Zeppelin Blitz

by Neil Storey

  L-22 passed east of Haisborough light vessel at 9.10 p.m., going south-west, and dropped four HE bombs in the sea off Bacton on being fired at from that place. She sheered off at once from the coast in a north-west direction, and appears to have returned back to her base, going not by the direct route but straight across to the Dutch coast first, near the island of Texel, and following the Frisian Isles. It was thought that she had been hit by the Bacton gun and received sufficient injury to return by the safest route.

  L-17, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hermann Kraushaar, dropped a flare at 1.35 a.m. to enable sight of the coastline, followed by three HE bombs off the Norfolk coast between 1.40 a.m. and 1.43 a.m. She then came in over Weybourne at 1.45 a.m., passed over Baconsthorpe at 1.50 a.m. and Hindolveston at 2.10 a.m., where she altered course to the eastward to Guestwick. Turning south-west near Reepham at 2.20 a.m., she was east of Dereham at 2.30 a.m. and Shipdham at 2.35 a.m., and remained in that area for some time.

  L-17 was next spotted over Binham, where she turned north-east and dropped a single HE bomb when passing over Marlingford at 3.10 a.m., quickly followed by another that landed at Easton, neither of which did any damage. Now flying eastward fast, she was north of Norwich at 3.12 a.m. passing near Blofield at 3.16 a.m., Salhouse at 3.20 a.m. and, while over Martham at 3.30 a.m., she was seen to change course south-east and passed out to sea at Caister five minutes later. Passing over Cross Sand light vessel at 3.45 a.m., she was heard to drop seven HE bombs into the sea five minutes later.

  FIGHTING ZEPPELINS: A PILOT’S PERSPECTIVE

  This fascinating account was written by a pilot who had flown in action during the great Zeppelin offensive of 1916. It is also worthy of note that he placed more store in bombs than machine guns (or did not wish to give away the new secret weapon for Zeppelin killing – the Brock-Pomeroy exploding phosphorous bullets). Sadly he remains anonymous, for the account was published under the name of ‘An Air Pilot’ in ‘BP’, the works magazine of Boulton & Paul Ltd, Norwich, in December 1916:

  FE-2b night fighter ready for a Zeppelin patrol. (RAF Museum, Hendon)

  ‘Fourteen or fifteen airships participated in the attack on Great Britain last night; two of the raiders were brought down.’ Hard official words these, that read in cold black and white of print, fail entirely to bring to the reader’s mind a true idea of the romance, the danger and nerve wracking conditions under which this novel form of warfare is fought out.

  Let us imagine, if we can, the difficulties the aeroplane pilot has to face. It is dark, pitch dark, sky and earth are alike indistinguishable. Flying at the best of times contains more than a comfortable element of danger and in the darkness is accentuated. The darkness deprives the air pilot of all senses of direction and of locality, greatly hampers him in the manoeuvring of his craft and renders unpleasantly possible a collision with another aeroplane on similar errand bent.

  Starting out there are a hundred and one small details to be attended to, as the testing of the engine, the trying of elevators and ailerons and the examination of petrol and the oil tanks in order to ascertain if there is a sufficiency of both to last a two or three hour trip. All this to be performed in the pitch dark, with the engine screeching loud so that a man may not hear a word and the attendant mechanics indistinguishable in the gloom. Fortunately for the pilot a small dry-cell electric lighting set is installed in the body of every machine and by this means the pilot is able to distinguish his instruments – a most necessary adjunct to safe flying – as the altimeter which records the height, the revimeter which indicates the speed of the engine and the compass, more necessary than any other instrument for night flying.

  Getting off from the ground is by no means a pleasant sensation. There are hangars, high roofs and chimney stacks all waiting to be collided with, patches of thin and rarefied air, which will bump the machine down as much as 30ft at a time; the ever present danger of engine failure, necessitating a descent to the darkened earth beneath, always so full of death traps for the airman and his craft.

  Clear of the earth at about 1,000ft there are, here and there, faint patches of light and dark grey and the subdued reddish glow of the distant metropolis; the locomotive of a passenger train, bright as a searchlight for a brief moment, then passing away into the outer darkness. Higher and yet higher and the sensation! The mind of a Jules Verne or a H.G. Wells could not imagine a feeling more eerie, more strange than this. Noise and darkness, the incessant deafening purr of the engine, the pitch blackness on all sides, relieved by the one tiny light inside the fuselage as welcome and cheery to the airman as a distant lighthouse to a sailor in a storm.

  Then the searchlights begin to blaze, creeping up across the sky in ribbons of shining brightness. One plays for a moment on the machine, the pilot is almost blinded, before it passes on, in its strange search across the heavens. For an encounter with the raiding airship is not at all probable at an altitude of below 6,000ft and from that height up to 15,000; the only likely encounter is with the observation car of a Zepp. This car is usually suspended hundreds of feet beneath the mother craft by means of a stout aluminium cable or cables; is about 7ft by 5ft, composed entirely of aluminium and contains sufficient space for one observer, who is in telephone communication with the commander.

  At last the pilot of the aeroplane has a feeling; he cannot hear, because of the noise of his own engine and he cannot see because of the intensity of the darkness all around him that the Zeppelin is near at hand.

  The combat between the aeroplane and the Zeppelin might be compared to that between a British destroyer and the German Dreadnought in the recent Jutland battle; for once above the Zeppelin, the aeroplane pilot can use his bombs, which are considerably more effective than a machine gun, and the broad back of the gas-bag offers a target which can hardly be missed.

  With regard to the matter of manoeuvring, the aeroplane has the great advantage of being remarkably quick both in turning, climbing and coming down, whereas the zeppelin is a slow and clumsy beast at the best of times. The zeppelin is very susceptible to flame and explosion of any kind; the gas in the envelope, a mixture of hydrogen and air, forms an extremely explosive mixture. The aeroplane, owing to the fabric of which is composed and the petrol needed for propulsion is, to a certain degree, inflammable, but not nearly to the extent of the airship. Per contra the airship possesses a distinct advantage in that it is able to shut off its engines, and to hover, which is impossible for an aeroplane to do. Again in the matter of speed in a forward direction, and for that matter backwards also, for the Zepp engines are reversible – the aeroplane holds palm.

  The combat finished the aeroplane pilot has yet to make a landing, surely the most dangerous and tricky manoeuvre of the whole flight. The difficulties and dangers thus encountered are too obvious to need explanation, further than to say that the landing has to be effected in the dark, with only an electric ground light for guidance.

  27/28 November 1916

  Ten airships left north Germany in the early afternoon of 27 November, under orders to attack the Midlands and Tyneside. L-24 and L-30 failed to make landfall over England.

  L-34 attacked the Durham coast in company with L-35 and L-36. She came in over Black Halls Rocks at 11.30 p.m. and went inland over Castle Eden, where she was picked up by the Hutton Henry light at 11.34 p.m. When just beyond the light she steered south-south-east, and arrived over Elwick, turned east-south-east and dropped thirteen HE bombs on the searchlight. This demolished a cow shed, injuring two cows, and cut the telegraph wires, but resulted in no damage to the light, although three bombs fell in the same field about 150 yards from it.

  At this point, the Zeppelin was attacked by Second Lieutenant Ian V. Pyott RFC, who had taken off from Seaton Carew in BE-2c 2738 and saw her between Sunderland and Hartlepool, in the beam of the Hutton Henry light, in which she was held throughout her course. L-34 was going south towards him. At this moment, the aviator was at 9,800ft and the Zeppelin seemed to be a few h
undred feet below him. She then rose rapidly.

  Pyott flew towards her at right angles and then passed underneath her amidships, firing as he went. He swung quickly round again to follow the Zeppelin, which was by that time turning east and bombing the Elwick light, probably in an attempt to elude the aeroplane. Aeroplane and Zeppelin then flew on parallel courses for about 5 miles towards the sea, 200 yards apart – L-34 flying at a speed of approximately 70mph. Pyott then concentrated his fire on a single spot on her port quarter, firing in all seventy-one rounds, until at 11.46 p.m., when directly over West Hartlepool, a small patch of the Zeppelin’s envelope became incandescent. The fire spread rapidly, until the whole Zeppelin was in flames. The aviator dived instantly to avoid the fall of the blazing L-34 but, although at a distance of 300 yards from her, his face was somewhat scorched by the heat.

  The Zeppelin fell almost vertically. Some large object, probably a gondola, was seen to fall from her centre and then the envelope separated from the framework and both fell flaming into the sea well clear of the town, about 1,800 yards east of the Heugh lighthouse. The precise time of the fall of L-34 may be fixed at 11.50 p.m. A portion of her was still burning on the water after midnight but, in half an hour, no trace of her was left but a scum of oil on the surface of the water.

  Just before catching fire, L-34 had begun dropping bombs on West Hartlepool. Sixteen HE bombs fell, which did considerable damage but caused few casualties. A large number of windows in houses and shops were broken, and a grandstand in a football field was demolished. Two women died of shock, and three men, six women and four children were injured – one of these men and one of the women subsequently died.

  As the raider passed over the town, she came under heavy fire from the AA guns at Hartlepool and Seaton Carew. Those at Port Clarence and Billingham also fired a few rounds, but these guns, which were 6 miles south of Hartlepool and Elwich respectively, were too far off to be able to reach their target. The Hartlepool Cemetery gun, on the other hand, no doubt got very near her, and it was thought possible that at least one shell hit L-34 at about the same time she was set on fire from the machine gun fire of Second Lieutenant Pyott.

  Four postcards depicting the stages in the destruction of L-34, 27 November 1916.

  The monitor Prince Rupert, lying off the Tees, prepared for action but was unable to fire owing to the position of the Zeppelin in relation to the town. A naval aircraft, piloted by Flight Lieutenant de Roeper, went up from Redcar in pursuit of the raider but arrived on the scene after the destruction. Had he pursued his course out to sea he might have caught up with L-35.

  The flare of the burning Zeppelin was seen as far north as Matfen, near Morpeth, and as far south as Poppleton, north of York, from the ground. From the air it was seen by a pilot flying near Melton Mowbray, 136 miles away.

  L-35 came in at Hawthorn at 11.36 p.m. and went inland for 10 minutes, passing over Hesledon. She then turned round and headed out to sea again north of Easington at about 11.45 p.m. It is thought that she fled upon observing the aeroplane attack on L-34 about 10 miles to the south of her. She returned home at once, at high speed, without having dropped any bombs. She had been picked up and fired upon by the Seaham gun, which confused L-35 with L-34 and claimed the fall of the latter for their gunnery. In fact L-34 was 13 miles away – only L-35 was within their range.

  L-36 never came overland. She was about 15 miles off the mouth of the Tyne at 11.20 p.m. and no doubt intended to raid the Sunderland/Newcastle district, but the catastrophe of L-34 occurred before she reached the coast. On seeing the burning ship she immediately went away northwards, dropped an uncertain number of HE bombs in the sea off Alnmouth at 12.30 a.m. and then made her way back to base.

  L-13 came in overland in company with L-22 at Flamborough Head at 10.05 p.m. The two ships passed Bridlington at 10.07 p.m. and Burton Agnes at 10.10 p.m. They then separated, with L-13 passing Langtoft at 10.30 p.m. and going south-west, being next heard of at Pocklington about 10.50 p.m.

  Shortly before 11 p.m. she dropped an incendiary bomb at Yapham, 10 miles east of York, followed by twenty-one HE and three incendiary bombs in open fields in the parish of Barmby Moor, 1 mile nearer York, doing no damage and causing no casualties. At 11.05 p.m. L-13 passed Stamford Bridge, and at 11.15 p.m. approached York from the south-east. She was engaged by the Acomb gun, which drove the Zeppelin off to the east, but not before she had dropped two HE and twenty-one incendiary bombs on the outskirts of the city, wrecking one house and damaging several others, and slightly injuring a man and a woman.

  At 11.35 p.m. the Zeppelin passed Pocklington going east and, between 11.55 p.m. and midnight, was near Driffield. At 12.10 a.m. she passed Langtoft. She dropped five incendiary bombs at Wold Newton, fifteen minutes later and then went north-west to Snainton. She was seen north of East Ayton at 12.45 a.m., and finally went out to sea north of Scarborough under fire from the AA guns, at 12.50 a.m., dropping bombs in the sea as she went.

  L-22, after separating from L-13 near Burton Agnes, passed Driffield around 10.25 p.m., going south, and passed between Market Weighton and South Cave at about 10.40 p.m. At 10.45 p.m. she moved north of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, and at 10.52 p.m. was picked up by the Willingtoft light and gun. After two rounds had been fired, she suddenly turned north-west, circled round to the north-east and then went off in a south-easterly direction.

  Her commander seems to have been uncertain of his whereabouts, and proceeded slowly, probably drifting with engines shut off. Crossing and re-crossing over the Humber at 12.15 a.m. she passed near Skirlaugh, going east, and appears to have gone out to sea at about 12.20 a.m. at Hornsea, under fire from the guns at Cowden.

  No bombs were dropped on land by L-22. Her dip southwards over the Humber with engines cut off was thought to have been caused by the appearance of aeroplanes, which she was anxious to avoid.

  L-14 remained just a short while overland. She came in at Tunstall and then turned north-east towards the coast at 9.20 p.m. She was engaged by the mobile AA guns at Cowden. She at once dropped a large number of bombs in answer to the guns, while the latter were firing. In all, eighteen HE and twenty-six incendiary bombs were thrown, falling just north of Cowden, between the village of Mappleton and Rowlston Hall, and all to no effect.

  The Zeppelin immediately went off westward at high speed and made a wide circle northward towards Barmston where, at 9.28 p.m., the mobile AA guns came into action against her. She turned west again and then south, dropping on her way two petrol tanks, one at Moortown about 9.50 p.m. and the other at Brandesburton, north of Leven.

  The Zeppelin apparently shut off her engines and drifted south-east towards Hull, before being picked up and fired upon by the Sutton gun at 10.15 p.m. She passed on to the southward, and then turned east and out to sea north of the Spurn at approximately 10.25 p.m.

  Around 11.45 p.m. she was thought to have been responsible for dropping bombs in the sea off Cromer that were heard at that time. Her return to the coast with engines shut off, as silently as possible and without attempting to pursue her journey inland, very soon after she had bombed Mappleton, was ascribed to the appearance of the aeroplanes that had gone up from Elsham. These aircraft also considerably influenced the movements of L-22 and L-21.

  L-16 crossed the coast at Filey Bay at 9.20 p.m. and proceeded directly south-west, passing Langtoft at 9.32 p.m., Huggate at about 9.45 p.m. and south of Pocklington at 9.55 p.m. At 10 p.m. she was heard north of Holme-on-Spalding-Moor, and at 10.10 p.m. reached the line of guns between Howden and Selby, being fired upon by the Hemingborough Grange gun.

  She turned north-west, and was immediately picked up by the Cliffe gun, which opened fire. She changed course again, south-west, and at about 10.15 p.m. came under fire from the Woodhouse gun. The Zeppelin then passed over Barlow Aircraft Works, turned south-east and increased her speed considerably in order to get out of this dangerous neighbourhood as soon as possible. She did not attempt to drop bombs, as her commander evidently wi
shed to avoid attracting aeroplanes in his vicinity. When out of range, she turned west again passing over Temple Hirst at 10.20 p.m. and then south-west, passing Wormersley around 10.25 p.m.

  At 10.30 p.m. she approached the city of Wakefield, coming down to a low level. She passed over Heath Common and off south-east to Sharlston where, at 10.32 p.m. three HE and six incendiary bombs were dropped, doing no damage and causing no casualties. At 10.35 p.m. she passed Hemsworth, turned south and south-west between Grimethorpe and Great Houghton, then round to Cudworth where, at 10.40 p.m., an incendiary bomb was dropped.

  She headed westward to Monk Bretton, where two HE bombs were dropped with no effect. Then, turning off abruptly to the north-north-east at 10.45 p.m., she dropped two HE and two incendiary bombs, neither of which ignited, at South Hiendley, again doing no damage whatever. Continuing on her course, she reached the neighbourhood of Pontefract shortly before 11 p.m. and dropped four HE and four incendiary bombs near the town, causing no casualties and only breaking a few windows. The incendiary bombs failed to ignite.

  L-16 then turned south-west towards Featherstone where she threw six HE bombs, which did no damage. Then, after circling in the direction of Knottingley, she resumed her northerly course. At 11.15 p.m. she dropped an incendiary bomb at Lumby and another at Monk Fryston, west of Selby, doing no damage. She passed Sherburn-in-Elmet between 11.15 p.m. and 11.20 p.m. and Tadcaster at 11.27 p.m. Here she veered off north toward York, and at 11.35 p.m. approached the city from the south-west. The Acomb guns came into action, and the Zeppelin made no attempt to reach York, but at once sheared off in a north-west direction towards Beningbrough.

  No further bombs were dropped until about 12.15 a.m. when she dropped one HE bomb at Birdsall’s West Farm, Helperthorpe, and one at Jepson’ s farm, Boythorpe. Neither of these exploded as they had no fuses. Five HE bombs were then thrown at Foxholes, and these last damaged a house roof and broke a few windows.