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How Warneford’s Aeroplane Had to
Chase the Zeppelin by Rising In
Spirals, a Slower Method Than
That Which Enables Zeppelins *o
Ascend to Great Heights.
S UB-LIEUTENANT REGINALD A. J. WARNEFORD, of the British
Navy Flying Corps, received the Victoria Cross for having single-
handed destroyed a Zeppelin on June 7. This was everywhere
acclaimed as the most remarkable flying exploit of the war, the only
ease in which an aeroulane had destroyed a Zeppelin in the air. On
July 17 Warneford was killed while flying nean^ Buc in France. Before
his tragic and untimely derth he had given the following most interest
ing account of his great exploit to a representative of this newspaper
in France:
By Sub-Lieutenant Reginald A. Warneford,
Of the Flying Ccnps. British Navy, the Young English Aviator Who Received the Vic
toria Cross for Destroying a Zeppelin Single Ha '-,d.
I HAVE had the good luck to be credited with bringing
down the first Zeppelin destroyed by a monoplane
in this war.
It was really quite an easy thing to do and would
have been done Just as easily and effectively by any
other man in our service if he had had the opportunity.
In the night of June 7-8 three of us, Lieutenant J. P.
Wilson, Lieutenant J. Mills and myself, were sent out in
an air reconnaissance over the Gorman lines in Bel
gium. Wo started out In the dark, calculating that we
should have daylight by the time we were in a position
to do any damage or gai* any information of import
ance. We were guided by our compasses, which we
could see by our electric lamps. All of us were using
small, swift Morane monoplanes.
At about 3:30 in the morning, when a cold gray dawn
was breaking through the sky. wc found ourselves Just
north of the city of Brussels. Descending a little toward
the earth we were able to distinguish the big Zeppelin
hangar built by the Germans at Evere, in Belgium.
My companions then rose a little higher until they
were exactly over the hangar. One after another, they
let fly their bombs. Several found their mark and I saw
a sheet of flame, seeming as colossal as a cosmic catas
trophe, shoot out from the hangar. 1 believe it reached
a height of almost five hundred feet, it was the ex
ploding gas. ......
For the moment there was no room for me in this
work. My comrades, having done all the damage possi
ble to the hangar and used all their ammunition, turned
and went home to their camp.
1 flew on to look for some other opportunity of using
my ammunition. It was just five o’clock' in the morning
when I perceived on the horizon, about midway be
tween Ghent and Brussels, a Zeppelin moving rapidly
with the wind at a height of about 1,00(1 feet.
I Immediately flew r toward the monster, and in spite
of its speed 1 easily overtook it with my swift mono
plane.
The Zeppelin at once opened fire on me with its rapid
fire guns, to which I was powerless to reply. At the
same time it rose in the air. taking advantage of its
superior ability to rise quickly.
The Zeppelin can rise immediately by throwing out
ballast or can attain the same object by merely point
ing its nose into the wind and using its elevating planes
to raise the forward end.
As quickly as I could 1 shifted my elevating planes,
for the bullets were flying round me and my life de
pended on cttaibing higher than the enemy.
I fed more fuel to my motors and began to fly round
in spirals as fast as I could. That was my only way
rising.
The Zeppelin shot up at first like an arrow and
quickly went above me. But she soon reached the limit
of her ascending capacity.
I kept on climbing madly upward through the air
At the end of twenty minutes of fierce struggle 1 had
beaten the monster. All the time I could hear the drum
ming of the bullets round me. 1 could also catch
glimpses of the big crew busily manipulating their air
ship and trying to destroy me.
At last 1 reached a point far above them, whfrre 1 felt
that I was reasonably safe and had the mastery over
them. My Instruments showed me that I was 6,000
feet up in the air.
I knew that if I could blow large enough holes in the
top of the Zeppelin I could sink her, because that would
let her gas out. Shots and missiles striking ffom below
have little effect on the vast bulk of those airships.
They are built up of nine or more small balloons, or
"ballonets." placed within the large one. Several of
these may he destroyed before the Zeppelin falls. When
the envelope is penetrated on the under side the gas
hardly escapes at all.
I reached a point several hundred feet above the
Zeppelin and looking down saw that I had a fair chance
of dropping a bomb on her 1 touched the trigger and
down went thirty pounds of high explosive and som-
bustible.
A flash and a bang! I saw that I
had torn a hole in the Zeppelin’s en
velope. But, she was not seriously
injured and was not going to give
up the fight.
Again and again I let drop a bomb
on her until I had nearly used up my
stock. I saw that I had made several
hits—three or four, probably—hut
they were not enough to sinlc-her.
I began to fear she would escape me.
I circled down until I seemed al
most on top of the leviathan.
Then I deliberately and carefully
touched the trigger and let fall my
last bomb.
It struck fairly in the middle of
the back of the vast monster.
The earth below me, with its
pattern of cities and military camps,
and the Zeppelin itself were blotted
out, while the sky seemed filled with
flame and smoke.
The entire Zeppelin had taken fire
and exploded.
The explosion caught me in its whirl and turned me
upside down almost before I knew what had happened.
If I had not been strapped to my seat I Bhould have
fallen out.
Falling rapidly and struggling desperately for con
trol of my machine, T managed to clutch the lever and
throw It over after 1 had gone two thousand feet.
The shock of turning was so great that 1 looped-tbe-
loop and found myself upside down again. I was in
danger of being dashed to pieces on the earth. Not a
moment too soon. I succeeded in righting the machine
and guiding the direction of my fall. Swiftly I glided
to an open field within the German lines.
Thousands of German soldiers must have seen mv
fight with the Zeppelin in the air and knew- w-here I
landed. Fortunately there were none of tljem in the
immediate vicinity of my landing, but they opened
fire on me from various distances with rifles and ar
tillery.
One of my reservoirs was perforated by a bullet. I
stopped to transfer the gasoline to the other tank and
then started my machine.. I had been on the ground
thirty-five minutest and was under a hot fire all tho
time. At first 1 ran into a fog and finally landed near
Cap Grlsnez, i„ France, twenty feet from the edge of
a cliff. -*
I had lost sight of the Zeppelin in my own troubles
over the explosion. Afterward I learned that every one
of her twenty-eight men had perished. Every scrap of
combustible material on her was burned up by the gas
explosion and the crew were burned to cinders at the
same time.
As the lifeless monster, deprived of its lifting force,
fell to the ground, its framework crashed through the
roof of an orphanage at Ghent called the "Grand Be-
gulnage de St. Elizabeth," and killed two nuns and two
children and injured twenty others. Even in death it
had done evil.
,1 believe that the Zeppelin I had the good fortune to
destroy was the very one that passed over the English
watering place Ramsgate on Sunday and killed one
woman and four children and wounded forty unarmed
civilians The Zeppelin left the English coast between
two and three o’clock in the morning and its speed and
the state of the'wind would have permitted it to be.in
the position near Brussels when I encountered 1t. Tnis
fact naturally adds to one’s satisfaction in having put
an end to the career of such a murdering air pirate.
There are many facts about these air encounters
w-hich our army and nary authorities will not permit us
to reveal, but there are also many which we wish to
impress on the British public.
The Zeppelin cannot be used as a serious weapon of
attack against troops and fortifications because it offers
an enormous target for a gun anil because it has too
little capacity for aiming accurately with its guns or
bombs. These monster airships have made themselves
remarkable only by indiscriminate killing of civilians in
Copyright, 1918, by ths Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reaerved.
Pictorial Diagram Showing How Warneford’*
Aeroplane After Manoeuvring Successfully
for Position Above the Zeppelin Rained
Bombs Upon It Finally Causing Its 'En
tire Gas Contents to Explode, Send
ing the Monster a Wreck to the
Earth and Killing All Its Crew.
Antwerp , Paris, London, Yar
mouth and other towns. The
civilian population must remain
calm under such attacks and con
sole themselves with the thought
that they do no harm to the fight
ing power of their country. With
every day, moreover, the allied
aviators will find more effective
ways of dealing with them.
The Zeppelin is a terrible
weapon when viewed by its proud
inventor from the safe interior of
Germany, but lesS so when en
countered by an allied airman.
The entire machine is 600 to 800
feet long and 60 to 80 feet in dia
meter, according to the type. In
the earlier and more frequent type
there are nine spherical gas bags
within the cigar-shaped enyelope.
From the under side swings the
car, about 400 feet long. There
are four sets of engines, two at
the bow and two at the stern, and
they operate two propellers and
two tractors.
The car carries from four to
six rapid fire or machine guns
and elaborate bomb dropping de
vices. Many of the bombs are filled with a chemical
specially devised to .set fire to dwelling houses.
The underside of the car is armored sufficiently to
protect the crew against rifle fire.
The statement that the Zeppelin is furnished with a
quick-firing gun on top of the envelope to protect it
from above is inaccurate. We have found this out from
personal experience. Such an arrangement would upset
the entire equilibrium of the balloon, which is balanced
on the principle of hanging nearly all the weight be
neath it. For the same reason there can be no armor
on top of the balloon.
It U an axiom that the Zeppelin, being a gas bag float
ing in the air, is at the mercy of moving air—that is, ot
wind. It is true that a Zeppelin can be driven to a cer
tain extent against a moderate wind, but with the wind
at forty miles an hour it becomes helpless. It is evi
dent that a machine whose speed varies with every
change in the wind cannot aim a gun or bomb with any
accuracy. We should not forget also that the great
majority of Zeppelins constructed have destroyed theto-
selves without any effort by the enemy.
On the other hand, an aeroplane is to a great degree
master of the wind and this mastery increases with the
power and size of the machine, whereas the opposite is
true of a Zeppelin The aeroplane can overtake a Zep
pelin and heat it at every point except perhaps in rap
idly rising in the air.
Wreck of a Zeppelin, Lying on a Railroad Embankment,
Showing the Va3t Bulk of the Airship.
One advantage claimed for the Zeppelin is that it can
attack at night. With its capacity to remain aloft for a
long perio^ it is able to spend the night in the air wait
ing for an opportunity to throw bombs at some care
lessly displayed light or else waiting for the dawn. In
this work it is helped by the fact that the men aru
protected against exposure by their large car and have
plenty of room for the use of observation instruments.
We are preparing to meet this difficulty by learning
to fly our aeroplanes at night by compass. If a man
starts by compass two hours before dawn he will arrivef
in the heart of the enemy’s territory at a time when
there is sufficient light for him to work by and when
his attacks will be most unexpected and most unwel-i
come. i -
A bomb planted on the house of some German prince!
or genera! just when he is turning over for his last half
hour’s snooze will surely cause some disturbance among
the ruling classes of that delightful country. :
We have hundreds of young aviators who can do the
trick. I only had three months’ training in the aviation
school at Hendon before I was placed in this service. I
went to the school from Canada five months ago. It Is
scarcely necessary to say that what I did many other
men can do.
1 venture to say that the Germans will live to regret
the day when they first used a Zeppelin in. war.
The Man Who
Won the First
Victory of Its
Kind in Human
History De
scribes the Epic
Fight Between
the David and the Goliath
of the Air
'Method of Droping Bomba
by Hand Employed by
English Aviatora In
Attacking Zeppallna.
Diagram of an Incendiary Air Bomb.
A. Device Which Ignitee the Bomb
When It Strlkea. B, "Funnel Filled
With “Thermit” Which On Igni
tion Generates Heat at a Temper
ature of 6,000 Degrees Fahrenheit
Scattering Molten Metal All About.
C, Padding of Highly Inflammable
Reelnoua material Which Ignltet
the “Thermit.” D, Melted White
Phoephoroue at the Bottom Which
Develops Polaonout Fumes. E,
Metal Caae of Bomb.
Hev> Zeppelins and Aeroplanes
Manoeuvre to Take Advantage of
We»ther Conditions In Fighting.
4
„r ‘‘/rJ'V* 'life*
ATTACKING ’
AEROPLANE.
4*