III.
Illustrating the work of the lighters, although the incident did not take place until late in 1918, there is the yarn about Zeppelin L 53.
Many subsequent lighter trips were attended by this Zeppelin. Its crew watched the evolution from a great height. The pilots of the flying-boats when slipped from their lighters were unable to get at the airship, as they were heavily laden with petrol. Her skipper, Commander Proells, kept well out of range of the anti-aircraft guns of the cruisers, and he thought himself safe enough.
But the L 53 annoyed Colonel Samson, D.S.O., who at this time was Officer Commanding No. 4 Group, R.A.F., and he had a thirty-foot deck made to fit on one of the towing lighters, and on this, held in place with a quick release gear, he put a Camel aeroplane, a single-seated fighter land-machine with great speed and climb.
On the first experiment, and while being towed by a destroyer at thirty knots, Colonel Samson tried to take the Camel off the lighter. But the deck was not at the right angle and the machine stalled off, nose-dived into the water, the lighter passing over the pilot and aeroplane. Both were fished out. Undeterred by this mishap he had the deck altered, and on the second trial it proved satisfactory, the aeroplane getting away in good style.
It was decided to have a go at the Zeppelin on the next lighter trip, and Cully, a Canadian, one of the old R.N.A.S. pilots, was chosen for the job and was told to stand by.
On August 11 a little show was to be staged in the Bight.
The Harwich light cruisers were to carry six coastal motor-boats to a position off Terschelling Island. Here they would be dropped into the water and sent well into the Bight over the mine-fields to torpedo any mine-sweepers and other surface craft, and collect if possible information which would make glad the heart of the Admiralty Intelligence Department.
About this department an American who had occasion to deal with them said—
"That gang is one that delivers the goods every time. I don't believe the boys in the U.S.A. can teach them anything. They look outside like an out-of-date, low-pressure, single-cylinder show, but inside, believe me, customer, they're a nickel-plated, triple-expansion, consume-their-own-smoke outfit, working above the licensed pressure and with a nigger on the safety-valve."
The show was to be all the same as putting in ferrets. The coastal motor-boats were small hydroplanes filled full of big engines and could do forty knots full out. They carried a torpedo on their stern and a machine-gun mounted in the cockpit. Three flying-boats on lighters were to accompany the cruisers. They were to get off and keep in touch with the C.M.B.'s to direct them to enemy craft and lead them safely back to the ships, as owing to their liveliness on a rough sea their compasses were not of much value. The Camel was to go along on the lighter as a surprise packet for Old Man Zeppelin. Three more flying-boats were to leave Yarmouth and pick up the cruisers at Terschelling.
At daybreak on the morning appointed the whole circus was on the job.
At six o'clock the towing hawsers of the lighters were shortened and the crews of the flying-boats and Cully were put on board their respective machines. The three flying-boats were slipped, but their pilots could not get them off the water owing to a long swell, the absence of wind, and a heavy overload of petrol and armament. They were taken up on the lighters again.
But the light cruisers dropped the C.M.B.'s. They immediately dug out towards the Bight at top speed, flinging the tops of the rollers into spray far on each side of them, so that it looked as though they were supported on white and gleaming wings.
The three flying-boats from Yarmouth boomed up, and on receiving the order started on after the C.M.B.'s.
Cully's Camel on way to Terschelling.
The flotilla then cruised off Terschelling until fifteen minutes after eight o'clock, when the flagship signalled to the destroyer towing the Camel lighter that the L 53 had been sighted.
Immediately Cully saw the Zeppelin glistening in the sunlight.
It was about thirty miles away, at a height of ten thousand feet.
It looked about as big as his little finger.
He climbed into the cockpit of his machine. The propeller was swung. He tested the rotary engine.
When the towing destroyer had got up to thirty knots, he ran his engine full out, slipped the quick release, ran along the lighter deck only five feet, and took to the air.
At forty-one minutes after eight o'clock he started to climb towards Commander Proells' airship at a speed of fifty-two miles an hour.
In the meantime the crews of the Yarmouth flying-boats had sighted the Zeppelin. Owing to some misunderstanding they returned to the light cruisers to report, and received an order to return to their base.
When the flying-boats were just out of sight on the homeward journey, fifteen Hun monoplanes appeared in the sky. They had been summoned from Borkum by the Zeppelin with wireless. They swept over the flotilla, dropping bombs on the ships, which replied by filling the surrounding atmosphere with bursting shells. It was a lively five minutes. With all the bombs that were dropped no hit was registered on a ship, but a shell found a monoplane and brought it down. At this, and having unloaded all their bombs, the fourteen Huns withdrew.
On their way back to Borkum the monoplanes met the C.M.B.'s. The motor-boats separated and ran along at forty knots, twisting, turning, doubling. But the Huns were all over them, firing into the thin shells of the structures streams of machine-gun bullets. The crews of the boats replied with their machine-guns. But it was a fight against heavy odds.
The engine of one boat was knocked out by a bullet. It stopped. The Hun monoplanes swooped down like gulls on a fish. The pilots tore the boat to pieces with bullets and it began to sink. But another C.M.B. hurled itself alongside and took off all the crew, wounded and unwounded.
Three C.M.B.'s in all were sunk, their crews being taken off under the greatest difficulties and dangers by the crews of the three surviving boats, and after a long contest the crews of these boats won their way to Holland, where they were interned.
During this time Cully in the Camel had been climbing steadily, all unaware of the fighting going on below him. He climbed the first thirteen thousand feet in twenty minutes. He had edged in towards the Dutch coast and was now between the coast and the Zeppelin and hidden from her crew by the sun.
Commander Proells had also been climbing, and he was still above Cully. His airship was of the type known as the height-climbing 50's, the last word in construction, six hundred and forty feet long, with five engines, and containing two million cubic feet of inflammable gas.
The L 53 had all this time been broadside on to Cully. He now saw her turn end on. He thought that he had been sighted by her crew, and that her Commander had turned out to sea away from him. He swung the nose of the Camel directly towards her and continued to climb. But he saw that the great airship was growing bigger and bigger. He realised at last that she was heading straight for him.
The two aircraft were closing with tremendous rapidity.
Cully was at eighteen thousand feet.
Commander Proells was at nineteen thousand feet.
He felt the controls of the Camel get sloppy and knew he could get it to climb no higher.
If Commander Proells could get up another couple of hundred feet he could not attack him with any chance of success.
But the crew of the great Zeppelin apparently did not see the tiny midge in the sun, for they held on their course at the same height.
At forty-one minutes after nine o'clock, one hour after Cully had left the lighter in the Camel, the two machines met head on, the airship only two hundred feet above the aeroplane.
Cully pulled back his controls and stalled his machine until the Camel was almost standing on its tail.
As the bow of the Zeppelin came into his sight he started both Lewis guns. The port gun jammed after fifteen rounds. But the other gun ran through its tray of ninety-seven rounds.
Cully looking through his telescopic sight, saw the flaming incendiary bullets darting into the dark belly of the airship.
He also saw a side of one of the four gondolas, a propeller flapping slowly around, and was three-quarters of the way down the body of the airship when his second gun stopped owing to the lack of ammunition.
So intent was he on the job that he did not know whether he was being fired at or not, but rather thought he was not.
With the stopping of his second gun he dived away to the right, looking back over his shoulder. The Zeppelin was going strong. It appeared to be undamaged. He had failed.
And then he saw three little bursts of flames.
They were on the envelope about sixty feet apart, and as he watched the flames increased in size with terrible rapidity.
Satisfied, he turned back to his instruments and got the Camel, which had been panicking all over the shop, in hand.
When he looked again L 53 was slowly falling, burning furiously at the bow.
The nose bent down and broke off.
A black bundle in flames shot past him. It was one of the crew who had jumped out of a gondola. He had a parachute and was the only survivor, being picked up by a Dutch vessel.
The aluminium skeleton of the bow of the Zeppelin was now fully exposed. But the fabric of the tail was still smoking and burning. She was standing vertically upright, nose down, and was falling rapidly below him with ever-increasing momentum.
Then he could see her no more because of the smoke.
As L 53 fell she left behind her a column of light blue smoke. He noticed that it was blown into the shape of a huge question mark.
Having finished the Zeppelin, Cully suddenly awoke to the need of looking out for himself. He flew straight to the Dutch coast, went south until he arrived at the Texel, and then went out to the rendezvous at Terschelling Bank. Here, at six thousand feet, there were patchy clouds between him and the water, and he could see no destroyers.
His pressure petrol tank ran out.
He switched over to the emergency gravity tank. It contained only enough petrol for twenty minutes, not nearly enough for him to get back safely to the Dutch coast.
Looking down, he saw a providential Dutch fishing boat, and decided to land beside it. As he dived down he saw two destroyers come out from under the edge of a cloud. And then he saw the whole flotilla.
Looping and rolling over the fleet to relieve his pent-up feelings, he picked up his destroyer with the lighter, fired a light as a signal, and landed in front of her. He was picked up, the Camel was hoisted on the lighter, and the flotilla started back for Harwich.