When strong southerly winds interrupted the progress of the eight Zeppelins towards Scotland on 2 May, five turned away to seek targets in northern England, leaving three to continue with the original plan. One of these, Victor Schütze’s L 11, gradually drifted away from the other two and at 8.40pm, when about ten miles off St Abb’s Head, came under fire from two armed vessels, the trawler Semiramis and yacht Portia. L 11 escaped by turning back eastwards but Schütze appears disorientated by the interruption. At 10.20pm, L 11 came inland 16 miles further south, at Goswick near Holy Island on the Northumbrian coast, where Schütze dropped two incendiary bombs. The first landed in a field between the North Eastern Railway tracks and the sea, the second on the sands between Holy Island and the mainland. Inevitably they caused no damage. Schütze was now heading south, keeping inland but parallel with the coast. Unsure of his position he dropped a parachute flare as he passed Alnwick but low rain clouds and ground fog made matters impossible and Schütze abandoned the mission, going out to sea at Amble at about 11.15pm having dropped no more bombs.
Kapitänleutnant der Reserve Alois Böcker had made the successful attack on Edinburgh at the beginning of April. Now, a month later, he hoped to repeat his achievement but the strong winds disrupted his plans, pushing him beyond the Firth of Forth. At 10.50pm, Böcker reached Lunan Bay, north of Arbroath. Here he circled for about 45 minutes in atrocious weather before coming to the conclusion that he was still over the sea and, seeing two small groups of lights below, he dropped five bombs on what he believed were ‘two big warships’.1 In fact Böcker was about two miles inland and south-west of the village of Arbirlot. Rather than targeting warships, his first three bombs landed in a field on Bonhard Farm. A huge upheaval of earth left holes about 14 feet in diameter and over four feet deep and although too far from any buildings to cause damage, a young horse in the field took fright, jumped a fence and injured its hind legs. The other two bombs exploded about a mile further on in a field of potatoes at Panlathie Farm. Through rain and snow clouds Böcker headed to the south, passing Carnoustie and across the River Tay east of Monifieth, unaware that Dundee and its docks lay in darkness less than six miles upstream. At 12.07am, L 14 passed over Tayport on the south bank of the river before dropping bombs in St Andrew’s Bay prior to heading back out over the North Sea.
At first light the next morning army officers collected up all the bomb fragments they could find and took them away.2 The bomb craters quickly became a tourist attraction and two enterprising youngsters at Bonhard Farm cashed in on this curiosity by breaking up an old iron cauldron and selling the fragments to unwary day-trippers as pieces of the bombs.3 Having encountered adverse weather, both Schütze and Böcker took a pragmatic approach and aborted their raids while still close to the coast. Their comrade, Franz Stabbert, however, remained determined to carry out his orders and attack the docks at Rosyth. It did not end well.
Stabbert and L 20 crossed the Scottish coast at Lunan Bay at about 9.55pm, an hour before Böcker. Wireless bearings he received, which were inaccurate, convinced him the wind had veered to the north-west and was retarding his progress, whereas it continued to blow from the south pushing him forwards. Clouds formed a solid layer and, with no ground reference available, he planned to steer west, estimating that a north-westerly wind would edge him south towards Rosyth. Instead, the southerly wind pushed him further away from his target and into the Scottish Highlands. At 10.30pm, L 20 passed over Glen Clova where the Reverend R.M. Watson reported he could see nothing of the Zeppelin through the mist but that ‘there was no mistaking the sound of its motors’. Others in this remote region of Scotland thought that ‘the very air was vibrating with noise’ as L 20 battled on through heavy rain and snow squalls.4 Stabbert passed near Aviemore at 11.30pm, heading ever deeper into the Highlands. Further requests for wireless bearings failed due to ice coating the aerial. At about midnight the clouds parted and for the first time since crossing the coast Stabbert had a view of the ground. Consulting his maps he made the shocking discovery that the great body of water below was Loch Ness, which placed him about 90 miles north of Rosyth. Villagers on the west side of the loch heard the sound of L 20’s engines as she turned and set a course to the east, passing Aviemore again and proceeding over the Cairngorm Mountains. At 1.45am, much to Stabbert’s surprise, a bright light appeared in the endless blackness below. He thought it might be a mine pithead and prepared to release six bombs on this unexpected target. There was, however, no mine.
Standing equidistant between the villages of Rhynie and Lumsden, 16th century Craig Castle was home to William Penny Craik, the Laird of Craig. He had a dynamo producing hydro-electricity and had a habit of leaving the lights on all night.5 It was not an area regulated by lighting restrictions because no one ever anticipated Zeppelins raiding the region. Stabbert’s bombs exploded with a shattering noise. Roused by their boom and the crash of glass, the Laird cut the electricity and herded his family down to the castle’s dungeons. One of the bombs exploded within 40 yards6 of the castle, others in the farmyard, but the impact was not significant. Besides some damage to the castle’s roof, the bombs smashed 167 small panes of glass.7
Stabbert continued east from Craig Castle and, when north of Insch at 2am, he released four bombs that exploded in a field at Knockenbaird and an incendiary in another at Scotstown. Three miles on and three more bombs exploded in a field at Freefield House, about two miles north of Old Rayne. About 2.40am L 20 reached the coast south of Peterhead. Stabbert’s journey over Scotland had covered about 200 miles and achieved nothing but crucially had used up a significant amount of fuel.
At about 5am (British time), on the morning of 3 May, L 20 made contact with Germany for the first time since heading inland and received wireless bearings. An hour later L 20 descended close to the water and Stabbert got confirmation of his position from a passing steamer – the bleak news placed him 300 miles north-west of his home base at Tondern, a flight he had to make into the face of a 40mph wind. Stabbert was under no illusions; L 20 would never make it. At 6.49am (British time), he transmitted a message: ‘Require immediate assistance as I cannot reach my base.’ The response instructed him to head for the northern tip of Denmark where ships would rendezvous, but even that proved beyond L 20 due to a lack of fuel and engine problems.8 Rather than be lost at sea Stabbert took the decision to land in neutral Norway, about 95 miles away. At 10am, with just two hours fuel left, L 20 crossed the coastline about 20 miles south of Stavanger.
Approaching Gandsfjord, a fjord that runs south from Stavanger, Stabbert attempted to land near the southern end. Downdrafts from the mountains, however, caused severe turbulence, thrusting the bow of the Zeppelin down into the frigid waters and almost ripping away the command gondola. Stabbert and his executive officer, Leutnant-zur-See Ernst Schirlitz, along with six men jumped overboard but, lightened by this reduction in weight, L 20 soared upwards and was carried by the wind towards the west side of the fjord. Stabbert and another man swam ashore at Holmavik, while a local fisherman, Jeremiah Bykle, pulled the other six frozen crewmen into his boat. For the eight men left onboard their situation looked bleak.
As L 20 just cleared the high ground on the west side of Gandsfjord, the rear gondola smashed into a rock, ripping it away and throwing out five more of the crew. The three desperate men left inside slashed the remaining gas cells and she finally came down at the southern end of Hafrsfjord, between Grannessletten and Liapynten, where she broke in two. A torpedo boat picked up the three relieved men. A company of Norwegian soldiers took charge of the wreck, tying it down as best they could, but rising winds overnight carried it across the fjord. The following day, after being blown to the northern end of Hafrsfjord, she beached at Sør-Sunde. Concerned for the damage that could be caused if L 20 broke free again, the military decided to destroy it. With no other means available, a 12-man firing squad formed up 120 metres from L 20 and opened fire. At least one of the bullets must have hit a metal girder and caused a spark because the leaking hydrogen instantly ignited in a great pillar of flame while the pressure blast knocked over some of the soldiers and destroyed nearby boathouses. Zeppelin L 20, the bomber of Loughborough, Ilkeston and Burton, was no more. But what of her crew?
As a neutral country, Norway now had to decide what to do with them. The logical step was internment but Norway took a more open-minded view, interning ten and repatriating six of the men, individual fates determined by the actions of Jeremiah Bykle. Norway decided that the six men pulled from the water by Bykle, a civilian, were shipwrecked mariners and sent them home, the rest, who landed on Norwegian soil by their own means or were rescued by the military became subject to internment. Stabbert, one of the internees later escaped and, making his way through Sweden, eventually returned to Germany where in December 1916 he took command of Zeppelin L 23.
The destruction of L 20 on the afternoon of 4 May coincided with the loss of L 7 earlier that morning. After a failed seaplane raid by the Royal Navy on the Zeppelin base at Tondern in Schleswig-Holstein in the early hours of 4 May, Zeppelin L 7 set out from there at 7.50am on scouting duties. Two hours later her crew observed elements of the Royal Navy’s 1st Cruiser Squadron that had been escorting the seaplane carriers, Vindex and Engadine. In the ensuing engagement, shells fired by HMS Galatea and HMS Phaeton damaged L 7, and although the two light cruisers abandoned the chase at 10.20am, ten minutes later the Zeppelin broke in half and fell into the sea. At 11am, the British submarine E.31 opened fire with her deck gun and the wreck of L 7 burst into flames. Only seven of the 18-man crew survived. The day had been a particularly bad one for Franz Stabbert. Not only was it the day that the Norwegian Army destroyed his L 20, but L 7 had been his first command in November 1915. Then, the next day, 5 May, the German Army lost a Zeppelin too when the guns of HMS Agamemnon crippled LZ 85 before she crashed in marshes near Thessalonica in the Mediterranean. The loss of three Zeppelins in three days was a costly blow to Germany.
The raid of 2/3 May brought to a close the current round of Zeppelin attacks. By the time the next new moon appeared the shorter nights of summer would deny the raiders their valued cloak of darkness. But the seasons of the year had little impact on Zeebrugge’s floatplane flyers of SFA 1. While the rest of the country would be free from attack for the next three months, those living close to the Kent coast had no such respite.
While the wreckage of L 20 still lay under guard on the shores of Hafrsfjord on 3 May, a single Hansa-Brandenburg NW appeared over Deal at about 3.30pm. It circled for a couple of minutes while the pilot searched for a target.
The first bomb9 smashed down alongside Tar Path leading to the railway station. Bomb fragments zipping through the air in all directions struck Mr Potnell, a railway ticket inspector, on his way to work.10 Badly wounded, he later had a leg amputated. Another exploded in a roadway digging a great hole and smashing windows, followed by one that obliterated the upper floor of a house nearby in Albert Road and severely injured an invalid woman inside. ‘Roofing, rafters, beams and slates, and broken glass littered the roadway beneath and a large part of the roof fell in the middle of the road and stopped the traffic.’11 A young milkman, Charles Hutchins, tried to calm his horse when the first bomb exploded but fragments from one of the others struck him. Doctors managed to save his leg.12 Only one other bomb inflicted any damage. That fell just under a mile away on the Admiral Keppel pub13 in Manor Road. The bomb damaged the roof and outer walls, while just across the road at St Leonard’s Church, the blast damaged walls and smashed windows. The raider then made off out to sea. Twelve aircraft took off from local RNAS stations but with no advance warning of the raid they were only airborne after the raider had departed.
The next stinging attack from Zeebrugge took place 16 days later, and for the first time the raiders on 20 May attacked in the dark early hours. Seven aircraft participated in the raid on the Kent coast: a Gotha Ursinus WD (30 bombs), three Hansa-Brandenburg NW (ten bombs each) and three Friedrichshafen FF33 types (10 bombs each) although it is not clear if all came inland. These raids were always difficult to counter as the aircraft arrived with little or no warning, and this time the confusion caused by a raid commencing a little after 2am made matters worse. British reports account for 59 bombs of which nine fell into the sea, but many more may have been lost beneath the waves.
The first anyone knew of the raid was when 15 bombs rained down over the St Peter’s district of Broadstairs on a southerly path towards Ramsgate. There were probably two aircraft involved. The first five bombs fell in fields between the Whitfield monument and Victoria Avenue, punctuating the ground with craters and smashing 15 windows. Other bombs pitted the ground south of Victoria Avenue near the Electric Tramway Depot and Rumfields Waterworks. Towards West Dumpton a bomb killed a chicken.14 It is likely that five other bombs dropped in the sea opposite Small Downs Coastguard Station.
Another of the raiders dropped nine HE bombs in the parish of Sholden, north of Deal. The first landed about 300 yards from the sea near the Chequers Inn. The rest followed at intervals of about 50 yards on a line across open fields.15 The last attack in this area saw ten bombs fall around the village of Ringwould at about 2.25am where the impact was negligible.16 In Dover, however, the raid had a more serious impact.
The first of two aircraft to attack Dover approached from north-west of Dover Castle and dropped a bomb at a garden nursery on Barton Road. The next struck the steps of a house in Maison Dieu Place and made a ‘peculiar hole’ about three feet in diameter in the side of the house as well as smashing many windows in the locality and terrifying patients in a hospital, before an explosion in Effingham Crescent caused limited damage. As the raider approached Dover College, a second aircraft appeared, the first passing over the college north to south and the second east to west. They dropped four bombs in the college grounds and one outside 12 Saxon Road, damaging iron railings at the front of the house. One report thought the tremendous noise from the explosions sounded ‘more like a quick-firing gun than a bombing raid’. The shockwaves from the bombs smashed countless windows and gave the resident boys at the college ‘a very alarming experience’.17
The first of these two aircraft continued on its course, and 100 yards on dropped a bomb on the gravel path leading to Christ Church on Folkestone Road, followed seconds later by one that exploded on Military Road, injuring Mrs Bridges Bloxham as she stood in her bedroom. On the south side of the road, a bomb struck a grass bank looming over the Christ Church Schools – also hit during the raid on 19 March. The pilot now turned on to a south-east course and dropped two more bombs as he headed back to the sea; one damaged gravestones in the old Cowgate cemetery and the last, which failed to detonate, was recovered from Albany Place on the east side of the cemetery. The pilot who crossed over Dover College on a westerly course, turned south and over the Western Heights dropped a bomb in the ditch of the Drop Redoubt. Three more followed. The first exploded by a stable at Grand Shaft barracks inflicting serious injury to Private Henry Frederick Sole, 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, as he opened a door. He died in hospital later that day. A hundred yards on, a bomb streaked down to smash into a public house, The Ordnance, at 120 Snargate Street. The upper part of the pub‘s frontage and the roof collapsed as tons of rubble cascaded into the street.18 The landlord, William James Taylor, had a narrow escape.
The landlady and her grandchild had been sleeping in the kitchen to be safer in such attacks, and they escaped untouched. The landlord was at the top of the house, looking out of the back window, when the bomb struck the coping of the front of the house... The slates slid over the landlord’s head without touching him.19
Even as the rubble tumbled down into the street, the next bomb exploded on the roadway at Commercial Quay where a fragment badly injured James Hervey, a deckhand on the armed drifter E.E.S. More bombs dropped in the sea as the raider left the damaged streets of Dover behind and headed back to Zeebrugge.
From first to last the raid lasted no more than 30 minutes. Taken by surprise, the first of the RNAS aircraft to take off in response was a BE2c from Westgate at 2.12am, followed by a Bristol Scout C from Eastchurch and a Short Type 827 floatplane from Grain at 2.25am. By the time any of these aircraft had climbed to an effective height the raiders were gone. And although official figures state only one person was killed in the raid – Private Sole – there was another who lost his life. While carrying orders through the darkened streets, Lance Corporal Victor George Parsons, a 19-year-old Royal Engineer despatch rider, smashed his motorcycle into the back of a searchlight lorry at the foot of Castle Hill and died.20
Free from Zeppelin attack throughout June and most of July, those summer months provided a welcome opportunity for Home Defence pilots to gain more night-flying experience. There was, however, friction over their responsibilities.
The War Office insisted that pilots combined their defensive duties with ‘advanced instruction to pilots under training’21 and at the end of May stipulated that half of all Home Defence aircraft should also be available for training. Forming part of No.6 (Training) Brigade, the commander of No.18 Wing, Lieutenant Colonel Fenton Vasey Holt, voiced his concerns that the rough-handling experienced during training in the daytime could negatively impact on aircraft required to defend the skies at night, and that the efficiency of his pilots, training others during the day then flying patrols at night, would suffer. The War Office listened. On 25 June, Holt’s squadrons established No.16 Wing, divorced from any training responsibilities – their sole task to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft over Britain. Urgent demands for more pilots on the Western Front, however, initially restricted the Wing to six squadrons: No.33 (Bramham Moor), No.36 (Cramlington), No.38 (forming at Castle Bromwich), No.39 (London area), No.50 (Dover) and No.51 (Norwich). At the end of July No.16 Wing became Home Defence Wing.
As pilots gained experience in night flying they had learnt to land safely at unfamiliar airfields, undertaken far-ranging patrols and returned safely from long distance Zeppelin pursuits. Previously, official advice had encouraged pilots not to venture too far from their landing grounds due to the perceived danger inherent in night flying.22
With this new confidence, airfields used by flights near to such places as Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds were relocated as part of a plan to create ‘a barrage-line of aeroplanes and searchlights parallel with the east coast of England’ that would ‘prevent the enemy getting through in normal weather’.23 This ‘line’ running from Dover to Edinburgh placed airfields about 20 miles apart, supported by a line of double searchlights every three and a half miles, stretching from around London to Blyth in the north-east (see Map 5). In addition, searchlight barrage-lines positioned in Kent, Essex and Norfolk covered the main approach routes favoured by Zeppelins intent on attacking London. The line was not complete by the end of the war but the conviction to complete it remained constant throughout the period.
While great steps were being taken in Britain to offer a more effective response to the Zeppelin raids, in Germany a new type of Zeppelin was about to join the naval airship fleet.
Since May 1915 the ‘p-class’ Zeppelin had carried the threat from Germany across the North Sea to Britain. They had a length of 536 feet 5 inches (163.4 metres) and diameter of 61 feet 4 inches (18.7 metres) with a capacity of 1,126,400 cubic feet of hydrogen (31,896 cubic metres) contained in 16 gas cells. This gave the ‘p-class’ a ‘useful lift’ (crew, fuel, oil, ballast and bombs) of between 14.7 to 15.6 tons (15,000 to 15,900 kgs). (See Map 4).
Even before the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen had completed the first ‘p-class’, the naval authorities discussed plans for a new type and in July 1915 requested a far larger design. It would have six engines instead of four and required extending some existing Zeppelin sheds and redesigning new ones already under construction. While this work was underway the next batch of ‘p-class’ Zeppelins were altered, starting with L 20. Lengthening by 49 feet allowed the inclusion of two more gas cells, which increased the ‘useful load’ on this interim ‘q-class’ to about 17.8 tons (18,000 kgs).24
L 30, the first of the all-new larger Zeppelins – the ‘r-class’ – left Friedrichshafen on 30 May 1916. Command of it went to Oberleutnant-zur-See Horst von Buttlar. The vital statistics were impressive. With a length of 649 feet 7 inches (198 metres) and a diameter of 78 feet 5 inches (24 metres), the envelope contained 19 gas cells holding 1,949,600 cubic feet of hydrogen (55,206 cubic metres), a massive 73 per cent increase on the ‘p-class’. This additional hydrogen gave the ‘r-class’ a useful lift of 27.7 tons (28,114 kgs), enabling it to carry a bomb load of anything between two and a half to four tons, depending on the amount of fuel/ ballast required. But this new design did not significantly alter the operational height. The ‘p-class’ generally operated at heights between 9,500 and 11,000 feet, while the ‘r-class’ flew at up to 13,000 feet. At the time altitude did not appear to be an issue but it would come back to haunt the Zeppelin crews. This overall leap forward in Zeppelin design had the British dubbing the new class as the ‘Super Zeppelins’. After the Navy took delivery of L 30 at the end of May, a second airship, L 31, was ready on 14 July. This one went to Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Mathy. The Army did not receive its first ‘r-class’ airship until February 1917.25
While Strasser and other senior officers excitedly anticipated the arrival of L 30 at Nordholz, things did not go according to plan on the day. With Strasser and his entourage out on the landing field, von Buttlar realised L 30 was too heavy and coming down too quickly. To remedy this, he released a deluge of water ballast that engulfed the observers below in a great flash flood. When von Buttlar stepped down from the command gondola a dripping Strasser commented wryly, if not dryly, ‘You came in like a watering cart’.26
Throughout June and most of July, L 30 undertook test flights and scouting patrols over the North Sea. There had been no raids over Britain of any sort since 20 May and if anyone in Britain had begun to think that German raiding had ceased, on 9 July they had a rude awakening.
***
The south-east corner of England received its early warning that air raids were not a thing of the past on Sunday 9 July. On that night the first bombs to fall on Britain for three months struck Dover. Five aircraft of SFA 1 set out from Zeebrugge heading for Harwich and Dover but three had to abort. Of the other two the crew of Gotha Ursinus No.120 (Flugmeister Klein and Flugmeister Seeländer) claimed they bombed coastal installations near Harwich but there is no record of any bombs in that area so it seems likely they all dropped in the sea. The final aircraft, Friedrichshafen FF 33h, No.599, crewed by Leutnant-zur-See Rolshoven and Leutnant-zur-See Frankenburg27 came inland at 11.50pm west of Dover.
The FF 33 kept very low, approaching Dover over St Radigund’s Abbey and Buckland. As they neared the imposing outline of Dover Castle, Rolshoven and Frankenburg began to release eight 10kg bombs along a half a mile line straight towards the sea. The first of these exploded behind Castlemount Cottages in Castlemount Road, followed in quick succession by two in the grounds of the VAD hospital at Castlemount School. The next detonated on the roadway at the top of Laureston Place, then two on the lawn behind the houses in Victoria Park. The penultimate bomb smashed against the cliff behind houses in Trevanian Street where it wrecked an old stable just seconds before the final bomb exploded in the garden of a house at 1 Douro Place where the blast uncovered a long-forgotten well in the yard at the back.28 Other than the destruction of the stables, these bombs smashed windows in 20 homes. From first bomb to last the raid was over in 30 seconds.
Before the month of July was out the Zeppelins returned. But any great hopes Strasser had for this opening raid of the second half of the year were dashed by the weather.
Strasser detailed ten Zeppelins for the raid on the night of 28/29 July but various problems forced four to turn back early.29 The remaining six found the east coast swathed in a protective blanket of thick fog. Five of those that reached land spent little more than an hour searching through the gloom before abandoning the mission.
Two Zeppelins approached the River Humber. The first, Herbert Ehrlich’s L 17, followed the southern shore of the Humber but was caught by a searchlight at North Killingholme at 12.45am and responded by releasing 11 or 12 bombs. One fell on a road, the rest in fields. Three minutes later four bombs fell at East Halton. They set fire to a large straw stack, damaged two farmhouses, demolished a granary and stables, killed a calf and caused minor damage to six cottages. At one of them the bomb damaged the roof, windows and scullery, while the shocked occupier, Mr A. Harvey, had to extinguish an incendiary that landed just outside his door. Ehrlich then took L 17 across the Humber and passed out to sea between Hornsea and Withernsea about 1.10am. Five minutes later Ehrlich aimed three bombs at the mast lights of a P&O steamer, SS Frodingham, but they all landed about 100 feet behind the ship.30
The second Zeppelin, L 24 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Robert Koch, appeared over the Humber at 12.50am and 20 minutes later was at Immingham. Some activity spotted through the fog resulted in Koch releasing six HE bombs. These fell on Stallingborough Marsh where they broke some electric wires and smashed windows in a railway hut. A 12-pdr gun near Immingham Halt Station fired two rounds before losing L 24 in the fog. Frustrated by the weather, Koch crossed the Humber and headed back to the coast at Withernsea, which he reached at 1.25am. Guns at Withernsea Station and Waxholme each fired a single round as Koch pushed up the coast hoping to find clearer weather. He moved inland again at Bridlington Bay, but continuing poor visibility forced him to abandon the raid and he went back out to sea again near Hornsea at about 3am.
The three raiders that made landfall over East Anglia fared no better against the fog than those on the Humber. Commanding L 16 for the first time, Kapitänleutnant Erich Sommerfeldt crossed the coast over Brancaster Bay at 12.50am. He exited again about an hour later having dropped a flare at Ringstead and two incendiary bombs at Snettisham.
Heinrich Mathy, in his first raid commanding L 31, one of the new ‘Super Zeppelins’, intended striking Dover but was way off target. Pitt Klein, recalled their dreadful journey through the fog.
For eighteen hours we flew around in the murk. Finding Dover was impossible. Even when we tried to descend through it, we found it went down to the surface of the sea.31
In fact L 31 was about 90 miles north of Dover when she crossed the coast at 1.15am, just north of Lowestoft. Through heavy fog Mathy steered inland for about 12 miles towards Bungay but seeing nothing he gave up. He departed without having released any bombs over land.
L 11, the third Zeppelin, commanded by one of Strasser’s more determined captains, Viktor Schütze, also had little luck. Schütze came inland over Weybourne at 2.40am, dropping a bomb in a field close to the cliff edge where it killed a cow and damaged roof tiles at a farm. Heading south-west, Schütze released a parachute flare over Holt then a bomb at 2.45am over Sharrington, followed by another a mile further on at Gunthorpe; neither caused any damage. At this point it seems likely that Schütze decided there was little point in continuing and made his way back to the coast, dropping a bomb at Paston at 3.20am followed by two more at Mundesley, all with no effect.32
Of the six Zeppelins that reached England that night only one attempted to push deep inland and drop a significant number of bombs. The result, however, was no more effective than that achieved by any of the other raiders.
Eduard Prölss brought L 13 in near North Somercoates on the Lincolnshire coast at 12.37am and followed a south-west course towards Lincoln, but found it difficult to find targets. At 1.10am he dropped an incendiary and a HE bomb that broke windows in a house and at a chapel in the village of Fiskerton, but passed darkened Lincoln without seeing it. Continuing, an incendiary burnt out harmlessly at Bassingham but with Newark also effectively darkened, L 13 passed to the south of the town before dropping an incendiary at 1.30am over Long Bennington. The lights of a moving train on the Grantham to Newark line then attracted Prölss and following it he released six bombs close to the railway where it passed between Dry Doddington and Stubton but only a few broken cottage windows resulted. Circling at 2am, L 13 approached the station at Hougham where Prölss dropped 21 bombs (four HE and 17 incendiaries). All landed within 200 yards of the station but failed to damage the buildings. From there L 13 headed east and went out to sea over The Wash about 2.30am, around ten miles northeast of Boston.33
The raid was over. The first Zeppelin raid for three months saw six airships blinded by the fog tentatively feeling their way over eastern England to record damage estimated at just £257.
As ever, the German version of the evening’s events was a little different – and inaccurate.
A naval airship squadron attacked the English east coast, dropping bombs on the railway depot at Lincoln and industrial establishments near Norwich, the naval bases of Grimsby and Immingham, and on advance-post vessels off the Humber. The lighthouse at the mouth of the Humber was destroyed.34
Reports of this nature ensured the public in Germany continued to believe that the Zeppelins, the perceived embodiment of German technical superiority, were striking a heavy blow against Britain. No one would have believed the truth.
Despite the negligible damage inflicted by the raid, many a sleepless night ensued. From Hartlepool in the north to Brighton in the south and as far west as Birmingham, most of this area was subject to the ‘Take Air Raid Action’ order.35 And there would be a further week of broken sleep to come.