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Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0083.PDF
JANUARY 29, 1915. where the front of an ironmonger's shop was demolished. Other bomb* were thrown on the docks. Some were incendiary bombs, and a cotton shed was set on fire. " Three bombs struck the United States Consulate, in the rue Emmery, the Uruguay Consulate, in the Quai du Lenghenaer, and the Norwegian Consulate, in the Place de la Republique. Thirty bombs were thrown on the suburbs. The enemy aircraft then disappeared, but they returned at 3 in the afternoon and dropped further bombs. " Another German aeroplane flew over Dunkirk at midday to day, and dropped four incendiary bombs on the Chantiers de France. The fire was quickly extinguished." The following was included in the " wireless" news officially sent out from Berlin on the 25th :— "According to Parisian reports, about ten German flying machines undertook a new successful attack on Dunkirk yesterday. A large military warehouse, containing great quantities of supplies and English troops, were struck by the bombs and caught fire, being completely destroyed. In other respects also considerable damage was done, and about twenty persons were struck by the bombs, seven of whom were killed. After the German aviators had fulfilled their mission they were pursued by a large number of English and French aviators, the latter succeeding in forcing one German machine to descend. Two German aviators, the occupants of the machine, were taken prisoners." According to information received from Petrograd on Saturday the Russian fleet sunk near Sinope the steamer "Georgios," bound for Trebizond and having on board sixteen aeroplanes intended for the use of the Turkish army in the Caucasus. An Exchange Telegraph Co.'s correspondent at Leyden reported the following on Saturday :— "Fishermen who have just arrived at Noorbwyk state that last night they saw an airship founder in the sea. They were unable to render any assistance. From their description the airship must have been a Zep >elin. The weather at the time was clear with occasional gusts of wind." Writing to the Daily Telegraph regarding the con ditions at Nancy at the present time, Mr. E. Ashmead Bartlett said :•— "The only excitement is the occasional visit 01 a Taube, which drops a bomb, whereof no one takes the slightest notice. Nancy does not even turn down its lights at night. These frontier towns despise and laugh at both aeroplanes and Zeppelins. They have lived in close proximity to the danger too long. On the evening of our arrival we learnt for the first time of the Zeppelin raid over England. This caused the English members of the party some mild excitement, but aroused not the smallest local interest, the news occupying about a quarter of a column in the papers." In a communique issued in Berlin on Saturday it was stated :— " Hostile airmen yesterday unsuccessfully threw bombs near Ghent and Zeebtugge." ® ® Aircraft in the Naval Fight. IN a narrative of the naval action on Sunday, given by one of the crew of a British battle-cruiser to Mr. F. W. Memory, a special correspondent of the Daily Mail, it was stated :— "There was no sign of the enemy at dawn, but soon after eight o'clock on Sunday morning we got word that they were not far off. Air scouts first got sight of them." In a subsequent message, writing of the sinking of the " Blucher," Mr. Memory said :— " To add to her plight German aircraft from Heligoland—but whether a fleet of aeroplanes or an airship, there is a curious diver gence of opinion—mistook the ' Blucher,' according to the story of a German prisoner, for one of the British fleet and dropped bombs on her and hastened her end." Another Daily Mail correspondent, in giving further details of the action, said :— " A new phase of the closing stages of the battle has just become known. As the fleeing German ships retreated to their own waters several units of Germany's vaunted aerial fleet came out to harry the pursuing English vessels with pinpricks from the air. The drone of their motors was heard in the sky, and our seamen, t/OCHT] A Morning Post correspondent at Amsterdam, writing on the 23rd inst., said :— " About five o'clock on Friday afternoon an aviator flew over the Bruges docks and threw several bombs. In spite of heavy shrapnel fire he succeeded in escaping without injury in a south-westerly direction. " According to news received from Ostend, no bombs have fallen on that town. " A telegram from Deventer to the Te/c^raa/'slates that between Friday night and Saturday morning air-craft were audible over that place. No flash-lights were, however, observed." Writing from Rotterdam on Sunday, a Daily Mail correspondent said:— " Although the German official report on the raid by the Allies' aeroplanes, in which bombs were dropped on Ghent and Bruges on Friday afternoon, denies that any damage was done, I learn from the same source from which I obtained the news of the raid on Friday evening that stores at Bruges were set on fire, including the petrol tanks. "The Germans were hopelessly outclassed by the number and speed of the Allied aeroplanes, which during the mild weather of the week-end have been active in surveying the enemy's troop movements by way of the Menin Railway junction in the direction of La Bassee." A Daily Mail correspondent at Copenhagen, in an account of the torpedoing of the German cruiser " Gazelle " in the Baltic on Monday, said :— " The ' Gazelle ' informed the German Admiralty by wireless of the attack, and a Zeppelin airship arrived on the scene of the fight to-day." According to information to hand from Petrograd, the Zeppelin destroyed on Monday near Libau, the official account of which is given on p. 72, was the LZ19. The captain, three officers, and three men were taken prisoners. Mr. J. M. N. Jeffries, in a message to the Daily Mail from Cairo, on Wednesday, said :—- " The bombs which a British waterplane recently dropped in the vicinity of an advance party of Turks near Bir Muhadat inflicted some losses on a Turkish column, which promptly fled." In a recent issue of the Hamburger Nachrichten an article headed " We Have Only One Enemy " contained the following :— *' A striking proof of this phra'e is the new prizes which, according to the official ' Reichsanze'ger,' have been set apart for special military achievements. Three of the four prizes aie aimed against England, and consist of sums of money from ^25 to £125. These amounts will be awarded to the first soldier who steps upon the soil of Great Britain as a combatant, to the crew of the airship which before December 31st, 1915, accomplishes a first flight to the English coast and drops explosives on English territory, and to the aviator who drops the first bomb on Dover." ® ® glancing upwards, saw the familiar scouting Taubes sail into view. No airships were in use, but about half-a-dozen aeroplanes were sent out to pelt our minor craft with bombs. ' We were actually trying to save their drowning sailors when the Huns came overhead dropping bombs on us,' said a bluejacket in an explosion of indig nation. ' Our whaler was overside pulling out to where the drowning Germans were struggling when the bombs began to fall. " ' They dropped all round her, some ahead and some astern, but we were manoeuvring fast about, and we were lucky to escape. One or two fell perilously near to our whaler though.'" Inquests on Air Raid Victims. AT the inquest held at Yarmouth on the 21st inst. relative to the deaths of Samuel Alfred Smith and Martha Maud Taylor, victims of last week's aircraft raid, the jury returned a verdict to the effect that both deaths were caused by injuries received from bombs discharged by hostile aircraft. At the inquest held at King's Lynn on the same day to inquire into the deaths of Maud Gazeley, 26, and Percy Goate, 14, the jury said the verdict was that the deceased met their deaths by an act of the King's enemies. 83
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