46 AH july 2016
By 1917, with the German High Seas
Fleet blockaded in port, the British
Royal Navy’s chief concern was not
enemy battleships, but airships.
That April the zeppelin L23 managed to capture
a Norwegian bark hauling contraband lumber,
dropping a bomb off its bow and alighting on
the water to send a prize crew. On the morning
of August 21, L23 was shadowing the 1st Light
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water, a long way from British soil, zeppelin com-
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HMS Yarmouth, Flight Sub-Lt. Bernard Arthur
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to see about half a dozen [incendiary rounds]
enter the blunt end of the Zeppelin, and a spurt
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and had dropped so that the nose was pointing
to the sky at an angle of 45 degrees while the
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Shooting down the zeppelin, though, was the
easy part. There was no great trick to launching a
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Smart ditched his Pup near a British escort.
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from a seagoing ship, a tactic that would change
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seaplane carriers had attacked the
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Captain Horst Freiherr <ZM][KP^WV*]\\TIZ
Brandenfels, commanding zeppelin L6, made
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bomb hits, L6 struggled back to base bleeding
hydrogen from 600 bullet holes, but none from
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M^MV\]IT^M\MZIVWN UQ[[QWV[¹JMKI][M\PMVICTORY AT SEA
The Tondern-based
L23 (above) was shot
down by a Sopwith
Pup launched from
HMS Yarmouth on
August 21, 1917.
Frederick Rutland
takes off in a Pup
from a platform on
Yarmouth (below).