8
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000
our planes improved and were increasingly able to match
the flying altitudes of the Zeppelins. But the airships
were much more stable than the planes and had more
crew to return fire while our bullets passed harmlessly
through the airship’s hull causing, according to Zeppelin
expert Dr Hugh Hunt of Cambridge University, as much
damage as a pinprick in a child’s balloon. The rigid
canvas shell of the airships and the gas-impermeable sacs
kept the hydrogen carefully segregated from the air and it
was the oxygen in the air that was needed to ignite the
hydrogen. If we could rupture enough hydrogen sacs in
one go so that the hydrogen and air were present together
for long enough and in sufficient quantities we could
create a pyrotechnic cocktail and bring the airship down.
In an odd aside the gas sacs of Zeppelins were made from
the intestines of cows. It took more than 250,000 cows to
make a single airship leading to a ban on the production
of bratwurst and other popular German sausages in
Germany, Austria, Poland and Northern France for much
of the war. It seems the Zeppelin crews were privileged
to have sausage in their rations.
Delivering Flame After Puncture
Those involved in the race for the new weapons included
Lieutenant Brock of the famous fireworks family and the
Sparklets soda siphon company who developed a tracer
bullet. The breakthrough came when two new bullets
were paired. New Zealand engineer James Pomeroy’s
exploding bullet, filled with nitro-glycerine, fired alone
did not ignite the Zeppelins as the momentary explosion
was over too soon but when Pomeroy bullets were fired
alternately with Buckingham’s Mark VII incendiary
bullet
which, like Brock’s, drew a trail of phosphorescent
flame in its wake,
the hydrogen and oxygen had time to
mix and the result was an almighty explosion that would
bring down the airship
. The War Office manufactured
millions of the Pomeroy, Brock and Buckingham bullets,
which could be fired from a Lewis Gun and in
May 1916
fighter aircraft were brought home from France to form
four Home Defence Squadrons. The Royal Flying Corps
put in place plans for unbroken patrols during raids and
at times when weather conditions suggested that raids were
most likely. This was of huge strategic importance enabling
our pilots to be ready for action at high enough altitudes
when the Zeppelins came.
Ingram Messages
With radar yet to be invented and wireless still in its infancy
control and command was very primitive and our pilots
relied largely on Ingram Messages. Invented by RNAS
officer Lieutenant Ingram in 1915 these were white cloth
panels, 20 foot by 4 foot rectangles and 8 foot diameter
discs, that were laid out on the ground at aerodromes like
Stow Maries near Maldon in Essex. The rectangles were
arranged in a T shape with the discs placed around it in
any of 40 different positions to signal the presence of
raiders in 25 pre-defined land and sea locations. Patrolling
airborne pilots
flew over to read
the messages.
