Zeppelin Kommt! Children play a Zeppelin raid on London. Holding his bomb in the gondola is a doll of the airship's inventor, Count Zeppelin. The other children, playing the English, cower, and the British fleet — folded paper boats — remains in port. Prewar postcards celebrated the imposing airships and the excitement they generated with the same expression, 'Zeppelin Kommt!'. Postcard by P.O. Engelhard (P.O.E.). The message on the reverse is dated May 28, 1915.
P.O.E.? EnglandLondonZeppelin Kommt!Reverse:Message dated May 28, 1915Stamped: Geprüft und zu befördern (Approved and forwarded) 9 Komp. Bay. L.I.N. 5
"I flew toward the Zepp and flew at right angles to and underneath him amidships, firing as I went under. I then turned sharply east, the Zepp turning east also. We then flew on a parallel course for about five miles and I fired 71 rounds at the Zepp. I estimated his ground speed to be approximately 70 mph. I was aiming at his port quarter and noticed first a small patch become incandescent where I had seen tracers entering his envelope. I first took it for a machine gun firing at me from the Zepp, but this patch rapidly spread and the next thing was that the whole Zepp was in flames. I landed at 12 midnight (British Time), engine and machine O.K. The Zeppelin which fell into the mouth of the Tees was still burning when I landed."
Account by British Second Lieutenant Ian V. Pyott of his destruction of Zeppelin LZ 34 late on the night of November 27, 1916. Eight Zeppelins set out to bomb industrial targets in the British Midlands on the 27th, a stormy night in which the airships were visible in the glare from the cities and the aurora borealis. One of the eight never made the crossing of the North Sea. Max Dietrich, commanding LZ 34, was flying at 9,800 feet and in the beam of a searchlight when Pyott sighted him. Dietrich and his crew were all killed, Dietrich on his 46th birthday. Early the morning of the 28th, a second Zeppelin, LZ 21 was shot down by airplanes 10 miles east of Lowestoft and fell into the sea with no survivors.
The Zeppelin Fighters by Arch Whitehouse, page 159, copyright © 1966 by Arch Whitehouse, publisher: New English Library, publication date: 1978
1916-11-27, 1916, November, Zeppelin
