Zeppelin L 15 shot down

On the evening of 31 March 1916 British anti-aircraft artillery east of London hit the German naval airship L 15. The damaged airship tried to make it back to occupied Belgium, but at about 11 p.m. it broke up and fell into the sea off the mouth of the Thames, near the Kentish Knock shoal. One airman drowned, and the remaining 17 members of the crew were taken prisoner by British sailors. It was the first German airship shot down over England by the home defences to come down off its coast. L 12, hit over Dover in August 1915, had still managed to reach the Belgian coast.

A series of raids on moonless nights

The German command planned a series of raids on Britain, from the Firth of Forth to London, for the moonless nights at the turn of March and April. The first was to take place on 31 March. Around noon seven naval airships took off from bases in northern Germany, with London as the main target. L 9 and L 11 turned back with mechanical faults. L 22, after a four-hour engine repair, headed for the Humber estuary and dropped bombs on Cleethorpes, where it destroyed a chapel used as billets by soldiers of a Manchester regiment: about thirty of them were killed (sources give between 29 and 32) and several dozen wounded. L 13 of Kapitänleutnant Heinrich Mathy was hit by the guns defending the explosives works at Stowmarket and turned back. L 16 bombed Bury St Edmunds, and L 14, carrying the commander of the naval airships, Peter Strasser, bombed Sudbury and Braintree. According to British figures the bombs killed a total of 48 people that night and injured 64. No airship reached London, although the German navy afterwards announced successful attacks on the capital and long believed in them.

Fire from the Thames

L 15 of Kapitänleutnant Joachim Breithaupt, the same airship that in October 1915 had bombed the theatre district, crossed the Suffolk coast at Dunwich and headed straight for London. On the way it dropped a few bombs, among others on Ipswich, where three people were killed. Over the Thames near Grays it was caught by a searchlight, and almost at once the guns at Dartford opened fire on it. Soon batteries on both banks of the river, from Purfleet to Plumstead, were firing at it; they belonged to the anti-aircraft defences that since February had been run by the War Office. Breithaupt turned north and at about 9.43 p.m., convinced that he was over the northern suburbs of London, dropped 20 high-explosive and 24 incendiary bombs. They fell on fields near Rainham and did no damage. Two minutes later a shrapnel shell tore the airship’s envelope. The British official history of the air war credits the hit to the gun at Purfleet; other accounts credit the Dartford battery.

Breithaupt turned back at once. East of Brentwood he was caught by Second Lieutenant Alfred de Bathe Brandon, a New Zealander of the Royal Flying Corps, flying a B.E.2c from Hainault Farm aerodrome. Brandon dropped explosive darts and an incendiary bomb on the airship from above, and the crew of L 15 fired at his aircraft with machine guns. He failed to set the airship on fire and lost sight of it. It was nevertheless the first time a British pilot had managed to attack an airship over England with bombs at night. Brandon was awarded the Military Cross for this flight and believed for the rest of his life that it was he who had brought down L 15. It was ruled, however, that the decisive damage had been done by the artillery.

The end of L 15

Losing gas, the airship headed for Belgium. The crew threw overboard everything that could be thrown out, but over the sea L 15 sank lower and lower, and at about 11 p.m. its back broke. Before it came down the airship called for help by radio and was told that torpedo boats would come out from Zeebrugge. The Admiralty sent destroyers from Harwich, Dover and the Nore against it. The wreck, however, fell in the middle of a flotilla of British drifters guarding the anti-submarine nets. The armed trawler Olivine opened fire but stopped after a few shots, and when it approached the wreck a voice from inside called out: “We surrender, we have no arms.” The airmen were taken on board. Some sources date the downing to 1 April, but according to the British official history L 15 fell into the sea on the evening of 31 March.

Destroyers from the Nore took the wreck in tow, but near Westgate the airship broke up and sank. The Lord Mayor of London, Charles Wakefield, had earlier promised a reward of £500 to the first pilot or gun crew to bring down an airship, and the commander of the Purfleet battery claimed it. The War Office refused to allow the payment, holding that the soldiers had merely done their duty. Instead of money the Lord Mayor paid for several hundred gold medals inscribed “Well Hit” for the soldiers of the units that had taken part in the action. The loss of L 15 and the hit on L 13 heartened the British defences, and on the following nights the Germans continued their series of raids.