Second British air raid on Germany

On 8 October 1914, when Antwerp was already close to falling, airmen of the Royal Naval Air Service attacked the German airship bases in the Rhineland for the second time. This time the raid succeeded: one of the pilots destroyed the airship Z IX in its shed at Düsseldorf. It was the first airship destroyed by an aeroplane.

A second attempt

The first raid, on 22 September, produced no results because fog hid the targets. The British decided to try again before they lost the airfield at Antwerp. German artillery was already shelling the city, and the siege of Antwerp was drawing to a close. Two fast single-seat Sopwith Tabloid aircraft, fitted with extra fuel tanks, were prepared for the raid. Each carried only two small bombs of about 9 kilograms.

On the afternoon of 8 October both aircraft took off from Antwerp. Squadron Commander Spenser Grey flew to Cologne, Flight Lieutenant Reginald Marix to Düsseldorf.

Cologne and Düsseldorf

Over Cologne there was fog again. Grey could not find the airship shed, so he dropped his bombs on the main railway station, Köln Hauptbahnhof, and turned back to Antwerp.

Marix had better luck. He found the shed at Düsseldorf and, under rifle fire from the ground, dived from about 900 metres to roughly 150–180 metres (accounts differ slightly). His bombs went through the roof and ignited the hydrogen in the gas-filled airship Z IX, works number LZ 25, standing inside. According to witnesses a ball of fire rose about 150 metres above the shed. The airship burned, and at least one member of the shed’s ground crew was killed. Z IX was one of the airships that in August and September had flown over Belgium and northern France on reconnaissance and bombing missions.

The return

Marix’s aircraft was damaged by fire from the ground and he had to land in a field about 30 kilometres short of Antwerp. He reached the airfield by train and on a borrowed bicycle. He found it almost deserted. The next day the airmen withdrew from the city, which soon afterwards passed into German hands.

Grey and Marix were awarded the Distinguished Service Order for the raid. Both raids from Antwerp were small in scale, but they showed that aircraft could destroy targets deep inside enemy territory. Naval aviation continued its attacks on airship bases. In November 1914 its aircraft bombed the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance.