GERMANS ADMIT LOSS OF ZEPPELINS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1915, Page 12 (Supplement)

GERMANS ADMIT LOSS OF ZEPPELINS.

THIRTY-EIGHT DESTROYED. A despatch to the London Daily Express from Geneva says: I learn from a reliable source in Friedriehshafen that the German Headquarters Staff admits the loss of thirty-eight Zeppelins and nine Parseval airships since the war began up to August 1, 1915. Since that date, a further report states, two Zeppelins and one Parseval are missing.

The majority of the airships were brought down by the Allies' aerial guns and the rest suffered accidents while landing.

The average cost of these airships is over £IOO,OOO, while the newest models cost nearly double this sum. Therefore Germany has lost over £5,000,000 in' a year in her airships, bombs from which nave killed or wounded 500 persons. C. G. Grey, editor of The Aeroplane, discussing in the Daily Express reports that Zeppelin sheds are being removed from Brussels to Antwerp, and the fact that Zeppelins arc now verv frequently seen over Holland, suggests 'that the activities of British and French aviators have caused the Germans to make a radical change in their plans. Recently many airship sheds at Brussels and Ghent have been destroyed, and Mr. Grey thinks the German intention is that the raiding headquarters for Zeppelins shall in the future be established at Liege or some other point in Germany Thence they will fly to Antwerp, where they will descend to renew their petrol supply and take up bombs for raids on England, In this way, too, they would have a better chance of evading the Allies' aviators operating from Flanders According to Alfred N. Lawson, the publisher of The Aircraft, the destruction caused in London by the airship raid on September S was not due principally to Zeppelins, but to dirigibles of the Schuette-Lans type. Mr. Lawson says that prior to the war there were three Schuette-Lans dirigibles in commission for the German Government, and several larger airships of an improved type have been constructed since the war began.