After Heinrich Mathy’s raid on London on 24/25 August, Strasser was keen to try again. He sent out an eight-Zeppelin raid on 29 August but changing weather conditions resulted in an early recall. When he received a prediction of good weather four days later, Strasser authorised a raid on ‘England South, chief target London’ for the night of 2/3 September. In this enterprise four army airships joined 12 from the navy, making it the largest airship raid of the war. Both fleets included a wooden-framed Schütte-Lanz in their number. The naval airships would approach over Norfolk and Lincolnshire while the army vessels would come in over Kent and Essex.
Waiting for them in England was an improving air defence organisation. The warning system had been operating for three months, helping to ensure the timely transmission of information regarding approaching airships, which improved the chances of locating the raiders. And there was a belief amongst pilots that the new bullets they were receiving would give them an advantage in future encounters – if only they could get close enough to use them effectively. Some pilots reduced the weight of their aircraft by removing the boxes of Ranken darts, allowing them to climb a little higher and a little faster.
An important part of the air defence organisation were the listening stations on Britain’s east coast, where both the Admiralty and the War Office had established their own networks, yet there was little in the way of co-operation between them until early 1917. On 2 September these stations intercepted increased wireless transmissions and by 5pm it became clear that a raid was underway. Both organisations had their own codebreaking sections, which deciphered these transmissions. The Naval Intelligence Division’s ‘Room 40’ is well known,1 but the Directorate of Military Intelligence’s M.I.1b (and later M.I.1e) was a far more shadowy organisation.2
Out over the North Sea the anticipated good weather failed to materialise. Heavy rain, snow and ice weighed the raiders down and a dramatic change of wind direction, now blowing from the southwest, further hindered progress. The commanders of the navy’s L 17 and the army’s LZ 97, did not find things easy. Oberleutnant Weidling on LZ 97 bemoaned the impossibility of getting wireless bearings to confirm his position, and Kapitänleutnant Hermann Kraushaar aboard L 17 reported the headwind reduced his ground speed to 22mph.3 Both commanders reported dropping their bombs and Kraushaar claimed an attack on Norwich, but British trackers placed them both about 30 miles out to sea when they turned back. In fact four other raiders also claimed to have bombed Norwich that night and two others reported attacks on Nottingham, however, not a single bomb dropped on either place.
Three of the raiding Zeppelins came inland over the coast of Lincolnshire between 10.40 and 10.56pm. The county received its first warning at 9.20pm, with the TARA order following at 10.29pm.
The first to come inland was Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Ganzel’s L 23; he had relinquished command of the old L 9 only three weeks prior. He crossed the coastline of The Wash at 10.40pm about five miles from Boston. He had earlier dropped a number of bombs at sea to lighten his ship.
The Grand Sluice in Boston, controlling the flow of the River Witham, lies by a railway bridge and is crossed by Fydell Street. John Thomas Oughton, employed by the Witham Drainage Commissioners, lived in a house on Haven Bank just a few yards from the Sluice, and as a member of the Town Guard was just about to go on duty. In a signal box where the railway passed the Grand Sluice, signalman Beeton was at work as Zeppelin L 23 approached from the east.
At first a dull subdued hum caused concern. ‘Louder and louder the whirring became,’ an eyewitness recounted, ‘gradually increasing in volume until it exceeded many times the noise of a railway train.’ On the other side of the river two couples scanned the sky then one of them exclaimed, ‘Why, it’s right above’.
Before one could hardly realise what was happening there was a flash of light in the sky and above the roar of the Zeppelin engines... a shrill whistling... heralded the fall of the first bomb. There was a vivid flash of light, a deep intonation, and Boston had received its baptism of fire.4
Mr Oughton heard the Zeppelin’s engines as he left his house. His two sons were standing in the doorway as he called to them, ‘There it is’. Thomas, aged 19, shouted to his brother, 17-year-old Horace, ‘Run for your life. There’s a bomb coming.’ Thomas ducked into the house but Horace stood transfixed as the bomb exploded just yards away. Their father was on the ground stunned and wounded, but Horace had suffered terrible injuries with half of the left side of his face blown away and a large gaping hole in his back. Astonishingly he was still alive but died 15 minutes after arriving at the hospital.5
Beeton, the signalman, had just stepped back into his signal box when the bomb exploded shattering all the windows and damaging the parapet of the sluice. He lay on the ground bleeding profusely from 32 separate cuts to his back, legs and arms.6
About 60 yards along Fydell Street and just a few yards from the gasworks, an incendiary bomb fell into the garden of a house. Perhaps no more than a second or two later another bomb exploded at the entrance to the gasworks, destroying the gates, damaging the fitter’s shop, the stores and the boardroom as well as the house where the incendiary bomb was burning. At another house the occupiers were thrown about by the blast and it seemed as if ‘the concrete foundations were indiarubber’. The family left their home and walked towards the Grand Sluice.
As we got outside... I was feeling my way up to the bridge. and then we went on the Haven Bank, and practically walked on to Beeton, a railwayman, who was injured. He said, ‘Missus, take your apron off and tie my leg up. I believe it is off’.7
Beeton’s leg was still attached but when he got to hospital the doctors had no choice but to amputate.
The next bomb exploded in a garden about 100 yards further along Fydell Street, smashing windows in all directions but there were no injuries. The following day nearly every house bore some mark of the Zeppelin’s visit ‘in the way of boards, pieces of corrugated iron, sacking, paste boards, nailed up to hide the bareness of the empty window frames’.
The fourth and final HE bomb fell in Mrs Belton’s garden at her house in Carlton Road. Mrs Belton, an elderly lady of 86, was sitting by a window with two friends when the bomb exploded, ‘and instantly the room was brought to a state of chaos’. Fortunately for the three ladies the blast sucked the glass out and not into the room. The concussion of the explosion spread from Carlton Road to Albert Street and Granville Street, smashing countless windows there and in Argyle Street, while apples from fruit trees in Mrs Belton’s garden were hurled for a great distance.
Leaving Boston behind, Ganzel initially headed west before commencing a wide anti-clockwise circle with a bomb damaging farm buildings at Kirton Fen, but the four incendiaries at Kirton Holme, Swineshead and Gosberton failed to cause any harm. At 11.25pm L 23 was at Tydd, near the Lincolnshire/Norfolk border, although Ganzel believed he was much further into Norfolk at the time. Deciding he had little prospect of reaching London against the wind, Ganzel decided on a north-east course which he thought would take him to Norwich where he reported bombarding the city and surrounding area, although he added: ‘The effect of the dropped bombs could not be observed because of the clouds.’8 In reality there was little to see. Trackers recorded L 23 out over The Wash at 11.55pm when his 22 ‘Norwich’ bombs fell in the sea.9
The other two Zeppelins that crossed into Lincolnshire, L 13 and L 22, did so about five minutes apart on the coast between Cleethorpes and Donna Nook shortly before 11pm. Kapitänleutnant Martin Dietrich, with one of L 22’s engines out of action, quickly abandoned any idea of raiding London and selected Nottingham as a secondary target. Inaccurate wireless bearings placed him north of the Humber but he was south of the river at Humberston when he released five bombs over searchlights at about 11.10pm. An hour later and in atrocious weather conditions, L 22 was south of Goole when Dietrich gave up on Nottingham and chose Hull as his third target. He crossed the Humber near Killingholme at 12.35am but thick cloud prevented him finding the city. Seven minutes later, guns to the east opened fire as L 22 moved towards the coast at Aldebrough, having dropped three bombs in fields at Flinton. Dietrich reported dropping 27 bombs on an industrial site near Hull but had passed over the coast at 12.55am without making an attack. These ‘Hull’ bombs may be those recorded falling at sea at 1.35am.10
Kapitänleutnant der Reserve Eduard Prölss came inland in L 13 with Martin Dietrich’s L 22 and also abandoned the attempt on London, selecting Nottingham as his secondary target. Heading west, L 13 passed Market Rasen and at 11.40pm dropped a single incendiary bomb at Caenby, no doubt to check ground speed and drift, and as he moved further inland the skies began to clear. At 12.15am L 13 dropped four incendiary bombs over Morton Carr and ten bombs on East Stockwith, opposite the industrial site of Morris’ Chemical Works where lights were showing as the TARA warning had not been received. The bombs at Morton Carr fell on farmland but at East Stockwith they demolished two houses, smashed many windows and injured an elderly woman. Across the river at West Stockwith, 16 homes lost their windows but the chemical works escaped untouched. At 12.40am L 13 reached Bawtry where Prölss observed a train running from Doncaster and followed it to the outskirts of Retford, which he believed was Nottingham. That city was actually 27 miles further south.
Veering eastwards away from the railway, Prölss began dropping the first of 13 bombs along the line of Hallcroft Road at 12.56am. Most fell on open ground but not far from the Mayor’s residence, a glue works, a dye works and a laundry. Despite the violence of these explosions, as one newspaper reported, ‘No material damage was done so far – only great shell holes 16 feet across and 5 feet deep – were left to mark [the Zeppelin’s] course’.11
Crossing the River Idle and now over East Retford, L 13 passed the close-packed homes on Moorgate to drop a bomb in fields at the back of Wellington Street. A few seconds later the next exploded at the bottom of Spital Hill demolishing a fruit warehouse, smashing water and gas mains and damaging properties all around. ‘The roof was torn off in many places,’ a newspaper reported, ‘windows and doors blown in, and the furniture upstairs and down exposed, but here again there was no serious injury to the person.’12
At the gasworks on Grove Street the sound of exploding bombs woke the family of the site manager who lived within the grounds. They made their way quickly to the basement which they reached just as a huge explosion shook the house and lethal glass shards sliced into still warm beds. After the bomb on Spital Hill the next had exploded on open ground to the north of Grove Street smashing windows at the Methodist Chapel and Wesleyan school, but it was followed almost immediately by another that blasted an orchard next to the gasworks. Jagged bomb fragments pierced the three gas holders as an incendiary bomb ignited the escaping gas in an eruption of volcanic proportions. In the intense heat ‘apples baked on the trees and roosting birds were roasted alive’. With some satisfaction Prölss noted: ‘First some fires started, but suddenly a big factory blew up. The fire it caused was so strong that the streets of the city were clearly visible for a while.’ An eyewitness on the ground thought it ‘a weird and wonderful spectacle’.
Less than 150 yards away another bomb exploded at 1 Grove Lane, just across the Chesterfield Canal, ripping away one side of the house leaving a bedstead and other furniture exposed. Four people in the house emerged uninjured from the wreckage and into the glaring light of the burning gasworks.
Continuing on his course for another 200 yards, Prölss released his final HE bomb. It exploded in Trent Street, smashing gas and water mains as well as drainage pipes. The blast destroyed windows, ripped tiles from roofs and sent showers of glass into the houses. In one of those closest to the explosion, bomb fragments struck two sisters lying in bed with a little Belgian girl asleep between them. Both sisters were removed to hospital but their companion escaped injury. The girls’ parents were lucky as bomb fragments zipped about their bedroom without hitting them.13 Across the street another young woman was injured by flying glass. The last incendiary bomb burnt out in a field between Trent Street and the railway. As Prölss departed, he noted that L 13 remained ‘lit up bright as day’ by the burning gasworks, unaware that he had caused the most significant damage of any of the raiders that night.
Prölss dropped just two more bombs before he reached the coast at 1.30am near Donna Nook, at Lea, south of Gainsborough and at Aylesby, west of Grimsby. Neither caused any damage.
Of the eight Zeppelins that arrived over East Anglia, L 30 and L 24 spent as little time as possible over land. Commanding L 30, Horst von Buttlar filed another of his ‘enthusiastic’ reports. Not for the first time he claimed a successful raid on London that did not happen.14 Crossing the coast at Southwold in Suffolk at 10.40pm he pushed inland but as he approached Pulham Market a searchlight pierced the clouds and found L 30. Without hesitation von Buttlar turned away from the light onto a north-east course towards the historic market town of Bungay positioned by a dramatic bend in the River Waveney.15 As the clock showed 11.10pm von Buttlar began his ‘London’ raid. About three quarters of a mile west of the village of Earsham he dropped a line of 21 bombs across agricultural land with only two making any impact on the communities below. One damaged buildings at Earsham Park Farm, while at Hill Farm another injured a man, partly demolished the farmhouse and damaged other buildings. Over Bungay Common, located within the grand sweeping turn of the Waveney, von Buttlar released nine more bombs, killing two cows and injuring three more. Maintaining the same course L 30 released six bombs north of Ditchingham but damage was again limited. At Ditchingham House, home of the novelist Sir Henry Rider Haggard (who was overseas at the time), explosions shattered windows. Similar damage occurred at another large house, The Grange, and at St Mary’s church and a reformatory, the House of Mercy. Four bombs achieved similar results at Redhouse Farm north of Broome.16
Von Buttlar’s 40 bombs, dropped along a perfectly straight line four and a half miles long had achieved little. As he returned to the coast near Great Yarmouth at 11.25pm, L 30 encountered the defences. Two mobile 3-pdr anti-aircraft guns at Fritton opened fire and two pilots, Flight Lieutenant Egbert Cadbury from RNAS Yarmouth and Flight sub-Lieutenant Stanley Kemball from RNAS Covehithe, both saw L 30 and gave pursuit for about 10 minutes before losing her in the clouds.17
Robert Koch in L 24 also made only a brief stay over East Anglia. Battling foul weather, Koch believed he came inland over The Wash and had penetrated as far south as Cambridge before giving up on London and targeting Norwich instead. The reality was quite different. British trackers recorded L 24 crossing the Norfolk coast between Cromer and Bacton at 12.30am. Twenty minutes later L 24 was at Briston, a village some 12 miles south-west of Cromer, where he dropped two bombs. Briston may have been Koch’s ‘Norwich’ because in his report he states the crew were blinded by a searchlight at Norwich and dropped two HE bombs in the hope other lights would illuminate and pinpoint the city for him. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen and Koch gave up any hope of finding Norwich (which was 18 miles to the south) and headed back towards the coast at Bacton, dropping an incendiary at the village of Plumstead on the way.
A 75mm mobile gun north of Bacton fired five rounds at 1.05am but visibility was severely hampered by the clouds, then, as L 24 headed up the coast, a mobile 3-pdr at Mundesley briefly opened fire too.18 Koch retaliated and, circling round, dropped five bombs on the gun positioned by the cliff edge. They all missed but were close.19 Turning over the sea L 24 returned, attracted by a patch of diffused light illuminating the clouds which, combined with the gunfire, convinced Koch he had found a target and concluded it was Great Yarmouth (actually about 20 miles to the south). He dropped two incendiary bombs over the village of Trunch around 1.30am as L 24 headed towards the patch of light over which he released 40 bombs (13 HE and 27 incendiaries). He reported hitting a ‘train station, gas-works and batteries’ at Great Yarmouth, as well as an airfield. He was correct about an airfield. Some of the bombs fell close to RNAS Bacton, where the landing flares had illuminated the clouds, but all had fallen on open ground between the airfield and the village of Ridlington. L 24 passed out to sea over Bacton from where a mobile 3-pdr and two French 75mm guns fired 19 rounds to send her on her way.20
Norfolk saw much airship activity on the night of 2/3 September but little of it had a significant impact on the rural landscape. The commander of SL 8, a Schütte-Lanz airship recently transferred from the Baltic and on its first raid over England, was one. Her commander, Kapitänleutnant Guido Wolff, claimed to have bombed Norwich but like others who made a similar claim he was wrong.
Wolff never saw the Norfolk coastline when he crossed it near Holkham at 11.05pm, and after dropping two incendiary bombs at Burnham Thorpe ten minutes later he headed south-west, into the wind. Three hours later, at 2am, SL 8 had progressed only 67 miles and was east of Huntingdon having earlier dropped an incendiary at Littleport and six more on Oxlode Fen, north of Ely. As the weather cleared, Wolff observed the subdued glow of London on the far horizon but realised it would take too long to reach the city in the face of the strong wind and turned away onto a north-east course. At 2.20am SL 8 passed Haddenham but a few minutes later the crew saw an unexplained bright flare of light far to the south. With the wind now pushing him forward at 60mph, at 2.55am Wolff believed SL 8 was approaching Norwich and prepared to attack. He was, however, 34 miles west of the city and his bombs fell on a line from the village of Congham to Cley-next-the-Sea. At 3am six bombs at Congham broke windows and roof tiles in a couple of cottages, followed by 11 bombs dropped at Harpley Dams, Fitcham, East Rudham, Helhoughton, Syderstone and South Creake, but only at the last village was any damage recorded: four cottages had their windows smashed. Wolff then released a single bomb at 3.15am over Great Walsingham and two at Wighton. A final bomb landed at Cley-next-the-Sea before Wolff dropped eight in the sea as he set course back to Nordholz. His four hours over Norfolk had resulted in six cottages losing their windows and a few smashed and dislodged roof tiles.
An hour before SL 8 crossed the coastline, the usually determined Viktor Schütze was off Great Yarmouth in command of the old L 11. He identified the town through the clouds but facing strong headwinds he gave up on London. At 10.10pm Schütze dropped a number of bombs at sea before coming inland.
‘There it is,’ exclaimed spectators, and there it was sure enough, distinctly seen as it passed across the stars. Gradually lessening, the drone and thud of the engines appeared to indicate that the aircraft was going inland. It had not gone more than a few hundred yards in that direction when it dropped two or three bombs on marshes, doing, however no damage at all worth speaking of. Suddenly it turned, as if its crew had found their position precarious; it retreated rapidly over town and sea; and in a few minutes had passed out of hearing.21
The two bombs fell close to the marshy banks of the River Yare before Schütze turned back to the sea where more bombs fell. He reported dropping 20 bombs on the town, its batteries and on warships in the harbour, so he may have lost sight of the coastline due to the clouds.22 Heading south and having brushed off anti-aircraft fire from the Lowestoft area, Schütze reached Harwich and its harbour. He had attacked there a month earlier and, mindful of its defences, now waited for just over an hour for cloud cover to aid him. At 2.20am he made his move, dropping four bombs in the harbour, which although exploding in the water still broke a few windows. With searchlights occasionally picking up the airship through the clouds and guns of the Harwich Garrison opening fire, L 11 turned away and went out to sea north of Aldeburgh at 2.50am. Shortly after leaving Harwich, however, the crew, like those on SL 8, saw a flare of light in the sky about 60 miles away in the direction of London. It was disconcerting.
Before the crews of SL 8 and L 11 had seen that flare of light, one of the army Zeppelins had come and gone, claiming a raid on London and having left a unique souvenir for the British authorities.
Hauptmann Charles la Quiante, commanding LZ 90, came inland just north of Clacton, Essex, at about 11pm. Once overland he battled the fierce wind until he reached Mistley, about 10 miles from the coast, where he remained for at least 25 minutes. A local man, Robert Grimwade, thought the Zeppelin shut down its engines, but it was more likely a case of throttling them back because, in an attempt to lighten his ship, La Quiante decided to jettison his Spähkorb (sub-cloud car). The crew winched it down about 5,000 feet before cutting the cable. Grimwade heard a thud as it hit the ground at 11.45pm. When the abandoned Spähkorb was found in a field the following morning there was some concern that a man had landed in it but this was soon dismissed.23
The Spähkorb was an observation car lowered by winch from where an observer could communicate by telephone with the command gondola while the airship remained unseen above the clouds. There was no standard design, the one that fell at Mistley had the shape of a miniature Zeppelin, made of wood and covered with thin duralumin sheeting. Inside it the observer lay on a mattress while looking through small windows. It measured 4.35 metres in length and weighed between 50 and 60kgs.24 While army airship commanders valued the Spähkorb, the navy officers did not share their view. This may be due to a rather unsettling experience suffered by Peter Strasser while personally testing one.
About 300 feet down, while the winch was allowing the cable to unwind slowly but steadily, the tail of the car became entangled with the wireless aerial.
It caught the car and tilted it upside down. The cable meanwhile continued unwinding from the winch above and was beginning to dangle in a slack loop below Strasser, who only saved himself from being tipped out by clinging to the sides of the car with a deathlike grip.
Suddenly the aerial gave way, sending the car and Strasser plunging down until it brought up at the end of its own cable with a sickening jolt. It was not a propitious introduction for a new device.25
Leaving Mistley behind, LZ 90 headed north-west and dropped two incendiary bombs at the village of Foxearth near Sudbury from where La Quiante reported a bright spot on the horizon, which he concluded was London. Over Poslingford he jettisoned the now superfluous winch that carried the Spähkorb’s cable to lighten his ship further26 and at 12.40am prepared to attack as he could ‘clearly see that a densely built-up area of London was below us’.27 He reported dropping 50 bombs but only 37 (21 HE and 16 incendiary) were discovered. Although cloud cover made observation difficult, La Quiante confidently reported that ‘two sources of fire were clearly identified and a loud explosion followed by a strong fire’. In fact, La Quiante never even got close to London, his bombs landing around the tiny village of Wixoe, three miles south-east of Haverhill in Suffolk and about 45 miles from the capital. The only damage amounted to a few broken windows at the school and in two other buildings. Taking advantage of the south-westerly tailwind, La Quiante sped homeward across East Anglia before exiting between Caister and Great Yarmouth at 1.45am.
While other Zeppelin commanders abandoned plans for London, at one point four navy Zeppelins appeared close to achieving their goal. Those four raiders, L 14, L 32, L 21 and L 16, all crossed over a 25-mile stretch of the north Norfolk coast between 9.50 and 10.40pm and, despite flying into the fierce headwind, all were closing on London when plans dramatically changed.
The first of these, Kuno Manger’s L 14, crossed the coast near Wells-next-the-Sea at 9.50pm, dropping an incendiary bomb there and a HE bomb at Ringstead, but he struggled to make progress against the wind, snow and hail. Circling to the south of King’s Lynn, Manger believed he had found Boston,28 which was 30 miles away, and dropped six bombs around 11.30pm, two at Gayton, one on Wormegay Fen and three on the wooded Shouldham Warren. No damage was caused by any of these. Heading south-west, at 12.40am Manger passed north of Kimbolton, having dropped an incendiary at Upwood, a village between Yaxley and Huntingdon, but could not make further headway. Slowly flying in a wide circle L 14 progressed to the south-east and at 2.25am was between Thaxted and Dunmow, with the north-eastern outskirts of London just 30 tantalising miles away. But that is as close as L 14 got. Matters elsewhere made Manger immediately turn away from London.
Werner Peterson commanded the second of this group of four Zeppelins to threaten London. L 32 crossed the coast at Sheringham at 10.03pm. Battling against the wind, Peterson headed south-west covering only 23 miles in the first hour. At 11.10pm L 32 dropped six bombs on farmland between the villages of Ovington and Saham Toney where explosions smashed windows and damaged a ceiling at Woodhouse Farm, north of Ovington. Peterson, however, was uncertain of his position and requested wireless bearings three times in forty minutes, the first at 11.27pm. At 11.45pm he dropped two incendiary bombs at Two Mile Bottom and at 12.30am, when near Newmarket, he headed into the wind, taking 80 minutes to reach Sandy in Bedfordshire, just over 30 miles away and where L 32 crossed paths with L 21. At Woburn L 32 changed course to the south and about 2.25am, after nearly four and a half hours over England, Peterson inexplicably believed he had reached Kensington in the heart of south-west London and prepared to turn east and bombard the city. But L 32 was not over London; Peterson was at Tring in Hertfordshire, almost 30 miles to the north-west. As he made ready, Peterson, like Manger in L 14, saw something that caused great concern to him and his crew. And they were not alone.
Kurt Frankenburg in L 21 crossed the coast at Mundesley at 10.20pm and followed a similar course to L 32, although keeping a few miles south of Peterson’s airship. Frankenburg was south of Newmarket at 12.20am, requesting wireless bearings at the same time as Peterson who was on the northern side of the town. With ground speed reduced to 10mph at times, Frankenburg reached Biggleswade in Bedfordshire at 1.35am and, changing direction to the north-west, crossed paths with L 32 at Sandy at 1.50am. A couple of course changes later and L 21 reached Hitchin at 2.25am with the north London suburbs a little over 20 miles away. But just as Frankenburg prepared to make his approach, the situation changed dramatically and, as with Manger and Peterson, it meant a sudden change of plan.
The fourth in this quartet of navy Zeppelins, L 16, crossed the Norfolk coast at 10.40pm about five miles west of Sheringham. Heavy with rain and ice, Kapitänleutnant Erich Sommerfeldt took 48 minutes to cover the first 25 miles to the village of Kimberley, about 10 miles southwest of Norwich, where an incendiary bomb caused no damage. At 11.45pm Sommerfeldt reported attacking a train ‘south-west of Norwich’ with three bombs. These were probably the bombs that fell at Little Livermere close to the Bury St Edmonds to Thetford Line on the Great Eastern Railway. No damage was done. Keeping to a south-west course, L 16 reached Hitchin at 12.45am where Sommerfeldt sought wireless bearings after which problems with the forward engine delayed him further and it was not until 1.30am that L 16 passed between Redbourn and Harpenden where it dropped six bombs. These exploded in open country near a Midland Railway branch line where one smashed windows in cottages on the outskirts of Harpenden.
At 1.50am L 16 reached South Mimms from where it must have been clear to Sommerfeldt that another airship was close by as bombs were exploding and burning about six miles away. Strangely, Sommerfeldt turned away from London and headed slowly north but at 2am numerous searchlights began concentrating over north London and one after another, anti-aircraft guns began to bark at the sky. Sommerfeldt changed direction again and, heading south once more, reached Potter’s Bar in Hertfordshire at 2.15am. The intensity of the fire aimed at another airship left Sommerfeldt unsure what to do next, but as that fire edged north and concentrated on an area about six miles away from L 16, Sommerfeldt decided his next move. There was a searchlight sweeping the sky just four miles to the north of his position and it appeared unprotected by anti-aircraft guns. Sommerfeldt decided to attack it. The light was probing the skies from the village of Essendon.
At the home of the village blacksmith in Essendon, his eldest daughter, 26-year-old Frances Bamford was awoken by the sound of engines. On looking out of the window she saw the searchlights and realised it was a Zeppelin she could hear. Frances, who worked as a telephonist at the Hatfield telephone exchange, woke her parents and told them she thought she would be needed at work. As they roused the other four children, the first of L 16’s bombs exploded nearby and Frances’ father ordered everyone out into the paddock. Sommerfeldt released 25 bombs (16 HE and nine incendiary) and as they rained down, crashing and burning in and around the village, one burst in the paddock. In the chaos another of the Bamford daughters told her father that 12-year-old Eleanor was badly hurt. He found her lying on the grass terribly injured and carried her unconscious body into the house which was untouched by the blast. Already distraught, a neighbour than told Mr Bamford that he had found Frances dead in the paddock, killed instantly when a fragment of the bomb sliced right through her body. Doctors amputated Eleanor’s leg but it failed to save her and she died later that day. Elsewhere in the village, a bomb exploded on the roof of the church vestry smashing the ceiling above the altar, blasting a hole in the south wall of the chancel, wrecking the organ and smashing windows. Others wrecked homes in the village, injuring a man and a child. Fortunately, two thirds of the bombs landed in fields outside the village.
Having released most of his bombs Sommerfeldt had no intention of continuing towards London, but even if he had, what happened next would have made him change his mind. An intense blinding light suddenly illuminated L 16, lighting up the control gondola as though it were a sunny day. The source of that light was just four miles away. Everyone on board L 16 knew what they were witnessing. While his horrified crew looked on, Sommerfeldt gave the order to head away from the light as fast as possible.
***
Far away to the north-east army Zeppelin LZ 98 was approaching the Suffolk coast at the end of her raid. Her commander, Ernst Lehmann, was checking his maps before heading back out over the North Sea on the homeward leg of his journey when his executive officer, Baron Max von Gemmingen, ‘let out a scream’. Lehmann looked back in the direction from which they had come and saw the same shocking sight that had halted Manger, Peterson, Frankenburg and Sommerfeldt in their tracks; ‘far behind us, a bright ball of fire’.
We knew that the blazing meteor on the further rim of the city could only be one of our airships. The flaming mass hung in the sky for more than a minute; then single parts detached themselves from it and preceded it to earth. Poor fellows, they were lost the moment the ship took fire.
We remained silent until it was all over, and then realized how easily the same fate could have overtaken us.29
Lehmann had no idea just how true those final words were.