Don Martin diary entry for Tuesday, January 29, 1918: Everyone talking of yesterday’s air raid. Was worst ever known. Official figures say 47 killed and 160 injured. These figures are away under. About 30 planes started the raid and 4 or 5 dropped bombs. One big one was destroyed. About 15 bombs did damage but no one but officials knows how much, as English authorities give out only meager news and papers print only what gov’t wants. I went around and saw the results of bombs. The Longacre building just converted in heap of wreckage. A big chunk of Savoy Mansions scooped out.
Another warning at 9 o’clock tonight. Heard no bombs but barrage made a fierce racket. Machines came over Southeast part of city but were driven away after dropping few bombs. About 6 killed and 30 injured. People sat around hotel lobby till 2 a.m. I was at Herald office when maroons (warning) sounded but went to Savoy.
Pleasant day. Moonlight tonight.
Don Martin continued his letter to Dorothy on January 29, telling more about the air raid. Here are excerpts; many of the details are the same as in his diary.
Dorothy,
Well maybe things didn’t happen rapidly last night after I finished writing that long letter to you. A bomb just missed the hotel. I had just finished your letter and had put it in the box when there was a terrific explosion. We all knew it was close. A few seconds later there was another, much more deafening and the hotel rocked like a rowboat, it seemed. I was talking with a man at the time. There was a noise like about a dozen claps of thunder all merged into one; then the sound of things smashing mingled with crashing glass in the restaurant, the screaming of women and the cries apparently of persons who had been injured. People all around the lobby turned pale and I imagine most of them expected the hotel to collapse. I wouldn’t have been greatly surprised. And then on top of it flames could be seen from windows in the back of the hotel.
It was undoubtedly the most exciting experience I had ever gone through with. A big apartment building, unoccupied fortunately, had been hit. It almost adjoins the hotel. It is four stories high and a chunk about 20 feet thick and four stories in height was just cleaved, or scooped out, by a bomb. Another bomb – the one we heard first – had struck a famous old London building now used as a market and wrecked that, strewing glass and fragments of stone all over the streets for blocks. I should say there were two inches of crushed glass in the street. I went up to see it. A little further off another bomb had struck a five story building in which two or three hundred people had hurriedly gone for shelter. This building was pulverized. It just disappeared. The casualties occurred mostly here. Another bomb struck in the Thames which is not far away. Others landed in various parts of the city but the public doesn’t know where because the authorities do not give out the facts...
I didn’t see any aeroplanes although early in the evening I went out to have a look and peered from my window. They fly so high up and are painted in such a way that it is impossible to see them, although occasionally one may see a puff of flame or smoke when a shell from the London guns explode. Anyone who wants to go out and look for such spectacles is welcome. I shall not do so. No one does unless he is crazy... the hotel where I am is safe because there are a lot of floors above the lobby and the building is very solid construction... The lobby and restaurant – or part of the restaurant where the windows weren’t broken – were filled with people until two o’clock this morning. Then the police began blowing whistles meaning “Clear” and people went out. I went around to see where the bombs had fallen. The streets were packed. Policemen were along the street at short intervals and more than 50 Red Cross ambulances and first aid automobiles were moving to and fro. It was impossible to get near the Long Acre building because a fire had started in a big building next door. This burned for an hour. A fire also started right behind my hotel but the firemen extinguished it in five minutes.
Twenty-five or thirty enemy aeroplanes are supposed to have started in the raid and about 100 English aeroplanes went up after them. Anyhow I have been in a raid and I am not at all anxious to have another. I might as well get accustomed to them though. The indications are that there may be other this week -- maybe tonight. It will be moonlight all the week and the sky is clear of clouds and those are the conditions favorable to successful raids. Everyone is waiting tonight for another warning. I am sitting in my room – it is just 8 o’clock – but if I hear the warning whistles and the maroons -- or warning guns – I will go down stairs where it is entirely safe...
No one has talked of much else than the raid all day. People speak to strangers in restaurants and on the street about it. There is no question that London worries over them but still they take it all with philosophical resignation and say “Oh well, it’s about 100,000 chances to one you won’t get hurt.” Then most Londoners believe it doesn’t matter where one goes – if he is marked to be hit he will be hit anyhow. I don’t believe that. Give me a safe place.
- - - -
While London was living through the consequences of
that air raid, U.
S. Secretary of War Baker testified in Washington before the Senate Committee
on Military Affairs. The New York Herald published the story with a banner
headline in its Tuesday, January 29, 1918 issue:
ARMY OF
1,500,000 FOR FRANCE THIS YEAR
Secretary Baker said that more than
200,000 American soldiers were in France a month ago; half a million will be
there early this year, all fully equipped and supported by artillery; and a
million are now in thirty-two camps and cantonments in the U.S. ready to go. “America
soon will demonstrate upon the battlefields of Europe its determination to win
the war. We are in this war to win. We are going to hit, and hit hard.”
Yes, the Americans were on their way to the fight!
Don Martin cabled a short dispatch about the reactions to the testimony of Secretary of War Baker to the U.S. Senate on January 29. This was published in the New York Herald on Wednesday, January 30.
AMERICAN VIEW OF SUBMARINE BLUFF PLEASES BRITAIN
Agree with Mr. Baker, Allies Are Ready to Meet Biggest Onslaught
THREAT CAUSES NO NEW WORRY ABROAD
Statement by Secretary of War Draws Forth Admiration of Achievements Here
[Special Despatch to the Herald via Commercial Cable Company’s System]
Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Tuesday
Secretary Baker’s statement that a submarine campaign is to be launched against American transports as a result of the Huns’ desperate efforts to win before America arrives here, that Germany is staggered by the belated realization of America’s potentiality and accomplishments, that the Allies are prepared to meet the biggest onslaught in the history of war on the Western front and that England is ready at sea caused no surprise here at the skill of the American Intelligence Department in disclosing the details.
The Hun submarine programme is regarded as the same old German bluff, but it is known that she is almost ready to deliver a blow in France, supplemented by violent submarine activity.
This causes no new worry here. The submarines are still a grave menace, but the sinkings cannot exceed the average, and that is not enough.
Mr. Baker’s statement is the talk of Britain. All eyes are on America. She is the hope of the Allies.
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