On the evening of Monday 31st January 1916, a series of bombs were dropped from a Zeppelin airship, in various locations in the Midlands, including in Loughborough, To commemorate this tragic event, tonight's blogpost shares a couple of newspaper reports which appeared soon after the devastation occurred. Please note, this is a word-for-word transcription of contemporaneous newspaper coverage. I have added one section break, simply to make the reading of the text a little easier. Not surprisingly, the first report of the evening's event appeared the very next day ...
The Leicester
Mail of Tuesday February 1, 1916, carried the following front page heading:
GREAT AIR
RAID ON THE MIDLANDS.
FLEET OF
ZEPPELINS.
BOMBARDMENT
BY “SIX OR SEVEN” AIRSHIPS.
ATTACK ON
EAST, NORTH-EAST, AND MIDLANDS.
FIRST
OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.
There was a
big Zeppelin raid on the Midland Counties last night, and judging by the number
of airships which took part, it was one of the biggest air raids of the war. Full
particulars are not yet to hand. The only official announcement yet available
is as follows:
PRESS BUREAU,
Tuesday, 1.40am
The
following announcement has been received from the War Office:
A Zeppelin
raid, by six or seven airships, took place last night over the Eastern North-Eastern,
and Midland Counties.
A number
of bombs were dropped, but up to the present no considerable damage has been
reported.
The Press
Bureau add that a further statement will be issued as soon as practicable, In
the meantime it is not permissible to publish any details which may be known to
us unofficially.
Last night’s
was the first raid on the Midland area, and it caused a great sensation, which
did not subside until after midnight.”
The following
day, the Leicester Mail of Wednesday 2 February 1916, carried the following
piece, on page 2:
“THE
ZEPPELIN RAID.
Last evening
the War Office published further reports of the Zeppelin air raid of Monday
night. These were followed at midnight by the German official version, and it
is interesting to compare these closely. Two points afford food for reflection.
One is that Monday night’s raid was the most ambitious yet effected by the
enemy. The other that the performance fell far short of the programme laid down
by the officers in charge of the Zeppelins. According to our War Office reports
six or seven airships crossed the Channel early on Monday evening. After
reaching the East Coast, the Zeppelins steered various courses and, though
hampered by the mist, covered a larger area than on any previous occasion. They
dropped bombs in Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Norfolk,
and Suffolk, the number of bombs being estimated at 220. Except in ‘one part of
Staffordshire’ says the official report, ‘the material damage was not
considerable, and in no case was any military damage caused.’ The casualty list,
however, is a long one – 54 persons being killed and 67 injured, the longest
list of any raid to date, except that on the Eastern Counties and London last October.
The Berlin
official account is in the exaggerated terms to which we have become accustomed.
The only explanation that occurs to us on reading it is that it was ‘written up’
from the programme and prepared in advance, instead of from the records of
actual achievement. In no other way can we account for the statement about the
damage to docks and harbours at Liverpool, Birkenhead, and to factories, foundries,
and smelting furnaces at Nottingham and Sheffield, and on the Humber. The
rigorous censorship which the Government maintains, prevents our pressing this
argument by referring to unofficial messages which have reached us, but we can
hardly be accused of travelling outside the official versions in pointing out
that Liverpool and Birkenhead lie some distance from Staffordshire, and neither
Sheffield nor Nottingham can be included in the counties mentioned in the War
Office despatch.
It would be folly,
however, to ignore the obvious fact that Monday night’s air raid has brought
the war close to our own doors. Up to this week there were thousands of people in
Leicestershire and other Midland Counties who held the view that Zeppelins
could not reach the centre of England. These critics expressed that opinion
with marked confidence, and denounced the lighting restrictions as the orders
of nervous officials. The wisdom of the authorities is now justified. It is
demonstrated that the German airships can travel far afield in England, though when
they get into [the] Midland Counties they have to drop bombs at random and are
often mistaken as to where they have been, or what damage they have inflicted.
For ourselves we never shared the view that the Midland Counties could rely on
immunity from air raids. The chief element of disappointment which we experience
is the news from Berlin – not challenged in our War Office report – that the
Zeppelins ‘returned safely.’ [1]
On another
point we feel bound to pen a protest, and that is against the War Office policy
of suppressing all stories of the Zeppelin raid. A rigid censorship of
published reports is necessary and wise, but entire suppression is another matter.
Germany can only defend her policy of Zeppelin raids on unfortified towns by
two arguments. One is that the airships inflict serious damage of a military
value. The other that the raids conceived in ‘frightfulness’ produce a panic amongst
the civilian population calculated to create a demand for stopping the war. We
know that in both these directions Germany has failed – and failed egregiously.
But this view
is not held in Berlin, nor in neutral countries. It is not likely to be held
while the German versions are met only by the bald and cold communiques
issued by the War office. The Press of this country has loyally obeyed the
Censor, and will obey him, yet a grave responsibility rests on the Government
if the present rules are to be maintained in their integrity. It is a truism that
nothing should be published likely to help the enemy in his future visits. But though
we conform to the orders for entire suppression our conviction is deep that
they are a mistake. To tell our own people the truth would neither make them nervous
nor craven hearted. To tell neutral countries how trifling is the damage of
military importance, but how terribly non-combatants, and women and children
have suffered, would deepen the indignation against German methods and increase
their sympathy with the Allied cause.”
It would be
another couple of days before more information about the Zeppelin raid on
Loughborough was published in the newspapers. On Friday 4 February, 1916, the
Loughborough Echo published a reasonably lengthy report about the raid, about
the injured people, and about the inquest held on those people who died. Names
were not given, but were listed in the article:
“The sex and
age of the deceased were as follows:
Man aged 49 ½
Married woman
aged 49
Man aged 51
Single woman
aged 25
Married woman
aged 42
Married woman
aged 44
Youth aged 18
Girl aged 16
Married woman
aged 29
Man aged 27”
Please, if you can, make a
trip to the underside of the stairway off The Rushes, where you can see a memorial
plaque, which names and commemorates all those who died. The plaque was installed on the
100th anniversary of the Zeppelin raid, and the adjacent information board was installed
more recently.
____________________________________
Notes
[1] For an account of what happened to L20 which was the airship which attacked Loughborough, please see a guest post from expert Ian Castle, on this blog. There are many more posts on this blog about the Zeppelin raid which you can find my using the search facility, or by clicking on the appropriate tag - although please note, these features are only available on the web version of this blog.
____________________________________
Posted by
lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
_______________________________________________
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