The Story of the Great War, Volume 5: Battle of Jutland Bank; Russian Offensive; Kut-El-Amara; East Africa; Verdun; The Great Somme Drive; United States and Belligerents; Summary of Two Years' War
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 5: Battle of Jutland Bank; Russian Offensive; Kut-El-Amara; East Africa; Verdun; The Great Somme Drive; United States and Belligerents; Summary of Two Years' War
World War, 1914-1918
Information of this kind is considered legitimate secrecy and it is
only when files of the British local and trade papers are examined
that an inkling of the real damage is obtained. Fires, boiler
explosions, railway traffic suspensions, and similar highly suggestive
items fill the columns of the papers, after every one of the Zeppelin
raids. On only one occasion, February 2, 1916, has the British War
Office admitted serious military damage in its official communication.
This communication was issued after exaggerated reports of the damage
caused had appeared in the German and neutral press, covering the
Zeppelin raids of January 30-31, 1916, and February 1, 1916, and
admitted officially the following: Bombs dropped totaled 393;
buildings destroyed: three railway sheds, three breweries, one tube
factory, one lamp factory, one blacksmith shop; damaged by explosions:
one munition factory, two iron works, a crane factory, a harness
factory, railway grain shed, colliery and a pumping station. "One of
the spectacular incidents of this raid was the chase of an express
train by the Zeppelin, the train rushing at its utmost speed of
seventy miles an hour into a tunnel, disappearing just as the first
bombs began to drop. The train remained in the tunnel for more than
an hour, waiting for the Zeppelin to fly away!" The official figures
of killed and wounded in this raid are given as sixty-seven killed,
and 117 injured.
During the month of July, reports of the new German super-Zeppelins
began to appear in British reports, and a number of neutral
correspondents endeavored to obtain authentic data concerning them.
Conflicting descriptions arrived from many sources, and it was not
until a Swiss reporter, equipped with extremely powerful glasses,
watched the trial flights of two of these super-Zeppelins above Lake
Constance, that fairly reliable information could be compiled.
One of these airships leaves Friedrichshafen every week for duty in
the North Sea, and the factory on the shore of Lake Constance expects
to be able to complete five machines every month after July, 1916. The
super-Zeppelin has two armored gondolas, without a visible connection,
although it is highly probable that such communication is provided for
within the outer envelope. Each gondola carries six machine guns and,
in addition, two quick-firing guns, as well as an aerial
torpedo-launching device, which was first used in the extensive air
raids on England in the last week of July.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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