Zeppelin

Stealthily and slowly the zeppelin moved across that summer sky, sometimes appearing briefly and largely unnoticed in the gaps between evening clouds. In those days, military airship navigation was a rather crude process and the given targets were therefore quite general. It was August 9th 1915 and The Great War had, like my father, just passed its first birthday. The huge L9 aircraft, manufactured in Friedrichshafen, Germany was commanded by Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe.   

Ahead was the little Yorkshire port town of Goole.  With its first few bombs, the enemy attempted to blow up Goole Railway Bridge where it crosses The River Ouse. They failed miserably before drifting on to the town itself.

Goole Railway Bridge on Wednesday

In the little terraced streets north east of the docks, citizens were getting ready for bed. No doubt some were mending shoes, ironing clothes, playing dominoes, reading books, eating supper, stoking fires or settling children. Goole had never been bombed before and the people were blissfully unprepared for what was about to happen.

In total, sixty bombs were dropped on the town that night. It was like winning a reverse lottery. Roofs and walls came down. Fires erupted. Screams were heard and in the neighbourhood of Aire Street and Bridge Street, it was as if hell had broken out. The zeppelin drifted serenely on to the docks where minimal damage was caused before turning back to The North Sea and Germany beyond. The last few bombs were dropped in fields near the village of Hotham in The East Riding.

Behind lay the innocent dead, dying and injured - victims of a war that they neither created nor understood. Isn't that characteristic of all wars? 

Those who died that night were: Sarah Acaster, 65; Sarah Ann Acaster, 34; Kezia Acaster, 32; Violet Stainton, 18; Hannah Goodall, 74; Alice Harrison, six; Florence Harrison, four; Margaret Selina Pratt, nine months; Agnes Pratt, 36; Alice Elizabeth Woodhall, three; Grace Woodhall, 31; Mary Carroll, 32; James Carroll, 26; Alice Carroll, four; Gladys Mary Carroll, three, and Alice Smith, 17.

As I was walking in and around Goole on Wednesday, I looped round the cemetery and saw this, though at that precise moment I had no idea what it was:-

It is a memorial to the unfortunates listed above. Here's a close-up:-

The second photo is from the Historic England website.

My morning research into this tragedy conjured up an evocative  letter dated August 12th 1915 and written by Mr West, a resident of Goole, to his daughter who was a student in Leeds at the time - training to be a teacher:-

Mr Gunnee carried girl out, all flesh of one leg torn away - next he fetched a young baby, but the sight finished him; he was done ... sick ... he went away ... to vomit. Had it been a man, he says he would not care. Next fell in Ouse Street (back) near T.K. Wilson's baker. Hole in wall, drive horse and car thro' - floors are all down in the cellar, furniture just a pile of ruin, pictures hang akimbo.

Let us pray especially for the children whose lives had only just begun - Violet, Florence, Grace, Gladys, the four Alices and last but not least Baby Margaret. It goes without saying that they did not deserve to die that night.

As for Kapitänleutnant Odo Loewe, six months later in January 1916, he was commanding another zeppelin - the L19. It had to be ditched in the middle of The North Sea but all of the crew survived in a life raft.  Their signal flares were spotted by a passing  Grimsby fishing trawler but when the skipper of that boat, William Martin, realised that all of those seeking rescue were German airmen, he refused to pick them up, fearing they might take over his vessel. Subsequently, all sixteen, including  Loewe,  drowned. Perhaps it was predestined that that number precisely matched the tally of death in Goole.