TimelineMapsSearch QuotationsSearch Images

Follow us through the World War I centennial and beyond at Follow wwitoday on Twitter


Postcard view of the county of Kent, England, bounded by the River Thames on the north and the English Channel and Dover Strait to the east. The city and White Cliffs of Dover are in Kent. In November 1914, British naval and military authorities feared Germany was preparing to invade England. Text: Kent: the Doorway of England. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the County of Kent than dwell in the Tents of the Huns. 'Invicta' - undefeated, the motto of Kent Cities and towns of Kent On the door: No Germans Admitted Reverse: Postmarked Chatham (Kent) January 25, 1915 Designed and Printed in Faversham, Kent, at Voile & Robertson's Library (copyright)

Postcard view of the county of Kent, England, bounded by the River Thames on the north and the English Channel and Dover Strait to the east. The city and White Cliffs of Dover are in Kent. In November 1914, British naval and military authorities feared Germany was preparing to invade England.

Image text

Kent: the Doorway of England.

I had rather be a doorkeeper in the County of Kent than dwell in the Tents of the Huns.

'Invicta' - undefeated, the motto of Kent

Cities and towns of Kent

On the door: No Germans Admitted



Reverse:

Postmarked Chatham (Kent) January 25, 1915

Designed and Printed in Faversham, Kent, at Voile & Robertson's Library (copyright)

Other views: Larger, Back

Monday, September 3, 1917

"'We had no warning of any kind,' grieved one sailor. 'Before we knew what was happening, the roof was lifted off the shop, blown into the air, and fell in a thousand pieces among the men. It was flying glass, which was thick and heavy, that did the damage. We were dashed out of our hammocks to the floor, all mixed under broken glass. The men on either side of me were killed.'"

Quotation Context

Of the ten Gotha bombers that reached England on August 22, 1917, three were shot down near Margate and Dover. That attack was the last daylight raid of the war by the Gotha bombers. The bomb that struck the drill hall at Chatham Naval Barracks at 11:12 PM on September 3, 1917 was the most deadly of the first night raid by the bombers, killing 131 recruits, and wounding 90 more. Of five bombers that set out, four reached England and all returned safely. Five attacked London the following night, killing 19 and injuring 71. The sailor's quotation, originally from the New York Times of September 6, 1917, is from Raymond Fredette's excellent history of the 1917–1918 air assault on England by fixed aircraft The Sky on Fire.

Source

The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, page 121, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991

Tags

1917-09-03, 1917, September, air raid, bombing, Gotha, Chatham, Chatham Naval Barracks, Gotha raid, first Gotha night raid, night raid