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.