German bombardment of the East Coast 1914

[Boris]

Many of you may not know but this Tuesday (16th) marks the 100th anniversary of two German warships bombarding Whitby and Scarborough and several more bombarding Hartlepool.  In this raid the North Eastern Railway lost three members of staff, the first, W E Tunmore had the distinction of being the first railwayman to be killed by an attack on British soil.  The other two were killed at Hartlepool where the staff stayed at their posts despite shells landing all around them and several members of staff were praised by the inquiry/coroner into the raid for their actions in tending the wounded and assisting with relief efforts.

 

Whilst you are out and about on Tuesday, whether working on the railway or enjoying your hobby, please pause for a moment to remember those killed doing what you enjoy at a little after 9am.

 

 

One request I am going to make is please don't let this thread devolve into an argument about war crimes or who was to blame, the people who fired the guns were just normal young men who also had a job to do.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Boris

[aussiebrfan]

Lest We Forget

[Guest]

As an aside to the Whitby and Scarborough bombardments, I'm 99% sure there's a plaque here in Sheringham remembering that in 1915, this little east coast town was the first place ever in Britain to have a bomb dropped on it from the air (by mistake, the Zeppelin was lost). Facinating stuff, and as Boris points out, well worth pause for thought.

 

Edited.

Edited December 14, 2014 by Pete 75C

[DavidB-AU]

As an aside to the Whitby and Scarborough bombardments, I'm 99% sure there's a plaque here in Sheringham remembering that in 1915, this little east coast town was the first place ever to have a bomb dropped on it from the air (by mistake, the Zeppelin was lost). Facinating stuff, and as Boris points out, well worth pause for thought.

The first place ever to have a bomb dropped on it from the air was Venice on 15 July 1849. It was dropped from a balloon.

 

The first place to have a bomb dropped on it from an aircraft was Adrianople in Bulgaria on 29 October 1912 during the the First Balkan War.

 

A Zeppelin bombed Liege on 6 August 1914.

 

Cheers

David

[The Stationmaster]

For anyone interested the Castle Museum in York is running a special WWI exhibition at present and it includes a section on naval warfore including an extensive series of views (within a video presentation) of the damage in Scarborough.

 

Fortunately the museum understands that the war actually went on for 5 years and it is intended that its exhibition will run over the whole period so right into the latter part of 2019 although exhibits will change as time progresses (and at some time I need to find for their exhibition that fragment of a bomb that was dropped on York by a Zeppelin).

[Guest]

The first place ever to have a bomb dropped on it from the air was Venice on 15 July 1849. It was dropped from a balloon.

 

The first place to have a bomb dropped on it from an aircraft was Adrianople in Bulgaria on 29 October 1912 during the the First Balkan War.

 

A Zeppelin bombed Liege on 6 August 1914.

 

Cheers

David

 

Well, I did say I was "99% sure"...

 

[durham light infantry]

For anyone interested the Castle Museum in York is running a special WWI exhibition at present and it includes a section on naval warfore including an extensive series of views (within a video presentation) of the damage in Scarborough.

 

Fortunately the museum understands that the war actually went on for 5 years and it is intended that its exhibition will run over the whole period so right into the latter part of 2019 although exhibits will change as time progresses (and at some time I need to find for their exhibition that fragment of a bomb that was dropped on York by a Zeppelin).

Somebody in our village has the nose cone of a Zeppelin bomb, one of around 40 that was dropped on the quarry area in 1916. Apparently this was supposed to be one of the first "precision bombings", targeted to stop the production of Magnesite.

 

Mike

[russ p]

Well, I did say I was "99% sure"...

 

sheringham.jpg

If it was dropped today would cause thousands of pounds of improvements to the lobster!!!

[Guest]

If it was dropped today would cause thousands of pounds of improvements to the lobster!!!

 

Agreed. Not my favourite Sheringham pub. When "The Two Lifeboats" reopened after a refit, as lifeboat crew, a crowd of us went there in the afternoon, with the helmsman cutting the tape and posing for pictures... there was a free bar for lifeboat crew. Unsurprisingly, I don't remember much else, including how I managed to find my way home 7 hours later! The Windham Arms is my local-boozer-of-choice, but I digress off-topic, apologies.

[jwealleans]

David Geen has had quite a lot to do with the Hartlepool commemorations - I shouldn't be surprised to see him on tonight's Look North which will include a feature on the bombardments.

[Kris]

BBC link to the story and recordings of memories of the event.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-30484951

[alfsboy]

The first place ever to have a bomb dropped on it from the air was Venice on 15 July 1849. It was dropped from a balloon.

 

The first place to have a bomb dropped on it from an aircraft was Adrianople in Bulgaria on 29 October 1912 during the the First Balkan War.

 

A Zeppelin bombed Liege on 6 August 1914.

 

Cheers

David

You failed to mention that my Gran saw a Zeppelin twice .

[Raised On Steam]

Among some allotments a few miles north of Sunderland on the coast is an upright concrete dish about the size of a transit van. It's the remains of a parabolic reflector for detecting airships crossing the north sea during ww1. There would have been a microphone suspended over it and a listening station shed next to it. All gone of course apart from the stoic concrete bowl still facing the sea.

Last time I went to have a look at it it was shamefully overgrown and forgotten.

[TheQ]

On November 3rd, The German commander, Rear Admiral Franz Hipper was mine laying off GT Yarmouth and had intended attacking GT Yarmouth when finished, luckily He was disturbed by A mine sweeper HMS Halcyon  which was joined by The destroyer Lively, causing them to break off and only a few ineffective shots were fired at the town.

He was in command when they returned to attack  Whitby / Scarborough / Hartlepool.

[pete_mcfarlane]

Among some allotments a few miles north of Sunderland on the coast is an upright concrete dish about the size of a transit van. It's the remains of a parabolic reflector for detecting airships crossing the north sea during ww1. There would have been a microphone suspended over it and a listening station shed next to it..

There are loads of these sound mirrors along the South Coast in the Dungeness to Hythe area. Most of them date from slightly later - they obviously became redundant when RADAR was installed in the late 1930s. 

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

....there was a 'Y' station in Sheringham during WW2...maybe the crew of the Zeppelin had a preminition.

 

Dave

[MarkC]

By coincidence I was passing Scarborough, about 6 miles offshore, at 0800 this morning. I took a few moments out of my day in order to pay my respects.

 

Mark

[Tin Turtle]

Bit late on this one, but for anyone interested, you can still see the repair (in darker brick) at Hartlepool station, formerly West Hartlepool station, where a German naval shell smacked through the wall leaving a rather large hole.

 

As well as the two NER men initially killed, with a third later dying of injuries, Private Leslie Dobson Turner killed whilst on coastal defence duty had just a few months earlier been an NER clerk

[APOLLO]

Posted it before but it is probably better in this thread. They were after the steel works at Kirkless / Top Lock (Wigan Coal & Iron).

 

The map shows where the bombs fell in the 1918 Zeppelin raid. A cluster either side of Darlington Road East, around Harper Street and Clarington Grove and some around the top of Birkett Bank. The other cluster was nearer the target of Top Lock, they landed at New Springs near to The Crown on Wigan Road. Seventeen bombs fell and five people were killed. Full details are published in "Zeppelins over Lancashire" by Peter C Smith.

 

 

Of interest is the old LNWR New Springs branch, and it's many lineside industries.

 

Brit15

Edited March 21, 2018 by APOLLO

[JeffP]

One would have thought a Zeppelin would have been relatively easy to shoot down: slow moving, large and full of hydrogen? Or am I missing something?

[TheQ]

Yep, no one much was expecting them, aircraft had very short flying range. By the time anyone was available to do something they'd gone.

[locoholic]

One would have thought a Zeppelin would have been relatively easy to shoot down: slow moving, large and full of hydrogen? Or am I missing something?

Ordinary bullets didn't do much damage. It took the invention of incendiary bullets to cause the hydrogen to ignite.

 

P.S. Looking at the map, I love the Industrious Bee Colliery! Is it too much to hope that they had their own wagons?

[lmsforever]

Also the height they flew at was difficult for aircraft of the day to reach  but eventually they could get the necessary height and started getting success my gran also saw several when flying over London. 

[Steamport Southport]

I think Industrious Bee is a North West thing, particularly around Manchester. Manchester has them on the coat of arms.

 

 

 

Jason

[Trog]

The difficulty of shooting down Zeppelins, was that they could fly at an altitude that early fighters found it hard to reach, hence giving them time to drop their bombs and make off.

 

If a plane did catch a Zeppelin neither standard or incendiary bullets did them much harm, as ordinary bullet holes only caused a slow loss of gas, and the pure hydrogen in the gas bags lacking oxygen would not burn. However using a mixture of explosive bullets to tear the gas bags and incendiary's to ignite the resulting gas mixture did work.

Edited March 21, 2018 by Trog