Society talk

SUTTON Bonington Local

History Society’s talk this month was by Stephen Flinders, was billed as “Terror from the Skies – January 1916, The Night the Zeppelins Came”.

Otherwise known as the “Great Midlands Zeppelin Raid” the actual target was Liverpool, who can imagine getting that lost in these days of GPS and Satnav’s.

Herr Zeppelin got the idea for his aircraft whilst he was acting as an observer during the American Civil war and noted the use of helium filled balloons as observation platforms to see further over the horizon.

When he started to design the Zeppelins, as they became known, he was nothing if not determined as the first four prototypes crashed and burned.

By the time of WW1 these machines were absolute monsters, 588 feet long, capable of 3000 miles at about 50mph with a 980hp engine. Navigation was a bit hit and miss, when in cloud a man was lowered on a rope from the Zeppelin, with a telephone, until he could see the ground and phone instructions back to the captain.

We all know the outcome of Zeppelin L20’s arrival over Loughborough at about 8pm on the 31ST Jan. 1916, Loughborough was ill prepared with all the gas lights still on and therefore an easy target , 10 people were killed and 8 injured and 2 were awarded OBE’s for their valiant attempts to turn out the lights.

The Echo has covered this story many times. Having failed to find Liverpool, L20 moved on to Ilkeston, attracted by the glow from Stanton Iron works and believing it to be Sheffield. More bombs were dropped, 2 people killed and 20 school girls had a near miss having moved out of the church rooms just before a bomb demolished the building. L20 then moved on to Burton on Trent and, seeing a river with buildings on both sides, probably assumed this was Liverpool and bombed it.

Burton was bombed three times that night with 15 dead and 72 injured. In total there were nine Zeppelins in the raid spread all over the Midlands. On a lighter note a black pudding was blown into the street, from a butchers, and the finders of this delicacy lived well on their find for the rest of the week.

By late 1916 Zeppelins were becoming vulnerable to improved ammunition which could set light to the gas in the balloon with catastrophic results and their activities ceased, but not before 557 people had been killed in the raids. Colmans Mustard attempted to alleviate the affects of the raid by producing the Zeppelin Raid Indicator. This was three rotating cardboard discs which could be adjusted for various conditions such as weather and it would indicate if a raid was probable, possible or improbable.

Given the Zeppelins vulnerability to the weather it was probably reasonable effective.

This was a very well researched and illustrated talk delivered with clarity and humour that kept everybody gripped.

The next meeting is on December 13, 7.30pm at the Methodist School Rooms, Main Street, Sutton Bonington, when the topic will be “George Africanus” a black slave who went on to become Nottingham’s first black entrepreneur.

Will it be as exicting as the Zeppelins? will there be mince pies? Come along and find out. All welcome.