called off.

Operation F.7

HMS Furious with its forward flying-off deck

Another attempt, Operation F.7 began when Furious sailed at 12:03 on 17 July. This time she was escorted by Force B, including a division of the 1st Battle Squadron (all the new Revenge-class battleships), the 7th Light Cruiser Squadron and a destroyer screen. HMS Resolution's "Y" turret guns had been loaded with a special shrapnel shell for use against airships. During the passage the destroyer HMS Valentine investigated a reported submarine contact but nothing came of it.

At 03:04 in the morning of 18 July Furious was ready to fly off her Camels when a thunderstorm struck. Rather than cancel the operation, it was decided to delay it twenty-four hours and Furious and her destroyer screen fell back on Force B. The combined squadron cruised out of sight off the Danish coast until the morning of 19 July and in worsening weather conditions Furious flew off her Camels between 03:13 and 03:21. The first flight consisted of Jackson, Dickson and Williams; the second of Smart, Dawson, Yeulett and Thyne. Thyne was forced to turn around with engine trouble before reaching the target and ditched his aircraft before being recovered.

A Sopwith Camel photographed in 2018

The first three aircraft arrived over Tondern at 4:35, taking the base by surprise. There were three airship sheds, which the Germans had code-named Toska, Tobia and Toni. Toska, the largest, was a double shed and housed the airships L.54 and L.60. Tobias contained a captive balloon and Toni was being dismantled. The first wave attacked Toska and hit the shed with three bombs, detonating the gas bags of L.54 and L.60, destroying them by fire but not causing them to explode and destroy the shed. Another bomb from the first wave hit Tobias and damaged the balloon inside. The second wave destroyed the captive balloon afire and had several near misses on a wagon loaded with hydrogen cylinders. Despite the loss of the two airships only four men were injured.

Ground fire was directed at both waves but the only damage was an undercarriage wheel shot off a Camel from the second wave. Williams, Jackson and Dawson, doubtful that they had sufficient fuel to reach the British squadron offshore, landed in Denmark. Dickson, Yeulett and Smart flew to sea to find the British ships. Dickson ditched at 5:55 and Smart, having suffered engine trouble, ditched at 06:30. Yeulett was not heard from again and presumed drowned; it was supposed that he had been forced to ditch prematurely through fuel exhaustion. The British squadron waited for the other pilots until the Camels would have run out of fuel and after 7:00 the ships took cruising formation and made for home.

Aftermath

Wreckage of Zeppelins LZ 99 (L 54) and LZ 108 (L 60) in their hangars

The German Naval Airship Division quickly had Toska, repaired but Tondern was abandoned, only to be used as an emergency landing site. Defences at the other bases were improved and a swathe of the countryside near Nordholz Naval Airbase was burned to prevent it being set alight by bombs.

Subsequent operations

From 1917 a raid on the German High Seas Fleet by using the new torpedo-carrying Sopwith Cuckoo was ready. The Cuckoo was not available in sufficient numbers until early 1919 and the plan was not carried out. The concept was revived during the Second World War and in 1940 the Battle of Taranto the battleships of the Italian Regia Marina were attacked, three being sunk at their moorings.

Casualties and awards

Dickson and Yeulett were awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Smart received a bar to his DSO. Yeulett's body was later recovered from the sea and buried in the cemetery of Nørre Havrvig church in Denmark.

References

• Halpern, Paul G. (11 October 2012). A Naval History of World War I. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-172-6.
• Jenkins, C. A. (1972). Wingate, John (ed.). "HMS Furious/Aircraft Carrier 1917–1948, Part I The First Eight Years". Warship Profile (23). Windsor: Profile Publications. OCLC 249280519.
• Jones, H. A. (2009) [1937]. The War in the Air: Being the Story of the Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. VI (facs. repr. Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books and Naval & Military Press, Uckfield ed.). London: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-1-84342-417-8.
• Layman, R. L. (1973). "Furious and the Tondern Raid". Warship International. Vol. X, no. 4. pp. 374–385. OCLC 9990388906.
• Murray, Williamson; Millet, Allan R., eds. (2006). Military Innovation in the Interwar Period (17th pbk. ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-63760-2.
  • Watts, Barry; Murray, Williamson. "Military Innovation in Peacetime". In Murray & Millet (2006).
• Parker, N. J. (2019) [2016]. Gott Strafe England: The German Air Assault against Great Britain 1914–1918. Vol. II (2nd pbk. ed.). Warwick: Helion. ISBN 978-1-911628-39-2.
• Polak, Christian (2005). Sabre et pinceau: par d'autres Français au Japon: 1872–1960 (Fude to katana : nihon no naka no mō hitotsu no furansu) [Sabre and Brush: by other French in Japan: 1872–1960]. Tokyo: Chambre de commerce et d'industrie du Japon. OCLC 718049687.
• Till, Geoffrey (1979). Air Power and the Royal Navy, 1914–1945: A Historical Survey. London: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN 978-0-354-01204-1.

Further reading

• Beatty, Admiral Sir David (1918). Grand Fleet Battle Instructions. London: HMSO. OCLC 694732431.
• Hobbs, David (2017). The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing (Pen & Sword). ISBN 978-1-84832-350-6.
• Newbolt, H. J. (2003) [1931]. Naval Operations (with accompanying map case). History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. V (facs. repr. Imperial War Museum Department of Printed Books and Naval & Military Press, Uckfield ed.). London: Longmans, Green & Co. pp. 184–194. ISBN 978-1-84342-493-2 – via Archive Foundation.

External links

Media related to Tondern raid at Wikimedia Commons

• "The Raid on Tondern: July 19th, 1918" Archived 11 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
• "King George Visits the Mystery Ship; Goes Aboard Airplane Carrier Which Figured in Raid on Zeppelin Hangars." New York Times 1918-07-25