The Terror of the Zeppelins page 2

London was the raider's next objective, and on the last night of May he again crossed the coast over Margate, en Toute for the capital. Machine gunners opened fire, but the giant ship droned steadily on its way, reaching Stoke Newing-ton just before eleven-thirty. A policeman on duty heard a violent explosion behind him, and turned to see a column of flames leaping upwards from the pavement. That was the first Londoners knew of their peril. A second explosion further down the road almost echoed the first, and even as the policeman smashed the glass of the fire alarm, another detonation rocked the houses in the street beyond. Pandemonium broke loose.

Bomb after bomb crashed down from the black sky above, leaving a trail of death and destruction right across East London - Hoxton, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Stepney, West Ham, and Leytonstone. One hundred and twenty bombs were dropped in all, killing seven and injuring thirty-five more; and nearly twenty thousand pounds worth of damage was done to houses and other property. Amongst the dead were two stillborn twins. Prematurely born because of the panic which their mother suffered, they ceased to exist almost as they found life. Two other children, who had gone to the pictures, failed to return. One, Samuel Reubens, aged eight, was found by a policeman, crumpled in the doorway of a house with two more victims of the raid. The mother of the other child, a young girl, searched vainly all through the night, only to find her, terribly broken and unconscious, in the early hours of the morning, swathed in bandages in one of the many busy hospitals. She never recovered. The airship, meanwhile, passed safely on its course through the darkness, unseen and almost unheard at a great height. Nine pilots went up in pursuit, but their search was fruitless because the night was too dark and the searchlights did not pick out the enemy.

Eight successful raids had been made in less than six months, and still the defence forces had been unable to take their revenge. Nearly six hundred bombs had landed on British soil, killing seventeen, wounding sixty, and causing damage to the extent of over fifty thousand pounds. The people had indeed reason to fear the hours of darkness, and to mutter bitterly, "Who will be the next?" But, terrible as the ever-swelling death roll might be, another and more serious factor came into being. In order to afford even the smallest margin of safety, all lights must be extinguished at the very first warning; and no factory could work without light. Munitions were urgently wanted overseas, and factories were working night and day to keep up with the tremendous demands. A new and grave danger thus arose; if the Zeppelins maintained their programme of terror, a serious effect would be felt at the front. And the raiders had, apparently, no intention of ceasing their work of destruction; rather they increased it. In the next three months no fewer than eighteen Zeppelins crossed the coast - more than double the number in half the time, and the damage and casualties grew out of all proportion. By the middle of September, 1915, one hundred and thirty-seven persons had been slain by bombs, and over four hundred injured. Damage to property totalled close on £750,000. Although eighty British aircraft had gone up into the darkness in pursuit, none of the pilots had been able to carry off a successful counter-attack, and three men had lost their lives through difficult landings at night.

Then, on the afternoon of October 13, British radio stations picked up messages from a number of Zeppelins, and by means of direction-finding equipment it became apparent that the ships were approaching the East Coast. One radio message in particular had a very sinister interpretation, as the Intelligence Service had come to learn: "Have only H.V.B. on board."

H.V.B. was the abbreviation of a German code book. At the beginning of the war a copy of this code was captured, and the Germans were aware of mis fact; but as some code had to be used they realised it was better to use one which could give away no more secrets if found. So H.V.B. went with the raiders when they were bound for the English coast. And whenever that significant message was picked up, the British authorities knew what to expect. In this case five Zeppelins had set out, and five arrived over England shortly after nightfall; and for five hours such a rain of death and destruction fell over London and Southern England as had never been conceived before, even in the minds of the most imaginative and timorous. Five aeroplanes took off in the darkness to pursue and attack, but again failed to locate the Zeppelins, and two of them were wrecked on landing. The Zeppelins came and went unscathed, but before they left, seventy-one more victims lay dead in the streets, and amongst the ruins of their homes, and 128 others were wounded, many of them seriously. It was the worst raid of the year, and the last; but it was nothing to what was to follow in 1916.

For more than three months there was peace. People who had come to dread the nights became gradually more easy in mind, as day followed day, and days became weeks. During the last raid the searchlights and anti-aircraft guns around London had more than shown the raiders that they could not have things all their own way much longer, and many civilians hoped, with an increasing hope as the weeks passed, that the, enemy was afraid of future consequences. But their hope was in vain. Even while they waited, bigger and more ambitious plans were being formulated in sinister offices and workshops far behind the lines. January, 1916, came and went without any sign of the Zeppelins.

What was happening? An official announcement by the War Office Press Bureau, on Tuesday, February 1, was the answer. "A Zeppelin raid by six or seven airships took place last night over the eastern, and north-eastern, and Midland counties.

"A number of bombs were dropped, but up to the present no considerable damage has been reported.

"A further statement will be issued as soon as practicable."

And a day later the full news burst upon the public.

"Zeppelins over six counties."

"One hundred and twenty-one casualties."

"Worst raid yet experienced."

"Fifty-four deaths - 67 injured."

Although the strictest censorship was always exercised, it is doubtful whether even the War Office knew, when issuing that first notice, the full story of that night of terror. Six or seven Zeppelins were stated to have taken part in the raid, but actually their number was nine. Nine had set out, and nine had arrived, laden to the limit of their capacity with high-explosive and incendiary bombs and grenades. Each one of them cruised through the night over England, unloaded its cargo of death, and returned in safety whence it had come.

Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire - thousands of acres, covering both town and farmland, received the hail of bombs. The bombs numbered two hundred and twenty, the papers reported, killing about fifty, and injuring at least sixty more. But the newspapers were sadly out in their estimates. It was not until four days after the shocking event that the real stories began to trickle through.

In one Staffordshire town people were going cheerfully about their business when the drone of engines was heard overhead. It was fairly early in the evening. Some distance away a woman missionary was reading from the Bible to a large audience - about two hundred women and girls. As they looked up, the ghostly outline of the Zeppelin was seen against the clouds, racing round the town at a great speed. The next second there followed a terrific crash, and a high-explosive bomb fell almost on top of the meeting. Almost immediately the town was plunged into complete blackness, but the last thing those two hundred petrified people saw, was the figure of the missionary crumpling towards the ground, a large chunk of twisted metal crashing against her head.

In the ensuing panic, many were trampled upon in the darkness as the crowds struggled to get away from the fatal spot. The screams of the injured added an even greater terror to the moment, and more than one innocent victim breathed his last among that horrible shambles. The bomb had fallen midway between the church and the mission room, and a hole four feet deep and fully twelve feet across spoke brutally of the might of the explosion. Two clergymen who were standing beside the missionary were injured, one of them critically; a lady and a young girl who were on the edge of the crowd were also killed instantly by flying fragments of bomb. Both the church and vicarage were partially wrecked, jagged pieces of iron boring deep into solid masonary and woodwork, and parts of the church roof were completely blown away.

Men, women, and children ran out into the streets when the infernal din broke out, those too young to know what it was all about peering eagerly aloft. They were struck as they stood, crouched, or ran. One woman met the full force of an explosion as she left her house, and was killed on the spot. The same bomb slaughtered a young child. Another woman had both her legs torn off by the next bomb that fell. Building after building collapsed in a sheet of flame and noise as the raid went on. The luckiest escape of the hour was undoubtedly that of the head master of a school. He had seen his family to the comparative safety of the cellar, and had just turned off the gas at the meter in case of fire, when a bomb hit the roof of his house. Glancing off, it blew away one of the gables, opening the bedroom to the sky, and completely wrecked the room below, smashing a piano to small fragments. Standing in the hall, separated from the scene of devastation by only one flimsy wall, the man was untouched. Yet the explosion was such that people passing the house at the time were killed, and scarce a window within a hundred yards remained unbroken.

Ten houses in one street were literally blown to pieces as one bomb exploded amongst them, and those who were not killed or wounded by the blast were buried beneath the wreckage, more than one of them dying as a result. No one knew what to do. Although warnings had been given, telling of the danger of being in the open, numerous stories of lucky escapes were told by those who had the good fortune to be clear of their houses when they were struck. Others, who deliberately went into the streets to avoid being buried, were killed and maimed by flying metal.

One man, hearing the whirring of propellers at the beginning of the raid, walked out into his garden to watch. He had hardly left the house when a bomb fell almost at his feet. A splinter struck him in his head, and he fell to the ground, dead. His young son, who had followed him out of the door, ran back to the house crying pitifully.

"They have killed my daddy," he sobbed. "And look what they have done to me." And his mother saw with horror that the child's arm was severed, as cleanly as though it had been cut with a knife.

In the same street as this house, which was badly wrecked by the explosion, an elderly lady was sitting by the fire with her grandson on her knee. Another bomb came tearing through the roof, injuring them both gravely. Farther down the street another four or five houses were blown to pieces; but, by amazingly good fortune, all the occupants had gone outside for safety. They suffered only minor injuries. One young woman was completely buried in the wreckage of her parents' house. She had come to stay with them for a few days. When they reached her, after hours of digging amongst the debris, she was dead. A married woman, who was nursing her baby when the raid began, was buried up to her neck when a house collapsed. Only her face was showing. She was terribly badly crushed, but a heavy beam had fallen across her body, saving her life. But her child was dead when they reached it. A large building in the centre of the town was struck by an incendiary bomb, and in spite of the utmost efforts on the part of the fire brigade, it burned furiously for several hours before it could be extinguished. Story after story was told, of horrible death, of hairbreadth escapes, and of the misery of the homeless and injured; and the wonderful escape of one man who was playing billiards with another who was killed instantly, only three feet away, ceased to be more than interesting in the days of numbness which followed. For all these incidents concerned only one small area in Staffordshire. There were eight more Zeppelins at work in the sky in other parts of England.

From another part of Staffordshire came the tragic story of a complete family wiped out by one bomb. The father and mother were sitting round the fire, with their daughter and son-in-law, and their grandchildren, when a high-explosive bomb fell directly upon the house. They were all found beneath the ruins some time later, dead, and terribly mangled. In the same street a boy and a man were standing in front of their home when a bomb fell on the pavement. Both were killed instantly. "Killing about fifty," the papers had reported at first; but the death roll was later found to be seventy, and a further hundred and thirteen were badly wounded. In all three hundred and thirty-nine bombs were dropped in that raid, and the damage to property was estimated at nearly sixty thousand pounds. Twenty-two British machines went up in pursuit, but yet again they were unable to account for any of the raiders; and this time seven of them were damaged whilst landing in the dark, three of their pilots being seriously injured.

Nearly four hundred casualties, including one hundred and forty-one dead, in two consecutive raids; and as yet not one of the raiders had been destroyed by the home defence forces. If the millions who lay awake and waited were afraid, who could blame them. And a further hundred and sixty-two victims were to be added to the now colossal roll of dead and wounded, before the first really hopeful news was heard. Of the next nine Zeppelins to reach England, only eight returned in safety, but more than three hundred bombs crashed into the lives and homes of the British people before that first mark of retribution.

I It was the Zeppelins' twenty-third raid, more than a year after the first night of terror, which brought one of their number to disaster. Systems of warning, elaborate programmes for dimming lights, evacuating munition factories, and patrolling the skies by searchlights and aeroplanes, had been evolved in the long months following that first raid. The enemy relied upon the moonless periods for raiding, and it was almost certain that one or more of the dreaded Zeppelins would be visiting the British Isles at the beginning of April, 1916; and, sure enough, it was discovered through certain sources of information that about seven of the airships would attack the south of England on March 31. Needless to say, so far as it was possible to anticipate and prepare against such an event, the defence forces were ready.