ZEPPELIN 77.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1916, Page 3

ZEPPELIN 77.

THE LAST JOURNEY, CREW'S BULLET-PROOF SHIELDS. Revigny (French Lorraine), Feb. 25. If the Kaiser could look on what remains of the super-airship LZ 77, which hi; sent off on a mission of death and destruction on Monday night, he would he consumed with rage and mortification. All that is left of the masterpiece of fright-fulness are half-a-dozen miserably heaps of serapipetl aluminium, from which emerges a foetid odor of charred flesh, petrol and carbide. I was authorised by the. French Government to come here and view the wrecked Zeppelin. I found the deoris of the Zeppeiin lying in a field in a corner of a great snow-covered plain two miles west of Revigny and about fifty yards from the railway line to Verdun. At one end of the mnss of twisted, mis-shapen metal protruded the sharp point of the front car, and at the other extremity the monstrous steering wheel was plainly visible. "A HOUSE THAT FLIES," , Some three hundred and fifty feet long, one could easily imagine that when in being the Zeppelin resembled, as a peasant woman oeside me remarked, ' a real house that flies." To protect the debris from the attentions of the souvenir hunters and allow the soldiers to inter the bodies of the men W'ho perished with the Zeppelin, a wire fence has been placed round the wreckage. The carbonised remains of fourteen of the crew were buried this afternoon in a large hole dug close by. The others still lie beneath the shattered fragments of the Zeppelin. To-day I met Captain X, who was in command of the artillery section which had the honor of destroying the Zeppelin. He is about thirty-five years old, and, like most men who have won distinction, his modesty made it difficult to induce him to say anything about his achievement. But by dint of hard questioning I learned ' that when the telephone warning was received that the Zeppelin was passing over Revigny gunners and searchlight operation; were ready. The night was not too dark, the dim outline of the German airship was discerned almost overhead The first shot from the motor-car gun was fired before the searchlights began to play on the Zeppelin, the crew of which was evidently taken by surprise. The gunners hastened to take advantage of this fact. From the moment tlii Zeppelin was encircled by a ring oi bursting shells, and from the movements of the airship it was apparent that its occupants were alarmed and uncertain as to their progress, ,'feanwhile the gunners kept up a heavy bombardment until an incendiary shell went through the gas envelope, "It was not a hazard shot," said the captain. "So effective was the illumination that the gunners were able to direct their fire with accuracy.

GUNNERS' JOY DANCB. "It was impossible for the Zeppelin to escape, and ifter something like twenty-six shots the gunners got home with one which sealed the fate of the pirate craft." French artillerymen are not accustomed to hide their feelings, and when they saw they had done for the enemy airship their enthusiasm got the better of them. Some of them danced round the guns, embracing their comrades, while others gave vent to their joy in song. While the blazing Zeppelin was falling one of its crew, a mechanic in blue overalls, climbed over the side of the ear, slid down the rope, and fell to the ground from a height of 1000 ft. He was dead when picked up. Four or five French officers running across the field! saw him fall. Examination of other bodies, evidently machine gunners, disclosed that they were wearing bullet-proof shields.

Viewed in daylight, the remains of the Zeppelin look like a Ion;* broken ladder. All the upper structure has, at course, disappeared: what in left is the aluminium tubing, llanked by twisted trellis work. Una of tiio lutge right-cylinder motors lies half-buried in ilia ground.

A woman who guards a railway level crossing ;i hundred yard* away told me that she heard the despairing cries of the -men in the car us the Zeppelin was falling For some time after it reached the ground explosions took place.