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

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CHAPTER II

AIR RAIDS DURING THE SIEGE OF ANTWERP

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As soon as the Sachsen was ready for duty on the front we received orders to fly to Cologne and replace the Z-6. There the high command forgot all about us. Evidently headquarters no longer bad faith in Zeppelins since the loss of the first three ships. We waited for weeks but no orders came. One day Gemminge climbed into a car and set out for Coblenz to stir things up at headquarters. And he did.

He told them that they had been ill-advised in ordering the relatively crude and small ships out on day duty over the front lines. The officers, who bad been nonplussed at the destruction of the airships, then ordered Gernmingen and me to join them in conference to decide on a future policy. We were free to make any suggestion. That was what we wanted,

General von Beseler was then preparing for the siege of Antwerp. The Belgians had retreated to that city and it now looked as if they might be trapped. Obviously they would seek to leave the fortress when threatened by superior numbers. While their own troops were important numerically, the German machine was moving irresistibly forward and its overwhelming strength would soon be apparent to the Allied leaders. Only one exit remained open to them. The Germans had cut off all other means of escape save a railroad which ran westward from, Antwerp along the Dutch frontier.

We proposed to fly over a vitally important junction on that railroad several miles out of the city and demolish it with all the explosives that the Sachsen could carry. We knew it could be done quite easily. Thus the enemy would be held up long enough for the Germans to close the ring.

When Beseler heard of our proposal he admitted that it was the thing to do; but like so many others be had greater faith in his cavalry than in airships. He had already sent a detachment to block the railroad there and said that he did not want to interfere with it.

The result was that his cavalry encountered Allied troops at the junction and proved that it was neither quick enough nor strong enough to stop them. The Belgium troops were taken out of the Antwerp area on that railway and later played an important and decisive part in the Battle of the Marne.

We were able to assist in the actual siege of Antwerp, however. Early in September it had reached a stage where the general staff thought that a Zeppelin might possibly be effective in night raids on the powerful forts. We were prepared for the order.

During the days of waiting at Cologne we had not been idle. Every day we had the Sachsen up at least once and often twice, while the officers and men were given practice in their respective duties. The officers operating the bomb-sight required considerable skill to have their elaborate instruments of any value. They had to learn how to check the variation of the wind, for any wind will deflect a bomb from its true course, and it must be reckoned with in taking aim. Likewise the helmsman had to practice accurate steering and perfect cooperation with the bombing officer.

Our usual routine was to get up at 3 in the morning, set out on a flight at 4 and remain up about 4 hours, flying back and forth and circling over the field where we had laid out various targets on the ground. At first we did not have many bombs, so the supply would be exhausted quickly and we would land, at intervals, to pick them up. Sometimes this would go on until 10 o'clock. In the afternoon the crew would have target practice with both pistol and rifle.

The question of procuring efficient bombs bothered us exceedingly, for at that time we had nothing but artillery shells. To make a shell fall head on, we would tie a blanket to the other end. We had heard that somewhere near Berlin new, ball shaped bombs were being developed but that was no assurance that we would receive them before our attack on Antwerp, if ever; so Gemmingen and I, by authority of the high command, called upon a big munitions, works near Cologne and there ordered a quantity of bombs made to our own design.

These were tested from the ship over an artillery practice ground. Later, when the "official" bombs had arrived, we got into difficulties with the officials responsible for them because we preferred our own eggs. Theirs contained much more metal than we considered necessary. This made them heavier than ours, though no more effective, so we continued to use our own. At the same time we made a number of tests with various kinds of incendiary bombs which several firms had made up at our suggestion. There was then no such thing as an incendiary bomb in any army, but we managed to procure a type that was light and fairly effective, notwithstanding that the percentage of duds was rather high.

We bad also experimented with a bomb protection device-a steel net. This was designed to be spread out on poles several feet over the roofs of important buildings. The theory was that the net would catch the bomb and it would explode at a safe distance above its objective. Many samples of nets had arrived at the Cologne hangar.

At a height of 2,000 feet or even at half a mile we rarely failed to hit a net 50 feet square. But the nets failed. The bombs went through to the ground before exploding, no matter how short the fuses might be. It proved the fallacy of the theory which I have often heard advanced since the war, that nets can be used for protection against aircraft. We found that a net would be prohibitive in cost and weight and bulk if strong enough to withstand a falling bomb.

Our first attack on Antwerp was an extraordinary experience. None of us had any idea of what it would be like. Now I recall the details chiefly because of the sharp contrasts and mixed emotions which they aroused. We drifted up from Cologne on a warm, moonlight night at 11 o'clock, and followed the railroad line to Aix-la-Chapelle which was brilliantly lighted. Thence we put the Sachsen into higher altitudes, arriving over Liege at 8 o'clock.

We had 1,800 pounds of crude bombs, a tremendous load for the ship which we were now trying to put up to about 6,000 feet over the surface. We carried no machine guns but the crew were armed with automatic rifles and pistols. Out of Liege we penetrated a cloud bank and rode above it, the throbbing engines and whirring propellers making the ship a vibrant thing moving over a veritable sea of silvery mist, for such the thick clouds appeared from above them, bathed in the clear rays of the moon. It was difficult for me to realize the serious nature of our mission, that this was to be part of a bitter war.

But now we were close upon Antwerp. The clouds were thinning out. They gradually disappeared. We must wait for the moon to set, else stand out a plain target for the guns of the fortress. So we cruised around for more than an hour in a corner of Belgium between Antwerp and Holland, lurking a mile high and waiting until the moon should drop, which would be shortly before dawn. It gave us only a few minutes to strike and get away before daylight.,

At the moment that we moved to the attack, the Sachsen commenced acting like a conscientious objector. The air was unusually warm and we had considerable difficulty controlling the big craft. In order to keep her somewhere about 5,500 feet we had to point her nose up so that she was pitched at a sharp angle, and we slipped and scrambled about in the control car. It wasn't exactly the proper way to begin an air raid, as we realized when the ship finally became unmanageable and we almost lost control of her altogether.

But there we were. The moment had arrived, Antwerp lay only a short distance ahead. We continued, knowing that as soon as we had dropped a few bombs the loss of weight would enable us to control the ship more easily. We urged her forward. To do this we bad to approach the fortress with all engines running at top speed, sufficient warning to the gallant defenders that we were coming.

The pitch black night was split asunder as the white shafts from several searchlights shot into the air. But they were rather inferior. They often struck us but could not hold on because they were too weak to spot us at our height. We ignored them. When the artillery commenced firing blindly, the shells burst miles away. Underneath we saw innumerable little fire dots like stars blinking through a haze.

These were from the rifles of the infantry camped between the first and second lines. They did not hit us, but their chance was good as we were well within their vertical range of 6,000 feet. So we stopped that by dropping a few ten-pound bombs on them. I don't know whether we hurt anybody, but we certainly stopped the rifle fire. No doubt the soldiers threw themselves flat on the ground to avoid being bit by shell fragments.

Meanwhile, the artillery fire had attained such intensity that it was a real menace. A big searchlight, much stronger than the rest, now settled on the ship and held her exposed in its glare. Some of the shells came so close that we could feel the impact of the blast when they burst. But we were now ready to answer them.

The crew bad been standing silently at their posts in the darkness, for all cars and the interior of the ship contained no lights during our advance. Gemmingen searched the surface with his glasses and picked out the targets, all forts at first. I directed the navigation and passed the word where to drop the explosives. Men in the fore and aft cars stood ready with small bombs which they were to hurl out by hand.

First we made for the obnoxious searchlight. Some of the men threw their bombs at it, while others used rifles, and in another moment the searchlight went out. All our big incendiary bombs, which were calculated to spread fire, were dropped on the forts and we then beaded for the center of the city to demolish the main railway station. In passing we dropped a number of bombs on the inner fortifications and saw two fires on our trail. I looked at my watch. We were passing out over the edge of the city in just 20 minutes after entering from the side.

It was high time. The eastern sky was assuming a lighter tone. But a thick layer of fog and thick low clouds now gathered in the valley of the Schelde and in an incredibly brief period the earth was lost to view as if covered with a magic carpet. Far below us lay the milky clouds. In the west the stars still twinkled while in the east the sun appeared, a fiery golden red from which radiated great ribbons of color, some violet and purple and others graduating into brilliant orange, pink and green. We reached Cologne at 11 o'clock, having been in the air exactly 12 hours.

Shortly before the first raid on Antwerp the Zeppelin company turned out another army ship which was flown from the factory at Friedrichshafen to the new military hangar at Dusseldorf. Captain Horn, one of the best pilots the army ever had, was put in command, and we worked together, Horn's ship, the Z-9 and our Sachsen made many reconnaissance flights over Antwerp and Ostende.

All told, we must have dropped about 10,000 pounds of bombs on the fortifications, a bit of military strategy which, if it did no material damage to the enemy, accomplished a greater purpose. For we succeeded in restoring the confidence of the high command in airships; and though we bad the only two ships then available for duty, orders came in thick and fast.

It was still apparent that the general staff remained ignorant of the limitations of these early Zeppelins, as witness, for example, this order which the Z-9 received late in August: "Bombing attacks will be made on Antwerp, Zeebrugge, Dunkirk and Calais. Return by way of Lille; also bombing attack there."

It couldn't be done under the most favorable weather conditions. In the warm weather the ship could not have taken more than ten bombs for all five cities, including fuel for such a flight. Captain Horn, of course, immediately asked and received permission to revise the order.

That attitude on the part of the high command, to give the Zeppelin commanders all possible leeway, was most important. For within two months after the declaration of war the Allies had so organized their air forces that the scout planes and heavier bombing machines were beginning to cause us trouble. We had to reckon with them from then on, whether we were in the air or back in the hangar.

The British were the first to make the Zeppelins an object of attack. On September 27th, 1914, an English plane flew over Dusseldorf and tried to blow up the hangar in which the Z-9 was berthed. It was a complete surprise, for at that time no plane was capable of flying the distance from the British lines to Dusseldorf, except by crossing neutral Holland. And that is what the English pilot bad done; for he was trailed quite easily. His first attack was a complete failure, and having thus been warned, we stationed machine gun crews on the hangar roofs and set up as much of an antiaircraft battery as could be provided in those early days of the conflict. But it was of little avail.

The English plane returned on October 8th and dropped a bomb through the hangar roof. It exploded and burned the Z-9 and killed a mechanic who had been on the roof at the time of the attack. The machine gunners on the towers at each end, however, were not hurt. I drove over to Dusseldorf soon after the raid and was surprised to find that the hangar itself was practically undamaged. The Z-9 was a complete wreck. Only the engines could be used again. Singularly, the bombs, which had been hanging inside the hull, did not explode. Of course they had no fuses, and when their metal supports had melted away in the blowtorch beat of burning hydrogen, they dropped harmlessly to the floor.

My conclusions that enemy raids on airship bases could cause little damage except by destroying the hydrogen filled ships, were verified on several occasions. Allied planes made two air raids on the Zeppelin works at Friedrichsbafen, reaching Lake Constance by crossing the neutral country of Switzerland; but neither raid was successful.

Several months later the enemy made two air attacks the same day, at different points. The LZ-37 was destroyed in the air near Ghent and the LZ-38 was wrecked by a bomb dropped through her hangar at Brussels.

To house the LZ-38, which was larger than the former ships, a temporary shed of wood and tarred paper had been erected. Yet this hanger was only slightly damaged. We found this to be the case generally.

Late in October, following the surrender of the French fortress at Maubeuge, Gemmingen and I inspected the French airship hangar which they

had tried to blow up. They made such a poor job of it that within a few months the Germans had repaired and enlarged it so that a Zeppelin could be sheltered.

Prior to the war none of the Allied nations had a rigid airship industry, so they were compelled to rely on the smaller, non-rigid types. But because of their short cruising range and small load capacity they could not be used to advantage. As a matter of fact, after the few ships which the Allies employed at first had proved a rather complete failure, they were abandoned until much later in the war, when they found an adequate field for successful operations in patrolling their coastal waters against submarines.

On arriving at Maubeuge, we found some photographs of the French airships which had been operated from that station. Looking at the crude affairs, one of our men commented: "Just good enough for target practice."

And that is what some of the French troops had unintentionally used them for. The same had occurred on our side. The ground forces were not trained to distinguish between their own and the enemy aircraft, but thanks to the rugged qualities of the Zeppelins and their multiple gas cell system, the fire from our troops had never done serious harm.

The French may have had better light or more expert gunners. At any rate, they succeeded in shooting to pieces their own most modern air ship. This occurred while it was being flown out of Maubeuge.

We heard very little about the French airships after that. In 1915 the Adjutant Vincenot tried to bomb towns in the Rhine Valley but without any great success. Later in that year, the French craft Alsace was brought down by German trying to cross the front near Rethel. It fell almost intact inside our lines, and offered a striking example of the vulnerability of that type, which depends on only one skin, with very few subdivisions, if any, for the retention of the lifting gas and the maintenance of its shape and strength.

After that the French gave up their lighter-than-air activities almost completely. After the close of the war they tried to operate the German Zeppelins surrendered to them by the armistice terms. They had some success at first. They made the world's record duration flight of 118 hours with the Dixmude, formerly the German L-72; and shortly afterward lost that ship because of precipitate and over-ambitious expansion of their activities. Even today they seemingly have not regained confidence enough to make a new start on a reasonable, safe and sound basis.

CHAPTER III -- REASONS FOR THE LONDON RAIDS   |  Contents