For the majority of the German surface fleet, however, morale had suffered severely from the long period of inactivity, and the opportunity now arose to improve this. That opportunity was a chance to provide support for an Irish republican rising in Dublin over the Easter period, the details of which were already known to the German authorities. Direct intervention was out of the question, but another raid on Yarmouth, with nearby Lowestoft and Zeppelin raids over southern England for good measure, would at least show the rebels that they did not lack support. In addition, it was felt that the raiders could complete their task before Beatty’s battle cruisers could reach the area.
As usual, the German battle cruisers, commanded on this occasion by Rear Admiral Boedecker, would carry out a 30-minute bombardment while the High Seas Fleet under Admiral Scheer would cover their withdrawal. At noon on 24 April both groups, totalling 22 dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, five older battleships, 12 light cruisers, 48 destroyers and eight Zeppelins, set off for the English coast. Four hours later Seydlitz struck a mine. Her forward torpedo compartment was flooded and her speed fell away to 15 knots. Some time was lost transferring the admiral to Lutzow, largely because a report of torpedo tracks had resulted in ships moving out of what appeared to be a danger area. Seydlitz then returned home escorted by two destroyers and Zeppelin L7.
One of the most curious aspects of this operation is Scheer’s fixation on Yarmouth and Lowestoft as his objective when, not all that far to the south was a far greater and more spectacular prize. This was an area known as The Downs, situated between Ramsgate and Dover, where, twice in every 24 hours, one hundred or more merchant ships waited for tidal conditions that would enable them to enter the river and reach the Port of London. The arrival of German battle cruisers and their escorts among them would have resulted in a massacre and provided Germany with an immense propaganda victory.
One officer who was fully aware of the threat was Commodore Tyrwhitt, commanding the 5th Light Cruiser Squadron, presently off the Suffolk coast. At first he was unsure of the precise enemy objective, but this became obvious when, at 03:50 Boedecker’s four battle cruisers, six light cruisers and supporting destroyers were sighted, making for Lowestoft and Yarmouth. Tyrwhitt had only the light cruisers Conquest, Cleopatra and Penelope at his disposal, supported by two destroyer flotillas, so any sort of stand-up fight was out of the question. He took the only possible course of action by heading south in the hope that the enemy would pursue. The Germans, however, were temporarily distracted by the return of six Zeppelins that had abandoned their raid on London because of headwinds, poor visibility and strong opposition. Instead, bombs had been dropped in the areas of Norwich, Lincoln, Harwich and Ipswich, to little effect. L21 had caused some damage in Lowestoft at about 04:00 but had been pursued by three Bristol Scout aircraft based at the RNAS airfield at Yarmouth until it vanished into the clouds.
At about the same time the light cruiser Rostock spotted Tyrwhitt’s ships to the south-west. For the moment, the light was too poor for accurate gunnery. At 04:10 the German battle cruisers opened a ten minute bombardment of Lowestoft, destroying or damaging over 200 civilian dwellings, fortunately without heavy loss of life, and then turned north to attack Yarmouth. Here the sighting of a British submarine in the act of diving caused sufficient alarm for Boedecker to turn south again after firing a shorter bombardment.
By 04:30 the light had improved sufficiently for the opposing cruisers to begin duelling ineffectively at 14,000 yards. At 04:45, however, the German battle cruisers arrived, opening a heavy and disturbingly accurate fire. Conquest was hit repeatedly, suffering 38 casualties of which 25 were fatal, but was able to maintain her speed. The destroyer Laertes was also hit and five of her crew were wounded. Having completed their mission, Boedecker’s ships then turned away to rendezvous with the High Seas Fleet off Terschelling.
In Britain, the raid caused almost as much shock and anger as had the attacks on Scarborough, Whitby and the Hartlepools. In particular there was anger that, once again, the Royal Navy had not been able to act decisively. The Mayors of Lowestoft and Yarmouth lodged understandably vigorous protests that their towns should continue to receive regular visits from the Imperial German Navy and its Zeppelins. Fortunately, such was now the strength of the Grand Fleet that the Third Battle Squadron, reinforced by Dreadnought herself, was moved south to Sheerness on 2 May.
As for the Germans, they returned home with the satisfaction of having completed the task that they had set out to do at the cost of one repairable battle cruiser. They had also achieved some measure of revenge for an unfortunate incident that had taken place earlier in the year. During the course of the raid the light cruiser Frankfurt had sunk an armed patrol steamer and the destroyer G-41 had sunk the armed trawler King Stephen. During the early hours of 2 February the King Stephen had been going about her normal civilian business. It was during the watch of her mate, George Denny, who saw distress rockets being fired some distance away. He roused the skipper, William Martin, who ordered the trawl to be brought in and secured while he laid off a course towards the signals. It took several hours to reach the area, where they found Zeppelin L19 in a sinking condition.
In a raging storm rain had battered the enormous envelope, increasing its weight so that it was unable to cope with high winds and had been driven down to sea level. The gondolas were already submerged and the huge hull was obviously filling with water and sinking. Seated on the half-submerged wreck were fourteen survivors. Martin discussed the situation with his eight-strong crew. The consensus of opinion was that some of the Germans were probably armed and that even if they all lacked weapons they heavily outnumbered the trawlermen and would almost certainly take over the vessel and sail her to Germany, where their saviours’ reward would be a long spell in a prison camp. It was a horrible decision for a professional seaman to have to make. Had the King Stephen been fitted with radio perhaps assistance could have been summoned, but she was not and in the circumstances Martin felt that he could only leave the Germans to their fate.
The authorities in Grimsby were not unsympathetic and decided that the matter should not be discussed publicly. Mate Denny, however, had other ideas and sold the story to a reporter from the Grimsby Evening Mail. Soon it had reached the national press. Copies of these editions reaching Germany through neutral countries generated understandable anger and demands for Martin to be punished. In fact, he was already a very sick man and died shortly after.
The King Stephen never sailed again as a fishing vessel. She was requisitioned and equipped as a Q ship. Commanded by a reserve officer, Lieutenant Tom Phillips, she had the misfortune to find herself under the guns of G-41 during the bombardment of Yarmouth. Every German seaman knew the story of the King Stephen and Phillips’ crew were roughly treated when they were taken aboard the enemy ship. It took a great deal of persuasion to convince their captors that an earlier crew had been responsible for abandoning those aboard the sinking Zeppelin. On reaching Germany they spent the rest of the war in Hameln prison camp. Phillips, however, was taken to Berlin for interrogation. Things would have gone badly for him until an English newspaper containing Martin’s photograph was produced, convincing his captors that they had got the wrong man. So ended one of the most unfortunate incidents of the entire war at sea.
CHAPTER 9
Strafing the Island (1)
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born in 1838. He served in the Royal Wurttemberg Army, in which he fought during the Franco-German War of 1870. In 1890 he left the Army feeling, as did many South German noblemen, that Prussia had far too much influence in the recently created German Empire. He then devoted himself to the development of the rigid dirigible airship which has born his name ever since. In fact, his organisation, the Luftshiffbau Zeppelin was not alone in manufacturing this type of airship, the Luftshiffbau Schutte-Lanz being a competitor during the early years, although by custom ever since every rigid airship has become known as a Zeppelin, just as vacuum cleaners
are known as Hoovers and raincoats as Macintoshes.
Zeppelin chose hydrogen as the lifting agent for his airships, despite the terrible danger of fire, the outbreak of which was almost always fatal to the ships. The hydrogen was contained within huge gasbags along the interior of the hull, with provision for venting and water ballast tanks used to maintain stability while ascending or descending. These were contained in a long, sausage-shaped hull based on a complex internal girder construction surrounded by a flexible skin. Control and communications gondolas were suspended below, as were the ship’s engines, the number of which varied according to type.
At first, Zeppelin’s organisation was not a financial success and it was not until 1911 that his airline, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts AG began to show that large numbers of passengers could be carried at a profit. This aroused the interest of the Imperial German Army and Navy. The obvious advantages were that the Zeppelin had a very long in-flight endurance which made it capable of longrange reconnaissance and, of course, it could also be armed with bombs for dropping on specific targets. Of the disadvantages, fire has already been mentioned. In addition, the girder construction was so flimsy that clumsy handling in a shed or high winds on take-off or landing could wreck a ship. Even more serious was the fact that Zeppelins were extremely difficult to navigate. Even modest winds were capable of pushing the huge, lighter-than-air hulls many miles off course, while cloud cover could make it impossible to obtain a fix on the ground below. Later, a small car containing one or two observers and a telephone could be lowered by electric winch through the cloud and provide a view of the ground below, but the idea was not a success.
During World War One, Zeppelins served in every German theatre of war save East Africa, and even there one tried to get through, albeit unsuccessfully, by overflying Egypt and the Sudan. The Army preferred to use them for deep reconnaissance but would occasionally mount a bombing mission. The Navy used them as scouts for the operations of the High Seas Fleet but also carried out raids well inland into England, proving that nowhere was safe from the attentions of the Imperial Navy. Naval Zeppelin bases were established near Cuxhaven, at Ahlhorn near Oldenburg, Wittmundshaven (East Friesland), Tondern (Schlewig-Holstein, now Denmark) and, for a while, Hage, south of Nordeny. From these their route took them on a south-westerly course from which they would cross the North Sea to the East Anglian coast, from which the glow of London’s lights provided a distant beacon to steer by. Having carried out their mission, they would leave England by crossing the Kent coast and then head north-east to home.
Huge though the Zeppelins were, they generated very little awe in the professional flying community. In 1914 Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps squadrons had been posted to the French and Belgian coast as a defence against German air operations in the Channel. On 8 October, flying a Sopwith Tabloid, Lieutenant R.G.L. Marix located a Zeppelin shed at Dusseldorf and dropped four 20-lb bombs onto it from a height of 600 feet. The resulting explosions were quickly followed by a roaring inferno, the flames of which reached as high as 500 feet, signifying the end of an Army Zeppelin, Z-9. Although the Tabloid received some damage from enemy fire, Marix managed to nurse it back to within 20 miles of Antwerp, completing the journey home on a borrowed bicycle. The following day the Allies withdrew from the city.
On 21 November an even more ambitious RNAS raid with three Avro 504bs was mounted from Belfort in Alsace against the birthplace of the Zeppelin, Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. One airship was wrecked and considerable damage was done to the hangars and other facilities of this airship holy-of-holies. One aircraft was shot down, its pilot being seriously injured when he was attacked by a civilian mob. In contrast, the German military treated him with respect and great kindness while he was recovering in hospital.
On Christmas Day 1914 further incidents demonstrated how the naval air war was likely to develop. A squadron of light cruisers under the command of Commodore R.Y. Tyrwhitt escorted three specially converted Channel ferries, Engadine, Riviera and Empress, across the North Sea to a position close to the mouth of the Elbe, from which an attack could be made on the Zeppelin sheds at Cuxhaven. Nine Short floatplanes were lowered into the sea, of which only seven managed to lift off. The remainder flew to Cuxhaven where, although they were unable to identify the sheds, their appearance caused uproar. As the High Seas Fleet relied on Zeppelins for much of its reconnaissance, the risk of future raids was only too real. Furthermore, the German high command was seriously unsettled by the fact that so much valuable information on the fleet’s disposition had been gathered by the British pilots that a number of warships were moved immediately. Amid the hullabaloo, the battle cruiser Von der Tann was involved in a collision and so seriously damaged that she had to be docked. Three of the floatplanes returned safely to their carriers. The pilots of three more were picked up by the submarine E11, and the last became a passenger aboard a Dutch fishing boat.
Meanwhile, a counter-attack had been launched on Tyrwhitt’s cruisers by two Zeppelins, L5 and L6, plus a number of seaplanes. None were hit, although some were near-missed and finally the German aircraft droned off. L6, with her crew frantically slapping patches on 600 bullet holes hissing hydrogen out of her gasbags, was very lucky to get home.
It is, of course, impossible to describe all the raids that took place over four years in a single chapter. Naturally, the Kaiser insisted in regulating what was going on and insisted that London was not to be attacked west of the Tower. This ruled out most of the best targets, including the City. The Imperial Chancellor, Theobald Bethmann-Holweg gave permission for the City to be attacked at weekends, when it was empty. It was then pointed out that it emptied every night, so that restriction was removed.
Finally, the Kaiser permitted attacks throughout the capital, with the exception of historic buildings and royal palaces. Nature imposed her own limitations when Zeppelin operations were restricted to the moonless half of the month. The first attack on the United Kingdom took place on 19/20 January 1915 and caused very little damage. In all, 42 raids were launched during the year with a variable number of airships, the first strategic air offensive aimed at the United Kingdom, with very mixed results, including the needless destruction of a large number of glasshouses at Cheshunt.
London was not attacked until 31 May, when seven people were killed and 38 wounded. On 6 June L13, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Heinrich Mathy, a brilliant navigator and the nearest thing to a Zeppelin ace, attacked Hull, causing £45,000 of damage. A riot ensued in which property believed to be in German ownership was wrecked. It was not just that fear was getting the better of people; they were angry, too, that the powers that be were apparently failing to provide them with adequate protection and several Royal Flying Corps personnel were roughed-up because of it. This was not justified, because the threat was being taken very seriously and a great deal was already being done, although it would be some time before a fully integrated defence system became operational.
On 8 September, Mathy was back in L13, carrying a two-ton bomb-load, including one of the new 660-lb bombs specially designed for use against England. This time his target was the City, in which he started extensive fires and destroyed buildings in the area north of St Paul’s Cathedral. Anti-aircraft fire forced him to climb hurriedly to 11,200 feet, but his last bombs was used to damage the railway track leaving Broad Street Station and to destroy two motor buses. On this occasion he had caused over £500,000 worth of damage, killed 22 people and injured 87 more. Such was public anger that on 12 September the Admiralty appointed Admiral Sir Percy Scott, a gunnery expert of note, to command London’s anti-aircraft defences.
One of the most remarkable raids of all took place on the night of 13/14 October, involving L15 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Jaochim Breihaupt, another excellent navigator. Breihaupt penetrated central London and, flying steadily from west to east to the north of The Strand, dropped his bombs on Exeter Street, Wellington Street, Catherine Street, Aldwych,
the Royal Courts of Justice, Carey Street, Lincoln’s Inn, Hatton Garden and Farringdon Road before heading for home. Behind lay a trail of death and destruction, including 28 killed and 60 injured. The number of casualties could have been higher as Breihaupt’s course took him close by the capital’s theatre land, where places of entertainment were packed to the doors. While leaving the target area, Breihaupt was also forced to climb sharply to avoid anti-aircraft fire, and noted with alarm that several aircraft were searching for him at a lower level, proof that the defence was stiffening.
Breihaupt’s attack may have unsettled some Londoners, but in certain circles it was simply not done to acknowledge the fact. At the height of the attack, about 22:30, Mrs Patrick Campbell, the doyenne of the London stage and leading member of British society, was being fitted with a dress. She was leaning out of her window, trying to discover the cause of all the fuss, with two seamstresses hanging onto her bottom for dear life. ‘They’re bombing Derry and Thoms!’ she announced in total disbelief. Obviously, the attempted destruction of one’s favourite fashion house was taking things beyond acceptable limits.
During this period, unless luck was on their side, aircraft were at a disadvantage when engaging Zeppelins, for not only were they unable to match the airships’ ability to gain altitude rapidly, their machine gun ammunition was unable to do more than puncture the gasbags inside the hull, damage which could be repaired quickly by a trained crew. An alternative was to drop bombs on the airship from above, but that was a very hit and miss affair, even if the necessary height could be gained. However, on the night on 6/7 June 1915 Sub-Lieutenant R.A.J. Warneford, piloting a tiny Morane, was on his way to bomb the Zeppelin sheds at Berchem Ste Agathe when he spotted LZ-37 over Ostend. He closed in to attack but was not only driven off by machine gun fire, but also chased by the monster for a while. Without losing sight of the airship, he put his machine into a slow, steady climb until he reached the height of 11,000 feet. Turning off his engine, he glided noiselessly down on LZ-37, 4,000 feet below, and, flying along the back of his opponent, dropped six 20-lb bombs onto it. Some must have detonated on the airship’s hard internal skeleton, for there was a huge explosion that blew the little Morane upside down and caused some internal damage to the engine. Having recovered control of his machine, Warneford could see the flaming mass hurtling earthwards. It smashed into a convent, the only survivor being a quartermaster named Alfred Muhler who was thrown out of the control gondola when it crashed through a roof, landing on a bed bruised and singed but alive. For his part, Warneford managed to land his aircraft in enemy territory, where he was able to repair the damage and return home. His exploit won him the Victoria Cross but his story had a sad ending for, ten days later, he was killed in a flying accident.
North Sea Battleground: The War at Sea 1914-1918 Page 8