To Kiel in the 'Hercules'Freeman, Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome)
History
To Kiel in the 'Hercules'
Freeman, Lewis R. (Lewis Ransome)
Allied Naval Armistice Commission; Hercules (Battleship); World War, 1914-1918 -- Air-fleet bases, Naval -- Germany
The sheds are built in pairs, standing side by side, and on a plan which
has brought each pair on the circumference of a circle two kilometres
in diameter. The chord of the arc drawn from one pair of sheds to the
next in sequence is a kilometre in length, while the same distance
separates each pair on the circumference from the huge revolving shed
in the centre of the circle. The whole plan has something of the mystic
symmetry of an ancient temple of the sun. Of the half-dozen pairs of
sheds necessary to complete the circle, four had been constructed and
were in use. Each shed was built to house two airships, or four for the
pair. This gave a capacity of sixteen Zeppelins for the four pairs of
sheds, while the two housed in the revolving shed in the centre brought
the total capacity of the station up to eighteen--a larger number, I
believe, than were ever over England at one time.
Scarcely less impressive than the immensity of the sheds and the broad
conception of the general plan of the station was the solidity of
construction. Everything, from the quarters of the men and the officers
to the hangars themselves, seemed built for all time, and to play its
part in the fulfilment of some far-reaching plan. Costly and scarce as
asphalt must have been in Germany, the many miles of roads connecting
the various sheds were laid deep with it, and, as I had a chance to see
where repairs were going on, on a heavy base of concrete. The sheds
were steel-framed, concrete-floored, and with pressed asbestos sheet
figuring extensively in their sides. All the daylight admitted (as we
saw presently) filtered through great panes of yellow glass in the roof,
shutting out the ultra-violet rays of the sun, which had been found to
cause airship fabric to deteriorate rapidly.
The barracks of the men were of brick and concrete, and were built with
no less regard for appearance than utility. So, too, the officers'
quarters and the Casino, and the large and comfortable-looking houses
for married officers I have already mentioned. All had been built very
recently, many in the by no means uneffective "New Art" style, to the
simple solidity of which the Germans seemed to have turned in reaction
from the Gothic. Beyond all doubt Germany was planning years ahead with
Nordholz, both as to war and peace service. They were quite frank in
speaking of the ambitions they still have in respect of the latter, and
(from casual remarks dropped once or twice by officers) I should be very
much surprised if their plans for developing the Zeppelin as a super-war
machine have been entirely shelved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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