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In a park in London's East End,
there is a memorial which bears

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the names of 18 children
killed in an air raid.

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And I think the bombs fell somewhere
around 11 o'clock in the morning,
if I remember rightly.

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While I was standing there,
the caretaker came out with
the first of the bodies.

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These five-year-old children
did not die in the Second World War,
but in a much earlier conflict.

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In 1915, German Zeppelin airships
appeared over Britain
and, for the first time,

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began an aerial bombing campaign
against a civilian population.

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See, it's the
first time we'd experienced a war.

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And we didn't know what it
was all about.

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You never knew, I suppose,
when the raids were going to be on.

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And we didn't get the warnings
that you had in the Second World War.

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When the Zeppelin raids begin,
there is no home defence.

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Even as late as May of 1915,
there's only 33 anti-aircraft
guns in the whole country.

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This was the start
of a two-and-a-half year campaign
which claimed the lives

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of many hundreds of people,
and whose psychological effect

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was every bit as powerful as that of
the blitz of the Second World War.

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These really were weapons of mass
destruction, frightening new terror
weapons, and nobody was quite sure

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how devastating
they were going to be.

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This is the forgotten story
of Britain's first blitz.

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90 years ago, the last
German airship to be shot down

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over mainland Britain
crashed and burned in this field.

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Was the evening time. They started
coming over when it got dark.

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They didn't come over
in broad daylight.

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BEEPING

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My mother said, "Come and have a
look, there's a Zep going over
the house."

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Loads of them were coming over,

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but they didn't all pass over
our bungalow, naturally,

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so when one did come so near, she
just said, "Come and have a look."

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They were firing at it
when they came over Thorpeness

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and it obviously caught light
at the bottom and just blew it up.

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Of course we knew
it would come down somewhere

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and we found out next day
it had come down at Theberton
and that's where we made for.

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95-year old Phyllis Rees was just
six when, in 1917, she witnessed

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the destruction of L48,
a German Zeppelin airship returning
home from a bombing raid on Britain.

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Nine decades later a team
of archaeologists, specialising
in the First World War,

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have come to
the Zeppelin crash site not far from
the Suffolk village of Theberton.

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It is the first time in Britain
a Zeppelin crash site has been
archaeologically excavated.

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We've used metal detectors to
re-establish where the main crash

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impact was and that's where
we're now working, over here.

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We've used the metal detectors really
to establish where we've got

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the biggest concentration of small
metal debris from the crashed Zeppelin.

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On a June night in 1917,
three British fighter aircraft
attacked L48,

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setting alight
the airship's flammable hydrogen,

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sending the Zeppelin and her crew
crashing to the ground.

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I can just remember the first look
at it, seeing this enormous thing.

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It looked as if it
filled the whole field up.

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The crash was the last gasp
in a terror campaign

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that had dominated mainland Britain
for the previous 2½ years.

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So these pictures were taken in
1917 by the Royal Flying Corps? Yeah.

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But you also get a sense from this
of how there's a fairly confined area
where it's crumpled up.

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Yeah, it's like a telescope shutting
on the...? Yes. Absolutely, yes.

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I know it was very impressive,
seeing the whole thing charred.

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It was still in the form of a Zep,
it was one huge charred thing,

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and we knew that the men, whoever
were underneath, wouldn't be alive.

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And all these bods hanging
around here, who were these?

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These are civilians
coming to see the site,

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and the cordon of soldiers around
to stop people from pilfering
the bits and pieces off the site.

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We know that there was a massive
official salvage operation
following each Zeppelin crash

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and that most of the debris was
removed by the authorities.

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And much of what remained, we know,
was salvaged by souvenir hunters.

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90 years later, only fragmentary
evidence remains at the crash site.

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These are some of the more

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interesting artefacts that have been
recovered throughout this excavation.

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We have good condition aluminium
alloy probably from the gondola.

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We have a fragment of geodetic
structure here of the general
framework of the Zeppelin.

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Showing slight corrosion,
but I think that's again
in very good condition.

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This example here
is an officer's cuff button,

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showing the anchor, the imperial
crown and the rope twist design

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and the standard stamping
for all German
transport and military buttons.

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And also you might just see
on the back here, there is evidence
of burning, extreme heat subjection.

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Finally, probably one of the most
interesting things I've seen,
is a fired British 303 bullet.

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Very difficult to identify
a date range
of this particular type of round,

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but, given the situation,
given where it was recovered from,

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I'm pretty keen to state that
this was one of the bullets
that brought down L48.

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L48 was huge.

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Over 600 feet long, it was bigger
than any battleship of the time.

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For the Germans, the loss of L48
was the end to an era which had
begun nearly two decades earlier.

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Three years before the Wright
brothers lifted off at Kittyhawk,

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the German Count Zeppelin
was pioneering his rigid airship.

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A solid aluminium framework
which was covered

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and filled with hydrogen,
a gas that is lighter than air.

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Manoeuvrable and with a speed
of up to 50 miles per hour,
the airship was revolutionary.

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The great advantage
of the rigid airship

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is that you can make it much larger,
therefore you carry more fuel

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and you can come up with
a system that is capable
of travelling a very long way.

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And the great strength of
the rigid airship was its range.

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The fact it could go a very long
way compared to an aeroplane

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that even by 1914 could barely hop
off the ground and get back home.

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A new and glamorous
form of transport.

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By 1914, Zeppelins, as the
airships were now being called,
had flown over 100,000 miles.

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Carrying 37,000 civilian
passengers without incident.

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But even as early as 1908, science
fiction writers like H G Wells,

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foresaw the Zeppelin's potential
as an instrument of war.

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And it wasn't long
before the German military were
taking an interest in the Zeppelins.

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The German navy rapidly saw the
advantages of the airship as a
long range reconnaissance platform,

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and the navy saw the Zeppelin as the
only way they could give themselves
that long range eye in the sky

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that would prevent
their numerically inferior fleet
being trapped by the British.

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The German navy's fleet of airships
were to be commanded by a young
officer called Peter Strasse,

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seen here with the
elderly Count Zeppelin.

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It was Strasse who saw the military
impact the Zeppelins could have,

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boasting that, "England can
be overcome by means of airships."

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Soon after the outbreak
of the First World War,

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the British Navy blockaded Germany,
attempting
to starve her into submission.

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The German navy retaliated
against British civilians,

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shelling the seaside towns of
Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool
just before Christmas in 1914.

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But the Germans were to take a more
audacious step the following month,

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when they extended the conflict
from the sea to the air.

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On the 19th of January 1915,
two airships, the L3 and the L4,

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approached the east
coast of England.

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While the L4 headed northwards,
her sister ship turned south towards
the seaside town of Great Yarmouth.

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L3 unleashed a cluster of bombs.

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Oh, it's just over here.

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At the Kitchenor Road cemetery
in Great Yarmouth,

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Joan Roberts and her son,
Christopher, are visiting the grave
of Joan's great-uncle, Sam.

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The family knew nothing of the
grave's existence until a local
historian recently discovered it.

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It is a bit different, isn't it? Yes.

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Samuel Alfred Smith,

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who was killed by a bomb from
a Zeppelin, January the 19th 1915,
aged 53 years.

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That night, Sam Smith became
the first British civilian
ever to be killed by aerial bombing.

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So my great-great uncle.

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So that's Samuel. That's Samuel, yes.

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Right. And that is as well.

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At 8.25 in the evening, Zeppelin L3
dropped seven high explosive bombs.

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It was the bomb which landed here,
in the St Peter's Plain area,
that killed Sam Smith.

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72-year-old Martha Taylor also died.

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Three others in Great Yarmouth
were injured that night.

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This is it.

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There we are look,
the first house in Great Britain

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to be damaged by a Zeppelin air raid,
19th of January 1915.

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So Sam's workshop was just over there
in that gap. Yes. There.

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Yes, cos that's 16, and he was 16A.

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Mmm. And he came out of his workshop
and stood at the gates,

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and was hit by shrapnel.

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He was badly injured,
His head was injured
and eventually he was found

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and declared dead on the spot.

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An hour later the second airship,
L4, approached the Norfolk coast
just north of Hunstanton.

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30 minutes later, it dropped
its deadly cargo on Kings Lynn,

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killing 2 people
and injuring a further 13.

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The fact that people had been killed
in their houses, in their streets,

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from the air, this was new.

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Science fiction writers like
H G Wells had written about this,
but now it was happening.

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This was the full horror of modern
war and it was quite a shock.

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The first two attacks on
Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn,

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showed just how ill prepared
Britain was for a war from the air.

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When the Zeppelin raids begin,

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most of the targets
are fully illuminated,

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nobody had really seriously thought
about air raid precautions.

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It wasn't until the summer of 1916
that a full blackout was ordered
over London,

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paralysing the city by night.

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The whole idea of the German
offensive against Britain,

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both surface ship and airship,
was to demonstrate that,

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at its core,
the British Empire was vulnerable.

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In fact Winston Churchill, Britain's
First Lord of the Admiralty,

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had anticipated the threat posed
by the Zeppelins as early as 1910.

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And so just over a month after the
outbreak of the First World War,

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Churchill authorised the bombing
of the Zeppelin sheds in Germany,

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an event that was to
make front page news.

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Basically what they did was,

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they carried out the bombs in the
cockpit and threw them over the side.

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The successful, if primitive,
bombing of the Zeppelin sheds

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caught the imagination
of the British press.

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Three weeks later another British
airman, Flight Lieutenant
Reggie Marix, went one step further

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when he actually destroyed
an airship on the ground.

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The whole idea that you could
get into an aircraft of the day,

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fly 150 miles or so and drop a bomb
on what was a strategic target
at that time

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is quite a significant step
in thinking.

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A pre-emptive strike if you like,
we'd probably call it these days.

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And yet despite the success
of these pre-emptive strikes,

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the war on the western front was the
prime focus of the military leaders,

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and most aircraft were diverted to
support the troops on the ground.

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In the spring of 1915,
German Zeppelins continued

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to attack eastern Britain,
with increasing intensity
and a growing number of casualties.

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The attacks are a novel
experience for British civilians.

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The last time that
anybody, in a sense,

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had directly attacked civilians,
you could argue, I suppose, was when
the Dutch came up the Medway in 1667.

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And therefore for some people
it's very, very, frightening indeed.

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The Zeppelins attacked with
impunity and, importantly for those
on the ground, with little warning.

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We had police round
with whistles on a bike.

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And also rattles.

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When the raids came on,

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they used to get us out of bed

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and we used to be taken downstairs to
the kitchen and just sit underneath
the table until the all clear went.

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Some of the advice given
now seems truly bizarre.

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"What to do in an air raid.

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00:17:55,337 --> 00:17:59,177
"Go in the cellar
and take your whisky with you."

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00:17:59,177 --> 00:18:02,647
A lot of people went
over to the local coroner's court,

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00:18:02,647 --> 00:18:05,737
which was also a mortuary,

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00:18:05,737 --> 00:18:08,927
because they had reinforced
basements.

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00:18:08,927 --> 00:18:11,977
But we didn't have
any shelters, you see.

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00:18:11,977 --> 00:18:16,567
Some of our houses did have
basements which we could use,

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00:18:16,567 --> 00:18:21,207
but they always had the feeling that
they wanted to be with other people.

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They'd come out into
the street to do that.

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As the number of civilian
casualties increased,

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indignant newspapers published
photographs of the innocent women
and children who had been killed.

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00:18:34,897 --> 00:18:41,097
The public, angry and frightened,
began to turn on the people
meant to protect them.

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When Hull is bombed,
it is said that army soldiers

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00:18:47,037 --> 00:18:52,007
are beaten up on the streets of Hull
because there is no adequate defence.

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00:18:52,007 --> 00:18:55,757
There is certainly a case
of a Royal Flying Corps vehicle

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00:18:55,757 --> 00:19:00,077
being stoned in Beverley
after a raid on East Yorkshire.

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00:19:00,077 --> 00:19:03,592
So there is this rising concern
that the defences are inadequate.

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The problem with Britain's air
defences at the start of the war
was that the few remaining planes

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were old, slow
and couldn't operate effectively at
the same altitude as the Zeppelins.

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00:19:25,477 --> 00:19:28,757
The Shuttleworth Collection
has the world's largest number

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00:19:28,757 --> 00:19:32,977
of flying British aircraft
from the First World War.

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00:19:32,977 --> 00:19:36,777
In 1914,
air defence was divided between

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00:19:36,777 --> 00:19:41,887
the army's Royal Flying Corps
and the Royal Naval Air Service.

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00:19:41,887 --> 00:19:46,907
When you look at a Zeppelin,
this is a big thing, it's 600
foot long, 60 foot wide or so,

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and you'd think they'd be relatively
easy to shoot down, but I think the
reverse was certainly the case.

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Wire, wood and fabric.

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This is what made up a typical
First World War fighter aircraft.

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00:20:01,297 --> 00:20:04,387
What you've gotta remember about
the state of the air forces

212
00:20:04,387 --> 00:20:11,187
at the beginning of the First World
War in 1914 is that the aircraft
itself was only 11 years old or so.

213
00:20:11,187 --> 00:20:14,327
So everything is
really very embryonic.

214
00:20:14,327 --> 00:20:16,767
Right, here we are, the business end,
the office.

215
00:20:16,767 --> 00:20:19,857
So it's basically plywood
and canvas and wire.

216
00:20:19,857 --> 00:20:21,967
Not much protection for the
pilot as well, as you can see.

217
00:20:21,967 --> 00:20:28,017
It's just a thin covering so
up at 18,000 feet, with a
temperature down in the minus 20s...

218
00:20:28,017 --> 00:20:30,497
he's not gonna be very warm.

219
00:20:30,497 --> 00:20:36,127
Looking forward, we've got the
altimeter at the top, we have an
air speed indicator underneath.

220
00:20:36,127 --> 00:20:40,387
An ignition switch just at the
bottom there. A level indicator.

221
00:20:40,387 --> 00:20:43,997
Organisation on the ground
was virtually non-existent.

222
00:20:43,997 --> 00:20:51,927
You see squadrons being formed
with different types of aircraft,
rather than single types of aircraft.

223
00:20:51,927 --> 00:20:57,877
You see pilots training themselves
or paying for their own training.

224
00:20:57,877 --> 00:21:04,577
If the pilot's life was
difficult on the ground,
it was even worse in the air.

225
00:21:04,577 --> 00:21:06,787
It's a very basic environment.

226
00:21:06,787 --> 00:21:13,677
You're open to the elements, so
you've got a 90 to 120 mile an hour
wind blowing around you,

227
00:21:13,677 --> 00:21:18,267
and temperature could go
down two degrees per 1,000 feet.

228
00:21:18,267 --> 00:21:23,657
So up at 15-18,000 feet, we're
down in the minus 15 to minus 20s.

229
00:21:23,657 --> 00:21:30,227
Coupled with that, at altitude
you've got lack of oxygen,
reducing the power in the engine

230
00:21:30,227 --> 00:21:34,869
and reducing the motor function
of the pilot as well,
so you're not thinking straight.

231
00:21:36,037 --> 00:21:41,147
With air defences virtually absent,
the Zeppelin attacks continued.

232
00:21:41,147 --> 00:21:47,154
The death toll rose
and London, for the first time,
became the main target.

233
00:21:49,677 --> 00:21:53,707
On the evening of the
8th September 1915,

234
00:21:53,707 --> 00:22:00,465
a single Zeppelin, the L13, crossed
the Wash on England's east coast,
and headed straight for the capital.

235
00:22:03,507 --> 00:22:08,147
L13 was commanded by 32-year-old
Heinrich Mathy,

236
00:22:08,147 --> 00:22:13,307
one of the most experienced and
audacious of the Zeppelin captains.

237
00:22:13,307 --> 00:22:20,337
A skilled navigator, Mathy had
become infamous as a result of
the impact of his earlier raids.

238
00:22:20,337 --> 00:22:23,057
He had even boasted to a reporter
that he,

239
00:22:23,057 --> 00:22:28,871
"Would bomb London three times
in succession
or perish in the attempt."

240
00:22:32,667 --> 00:22:37,587
At around 11pm, Mathy dropped his
first bombs at Golders Green

241
00:22:37,587 --> 00:22:41,717
before heading
down towards the centre of the city.

242
00:22:44,477 --> 00:22:50,677
David Warren is a tour guide
who leads groups along the route
of Mathy's September raid.

243
00:22:52,217 --> 00:22:57,371
One of the more important parts of
his tour is in Lambs Conduit Passage
in Holborn.

244
00:23:00,227 --> 00:23:06,507
Airship number L30
came straight above us here
and dropped a 50kg bomb,

245
00:23:06,507 --> 00:23:12,507
striking a lamp post which killed
Henry Coombes, an employee of the
Gas Light and Coke Company, outright.

246
00:23:12,507 --> 00:23:15,327
It blasted in
the Dolphin Public House,

247
00:23:15,327 --> 00:23:21,327
stopping the clock at 10.40 and it's
remained at that time to this day.

248
00:23:21,327 --> 00:23:26,807
The blast then blew its way down
Lambs Conduit Passage,

249
00:23:26,807 --> 00:23:31,314
damaging number seven and number ten
and setting those buildings ablaze.

250
00:23:31,314 --> 00:23:35,674
Mathy continued dropping bombs,
heading towards his primary target,

251
00:23:35,674 --> 00:23:40,364
the textile warehouses
around Bartholomew Close,
in the City of London.

252
00:23:40,364 --> 00:23:45,984
Aboard the L13 was the biggest
bomb yet used in Zeppelin raids.

253
00:23:45,984 --> 00:23:53,954
The L13 was right on target to strike
its main objective, the soft goods
centre just to the east of me.

254
00:23:53,954 --> 00:23:58,834
But avoiding St Paul's Cathedral
that is directly behind us.

255
00:23:58,834 --> 00:24:02,814
Charles Henley, who was the
fire brigade duty fireman

256
00:24:02,814 --> 00:24:09,144
in this mews at the time, heard a
strange noise in the distance, like
the whirr whirr whirr of an engine.

257
00:24:09,144 --> 00:24:12,614
Then all of a sudden
there was an almighty crash.

258
00:24:12,614 --> 00:24:19,087
And when Charles Henley came round,
he looked around him, and the square
was an absolute shambles.

259
00:24:21,424 --> 00:24:25,924
Up there Captain Heinrich Mathy
was looking down.

260
00:24:25,924 --> 00:24:30,244
He said afterwards that within
the funnel of the explosion

261
00:24:30,244 --> 00:24:37,454
of the first 300kg bomb ever to be
dropped on London, all the lights
within that funnel disappeared.

262
00:24:37,454 --> 00:24:41,534
The raid left 26 dead
and 87 injured.

263
00:24:41,534 --> 00:24:48,804
It also caused £500,000 worth of
damage, making it the costliest
air raid of the First World War.

264
00:24:48,804 --> 00:24:53,494
Despite the fact
that just 26 anti-aircraft guns
defended the whole of London,

265
00:24:53,494 --> 00:24:56,864
their effects
that night had worried Mathy.

266
00:24:56,864 --> 00:25:03,144
He would later write to his
wife asking that, "A good angel
will hasten to guard my ship

267
00:25:03,144 --> 00:25:07,422
"against the dangers which throng
the air everywhere about her."

268
00:25:12,474 --> 00:25:15,004
Monkhams Hall Hill
to the north east of London

269
00:25:15,004 --> 00:25:18,144
provides a clear vantage
point over the city.

270
00:25:21,474 --> 00:25:25,274
It's here that the Great War
Archaeology Group have come

271
00:25:25,274 --> 00:25:29,552
to investigate the remains
of a First World War
anti-aircraft position.

272
00:25:31,934 --> 00:25:38,635
This platform was one of the
defensive positions constructed
in a ring of iron around London.

273
00:25:40,184 --> 00:25:44,587
It was the first attempt to defend
the city from an airborne attack.

274
00:25:46,794 --> 00:25:50,214
If this is the first air war
that's ever been fought,

275
00:25:50,214 --> 00:25:54,574
therefore this is the first air
defence system ever established,

276
00:25:54,574 --> 00:25:56,914
where did the guns come from?

277
00:25:56,914 --> 00:25:59,914
Are they made specifically to be
anti-aircraft guns...?

278
00:25:59,914 --> 00:26:02,774
I don't know the answer
to that question. No.

279
00:26:02,774 --> 00:26:07,134
The whole thing is a matter
of improvisation
and working it out as you go along.

280
00:26:07,134 --> 00:26:13,892
It seems these three inch quick
firers were an adaptation
of an ordinary artillery piece.

281
00:26:16,514 --> 00:26:22,844
These were supposed to be able to
fire up to 18,000 feet
straight up into the air.

282
00:26:22,844 --> 00:26:29,354
Now maybe that was in optimum
conditions but it seems occasionally
they could shoot that far.

283
00:26:29,354 --> 00:26:34,514
If they're firing vertically
isn't the danger that stuff's
gonna come down and land on them?

284
00:26:34,514 --> 00:26:38,214
The records suggest that
there's quite a few casualties

285
00:26:38,214 --> 00:26:44,494
by falling fragments of British
anti-aircraft shells
exploding in the sky.

286
00:26:46,044 --> 00:26:48,717
METAL DETECTOR BEEPS

287
00:27:00,574 --> 00:27:05,924
The anti-aircraft guns were not
terribly effective in terms
of shooting things down.

288
00:27:05,924 --> 00:27:12,764
They estimated that you probably
needed to fire 8,000 shells to get
one hit, and not necessarily a kill.

289
00:27:12,764 --> 00:27:17,544
So Zeppelins, generally speaking,
weren't shot down
by the anti-aircraft guns,

290
00:27:17,544 --> 00:27:21,574
but this kind of ring of iron
which built up -

291
00:27:21,574 --> 00:27:27,904
and probably a ten-fold increase
altogether in the number of guns
over the space of about two years -

292
00:27:27,904 --> 00:27:33,115
meant it was increasingly difficult
for the Zeppelins to get into London,
which was their prime target.

293
00:27:42,444 --> 00:27:48,451
90 years on, the metal detectors
can still turn up frightening
reminders of that war.

294
00:27:51,584 --> 00:27:55,008
This time,
an unexploded anti-aircraft shell.

295
00:27:56,784 --> 00:28:01,949
Excavations will have to stop while
the bomb squad removes the shell.

296
00:28:05,364 --> 00:28:11,554
But the military had developed
some less obvious ways of helping
to combat the Zeppelin threat.

297
00:28:11,554 --> 00:28:15,064
The German Zeppelins would
use radio a lot,

298
00:28:15,064 --> 00:28:18,724
which meant you could find out
where they were

299
00:28:18,724 --> 00:28:23,034
by the direction finding technique,
DF'ing as it was known.

300
00:28:23,034 --> 00:28:26,784
And you could track them,
and they were tracked.

301
00:28:26,784 --> 00:28:32,314
You might even be able to read
the codes of where they were going
and what they were doing.

302
00:28:32,314 --> 00:28:37,434
And it was often said that
the British knew where a Zeppelin
was better than its own crew did.

303
00:28:39,774 --> 00:28:45,444
In addition,
the airship was beginning to
reveal its own fatal flaw.

304
00:28:45,444 --> 00:28:52,004
In France, a low flying Zeppelin
had been turned into an inferno
by anti-aircraft fire.

305
00:28:52,004 --> 00:28:57,169
With no parachutes, the crew were
burned alive as their airship fell.

306
00:29:04,194 --> 00:29:11,134
Despite these dangers,
by 1916, the number of raids over
Britain significantly increased.

307
00:29:18,684 --> 00:29:23,134
My mother and all the neighbours
were very, very annoyed to think

308
00:29:23,134 --> 00:29:28,714
that a big thing like that should be
allowed to come across London.

309
00:29:28,714 --> 00:29:34,194
You start getting anti-German riots
in the East End. For example,

310
00:29:34,194 --> 00:29:37,294
there's an anti-German riot
in Stoke Newington.

311
00:29:37,294 --> 00:29:42,124
There are stories of dachshunds
being stoned in the streets.

312
00:29:42,124 --> 00:29:46,294
Anybody who has a German name,
their premises is gonna be targeted.

313
00:29:46,294 --> 00:29:49,994
The shopkeepers, of course,
were the ones who were the targets.

314
00:29:49,994 --> 00:29:53,191
They were hounded out
as quickly as possible.

315
00:29:54,354 --> 00:29:59,849
This made a difference for shopping,
because you missed their shops.

316
00:30:02,654 --> 00:30:06,684
The Germans thought to assess
the impacts of their raids

317
00:30:06,684 --> 00:30:10,393
by interrogating
captured British servicemen.

318
00:30:12,024 --> 00:30:17,274
British officers who were captured
tend to say
that these are of no military value,

319
00:30:17,274 --> 00:30:22,294
they're not hitting military targets,
they're futile, a waste of time.

320
00:30:22,294 --> 00:30:25,384
But what's interesting
is that ordinary British soldiers

321
00:30:25,384 --> 00:30:32,044
who are interrogated by the Germans
would tend to say that they've heard
from their mothers or their wives

322
00:30:32,044 --> 00:30:37,107
that these raids are in fact having
a great impact on morale at home.

323
00:30:45,034 --> 00:30:49,434
In March 1916, the British guns
started to have some success

324
00:30:49,434 --> 00:30:56,103
when the L15, damaged
by anti-aircraft fire, was forced to
ditch in the sea off the Kent coast.

325
00:30:56,103 --> 00:30:58,219
CHURCH BELLS RING

326
00:31:06,413 --> 00:31:12,933
But it was aircraft from the newly
created Home Defence Squadrons which
were to have the biggest impact

327
00:31:12,933 --> 00:31:16,915
in Britain's battle
with the Zeppelins.

328
00:31:18,463 --> 00:31:24,413
In the summer of 2006, the standard
of the RAF's 39 Squadron,

329
00:31:24,413 --> 00:31:30,553
was laid up at St Clement Danes,
the Royal Air Force church
in London's Strand.

330
00:31:30,553 --> 00:31:35,663
The squadron has been disbanded
after 90 years' service.

331
00:31:35,663 --> 00:31:40,543
Formed in May 1916, as one of
four Home Defence Squadrons,

332
00:31:40,543 --> 00:31:44,663
its purpose was to defend
London from the Zeppelin threat.

333
00:31:44,663 --> 00:31:49,733
It was to have a dramatic impact
on the aerial war over Britain.

334
00:31:49,733 --> 00:31:54,183
One of its first pilots
won the Victoria Cross

335
00:31:54,183 --> 00:31:56,763
for his action against the
Zeppelins.

336
00:31:56,763 --> 00:32:03,133
Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson
became an overnight hero when,
on the 3rd of September 1916,

337
00:32:03,133 --> 00:32:06,990
he shot down the first
German airship over British soil.

338
00:32:08,573 --> 00:32:16,073
Leefe Robinson flew close to the
airship and fired a number of rounds
into its hydrogen-filled bags.

339
00:32:16,073 --> 00:32:23,525
As these contemporary photos show,
it sent the SL11 plummeting to the
ground, killing all of its crew.

340
00:32:27,093 --> 00:32:32,293
For his action,
Leefe Robinson was awarded the VC.

341
00:32:32,293 --> 00:32:36,183
But the real breakthrough
was technological.

342
00:32:36,183 --> 00:32:40,073
He was using newly developed
incendiary bullets

343
00:32:40,073 --> 00:32:46,313
which burned as they were fired,
igniting the highly
flammable hydrogen in the airship.

344
00:32:46,313 --> 00:32:51,753
The late summer of 1916
should have been the high spot of
the Zeppelin offensive.

345
00:32:51,753 --> 00:32:54,373
They carry out some mass attacks.

346
00:32:54,373 --> 00:32:57,983
But the British have
the incendiary bullet.

347
00:32:57,983 --> 00:33:04,733
Now the fighters which have got
the organisation to get themselves
in more or less the right place,

348
00:33:04,733 --> 00:33:11,393
with the Zeppelins illuminated
by searchlights, are able to fire
large numbers of explosive

349
00:33:11,393 --> 00:33:17,763
and incendiary bullets
in a very nasty mix,
into the gas bags of the Zeppelins.

350
00:33:17,763 --> 00:33:21,283
It has a tremendous impact,
so there's stories of people

351
00:33:21,283 --> 00:33:24,563
coming out into the streets,
dancing with joy, singing.

352
00:33:24,563 --> 00:33:27,987
Somebody's playing the bagpipes,
it's reported in one place.

353
00:33:29,533 --> 00:33:34,643
The loss of the SL11 was felt hard
by the airship crews in Germany.

354
00:33:34,643 --> 00:33:39,373
None more so than the now notorious
Zeppelin commander, Heinrich Mathy.

355
00:33:39,373 --> 00:33:44,393
He wrote to his wife, "The war
is becoming a serious matter.

356
00:33:44,393 --> 00:33:50,483
"It is my earnest wish that you be
spared this most heavy of sacrifice
for the fatherland,

357
00:33:50,483 --> 00:33:57,286
"and that I may remain with you,
to surround you with love,
as a garment."

358
00:33:59,253 --> 00:34:04,223
On the night of the 24th of
September 1916, Germany launched

359
00:34:04,223 --> 00:34:09,843
a 12 Zeppelin raid against Britain,
commanded by Heinrich Mathy in L31.

360
00:34:12,843 --> 00:34:17,212
The airships were met by heavy
resistance from British defences.

361
00:34:23,863 --> 00:34:27,003
EXPLOSIONS AND GUN FIRE

362
00:34:30,613 --> 00:34:36,193
The first victim was L33, which,
having dropped incendiary bombs

363
00:34:36,193 --> 00:34:40,743
on the East End of London,
was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

364
00:34:40,743 --> 00:34:44,913
Losing gas, she was forced
to land in a field in Essex.

365
00:34:44,913 --> 00:34:51,383
So little hydrogen remained
that the crew were unable to
destroy her before surrendering.

366
00:34:51,383 --> 00:34:57,293
The British forces even
managed to salvage one of
the engines for later use.

367
00:34:57,293 --> 00:35:04,183
All of the crew of the L33 survived
the crash. They were the lucky ones.

368
00:35:04,183 --> 00:35:10,133
For that same night Mathy and his
crew up in L31, watched in horror

369
00:35:10,133 --> 00:35:16,231
as they saw their sister ship,
the L32, burst into flames
and plunge to the earth.

370
00:35:26,493 --> 00:35:30,573
L32 had been hit
by the new incendiary bullets,

371
00:35:30,573 --> 00:35:34,743
and crashed here
at Great Bursted in Essex.

372
00:35:34,743 --> 00:35:40,843
Because of weight restrictions,
the Zeppelin crews were
forbidden to carry parachutes.

373
00:35:40,843 --> 00:35:43,414
All of the crew died in the crash.

374
00:35:46,233 --> 00:35:49,413
The pilot
who had shot the airship down

375
00:35:49,413 --> 00:35:56,216
was Lieutenant Frederick Sowery,
also of 39 Squadron, seen
here with VC winner Leefe Robinson.

376
00:35:57,663 --> 00:36:01,373
When Mathy was asked by reporters
in Germany whether,

377
00:36:01,373 --> 00:36:06,383
in the event of being attacked
he would burn or jump, he replied,

378
00:36:06,383 --> 00:36:09,953
"I won't know until it happens."

379
00:36:09,953 --> 00:36:16,233
In L31,
Mathy and his crew were filled
with a deep sense of foreboding.

380
00:36:16,233 --> 00:36:21,103
"It is only a question of time
before we all join the rest.

381
00:36:21,103 --> 00:36:26,313
"If anyone should say that
he was not haunted
by visions of burning airships,

382
00:36:26,313 --> 00:36:28,235
"then he would be a braggart. '

383
00:36:31,703 --> 00:36:36,675
It was to be just a week before his
dark fears were to become realised.

384
00:36:41,823 --> 00:36:44,783
On one particular night,

385
00:36:44,783 --> 00:36:50,313
my father came and picked me up
from underneath the table,

386
00:36:50,313 --> 00:36:55,933
took me up to the front door,
lifted me up

387
00:36:55,933 --> 00:37:00,483
and, from the front door
we looked due north,

388
00:37:00,483 --> 00:37:05,841
and there was this Zeppelin
coming down in flames.

389
00:37:07,423 --> 00:37:14,033
What Jack Brown saw that night
was almost certainly
the flaming remains of Zeppelin L31,

390
00:37:14,033 --> 00:37:17,230
with Heinrich Mathy
and his crew on board.

391
00:37:20,923 --> 00:37:27,396
L31 crashed in a mass of flames,
here at Potters Bar
in Hertfordshire.

392
00:37:28,473 --> 00:37:32,643
Mathy and his entire crew
perished in the crash.

393
00:37:32,643 --> 00:37:36,013
The downing of L31 was carried out

394
00:37:36,013 --> 00:37:42,113
by Second Lieutenant Wulstan Tempest
of the, by now, famous 39 Squadron.

395
00:37:42,113 --> 00:37:46,613
Tempest described the
final moments of the airship.

396
00:37:46,613 --> 00:37:51,118
"I saw her go red inside,
like an immense Chinese lantern."

397
00:37:53,313 --> 00:37:58,283
When Mathy's L31 is shot down
by Tempest in October of 1916,

398
00:37:58,283 --> 00:38:02,313
because he has this fear
of burning, Mathy jumps.

399
00:38:02,313 --> 00:38:07,893
And there are these famous
pictures of the imprint of the
body where it landed in the field.

400
00:38:07,893 --> 00:38:13,525
He was still alive, just,
when they found him, but he died
almost immediately afterwards.

401
00:38:20,643 --> 00:38:25,753
At the funeral of the crew of L31
at Potters Bar in Hertfordshire,

402
00:38:25,753 --> 00:38:29,323
the Last Post was sounded.

403
00:38:29,323 --> 00:38:32,883
The Zeppelin commander's coffin
bore the simple inscription,

404
00:38:32,883 --> 00:38:34,523
Commander Mathy,

405
00:38:34,523 --> 00:38:39,222
died on service,
October the 1st 1916.

406
00:38:46,753 --> 00:38:52,053
Back in Germany the news of Mathy's
death was greeted with disbelief.

407
00:38:52,053 --> 00:38:54,723
As one officer wrote,

408
00:38:54,723 --> 00:39:00,443
"With him, the life and soul of
our airship service went out too."

409
00:39:00,443 --> 00:39:06,873
The fact that the British
were able to bring down the man
who's generally recognised,

410
00:39:06,873 --> 00:39:12,723
both by the British and the Germans,
as a kind of the ace of aces
is highly significant.

411
00:39:12,723 --> 00:39:19,993
Coming on top of those successes
the month before, it marks the end
pretty much of the Zeppelin threat.

412
00:39:19,993 --> 00:39:25,763
But head of the Naval Air Service,
Peter Strasse,
was not about to give up.

413
00:39:25,763 --> 00:39:30,213
He ordered a new flight of super
Zeppelins, the height climbers.

414
00:39:30,213 --> 00:39:35,323
The original advantage
that the Zeppelins had
was their superior operating height.

415
00:39:35,323 --> 00:39:41,752
Once British aircraft could
reach that altitude,
the airships became easy targets.

416
00:39:41,752 --> 00:39:46,442
To regain their advantage, the
Zeppelins needed to fly even higher.

417
00:39:46,442 --> 00:39:51,922
And so by 1917, the first of these
high flying Zeppelins was delivered

418
00:39:51,922 --> 00:39:55,302
and the Germans try to exploit that.

419
00:39:55,302 --> 00:39:59,892
Unfortunately, if you fly high,
you have oxygen problems,

420
00:39:59,892 --> 00:40:07,632
the crews get intoxicated,
they go slightly mad in fact
from the effects of no oxygen.

421
00:40:07,632 --> 00:40:11,752
You freeze as you haven't
got any heating systems.

422
00:40:11,752 --> 00:40:15,832
You can't see the targets
quite often, let alone hit them.

423
00:40:15,832 --> 00:40:21,642
You can't stay up there forever
and, when you come down,
as you approach your bases,

424
00:40:21,642 --> 00:40:27,421
or as you get even more lost
because you're flying so high,
then you become vulnerable again.

425
00:40:30,272 --> 00:40:34,772
So vulnerable were these
new airships that L48,

426
00:40:34,772 --> 00:40:41,752
which crashed at Theberton in
Suffolk, was shot down on its very
first bombing raid over England.

427
00:40:41,752 --> 00:40:45,552
I don't think we hoped
there'd be anyone survive.

428
00:40:45,552 --> 00:40:50,472
I think there was a sort of feeling
that they'd come over to bomb us,

429
00:40:50,472 --> 00:40:55,912
so if we'd got them first
we were pleased about it, that
was how you looked upon the war.

430
00:40:55,912 --> 00:41:00,281
You don't want them sailing over
you and dropping everything.

431
00:41:03,832 --> 00:41:08,382
But even as the Allies toasted their
victories over the downed airships,

432
00:41:08,382 --> 00:41:12,372
the Germans were about to unleash
their new terror weapon.

433
00:41:12,372 --> 00:41:14,712
The bomber.

434
00:41:14,712 --> 00:41:19,772
And the Gotha was the first bomber
with the range to reach England.

435
00:41:19,772 --> 00:41:24,552
The first raid
by heavy aircraft is in May of 1917.

436
00:41:24,552 --> 00:41:28,822
It's on Folkestone and
you get a lot of public indignation.

437
00:41:28,822 --> 00:41:33,652
One of the great shocks
for the British is that aircraft
will arrive in daylight

438
00:41:33,652 --> 00:41:39,552
and therefore, in theory, they can
see their targets that much better
and do that much more damage.

439
00:41:39,552 --> 00:41:45,652
The first daylight bomber raid on
London was on June the 13th 1917.

440
00:41:45,652 --> 00:41:53,522
I think the bombs fell somewhere
around 11 o'clock in the morning,
if I remember rightly.

441
00:41:53,522 --> 00:41:59,904
Jack Brown was six at the time,
at school in Poplar,
in London's East End.

442
00:42:00,932 --> 00:42:07,262
Our teacher said, "Oh well,
let's have some air raid drill."

443
00:42:07,262 --> 00:42:14,432
Which consisted of pulling
down the flap of the desk and
getting underneath, which we did.

444
00:42:14,432 --> 00:42:17,202
And we'd no sooner got underneath it

445
00:42:17,202 --> 00:42:20,342
than all the glass
and everything fell in

446
00:42:20,342 --> 00:42:27,142
and there was smoke and fumes and all
sorts of things around the place.

447
00:42:27,142 --> 00:42:32,102
A single bomb hit the roof,
passing through two floors,

448
00:42:32,102 --> 00:42:36,932
before exploding in the infant class
next door to where Jack was sitting.

449
00:42:36,932 --> 00:42:42,792
It's all silent in my memory,
I don't remember a bang as such.

450
00:42:42,792 --> 00:42:47,536
Whether the bang deafened
me or what, I don't know.

451
00:42:49,072 --> 00:42:54,422
Even when I remember the glass all...
coming in

452
00:42:54,422 --> 00:43:00,622
and smashing down
all over the place, I still
don't associate sound with it.

453
00:43:02,442 --> 00:43:06,192
I remember there was no panic,
no fear,

454
00:43:06,192 --> 00:43:10,922
because it was so new
and so sudden and everything

455
00:43:10,922 --> 00:43:16,792
that the children were just
bewildered I think, and stunned.

456
00:43:18,372 --> 00:43:22,452
So then we walked
out into the playground.

457
00:43:22,452 --> 00:43:24,702
While I was standing there,

458
00:43:24,702 --> 00:43:29,446
the caretaker came out with
the first of the bodies.

459
00:43:31,502 --> 00:43:36,382
In all, 18 children from the
school died in the attack.

460
00:43:36,382 --> 00:43:39,055
Another 37 were injured.

461
00:43:41,392 --> 00:43:47,162
Then afterwards, when I got home, my
mother came tearing down the street

462
00:43:47,162 --> 00:43:50,912
with one shoe on
and the other one in her hand.

463
00:43:50,912 --> 00:43:55,362
Always remember her now,
tearing down.

464
00:43:55,362 --> 00:43:58,650
And of course, um... Ha.

465
00:44:00,192 --> 00:44:03,802
I don't know,
she just stopped and looked at me.

466
00:44:03,802 --> 00:44:06,862
What happened after that
I don't remember.

467
00:44:10,782 --> 00:44:15,572
Andrew Hyde's uncle was one of
the children killed by the bomb.

468
00:44:15,572 --> 00:44:22,932
Five-year-old George Hyde is buried,
along with the other children in a
mass grave not far from the school.

469
00:44:22,932 --> 00:44:27,852
Well, the local reaction obviously,
was just one of absolute devastation

470
00:44:27,852 --> 00:44:34,462
and probably most of the local
area had children at the school,
it was a large school.

471
00:44:34,462 --> 00:44:36,712
They just couldn't believe it.

472
00:44:36,712 --> 00:44:43,936
The fact that Germans could come
over and kill indiscriminately
and without any resistance.

473
00:44:45,662 --> 00:44:48,382
Well, the next morning,

474
00:44:48,382 --> 00:44:50,912
we went back to the school again,

475
00:44:50,912 --> 00:44:53,822
and when we got there,

476
00:44:53,822 --> 00:44:59,022
Mr Denner, the headmaster,
was there with the school register

477
00:44:59,022 --> 00:45:04,272
and he stood there, reading
the names out from the register,

478
00:45:04,272 --> 00:45:06,482
and I remember

479
00:45:06,482 --> 00:45:13,042
that as he stood there and the
names came out, he was crying.

480
00:45:13,042 --> 00:45:16,322
He was also a big man,

481
00:45:16,322 --> 00:45:20,072
so it was making
a big impression on me

482
00:45:20,072 --> 00:45:26,492
that a man of his stature
and his importance in my life,

483
00:45:26,492 --> 00:45:32,212
to see him actually brought to this,
er, stage...

484
00:45:32,212 --> 00:45:36,581
was...quite a shock.

485
00:45:38,270 --> 00:45:43,090
Thousands thronged the route of
the children's funeral procession.

486
00:45:43,090 --> 00:45:46,423
It was the biggest London's
East End had ever had.

487
00:45:48,440 --> 00:45:51,630
Condolence cards were
given to the families.

488
00:45:51,630 --> 00:45:58,470
In addition to the more innocent
cards which were presented to
each of the victims' families,

489
00:45:58,470 --> 00:46:02,691
was a more general card
which quite starkly stated...

490
00:46:05,830 --> 00:46:11,460
Which fairly reflects the mood
of the people at that time,
especially that stage in the war.

491
00:46:11,460 --> 00:46:16,807
And the total hatred
towards which the
Germans and the Kaiser were held.

492
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:23,550
Many subscribed to a fund
for a memorial to the children,

493
00:46:23,550 --> 00:46:28,000
which still stands to this day
in a park close to the school.

494
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,520
Public indignation remained high.

495
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:36,820
One chap was recorded as saying,
"Fair fighting between men
one doesn't mind,

496
00:46:36,820 --> 00:46:41,610
"but making war on women and
children just isn't right,
it's the work of beasts."

497
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:50,656
The Upper North Street School
almost certainly was not
the bomber's target.

498
00:46:53,550 --> 00:46:59,270
The bomb aiming in those days
must have been pretty primitive.

499
00:46:59,270 --> 00:47:02,888
And instead of hitting the docks,
they hit the school.

500
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,470
A lot of, um,

501
00:47:07,470 --> 00:47:10,010
propaganda at the time.

502
00:47:10,010 --> 00:47:13,660
All the newspapers and
everybody was led to believe,

503
00:47:13,660 --> 00:47:20,460
or to assume, that they come over
deliberately to bomb that school.

504
00:47:20,460 --> 00:47:25,250
But of course, that sort of thing
still happens today, doesn't it?

505
00:47:27,910 --> 00:47:32,130
Compared to the carnage
of the Western Front,

506
00:47:32,130 --> 00:47:38,239
the number of casualties from
Britain's first blitz was tiny.

507
00:47:42,870 --> 00:47:49,010
But the terror
visited upon a civilian population
was every bit as horrific

508
00:47:49,010 --> 00:47:53,379
as occurred 25 years later
in the Second World War.

509
00:47:56,460 --> 00:48:00,450
First the Zeppelins
and then the Gothas,

510
00:48:00,450 --> 00:48:03,210
created a template
for future bombing campaigns

511
00:48:03,210 --> 00:48:08,933
where civilians would become
integral targets of war.

512
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:31,570
Do you, or any of your family, have
any memories of the first blitz,
or that of World War Two?

513
00:48:31,570 --> 00:48:35,790
Log on to our website
and share your memories.

514
00:48:35,790 --> 00:48:41,046
Go to bbc.co.uk/timewatch