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Half A Sixpence
Zeppelins, unlike the primitive planes available to all sides
at the beginning of the war, could travel long distances at
great height.
Britain can be overcome by means of airships
claimed Peter Strasser, the commander of the Zeppelin
force. Throughout 1915 and 1916 Zeppelins as big as
battleships would loom silently out of the night sky
blasting Britain’s east coast and the capital. On the ground
there was little in the way of civil defence and no warning
sirens. Instead boy scouts blew bugles and policemen on
bicycles blew their whistles and whirled rattles. There
were no public shelters, people were told to go indoors
and hide in cellars and under tables. But for many so
fascinating was this novel sight that often the streets filled
when the Zeppelins came. Bob Peacock of Peacock Travel
from Cambridge told me that his mum was at home in
Walthamstow when a Zeppelin came. Drawn by the noise
of neighbours gathering outside Bob’s mum went outside
too. Overwhelmed by the sight of the Zeppelin above and
unsure what she should do Mrs. Peacock brought her
washing in off the line! Life in the UK at the start of the
war was somewhere between Half A Sixpence, based on
the HG Wells novel of 1905 Kipps and the dawn of a very
new world.
Beautiful & Terrifying
Despite the undoubted terror it is extraordinary reading
the eye-witness accounts to find the words
beautiful
and
magnificent
cropping up time and time again. Most people
had never seen anything man made in the sky before and
now they were mesmerised by the sight of the massive
silver airships, the size of London’s Gherkin building.
Three Zeppelins took part in the fourth raid on Britain in
September 1915. One developed engine trouble and turned
back after dropping its bombs on unlucky East Dereham in
Norfolk. L13 made landfall over Kings Lynn and followed
the River Ouse and Bedford Level Canal to Cambridge
Flying Corps, was the Fiery Grapnel – a pair of four
fluked, pirate-like grappling hooks packed with petrol
based explosives. The pilot was meant to trail the hook
at the end of a steel cable and
fish
for Zeppelins! Absurd
though it seems Russian Ace pilot Alexander A. Kazakov
really did carry a ships anchor, which he would throw at
enemy aircraft to snag and tear off their wings.
The First Success
Our pilots did have some success with these rudimentary
weapons but only if they were already airborne when they
encountered a Zeppelin. Flying a tiny single-seat Morane
Parasol - it hardly sounds like an aeroplane let alone a
combat plane - over occupied territory in Belgium,
Sub Lieutenant Reginald
Rex
Warneford of No 1 Squadron
RNAS was ordered to join a four plane midnight attack on
Zeppelin sheds at Bercham. He had lost sight of his fellow
pilots when he spotted the massive LZ-37 Zeppelin airship
at Ostend returning to the very sheds that he had been
ordered to attack. Warneford followed the airship for 50
minutes passing over Bruges. It was June 1915 and young
Rex Warneford, 23 years old and with just a dozen solo
flights to his name had never flown in the dark before.
His only weapons were a revolver, the Zulu-Wars vintage
Henry-Martini carbine and six 20-pound bombs. When the
Zeppelin dropped to 7,000ft, Warneford was able to climb
above it and drop his bombs. The airship was ripped apart
and engulfed in flames Warneford crash-landed 35 miles
behind German lines. Finding that the only damage was a
broken fuel line, Warneford patched it up with a cigarette
holder, took off again and flew home. Rex Warneford,
the first pilot in the world to shoot down a Zeppelin,
became an instant hero across the empire and the next day
received a telegram from King George V conferring on
him the Victoria Cross. Rex Warneford was killed ten days
later in a non-combat flying accident in France.
Sub Lieutenant Reginald Rex Warneford
