Page 4 - Life in Langham 1914-1919

Airships

Sunday 5 March 1916, Langham villagers observed the great bulk of

a Zeppelin passing over Langham and subsequently dropping bombs

near Thistleton, the detonation being heard in the village. This was

probably one of three Zeppelins that had set off to bomb Rosyth on

5–6 March but were forced by high winds to divert to Hull, killing

eighteen, injuring fifty-two and causing £25,005 damage.

[Nearly £2,000,000 at 2016 values]

However, the biggest airship raid was launched on 2-3 September

1916, when twelve German Navy and four Army airships set out to

bomb London. A combination of rain and snowstorms scattered the

airships while they were still over the North Sea. Only one of the

naval airships came within seven miles of central London, and both

damage and casualties were slight. It must be assumed that one of

those, amongst the dispersed airships, was one that was reported

to have bombed Rutland on that date. Mr Beechcroft who was on a

searchlight station at Thistleton recounts that: the intruder had

bombed Nottingham, and that they had warning of its approach.

Its lights could be seen for a long time before it reached them,

although, apart from the droning ‘hum’ there was little noise.

It dropped a stick of bombs from Sewstern to Thistleton,

either six or eight in number, making holes ten feet deep.

Undoubtedly, the detonations would have been heard in Langham

just like those heard in earlier in March 1916. This so called

‘Zeppelin’ could have been made by the other German airship

company Schütte-Lanz. (The public called both types of airships

Zeppelins). It was soon realised that airships were vulnerable to

explosive shells, which set light to the hydrogen, often in

spectacular fashion. Zeppelin raids were called off in 1917, by

which time seventy-seven out of the one hundred and fifteen

German Zeppelins had been shot down or totally disabled.