THE ZEPPELIN TERROR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 172, 20 July 1916, Page 11

THE ZEPPELIN TERROR.

BESTJXTS OF 44 AIR RAIDS." A TOOK RECORD. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LOXDOX, June 1. Whatever mar ho the value of Zeppelins from a military and naval point of view it cannot bp saiil that a.« indiscriminate slaughtering machines they have shown any particular efficacy. Since the war beenn the Germans have launched no lose than 44 of what they •have prided themselves on as "eucceeefnl" aerial attacks on Great Britain. Some of them have heen made by 'Zeppelins alone, some have been Zeppclin-cum-aeToplane raids, and others have consisted of brief visits by planes of various types. All told, thr raiders have, in these 44 visits, killed only 40!) ;r , eo pie_222 men. 114 women, and 73 children—and they have injured 1005. These are tlie official figures of the air raid casualties brought right up to date and presented to the House of Commons by the Home Secretary on Monday last. From an •■indiscriminate slaughter" point of view the Germans' warship raids on out coasts are much more to be feared* than aerial attacks. Three times have Hun cruisers succeeded in getting within gun range of the East Coast, and their human "bag" has cong«ted of Bl men, 40 women, and 40 children killed, and 611 persons injured. The Germans always claim that their aircraft have "bombed with good effect" places of military and naval importance, but strange to say the victims of many bt the raids did not include a single man in either service, and casualties to soldiers and sailors form only a very email fraction of the total above mentioned. The gunners on the German ships had not much better luck in the matter of reducing the enemy's man power, and the air and sea raids together have not, it seems, caused the deaths of more than a score of soldiers and sailors, whilst the Service men injured do not represent 5 per cent of the total. As regards material damage there is at present no reliable data to go upon, but it has been stated that the damage done in forty-eight hours by the Sinn Feiners in Dublin, and by the authorities in the course of suppressing the revolt, will cost quite at much to mak« good as all the dajnage effected by aerial raids in England. As for the cruiser rakls on East. Coast towns the mischief wrought was ridiculously small considering the size and nmnber of the shells discharged by the attacking vessels. The Germans claim, of course, that ■their aerial raids—particularly the Zep'pclin visitations —have entirely ruined our moral," and that the v-ery cry of "Zeppelin' , sends ue all scuttling to eellare, underground railways, and similar shelters. As a matter of honest fact, however, the news that a "a Zeppelin is knocking about" will bring more people out into the streets than it irill send into hiding. One huge airship sailed oveT London at a tremendous height the other day, but the only effect of its appearance was to cauee knote of people to gather in the street, and discuss' the possibility of ite being- a hostile craft. The only way .they could possibly make certain-of the visitor's -nationality was, as one man remarked, to "wait and see if it drops bombs." And people waited for five or ten minutes, as the case might be, to allow the stranger to ■ declare its mission. There was no "scuttling to cover like scared rabbits." ac the Huns declare we are in the habit of doing on the mere hum of a Zeppelin engine. People simply stood aboirt discussing the possibilities of the airship being friend or foe, speculating whether it was within the rarare of tliit

or that anti-aircraft battery, and guessing at the length ox the Zeppelin and its height above the city. The visitor was, however, merely one of the new British airships making a trip over fche metropolis, partly in order to enable certain observations to be made which will be of considerable value to our anti-aircraft gunners when next they are called upon to try their hand at 'bringing down hostile craft. But we had had no intimation that such an airship would pay London a visit, and if the "moral" of our citizen* had been affected in the manner t>.e Germans claim (and perhaps fondly believe), the apparition ought to have produced at least some symptoms of "funk." But it did not. The. only approach to fear was to be heard in a woman's voice, which said. "Oh. I do hope it isn't a Zeppelin. I've left my two children at home, and if it starts dropping bombs they'll be brightened out of their wits," And just at that moment a lad ran up with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. yelling. "Winaab! winnali!" and. sad to say, perhaps, at least 50 per cent of the little knot of Zeppelin gazers forthwith turned their attention to a thing entirely mundane, namely., the stoppress result of the first race at New- ' market.