Zeppelin raids, Gothas and 'Giants' Britain's First Blitz - 1914 -1918

Ian Castle looks at the World War One air raids on Britain - the First Blitz

Lincs., Norfolk, Northants., Lancs., Warwicks.

This raid on the night of 12/13 April 1918 proved to be the last time Zeppelins appeared over Britain. Five new Zeppelins of the ‘v-class — L.60 to L.64 — took part. Thick cloud and rain over the North Sea hampered the mission targeting the industrial Midlands, and a layer of cloud over England meant the raiders struggled with navigation from the great heights they flew at. For the first time the home defence aircraft took to the air as the RAF.

Three airships penetrated only a short distance inland with L.60 claiming an attack on Leeds. In fact, L.60, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Hans Kurt Flemming, came inland over Lincolnshire just to the south of the River Humber and passed Grimsby without seeing it. A number of AA guns engaged, firing at the sound of her engines. Her first bombs dropped at East Halton, near Killingholme, at about 9.26pm: four 100kg HE, eight 50kg HE and one incendiary. Three of the 100kg bombs and the incendiary failed to detonate. There were no injuries although the bombs killed two sheep and damaged a railway signal box. From there L.60 headed west, dropping two HE bombs at Thornton Abbey, followed by 19 more bombs, a mixture of HE and incendiary bombs, that fell in fields around the villages of Thornton Curtis, Burnham, Saxby All Saints and Horkstow, breaking a few windows and bringing down some telegraph wires. Heading north now, at 10.08pm L.60 crossed the Humber west of Hull, passing around that city and heading back towards the sea, attracting more AA gunfire as she went. She left the coast near Tunstall at 10.35pm.

Kapitänleutnant Michael von Freudenreich, commanding L.63, came inland south of Skegness on the Lincolnshire coast at about 10.05pm. From Wrangle, L.63 headed west, passing south of Coningsby at 10.25pm. Four minutes later the AA gun at Brauncewell, just east of the airfield at Cranwell where flares were burning, opened fire. L.63 released a 100kg HE bomb which exploded harmlessly in a field at Blankney Park. Now heading north, von Freudenreich dropped 18 bombs (2 x 300kg, 15 x 50kg and one incendiary) at 10.35pm, a mile east of Metheringham. These bombs, amounting to over a ton in weight, merely smashed a few windows. L.63 then turned to the south and disappeared to trackers for 30 minutes until she appeared again near Spalding heading east. At 11.10pm she dropped an incendiary at Fleet and five more at Little Sutton, none of which caused any damage, before heading north out over The Wash. She travelled up and down the coast for a while before she finally went out to sea at 1.10am from near Cromer. Von Freudenreich believed he had made an attack on Grimsby.