documenting NYC raid

[Steve Suddaby]

This is a topic that interests me greatly as an example of things people conceived of doing with WWI bombing but never actually accomplished. I spoke on this under the title, "Unfulfilled Nightmares of WWI Aerial Bombing" at the last OTF seminar in San Antonio -- raiding NYC with Zeppelins was one example of many including plans to kill the Kaiser from the air, attempts to bomb Berlin, ideas of dropping poison gas bombs on civilians, firestorms, etc.

The best source I've been able to find on this is unfortunately a secondary source: Aaron Norman's 1968 history, "The Great Air War", pp.408-9. The account says that on 18 July 1918, Peter Strasser approached Adm. Reinhard Scheer, chief of naval operations, with his plans to bomb NYC with 2 or 3 L70 class Zeppelins. Scheer rejected the plan within 24 hours, perhaps without even reading it. As you know, Strasser died 18 days later when the L70 was shot down. Unfortunately, this story is not footnoted and every other reference to it seems to derive from this account.

In my talk (which I plan on publishing as an article in OTF) I noted, as others have above, that the L70 class Zeppelins certainly could have reached NYC. (It is less clear to me whether they had the range to get back, but they would have been going WITH the Gulf Stream to reach Europe again.) I also mentioned in my talk that they would have caused few casualties based on the record of their attacks on London and Paris -- death tolls in the dozens, certainly, but probably not in the hundreds. I concluded my talk with the observation that the US Army had been concerned about aerial raids on the coasts of the US as early as 1908 and had already ordered AAA gun mounts for coastal forts by late 1916. (There were plenty of 3-inch guns available, but they needed antiaircraft gun mounts.) I'm not sure when the first of these mounts was delivered, but the last of this order was delivered in 1920.

--Steve

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
Using the data from the L59 flight to German East Africa, as follows:
Distance flown, 4200 mile in 95 hours. The average airspeed was 44 mph. The L59 consumed 25050 lbs of fuel on the flight at the rate of 264 lbs /hour.
The lengthened L70, taking off at Ghent in Belgium, Formerly the German Army Airship base, north of Paris and without taking advantage of the westerly air current, the L70 would arrive over New York a distance of 3300 miles in 75 hours, and consummed 19800 lbs of fuel of 47800 pounds on board at take off. Cruise around for two hours sight seeing dropping bombs on Wall Street and leaflets about the futility of the USA to continue the War and fly back to Ghent, arriving 75 hours later, consumming 20328 pounds of fuel. On landing the L70 had on board 7618 pounds of fuel, which amounts to an additional 28.9 hours of flying time. The L70 dropped 20000 pounds of bombs on New York.
The total distance flown is 6688 miles in 152 hours @ 44mph.
The L70 maximum speed was 81.5 mph. Full speed endurance 91.5 hours at 81.5mph= 7460 miles
Useful Lift 98500 lbs.
Bomb load, 20000 lbs.
Fuel load, 47800 lbs.
Oil, 3365 lbs.
Crew & Supplies, 5900 lbs.
Take off Weight, 97065 lbs.
Merry Christmas to One and All,
Dan-San