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 VII
WINTER RAIDS OVER ENGLAND
-- EFFICIENCY OF THE NEW SHIPS
Two and a half months after the Battle of
Jutland the German high-seas fleet was again out in the middle of the North Sea on its way
to England, this time with better weather and eight Zeppelins, again with Sunderland as
the objective. It was the same plan that had been interrupted by bad weather which in the
case of Jutland had prevented airship scouting.
Admiral Scheer had awaited until the full moon period halted further air raids and made available more Zeppelins, especially for duty with the fleet. The U-boats had been temporarily called off from their campaign against the British merchant marine, and it was in those two auxiliaries that the German commander saw, as he himself has written, an equivalent for the superior numbers of the British navy.
The submarines had been sent on to strategic positions. The fleet was to steam to the middle of England's east coast. Unless the British fleet came out for battle Sunderland was to be bombarded.
The eight Zeppelins, among them three of the new type with 2,000,000 cubic feet gas capacity, were to form a line of patrol all along the English coast from the Channel entrance to the north of Scotland and from there across to Norway. It was expected that the airships could observe and report in ample time any of the British warships which might try to enter their area.
Let me say right here that the whole plan failed. It failed because it was too ambitious as far as the airships were concerned. Both fleets were there, but they missed each other.
The Zeppelins were not numerous enough to patrol the area efficiently. Each airship had a beat about 100 miles long. This was impracticable if the visibility should be anything but excellent. The main drawback, however, lay in the fact that there were no Zeppelins left for patrolling inside the vast imaginary circle comprising their line of patrol. It so happened that the British fleet was inside that area when the Zeppelins arrived to take up their duties. They had made the flight across the North Sea at night in order to be operating on patrol at daybreak.
It was simply by chance that four Zeppelins patrolling close to the British coast discovered certain enemy groups out toward the middle of the North Sea. That afternoon the German fleet with its advance guard had arrived at a point about 60 nautical miles from England north of the Humber, when the L-13, the southernmost Zeppelin, sighted and reported about thirty units of the British fleet. They were about 100 miles south of the Germans and steaming northward.
Admiral Scheer turned south, expecting to meet the British in less than two hours. The L-13 was following the enemy and keeping Scheer informed. A lively battle seemed imminent. Within a half hour from the time of discovery the L-13 lost sight of her quarry, A line of thunderstorms compelled the Zeppelin to make a detour and when she managed to regain her course, the British could not be found. No doubt they had become alarmed by the presence of the Zeppelin and warned of the trap by the German radio activity. At any rate they had apparently turned off at right angles and were heading for their coast under cover of the storm clouds.
The first scout ships speeding to the south in advance of Admiral Scheer's main fleet likewise failed to locate the enemy. Meanwhile, two other airships, L-11 and L-31, were patrolling opposite the Humber and the Tyne. They also found part of the British fleet, and at 4 o'clock it was plain that the enemy was rallying to a given point much farther northward. But owing to the southward move of the German fleet the distance between the hostile main forces was now so great that there could be no encounter before nightfall. Neither the Germans nor the British desired to fight it out at night, so both turned back to their home ports. Commenting on that day's activities, Admiral Scheer has said:
"The reliability of the airship reconnaissance was not complete due to the presence of only eight ships and the large territory to be patrolled by them. This form of reconnaissance unfortunately has mostly a negative character inasmuch as the fleet is generally informed only that the main body of the enemy is not within the line of patrol, whereas it is more important to know where it actually is. It is expected that with the increasing performance of our airships some of them can be detached on longer trips in order to ascertain previous to an engagement the exact location of the enemy's main forces. In any event there must be so many airships in the safeguarding cordon that the enemy cannot pass unnoticed through an opening in the line."
Still, no naval expert ever placed the Zeppelins alone in that class of warship which could not function effectively except under favorable conditions. The limitations apply to all kinds of naval craft. From the days of the sailing ships down to the present it has been axiomatic that naval battles should only be fought in good weather. All surface vessels, especially the lighter cruisers and destroyers, are so handicapped by wind and high seas in using their weapons that no commander of a fleet would willingly risk an engagement with equal forces under such conditions.
Because of the high altitudes at which they were compelled to operate while attacking enemy centers it was difficult for the Zeppelin observers to bring back an accurate estimate of the havoc wrought by their bombs. Clouds and mist more often than not lay between the raiders and the surface. All bands were invariably so occupied, each with his own individual task, that the critical moments passed without much thought being given to the results. A bomb once sent spinning down through space was gone, its course could not be changed. Nothing could alter the situation after the bombing officer bad pushed his finger against the button which snapped open a catch and released the aerial explosive. But once in a while certain conditions afforded plenty of opportunities to view the cataclysm below.
It was on a blustering wintry night early in March, 1916, that a lookout shivering at his lonely post on a British patrol ship heard the droning of engines and propellers approaching over the North Sea. Other vessels nearby caught the sound simultaneously. A score of searchlights flashed out over the water and up for a mile and a half where their beams broke against the cloud banks scurrying before a freezing northwest wind.
Some went through the clouds where they were thinnest. There above the sea of heavy mist three Zeppelins were fighting their way headlong against the upper gale which was striving mightily to push them back to Germany. Guns barked on all the surface craft. Shrapnel went whining into the clouds, only to fall short of the targets. The Zeppelins continued on toward England.
Near Flamborough Head one, the L-11, turned northward along the coastline, which was easily followed because the earth lay under a heavy white blanket of snow and its border marked the dark waters which beat against the shore. It was a bitter night even on the surface. The highways were impassable. Wires were down. The sudden storm had brought not only snow but hail and sleet. None would have suspected the Germans of taking their Zeppelins out on such a night. The truth was that the Germans themselves would not have gone out had they known the sort of weather they were to encounter.
In the air the varying temperatures, now thawing, now freezing, had soon cloaked the L-11 in an icy mantle which weighted her down and with her heavy load of bombs made it almost impossible to keep the ship at a safe height above the hostile land. It was all her crew could do to remain a mile up, and this was rather low if they were to be spotted by the surface batteries. Still, the L-11 cruised on.
All the water ballast was dropped. The men in the engine cars kept close watch on their motors. They might be called upon at any moment to run full throttle -- to dart out of enemy range. The wind was giving considerable trouble. Captain Schuetze had set out to attack the naval establishments at Rosythe, Scotland. Finding the wind against him he had decided to change his program and strike at the munitions works in Middlesbrough, England. But the wind was then blowing at 54 miles an hour. It practically equaled the strength of the Zeppelin. Thick heavy snow commenced falling. It drifted into the engine cars and filled the observation nest on top. For an hour or more Schuetze nosed against the wind and worked to keep his craft up despite the ice and snow.
At I o'clock that morning the clouds rolled past and the air cleared. Schuetze took his bearings and found that be had made no progress for hours. Again he changed his plans. The river Humber lay to the south. In the clear night air he could see it running inland like a narrow black ribbon. The great and important city of Hull lay only a few miles distant, as Schuetze knew. It was darkened to the point of invisibility but --------
At that moment he saw a series of flashes as if firecrackers were exploding on the very spot he had been scanning. They were bursting bombs. The L-14, which had formed one of the trio of Zeppelins on the overseas flight, was raiding Hull. Schuetze from his cabin window on the L-11 could see the city lighted momentarily by the bursts. They gave him a clear view of the new objective. Before be could turn round and dash over Hull, however, be had more weather to combat. Mountainous banks of snow clouds drifted underneath the ship, so that he had to circle aimlessly about waiting for another lull in the storm. But let him tell the story in his official report:
"Having time enough, I remained an hour on the spot until the clouds cleared away again; and shortly after 2 o'clock sent the L-11 running up for the attack. I first threw a few bombs near the city to attract the searchlights and batteries, thus leading them to disclose their exact positions. I knew that in case I missed my targets on the first run across Hull, I could not come back for another because of the velocity of the north wind. Just then the clouds parted entirely and below I saw this picture:
"City and environs lay still and dark, completely snowed under. Straight below me everything was clearly discernible in the light shed by the stars. Streets, docks, harbor basins, warehouses and blocks of houses showed as plainly as if on a tracing. A few lights now appeared in the streets. I sent the L-11 at full speed ahead and turned into the wind over the city. For twenty minutes without being molested the bombs were placed at my direction -- at first on the waterfront and docks.
"The first explosive shell struck a dock and knocked a big chunk out of it. The second hit and exploded on the middle of a lock in the harbor basin, and near by buildings collapsed as if they had been made of pasteboard. From the first I saw whole structures toppling into ruins until that section took on the appearance of an immense black crater in the snowy landscape.
"I noted another section which had been similarly treated, evidently by the bombs of the L-14. One of our bombs produced a whole series of explosions. It had struck a munitions storage plant. Through my glasses I could see people running to and fro in the glare of the fires. The ships in the basin, the lock of which we had destroyed, were beginning to get under way. A few weak searchlights were now playing about in the sky but they were as feeble as the stray gunfire, which was haphazard to say the most for it.
"Upon releasing our bombs we had risen to 8,000 feet, so with this advantage I saved five bombs for the near by town of Tmmingham where I had observed the L-14 receiving a terrific fire from the forts. Four wickedly strong searchlights greeted us above the forts but they could not spot us, so were of no service to their big guns, which were now spurting savagely. The beams always illumined a thin layer of clouds and then left off for another search, whereas had they continued fingering past the clouds they might have struck us. At least fifty fiery incendiary projectiles came up on all sides of our ship, climbing nearly two miles. But at our first big explosive bomb, the nearest searchlight went out and all the others followed in quick succession.
"Leaving England forty minutes after we had started the bombing, we ran into another heavy snow squall, and the wind became a hurricane. At one time it gripped the L-11 and bore her straight up 3,000 feet above our mile-and-a-half cruising level. When she settled back again, the tail steering fins were jammed. Before we could balance the craft she again was tossed up for more than half a mile. Finally, we got our ship on an even keel by shifting the crew back and forth, and held her there until the damage was repaired. Then one of the engines stopped. The oil and water leads had frozen. Though it remained dead, we made our home port, where we found the ship in excellent condition and ready for patrol duty immediately."
That is an instance of a 26 hour flight and a successful overseas raid on enemy positions made in a winter gale ten years ago.
A few weeks later, April 1st, to be exact, that same Zeppelin, L-11, was again bound for England with London as her main objective. Over the North Sea Captain Schuetze found himself nosing against a stiff headwind so he steered for the shipyards on the Tyne. Warned by the radio activity from the fishing fleet, over which he had passed, that he might expect a warm reception, Schuetze tried his best to climb into high altitudes but the L-11 could not be pushed above 6,500 feet despite the jettisoning of two tanks full of gasoline. This was not unusual, of course, for the temperature of the air often handicapped the airships with their heavy loads; but it was particularly dangerous for Schuetze and his crew.
Great batteries lurked along that coast flanking the mouth of the Tyne on both sides. As the L-11 approached, all the big guns went into action at once, creating a vicious barrage which even Schuetze for all his past success and daring did not desire to penetrate. His altitude was too low. The wind was blowing thirty miles an hour. In order to reach the windward position necessary for an attack be would have to spend hours in clear atmosphere at reduced speed and low enough to be shot full of holes by any gunner possessing fair eyesight.
Schuetze was out to play an April Fool joke on the enemy, however. He would not give up without an effort. At Sunderland there was shipping rivaling in importance that at the mouth of the Tyne. Near Sunderland were the big foundries and blast furnaces operating day and night -- munitions which the Allies could hardly spare. The L-11 sped over Sunderland.
One, two, three high explosive bombs went into the largest of the shops. Blast furnace and all split part. As the detonation died out like the rumble of distant thunder the entire region was lighted by flames, clouded here and there by dense black smoke. But that illumination was not necessary. A whole string of factories, their lighted window panes indicating the night work on rush war orders, invited their own destruction. The L-11 laid her eggs as rapidly as they could be released. The buildings toppled. Streets were blown up and filled with shell craters and debris.
One of the bombs sent sparks flying beyond the pall of a huge smoke cloud. Another shell was dropped immediately and it had the same volcanic effect. From the location Schuetze concluded that it must be a railway concentration point, and the peculiar results of the explosion indicated that rails, trains, engines, shops and many tons of war supplies had been demolished.
The English tried hard to reach the L-11. Their gun crews stuck to their posts knowing that each flash from the muzzles betrayed their exact position. Likewise the men on the searchlights.
Experience had taught them that a Zeppelin almost always tried to obliterate both searchlights and batteries before continuing her attack. I know that some of the most remarkable heroism of the war was displayed by those British defenders who were kept on their home soil but were nevertheless on the firing line as much as their fellows at the front, and subject to a surprise attack whenever the Zeppelins could negotiate the aerial passage from the Continent. All told, the naval Zeppelins of which there were an average of seventeen in commission during the year 1916, made 107 raids against the British Isles.
On that raid over Sunderland the L-11 was not touched by the enemy fire, though one big shell exploded so close to her hull that the shock felt like a direct hit. Those of you who have never participated in an aerial battle would naturally assume that the L-11 sped back to Germany after escaping the heavy fire over Sunderland, but she did not. Dodging searchlights' beams all the way, the Zeppelin cruised over Middlesbrough where two other blast furnaces received her remaining explosives, putting an end to their activities.
The L-11 arrived back at her station near Nordholz on the morning of April 2nd. There, after an hour and a half helping the ground force service the ship, her crew tumbled into their bunks for a good, long sleep. And the very next day they were up and out again-westward bound.
Anticipating adverse temperatures, Schuetze had reduced the number of engineers, spare parts and machine guns. Even a landing rope was left behind. The fuel supply was closely calculated. Forty-five bombs were placed aboard. The L-11 leaving Germany at 2 o'clock in the afternoon should have arrived over the English coast not later than 10:30 that night, but a thick haze and unfavorable winds held her up until nearly 3 o'clock the next morning. That made it impossible for her to reach London.
Schuetze tried to locate Norwich and failed. Though he knew the location from his maps, the town was so completely darkened that he could not see it, nor tell when he was passing over it. He next tried to find either Yarmouth or Lowestoft. The former seaport had been raided by Zeppelins on their first attack in January, 1915, and Sebuetze thought it was time to again awaken the garrison and other inhabitants. But he could not find his target. It was only after he had started homeward and was over the sea once more that the English foolishly tried to shoot him down by firing aimlessly into the haze. While they could not see the Zeppelin, her crew easily made out the flashes far back in the rear. The L-11 was turned about.
Just as dawn was breaking she arrived directly over the batteries. Three full salvos were dropped on the defenders. It was the same old story. Generations of artillerymen had been taught to strike first at the enemy, without regard to the subtle strategy involved. Those surface gunners paid the penalty for clinging to tradition. It required a year or two of further and often bitter experience before the Allies learned that it is best to lie quietly while a raiding airship passes overhead. It may be that she will miss her quarry. Surely, there is not much to be gained by drawing her fire unless she is low enough to assure successful firing at the outset. But then, just as we were learning to fight in the air, so were the surface forces gaining experience in dealing with the new menace.
Once more the L-11 returned to Nordholz unscathed. Again she went over England three days later. North of Hull four searchlights struck her and held on, giving the batteries a fine target in exceptionally clear air. Shrapnel burst above and below and on all sides, shaking the framework as no gale had ever done.
A bomb blinded the nearest searchlight. Then the L-11 turned aside to lie quietly until a bright moon went down. A rear motor went dead when a crankshaft bearing melted. The L-11 swerved in her course to ride with the wind. Near Hartlepool the forward engine stopped.
Schuetze avoided the city and guided the ship over toward Whitby where be had seen a big foundry running full blast. It was the famous Skinningrove iron works, with numerous buildings and melting shops, well-lighted and covering a wide area. Schuetze placed his bombs with careful aim. He did not leave until it was agreed that the entire works had been destroyed, though the British later denied that there had been serious damage.
On his return to Nordholz, Schuetze closed his report with the following paragraph:
"Returning at 10:30 A.M. the L-11 ran into thick fog and steered further inland to facilitate the navigation. Our position could be made out and the course followed only at 150 feet altitude, until upon the clearing of the fog a landing was made at 3 p.m. at Nordholz."
That is a remarkably brief and dry account of a very frequent occurrence, one of the chief difficulties which beset the naval Zeppelins -- fog on their return during the early morning hours. It meant hours of strenuous work, navigating and handling the ship just above the surface, with the fuel supply rapidly approaching the zero mark and the ships on top of that very often nearly unmanageable because of damage to their engines or gas cells. They virtually had to feel their way through the impenetrable mist, meanwhile gambling with fate which might meet them in almost any guise.,
The naval Zeppelins had not been doing all the work during those early months of 1916. The army had started the new year with seven ships, including my new LZ-90. In design it differed from its predecessors in many ways. It was of wider girth, had a finer stern and more effective rudders. We carried eight machine guns, two in each engine car, three on the fighting platform at the top of the hull and one in the stem. We also had a newly developed radio set, one of the first modern types.
It took us two months to break in the four new engines, which were calculated to give an aggregate of 960 horsepower. At first the lubrication system was inadequate and there was trouble with the crankshafts. The manufacturer, under the urgent demand, had been compelled by the authorities to release the motors prematurely. In the vernacular, he had not taken out the "bugs". We had to do it ourselves. On one flight from Hanover to Spich, a station near Cologne, all engines got out of order and for half an hour we were forced to operate our huge craft as we would a free balloon.
By the end of February we had the engines running in fair condition and made an extra long test flight. This was especially interesting because we purposely navigated on nothing else save radio direction findings, a common enough method today but a rather radical innovation in 1916. A complete radio compass set had been installed in my LZ-90 and it was understood that we were to carry on a variety of experiments. The idea was to eliminate, if possible, some of the dangers attached to war operations.
Until then the risks had not been so great. Even against the very violent and accurate fire of the artillery the chance of having one's ship blown to pieces or fired by a full hit was remote. There was no record of a Ze pelin having been destroyed by an explosive shell. Invariably the projectile would go through the hull making two clean holes, possibly two in each of two gas cells. That had been all. The chief damage was caused by shrapnel, but in most cases it was confined to a few cells; therefore the ship could remain aloft and return safely.
Sometimes, however, the fragments ripped open many cells so the ship could not be kept afloat long enough to reach home, or she made a bad emergency landing somewhere else. In such cases, though she might not be past repairing, the Zeppelin was usually condemned as obsolete. That was the year before the United States entered the war, yet improvements in design and construction were so rapid that a rigid airship was obsolescent a few months after going into commission. Still, we had been successful enough in operating our old ships, despite every kind of defense which the enemy had to offer. We felt fairly safe in any type.
Imagine then the complete surprise awaiting us when we
made our initial sally against the French during the first siege of Verdun. Only a few
days before -- while we were still busy getting our new engines into shape -- the LZ-77
had been shot down a blazing, twisted wreck. She had attacked a railway junction close to
our objective, which was Barle-Duc southwest of Verdun.
We had not attached any especial significance to the accident. The surface artillery always has an excellent chance to hit an airship while it is attacking a single objective such as a railway yard because the target is so small and the range, therefore, is easily secured.
The Zeppelin must get into a vertical line above its target in order to bomb it, in which event two of the three elements required to determine her exact position from below are known -- only the altitude remaining to be determined. That is obtained quite easily by placing barrages into different levels. No, the tragedy of the flaming Zeppelin was attributed to a number of direct hits made possible by her position directly over a small target, or so we thought.
The International Clearinghouse
for Hydrogen Based Commerce1 6 LATEST
ADVANCESDESIGNING
THE FUTUREHYDROGEN
STORAGEHYDROGEN
VEHICLESCREATING
HYDROGENFUEL
CELLS12 H2 TRUCKS
& BIKESCLIMATE
CHANGE18 HYDROGEN
ON VIDEO