Zeppelin Elint Flights 1939
 

I'm aware that two Zeppelins LZ127 and LZ130 both flew Elint sorties in August 1939, LZ127 turned up off Bawdsey and ambled north on the 3rd Aug. The duty ops officer at Stanmore declined to rise to the bait and let her trundle on unmolested thereby preserving the security of our fighter control methods. With that instant decision the Battle of Britain was won. If I've asked this question before please treat an old man kindly cos his memory is absolutely atrocious. does anyone know the officers name? LZ130 Graff Zeppelin herself actually crossed our coastline near Aberdeen the following day I'm telling the story to a U3A group and it would be nice to round it out

That Duty Ops Officer must have made one of the best decisions of the whole war, but no doubt some criticised him for it. One hopes his effective intelligence was appropriately recognised

ISTR that they were also listening in on the wrong frequencies, and so decided we didn't have any effective air-warning radar. (From reading R V Jones' book mega-yonks ago...)

Prangster
When you enquired about this some years ago I posted a link to WiKi about these flights. WiKi doesn't answer your question but for new readers worth reading - here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_130...tional_history

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.

https://i145.photobucket.com/albums/...pspowip1uz.jpg

I've got my own copy of R. V. Jones' "Most Secret War", but there is no mention of this trip in the index.