WWI: Zeppelin was first to bomb Derby

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Most people in Derby know that the town was bombed in the Second World War and many are aware of the raid on Rolls-Royce, in 1942, when a Dornier 217 bomber of Hitler’s Luftwaffe attacked the factory.

Less well-known is the First World War event, which began on January 31, 1916, when nine Zeppelins of the Kaiser’s navy set out to raid England.

One of these airships carried out the very first aerial bombing of Derby in the first few minutes of February.

It was a fairly random affair – Derby was not even the intended target – and the airship’s bombs were scattered over a wide area south of the town centre.

The German army and navy used several types of airship, but mainly the metal-framed Zeppelin and the wooden-framed Schütte-Lanz. These two manufacturers supplied about 140 operational airships between 1914 and 1918.

By 1916, the German navy was introducing a new Zeppelin into its fleet of airships. This was the L10 class which, at 163.5m long and 21.7m in diameter, could lift a payload of 16,000 kilograms – almost double that of its predecessors.

From 1913, the commander of the Marine Luftschiff Abteilung (Naval Airship Unit) was Korvettenkapitän (Commander) Peter Strasser.

Strasser was extremely strict but liked by his men and his dedication to his airship force and its abilities was total, though his attitudes eventually proved too rigid. He fought hard to keep the air raids going despite the trials, tribulations and shortcomings of his section, and the doubts of his military superiors.

The first Zeppelin raid on Britain occurred in January 1915; the last, which resulted in Strasser’s death, was in August 1918.

In October 1915, Strasser had been ordered to attempt an attack on Liverpool, considered to be the most important British target after London, but the weather was unsuitable for airship operations until early in 1916.

Strasser scheduled his complete force of new Zeppelins to carry out the raid on the night of January 31-February 1. But, if Liverpool was the sole target of the raid, it brought to light some important shortcomings, for none of the raiders came anywhere near the city, though some airship crews, captured later, claimed to have got there.

Had the airship force been able to navigate accurately, and had the damage inflicted by the raid been as great as the German communiques claimed, there is no doubt that more extensive raiding would have continued.

Navigation by night was proving extremely difficult, even for an airship standing still in the sky trying to get a fix on its position either visually or by a radio bearing from Germany.

The conditions under which the airship crews were working were also unimaginably arduous. The cold was intense; the compass and flight instruments could freeze-up; the weight of ice on the airship could make it extremely hard to control; ice shed by the propellers could puncture the gas cells; and breathing-oxygen systems were totally inadequate.

At around midday on January 31, 1916, nine of the new Zeppelins left their bases on the north German coast. After crossing the North Sea, they made individual landfalls in the early evening over the Wash. It was a common entry point for German raiders in both world wars, where they could theoretically fix their positions to start their overland navigation.

Unfortunately, though the inland weather was reasonably clear, coastal fog seemed to disturb their initial navigation so badly that the nine airships’ subsequent movements led them all over the Midlands and East Anglia – but nowhere near Liverpool!

Three of the airships were spotted close to Derby – L21 at 6.45pm, L13 at about 7.45pm and L20 at about 8.35pm. Shortly after, Burton was bombed, probably by L20, L19 and L13 in turn, between about 8.45pm and 9.45pm.

L20 also bombed Stanton Ironworks, near Ilkeston, at around 8.20pm. But it was L14 which eventually “found” Derby.

At the time of the Derby raid, L14’s captain was Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant Commander) Alois Boecker, a reserve officer and former Hamburg-Amerika shipping line captain.

Boecker brought L14, laden with at least 30 high-explosive bombs and six incendiary devices, across the coast near the Wash at about 6.15pm. After some indecisive meanderings, during which a few bombs were dropped, L14 cruised purposefully westward, passing south of Nottingham and Derby, north of Stafford and almost reaching Shrewsbury – the most westerly point realised by the whole fleet that night – at 10.05pm.

Here, Boecker turned back east, bringing L14 on a direct course towards Tamworth. Maybe he knew that he was nowhere near Liverpool and even doubted that he could get there.

Arriving in the Tamworth area, he released a few bombs on the pipe furnaces at Ashby Wolds, none of which did any damage.

As midnight approached, the ship had tracked north-westerly and bombs were dropped at Overseal, again to no effect, and at Swadlincote, where a few windows were broken.

Now heading northwards, Boecker piloted L14 towards Derby, which he may have been able to identify in the clear night, though he may well have been attracted by the lights which were beginning to come on in the south of the town.

Earlier that evening, Derby had received a warning of airship activity and a black-out was imposed, tramcars were halted and businesses and works closed down but, at around midnight, lights were coming back on in the south of the town.

They must have been easily visible to the airship’s crew and Boecker must have then decided to use L14’s remaining bomb load. So, at about 10 minutes past midnight on the morning of February 1, 1916, 21 high-explosive and four incendiary bombs were released on to Derby.

L14’s bombs fell in an area bordered by the Rolls-Royce factory to the south, the Loco Works to the north, Bateman Street to the west and the Gas Works to the east. Presumably, Boecker chose the more obvious larger factory areas as his targets.

Three HE bombs seem to have been destined for Rolls-Royce, but only one fell within the site. This landed on the car testing track across the north side of the Nightingale Road works, breaking windows in the adjacent buildings.

(The second enemy bomb to hit the factory, in 1942, fell only about 50 yards from the same point.)

The other two bombs fell on adjacent open land to the north. Three HE bombs fell on the Metallite Lamp Works, in Gresham Road, causing considerable damage but no casualties.

Five HE bombs landed within the Midland Railway’s Carriage & Wagon Works, where their arrival was later commemorated by a plaque.

Three incendiary bombs fell in the yard of Fletcher’s lace factory, in Osmaston Road, with little effect.

Four incendiary bombs fell in Horton Street, one setting fire to a house.

One HE bomb fell on the lawn of what was soon to become the bowling green at Rolls-Royce Foreman’s Club, on the corner of Osmaston Road and Bateman Street. A slight depression is visible in the green to this day.

Two HE bombs and one incendiary landed on a coal heap at the gas company’s Litchurch premises, but failed to ignite it.

Nine HE bombs fell on the Midland Railway Loco Works, causing damage to engine sheds and killing three railwaymen and injuring two others, one of whom later died.

The victims were fitter William Bancroft (32), of 34 Strutt Street; Harry Hithersay (23), of 73 Devonshire Street; and engine driver James Gibbs Hardy (54), of 11 Strutt Street. Fitter Charles Henry Champion (48), of 33 Fleet Street, died of his injuries three days later.

Apparently happy with his night’s work, Boecker then took L14 away to the east, passing south of Nottingham and Lincoln, and making a large circle over the Lincolnshire Wolds before crossing the coast, south-east of Alford, and heading out to sea and home at 2.10am.

Shortly after the raid, a German communique, based on the debriefing of the commander and steersman, reported that the airship had bombed Liverpool!

Over the next few days, the Derby newspapers covered the results of the overall raid as best they could, obliquely referring to the towns which were hit – Burton, quite badly, with 13 deaths; Ilkeston, two killed; Scunthorpe, 20 bombs dropped, three people and a pig killed; 10 killed in Leicestershire; three in Lincolnshire.

At the inquest into the Derby victims, there was controversy about the need for better lighting control since the Derby lights were beginning to come on just as L14 arrived.

“Someone” had decided that the danger had passed and the lights could be turned on again. This had happened, for instance, at the Loco Works where the men were killed.

On Saturday, February 5, the Derby Telegraph published an official Press Bureau statement which went to some lengths to refute an “utterly inaccurate report from Berlin” regarding the magnitude of the damage caused by the nine Zeppelins.

A comprehensive list of industrial and domestic damage was given, and the overall human cost of the night’s bombing was cited as 61 dead and 101 injured.

It was most unusual to issue such a detailed report because it would give the enemy first-hand intelligence of the results of the raid, but the Press Bureau justified this by stating: “On the occasion of this raid, in which the largest number of airships have been employed, this statement of damage done is given to show how unfounded is the claim that the economic life of Great Britain can be appreciably affected by promiscuous bomb-dropping from airships wandering the country in the dark.”

Later in the year, a British report on the raid concluded that, although the weather had been ideal for the raid and unlikely to be better, the failure of the airship commanders to find their objectives and to cause any damage of military importance afforded strong evidence of the difficulties faced in airship navigation at night and the futility of night bombing.

On June 21, 1919, the ships of the Imperial German Navy’s battle fleet, assembled at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, were scuttled by their crews to prevent them being put to use by the victors.

Two days later, in a similar gesture of defiance, several airship officers decided that the Allies should also be denied the use of the surviving airships.

They slipped past the British guards at the Nordholz and Wittmundhaven bases and released the suspension tackle of the seven airships hanging, gasless and inert, from the roofs of the hangars, causing them to crash to the floor and collapse.

One of the airships at Nordholz was L14. Part of her did, however, survive for a further 24 years. L14’s control gondola became an exhibit in the German Aviation Collection in Berlin, only to be destroyed by RAF bombers on the night of November 23, 1943.

Further details of the Zeppelin raid, and the 1942 attack on Rolls-Royce, can be found in the Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust book No 32, ‘The Bombing of Rolls-Royce at Derby in two World Wars’ available from The Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust, PO Box 31, Derby DE24 8BJ, price £9.

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