Zeppelin query

[ozplane]

I live in a village just to the North of Baldock in Hertfordshire and I was chatting to a very lively 93 year old lady at a village meeting last night. Knowing of my interest in aviation she asked if I knew anything about a Zeppelin she had seen over the village in the First World War. I would be grateful if any of the forum memebers could point me in the right direction as I'm sure there is a tale to be told here.

[Simtech]

Hi Ozplane,

Two German airships were shot down over Hertfordshire during the First World War: Schutte-Lanz airship SL11 was brought down over Cuffley by Lt. William Leefe-Robinson on the night of 2/3 September 1916; he was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions. On the night of 1/2 October 1916, Zeppelin L31 was shot down over Potter's Bar by Lt. Wulstan Tempest.

Hope this helps - a Google search will provide more info if required.

Best regards,

Simtech

[ozplane]

Many thanks Simtech, that's a big help and I'll get the info back to my contact.

[Akrotiri bad boy]

Oz

I'll put my anorak on for this one.

If the date was as Simtech suggests (2/3 September 1916) then your neighbour witnessed the biggest Zeppelin raid of the war. 16 airships were launched that night, 14 making it to the English coastline. Narrowing it down further, Zepp L32 was over Tring eventually bombing Ware. L21 was seen over Hitchin whilst L16 bombed the village of Essendon mistaking it for NW London. The ill fated SL11 made landfall at the mouth of the River Crouch at 22:40. At 01:10 SL11's commander, Wilhelm Schramm, was over St Albans releasing bombs on London Colney shortly afterwards. Schramm then headed towards London drizzling bombs along the way from North Mimms to Cockfosters and Hadley Wood. The defences picked Schramm out here forcing him to turn northward away from the city. Outbound Schramm still found time to drop further munitions along the Enfield highway. It was around here that Leefe Robinson sighted the airship.

Sorry about that, not many people ask about Zeppelins, and when they do I tend to blab on a bit.:8

All the best

Akro

[jabberwok]

Sorry about that, not many people ask about Zeppelins, and when they do I tend to blab on a bit

Maybe because big bags of gas are regularly shot down in Prune... :p

[John Eacott]

IIRC, somewhere in the Enfield area there is a roadside memorial to Leefe-Robinson. I used to cycle past it when out for a ride from Chingford as a kid, but haven't the faintest idea where. Might have been on the way to Cheshunt?

[Onan the Clumsy]

Don't take the wrong way, because I really don't mean it like that, but it seems a little odd that to consider it an achievement to destroy a huge, slow moving bag of hydrogen. :8

[diginagain]

IIRC, he flew a BE2c, with a chap in the back firing incendiary bullets from a Lee-Enfield rifle. Bearing in mind the performance of his mount, and the difficulty in handling a rifle in slipstream, in the dark, it was quite a feat!

[jabberwok]

Onan,

OK, maybe politics came into it slightly because the public were bloody terrified of these attacks BUT it was still, AT THE TIME, considered a great feat of flying.

To take off at night, spot the intruder, position for a successful attack and get back down in one piece was a tough piece of work.

The Zepps could dump ballast and climb like a rocket if they spotted an attacker.

[Simtech]

Leefe-Robinson was indeed flying a BE2C when he destroyed the SL11, but I'm not sure that he had an observer armed with a Lee-Enfield; the contemporary reports that I have seen regarding the combat state that he emptied three drums of "a new type of incendiary ammunition" into the SL11. This implies that he was using a Lewis gun and Brock or Pomeroy ammunition.

Edited to say that the ammunition used was alternate Brock/Pomeroy rounds. Information taken from his combat report which can be found here (http://www.stbees.org.uk/schools/public/sbs_war1dead.htm)

[diginagain]

Thanks for that, Simtech. :ok: Makes his achievement even greater, IMHO.

[Footless Halls]

Something in my memorybanks tells me that the 'Pomeroy' in the design of the ammunition was related to the motor-racing author Laurence Pomeroy.

At the time of the raid my Great Uncle lived in Hadley Wood and he saw the airship burn and crash. Not a nice way to go.

I believe public feelings were so high that Zepp crew survivors had to be protected from lynching by the general public.

[teeteringhead]

I can remember my late mother who was an Eastender (Poplar) born in 1912 talking of a Zeppelin which bombed a school near her in East London. She was too young to remember the raid herself, but distinctly remembers growing up with a number of people only a few years older than her who had lost limbs in the attack.

I guess Zeppelin crews wouldn't have been too popular around Chrisp Street either.... another family legend is that maternal grannie refused to have blue cornflowers (German national flower??) in the house after said Zep raid on the school.

Any details on this raid from the Zep anoraks (meant as a compliment)???

[ICT_SLB]

According to family lore, my father was born during a Zeppelin raid on Woolwich in November 1917. According to Constantine Fitzgibbon's book on the blitz, the loss of life & casualties per ton of bombs dropped from the Zeppelin, Gotha & R-plane raids was so great that it panicked the authorities in World War II. They envisioned hundreds of thousands if the same figures applied.

Just revisited the Smithsonian in DC and one of the few WWI dioramas is the attack on the SL. BTW if memory serves, don't beleive any Zeppelin was ever lost to Allied action - all the losses were the older lower-flying (wooden?) SLs.

[Dr Jekyll]

There is a memorial in Cuffley commemorating the airship crash, but I don't know if it particularly refers to Leefe Robinson.

[Simtech]

Zeppelin L48 (formerly LZ95) was brought down at Holly Tree Farm, Theberton, Suffolk on the night of 16/17 June 1917. The victorious pilot was Lt. L.P. Atkins. 16 of the airships' crew died in the crash; they were buried at Theberton parish church, but later exhumed and re-buried at the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof (German War Cemetery) on Cannock Chase (where lie all the German airship crews who perished over the UK during WW1).

I've visited the church on several occasions (my wife is from the area) and there is a piece of the airships' framework preserved in the porch. The local pub, the Lion Inn, has an extensive display of contemporary photographs and newspapers pertaining to the incident (and also serves great meals and excellent beer - end of shameless plug!)

[Akrotiri bad boy]

Teetering Head

As far as I can make out the closest Zepp attack to Chrisp St was carried out by L33 on Sept 23/24 1916.

L33 commanded by Alois Bocker approached the coast along the Thames estuary and River Crouch before running in over South Brentwood and Chadwell Heath. Believing himself to be over Tower Bridge Bocker dropped 2 300kg bombs, 8 100kg bombs and 32 50kg bombs along with 20 incendiaries. These actually fell on Bromley by Bow creating a fire at an oil depot, destroying a row of tenements and a pub resulting in 12 injuries and 6 fatalities.

However,whilst over Bromley at 13,000ft Bocker's L33 took a hit from an artillery shell. This ripped the skin of the gas cell resulting in Bocker gradually losing height. Bocker made a dash for the coast but was unable to maintain height eventually coming down at Little Wigborough on Mersea Island. Bocker and his crew were subsequently caught and held as POW's.

Is that sufficiently "anoraky"?:8

Cheers

Akro

[stiknruda]

My house is a traditional 16C timber framed dwelling, sometime in the Victorian era, a brick facade was added. The corners of the house are in white brick whilst the faces are red brick.

The south-eastern corner has obviously been repaired and is entirely in red brick. The story that I was told upon purchase was that a Zepp was being pursued during the Great War by British fighters and jettisoned its bomb(s). The bombs landed in a field about 120mtres away from the house and brought that corner of the faceade crashing down.

House is 17 miles south of Norwich, in the parish of Redenhall.

I'd love to know more!

Stik

[teeteringhead]

Akro

That's brilliant, Bromley by Bow would be the one, presumably the school copped it as well. I have some other contacts which may find out more.

Thanks again. :ok:

Edited to add:

So much for family memories - it wasn't a Zepp but fixed wing (Gotha??) - 1917, so perhaps Mum did remember it, just eleven days after her 5th birthday ....

Death From The Sky
The morning of Wednesday June 13 1917 was hot, and the sky was hazy. Nevertheless, onlookers in London's East End were able to see 'a dozen or so big aeroplanes scintillating like so many huge silver dragonflies'. These three-seater bombers were carrying shrapnel bombs; that morning they killed 104 people.
Sixteen of the dead were 5- and 6-year olds, in their classroom at Upper North Street School, Poplar; two older children also died. 'The sun had been shining, and then it seemed to go out in a roar of thunder.

The above from a contemporary newspaper report. Much more is here. (http://www.ppu.org.uk/memorial/children/index.html#death)

Edited again:

Wow! It's amazing what this site can lead to. Further googling has found a list of the children - one has the same (unusual) surname which was maternal grannie's maiden name - could well have been a 5 year old nephew, so my mother's cousin and so (I think) my first cousin once removed. And I didn't suspect until half an hour ago....More to come.....

[Akrotiri bad boy]

Stiknruda

Despite intensive anoraking and trawling my notes I can't really help you as East Anglia was the Zepps dumping ground.

They were cautioned never to be over the English countryside during daylight hours. Most Zepps made landfall between the Thames estuary and The Wash, if they had come on the wind they would hold station off shore awaiting nightfall before proceeding inland. If on the other hand they had struggled against a headwind it was quite often too late in the night to make it across to London and back out to sea before sunrise.

If the Zepps arrived over East Anglia too late to make it to London et al then they quite often bombed indiscriminately.

Cheers

Akro

[stiknruda]

Ak bad boy - thank you for even taking the trouble to look!

Stik

[uncivilservant]

"Don't take the wrong way, because I really don't mean it like that, but it seems a little odd that to consider it an achievement to destroy a huge, slow moving bag of hydrogen."
---------------------------------------------------------
Yes, but remember that is a late 20th Century perception ... at the time, a Zeppelin could travel as fast as any aeroplane, and reach a much greater altitude. Until successful incendiary bullets were developed the best a fighter could do, even if it could get within range (unlikely), was to put a few small holes in the gas bag. To put it into perspective, think about trying to clobber an F15 with a Jet Provost, from a standing start.

[4Greens]

Came across a new book which includes the subject.

The Sky on Fire, The first Battle of Britain by Raymond H Fredette.

May be of interest.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

There was a program on (I think) Ch4 on Sunday afternoon about airships. It's continued next Sunday. The one I saw included the Zepplin story which started way before WW1 and told the real struggle Zepplin had to get the German armed forces interested in his machine as a weapon of war.

It covered the attacks on UK in that war, and confirmed that though a big bag of hydrogen might sound an easy target, bullets just went staright through it. Incediary bullets were developed to deal with the threat, and these were, apparently, very effective.

Lots of interesting achive film of these stately flying machines, inside and out. They all appeared to be steered by a large 'ships wheel' right in the nose of the gondola.

SSD

[teeteringhead]

a big bag of hydrogen might sound an easy target, bullets just went straight through it Part of the problem is the very low "overpressure" of the balloon. A few years ago I was involved in some Brit military attempts to use airships, and was surprised to discover that the bag pressure was only about 1 psi greater than ambient.

So all those mental images of a Zepp careering around like an untied party balloon are (sadly) inaccurate. The phrase I recall is that a punctured gasbag would "gracefully degrade".

[Bumfichh]

Zeppelin L31 was shot down over Potter's Bar by Lt. Wulstan Tempest.


Hence Tempest Ave in Potters Bar