Qualla: Tondern Raid

Tondern Raid: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Othrod, CC BY-SA 4.0. Seven Sopwith Camels rolled off the forward deck of HMS Furious between 03:13 and 03:21 on the morning of 19 July 1918, and none of them was coming back the way it left. Furious had a landing deck aft, but pilots who had tried it reported that putting a Camel down on it was "almost as hazardous as ditching in the sea." So the strike was planned as a journey with no return leg. Fly east to the Imperial German Navy's airship base at Tondern - then inside Germany, today the Danish town of Tonder - burn whatever stood in the sheds, then solve the second problem: find the fleet and ditch alongside it, or land in neutral Denmark.

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Image: Othrod | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tondern Raid: What the Word "First" Is Doing Here

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elgaard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Tondern is routinely called the first carrier air strike, and the claim needs its qualifier attached or it falls apart. Ships had been throwing aircraft at enemies since 1914; Britain, Japan and Russia all did it. On Christmas Day 1914 the seaplane carriers Engadine, Riviera and ...

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Image: Elgaard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tondern Raid: Sheds Chalked on a Scottish Airfield

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Torsten Bolten, CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea came up from below. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Clark-Hall, the Royal Air Force staff officer attached to Rear Admiral Richard Phillimore, and one of Phillimore's pilots, Squadron Commander Richard Bell-Davies, proposed hitting the German Naval Airship Division at its base...

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Image: Torsten Bolten | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tondern Raid: Toska, Tobias, Toni

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Germans had names for the sheds. Toska was the largest, a double, and it held two Zeppelins: L 54 and L 60. Tobias contained a captive balloon. Toni was being dismantled. Jackson, Dickson and Williams arrived overhead at 04:35 and found the base entirely unprepared. Three bom...

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Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0

Tondern Raid: Getting Home Was the Hard Part

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elgaard, CC BY-SA 3.0. Thyne never reached Tondern. His engine failed on the way out, he turned back, ditched, and was recovered. Of the six who bombed, Williams, Jackson and Dawson doubted they had the fuel to find the fleet and put down in Denmark instead. Dickson, Yeulett and Smart went out to sea t...

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Image: Elgaard | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tondern Raid: Twenty-Two Years to the Sequel

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hjart, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Germans repaired Toska quickly, then abandoned Tondern as an airship station anyway, keeping it only as an emergency landing ground. At Nordholz they improved the defences and burned a swathe of countryside so that a stray bomb could not set the heath alight. The Royal Navy w...

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Image: Hjart | CC BY-SA 4.0