The Cruise of Zeppelin LZ130 2nd Aug 1939

[Prangster]

Can anyone throw a little more light on the little known story of the above airships ferret flights along our east coast between 2nd and 4th August 1939. Gen Wolfgang Martini head of Luftwaffe signals sent her out to look for RDF signals but I understand some prescient thinking by relatively junior officers thwarted his aims.:* Looking to present a 'Things you don't know about the Battle of Britain' report to a local U3A history group and this caught my attention but unable to find out more.

[Warmtoast]

Wiki's your friend here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_130_Graf_Zeppelin_II#Operational_history

[Prangster]

Hi Warm toast looked at Wikki not enough info thanks anyway

[oncemorealoft]

I recall a feature on this in Aeroplane Monthly several years ago. Unfortunately I can't pin down a date.

[Jhieminga]

I just had a look at 'Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine' by Douglas Botting. According to this book there have been nine spying missions along the Czech and British borders. It states that two flights were carried out near the UK.
Then, confirming Harold Icke's fears, the Graf Zeppelin II was taken over by the signals department of the Luftwaffe and sent on nine electronic spying missions along the British coastline and the Czech frontier, usually under the command of Sammt. On September 22, 1938, barely a week before Czechoslovakia was forced to cee to Hitler's territorial claims, the ship under Eckener's command carried out a spying mission along the Czech border - the last flight Eckener was ever to undertake - and the one he was loath to admit. On July 12 through 14, 1939, the Graf II made a trial spying flight of just under forty-five hours along the east coast of England in an attempt to determine the frequencies of the British radar defense networks. On August 2 through 4, only weeks before the outbreak of World War II, it made a similar flight, getting as far north as Scotland before Royal Air Force planes intercepted it and turned it away. The Graf Zeppelin II failed to discover anything of value concerning Britain's radar defences. Had it succeeded, the outcome of the Battle of Britain, and therefore of the whole war, might have been different.That's the whole paragraph about it, of interest is that this does not tie in with the flights as listed on Wikipedia. The Wiki entry seems to have been written using only Sammt's book as a source, Botting has researched this somewhat more extensively it seems - the list of sources is a chapter in itself - but there are no more details about this episode.

[M-62A3]

There is a description of the East Coast sorties in the prologue to Wood and Dempster's "The Narrow Margin".

If you cannot find a copy send me a PM and I will scan the two pages.

It has intrigue me since I first read of it and would like to have known more about this mission.
M-62A3

[John Farley]

Interesting.

I was living at Hastings on the south coast and I saw a Graf Zeppelin fly E to W past our house at only a few hundred feet just before the outbreak of war so it could have been around August 1939.

[Warmtoast]

Prangster

Not sure if this adds to what you already know, but passed on FWIW.
I've also seen reference online to this flight in the BBC book of the TV series "Secret War", but can't verify this. I've got my own copy of R. V. Jones' "Most Secret War", but there is no mention of this trip in the index.

From: WorldLibrary.org
LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II | World Public Library - eBooks | Read eBooks online (http://www.worldlibrary.org/article/WHEBN0002402669/LZ)
%20130%20Graf%20Zeppelin%20II#Flight_24_-_Spionage

Flight 24 - Spionage
24. The Spionage (“espionage trip”) of 2 to 4 August 1939, taking over 48 hours and covering 4,203 km (2,612 mi), was
the longest trip the LZ 130 made. The main goal was to secretly collect information on the British Chain Home radar
system.[1] To do this the airship flew northwards close to the British east coast up to the Shetland Isles and back. As well as the 45 crew, 28 personnel engaged in the measurements were carried. Lifting off was around 20:53 on 2 August 1939, it
overflew Hildesheim at 23:38, seen by very few people.[1]

According to the memoirs of Albert Sammt, Mein Leben für den Zeppelin (translation: “My life for the zeppelin”) in the chapter Mit LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin auf Funkhorch- und Funkortungsfahrt (“with the LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin on the radio-listening and radiolocation trip”) a radio-measuring spy basket was used. He flew the LZ 130 up Britain’s east coast stopping the engines at Aberdeen pretending they had engine failure in order to investigate strange antenna masts. They drifted freely westwards over land and saw for the first time the new Supermarine Spitfires, which were then photographed as they circled the airship.[2]

On their return journey, as they neared Frankfurt on the evening of 4 August they were warned by radio that landing
was not yet possible. At first they suspected an aeroplane had crashed at the site, but on overflying saw nothing amiss. They turned and flew towards the Rhön Mountains and on asking, were informed “landing before dusk not possible”. They decided to return to Frankfurt and speak directly with the landing team (Landemannschaft) using their Very high frequency transmitter, so that they would not be overheard by the French and so that they could speak in Swabian German to Beurle, the landing team leader.[2]


Beurle informed them they must not land yet because the British had lodged a diplomatic protest over their actions and a
British delegation was at the airfield, with agreement of the German government, to inspect the ship. They were under
suspicion. Beurle told them to wait while they thought of something.[2]

Shortly, the LZ 130 received instructions. They were to hide all the equipment on the ship and not to land at the usual well-lit landing point where a landing team was waiting, but to land at the other end where the “real” landing team was waiting. Once they had landed there, the technicians were to get off and they would be replaced by a unit of Sturmabteilung.
The British delegation waiting at the usual landing place were told that, due to the weather, the airship had to land at
another part of the airfield. By the time the British reached the airship, the spy crew was on a bus on their way to their hotel. Although they searched the ship, the British found nothing suspicious on the ship nor in the decoy SA-crew.[2]

Dr. Breuning explained that the trip’s results were negative, and not because the British radar was switched off, as
Churchill wrote in his memoirs. The German General Martini used a strong, impulsive, broadband radio transmission for
determining the “radio-weather”, the best wavelengths to use for radio. These impulses severely disturbed the highly
sensitive receivers in the 10-12 metre waveband. Dr. Ernst Breuning wrote that he repeatedly requested Martini to stop
transmitting during the spy trips, to no avail. This made it impossible for the LZ 130 to investigate the very wavebands
the British were using.[2]
A contemporary press cutting dated 4th August 1939 reports that the Zeppelin was intercepted by two aircraft of 612 Sqn based at Dyce. At the time 612 was operating Hectors and Anson I's from Dyce, not state of art interceptors at the time, but considerably faster than the speeds flown by LZ-130.


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r231/thawes/Times%20Digital%20Archive%20-%20Zeppelin_zpspowip1uz.jpg

[Prangster]

Hi M-62A3 I suspect the Narrow Margin is where I first picked up on this but that was shortly after publication. Two house moves later and my copies vanished. I'm particularly interested to find out who at our end had the wit to let her trundle by.

[rolling20]

IIRC, I always thought that the Germans thought the RDF stations were something to do with civilian aviation? I am sure they thought they were similar to the German Lorenz system?