ZEPP.’S 13th RAID

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11539, 16 January 1932, Page 5

ZEPP.’S 13th RAID

A HOLOCAUST INVALUABLE LOG KEPT A SECRET LONDON, Jau. 7. How a souvenir-hunter withheld from the British authorities a hook of immensely valuable secrets, obtained by him when a German Zeppelin was brought down near London during tho-war, is (revealed after 16 years.

It was.the. unlucky thirteenth voyage of the airship L 32 that saw its destruction in * flames. The book shows it,- but tlie‘ commander who staggered dying from the burning wreckage knew it, too. In ■ September, 1916, L 32 and L 33 wero brought‘down- during a concentrated (raid carried out ‘by all the naval Zeppelins, in which 38 people wero killed and’ 125 were The original finder of the hook is now dead, and it was obtained from his widow, who desires to remain anonymous. • It appears that when he saw the Zeppelin -falling in flames at Billcricay (Essex) ire hurried to the scene, and was one of the first to reach tho‘blazing wreckage. He saw a man staggering out of the holocaust with his clothes on fire and his face blackened by smoke, and clasping a large book. Suddenly ho pitched forward on his face, and shouted three times, in a clear, shrill voice, “Breizehn” (thirteen.)

He was commander Petersen, the only man of tlie crew to escape immediate death. 'Apparently, as lie jumped clear; ho remembered the superstition attaching to the number 13, and it was uppermost in liis mind as he dropped dead. Tho book is the airship's ballast book. It shows the distribution of the weights and the amount of gas, fuel, water ballast and bombs carried on the 12 voyages, tho record for tho 13tli being incomplete.