ZEPPELINS PRACTICE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 14, 19 February 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

ZEPPELINS PRACTICE.

Zeppelin Airships have proved useless lor tlie purpose ot war on land, but, it line been learned from a gentleman now safe in England that they are vigorously practising how they will sink the Allies' fleets. Til© informant (says the Rotterdam correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph") was attached to the statf of a. lady whose brother s a memb?r of the House of Lords. He has had some oxtraordniary~\adventures, due to the fact that although he is over age for military service he has a youthful appearance. He was several times arrested, and would have been glad of the food which the prisoners at Douglas made an excuse for revolt. Once he was left for thirty-six hours stripped of Ins clothes, foodless, and in solitary conlinement. 'lhe prison food when ho got it—consisted of warm water tinted with coffee, some black bread, and once a day a plato of unpalatable bean soup. For this the Germans charged his two marks a day, paying themselves out of th 0 money found on him. He has just returned from Bavar:a. where he had tli- bad luck to be when war was declared and when out of prison ho watched with field-glasses the . manoeuvres of the Zeppelins over a military area. They ascended to a height winch ho heard "they considered a sufficient safeguard against gun-fire, antl on arriving there dropped "great beat-shap-ed weights,'' which wei> obviously unloaded bombs. The target was a wooden erection covering an area roughly approximate to the deck of a battleship. When the bombs hit they crashed through the stoutest beams as if they were matchwood. The informant watcheel it through his field-glasses with the intention of laying what information hp could ascertain before the proper authorities when he should reach England. His favourite vantage-point was the roof of the house in which he lodged.

lie lodged. . „ , ■ , One day, despite all precautions he look, bo was startled by a bullet crashing through the back door, and returning by a roundabout way. jpined in tho snv hunt.