AIR RAID ON LONDON.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 532, 23 October 1915, Page 8

AIR RAID ON LONDON.

A ZEPPELIN ATTACK. STORIES BY EYE-WITNESSES. THRILLING NIGHT SPECTACLE. [Passengers from England on the liners Rotterdam, Orduna, and Philadelphia, arriving at New York on September 19, brought first-hand accounts of the Zeppelin raids on London on the nights of September 7 and 8. While some of the eye-witnesses spoke of momentary panics and fear, the general theme of the Btories told was rather admiration for the spectacle than horror or fear; and this attitude, they said, was the one taken by most of the Londoners. The article is culled from the New York "Evening Post."] According to the most accurate reports the raid on September 7 was conducted by three Zeppelins which did not reach the city proper, but did great damage in the outlying suburbs, says the "Post." The following night one large Zeppelin flew over the heart of London, killing and maiming scores and also doing considerable property damage. It was this raid of which most of the passengers told. Many of their stories overlap or vary in detail, but all agree as to the splendour of the spectacle and to the crowds which gathered in the streets throughout the city to watch the battle between the invader and the British aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns. The aeroplanes could not be seen, as they were flying above the Zeppelin in an attempt to get directly oyer it and drop bombs on its huge bag. Frank C. Page, son of Ambassador Page, who was returning from a visit with his parents, characterised the raid as, the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. In reply to questions about the raid, he said: — "It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I had been dining with a member of the War Office, and he was suddenly told by telephone that a Zeppelin was approaching London. He immediately excused/himself to report for duty, and I went home. *

"About 10.30 I suddenly heard a loud report, either a gun or a bomb exploding, and rushed out in front of the house, which is in Grosvenor Square. Search-lights from all over the city were playing over the sky, but the one at Marble Arch had picked up the Zeppelin, a" huge one which shone like silver in the light. It was slowly moving and the light followed it so that the airship was always in the centre of the light. Pot-Shot at Zeppelin.

"Suddenly there was a loud report right near me, and I jumped about 10, feet. An jinti-aireraft gun had been concealed in the small park in the centre of Grosvenor Square and was taking a pot-shot at the Zeppelin. Until then I had not known there was a gun so near us. "Other guns were being fired from other parts of the city, but their shells all fell a little short. I afterwards learned from some aviators that thev estimated the height of the airship at about 8000 feet. Whenever a shell exploded nearer to the airship than the others, you could hear a low murmur—a sort of suppressed cheer—rise up from all of London. Every one was in the streets, watching the bombardment, and it was most interesting to hear this murmur between the reports of the guns. "Suddenly the Zeppelin disappeared and was not picked up by the searchlights again. Some people say that the airship was hit, but I understand that it was not. Probably a cloud came in between, and the Zeppelin made off under its protection. Considerable damage was done by one bomb which struck in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue. Another hit an omnibus and blew it and the few passengers in it to atoms." Guns Not Satisfactory.

Frederic R Coudert, who came back with his wife, saw the raid from in front of Sir Philip BurneJones's house, in Edgerton Terrace, where he was visiting. He said that the anti-aircraft guns were not as good as those in France, or they would have struck the Zeppelin. "It was shortly before 11 o'clock," said Mr Coudert, "that we iirst heard the noise of the guns shooting at the Zeppelin. We went outside of the house and saw that one of the searchlights had spotted the airship, which seemed to be at a standstill and to offer a good target. But the guns shot slowly and the shells exploded below the mark. If they had had guns as good as the French antiaircraft guns; I feel.sure they would have hit. After a few minutes the Zeppelins disappeared over back of St. Paul's. • "It dropped bombs within a halfmile of the Government buildings and did considerable damage in the vicinity of Newgate Street. That is an industrial district, and, as it was at night, but few people were in the neighbourhood, and the loss of life was, therefore, slight. It is probable, too, that the light from the searchlights blinded the crew of the Zeppelin so that they could not make out the targets below them. "There was a crowd of people watching the spectacle where my wife and I were, 1 therefore, climbed up on the pedestal of a lamppost to get a better view. Suddenly I heard a greeting from below me, looked down, and saw Austen Chamberlain. After I had got a good look I climbed down and let him get up there. These Zeppelin raids create a spirit of disgust and anger, rather than one of fear." Raids on the City.

Pieced together from accounts given by the Orduna's passengers, the story of the air raid was as follows: — The oid occurred between 10.45

and 11.15 o'clock on the night of September 8, a raid the previous night having reached only the eastern section of the city. Persons asleep iri the Metropole, the Victoria, and other hotels in the centre of the city were awakened by the incessant whirr of aeroplane engines as the British air fleet took flight to repel the invaders. Just as the Zeppelin appeared over the Strand most of the theatres were pouring their crowds into the street. When the first word of the approaching aircraft was passed from mouth to mouth in whispers, the lights were turned off and men and women in evening clothes fought for taxicabs and other vehicles to take them home. 1 Other passengers said there was no panic, but that a great wave of fear seemed to engulf this section of the darkened city before the anti-aircraft guns began to: pop away. ," .. •..'./...,- • , >/

Suddenly, from every section of London, the sky was swept by long white beams from scores of searchlights; the tops. of these beams were not lorig in resting uroii what they sought. When the Zeppelin was found a dozen or more searchlights focussed their rays upon it, stretching back to scattered points in the city like the long white-ribs of a fancy fan. Two searchlights finally centred on a Zeppelin, while the others continued to search the sky for more aircraft. Already the air was dotted with,aeroplanes, which could be seen frequently as they crossed the searchlight beams, circling upward. The roar of guns from the city was punctuated at intervals by the explosions of bombs which fell in Newgate Street, not far from St. Paul's Cathedral, in Holborn, in Gheapside, in Bloomfield Street, not far from the Liverpool Street Station, and near the waterfront of the Thames River, in the vicinity of St. Paul's. "The Zeppelin seemed -.to float lazily above us," said Miss A. S. Tatham, of Sydney, Australia, who was staying at'the Victoria Hotel, near Charing Cross. "It reminded me of nothing so much as a great, fat sausage. I was stopping at the Victoria Hotel, on the Thames Embankment. It was about 11 o'clock in the night of the tirst raid. I went to the window. Searchlights were playing on a dark, yellow bag in the sky. It was a Zeppelin. Its entire body was outlined by the play of many searchlights. I saw the flash of guns directed toward the sky. Shells -burst close to the big bag. They were like stars flowering in the sky. I could not move from the window—it was a fascinating sight. Shells Bursting in Sky.

Every bursting shell seemed to come nearer to the big bag. You wondered if it would be hit. You gave it three more shots. The aim was accurate. You waited, you hoped. Bombs fell with a great noise. The Zeppelin the sky and was gone. The crowds in the streets dispersed." "My wife and I watched the Zeppelin from a balcony of our hotel, the Metropole," said Alexander McNab, of Brideport, Conn. "It went directly over the hotel and dropped bombs around us."

Among the arrivals on the Philadelphia was H. Gordon Self ridge, the American department store owner, of London, who said that there was no panic during the raid, and that it was all over in 15 minutes.

There was hardly a space of five seconds during the 10 minutes or more that the searchlight beams rested on the raider, eye-witnesses said, that the sky was not lightened by hashes of exploding shells. As the noise of cannonading grew louder, those who had fled at first to cellars gained courage and came out into the streets, and thousands of men, women, and children walked the streets, or stood in groups, gazing upward. Meantime, the Zeppelin manoeuvred over the Holborn section of London, circling at least twice. The manoeuvres ended when a shell burst, like a many-pointed meteor, almost directly under the aircraft's bow.

A swerve, a sudden dip, and the searchlights lost the Zeppelin. They were on her a moment after, and it was seen that she appeared to be going down by the head. For a fewseconds she hovered, then righted herself, pointed her nose slightly upward, and ascended rapidly, so rapidly that, within a minute or two, the searchlights could lind her no more. There were no further bomb explosions thereafter.