Reproduction Sopwith Camel from Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Rhinebeck, New York. © 2015 John M. Shea
"Instrument-lighting equipment was installed in the Camels the very next morning. 'Two-gallon petrol tins with the tops cut off, half filled with cotton waste and soaked with paraffin,' were set out to illuminate the aerodrome. And the pilots were told to practise night landings immediately. One of them judged that 'in twenty-four hours the Home Defence squadrons ceased to be looked upon as anything but night fighters.'"
Ten Gotha bombers reached England on August 22, 1917 in a midday raid. Three were shot down near Margate and Dover demonstrating the improvement in Britain's defenses and leading Germany to end daylight raids on the country. On September 3, in the first night raid by the bombers, a single bomb struck the glass-roofed drill hall at the Chatham Naval Barracks at 11:12 PM, killing 131 recruits and wounding 90 more, much of the mayhem from the flying glass. Of five bombers that had set out, four reached England and safely returned. The rushed British attempt on September 4 to establish night defenses did not stop five Gotha's that followed the Thames River that night, until reaching London where, in Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) Richard Walter's account, 'Tens of thousands of lights suddenly emerged out of the darkness, and looking straight down, every street is clearly discernible.' The attack killed 19 and injured 71. Britain's Sopwith Camel was one of the war's best fighter planes, though one that was tricky to handle.
The Sky on Fire by Raymond H. Fredette by Raymond H. Fredette, page 123, copyright © 1966, 1976, 1991 by Raymond H. Fredette, publisher: Smithsonian Institution Press, publication date: 1991
1917-09-04, 1917, September, Camel, Sopwith Camel
