Zeppelin caught in searchlights somewhere over Blighty. One wonders whether the original caption, which, if you look closely, has been erased and overprinted, gave away a place name (and thus the searchlights’ location), and had to be changed?
And another Zeppelin pinned by searchlights, this time with anti-aircraft shells exploding around it, although quite why the explosions are lit up from below I don’t know. Just saying……
I can almost make out the erased words – can anyone decipher?
Imagine the fear of a Zeppelin crew caught in searchlights. I understand Zeppelins at first flew higher than ack ack guns could reach but eventually incendiary bullets could reach and set them on fire with the crew either jumping or burning to death – another horror of war. Zeppelin posters were used to encourage men to join the army – “better to face bullets than be killed at home by a bomb – God Save the King”
Can’t imagine the bravery needed to go up in one of those. Are there numbers for how many were brought down . How many men in each? At least I suppose on the battlefield or plane or ship you had a fighting chance.
Yep. Seventy seven out of 115 Zeppelins were shot down or disabled before the raids stopped in 1917. I think they had a crew of sixteen.
And I would hereby like to announce that entirely and utterly because of you two, nobody will be getting a daily postcard tomorrow!! You’d better hope there turns out to be good reason……
Thankyou M for that information, that was a high percentage, no wonder they stopped them sorry one more question did they inflict much damage in this country? And there was……
Getting on for 1,500 civilians in Britain were killed due to Zeppelin bombing, I believe.