WASHINGTON, Oct. 23.—Germany probably lost one-half of her total effective fleet of super-Zeppelins as a result of the raid of October 20 over England, according to official cablegrams received here. All France is exultant over what the dispatches declare to be the greatest defeat administered to an air fleet since the beginning of the war. The gratification is more intense because it is now known that the German raid was an attempt to carry out a fearful threat of vengeance made four days before.
On that occasion the German government sent out a warning to both France and England of dire punishment to follow what the Germans declared to be unwarranted and inhuman attacks by British and French aviators upon peaceful German towns. Reprisals were threatened in an official German communication, which in part reads:
German Reprisal Threat
“For every brick which falls from peaceful German homes, whole rows of buildings will be overthrown in Paris.”
The official French report of the attempted German raid reads as follows:
“The first Zeppelin brought down fell at St. Clement, on the borders of the forest of Mondon, ten kilometers from Luneville. It was seen at 6:20 a. m., journeying with two other Zeppelins. It was at once attacked by one of our arms’ defense sections. At first a series of shells were fired at the Zeppelin when it was distant 4,000 meters. The Zeppelin promptly rose to a height of 5,500 meters. In a fresh attack by the aircraft guns the fourth shell struck the outside envelope and the Zeppelin caught fire. It remained a mass of metal and India rubber and broken propellors. Five dead bodies, horribly mutilated, were found near the Zeppelin. Others must be buried under the ruins, which are still smoking. There could not have been any bombs left in the Zeppelin as no explosions were heard. The apparatus had four propellors.
“About 2:20 p. m. Zeppelin No. 49 was forced by our aviators to come to earth near Bourbonne les Bains. It is intact. The commanding officer and seventeen men of the crew are prisoners. (This is the airship referred to at length in today’s cable dispatches).
“A little later the third Zeppelin, the L-50, came down at Dammartin, near Montigny le Roi and two officers and fourteen men of her crew were captured. Two of the crew were slightly wounded.
“The Zeppelin’s crew detached a car which they entirely destroyed. The Zeppelin without ballast went off with four men. From the declaration of the prisoners, this Zeppelin left Oldenburg for London October 10, but was unable to reach the English capital.
“Two Zeppelins entirely destroyed were attacked by our aviators and by our anti-aircraft guns and came down in the valley of the Saonne, alighting in the region of Sisterton. The crews after having burned their Zeppelins, attempted to escape, but were taken prisoners.
Two Zeppelins Damaged
“Two other Zeppelins were damaged, one landing at Larangue, in the lower Alps. Tho other was seen by the aviation center at Frejus drifting towards the sea in a vertical position and disabled.
Five Airships Lost
“Thus probably the Germans lost five of their Zeppelins, which were all of the new type, from 234 to 244 meters in length and carrying seven and nine engines with from 1,500 to 2,000 horsepower.”
Summing up the extent of the disaster to tho German air fleet, the report says that Germany altogether has constructed probably one hundred Zeppelins of which sixteen were destroyed before the war. The losses officially reported by the allies were six in 1914, sixteen in 1915, twenty-five for 1916 and three for 1917.
Thus the minimum of sixty-six Zeppelins have been destroyed, to which must be added half a dozen more lost by accident and in experimental trials. Deducting machines loaned to Bulgaria, Germany now has on the western front only twenty-five super-Zeppelins. The greatest air fleet concentrated against England in Belgium and northern Germany has never amounted to more than sixteen Zeppelins.
The Ogden Standard, Ogden, UT, October 23, 1917
