Airship raid and the shooting down of L 32 and L 33

On the afternoon of 23 September 1916 German naval airships took off from their North Sea bases to attack London and the Midlands. According to the British official history of the air war, H. A. Jones’s The War in the Air, there were eleven of them, and nine crossed the coast. Other studies speak of twelve. The raid was a bloody one: according to the British chronology of the war, about 170 people were killed and wounded, most of them civilians. That night, however, the German navy lost two of its newest airships. L 32 fell in flames near Billericay, shot down by a Royal Flying Corps pilot, while L 33, damaged by anti-aircraft fire, was forced to land in Essex. Three weeks earlier the London defences had shot down the army airship SL 11, and this night showed that it had been no fluke.

L 33 over the East End

Three “super-Zeppelins” of the new, large type headed for London: L 31, L 32 and L 33, the last on its first combat flight. Kapitänleutnant Alois Böcker’s L 33 crossed the coast over the mouth of the River Crouch and at about midnight appeared over the eastern suburbs of London. Under heavy anti-aircraft fire it dropped its bombs on Bromley-by-Bow, Bow and Stratford. According to Jones, the 27 bombs that fell on the East End destroyed many houses and works, killing 11 people and injuring 26.

The gunners hit the airship. One shell passed through the hull, another damaged a propeller, and splinters holed the gas cells. Losing hydrogen, L 33 tried to make for home. Near Chelmsford it was attacked for about 20 minutes by Second Lieutenant Alfred de Bathe Brandon, who in March had fought the airship L 15. He saw his rounds strike the hull, but the airship did not catch fire. Böcker crossed the coast near West Mersea, but soon realised he would not get across the sea. He turned back and at about 1.15 a.m. set the ship down in a field between Little Wigborough and Peldon. The crew set fire to the wreck, but so little gas was left in the envelope that the fire did not destroy the framework. The airmen, all of whom survived, were arrested by a local special constable as they walked along the road towards Peldon. The newest type of Zeppelin had fallen into British hands, and its design later served as the model for the British R33-class airships.

L 32 at Billericay

L 31 and L 32 came in together over Dungeness in Kent. Werner Peterson’s L 32 was evidently in trouble, for it circled for a long time before heading for Tunbridge Wells, over which it appeared at 12.10 a.m. It then turned north, dropped a few bombs on a searchlight at Crockenhill and crossed the Thames east of Purfleet. North of the river it came out of the mist into clear air, where it was at once picked up by searchlights and fired on by the guns. It dropped most of its remaining bombs between Aveley and South Ockendon, where they only broke windows.

The fleeing airship was spotted by Second Lieutenant Frederick Sowrey of No. 39 Squadron, who had taken off at 11.30 p.m. in a B.E.2c from Suttons Farm, the same airfield from which William Leefe Robinson flew. Sowrey attacked at about 1.10 a.m. As he reported, his first two drums of ammunition had no effect, but after the third, loaded, like all his ammunition, with a mixture of Brock, Pomeroy and tracer rounds, the envelope caught fire in several places. To another pilot watching from a distance, the airship seemed to be “hosed with a stream of fire”. The burning L 32 fell at about 1.30 a.m. on Snail’s Hall Farm at Great Burstead, south of Billericay. Its entire crew of 22 was killed. According to eyewitness accounts, some of the airmen, including Peterson, jumped from the burning ship. The wreck burned for 45 minutes, and its fall was reportedly seen even from a British submarine in the Strait of Dover.

Mathy over London and bombs on Nottingham

The most damage was done by L 31 of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Mathy, the most famous German airship commander. He lightened his ship by dropping ten bombs near Dungeness and then, wasting no more bombs on the way, flew north across Kent and Surrey. The flares he dropped ahead of himself dazzled the searchlights, so he passed over London quickly and high, at about 3,800 metres. His bombs fell on Kenley, Mitcham, Streatham, Brixton, Kennington and Leyton. According to Jones, 22 people were killed and 74 injured, mainly in their homes. Over north London the mist hid the airship from the gunners and nobody fired at it. Mathy later reported that he had bombed the centre of London, although his bombs had fallen on the suburbs.

Meanwhile five older airships attacked eastern England between the Humber estuary and the Wash. Only L 17 got far inland. At about 12.40 a.m. it dropped its bombs on Nottingham, killing three people and injuring 16. The others, driven off by gunfire, scattered their bombs mostly over the fields of Lincolnshire and into the sea, and L 21, driven off by the guns near Stowmarket, dropped its load on villages in Suffolk. The raid on Nottingham provoked protests from the mayors of Midland towns, who accused the railways of not putting out their lights and of not stopping trains during alerts. The War Office refused to halt traffic, judging that this would paralyse the country.

Significance

Two airships lost in a single night, one of them captured almost intact, were a heavy blow to the Germans. Their crews learned that even the new “super-Zeppelins” were defenceless against night fighters with incendiary ammunition. Sowrey received the Distinguished Service Order for shooting down L 32. The British press reported the night battles at length, and crowds came to see the wrecks in Essex. The navy did not stop its raids, however. More airships set out for England as early as 25 September, and Mathy was killed a little over a week later, on the night of 1/2 October, when his L 31 was shot down near Potters Bar.