The loss of Zeppelin L 15 came as a shock to all in the Naval Airship Division but Strasser was determined not to let it disrupt his plans. With a new moon on 2 April the night skies were at their darkest and the weather promised to be in the raiders’ favour. While those Zeppelins returning from this latest raid would need time to refit and for the crews to rest, Strasser had two airships available and did not hesitate to send them out on 1 April.
Towards the end of March the Naval Airship Division had 12 Zeppelins. The two oldest vessels, L 6 and L 7, now served respectively as a training ship and a reconnaissance vessel, while two others, L 20 and L 21, temporarily operated in the Baltic. That left eight Zeppelins for service against Britain. With the loss of L 15 that now reduced to seven: L 9, L 11, L 13, L 14, L 16, L 17 and L 22. Having returned early from the previous night’s raid, L 11 was ready to go out again along with L 17, which had not been involved.
Strasser gave them London as a target, but over the North Sea the wind became problematical and, following new instructions, Strasser gave them discretion to select targets in the Midlands or north of England. However, the raid did not go well for Herbert Ehrlich and L 17. He arrived off the coast before the sky was completely dark and so held out to sea for about an hour. Then, when he decided it was time to move inland, the shaft of one of the rear propellers broke. He shut down all engines while the crew secured the propeller and dropped 17 bombs at sea to lighten the ship. Running repairs complete, Ehrlich abandoned the mission and returned to his base at Nordholz.
L 11’s commander, Viktor Schütze, hoped to find targets on the River Tyne, but the wind pushed him south, beyond the River Wear, and he crossed the coast at Seaham. Schütze changed his target to the important shipbuilding town of Sunderland and as he headed inland to approach from the west, he dropped two bombs over Eppleton Colliery at 11.10pm, aimed at a burning ‘fiery heap’, but they caused no damage. Two minutes later another pair exploded at Hetton Downs, smashing windows in three houses, damaging pigsties and a hen house, killing a cockerel and nine hens. At 11.15pm a third brace struck the village of Philadelphia. Although smashing windows in 35 homes there were no casualties. Schütze now followed the River Wear towards Sunderland where warning of a possible raid had reached the town.
L 11 flew across Sunderland for two miles in a straight line dropping 21 bombs (14 HE and seven incendiary) that claimed 22 lives and inflicted injury on 128 people. The first bomb landed on the south-western edge of the town in Back Peacock Street but it failed to detonate. From there the course was to the north-east. After that first bomb others to the south of the Wear struck Pickard Street, Milburn Street and Fern Street. A girl named Harriet lived with her grandmother in Pickard Street. After an evening at a picture house they were both in bed when a bomb struck.
I can remember all the ceiling falling on top of us. To protect me, my grandmother covered me up with bedclothes. If she hadn’t gone to bed when she did, she would have been killed. The fireplace had fallen on her chair where she had been knitting.
We had a canary that used to wake us by singing. It was blown across the room and, though it never sang again, it lived another 11 years.1
In Fern Street four people died: John Joseph Woodward, Ernest Liddle Johnstone, Hannah Lydon and Thomas, her 14-year-old son. A local newspaper summarised the damage south of the river.
... about half-a-dozen streets suffered, and in some of them a number of houses were demolished. There were some very narrow escapes. In one house which was blown down there were five people, but all scrambled from beneath the debris completely unhurt. Houses around were badly shattered, and all the glass in the windows for several hundred yards distance was blown out.2
Once L 11 crossed the river, bombs fell in the Monkwearmouth district causing further significant damage. One exploded at the goods yard attached to Monkwearmouth Station where the glass roof over the platforms smashed into countless pieces. Just beyond the station another exploded in busy North Bridge Street. Thomas Shepherd Dale, a borough magistrate and leader of the local Labour Party, was on duty as a Special Constable. They found his body in the street, pierced by shrapnel and glass, lying about 15 yards from the six-foot-deep crater.3 Fred Thirkell was walking along with a daughter on each arm as L 11 approached; his wife was just ahead with two friends. The bomb killed 16-year-old Elizabeth Jane Thirkell, blasting her through a shop’s plate glass window. His other daughter, wife and her two companions all sustained injuries but, incredibly, Fred Thirkell was untouched.
Teenage siblings Gertrude and Henry Patrick were on their way home along this main road when the bomb exploded, both dying from their injuries. Two other victims killed in the street lived nearby: 68-year-old furniture dealer Robert Garbutt Fletcher lived at 2 North Bridge Street and Alfred Dunlop lived off the main road in Howick Street. Also in North Bridge Street a No.10 tram had pulled up in accordance with the local air raid regulations. The passengers dispersed but the crew remained with their vehicle. The explosion ripped the tram apart, blasting the conductress, 22-year-old Margaret Ann Holmes,4 out into the road where water gushed from a burst main. Hospitalised for months with a leg injury, although a leg brace prevented her returning to the trams, the company found her a job in their office.5 Henry Dean, an electrician, suffered a fatal injury that night too in Monkwearmouth. As the trams had stopped he walked his girlfriend home and was heading back to his lodgings south of the Wear when bomb fragments slashed open his stomach. He died in hospital of acute peritonitis.
Behind the buildings on the east side of North Bridge Street stood the main tramway depot. There a tram inspector, Joseph Thompson, and another employee took shelter behind a wall. A bomb exploded behind them and Thompson’s colleague saw a bomb fragment zip over his own shoulder then felt blood on his hands. When he turned around Thompson lay dead on the ground, the metal fragment having pierced his heart.6
The bomb at the tramway depot also smashed windows at the Thompson Memorial Hall in Dundas Street, then another cluster landed close together. They inflicted serious damage to the Thomas Street Council Schools, practically demolished the Workmen’s Hall on Whitburn Street and partly demolished St Benet’s Roman Catholic Church on Causeway. That last bomb also killed Elizabeth Weldon and her neighbour’s five-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Ranson.
Crossing over Church Street North, L 11’s next lethal bomb struck a grocer’s shop in Victor Street. Despite the late hour the shop, run by brothers Thomas and George Rogerson, remained open. When rescuers sifted through the rubble they recovered the bodies of the two brothers and that of a customer, 17-year-old Florence Johnson. Mr Glasgow, living at 65 Victor Street, heard the bombs and began to shepherd his family downstairs. As he did so, a bomb struck the house wrecking the upper part and killing his 16-year-old son John but leaving the rest of the family untouched. Herbert Chater, another resident of Victor Street died too, as did a plumber, Alfred Finkle, who lived in Dame Dorothy Street, running parallel with Victor Street.
After Victor Street, the final bomb fell at the North Dock at the shipyard of John Blumer & Co., where a fire broke out in the French polishing shop. With the raid over a newspaper outlined the damage inflicted on the town:
... eight business premises were demolished and two partly demolished, 15 dwelling-houses demolished, and 66 partly so, and 158 houses and 64 shops had windows blown in and other minor damage done. The damage was chiefly confined to houses inhabited by working-class people.7
Viktor Schütze, standing in the command gondola of L 11, described how he saw the attack develop from a height of a little over a mile.
The airship dropped explosive bombs on some works where one blast-furnace was blown up with a terrible detonation... The factories and dock buildings of Sunderland, now brightly illuminated, were then bombed with good results. The effect was grand; blocks of houses and rows of streets collapsed entirely; large fires broke out in places and a dense black cloud... was caused by one bomb. A second explosive bomb was at once dropped at the same spot; judging from the situation, it may have been a railway station.8
Schütze’s account is a little more accurate in places than many given by Zeppelin commanders, but his description of anti-aircraft fire appears greatly exaggerated, perhaps wanting to add some jeopardy to the encounter to impress those back in Germany.
While over Sunderland, the airship was caught by a powerful searchlight and was pelted with shrapnel and fire-balls [incendiary shells], but to no purpose. The concussion from a shell bursting near the airship was felt as though she had been hit.9
The reality was somewhat less dramatic. A searchlight briefly illuminated L 11 and a 6-pdr gun at Fulwell Quarry fired a single shell before the light lost the airship and the gun fired no more.10
L 11 now headed back to the coast at Seaham from where a Maxim gun opened fire with little hope of success. Most Zeppelin commanders would now have set course for home but Schütze had other ideas and turned south. Having correctly located Sunderland he knew there were other industrial sites within reach.
Schütze nosed L 11 inland again just north of the mouth of the River Tees with Middlesbrough in his sights. Port Clarence, opposite Middlesbrough on the north bank of the Tees, was first to come under attack at 12.10am but only one bomb fell. It landed in the grounds of Dorman & Long’s steel works, contracted to produce artillery shells, where it smashed into a pile of steel ingots and fragments pierced an iron wagon about 100 yards away.
Crossing the Tees, L 11 passed over Cargo Fleet on the east side of Middlesbrough. Lieutenant J.L. Ogilvie, Royal Naval Reserve, saw her from his home in North Ormesby.
I ran into the house for my sextant, and took the height which I made to be roughly 5500 feet. The airship was travelling fast... I made the course to be from West to East.11
Another witness, Reverend Kemm, was on duty as a special constable in Old Ormesby village.
I saw the Zeppelin over Cargo Fleet, and also saw what I took to be the bombs being released... I then saw a large flash, and smoke, and heard the explosion, about 12.15.12
Half an hour after L 11 passed over Cargo Fleet the local Chief Constable, Henry Riches, interviewed Rachel Kirk and her mother at Prospect Place, which faced open ground looking towards the River Tees.
Both women state that they were standing at the front door, being a little uneasy because all the Works were stopped and the lights extinguished, shortly after midnight when they heard a loud explosion in the direction of Port Clarence...
At the same time a great noise attracted their attention... and they observed a long dark object very high in the sky coming from the direction of Port Clarence...
Almost immediately afterwards two bombs were dropped on the vacant land immediately in front of their house – the concussion from the explosion forcing them up the stairs which is immediately opposite the front door.13
While Schütze’s navigation had been excellent, L 11’s bomb aiming was less impressive. Having passed over numerous industrial sites, Schütze claimed the bombs ‘were dropped with good aim on two blast-furnace works’, but damage was limited to The Crown Hotel on Works Road, which lost all its windows but sustained little other damage, and 93 workmen’s homes and a shop, where similar minor damage occurred. Two men were injured. As the sound of L 11’s engines disappeared into the darkness local people heard the faint sound of two more distant explosions.
From Cargo Fleet L 11 headed back to the coast to drop two final bombs on another favourite target, Skinningrove, home to a large iron works; Zeppelin commanders knew exactly where it was because German contractors had helped build the plant before the war. Even so, Schütze’s aim was again poor. The two bombs faintly heard at Cargo Fleet exploded in a field on Cattesty Farm about 250 yards from the iron works’ slag heaps.14 Schütze took L 11 out to sea at 12.30am.
In response to the raid the RNAS sent up four aircraft: a BE2c each from Redcar and Whitley Bay, and a Bristol Scout C and an Avro 504C from Scarborough. The RFC responded with three aircraft: two No.36 (Home Defence) Squadron BE2c from Cramlington and another of No.47 Squadron (temporarily assigned to Home Defence) sent up from Beverley. None of the pilots saw anything and the BE2c from Beverley and the Avro both crashed when landing.15
With Zeppelins L 11 and L 17 refitting and L 9 undergoing repairs, Strasser had four airships available on 2 April. Three hours after L 11 returned from the previous night’s raid, L 13, L 14, L 16 and L 22 set out for a new rich target, the Firth of Forth in Scotland. There lay the Rosyth naval dockyard, the commercial docks at Leith, the city of Edinburgh and the tempting target of the Forth Bridge – but that required an accuracy of bomb aiming beyond which any Zeppelin could deliver. Shortly after departure Heinrich Mathy’s L 13 returned to Hage after developing engine problems.
British ships out in the North Sea radioed back information that Zeppelins appeared to be heading towards northern Britain. At 10pm, before any had reached the coast, a naval force left Rosyth and pushed out into the North Sea hoping to intercept any returning Zeppelins but in this they were unsuccessful.16
Out over the western half of the North Sea unexpectedly strong northerly winds made the crews battle hard to hold their course for the Firth of Forth. Werner Peterson struggled in L 16. He realised he was off course and believed he crossed the coast south of the River Tyne, but he was actually about 20 miles north of it, coming inland at 11pm over Druridge Bay on the Northumberland coast.
Peterson’s first command, Zeppelin L 7, had come close to destruction during an air raid on the Friedrichshafen Zeppelin works in November 1914.17 In June 1915 he took command of L 12, which in August was destroyed by fire in Ostend harbour after earlier damage inflicted by the Dover anti-aircraft guns had forced her down in the sea.18 Given command of L 16 in September 1915, Peterson had bombed Hertford the following month, East Anglia in January 1916 and Bury St Edmunds at the end of March.
Unsure of his position, the 28-year-old Zeppelin commander followed a southerly zig-zag course over Northumberland for half an hour searching for a suitable target. About 11.30pm what appeared to be a brightly lit angular structure came into view, which Peterson thought could be a blast furnace or factory so he released 23 bombs (12 HE and 11 incendiary). The lights, however, were flares burning at a RFC emergency landing ground at High West Houses just west of Ponteland. The bombs caused no damage of note. Peterson then retraced his route until a similar target came into view. At 11.50pm he released 11 more bombs (five HE and six incendiary); this time the lights were flares burning at Cramlington airfield, home to No.36 (Home Defence) Squadron from where two BE2c aircraft were searching for the Zeppelins. One of the wooden hangars suffered fire damage. Later one of the aeroplanes crashed when landing and caught fire, but the lucky pilot scrambled clear before his bombs exploded.
A local newspaper described how the raid stirred the people.
The report of the exploding bombs were heard for many miles... and for a distance of fully 12 miles around the windows of houses were shaken. Crowds of people turned out and a good many went to the higher grounds commanding a view of the sea. From these points of vantage the flashes of the exploding bombs were plainly seen.19
Peterson took L 16 northwards over the darkened landscape. He reached Broomhill at 12.15am, about 15 miles from Cramlington, where lights betrayed another potential target but in fact there was nothing of consequence below. L 16’s seven bombs all fell in fields at Hadston Farm and Togston Barns Farm.
Close upon midnight heavy explosions and flashes of light were heard, and observed in the direction of Broomhill... About eight reports followed in quick succession near to Togston Hall... Beyond some large holes being torn in the fields, some breakage of glass, and fallen ceilings in the cottages at Togston Barns, no other damage has been reported.20
Five minutes later L 16 crossed the coast near the mouth of the River Amble and set course for Germany.
The raid carried out by L 16 had little impact. The same was true of that made by L 22. This latest Zeppelin, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Martin Dietrich, had already carried out the devastating raid on Cleethorpes two nights earlier. Now heading for Scotland, L 22 reached the coast about three miles north of Berwick-upon-Tweed and Dietrich appears, initially at least, to have mistaken the Tweed for the River Tyne. Shortly after 9pm he dropped 11 bombs (six HE and five incendiary) on fields at Lamberton Farm from where, presumably, a light attracted his attention. A few miles away a couple heard what they thought was a ‘sharp double knock’ on their back door but soon realised it was the sound of exploding bombs.
Next minute we were upstairs, and carried the children and blankets down to the ground floor, excited a bit, but sufficiently unflurried to resist the habit of lighting a match. One young hopeful, who has been carefully counting up all the aeroplanes he has seen in his short life, took it rather badly that he was not permitted to go out... and see the Zeppelin for himself.21
All remained quiet for ten minutes, ‘then away to the west several bombs were dropped’.
From the farm L 22 headed inland and approached Chirnside, a village about nine miles north-west of Berwick, where it dropped five bombs (two HE and three incendiaries) – those ‘away to the west’. Most fell in a field but one inflicted serious damage at the home of a retired gardener and his wife. The couple were sitting in a room on the ground floor when ‘the chimney-stack and about a third of the gable-end and roof were carried away by the bomb’. Fortunately neither of them was hurt.22
A minute later and more bombs descended near the next village, Chirnside Bridge. Three HE and five incendiaries landed in fields, seven on East Blanerne Farm and a single incendiary at Lintlaw Farm.
The witness who heard the earlier explosions was in the Chirnside district the following day and took the opportunity to enquire about the bombs.
Three [incendiaries] had fallen in a field, where they had set fire to a little grass... Other two had fallen into manure heaps, and a little further along I came across one of these useful depositories. It was close to the hedge, and the manure had been churned up, flung over the hedge, and into the road. It was a pity that when the raider’s crew went in for manure distribution they did not distribute it where it would have been of service – in the field.23
Dietrich had dropped 14 bombs in the largely rural Chirnside district, which is odd as he reported bombing a big factory in Newcastle. But Dietrich’s navigation had been out when he first came inland and contemporary maps reveal a large paper mill at Chirnside Bridge, so it is possible that remote mill became a ‘Newcastle factory’ to Dietrich although no bombs fell within 600 yards of it. L 22 now turned back, reaching the coast at about 9.45pm where Dietrich released five bombs, probably to lighten his ship, before heading north towards the Firth of Forth.
At about 10.30pm, L 22 came inland again at North Berwick, following the southern shore of the Firth of Forth towards Edinburgh. North of Dirleton, Dietrich released a single incendiary bomb over Archerfield golf course to check his ground speed and any drifting. At 11.05pm, as she passed Gullane, a detachment the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, part of the Forth Garrison, opened fire.24 When they did finally reach Edinburgh the crew could see another Zeppelin below them already bombing the city. That other Zeppelin was Böcker’s L 14.
As an officer of the Hamburg-Amerika shipping line before the war, Böcker was familiar with the location of Leith docks and the city of Edinburgh. Approaching from the north shore of the Firth of Forth, L 14 passed over the village of Elie at 11.05pm from where a few lights visible about 20 miles to the south-west indicated the target. Böcker knew that the Forth Bridge and Rosyth dockyard lay a few miles beyond Leith.
Earlier, at 9.05pm, the local police received the ‘TARA’ warning, which resulted in the dimming of lights. Now, as L 14 drew closer, those dimmed lights became dark, but ships lying outside Leith Docks remained brightly illuminated until the first bomb dropped. From Böcker’s vantage point, however, everything now became black and featureless and he was unable to locate the Rosyth dockyard. He settled instead on ‘the docks and harbour works at Leith and Edinburgh’.25 The first bomb dropped at Leith at about 11.30pm.26
That first bomb27 sank a pair of rowing boats and smashed skylights on two Danish vessels in Edinburgh Dock. Two incendiaries dropped around Albert Dock but police and others dealt quickly with the small fires. The bombs were falling in quick succession now. One exploded on the roof of a grain warehouse in a narrow thoroughfare between Tower Street and Bernard Street, inflicting ‘considerable damage’, while another damaged a quay wall at the Inner Harbour and smashed windows all around. Of the two bombs that struck Commercial Street, one claimed the first victim of the raid. It exploded on a tenement block at No.2, smashing into a room at the top of the building where 66-year-old Robert Love lay asleep. He died instantly.
The other bomb in Commercial Street hit a tenement at No.14. On hearing the first explosions an elderly lady went to a window just as an incendiary bomb crashed through the roof, setting fire to some clothes in her kitchen before crashing down to the flat below. Fallen debris prevented the family escaping but the lady coolly gathered everyone in the parlour before returning to the kitchen and pouring water through the hole in the floor onto the burning bomb below. ‘In this way’, a newspaper concluded, ‘she certainly saved the tenement, and probably the lives of several people.’28
L 14 continued in a straight line across Leith, parallel to a river, the Water of Leith, that flows into the docks. In Sandport Street three burning incendiaries fell, their descent indicted by a ‘blueish ribbon of light’29: two fell either side of No.9 without damage while tenants dealt with one that landed on the roof of No.45. The next bomb, however, would bring a tear to the eye of many a Scotsman. It exploded in a bonded warehouse starting a huge uncontrollable fire. The warehouse on Ronaldson’s Wharf was packed with bottles of Uam Var Famous Scotch Whisky and in no time the intoxicating smell of burning spirits filled the air. The warehouse had no insurance against aerial bombardment leaving the shocked owners to estimate their losses at £44,000.30 About 130 yards further on an incendiary smashed through the roof of 15 Church Street, setting fire to the home of a soldier’s wife and her three children, before crashing through the floor to a flat below occupied by a couple and their five children. Although the fire did ‘a good deal of damage’, all eleven escaped unharmed.
L 14 dropped four incendiaries around Mill Lane but the three that fell outside Leith Hospital, in the playground of St. Thomas’ school and at a shipyard on Great Junction Street burnt out without causing any damage. The fourth, however, fell on the roof of St Thomas’ church manse causing a raging fire. The Reverend Fleming, his wife and their maid had just descended the stairs before flames engulfed the staircase. The police described their escape as ‘miraculous’.
The last four bombs on Leith fell in pairs. Near Bonnington Road one landed in a garden doing little damage but the second exploded in an enclosed court about 50 yards away shattering windows and smashing doors. At 200 Bonnington Road, Robert Robb, a warehouseman, was asleep as was his wife and child when the bombs exploded. A ‘tremendous crash’ woke him and ‘the house shook, the windows were broken in, and articles of furniture moved and creaked’. Robb and his wife quickly got dressed intending to find a place of safety but it was too late.
My wife took the child [one-year-old David] out of the crib, and shortly thereafter made the terrible discovery that it was dead. On examining it we found a piece of a bomb had struck it on the left shoulder and had in all probability penetrated the heart.31
The inquest revealed that a bomb fragment had passed through the window 16 feet above the ground then penetrated the cot’s one-inch thick wooden headboard and two bedcovers before killing little David as he lay asleep.
The final two bombs both hit the Bonnington Tannery. One struck a section of railway track but failed to detonate; the other smashed through the roof of the tannery into a ‘leather manufacturing tank’.
John Macleod, the Chief Constable of Leith, happily reported: ‘There were a great number of premises rendered insecure through the breaking of glass in windows, doors, etc... and although goods in many cases were exposed not one case of pilfering has been reported to the Police.’ But he expressed his concern that ‘thousands’ were out in the streets looking for the Zeppelin, where they were at greatest risk of injury.
The distinction between Leith and Edinburgh would have been indiscernible from the command gondola of L 14, but on a southerly course Böcker’s next bombs fell on the Scottish capital. That first bomb exploded on vacant land in Bellevue Terrace where the damage caused was not serious, mainly consisting of broken windows in houses, shops, a school, a church and a printing works there and in several adjoining streets. No one, however, suffered any injury. Keeping to the same course the next bomb, an incendiary, dropped on The Mound, a raised road running along the front of the National Gallery of Scotland and overlooking Princes Street Gardens, where it burnt out. The next, however, claimed the first victim in the city.
The bomb struck the roof of 39 Lauriston Place, in a short terrace of three-storey Georgian houses. It was home to a GP, Doctor John McLaren, his wife, their children, John, Evelyn and Alastair, and two maids. Earlier that evening, when the authorities dimmed the electric lighting, the two boys were reading in bed on the top floor of the building. When his elder brother cheerfully announced, ‘Oh, that means there’s going to be an air raid!’ nine-year-old Alastair was unsettled and his parents let the boys move to a bedroom on the floor below. Evelyn remained on the top floor in her room, the same floor as the maids. While the children slept, their parents were awake, as Alastair explained.
My father and mother had heard the noise of the Zeppelin engines and had gone up to our top floor bedroom overlooking Lauriston Place and the Castle, and, kneeling at the open window, were calmly watching the Zeppelin overhead when the bomb struck.32
It exploded on contact with the roof, sending an avalanche of rubble cascading down the outside of the house to inflict significant damage to the front steps. It also created chaos inside, causing extensive damage throughout the house, particularly to the roof, top landing and staircase, and also blowing out all the windows. The nose cap of the bomb travelled down through the house, only stopped by the stone floor in the kitchen pantry.
Dr McLaren and his wife were untouched by the plaster and rubble that had buried the bed in which the boys should have been sleeping, and were relieved when they found everyone in the house was alive. The maids had dived under their beds, which was a wise move as their door had blasted into the room, but Evelyn was pinned in her bed by a wardrobe. Eventually firemen arrived and brought everyone out, including the family’s dog and canary. It was six months before repairs to the house were complete and the family able to return, but with great foresight Dr McLaren had taken out air raid insurance and eventually received payment towards the cost of repairs.
The bomb also damaged the building next door, a special school for children suffering from the fungal infection Ringworm, and smashed many windows in the area. There was a human casualty too. David Robertson, a 27-year-old discharged soldier, was 80 yards from the bomb when struck in the abdomen by a metal fragment as he walked along Lauriston Place. Although quickly taken the short distance to the Royal Infirmary, he later died there of his injuries.
About 150 yards further on a bomb exploded in the grounds of George Watson’s College, smashing windows there, at the Royal Infirmary and in Chalmers Street. Archibald Campbell, a 13-year-old student at the College, eagerly went to inspect the damage in the morning. As any schoolboy would Archibald ‘mucked about [in] bomb-hole in playground’. After enduring Latin until noon, he returned to the crater and peered through the shattered windows of the damaged part of the school. The first schoolroom he looked into was ‘absolutely smashed’.
Desks, window-frames, broken glass, stones, and piles of plaster, all smashed up filled the room. Other front rooms about as bad... hall an inch deep in fallen plaster and broken glass. Walls all holed by bits of bomb. Picked up two bits of bomb and gave one to [my friend] Main.33
At the Royal Infirmary the explosion shattered windows in three wards, damaged side rooms and an operating theatre.34 An incendiary landed in The Meadows, a public park, after which Böcker changed direction from south to east, with his next bomb, timed at 11.55pm, hitting a tenement at 82 Marchmont Crescent. Although exploding on the roof, a large portion battered its way at an angle through the building to come to rest on the ground floor of No.80. No one in either building was hurt.35 About a thousand yards further and the next bomb hit a tenement building at 183 Causewayside leaving it ‘in a dangerous condition’ and injuring six of those inside. Two incendiaries that fell in gardens in Hatton Place and 28 Blacket Place burnt out harmlessly.
After L 14 had turned eastwards it flew a zig-zag course as it headed towards the popular landmark of Arthur’s Seat in King’s Park, an extinct ancient volcano providing stunning views across the city.36 But from there L 14 came under machine gun fire. Although Edinburgh had no anti-aircraft guns, when word of the approaching Zeppelin was received, Lieutenant T.C. Noel of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers, was despatched with two machine guns to offer some opposition. Noel took up a position at Arthur’s Seat and opened fire twice, the first time may have been why L 14 now turned about and headed back towards the centre of the city.
Böcker dropped an incendiary that burnt out on the roof of the Royal Infirmary’s boiler house, where staff were now dealing with the casualties caused by bombs dropped on the first pass over the city. L 14 headed towards Edinburgh Castle from where about 40 rifle-armed soldiers of the 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders opened an ineffective fire. Although three bombs dropped in quick succession, none hit this iconic symbol of the city. The first exploded a little to the south on the pavement outside the White Hart Hotel in Grassmarket, digging a crater six feet deep. It inflicted ‘considerable damage’ to the hotel and injuries to four people. Struck in the chest by a fragment of the bomb, William Breakey, a 45-year-old carter who lived in Grassmarket, later died in the Royal Infirmary. The sound of crashing glass filled the air as the second bomb of this trio landed just under 400 yards further on, exploding on Castle Rock, close to the south-west perimeter of the fortification’s walls. A hail of stone and rock hurled down by the explosion smashed windows in Castle Terrace, Grindlay Street and Spittal Street directly below. The third bomb fell about 250 yards to the west of the Castle, striking the County Hotel at 21 Lothian Road, opposite Princes Street Station. The explosion destroyed the roof and damaged 18 of the rooms, while Houston’s Hotel next door also lost its roof, a gable wall and had three rooms smashed. Surprisingly, only one person – Isabella Ross – was slightly injured.
Continuing on a westwards course, L 14 dropped no more bombs for a mile until it reached the valley of the Water of Leith where she turned over a large building set in its own grounds – Donaldson’s Hospital School for Deaf Children. Three bombs dropped as it turned. The first exploded opposite Coltbridge Gardens, the second near Mill Lade and the third close to the school. There were no casualties but the blast shattered a great number of windows in five streets and at the school. Having completed the turn, L 14 headed back to the centre of the city for a third time, passing close to the Royal Infirmary again but Böcker travelled beyond it before he resumed bombing.
All over the city countless people were peering up at the sky hoping for a sight of the Zeppelin while listening to the shocking boom of the explosions. Many crowded into doorways hoping to gain some protection while still having a clear view. Unfortunately it did not work out for those at the entrance to a tenement block at 16 Marshall Street because at about 12.20am Böcker’s next bomb exploded on the pavement right in front of them. The powerful explosion ripped through the entrance wrecking homes on the first floor. Six people died instantly, five of them at the entrance, where the force blasted them back against the stairs and buried them beneath falling rubble: David Thomas Graham, aged five, hotel waiter Victor McFarlane, Henry George Rumble (17), tinsmith John Smith (41) and waiter William Smith aged 15. The sixth victim, 23-year-old hairdresser William Ewing, lived at No.33 but was in the street at the time.
The explosion injured seven others in the entrance and five more in Marshall Street. Amongst them was Thomas Donoghue, a soldier of the 3/4th Battalion, Royal Scots, who was visiting his widowed mother at 27 Marshall Street while on leave. When they heard the sound of exploding bombs he went out to ‘bring a neighbour woman to keep his mother company’. He then went out a second time to check on another neighbour. That was when the bomb exploded. Rescuers found him in the street under a heavy door with severe injuries to his abdomen and others to his head and right leg. He died in the Royal Infirmary eight days later.37
Even before the rubble and shattered glass settled in Marshall Street, the next bomb exploded in Haddon Court on Nicolson Street, where it smashed numerous windows and the premises of spirit merchants D & J McCallum, inflicting damage estimated at £3000.38 Three people suffered injuries; one of them, 63-year-old Helen Brown, actually lived at 16 Marshall Street and missed the horror there only to be injured by the next bomb. Another of those hurt, 74-year-old James Farquhar, went to the Royal Infirmary where, despite his injuries not appearing to be life threatening, he died from shock after an operation on his right knee.39
Böcker now appeared to be heading back towards Arthur’s Seat, where Lieutenant Noel and his machine guns waited. But before he reached the park another bomb smashed into a tenement building at 69 St Leonard’s Hill. It caused serious damage and on the top floor falling rubble killed four-year-old Cora Bell and injured her mother Isabella and younger sister Alice.40 These were the last casualties of the raid. Over the southern edge of King’s Park, L 14 dropped three more bombs at which point it seems likely that Lieutenant Noel’s machine guns opened fire for the second time. Their bullets had no effect while the bombs did little. One managed to damage the roof of a store built adjacent to the park and smash 341 panes of glass, but the other two achieved nothing as L 14 passed about 500 yards south of the machine guns. A final bomb, an incendiary, landed in the grounds of Prestonfield House, about 900 yards from Arthur’s Seat, but burnt out without causing damage. The time was now about 12.25am.
While L 14 had passed over the centre of the city three times largely unmolested, L 22, the other Zeppelin that had reached Edinburgh, kept to the south of the city to avoid interfering with L 14. About 12.10am, L 22 began to head eastwards while L 14 continued dropping bombs on Edinburgh. It would seem that the German authorities had good information about military camps in the area because although the British reports suggest the three bombs dropped by L 22 fell in unimportant rural areas, two actually fell in the general vicinity of army camps. The first bomb, however, which fell in a field at Kingsknowle Farm south-west of Slateford, dropped when L 22 came under fire at 12.22am from a detachment of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Highland Light Infantry, positioned about a mile away at Juniper Green. They fired 130 rounds from their machine guns as L 22 climbed and headed away towards the south-east. As she passed between Redford Barracks and Dreghorn Camp a single bomb fell but landed almost a mile beyond them. L 22 was now a little ahead of L 14, which was approaching King’s Park for the second time, when her final bomb dropped. This exploded in a field belonging to the Cameron Park Dairy but it seems possible Böcker was looking for Duddingston Camp about a thousand yards to the north. Dietrich crossed the coast at Portobello at about 12.40am and followed the Firth of Forth back out to the North Sea and home. Böcker, having dropped his last bombs, headed eastwards before crossing the coast at Cockburnspath at about 1am.
No British aircraft troubled any Zeppelins that night. Reports of air activity are vague but one, maybe two, aircraft took off from the RNAS station at East Fortune, midway between Edinburgh and Cockburnspath. There was no Zeppelin sighting and one, an Avro 504C flown by Flight sub-Lieutenant G.A. Cox, crashed on landing. It also appears that two Wight seaplanes ascended from Dundee but they failed to spot either Zeppelin, which both returned safely to Germany.
But this was not the only Zeppelin activity that night. While Navy Zeppelins had made their first venture into Scotland, over 300 miles to the south, Army Zeppelins carried out their first raid of 1916, hoping to strike London.