The Zeppelins

The Development of the Airship,
with the Story of the Zepplins Air Raids in the World War

by
CAPTAIN ERNST A. LEHMANN
and
Howard Mingos

CHAPTER V

GROWTH OF THE NAVAL AIRSHIP SERVICE

While my ship was being repaired a new Zeppelin -- the LZ-79 -- which had just arrived in the east, was operating over the southern part of the war theater. She was among the first of the new types to have more than a million cubic feet gas capacity and was longer and wider. Her stern tapered to a finer point, thus creating a better streamlined shape which gave her more speed in addition to her greatly improved carrying capacity.

The LZ-79 made an excellent flight that same night that our Z-12 was over Bialystok. She had started from Posen, far back in the interior of Germany. Her crew received great assistance in their navigation by the countless fires set by the retreating Russians who were trying to leave the district a barren waste. So they were able to reach their objective, the fortress and railway junction of Brest-Litovsk, at about midnight.

There the Russian forces were concentrating, hoping to stem the tide of the German-Austrian advance. Any considerable interference with their railroad facilities was, therefore, of supreme importance. The LZ-79 dropped a full dozen of her heaviest bombs squarely in the middle of the conveniently lighted railway yards, turned to the southeast and at 2:30 A.M. devoted the rest of her load to the junction of Kovel. Then Captain Gaissert, the commander, started home against stiff northwest winds, arriving without incident at noon. He had flown a thousand miles with unfavorable winds inside of 17 hours and had thrown about 3,000 pounds of explosives.

Two weeks later Gaissert again set out for Brest-Litovsk, arriving over the city just in time to see the Russians themselves try to destroy it. Unable to hold it longer and true to their ancient principles and tactics they had sacrificed the entire city. It was now a seething mass of flame with pillars of black smoke ascending miles high. Gaissert gave the scene a wide berth and swung over the principal railroad which the enemy needed badly to facilitate the removal of troops and supplies. Gaissert placed his bombs systematically and the movement of trains was stopped. The main result was that the Russians had to abandon most of their supplies. It was officially noted as the destruction of the junction at Luminez. After that the LZ-79 was transferred back to the western front.

Early in September I was again in the air with the Z-12, having lost three weeks in repairs, caused chiefly by red tape which delayed the arrival of parts. Our new station was to be at Konigsberg, the old university town where Kant lived and taught his immortal philosophy. It was now a military center and comfortably near our next objective, the railways radiating from the Russian fortress of Vilna. These raids differed little from previous attacks. They were mostly successful. The enemy's lines of communication were broken up repeatedly, only crater-like holes remaining where his railroad yards and stations had stood.

We were never attacked by airplanes on these flights, though once returning to the hangar after a raid one of my gunners thought. he saw a plane in the distance and fired at it.

We had another quarry during these weeks of activity on that part of the front. It was the Grand Duke Nicholas, uncle of the Czar and commander-in-chief of the Russian armies.

In his retreat through Poland Nicholas left the country devastated, expelled whole populations, left women and children dying in the mud and swamps. That is why I and my comrades desired to reach him. While we shuddered at the death and suffering which sometimes ensued from the raids, we always set out on the trail of Nicholas with the gleeful anticipation of hunters after a wolf.

No German entertained toward him the slightest sentiment of chivalry which marked our feeling toward the British and Belgian rulers. I am sure that even the Kaiser himself would have overlooked any "accidental" bombing resulting in that royal person's sudden demise.

Yet Nicholas was probably the most capable and forceful of all the Russian strategists and he was largely responsible for the duration of the campaign on the eastern front. We were told that he had no fixed headquarters but traveled and lived on a special train, at night stopping at convenient stations where there were telegraph facilities. We did not make this "private feud" our chief occupation. There was never a discussion at headquarters concerning it. Our method was to ask one of the younger staff officers before each assigned flight:

"What of our distinguished game -- his whereabouts today?"

Sometimes the staff officer would not have the information. Again he would name places beyond our range. But there were occasions when I thought be was ours. Once during our second raid on Malkin we deployed 60 miles to Siedlze where the latest intelligence reports had placed him. Meeting with no serious defense I dropped quite low and saw a train on a siding, darkened and assuredly not a troop train. Six of our best bombs went into it. The cars were blown into splinters and the tracks torn up for hundreds of yards.

But the Grand Duke Nicholas is still living. He succeeded in retreating across Poland with his army in an unbroken line. It did not extend clear to the Baltic, so Hindenburg tried to outflank that wing and if possible, capture the whole northern army. But the retreat was not cut off. Hindenburg lacked sufficient troops with which to push through into the rear of the enemy. The situation came to a standstill for the winter and I was ordered to take the Z-12 over to Darmstadt in the west.

In my pocket I carried a telegram from Marshal Hindenburg which, translated, reads:

"To the commander, officers and crew of the Z-12 on the occasion of their transfer from my command I express my thanks and appreciation of their excellent achievements and best wishes for luck and success in their further activities.

"VON HINDENBURG."

Two ships recently transferred to the eastern front had their share of adventure. During October the new LZ-85 threw a total of 12 tons of explosives and incendiary bombs on the railroads and bridges in the vicinity of Di1naburg, Riga and Minsk. The LZ-39 met her fate during the same month. I had the story from her captain, Dr. Lempertz, who is still with the Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen.

He had made an attack on Rovno, Russia. There the artillery had finally reached him. All the rear gas cells were punctured by shrapnel and, moreover, the supporting braces of the forward engine car were struck and shattered. Turning back toward Germany Lempertz found the stern becoming steadily heavier until his ship lay tilted at a sharp angle with her tail pointing toward the surface which was enemy country.

Suddenly the braces of the forward engine car parted entirely and it plunged down, carrying one of the mechanics. The control car near by was now in danger of tearing loose, so it was abandoned, and the ship at an ever steeper angle commenced drifting back into Russia. But the crew did not give up. All hands worked frantically. Ballast was dropped, fuel tanks went overboard. Loads were shifted from the rear to the forward end, and finally they were able to use the emergency control station in the aft part of the ship. In this manner they worked back across the lines and sank to a safe landing near a town appropriately named Luck.

Had they been able to make quick repairs and given a fresh supply of gas, they could have saved their ship. But as supplies and materials were not available, the LZ-39 collapsed and lay a broken and twisted mass until the salvage crews came up to dismantle her.

An incident connected with our departure from Konigsberg will illustrate the urgent need for experience in the laying out of airship stations. A spell of bad weather set in with the receipt of my transfer orders. Heavy winds assailed the hangar, blowing at an angle against the end which held the only door. To have attempted to take out the ship against that cross-wind would have been equal to deliberately wrecking it.

The shed should have had another door at the opposite end, in which case we could have left easily. Instead, we were delayed two weeks, living in the hangar, sleeping on our bags, waiting for a few minutes lull which would enable us to get out and away from the doorway. It was late one rainy night in the middle of October when the wind calmed down enough for us to leave.

Because of the short distances between the hangar and the enemy objectives we had not required the radio on the eastern front, so that apparatus was now crated and en route to Darmstadt by rail at the very time we needed it most. Soon after we started, the downpour increased in intensity. There were two layers of clouds, one underneath the ship and close to the surface, the other high above us. This upper part shed water as if it were poured out of buckets. I dared not dive below lest I stick the nose of the Z-12 into one of the mountains in the center of Germany. The best I could do was to set a compass course, check it to account for the wind velocity which I had learned before leaving Konigsberg, and during the rest of the night trust to luck.

We ran clear across Germany during the next few hours, without a single landmark to guide us or a star to help with the navigation. The ship was soaking wet and all of us were uncomfortable and cold. After daybreak next morning the weather was the same, clouds above and below, with rain between. Concluding that we must be somewhere over the Southern Rhine valley I dropped cautiously through the clouds and behold, there was Hanau, a village near Frankfort-on-the-Main. We had traversed the country in a severe storm at night and had come out of the clouds within an hour of our destination -- this under war conditions, with little equipment and a War craft produced early in 1915.

Our landing at Darmstadt was also uncommon. Arriving over the field at a mile high we encountered a stiff gale. By nosing against it I found that we could hold our position. There we hung directly over the landing flag on the field. Then, by putting her nose down just a little and controlling the engines to effect the increase or decrease in wind velocity at different altitudes, we brought the Z-12 straight down in a vertical line, like a mammoth elevator, until she gently touched the ground, where we still had to go almost half-speed ahead into the teeth of the gale to offset its force.

That is thrilling work, such as sometimes occurs to compensate the airship pilot for the uninteresting long spells of routine.

At Darmstadt new orders awaited Gemmingen and myself. We were to turn our Z-12 over to another crew and proceed to Potsdam to take charge of a new Zeppelin, the LZ-90, which was to be larger and more efficient than any of the others. This ship was like the American Shenandoah in appearance, though she had less than half the latter's gas capacity. Still, it was a big improvement at that time, carrying heavier loads than its predecessors and having more power. This in turn would enable us to take care of weather adversities more easily, which was what we wanted during the raids which were scheduled for the next few months.

Throughout the war the German people held exaggerated ideas concerning the destructive powers of the Zeppelins. Some thought that all England could be transformed into a heap of smouldering ruins and the conflict brought to a timely end simply by means of Zeppelin raids. Of course that was technically impossible. The military experts knew it. They recognized the limitations of a small fleet of airships.

Yet I am sure that had Germany been set on the wholesale extinction of the British people, had she concentrated her energy upon more Zeppelins and submarines, she would have possessed the technical means for very nearly accomplishing that purpose.

England would have suffered terribly had Germany set out in dead earnest to destroy everything British regardless of its military value. Even with the Zeppelins that were produced during the war she might have inflicted far more damage than was actually caused by the sporadic raids. I mention that fact here with reference to the oft-heard statements that the United States is so fully protected by two great oceans.

Admittedly she is protected today. But just as the Germans held the instruments capable of doing terrible harm to England, so must recent engineering developments produce similar though more powerful weapons which an enemy lacking discrimination might send against the United States. The oceans could not stop the huge military airship, the aerial leviathan of the near future.

The American people were never well-informed concerning the real nature of the important services rendered by the Zeppelins. Hardly anything at all was told about their reconnaissance and patrol activities, and only a few of the raids found their way into print on this side. I know it will surprise the majority to learn that as early as 1915 the naval Zeppelins made 30 raids during that one year, though then there were no more than fifteen ships in commission at any one time.

During the first six months of war the German navy had five such craft. Six months later ten more had been commissioned in that branch of the service. But remember, this was in the early stages. Had it not been a period of great national anxiety the Zeppelins of those days would have been termed more or less experimental. As it was, they operated as warships and the personnel, from the commanders to the newest recruits among the mechanics, were compelled to gain their experience from actual operations against the enemy. And that could not be done without accepting very severe losses.

America may never be confronted with a similar situation, but the few losses occasioned by the peacetime operation of American airships would be insignificant compared to the wholesale destruction of men and equipment if the national government were forced to send untrained crews into a conflict with the complicated war machines of the future.

One purpose here is to prove this statement by showing what actually occurred in the Zeppelin branch of the German army and navy.

The navy had its Zeppelin service as far back as 1912; though when the first naval airship L-1 was commissioned in October of that year, there was no airship harbor to accommodate it. The commercial station at Hamburg served as a temporary berth for the navy's first rigid, however, and enabled it to operate with the fleet. A larger ship, the L-2, was commissioned one day in September, 1913, and on that very day the L-1 was wrecked in a sudden storm over the North Sea, drowning part of the crew, including both the commander and the first chief of naval airships, Captain Metzing.

The loss of the L-1 was comparable to that of the U.S. Shenandoah which, in September, 1925, was wrecked while passing through a storm in Ohio. It had the same influence on public opinion.

To make matters worse the new L-2 thirty days later burned in the air at Johannisthal. It was difficult to explain to the public, and, in fact, to the average naval officer that poor ventilation in the engine gondolas had ignited some overflowing hydrogen gas, and that correction of the ventilating system would prevent accidents from that source in future. In and out of the navy the safety of the Zeppelin remained largely a matter of grave doubt. Nearly all of our best airship personnel had been killed.

But Metzing's successor as chief happened to be a firm believer in airships. He was Captain Peter Strasser, a brave and talented officer, destined to be the genius responsible for the war operations of the naval Zeppelins and the leader who established them in a lasting position as important units of a modern fleet.

A word about Strasser. In January, 1915, while in Frankfort-on-the-Main, awaiting the completion of my Zeppelin, Z-12, I had been asked to address a group of naval and military experts concerning the use of the observation car which I had developed to a fairly reliable degree.

As a result, the War Department had decided to introduce the car, though not without first letting the departmental engineers tinker with its development. They required more than a year -- meaning that much valuable time was lost -- before working out the details.

It was different with the navy, however. Strasser had immediately decided to experiment with the car built by the Zeppelin Company according to my plans. As was his custom he declined to send any of his subordinates aloft to conduct the experiment. He himself went up to make the test.

I did not see the preparations, but they must have been bungled somewhere. When the airship had reached a sufficient height Strasser got into the little car and gave the signal which would lower it a half mile below the ship. 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 the new device.

Still, had it been more quickly developed it might have saved considerable trouble and several disasters. Strasser himself might have survived.

He let nothing interfere with his program of participating at least once a month in a raid on England. On August 5, 1918, while approaching the English coast shortly before nightfall, the L-70, with Strasser aboard, was shot down in flames by a British airplane. This happened on a comparatively clear evening. The use of the observation car would have permitted operations in cloudy weather and tactics calculated to avoid discovery by the enemy.

Strasser had possessed enough influence to procure two new airships in the spring of 1913, the L-3 and L-4, which were operating with the navy within a month after the beginning of war. For months they were employed solely in patrol work.

The L-3 had made 141 flights over the North Sea during the last months of 1914, her longest tour of duty keeping her out 34 hours. That was good performance for the early ships. The L-4, too, made 50 flights in the latter part of the same period, often staying out a day and a night.

The L-5, which had been turned over to the Navy immediately after it left the Zeppelin factory in October, had made 50 successful patrol flights over the Baltic before the new year.

As a present that first Christmas of the war, the high command had given the navy three new Zeppelins, L-6, L-7 and L-8. That was the beginning.

The following year, 1915, the Navy had many more Zeppelins, though the maximum in commission at one time was not more than fifteen, because of the losses. Yet those naval airships made 389 long distance patrol flights during the twelve months' period, besides the 30 raids against England.

Four of them were lost in action with the enemy. The L-3 and L-4 were wrecked in a gale on February 17, 1915, both landing in Denmark where their crews were interned. The two ships had been sent far north to the Norwegian coast to check up a report by a merchant vessel which suggested the presence of a large British force in those waters. They found the sea deserted, however.

When they turned back for their long homeward flight, they had just enough fuel left to make port under the best of normal weather conditions. A strong southerly wind sprang up unexpectedly. It soon increased in velocity until it became a gale. The ships could not make enough speed against it. In later periods they would not have been sent so far out without being prepared to receive timely radio warnings of adverse weather. Both commanders, Fritz of the L-3 and Count Platen-Hallermund of the L-4, had been anxious to make a thorough job of their search, so had remained over the doubtful area long enough to scan the surface in all directions.

They were able men, as I knew, for both had been with me in Hamburg the previous winter in charge of the first and second naval crews which I had instructed in the principles of airship operations. Fritz visited me in Friedrichshafen after the war and gave the details of his flight. I am repeating history here because it illustrates the manner in which a skilled commander and crew can manage to save themselves in case their ship is lost, even in a most violent winter snowstorm.

"I knew, when we finally turned homeward, shortly after noon," said Fritz, "that we would be up against some trouble. A southerly breeze had sprung up and was now steadily increasing. The horizon in the south held dark and ugly looking cloud-banks. On top of this our No. 2 engine had been bucking several times and could not be trusted to hold out. Soon, while crossing the Skager Rack, we met a stiff head wind, which began to kick up the sea below us. When the first rain squalls came on with violent gusts I realized that in the event of further trouble we could not hope to land and float on the sea until assistance should arrive. For a moment I thought of crossing over eastward to the Baltic, through the Cattegat and Belts with the wind abeam, but the distance to German soil would be at least thrice as far that way. We might have better weather there, but we could not know how much better.

"I decided to run straight south, following the Danish coast so as to land when it should become unavoidable. Shortly after 2 o'clock our sick engine died on us. I had long ago given up the idea of making our station at Hamburg, but still bad hopes of reaching Northern Schleswig, where I could possibly have some assistance at the Tondem airship station, then under construction.

"After 3 o'clock the wind began blowing with gale force and violent snow squalls set in. At times, looking down on the foaming and hissing sea, we seemed to be making no headway at all.

"I realized that we would never survive that night in the air and since we would have to land somewhere in strange country anyway, I decided to land right then, before the dark winter night should make it more difficult. I selected the Danish island of Fano, which is flat and smooth without any tall trees or other obstacles. Approaching it, I had all the ship's papers bundled together, including the secret code signal-book with its lead covers, and dropped them in deep water.

"When we brought the ship up into the wind toward a great flat and smooth expanse of land on the island, we had to use our two engines almost full out to make any speed at all.

"What followed was a nice and precise landing maneuver, just as in the days when we were practising at Hamburg. You remember that one stiff storm in which we experimented, mooring our ship on the three heavy anchor-chains, laid out on the field? We could hold the ship in the air in any place we wanted? Well, this was just about the same situation.

"I went close down to the ground, perhaps 30 feet over the surface, making not more than a mile or two headway. I had previously instructed four men from each car to clamber down on the handling lines which I had paid out everywhere from the cars. On a signal from my band out of the control car window as they approached the ground, they let go and jumped down. I valved hydrogen some time before and during this period to prevent the ship from rising too suddenly when relieved of their weight, but they all jumped at once and none was hurt.

"With this ground-crew of eight, the second landing, or the real landing, as I must call it, was fairly easy. I dropped both anchor ropes from the nose of the ship and they took them apart, hauling in the slack as they could get it. At this moment another vicious-looking snow-squall was approaching, so I ordered all men to the forward car, opening all hydrogen valves at the same time. I had other men stand ready and jump immediately when a gust of wind brought the ship close to the ground. After that the effect of the valving made itself felt, the ship became heavy and we permitted her to come down finally. She hit the ground rather heavily with both cars, while the rest of the crew jumped. I had remained inside the control car with only the elevator-man and we both left the ship, which was now an empty shell, still living, with her engines throbbing, but doomed to destruction. It was evident that we would not be able to hold her very long, and if we did, she would remain in Denmark anyway.

"Still I hesitated a moment. She was my first ship. I could hardly steel myself to let her go.

"The snow-squall was now upon us. It made the decision for me. It struck with a furious blast and blinding masses of snow made the earth as dark as night. The ship was pressed hard down on the ground, but soon began to drag our few men with irresistible force. Shouting at the top of my voice to carry above the noise of the howling gale, I ordered: 'Both sides close together! Stand clear of the lines! Stand ready!' -- And when I had everybody's attention -- 'Let go!'

"The gallant L-3 sprang away from us like a phantom thing, and an instant later vanished in the snow and darkness. She drifted out over the North Sea and nothing was heard of her again. The Danish peasants whom we met after an hour spent walking about their island were frightened at first, thinking that Germany had declared war on Denmark. But when we explained, they gave us food and shelter. Two days later, the Danes sent a military escort to accompany us to an internment camp."

The experience of the L-4 was almost identical, only her occupants were less fortunate, or less skillful, while landing their ship in the gale. Two of the men were injured and four others, who apparently missed the signal to jump to the ground, were carried off with the abandoned Zeppelin. No trace of them was ever found.

The L-8, while returning from the English coast early in March of that year, was navigated by mistake only 1,000 feet high over the enemy lines in Belgium near Nieuport and, of course, was badly damaged by artillery fire. Four of her huge gas cells were blown out, but she was nearly successful in the attempt to reach her station at Duren, in the Rhineland. Bad weather and heavy rains, however, forced her down near Tirlemont in Belgium. The crew saved themselves and moored the ship but she was damaged and was so mauled about by the wind within a few hours after stranding that she had to be dismantled.

The L-7, which had raided England in company with two other Zeppelins, was shot down by a British cruiser the following year, near Hornsriff, off Denmark. She was patrolling in an altitude of 4,000 feet when she encountered haze. Before her crew knew it they were over a group of enemy vessels. Turning in their course they were further surprised by more of the enemy, who reached her with shrapnel and set several gas cells leaking. As she escaped, her commander wirelessed that he would have to alight at sea. Destroyers and submarines speeded to the rescue but failed to locate the L-7. The enemy had reached her first. A British submarine had attacked the Zeppelin while it was floating helplessly on the water. Gunfire set her ablaze. The captain, first officer and nine of the crew were killed and the rest of the crew were fished from the debris and captured by the enemy.

On my return from the eastern front late in 1915, 1 learned that the L-10 had caught fire in the air near her station at Nordholz. The crew had been valving out gas while in a thunderstorm cloud, something they should not have done. The electricity had fired the hydrogen. That August the L-12 bad been so badly damaged while attacking London that she had fallen into the sea. Towed to Ostend by one of our destroyers she was burned during salvage operations.

The L-5 operating over the Baltic was rendered useless during a brush with artillery near the Russian fortified posts around Riga but her crew managed to land without injury near Memel in East Prussia.

The L-6 and L-9 lying alongside each other in their hangar at Hamburg had been destroyed by fire started by faulty inflation methods. A similar accident finished the L-18 at Tondern when a gas tube connection permitted the escape of hydrogen. You see we were learning by experience.

That year, 1915, had been as much of a period of discovery for the navy as it was for the army -- I am speaking solely of airship operations. While the army Zeppelins had been confined largely to overland operations, and the general staff had learned what they could not do, the naval airships had been on duty almost exclusively over the water. And while some of their problems had been distinctively their own, I believe that in the end they amounted to the same thing; the Germans were learning that there is a science of airship navigation to be cultivated extensively if accidents and expensive losses are to be avoided.

Both the army and navy Zeppelins had been subjected to all kind of weather. That first winter with its storms and bitter cold had cast up innumerable obstacles, and they were no more than surmounted when warmer weather, different climatic conditions, bred other problems.

While our army ships had been raiding objectives on the Continent, it had been the navy Zeppelins which first carried the aerial warfare across the North Sea to England. As I have said, the first raid in January, 1915, which resulted in some damage at Yarmouth, had been made by the L-3 and L-4. The L-6 which had started with them was compelled to return because of engine trouble.

The other two cruised together until they reached the British coast near Norwich. They encountered unexpectedly severe weather. One rain squall followed another during the evening and later that night changed to heavy snow. The navigators could not check their position closely in the thick layers of mist and fog. The L-3 managed to find Yarmouth where she dropped half her bombs over the harbor districts. When she returned for a second attack, a bank of fog shut off everything. She was forced to give it up.

The L-4 was even less fortunate. The commander had decided to try his luck more to the north, but while maneuvering toward the River Humber he encountered snow and rain, lost his bearings and had to turn back, though not before dropping several bombs on some batteries which had been making it uncomfortable for him.

The thick weather prevented the L-3 from observing the full effect of the bombs but the British official reports, which always minimized the extent of the damage caused by raids, stated that "several houses" had been destroyed.

At any rate these first raids had thoroughly alarmed the British public. The long expected invasion by air had materialized. The possibility of further and serious trouble from the same source was now more than conjecture. It had become a terrifying fact.

The first evidence of this public reaction lay in the hasty exodus from the east coast. Whoever could afford to shut down his business did so immediately. Others sent their families far inland. The Government in London was besieged with appeals from indignant citizens who accused the officials with neglect, lack of foresight and energy. They did not know that the authorities were at the moment helpless, that as a matter of fact they never would be able to prevent all raids.

The best they could do for many months was to make the attacks as difficult and ineffective as possible for the invaders by darkening the cities, obscuring all landmarks and setting up false lights to mislead the airship navigators.

No time was lost. They hurriedly installed a great system of intelligence reporting -- including signals, anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights, airplane patrols and emergency squadrons ready to dash up into the air at a moment's warning. It was a gigantic task. The machinery required was vast and expensive. Yet it remained throughout the war always on the defensive against both the enemy and the local critics.

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Chapter VI:  THE NORTH SEA PATROL -- THE ZEPPELINS AT JUTLAND  |  Contents