Letter on Zeppelin Raid

From the Hawkesbury Gazette;

Mr Ernest Pointer of Mr J.E.James office, has received a letter from his mother giving a description of the German Zeppelin raid over England of May 17(1915). Some extracts from the letter :; 'Watendlath', Cannon Raod, Ramsgate, England. May 20 1915. We were nearly frightened to death by a Zeppelin raid which took place here on the early hours on Monday morning. May 17, at 1.40 . Two bombs were dropped in front of our house and two at the back, and about 30 altogether, but mercifully little damage was done. If we do not have another visit we will be fortunate. The Bull and George Hotel, in the High Street, suffered worst, and was completely wrecked. The bob struck the roof and went right through the to the basement, taking ceiling, floors and furniture. There was a lay and gentlemen stying in the house. The bed they were in was doubled up with them in it and extricated from the basement. The were got out alive, but both have died since. Great holes in differant parts of the town large enough for a horse and cart to get into. Last night it was reported that two more Zeppelins were sighted in the Channel, but I never, never want to hear that awful noise again. ......




cam

[Rick]

"There was a 'lay' and a Gentleman . . . ". Provative, but I'm sure you wished to have typed 'lady'!! R.

[Graeme]

Cam

This would have been Hauptmann Erich Linnarz aboard the army airship LZ38 who also bombed Southend (in Essex) on 26 May 1915 and on 31 May was credited with the first aerial attack upon London by an airship (7 killed and 35 injured).

A strange juxtaposition given the nature of this thread, but Merry Christmas (11 minutes into Xmas day over here).

Graeme

An interesting letter. *Also illustrates why I try to collect some material to balance out my airship interests; I have a set of postage stamp sized vignettes that were produced during the war as anti-German messages, depicting a woman having just died in hospital from her zeppelin inflicted wounds, with her grieving family at the bedside. *Many among the Luftschiff Abteilung felt they were doing double duty as enlistment promotion agents for the British military because of the sentiments about bombing civilian populations.