After L 33 had made her attack on London, the capital’s defences remained on the alert. Those tracking the intruders knew she had not been alone and information that two other Zeppelins had come inland over Kent suggested a possible dash for the capital. Three Zeppelins over London on one night would be a first and those on duty, manning the guns, searchlights and aircraft, remained vigilant and ready for action.
Peterson had headed north-west from Tunbridge Wells at 12.10am, dropping an incendiary bomb twenty minutes later as L 32 passed over Ide Hill, about three miles south-west of Sevenoaks, but at 12.50am a searchlight at the village of Crockenhill held the Zeppelin in its beam. It drew the standard response, with Peterson releasing seven bombs in an attempt to disrupt the light. They smashed a few windows and uprooted some trees in an orchard but none exploded within 200 yards of the target.1 A ground mist south of the Thames ensured this was the only searchlight to hold L 32 before she crossed the river just east of Purfleet at about 1am.
Further to the west, Mathy and L 31 continued towards London. Over Kenley he released a parachute flare and at 12.25am, in the glare of its light, quickly released four bombs on a 130-yard line along Hall Way between Kenley and Purley. Three exploded in gardens, smashing windows and roof tiles, while the last wrecked a post box. A searchlight at Croydon now found L 31 but Mathy immediately released two more parachute flares that effectively blinded its crew. When they found her again, L 31 had reached Streatham with the 4-inch gun at Croydon firing two rounds before another flare blinded the searchlight crew again. Prior to reaching Streatham, Mathy dropped two HE and two incendiary bombs over Longmorton Farm, Mitcham, smashing windows in nine buildings. Mathy was now about 1000 yards south of Streatham Common Station where his main bombing run began, although Mathy’s navigation was out and he believed those first bombs near Kenley were dropped over Clapham, nine miles further north. It affected his orientation for the rest of the raid and led him to believe his main bomb run was north of the Thames from Chelsea, through Pimlico to the City, whereas it ran south of the river from Streatham through Brixton to Kennington.
Mathy’s first string of bombs fell around Streatham Common Station. The first, an incendiary, landed in Mr Tomlin’s vegetable patch at the rear of 50 Ellison Road, followed seconds later by three bombs at the station’s goods yard, which set fire to railway trucks, ripped up track and damaged a couple of buildings as well as houses in Ellison Road. An incendiary in Greyhound Lane caused only minor damage before a bomb exploding on a house at 11 Estreham Road, opposite the station entrance, struck a devastating blow. Nos.10, 11 and 12 collapsed with Nos.13 and 14 left in a bad way. The first casualty of Mathy’s raid, 74-year-old Mary Chadwick, died in her bed at No.12; rescuers managed to extricate her daughter, Maud Chadwick, aged 31, who was pinned under a wall and buried by rubble. At No.11 the Meggs family escaped from the wreckage of their home, as did seven others from the affected houses, although dust-covered and suffering from shock. At the station the blast ripped through the booking office and damaged the roof over the platform with less significant damage extending to other houses in Estreham Road, Pathfield Road, Barrow Road and Greyhound Lane. The final two incendiary bombs of this first string fell in back gardens at 17 Pathfield Street and 33 Barrow Road.
Mathy began to release a second string of bombs half way between Streatham Common Station and Streatham Station. A fire at the back of 56 Lewin Road was quickly dealt with but another, in Walter Drayson’s back garden at 64 Natal Road, was only prevented from getting out of control by Prince, the family’s prized Old English Sheepdog. His terrified barking as a shed caught alight and flames scorched his kennel alerted Walter who saved his dog and extinguished the fire as it threatened a neighbouring property. In appreciation, neighbours presented a handsome collar bearing the inscription, ‘Awarded to Prince by grateful neighbours for services rendered during Zeppelin raid on September 23rd 1916’. But traumatised by his experiences, Prince, previously a friendly, intelligent and much-loved dog, became nervous and at times uncontrollable. Reluctantly Walter and his wife had Prince put to sleep.2
Seconds after the bomb in Natal Road, one exploded on the railway embankment just south of Streatham Station, smashing windows along Gleneagle Road while station staff battled to extinguish a fire at the goods yard. A huge explosion wrecked flats in nine buildings between 19 and 35 Babington Road where three people were injured, then another tore through a building occupied by a wine merchant at 294 Streatham High Road causing great destruction there and to neighbouring homes and shops. A chemist, an upholsterer, a bootmaker, the Geisha tearooms all suffered and, perhaps most unfortunately, so did glass merchant Frank Cox, who no doubt missed a business bonanza as a sea of broken glass frosted the High Road and Mitcham Lane.
For the next 700 yards L 31 passed over residential streets without dropping more bombs, then two exploded at Streatham Cricket Club at the end of Pendennis Road, the only open space in that area, where they killed a grazing donkey. Four incendiary bombs at Leighton Avenue and Leighton Court Road had a minimal effect but L 31 was now approaching the third of Streatham’s railway stations, Streatham Hill. Flying at about 12,000 feet, Mathy released a huge 300kg bomb.
Earlier that evening Edgar Tilley, an air mechanic in the RNAS, had arrived at London’s Victoria Station and caught a tram to his parent’s home by Streatham Hill Station. At Victoria he bumped into an old school friend, Roger Shaw, who was getting the same tram with his fiancée. The couple alighted at the stop on Streatham Hill by Telford Avenue and Edgar remained on board. A little later, when safely at home, Edgar heard ‘a terrific explosion’. He went out and found a shattered, wrecked double-decker tram in the middle of the road.
The 300kg bomb had fallen in front of two large houses at the corner of Streatham Hill and Sternhold Avenue, directly opposite the station. Both houses were empty at the time but for those on board the tram the explosion had tragic consequences. John Fenton, a Special Constabulary sergeant, had just boarded and was climbing the stairs when the bomb exploded like an earthquake about 25 yards away. The motorman, conductor and the four other passengers did not stand a chance as jagged bomb fragments and razor sharp shards of glass cut through the tram. Only Sergeant Fenton remained standing, shielded by the stairs he was climbing. The conductor, Charles Boys, was lying motionless at the foot of the stairs; the motorman, John Gaynor was dead too. Fenton did what he could for the injured until medical help arrived – he then reported for a night’s duty as a Special Constable. For his courage and devotion to duty that night, Sergeant Fenton received the British Empire Medal.
A fleet of military ambulances arrived but the sight of the bodies shocked a corporal with them. ‘One we found,’ he recalled, ‘so terribly mangled that we had to put the poor remains in a sack: he was either the driver or conductor; I don’t know which.’3 Also found amongst the carnage was 55-year-old Henry Bloomfield and Edgar Tilley’s friend, Roger Shaw. After seeing his fiancée to her house he had boarded the next tram to take him home. Now he was lying in a pool of blood, ‘his head nearly blown off’.4 Elijah Wade and William Wood both sustained terrible injuries from which they did not recover, and only one passenger, Jessie Le Britton survived, although injured.
Following Streatham Hill, Mathy dropped six incendiary bombs close to the junction with Telford Avenue where they all fell in gardens, followed by a bomb in Tierney Avenue that ravaged the houses at Nos.25 and 27. A family who had taken shelter in the cellar emerged shaken and covered in dust but unhurt. The final bomb in Streatham, an incendiary, damaged a house at 12 Streatham Hill.
Mathy continued to follow this main road leading into London as Streatham Hill became Brixton Hill, then Brixton Road and Kennington Park Road. His 17 incendiary bombs dropped along this route caused three serious fires, at 37 Fairmount Road, 81 Brixton Hill and at 433 Brixton Road.
A tramway official standing outside the Town Hall on Brixton Hill heard the sound of distant engines but initially could see nothing.
A second or so later there was a great burst of flame in the sky followed by a tremendous explosion, which nearly threw me off my feet. At first I could hardly realise what had happened, but turning around I saw behind me a cloud of dust and people pouring out of their homes and rushing down a side street.5
The first of six HE bombs that fell on Brixton struck 147 and 149 Brixton Hill, which were both unoccupied. The explosion caused much damage, with windows shattering all along the road and in Upper Tulse Hill and in a maze of small streets running off it. The eyewitness followed the people ‘rushing down a side street’, to Beechdale Road where the second of the bombs exploded on a house at No.19, home to Alfred Ward, a C.I.D. Inspector at Scotland Yard, and his family. The explosion demolished the house, blasting Alfred out through a front window and into the street where a police constable found him. Despite his considerable injuries he assisted the constable in bringing out his injured wife and daughter Grace, a clerk at the Foreign Office. All three went to hospital but Grace died ten minutes after arrival from injuries sustained to her spine. Inspector Ward survived an operation and rallied briefly before dying the following day; only Ward’s wife, Ada, survived.
The next bomb landed about 340 yards beyond Beechdale Road, smashing into a builder’s premises at 87 Brixton Hill. It destroyed workshops and stores, damaged four taxis parked outside No.93, inflicted some damage to the Scala Picture Palace and in Josephine Avenue. In Baytree Avenue, about 470 yards further north, Mr Davis was in bed when he heard the sound of approaching explosions.
After a few seconds the most terrific explosion I had ever heard shook the house to the foundations and blew out all the windows.
Rushing out, I found a house three doors away razed to the ground and the debris right across the road. I climbed over the ruins shouting as loud as I could ‘Anyone alive?’ 6
The house was home to a music hall artist, Jack Lorimer. Lorimer and his wife were away on tour so the ‘nanny-cum-housekeeper’ Betty Hobbs was looking after their three young sons, Alex (aged nine), Maxwell (eight) and William (four). Alex and Maxwell were sharing a bed in one room and William and Betty in another. The force of the blast turned over the bed in which Alex and Maxwell were sleeping and landed on top of them. It saved the lives of the terrified children.
Mr Davis’ desperate shouts finally got a reply.
I heard a thin little voice crying, ‘Save me, save me!’ I went frantic; after pulling away part of the roof, and broken furniture, I saw the moonlight shining on the white flesh of a little boy. I gathered him into my arms and carried him to my house.
Mr Davis returned to the ruins to continue his search but a falling beam struck his head and he lost consciousness. After treatment he returned home in time to see ambulance men carefully carrying away two bodies.
Those bodies were the youngest boy, William, and Betty Hobbs, both suffocated under the rubble. But the boy Mr Davis pulled from the wreckage and the brother who had shared a bed with him were both safe. One of them, Maxwell, later earned enduring fame in the world of entertainment under the stage name Max Wall.7
Damage extended into neighbouring streets, then two incendiary bombs followed, falling either side of Brixton Station, where one of the serious fires took hold at 433 Brixton Road, the home and shop of a tailor, S.H. Messent. About 330 yards north of the station, the next bomb exploded outside 337 Brixton Road, severely damaging the home of a doctor, John Robertson, and injuring him in the process. The last of the Brixton HE bombs exploded with tragic consequences in the roadway opposite Nos.263 to 269 Brixton Road. A man working at a taxi garage described what happened.
Standing at the top of the yard leading into the garage, I heard the firing of guns... Suddenly there was a great burst of flame, a terrific explosion, and I was thrown to the ground. When I picked myself up the air was filled with dust and glass was flying in every direction.8
The previously empty street suddenly filled with people, many of whom sought shelter at the garage but they quickly turned away when told of the large store of petrol there. The eyewitness, untouched by the bomb, was a lucky man. ‘The bomb fell about thirty yards from where I was standing,’ he explained, ‘blowing a great hole in the roadway several feet deep.’ Others were not so fortunate. Gaston Leonard, a shipping clerk from Belgium, had been visiting a friend but the 32-year-old’s body was now lying on the pavement with severe injuries. He died in hospital. An employee at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Walter Archer, aged 68, had heard the sound of exploding bombs and went to look for his two daughters who had gone out for the evening. He told a policeman who found him lying in the road, ‘I do not feel very much hurt,’ but he died of his injuries in hospital an hour later.9
William Hogg managed and lived above a tobacconist shop at 269 Brixton Road, with his wife, Florence and their two children. Alerted by distant rumblings, William and Florence were standing by the side door of the shop. With nothing in sight, William told his wife, ‘I will pop up and see how the children are’
I went upstairs and the crash came just as I was leaning over the first child’s bed. The ceiling came down on us. I went into the back room and got the other boy. I then went out of the front window along... some ledges, over another shop, downstairs, and left the children at another shop.10
William explained to the coroner that fire and debris prevented him using the stairs. ‘Everything went down,’ he added, ‘the whole place was wrecked.’ Having brought his children to safety, William went to find his wife but she was nowhere to be seen. Later the police informed him they had found Florence’s terribly mutilated body in the street. William could only identify her by the coat she was wearing.
Mathy continued his course for about a mile before he dropped his final bomb south of the Thames. Passing 400 yards from The Oval cricket ground and its neighbouring gasometers, the bomb exploded on the open space of Kennington Park, inflicting limited damage to the Kennington Theatre on the northern edge of the park, and smashing windows in Kennington Park Road, Kennington Road and in St Agnes Place.
A newsagent living above his shop on Kennington Park Road heard the sound of explosions and went to the window, the exact opposite to what the public were instructed to do during a raid.
The window in which I was standing was shattered, and the force of the explosion blew me across the room and flung me on the bed. I was stunned, but otherwise uninjured, and speedily recovered. But, as all the electric bulbs in the house were broken, there was naturally a good deal of confusion... Shop fronts and the glass in the houses in the neighbourhood were shattered. Mine is an old house, and we found later that the force of the concussion had raised the roof fully four inches.11
Mathy now ceased dropping bombs for just over seven miles. He crossed the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge and passed right over the City of London, heading north-east towards Leyton. Mathy stated that after dropping the majority of his bombs between Chelsea and Pimlico, he released 12 bombs over the City and Islington in quick succession. No bombs landed in any of those places, but 10 HE bombs did drop in Leyton.13
At 12.47am Mathy turned to follow the line of the Lea Bridge Road and dropped his first bomb of this final string. Former baker George Sexton and his wife, Virginia, had woken earlier to the sound of gunfire that accompanied L 33’s attack and were still at the door of their house, Richmond Villa, at 495 Lea Bridge Road, looking for Zeppelins when Mathy’s bomb exploded just yards from them. Together in their doorway the couple stood no chance. The next bomb struck a building at 503 Lea Bridge Road, at the corner with Shrubland Road.
A family of five, who occupied a house at a corner opposite a police station, had a remarkable escape. A bomb fell and tore away one side of the house, and, although they were inside, they were uninjured.14
In fact the explosion inflicted significant damage to the police station, section house and stables, and affected 189 other houses and shops, leaving five people injured.15
The next bomb detonated on waste ground on the corner of Russell Road before one exploded with great force between Westerham and Bromley roads, an area previously bombed in August 1915.16 A Salvation Army hall stood on the corner of Bromley Road and Lea Bridge Road where an officer of the organisation, H.V. Rohu, manned a First Aid Post. He reported serious damage to the hall and that Bromley Road was almost in ruins. He joined others in searching for the injured.
Upstairs in the first I found... nothing but the floor of a bedroom the furniture of which had been blown to pieces. In the back kitchen were two families, including eight children. One mother was a cripple, and both mothers had tiny babies. Covered with blood and plaster... they looked a pitiable sight.
He got the families out and arranged shelter for them but what he later saw outside moved him.
1 shall never forget the sad procession up that street, about 2 a.m., one of the poor mothers crying and exclaiming ‘What have we done to the Germans that they should have destroyed our home?’17
After thoroughly checking the wrecked houses, rescuers accounted for one man dead and eleven people requiring treatment for their injuries, among them a bus conductor with lacerations to his face and his wife who lost her sight.18 Mathy continued on his course; the next bomb fell on 831 High Road. It destroyed the home of a well-known local doctor, Harold Everett Price, but he and his family escaped physical injury. L 31‘s next bomb exploded in St Heliers Road, causing damage but no casualties, but that changed with the next bomb.
William Webb, a 25-year-old bus driver, had just finished a shift and was walking home up Leyton Green Road with a conductress from the bus garage.19 When the bomb exploded 300 yards away in St Heliers Road the conductress ran, but ten seconds later the next one exploded at the corner of Leyton Green Road and Knotts Green Road and a lethal fragment cut into William Webb’s brain, killing him instantly. Five seconds later another exploded on waste ground between Essex Road and Lea Bridge Road injuring four women and a child. Mr H. Burdon, who lived nearby, went to see what had happened.
Pieces of the iron shell were still hot when I reached this spot, and heard how a man who lived near had gone to his door to see which direction the Zeppelin took and was killed.20
Mathy now had just two bombs left. They landed either side of Halford Road, close to the West Ham Union Infirmary.21 At 25 Halford Road, eight-year-old Violet Wade was at home with her family when ‘the building’ caught between the two blasts, ‘was crushed inwards like a concertina’.
I was flung out of bed amid a mass of broken glass. My grandfather was terribly cut about the head, and my grandmother lost her right eye. To add to the horror, voices shouted to us not to strike matches, owing to the fear of explosions from burst gas mains.22
The groans and shrieks of the injured haunted Violet for the rest of her life. Some of those came from next door. A grandchild of the Wade’s neighbours, the Stonehams, lived on Lea Bridge Road where she was listening to the ‘fearsome, doom-like, destructive noises’ with her terrified family, when a neighbour brought them dreadful news.
A bomb had fallen in front of Grandfather’s house in Halford Road. His head was almost blown off. My uncle had pieces of bomb (or shell) in his spine, and was carried screaming towards the hospital: he died before he got there.23
The two victims were Henry Stoneham, aged 47, and his namesake 13-year-old son. Henry’s wife was badly injured and had to have her right arm amputated. And tragedy extended to the next house too, where 50-year-old Charles Rogers lived. When he heard the bombs he lay down in his hallway but the explosion tore off one of his legs and he died soon after.24
Mathy’s raid was over. From Kenley to Leyton the authorities traced 74 bombs (33 HE and 41 incendiaries), which claimed 22 lives and injured 74 people. Now he set a course across East Anglia, exiting just south of Great Yarmouth at about 2.15am. But there was no celebration on having completed a successful raid. An hour earlier, when about five miles east of Bishops Stortford, Heinrich Mathy observed another Zeppelin about 20 miles to the south and it soon became clear it was in trouble as Mathy’s unemotional report concludes:
The ship was very heavily attacked and seemed to have taken refuge after dropping its bombs, when again searchlights flashed in front of it, and after a short, violent bombardment, the destruction occurred. The ship crashed at [1.15 a.m.], burning as it fell to the ground.25
The question for Mathy and his crew was which Zeppelin was it? Was it one of their sister ships, L 32 or L 33?
Zeppelin L 32 had crossed the River Thames just east of Purfleet at 1am. Once across the river the ground mist melted away and within a minute or two Purfleet’s Beacon Hill searchlight, followed by the Tunnel Farm light at West Thurrock found her. Almost immediately the guns began to thunder: from Tunnel Farm, from Belhus Park and from Tilbury. Guns south of the Thames joined in too but with tragic results for one. The two guns positioned at Southern Outfall, Crossness, came into action but after three rounds the breech of one blew out, killing Gunner John McDougall of the Royal Garrison Artillery, and injuring three others.
The situation was getting hot for Peterson and his crew. Commanding the Beacon Hill searchlight, Second Lieutenant R.W. Corbett, Royal Engineers, was convinced one gun had scored a hit.
I noticed that Tunnel Farm, soon after opening fire... scored a direct hit which, as the target was receding, appeared to be very near the nose of the Zepp. The shell itself appeared to go as close to the Zepp’s body as it was possible to do without actually touching it, then exploded.
The Zepp was then seen to point its nose directly downwards and rushed down at a very great speed to a very much lower altitude when it regained a horizontal altitude and proceeded in a N.E. direction.26
Peterson dropped 15 bombs over Aveley, midway between the guns at Tunnel Farm and Belhus Park. Released in emergency, they caused no damage but countered some of the height loss. Moments later Peterson dropped his main bomb load, with 44 bombs (23 HE and 21 incendiary) falling on a line from South Ockendon towards North Ockendon. They broke a few windows at Belhus Park House and in houses at South Ockendon, where they also killed two horses. More lights now found L 32 and other guns opened fire as she moved beyond the reach of those first guns. The crews manning the gun at Shonks, a farm near Vange, and the two at Shenfield Common, believed they hit L 32 but it was not just the guns at work in the sky.
After his unsuccessful attack on L 33, Alfred Brandon remained on patrol. At 1.03am he saw L 32 held by searchlights over Purfleet and turned towards the beleaguered Zeppelin but, unseen in the darkness, other hunters were closing in too: James Mackay had seen her, as had Frederick Sowrey. Earlier in the month Mackay had been about to attack SL 11 when William Leefe Robinson set it on fire. This time he saw another aeroplane fire two drums of ammunition before he tried a few rounds himself at long range. When Brandon approached he spotted ‘Brock bullets bursting’, and it appeared to him that, ‘the Zepp was being hosed with a stream of fire’. Frederick Sowrey had beaten them both to it.
Sowrey, now aged 23, had joined the Royal Fusiliers in August 1914, but after receiving a wound at the Battle of Loos in 1915 he recovered in England and transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. He joined No.39 Squadron in June 1916 and became great friends with William Leefe Robinson.27 Patrolling between Sutton’s Farm and Joyce Green, he was in an ideal position when the lights north of the Thames found L 32. ‘I could distinctly see the propellers revolving,’ Sowrey reported, ‘and the airship was manoeuvring to avoid the searchlight beams.’28 He opened fire with his Lewis gun.
The first two drums had apparently no effect but the third one caused the envelope to catch on fire in several places; in the centre and front. All firing was traversing fire along the envelope. The drums were loaded with a mixture of Brock, Pomeroy and Tracer ammunition.29
An eyewitness described L 32‘s final moments.
The shrapnel fire had ceased, and then suddenly at one end of the Zeppelin a brilliant point of light appeared as though a piece of magnesium ribbon had been ignited. As the light spread with marvellous rapidity and developed into flame a boyish voice exclaimed triumphantly, ‘Got him!’ By this time the whole of the envelope seemed a mass of liquid fire... and after retaining her horizontal position for a few moments longer the giant vessel threw up her head in despair and as she rapidly disintegrated... she dissolved into what looked like a cascade of liquid lava.30
Once the fire took hold there was no way to save the ship and those on board had a simple but terrible decision to make: to jump to their death or stay with the ship and be burned alive.
In Shenfield, 16-year-old Leslie Goddard, had watched silently with his mother as the drama unfolded.
As we continued to gaze upwards at the crumbling blazing monster, we could clearly see the airship’s crew climbing on to the railings of the gondolas and jumping to their deaths; clearly they preferred to meet their end that way than by being roasted alive. My mother turned to go back to her bed and as she slowly crossed the room, I remember her saying, ‘Oh Les, they are all someone’s sons.’ I think that remark of hers remains my chief recollection of that astonishing experience.31
L 32 was destroyed at about 1.15am, parts of the disintegrating ship falling over a wide area of countryside, but the main body smashed into a field on Snail’s Hall Farm, South Green, about a mile south-east of Billericay. The race was now on to reach the burning wreckage. Inspector Allen Ellis of the Essex County Constabulary cycled from Billericay. When he arrived he found six local men at the wreck and others running across the fields towards it as flames illuminated the scene, the bulk of the crumpled wreck lying across a line of trees and bushes. When Special Constables began to arrive at around 1.30am, Ellis formed a cordon around the wreckage to keep back the gathering crowd. In Brentwood, where the Southern Army (Home Forces) had its Headquarters, troops received orders to march to Billericay. At 2.15am the Army took over the protection of the site. Once the fire brigade had doused the flames, the smouldering bodies of the crew were dragged clear and those who had jumped were located a short distance from the wreckage. Major Myddleton Gravey, senior medical officer of the Southern Army, had the unpleasant task of examining the 22 burned and broken bodies.
With the exception of 3, the 22 bodies were all very much burned. In many cases the clothing of them consisted only of a few charred remnants, several had had their hands and feet burned off, nearly all had broken limbs. The burning in most cases appeared to be after death but in a few instances it was evidently before this happened.32
The eyewitness who earlier heard the boy shout ‘Got him!’ when L 32 began to burn also reported cheering from the surrounding villages. But there was more excitement still to come.
About ten minutes after the airship had been brought down we heard a dull explosion from another quarter. ‘Well, Dad,’ cried the boy in joyful accents, ‘it looks as if they’d bagged a brace.33
He was right. About 20 miles away a second Zeppelin had hit the ground in extraordinary circumstances and left a tale long remembered in that remote part of rural Essex.
After his earlier encounter with Second Lieutenant Brandon, following his attack on East London, Böcker had continued eastwards but L 33 was in trouble. Damaged by anti-aircraft fire and with fuel leaking from holed petrol tanks, it was a struggle to keep her aloft, as her commander recalled.
Due to loss of gas the ship fell 1000 metres in four minutes, and I realised the ship could not be saved, so I had dropped overboard all fuel and oil except for one hour supply, machine guns and ammunition, spare parts and equipment, and finally the entire wireless apparatus.34
The last of the jettisoned items fell near the village of Tolleshunt Major about 1.05am. Even so, Böcker could only keep L 33 in the air by flying nose up with engine power alone keeping her in the air, but that was not sustainable. The end was approaching.
L 33 briefly passed over the sea near Mersea Island but, recognising his dire situation, Böcker turned back inland where a gust of wind battered his ship down from a height of 150 metres. The great wounded airship came to rest across Copt Hall Lane at Little Wigborough, just 25 yards from a pair of isolated cottages; inside were the families of farm labourers Thomas Lewis and Frederick Choat. Böcker called his men together, all had survived the landing although one had cracked his ribs. Piling all documents and papers into one of the gondolas in preparation for setting fire to the wreck, Böcker sent some of the crew over to the cottages where, hammering on the doors, they tried to warn the occupants. Unsurprisingly those inside did not respond to what appeared to be the vanguard of a German invasion right on their own doorstep. Frederick Choat later gave an interview to the press.
All that blessed crew came to my cottage and started knocking at the door. I never answered, and I heard the commander cursing. He spoke English and said something about the ‘b[loody] house’. I put my wife and three children in a back room and made myself scarce too.35
The crew started a fire with a flare gun, the flames from a burning pool of petrol causing three small explosions as escaping hydrogen ignited. The heat from the fires blistered the cottage’s paintwork.
It didn’t hurt any of us, but it smashed the front windows of my house and those of my neighbours. I found afterwards that all the hair was singed off the back of my dog, which was in a kennel outside.36
Much to Böcker’s frustration, the fires burned away the envelope and gas cells but the metal skeleton, with the bow and stern tilted upwards, remained intact. With nothing more he could do, Böcker formed his men up and marched off down Copt Hall Lane towards the Wigborough Road.
Just over a mile away, at Maltings Farm, just north of the village of Peldon, Edgar Nicholas had awoken to the sound of the Zeppelin’s engines, which he described as circling around the district. Nicholas served as a Special Constable.
For a while I stood in my garden, listening and looking for the ship. Suddenly the sound of its engines ceased, and a few minutes afterwards there was a loud explosion about a mile from my house.
A neighbour agreed to stay with my wife while I went to see what had happened.37
Nicholas noted that the explosion occurred at 1.20am then, mounting his bicycle, he set off to investigate. Pedalling through Peldon, he followed the glow of the fire, until he reached the turning to Copt Hall Lane. There, appearing from the darkness, he saw a body of men marching towards him. He estimated there were 20 (actually 21) and with remarkable coolness, Edgar Nicholas dismounted and walked up to the leading man. Then followed a remarkable conversation as Nicholas asked Böcker:
‘Is it a Zeppelin down?’ He said, ‘How many miles is it to Colchester?’ I replied, ‘About 6.’ He replied, ‘Thank you.’ I at once recognised [a] foreign accent and from their clothing and conversation knew they were Germans. I received no answer to my question.38
Colchester was a well-known garrison town and it appears Böcker intended to march there and surrender. With the direction pointed out the Germans set off again, marching towards Peldon, while Special Constable Nicholas joined the rear of the column where one of the men spoke a little broken English.
I asked this man if he was hit by gun-fire. He answered, ‘Zeppelin explode, ve crew prisoner of war.’ Later he remarked ‘What people tink of war?’ I replied ‘I hardly know.’ He said ‘Did I tink nearly over?’ I replied ‘It’s over for you anyway.’ He answered ‘Goot, Goot’ offering me his hand to shake which I did. After this he gave me his lifesaving vest. with regard to the vest, he said ‘Schwim Schwim’ extending his arms in swimming fashion and added. ‘I learn English at School.’39
As the column approached Peldon another Special Constable, Elijah Traylor, appeared and with him was Ernest Arthur Edwards, an Essex Constabulary police sergeant there on holiday. They escorted the crew to Peldon’s little post office where there was a telephone. The local police constable, Charles Smith, had already telephoned information about a low-flying Zeppelin to Home Forces Headquarters and was awaiting a response when Sergeant Edwards entered the Post Office and advised him that the Zeppelin’s crew were outside! Smith contacted the nearest army post, about four miles away at West Mersea. In an interview many years later, Smith added, ‘[Böcker] asked to use the telephone and I refused, telling him that he and the crew must be handed over to the military authorities, to which he agreed.’
Smith arrested the crew then he and an escort of seven ‘Specials’ set off to meet a detachment of the 83rd Provisional Battalion on the road from West Mersea. By this time Sergeant Edwards had slipped away to return to the house where he was staying, for which he later received an official rebuke for leaving the scene when he was the senior police officer present. Nicholas meanwhile had returned to guard the crash site but had no concerns about the intentions of the Zeppelin crew: ‘So far as I could see the prisoners seemed thoroughly glad to be on firm ground, and in fact only too anxious to be placed in the hands of the military.’ Once the army picked up the prisoners, however, it created a new problem – where to keep them until morning? But help was at hand.
At about 1.45am, the Reverend Charles Pierrepont Edwards40 had woken to raised voices in the street at West Mersea, and seeing a fire in the distance quickly concluded what had happened. He and his wife mounted their bicycles and set off towards the light.
Along the road they encountered the prisoners and escort. Informed of the problem of where to hold the men, the vicar offered the Church Hall and he and his wife cycled off to make the necessary arrangements. But the Reverend noted that the mood was changing: ‘In the short time that had elapsed before I got back the news had spread rapidly, and the street was full of people... The people were naturally very excited.’ The atmosphere was, in fact, turning hostile as the Germans, the ‘Babykillers’, marched into West Mersea. The Reverend Edwards, however, turned the mood of the crowd.
‘Three cheers for the King,’ I cried. And so, although it was dark, we ran up our Union Jack to the top of the mast. we were satisfied it was the right thing to do in honour of such an occasion... And when the party arrived... I can assure you we gave those cheers for our good King George as they had never been given in this place before.41
The Reverend studied the crew as they filed into the Church Hall.
The commander is a big man, about 5ft 11ins in height, and looked extremely stout as he came into the hall. But I fancy that was due to padding, as he never opened his coat, and they had a good deal of clothing on. The crew, with one or two exceptions, were really decent chaps and looked clean and smart and well cared for. Many of them were extremely friendly.42
Any minor injuries received attention and a doctor attended the man who had broken a rib. The Reverend Edwards, however, thought Böcker ‘surly’ and a ‘typical Prussian’; after some tea and food he complained about being kept with his men. They made up a bed for him behind a screen but he refused to use it as it was still in the same room.
The crew first moved to Colchester then on to London for interrogation before transfer to prisoner of war camps: Böcker and Schirlitz to Donington Hall, Leicestershire, and the men to Stobs at Hawick, Scotland. And so ended the war for one of the most experienced Zeppelin crews. Flying first in L 5, then L 14 and finally L 33, they had bombed Lowestoft, East Dereham, Lympne, East Croydon, Derby, Hull, Sudbury, Braintree, Leith, Edinburgh and London, amongst other places. Their attacks resulted in the deaths of 87 people, and on this their final raid there was to be one more death attributable to their presence.
At Grove Farm on Copt Hall Lane, 500 yards from the wreck of L 33, Alfred John Wright set off on his motorcycle to alert the military at West Mersea. He did not get far, however, smashing into another vehicle driving with blacked out lights. Taken to hospital in Colchester, Wright had a leg amputated but never recovered, eventually dying in November. But there was new life too.
About a mile west of the crash site, at a cottage at Abbot’s Hall, Great Wigborough, Emily Clark went into labour and gave birth to a daughter. When the doctor suggested they name her to mark the special night, Emily and her husband, George, agreed to one that would forever link her with this incredible story. Mr and Mrs Clark named their daughter Zeppelina.43
There were now two Zeppelin wrecks to attract the thousands of sightseers who made their way to the crash sites the following morning, but the specialist military and naval teams were on their way too. For the first time they had a virtually intact Zeppelin framework to pore over and the opportunity to sift through the wreckage of another searching for valuable documents and papers. Both L 32 and L 33 had much to reveal.