HOW I BOMBED LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1915, Page 6

HOW I BOMBED LONDON

ZEPPELIN CAPTAIN'S 8T« RAIDER DESCRIBES OTEIPT ON BANK OF ENGLAND GREAT RESPECT FOR QM mm HOME OFFICE, WHITEHALL., Sept. 2:s. 10] 3. The following is passed for publication with the comment that it contains numerous statements which are quite untrue, and one (to the effect that an anti-aircraft gun has been placed under cover of St. Paul's) which c.-.n only be characterised as a falsehood apparently invented to e.-r;ure what German aircraft are attempting to do.

"THE GOIDEPOST OP THE THAMES." AIRSHIP CAPTAIN DESCRIBES THE RAID, Commander Mathy, one of the Zeppelin raiders, describes in the following interview with Karl von Wiegand, I special correspondent of the New York (World in Germany, the last attack on London as seen from his airship. "London is a vast military centre and military-defended city in every sense of the laws of war, written or unwritten, as applicable to aerial warfare. Property, from the view of aerial attack, so far concerns everything usable for military purposes, such as big railway stations, banks, docks, shipyards, and industrial establishments. If anyone believes London is not 'defended,' and pretty well defended at that, he should have stood by my side in the front gondola of my Zeppelin in my last attack on London a few nights ago and seen the red, angry flashes of scores of cannon belching shrapnel at my craft." So spoke Lieutenant-Commander Mathy, of the Zeppelin aerial cruiser squadron of the German navy. Mathy is commandef of the L , one of Count Zeppelin's latest, biggest, and fastest cruisers, the value of which as scouting craft for the navy has been much under-estimated abroad, and as fighting craft have, as Count Zeppelin told me in February, by no means reached their final development. That, despite their size, they are by no means as easily hit and brought down as has been the general impression is evident from the fact that the Germans lost no Zeppelins in any of the numerous attacks on England. Attacking under the cover of night, coming and going with great speed, and disappearing within a few minutes. they : were like a'vision in the night. The aeroplanes of England's ffy--ing corps have so far proved no defence ag»inst the Zeppelin raids.

to England and L.ic'.c largely on the weather and wind conditions. Well, the weather stations and meteorological balloons attached to the aerial service reported favorable conditions. The colder the weather the more we can carry. The temperature was quite cool when we started, with our magazine full of bombs. "Soon we were out over the North Sea and moving upon England through the air at a lively speed with a favorable wind. Back of us were the receding shores of Germany, below us the whitecapped billows of the North Sea, like a watery desert ii) motion, stretching out as far as we could see, without a sign of life except a single fishing craft." "SUNDAY SCHOOL CREWS." "Of course, we get very cold. Our new Zeppelins are very much faster than a ship, and I always think of the great difference in wind' pressure as compared with when I stood on the bridge of my ship. Formerly when the commander's gondola on the older Zeppelins was entirely open this difference was even more 'marked. Our new craft have something of a protection, in the form of a windbreak. But despite that we get very cold. Especially so on the last trip. We ate before we started, then occasionally took a pull at a thermos bottle of hot coffee or tea."

"Nothing stronger, Commander," I broke in.

"No, absolutely nothing stronger. Zeppelins have neither a bar, a kitchen, nor a dining room. Their crews are teetotallers. We have got to have clear heads up there, and cool, steady nerves, the nerves which spirits don't neces-' sarily furnish. And we can't while away our time between firing—for we call it 'firing' too— and dodging shrapnel by smoking. A Zeppelin is the strictest Sunday school institution. There is no drink;" no smoke. Each man's pockets are his pantry, for he carries a snack. I take a bottle of cognac, along with some first-aid material, in case someone gets hit." "No doctor?"

MATHY'S LUCK. Mathy is a slender nun of, perhaps, 34 years, with closely-cropped liair, which gives him the appearance of an entirely bald, smooth-faced person. He wag formerly commander of a destroyer in the torpedo flotilla. Like officers of submarines I have met, he made the impression of being all nerves, and those nerves of steel. Mathy and his Zeppelin have participated in every attack made on England from the air." His last, which was on the downtown City of London, was his "century Zeppelin run," or hundredth voyage "in t))e,air, counting his training and trial trip's, he told me. "What I call luck has played a big part with me," he declared. And Mathy has indeed been lucky, despite something which I cannot mention but which every superstitious believer in omens and signs would regard as a very magnet of disaster and ill-luck. The day before its destruction he was on a Zeppelin which I saw burned and destroyed in the air above Johannistal two years ago, and only urissed the fatal trip by some magic. He was on a naval Zeppelin the niav before the craft was wrecked in a gtorax on the North Sea off Denmark two vears ago. and in some way missed the voyage on the day of disaster. I asked Mnthy to tell me about his last attack on London. "I will so far as I can without disclosing what might touch upon military secrets," he replied, "and that is pretty much everything about a Zeppelin." "It was my hundredth Zeppelin cruise, counting my training trips, and I was much interested in it because of that, and wondered whether I would safely round out my century," said the commander of the L . "I had taken my Zeppelin in safety to England and back several times, and each trip learned something of value applicable to the next venture. The first time it was something akin to discovering a new country, and my impressions were much more vivid than now. That and some of the following visits were more or less experimental. We had much to learn, despite all our practice and training. It wa3 a new sort of warfare in which we had more or less to feel our way and study aerial strategy, aerial tactics, and to learn to locate in darkness the military points and objects we desired to attack. "We had to study the aerial currents above the North" Sea and England. What we have done to England so far is by no means all that we can do now that we have leraned many things we did not know and that it is necessary to know. The Zeppelin 3 had to be thenown scouts and information gatherers.

"No, we carry no aoctor. If a shrapnel ball hits any one of ub we bandage the wounded man as best we can, and give him a drink of cognac, and he has to wait till we get back. It' we were brought down I guess there would be doctors there if we needed any —winch would be unlikely.- But to return to my narrative."

APPROACINO ENGLAND.

In short, terse, staccato sentences Mathy then told the story of the attack. "As the sun sank in the west we were still a considerable distance out over the North Sea. Below us it was rapidly getting dark, but it was still light up where we were. One side of another Zeppelin in grey war paint, like that of my own craft, was visible in the waning light against the clear sky as it glided majestically through the air. A low mist-like fog hung over the spot in the distance where England was. The stars came out. It grew colder. We took another pull at our thermos bottles and ate something. As we neared the coast 1 set the elevating planes to go still higher, in order that our motors should not disclose our presence too soon. "I cannot tell you exactly the time or place at which we crossed the coastline, as t!>Ht might be of advantage to the enemy. The men went to the gun 3 by which to fight off aeroplanes should we be attacked, and others took up each his post. My lieutenant took his place at the 'firing apparatus' which releases the bombs and controls the speed or rapidity with which they are dropped according to my orders from the bridge or front gondola. It is one of those nights when the distances of objects in looking toward the sky are illusive, and it is difficult to get the range of a rapidly moving object. Our instruments tell us exactly how high we are. THE THAMES GUIDE POST "The mist disappears off the distance, and we can see the Thames Kiver, which points the way to London. The Thames is an indestructible guide post, and a sure road to the great city. The English can darken London as much as they want, but they can never remove or cover up the Thames, from which we can always get our bearings and pick up any point in London we desire. "That doesn't mean that we always come up along the Thames by any means.

"London is darkened, but sufficiently lighted on this night to enable me to see its reflected glow in the sky, sixty kilometres away, shortly before ten o'clock.

"We head straight for the glow in the sky, and then point on the Thames to get our bearings for the objects of my attack. Soon the eity is outlined, still and silent below in the distance. There are dark spots which stand out from the blur of lights in the well-lit portions. The residential sections are not much darkened. It is the dark spots I am after, and I bear down on them as they mark the downtown city. "A large city seen at night from a great height is a fairylike picture. We are too high to see human beings on the streets below. There is no sign of life, except in the distance a moving light, probably from railroad trains. All seems still. No noise ascends from below that can penetrate the spluttering motors and the whirring propellers.

TO SPAKE ST. PAUL'S. "On this occasion, for the first time my instructions were 4° attack certain points in the down-to\\n City of London, such as railway bridges, industrial establishments. I had strict orders to do everything possible to avoid hitting St. Paul's and other churches, museums, the Palace. Westminster Abbey, the Parliament Houses, and, of course, residential districts.

"I want to say there's not an officer or man in the aerial fleet who doesn't feel it as deeply when he learns that women and children and other noncombatants are killed as does a gunner or commander of big guns when he hears his shell didn't strike exactly where he wanted if, to, and resulted in the death and injury of non-combatants. Tn fact, I would much rather stand on the bridge of a. torpedo-boat lighting ship airamtt »ship than attack a city from the air. "Let me iay that a Zeppelin voyage

THE CITY'S FEELERS. "As if in the twinkling of an eyo all this changes. A sudden flash and a narrow band of light reaches out from balow And begins to feel around the

sky. A second, third, fourth, and fifth come out, and soon there are more than a score of criss-crossing ribbons. It looks as if the city has suddenly come to life and is waving its arms around the sky, sending out feelers for the danger that threatens. But our impression is rather that they are tentacles seeking to drag us to destruction. "London keeps a good watch on the sky. Our motors and propellers soon reveal our presence. First one and then another of those ribbons shooting out from the glaring searchlights pick us up. Now from below comes an ominous sound that penetrates the noise of the engines. There are little red flashes and short bursts of fire, which stand out prominently against the black background. From north, from south, from right, and from left they appear, and following flashes there rolls up from below the sound of the guns. It is a beautiful, impressive, but fleeting picture as seen from above, and probably no less interesting from below—the greyish dim outline of the Zeppelin gliding through the waving ribbons of light and the shrapnel cloudlets which hang thickly about us. But we have no time to admire. Our eyes and mind must be concentrated on our work, for any moment we may be plunged below, a shapeless mass of wreckage and unrecognisable human bodies. You saw it at Johannistal two years ago. "I had so little time to register impressions that I have to think back now to give you a descriptive word picture of the scene. When the first searchlight picks you up and you see the first flash of guns from below your nerves get a little shock, but then you steady down and put your mind on what you are there for.

"I picked up St. Paul's and with that point of orientation laid a course for the Bank of England. There was a.big searchlight in the immediate vicinity of St. Paul's and the English had placed a battery of guns under cover of that church, as I could plainly see from the flashes as they belched shrapnel at ns. 'Terhaps from a military standpoint I would, under the circumstances, have been justified in dropping bombs on the battery, which is very near St. Paul's, but I had neither the desire nor the intention to do so, for fear of possibly damaging the church. However, I don't think the English should use their churches, museums, and similar buildings as cover or protection for their guns.

ABOVE THE BANK. "Although we had been fired upon on all sides we had not yet dropped a bomb. Above the Bank of England I shouted through the speaking tube connecting me with my lieutenant at the firing apparatus: 'Fire slowly!' "Now, mingling with the dim thunder from the guns below came ffie explosions and bursting flames of our bombs. With mind solely concentrated on picking out places on the programme for attack as being factors of military bearing on the preparation, concentration, or transportation of troops, or other military use, an 3 on directing the firing, the comparatively short time spent above London appeared much longer than it actually was. We soon observed flames bursting forth from several places. "Over Holborn Viaduct, in the vicinity of Holborn Station, we dropped several bombs. From the Bank of England to the Tower—a short distance—l tried to hit the bridge, and I believe I was successful, but to what extent damage was done I could not determine. "Flashes from the Tower showed that the guns placed there, which I had already observed on a previous attack, were keeping up a lively fire.

RAIN OF BOMBS. "Manoeuvring and arriving directly over Liverpool Street Station, I shouted 'rapid fire' through the tube, and bombs rained down. There was a succession of detonations and bursts of fire, and I could see that I had hit well, and apparently done great damage. This has been confirmed by reliable reports we have since received. Flames burst forth in several places in that vicinity. "Having dropped all my bombs, I turned my TJ' for home. My orders had been carried out, and carried out quickly. Despite the bombardment of the sky we had not been hit.. Several times I leaned out, and looked up and back at the dark outlines of my Zeppelin, but she had no hole in her grey sides. Judged by the damage done and the objects hit, it was my most successful trip to London or its vicinity. Ascending or descending until we found a favorable wind current we made a quick return." "How long were you over London?" I asked the lieutenant-commander, or captain-lieutenant, as is that title in German, and upon whose left breast was the Iron Cross of the First Class. "The main attack was from 10.50 to II p.m.—just ten minutes." "Then Zeppelin tactics of attack are to make a dash to points to be bombarded, and quickly get away?"

"Yes, the attacks must be short and quick." PLAN OF ATTACK. The carefulness with which the plan of attack is studied beforehand developed during our talk. Mathy mentioned figures and seemed to know to a yard how far it was from St. Paul's to the Bank of England, and then to the Tower, and to the different railway stations, and how long it would take a Zeppelin, at a given velocity of kind and given revolutions of the propellers to take him over those distances. He often referred to new instruments and apparatus in use in Zeppelins for navigation, locating, and measuring objects below, and the control and dropping of bombs, which gave me the impression that there has been much research and experimenting, and considerable progress along those lines in recent months. '

There are a number of interesting facts in connection with Zeppelins which, for obvious reasons, I cannot include in this story. Among others is the number of hours it now takes to make a dash to London and to return. There is good reason for assuming that the latest Zeppelins have many improvements, that they are much faster, and can carry more and go higher than formerly. Count Zeppelin told me in February that those were three things he was working on. Asked from what height lie attacked London on his last raid, the Zeppelin commander replied:— RESPECT FOR OUR GUNS. "I am sorry, but I don't want you to give the English their range. They are doing well enough as it is, and learning fast." "Mr. Balfour said London was not a fortified city, and its defences against aerial attack are poor," I ventured. "We know there are several forts and batteries around the city outside, and had he stood by my side a few nights ago and looked into those flashing guns all over he wouldn't say 1-onaon was not a militarily defended city, and perhaps not think so poorly of its aerial defence."

When I asked how many bombs he carried and their size, Mathy remarked that, much as he would like to oblige me, that was a military queatioo.

"We carry two kinds of explosive bombs, shells and firebombs for der struction by fire. 1 canont tell you the size, but they are of tremendous destructive force, as you probably could convince yourself if you could see the neighbourhood of Liverpool Street Station. The number we can carry depends largely on the distance we intend covering, and the quantity of benzine necessary for the motors." Mathy intimated that the new Zeppelins have a considerably greater radius of action than London and back, NO FIGHT WITH AEROPLANE. I asked the Zeppelin commander if he bad ever been attacked by aeroplanes on any of his raids to England. "I have never experienced a fight with an aeroplane," he replied. "In fact, I have never been bothered by them. The men are always at the guns watching for them, but so far none have attempted to attack. We are pretty well prepared for them." He remarked, significantly, "I am not afraid of them, and think I could make it interesting for them, unless perhaps there was a regular swarm." "As to an aeroplane corps for the defence of London, it must be remembered." he said, "that it takes some time: for an aeroplane to screw itself up as higb as a Zeppelin, and by the time it gets there the airship would be gone; then, too, it is most difficult for an aeroplane to land at night, while a Zeppelin can stay up all night, and longer, if need be." NORTH SEA SCOUTING. In my trips to and from Denmark, I had observed Zeppelins as far out as Copenhagen scouting for enemy ships. My impression is that they have been of very valuable service to the German navy as scouts. This is confirmed by some things Mathy said. "What could a fleet of twenty-five or more Zeppelins do in an attack on London!" remarked Mathy. As a parting question I asked the commander: "If you mean an attack without consideration for anything or anyone, would not that be terrible?" "Zeppelins," he said, "could stay much higher than now when we' have to pick out certain points. Such a fleet could probably cause more than a thousand fires, and mean the destruction of the greater part of London; but I don't think there is any danger of that. We have no wish to destroy or kill women and children or other non-combatants."

LATEST GERMAN LIE. ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE BAID. BOMBING THE HEART OF LONDON. (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) Received Nov. 6, 5.5 p.m. London, Nov. 5. The New York American translates a Hamburg newspaper's account of the Zeppelin raid on "London, written by a member of the crew, who states: "Our captain steered by compass straight to London. The crew discussed the situation and agreed that it was right to kill Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George. Wc carried four tons of the most destructive explosives ever created, sufficient to annihilate the heart of London, and which were divided into bombs of hundred pounds. Each of these was discharged from tubes in the floor of the airship by a marksman pressing an electric button, releasing them at an interval of two seconds. "We sailed low, following the Thames, and reached the heart of London. We recognised St. Paul's and went west, into fashionable London, and circled round peppering death into the solar plexus of the British Empire. Beneath us was the Strand, theatres, hotels, houses of Parliament, Government offices, Pall Mall, and Buckingham Palace. "It was a night of terror for London. Searchlights and guns played on us constantly, but we were difficult to hit at a height of eight thousand feet. One shot struck the forepart, and an expert who climbed out to inspect it lost his footing and disappeared. We enjoyed the feeling of tremendous power and security. We threw all our supply of bombs and turned home." The story contains many obvious inaccuracies, such a s the Zeppelin almost collided with the dome of St. Paul's, and that only quick helmsmanship saved it.