ABSTRACT
The most intense form of air panic took place when British cities were actually under aerial bombardment. Attacks on London, the political and also, significantly, the press and publishing capital of the nation, were particularly liable to induce press-mediated scares about the ability of modern society to withstand the strain of modern warfare, although these were usually partially obscured by brave denials of even the possibility of defeat through airpower. For example, in January 1915, newspaper reports of the first Zeppelin raid on British soil were at pains to deny that there had been any negative effects on public morale. 1 The Manchester Guardian’s Yarmouth correspondent found the morning-after atmosphere to be one of ‘remarkable calm and cheerfulness’; people were ‘even pleasantly excited’. 2 A leader in the same issue scoffed at the possibility of panic, since only a ‘lunatic’ could believe that such a raid ‘would have any effect on public opinion except to stiffen it’. 3 Yet after the London raids in June, the coroner investigating the deaths of some of the victims said he did not want ‘alarm to spread around the Metropolis’ by inquiring too deeply into the nature of the deaths, even though up to now Londoners had reacted ‘very quietly and coolly’. 4 Whether actually present or not, the possibility of panic was already shaping responses to aerial bombardment. This trend was even more apparent during the most intensive periods of aerial bombardment in each of the World Wars, the Gotha raids in 1917 and the Blitz in 1940.
