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The Zeppelins Return & This Time We’re Ready
On the night of 3/4 September 1916, 12 navy and 4 army
German Zeppelins arrived for what was to be the largest
airship raid on Britain. The Germans did not yet know about
the Pomeroy-Brock-Buckingham ammunition and Britain
was now to have its first air hero. Nineteen year old
Lieutenant William
Billy
Leefe Robinson, No 39 Squadron
RFC, had taken off from Sutton Farm
airfield near
Hornchurch in Essex in his BE2c and had been patrolling
for three hours when he caught up with a Schutte-Lanz (an
airship but not a Zeppelin) numbered SL11 at an altitude of
11,000 feet just after 2.00am. The determined young pilot
fired round after round of Pomeroy and Brock exploding
bullets from his Lewis Gun from below, from the side and
from the rear until finally the airship caught fire.
Millions of people across a seventy-mile stretch of south
east England witnessed the destruction of SL11 including
Muriel Dayrell-Browning who was staying at the
Strathmore Hotel
in London’s Knightsbridge:
At 2.30am I was awakened by a terrific explosion and was
at the window in one bound when another deafening one
shook the house. Nearly above us sailed a cigar of bright
silver in the full glare of about twenty magnificent
searchlights… It was a magnificent sight and the whole
of London was looking on and holding its breath.
When the airship disappeared northwards into cloudy skies
Muriel thought:
… the fun was over. Then, from the direction of Barnet
and very high a brilliant red light appeared … Then we
saw it was the Zeppelin diving head first. That was a sight.
She dived slowly at first … then the second burst and the
flames tore up into the sky and then the thud and cheers
thundered from all round us … the plane lit up all London
and was rose red … It was magnificent, the most thrilling
scene imaginable.
The airship came down in the Hertfordshire village of
Cuffley.
The following day was a Sunday and tens of
thousands of people came to see the wreckage.
Schoolboy Patrick Blount saw the dead crew, writing in
a letter to his father:
They were brown, like roast beef.
The Vicar of Cuffley refused to bury the crew and so
they were laid to rest in Potters Bar where feelings also
ran high and a local woman threw eggs at the coffins.
Billy Robinson became an instant hero rewarded with
£4200 in prize money. Babies, flowers and hats were
named after him. Six months later he was taken prisoner
of war after being shot down by German Ace Manfred
von Richtofen, The Red Baron. Billy Robinson survived
the war only to die in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
Captain Mathy & Wulstan Tempest
The most ambitious of German raids was a failure.
263 bombs and over 200 incendiary devices had been
dropped but only 4 people had been killed and 16 hurt
and a mighty German airship had been downed.
This was to be the last time the German army sent
airships to Britain but at the very end of September 1916
the German navy sent 12 airships including three months-
old L31, a new bigger, faster super-Zeppelin captained by
Heinrich Mathy who had soaked Olive and her friend’s
coats and frocks in September of 1915. That night Mathy
bombed South and East London: Streatham, Brixton,
Camberwell and Leyton, killing 22 and wounding 75.
Two Zeppelins were brought down that night.
Captain Heinrich Mathy was the most reknowned of the
airship commanders. Second Lieutenant Wulstan Joseph
Tempest, born in Pontefract in West Yorkshire in 1893,
was soon to become a household name. The Tempests
came from an illustrious line of warriors who were
named in the Domesday Book and had sold the Manor
Three RFC pilots based at Suttons Farm who brought Zeppelins down Billy Leefe Robinson,Wulstan Tempest & Frederick Sowery
