ZEPPELIN WRECK.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1921, 2 December 1913, Page 12

ZEPPELIN WRECK.

STORY OF THE DISASTER, SHROUD OF FIRE AND SMOKE. LOSS OF 28 LIVES. Tho full story of the terrible airslup disaster in Germany last month is told in the "Daily Mail" of October 16, to hand by last night's mail: — The great now Zeppelin nriship 1/2, which belonged to the Gorman-navy, was, as stated in the cable messages at the- time, destroyed, and all her twentyeight occupants wero killed. The L 2, which was the largest airship in the world, was an improved ami enlarged copy of tho first naval Zeppelin, the LI, which only a month ago was caught in a storm in the North Sea, off Heligoland, and sank, with a loss (if fourteen lives. With this fresh disaster the German navy has lost all its airship officers except one. In addition to tho loss of the L 2, three German military airmen have been hilled, and live- others injured., Tho L 2 left the naval airship station in Jbhannisthal Aerodrome, near Berlin, at 10.15 in tho morning, when there was no wind blowing. Five minutes later an explosion occurred. The airship suddenly burst 'into flames from stem to stern. Within a minute it fell to the earth, about 500 ft. below, with a great crash. Preparatory to an official test flight to Hamburg and back, tho L 2 started 011 a practice cruise round Berlin, Tho flight was for the purpose of testiii>; her altitudo rudders. The number of persons in this airship was more than that usually carried. Earlier ill tho morning 011 a of the motors had proved refractory, but it was put- right, and the weather was ideal, so it was decided to make tho voyage. Tho airship circled the aerodrome, and then sailed off to the west, rising at an angle of about 15 degrees. A few minutes later a battalion of sappers engaged in a practice march saw a ionguo of flamo shoot from tho forward car. Tho flames spread to the envelope and to the other end of the vessel. Almost instantly the airship was <>vorywh.oro ablaze, and enveloped in flames and white smoke.

Envelops of Flames. Burning fragments of the canvas envelops fell to tho earth. Eye-wit-nesses state that at this juncture at least a dozen of the occupants fell from the vessel. Shrieks could lie heard above the roar of tho motors, which wcro still running. Then followed three deafening explosions, of such force that hundreds of windows -n Jolmnnisthal were shattered. A panic occurred among the- school children there, who imagined that an earthquake had taken place. Immediately aftortfards the giant skeleton of tho half-destroyed airship buckled amidships and fell to earth, enveloped in flames nnd smoke. Tho sappers and others who witnessed tho accident hastened to tho scene to do what rescue work they could. They had como too late. Tho 1/2 was demolished. Tho wreckage was still so hot that at lirst nobody dared approach it to rcmovo tho two or three occupants who wore still alive, Tho moans of the dying nwn ceasc-d before willing hands could reach thorn. Several moil were removed just alive, but they-breathed their last a minute or two after being laid on the ground. Only Lieutenant Baron von lilticl, commander of the troop of Augusta Guards on duty at Johannisthal ;,s auxiliary airship troops, who had gone up in the L 2 as the guest of his friend Captain Krcycr, was conscious when his body was cxtricatcd. He was in agony from burns on tho head, face, legs, and hands, and chrieked repeatedly while being carried away in tho ambulance, "For Heaven's sake, kill me, kill me!" Ho died in hospital at five o'clock in tho afternoon. The bodies of tho other occupants wcro terribly burned nnd all were unrecognisable except tho captain of the airshin ivbo bad drawn his loather uniform over his head for the purpose of avoiding suffocation. Tho bodies were wrapped in sail cloth and tho L 2's own signal flags, which were recovered undamaged, and conveyed to the naval airship she!

Death at Their Posts, It will bo impossible to identify man? of tho victims, stated the "Mail's" correspondent. Several of them lost arm-3 and legs. The wife of a mechanic who was killed was enabled to recognise her husband only by his name inside a cap. Sho swooned with her baby in hor arms. Tho positions in which the victims wore found showed that some had d'.ed at their posts. Captain .Freyer and other officers met their doom ill. the special car hung far forward from which tho airship was navigated. Naval mceiianifcs lay dead alongside the wrecked engines. Captain Frcyer had made a vain attempt to savo himself by clinging to a steei cable, round which his burnt fingers were found clasped. The airship fell in a field of stubble a few hundred yards from tho aerodrome. When 1 arrived there this morning, states the correspondent writing on tho fallowing day, . tho wreckage was still smouldering. The proudest airship in the world lay a tangled mass of aluminium stays, broken engines, petrol and oil tanks, and propellers, ivith the tattered remains of tlie gas-containing envelope. This was burned into thousands of curious little fragments which looked like pieces or Yorkshire pudding. Almost everybody who had already reaehed the field had" taken one as a souvenir. The heavier parts of tile airship fell with such a- momentum that they buried themselves ill the ground. Some pieces or wrccknge were SOOi't. away. The framework at tlie stern buckled as it fell. A V-shaped mass projected into tho air from the charred debris, with the canvas rudders undamaged. As soon as the rescue party it as satisfied that nothing could ue rlono for the occupants, their attention was • turnc-d to tin.) remains of the airship. It was, 1 thought, as if a strong man had taken the shell of an egg and crushed it and then scathed the pieces in a flame. Tho great petrol tanks fell to tho ground burning fiercely. One of tho propellers scented fairly intact, but tho engines and other intricate equipment—tho wireless installation, the searchlights, the machino guns, tho meteorological ai>parntus. and the bomb-dropping ntechaiiism—were a wretched, indiscriminate heap. Fato of Captain and Officers. The officers killed include the six; members of an Admiralty Commission which was in the vessel to malm an official .inspection, Tiie Commission was < headed by Captain Belmiseh, Captain (timid, who commanded the Zeppelin Z 4 on the occasion of her involuntary landing in French territory at .Lime* ville in tho spring, was also a member. I'rineo Adalbert, the Kaiser's sailor son. arrived at the scene of tho wreck while 1 was there. He mourns the hiss iif 'Captain Trenk, who was once his aide-de-camp. Captain llelmiseli, tins iiead of the Admiralty Comimsttion, was formerly mitigating officer in the. Imperial yacht, llohenzollcrn and commanded" tho I'auther on tin') occasion of Iter visit to Agadir in 101.1, which was followed by the Frniico-O'erman Moroccan crisis. Scores of officers in chit run of troops 1 voucd off the remains of the airship

froth Uitt crowd, which grew to thousands later in tlse tiuy.' "Wo shall probably never knew the actual cause,'' suitl oiic naval officer. "VtV urn dependent on the conljieUiig accounts of alleged c.vo-witncsscs." Ail expert suggests two possibilities as to iho cause of tlie accident. 1. Accidental ignition of petrol vapour from tlie petrol tanks. 2. Ignition of petrol vapour hy an electrical spark from tiio wireless apparatus. In the afternoon the Zeppelin passenger airship llansa Hew over Berlin from Hamburg oblivious of the into of the MTim wreck of the airship cast a gloom over the national celebration oi the centenary of "the Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig, when the Kaiser and oilier Federal Sovereigns ol tlio German L'mpiro dedieaied the great mdniorm! monument on the lield where Napoleon was defeated by the _ allied armies of Prussia, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. One invited guest will bo missing from the festivities—Count Zeppelin, who learned of the destruction of his newest airship at the railway station at Munich when h® was on his way to Leipzig. The veteran airship constructor, who piloted the L' 2 ois her maiden flight n few weeks ago. was heartbroken at tho news of her l'ato and immediately abandoned his journoy to Leipzig, returning- by the first train to I'riedlichslmfen, "where ho builds his air craft. German opinion. Tho "Berliner TnEcblatt" says; ''After tho recent experience it can unfortunately 110 longer be maintained that Zeppelin air craft are absolutely reliable instruments of war." Tho "Taeglicho Rundschau," the organ of the naval and military classes and tlio cliief advocate of airships* says: "Tho loss of tho L' 2, which was not only a scouting ship, but also a battleship, will notj and must not, in tlio slightest degree shatter our confidence in tlio ability of the Zeppelins to lead us to victory."

previous olsastors. Tho following is a list- of previous accidents to airships of the Zeppelin typo:— . "Zl," built 1900, destroyed samn year. "Z2,' - ' destroyed January, 1907. "7Abuilt 1908, destroyed at Bob terdingen, Wurttemberg, August •'}, 1908. V "LZT" {"Deutschlanu"), _ built 1910, wrecked in. Teuioburger Wald, June, I'JIO. "LZG," built 1909, burned at Badenlinden, September 14, 1910. "Schwaben," passenger airsliip, do stroyod at Dusscklorf, June, 1912. "Ersatz, Zl," lniilt 1912, wrecked al Karlsruhe, March 19, 1913. "LI, 11 naval airship, built 1912, sunk off Heligoland, September 9, 1913. Fourteen lives lost.' The recent disaster in the North Sea is the only accident to a Zeppelin airships previous to this calamity which has occasioned loss of lifc._ Two notable disasters to vessels of other types, attended by loss of life, wore the destruction of the French army airship "Rcpubliquo," in September, 1000) which cost the lives of four men, and the loss c-f the Gorman airship "Erbsloh," in July, 1910, when five men were killed.