THE ZEPPELINS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16610, 5 February 1916, Page 7

THE ZEPPELINS

ANOTHER RAID ON ENGLAND,

MORE BABY-KILLING.

NO MILITARY DAMAGE DONE.

LONDON, February 3.

Zeppelins liovered over a town in Derbyshire from 8 p.m. til] midnight on Monday, dropping bombs occasionally. Some casualties were reported. Another Zeppelin visited a town in Staffordshire, and dropped 19 incendiary bombs within half an hour. Two fell near the picture theatres, and a third near the theatre. Another bomb set fire to a brewery, and another wrecked a mission room.

The Zeppelin that hovered over a town in Leicestershire from 8 p.m. till 10.30 o'clock dropped four bombs, killing and injuring several people, and doing damage to a number of houses.

The Daily Chronicle says that within a small area of Staffordshire 26 persons were killed and 10 injured. Two separate visits were paid to this locality. The whole of the district reverberated with the explosions. One incendiary bomb fell on the "roof of a theatre and rolled on to the street. The audience, who were huddled together in the darkness until all danger was past, sang the National Anthem.

A lady lecturess who was addressing an audience in a parish hall was killed; also two women among the audience. Another bomb wrecked a billiard room, killing one player. His opponent, however, was quite uninjured. Three of the Zeppelins crossed the coast of Norfolk leisurely, then increased their speed as they "proceeded inland. They dropped 30 bombs in all, wrecking several farmhouses, but the casualty list in this district was small. A town in Lincolnshire "was also damaged. A bomb fell in a town in Derbyshire, killing three men. Other missiles were dropped harmlessly in open country.

As a result of one explosion 13 people were killed. One bomb made a hole in the road 7ft deep and 10ft wide. Five people were killed in one house, which was reduced to a heap of bricks and mortar. All the tenements in this street were rendered windowless through the force of the explosion. People state that the Zeppelins were flying very low.

The War Office estimates that as the outcome of Monday's raids 33 men, 20 women, and six children were killed, and that 51 men, 48 women, and two children were more or less injured.

One church and a Congregational chapel were badly damaged. The parish meeting rbom was also wrecked and 14 private houses demolished.

A great number of other houses were more or less injured, but in very few of these cases is the damage of a serious nature. «

Railway property was damaged in .two places, but only two factories were injured. Neither was of any military importance. One other brewery was badly damaged, and two or there other factories slightly injured. ,

The total number of bombs discovered was 300. Many of them fell harmlessly in rural districts. IN THICKLY -POPULATED SUBURBS. MUCH LOSS OP LIFE. / LONDON, February 3. There was much loss of life and much damage to property in the thickly-popu-lated suburbs of Staffordshire. Ten houses in one locality were blown to pieces. A bomb killed six persons who were walking "within a radius of 30 yards in one town in Leicestershire. THE PARIS RAID. SPIES AT WORK. PARIS, February 3. During the recent air raids on this city it was observed that brilliant red lights were shown to point out the route to the raiders. The press demands that a rigorous search shall be made for these treacherous signallers, and that condign punishment shall be inflicted on them, THE RECENT RAIDS. DRAMATIC JOURNEY TO SOFIA. (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) LONDON, February 3. The Evening News, commenting on the Salonika raid, says it affords fresh proof of Zeppelin activity. It is computed that 10 Zeppelins, capable of making long-distance raids, were despatched, that six or seven were concerned in the raid on England, and one is reported to have been flying over Paris. It is now reported that the eighth and ninth were seen in the vicinity of Salonika. What may have been a Zeppelin made a dramatic journey to Sofia, where its commander asked King Ferdinand whether, when he set out for the front, he did not fear attacks on his palace by enemy dirigibles. The King replied that it would be better for him to pass the winter in Sofia, which is 150 miles almost due north from Salonika. A ZEPPELIN SINKING. LONDON, February 3. (Received Feb. 4, at 9.45 p.m.) Official: A fishing trawler's captain reports that he and the crew saw a Zeppelin in the North Sea sinking. Probably this is the Zeppelin that was seen flying low over the island of Ameland, and was fired at by Dutch coastguards.