ZEPPELIN L19

Otago Witness, Issue 3244, 17 May 1916, Page 60

ZEPPELIN Ll 9

TRAWLER'S INABILITY TO RESCUE. ENEMY OUTBURST OF ANGER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 11. The attitude of the crew of the British trawler, King Stephen, towards the crew of the Zeppelin Ll 9 has caused a storm of indignation in the Berlin press, which describes it as a worthy counterpart of the Baralong case. But it is impossible to see what else the British skipper could have done. Had he been dealing with ordinary men he would, of course, have effected a rescue. But he knew that the German captain's promises were worth no more than the traditional scrap of paper. The trawler's crew numbered nine and the Zeppelin's crew 22. It would have been an easy matter for the Germans to have overpowered the Grimby men and sail them back to the Fatherland, where Iron Crosses would have been their reward. Wise heads on the King Stephen decided to make for a British port, and from there report what they had seen, so that succour might be sent. s Late on Thursday evening the Secretary to the Admiralty made the following short announcement: —"A fishing trawler has reported to-day to the naval authorities that she had seen a German Zeppelin in the North Sea in a sinking condition." Next day the loss was confirmed by the German communique, which stated: "The naval airship 1,19 did not return from a reconnoitring cruise. All investigations have proved fruitless. According to a Reuter telegram, the Grimsby trawler King Stephen sighter on the 2nd inst. an airship floating in the North Sea, with her cars and the gasbag partly submerged. The crew were on the upper part of the balloon. Their request for rescue was refused by the English trawler under the pretext that her crew was weaker than that of the airship. The trawler returned to Grimsby." OFFER OF GOLD REFUSED. The Zeppelin was more than half submerged when the King Stephen sighted her, the latter had been at sea for several days, and had no knowledge of the raid over the Midlands. The crew of the enemy airship appeared on the platform, and the trawler was hailed in English. It was a case of the spider and the fly over again. One of the German officers, presumably the commander, asked the King Stephen to launch, her boat. "His manner," says the British skipper, "was suave and polite as he said if we would put off in a small boat and take them, from the wreck, he would reward us with gold. _ When he saw that we were not responding, he repeated his offer of gold again_ and again, till it jarred on us. Our difficulty was this: We had nine hands aboard, and no weapons. The Germans numbered at least 22. I fancy there were more, as wo heard sounds such as hammering, which seemed to come from the inside of the airship. It seemed to us that _ if we sent a boat the Germans might seize its occupants, overpower them, and hold them as hostages to enforce any terms they might desire to make. On the other hand, if we took them off the wreck and got them safely on to the King Stephen, we had no means of keeping them in order or of asserting a mast-ery over them." Refusing to take any risk with the babykillers, the captain decided to put about and report to the naval authorities. His action was dictated by prudence and common sense. The Germans, however, _ went mad with anger and showed every sign of hate and exasperation. This was the last that was seen of the Zeppelin. Two British naval vessels left as early as possible for the scene, and could only report an unsuccessful search. Thus were the murdered women and children of the Midlands to some extent avenged. FRENCH JUSTIFICATION. The official French communique declares that the Zeppelin 'was hit by the Dutch when transgressing neutrality by taking a short cut over Northern Holland, and was blown out to sea. The Paris Journal des Debats comments: "The wretched murderers on board the Ll 9 succumbed probably after terrible agony, not by virtue of the harsh law of retaliation, but as the natural consequence of a measure of precaution which nobody can blame the British sailors for having taken. Everybody else would have done the same in similar circumstances. The Germans cannot any longer expect as of right the benefit of those usages which civilised nations have gradually adopted to soften the hardships of war. It was the Germans who willed it so, and therefore they have no reason to complain or invoke the justice of God when they are the victims of theiV own special barbarity." The Bishop of London, also, approves the action of the- King Stephen. The whole of the English people, ho declares, ought to stand by the skipper of the trawler who came upon the ruined Zeppelin and who could not trust- the word of the Germans. Had he admitted those 22 Germans into his boat they might have turned upon the crew, and the whole German press would have applauded their action as a clever bit of strategy. Any English sailor would have risked his life to save human life, but the sad thing is that the ohivalry of war has been killed by the Gormans, and their word cannot be trusted. On the other hand, the German press is highly indignant, as the following short comments of three Berlin papers show: The Lokalanzeiger: "This fresh infamous

acton provides still another of those disclosures which the present war has furnished us of the brutality of the British character of which wo 'barbarians' were so little aware that it took us a lone; time to realise its possibilities.' The Voss sche Zeitung: "Everyone who ha-; still preserved an impartial judgment will agree that the King Stephen affair, like the Baralong case, : s a blot on the escutcheon of Britannia." The Kreuz/.citung: "The attitude of the crew of the King Stephen was more cruel than that of the Baralong crew, who made short work of the 'hated enemy.' If the crew of the King Stephen feared an attack from the shipwrecked Germans they could have disarmed them, but no one believes in such a fear, which would have been simply and solely proof of base cowardice.'' RECORD OF Ll 9. The lost Zeppelin was apparently well known in the North Sea, and is reported to be the first air vessel to stop and board a steamer. This occurrence is reported by a Swedish captain, who says he sighted the Zeppelin when in the middle of the North Sea. The airship descended to within a few feet of the tea and ordered him to stop. A small boat was launched, and the inspecting officers" boarded the Swedish vessel and bought some provisions. The Ll 9 was formerly stationed at Hamburg and Tenderr, and frequently made cruises up the west coast of Denmark. It is possible, too. that the Ll 9 was responsible for the sinking of the Franz Fischer, a captured enemy vessel, employed as a coasting collier. The ship left Hartlepool on January 31, bound south. At 10.30 on Tuesday night a Zeppelin appeared right over her and dropped a highly explosive bomb which struck the ship amidships. She remained afloat for only two minutes, 13 of the crew being drowned and three being rescued in an exhausted condition. It was on the following morning that the wrecked Zeppelin was sighted in the North Sea by the skipper of the King Stephen. The captain of the Paul describes the bombing as a terrible experience. The Franz Fischer was lying about half a mile south-west of him. "We heard a loud report," he writes, " followed by cries for help, but it being so dark we really did not know what had happened, and decided to wait events. The cries became more distinct as time passed, and in the meantime wo launched a lifeboat. Presently we distinguished clear cries from three men, apparently in the water. The mate, boatswain, an A. 8., and a fireman got into the boat and went to the rescue in the dark night. At that time a strong tide was running, and a signal was made by them which, I understood, was that they -were unable to come back to the ship. Finally, after three hours' work, we were able to nick up the boat which had rescued the three men, who were exhausted. One was in a serious condition, and we had to work on him for over_ an hour to get him to life again, in which effort we succeeded."