chris.wight Posted 13 December , 2004 Share Posted 13 December , 2004 My Gran who lived in Beccles when she was growing up told me she had seen a zeppelin on fire one night. Seemingly she had been wakened up by some noise, looked out her window and saw the zeppelin, then went and told her father. She would have been 14 or 15 at the time. Unfortunately I was young when she told me the story and I've forgotten the details. Would anyone have an idea which year and zeppelin this might have been? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
182 CEF Posted 13 December , 2004 Share Posted 13 December , 2004 Chris, I don't have any idea of where Beccles is. My book on air raids on England list all shot down Zepps, But the town you mention is not listed as where any fell. Dean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 13 December , 2004 Share Posted 13 December , 2004 Beccles is a few miles west of Lowestoft on the Suffolk coast. Your Grandmother saw the demise of Zeppelin L48 which fell in flames in the early hours of the 17th June 1917 (03.30 hours) and landed in Theberton (which is just 15 miles south of Beccles). Depending on the height of the airship, when it caught fire, some witnesses were over 40 miles away when they witnessed the destruction of flaming Zeppelins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris.wight Posted 14 December , 2004 Author Share Posted 14 December , 2004 Thanks Dean & Racing Teapots for your replies. I found a number of interesting sites on the web about L-48, even this item from a past Ebay auction. Some sites mentioned one or two crew members surviving which must have been against the odds of that happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 14 December , 2004 Share Posted 14 December , 2004 Some sites mentioned one or two crew members surviving which must have been against the odds of that happening. Three crew members survived, albeit with terrible burns. However one man passed away on armistice day (a victim of influenza, coupled with his injuries). There are two other men who survived a flaming airship crash in WW1 - though one, Mathy, lived only for a few minutes (he jumped, allegedly - and this is the picture often seen of an imprint in the ground). The other crew member fell through the roof of a convent, in France, and into the empty bed of a nun. When the R101 crashed and burnt, and of course the Hindenburg, there were survivors who emerged from the burning wreckage. But I accept that both these craft were very low and flying slowly when they were wrecked. The WW1 examples above took some four minutes to fall from 20,000 feet, and were literally infernos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Warren Posted 14 December , 2004 Share Posted 14 December , 2004 Gentlemen I offer for your consideration the possibility that Chris's Gran may have witnessed the destruction of the L21 which fell into the sea 9 miles east of Lowestoft on 28/11/1916? Hope this is helpful. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Pete Wood Posted 14 December , 2004 Share Posted 14 December , 2004 Hi David. I did consider L21. However I believe that at 6.40am (when the L21 was hit) it would have been daylight, and therefore not as easy to see from such a distance. But it is very possible, and I thank you for pointing this out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisharley9 Posted 16 December , 2004 Share Posted 16 December , 2004 16 members of the crew of L48 were buried in Theberton (St Peter) Churchyard. I assume that they were moved to Cannock Chase at a later date All The Best Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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