GERMAN DISASTER

Evening Star, Issue 19781, 3 February 1928, Page 7

GERMAN DISASTER

A WAR-TIME INCIDENT . DESTRUCTION OF ZEPPELINS DETAILS HOW HADE PUBLIC Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. BERLIN, February 2. (Received February 3, at 10.50 a.m.) The reported arrest of the sergeantmajor lias set all Germany speculating on the cause of the staggering catastrophe occasioned by the destruction of the Ahlhorn airship station, the details of which have hitherto been jealously withheld from publication. The newspapers now lengthily review the conflagration, pointing out that the official theory of the baffling occurrence at the time was that it was accidental. It is declared that the whole of the navy stood aghast before the ruins. It was an evil omen for the year 1918. Nearly the entire garrison was in barracks when, without warning, the countryside became illuminated' by an immense column from the hangars. The flames rose to a height of 600 ft. There was a terrific report, and the barracks shook and the buildings collapsed. In startling succession the three remaining hangars blew up, although they were separated by a- distance of half a mile. The ground was littered with debris for miles. Five Zeppelins were destroyed and thirty men killed and 100 injured. [A previous message from Berlin said:—The political police arrested an ex-sergeant-major of the German Imperial Air Force, now a landowner in the State of Oldenburg, who is alleged to have been a British spy and to have set fire to the Ahlhorn aerodrome in Oldenburg in December, 1917, when it. contained six Zeppelins which were ready to depart on a bombing flight over England. The pclico are most secretive, and refuse to reveal the details as to identity and the place of arrest.]