I—"HOW WE ZEPPELINED THE HEART OF LONDON"
Told by Commander of a German Air Fleet
Our Zeppelin received orders at 6 o'clock in the evening to fly from our hangar in Belgium for an attack on London.
The giant airship slipped easily out of the long shed with noiseless motors, and after rising to 8,000 feet, the altitude most suited for steady flying, our captain steered by compass straight for London.
Our true German hearts beat high this night with the hope of doing some great and irreparable damage to London....
Perhaps we should destroy their House of Parliament ... or their War Office ... or the Foreign Office ... or the official dwellings of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.... Well did I know the location of all these places from my long residence in London.
Our commander said that a bomb dropped in a certain space of half a square mile in London could hardly fail to destroy some person of great importance in the official or wealthy classes of England.
Perhaps we might strike a school or a hospital or a party of women. We should regret such accidents, but it is impossible to modify our splendid and effective aerial warfare simply because innocent combatants place themselves in the way of legitimate objects of attack.... We know that London is a fortified city, and non-combatants who remain there do so at their own peril.
The way had for months been prepared by previous aerial attacks and reconnoissances for a more accurate and effective blow at the heart of London. All lights, both street lamps and those in dwellings, have been lowered by order of the English Government to a point that causes the busiest thoroughfare at night to present only a dull glow a few hundred yards away.
On the other hand, powerful searchlights operated in connection with anti-aircraft guns, and other military works are kept constantly playing on the sky in the search for our airships. If we can discover the topographical position of these searchlights and batteries we can establish the other principal centres of the city from them and throw our bombs with some approach to accuracy—that is to say, we can at least drop them on a quarter where we know that there are public buildings or where important officials reside.
To establish the location of these points has been the work of our earlier air reconnoissances, and as a result of this system our work must become more and more deadly every day. We have, for instance, found that powerful searchlights and batteries are operated at Woolwich on the extreme eastern outskirts of London, at St. James's Park, which is in the centre of the metropolis, at Hampstead Heath on the north, and at the Crystal Palace, south of the Thames. The English are not likely to move all these defensive points, and if one is moved and not the others, the captain of the Zeppelin can discover the change by reference to the other points.
As our Zeppelin can travel seventy miles an hour at its maximum, the journey of a little more than two hundred miles from Belgium could be performed in a few hours. Darkness was falling as we passed over the stormy North Sea for we did not wish to be seen and reported by patrol ships.
The cold was intense and could be felt through the fleece-lined clothes and heavy felt shoes with which we were provided. Our Zeppelin carried four tons of the most destructive explosives ever created by science—sufficient to annihilate the heart of London, the greatest city in the world. The amount was divided into forty bombs of 100 pounds each, and eighty of fifty pounds each. The larger bombs are designed to destroy fortifications and heavy buildings. The smaller ones are for the purpose of setting fire to houses, and contain an explosive that develops a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
We made out the mouth of the Thames from certain lightships and shore lights that have been maintained. At about 10 o'clock we found a powerful searchlight playing on us. This we knew from our information to be Woolwich, the important English arsenal. As we no longer desired to conceal our presence, we discharged ten of the larger bombs in the vicinity of the searchlight.
The bombs are discharged from tubes pointing downward from a steel plate in the floor of the airship. The bomb is furnished with a steel handle, and by means of this it is lowered into the tube. A bolt fitting into a hole in the bomb holds it in the tube. The marksman presses his foot on an electric button in the plate in the floor of the car and this withdraws the bolt, releasing the bombs. He can drop two bombs at once if he wishes, and the third two seconds later.
The height at which the airship flies, its speed and the effects of wind at present render impossible scientific aim in the sense that an artillerist would use the term. Nevertheless a considerable degree of effectiveness is attained by Zeppelin marksmen, while a poor marksman may entirely waste his ammunition. To hit a mark half an acre in extent is good marksmanship from a Zeppelin. In practice a regiment of wooden dummies was set up in a field and one of our aerial marksmen succeeded in wiping out the whole regiment.
If Zeppelin marksmanship is still rudimentary, the destructive power of our bombs, on the other hand, is terrible beyond anything dreamed of before this war. One of our 100-pound bombs striking fairly will destroy any existing building not constructed purely as a fortification. Even if it strikes in a street, it will dig a hole a hundred feet deep, destroying gas pipes, electric wire conduits, subways and any subterranean constructions that may be beneath the surface. Thus the destruction and paralyzing of all life in a city can be practically assured if we use sufficient bombs. Our bombardment of Woolwich was followed by the extinction of the searchlight, and we had reason to believe that we had inflicted serious damage at this important centre.
We knew that in a few minutes we should be over the heart of London. Our daring commander decided to sail very low, following the course of the Thames which he knew would take him near all the objects he wished to reach.
Suddenly the huge outline of a building loomed under our noses. Seen against the dull, cloudy sky, it appeared colossal. We almost struck it. It was a church! It was St. Paul's Cathedral! An instantaneous turn of the elevating rudder saved us from a collision with the monstrous dome. A few seconds more straight to the westward and we knew that we were over the centre of official and fashionable London.
Our commander ordered the bombs discharged as fast as we could throw them. The ship circled slowly round and round, peppering death on the solar plexus of the British Empire.
Beneath us was the Strand, with its theatres and hotels, the House of Parliament, the Government offices in Whitehall and Parliament street, the residences of the aristocracy in Mayfair, the fashionable clubs in Pall Mall, Buckingham Palace, the War Office, the Admiralty and Westminster Abbey.
It was a night of terror for London! The searchlights and the guns played upon us constantly. At night the anti-aircraft fighters use shells that spread a long trail of luminous red smoke through the darkness in order to mark the position of the airship for the other gunners firing shrapnel. It was a grand and inconceivably weird spectacle to watch the electric beams and the long red trails playing about in the air, while shrapnel burst about us and our great bombs exploded on the earth below with a glow that we could faintly discern.
It is exceedingly difficult for a gunner to hit an airship at a height of 8,000 feet, or even lower. We enjoyed a feeling of tremendous power and security. Our daring commander ordered our craft to circle lower and lower in his determination to inflict the greatest possible injury on the enemy.
At last we could see the outlines of buildings on the ground. Below us was a great open square and in the centre a very high slender column. It was the ... British monument to their noted Admiral Nelson standing in the centre of Trafalgar Square.
"Give old Nelson a bomb!" roared our brave commander.
Down went a bomb aimed straight at the head of the one-eyed admiral. The fervent wishes of every man in our crew went with it. Whether it struck the mark time alone will show.
We had ventured too near the earth, and an unusually well-aimed shot struck the forward part of our vessel. One of our mechanical experts, in his anxiety to ascertain the nature of the damage, climbed out on a stay, fell and was, of course, lost. That was our only casualty. We found later that the shot had only penetrated one "ballonnet" and had not interfered with our stability in any important degree.
Our commander threw the elevating rudders to their extreme upward angle, and in a few minutes we were practically out of danger once more. We threw all our supply of bombs upon London and then turned for home again. Steering by compass and the stars for Belgium, we made the return journey without mishap. The dawn was just breaking when we came in sight of certain landmarks which guided us to our hangar.
There are certain details of the raid which I should not wish to reveal, and could not reveal without making myself liable to the death penalty. An attack by a Zeppelin is always accompanied by other air craft, both dirigibles and aeroplanes, in order to give protection to our capital airships and create confusion among the enemy. The English never know whether they are firing at a Zeppelin or a semi-rigid dirigible of similar shape, but comparatively small importance. These are the scouting cruisers of the air. Moreover our raiding forces split up in the darkness according to prearranged plans, thus causing hopeless confusion among our terrestrial opponents, even if the approaching attack has been reported to them in advance.