trenchwalker Posted 3 March , 2005 Share Posted 3 March , 2005 dont worry this is not some sought of grand memorial venture etc. basically from a document at the pro it lists every bombed dropped by mathy zep and the first dropped outside my local pub so thats a good start what i am going to do is walk from ponders end to cuffley and photograph each area from where the bombs landed to were it crashed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 4 March , 2005 Share Posted 4 March , 2005 Please note Trenchie... I believe that there is a piece of Zeppelin in Cuffley church on the wall somewhere. If it goes AWOL we will know it was you! (just kidding, as the goat said) Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Warren Posted 4 March , 2005 Share Posted 4 March , 2005 Adrian The piece of Zeppelin you have made reference too may be the dualumin girder section from L-48 mounted in St Peters Church, Theberton. I know of no piece of the airship (SL-11) that fell at Cuffley being displayed in any of the churches close to where it fell. If a piece is, then please let me know? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Morgan Posted 4 March , 2005 Share Posted 4 March , 2005 Just for clarification - Mathy's final airship was the L31, which was shot down and crashed at Potters Bar, not Cuffley. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Roberts Posted 5 March , 2005 Share Posted 5 March , 2005 Trenchwalker to this day, the church of St. Mary the Virgin and All Saints, at Potters Bar, has an altar-cross made from metal taken from the wreck. It can be seen in the All Souls Chapel. This info is from a website by Tom Morgan - is this our Tom Morgan? If so, Tom, you seem to have forgotten it in your post above Also: give us a shout if you find the place where Mathy lay down on the job... Adrian Roberts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Warren Posted 5 March , 2005 Share Posted 5 March , 2005 Friends TW's original posting appears to be consistant with the bomb dropping of the SL-11 being an Army Shutte-Lanz airship (not a Zeppelin) commanded by Hauptmann Wilhem Scrhamm (born: London, England) on the night of 2/3 September 1917. The memorial that TW may be refering too is the Daily Express memorial to Capt. W Leefe Robinson at Cuffley close to where SL-11 crashed. The memorial was orininally inscribed mistakenly (or possibly purposely?) with the airship number L-21 (being the number a German Naval Zeppelin that was shot down over the sea off Lowestoft on 28/11/16). The 3rd September has been called 'Zepp Sunday'. Perhaps the authorities did not want to alarm the public by releasing the fact that the Germans were operating two makes of airship? Thus, in that way that we often call any make of vacuum cleaner a 'hoover'... both types of german long-range bomb carrying airship were and often still are generally called Zeppelin's. Adrian, thanks for your posting on the Church of St Mary. Regards to all David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 7 March , 2005 Share Posted 7 March , 2005 Adrian The piece of Zeppelin you have made reference too may be the dualumin girder section from L-48 mounted in St Peters Church, Theberton. I know of no piece of the airship (SL-11) that fell at Cuffley being displayed in any of the churches close to where it fell. If a piece is, then please let me know? David Beg pardon, David. A quick Google reveals that you are correct. Interestingly a quick Google for Cuffley Zeppelin reveal that fragments of L31 were sold st the SL-11 crash site, just to confuse us! Sorry Trenchy, getting my Schutte-Lanz and my Zeppelin muddled! Adrian, what a gruesome souvenir that postcard is! Having worked in a poultry packing plant I thought I was unshockable, and I thought wrong! Adrian (t'other one!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Roberts Posted 8 March , 2005 Share Posted 8 March , 2005 Adrian [JT Gray] Adrian, what a gruesome souvenir that postcard is! It was obviously sold as a postcard at the time, but I'm sorry if I offended anyone by displaying it again. A clumsy attempt at humour on my part; I did go to bed wondering if I'd overstepped the mark. Perhaps also prejudice: if he had been British, would the photo have been published, either originally or by me the other day? Adrian Roberts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J T Gray Posted 8 March , 2005 Share Posted 8 March , 2005 No offence taken, mon namesake! Just surprised. A fair comment on society at the time, I think, and after all how many WW1 photos of corpses are there in print? Thousands? Tens of thousands? And it wasn't a bad pun either - OK, I have a macabre sense of humour but... Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raster Scanning Posted 8 March , 2005 Share Posted 8 March , 2005 Also: give us a shout if you find the place where Mathy lay down on the job... Adrian Roberts I lived in Cotton Rd Potters Bar for a while, Mathy laid down in a field just behind my house, housing has occupied the site since the 1930's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Robert Parker Posted 5 July , 2006 Share Posted 5 July , 2006 Beg pardon, David. A quick Google reveals that you are correct. Interestingly a quick Google for Cuffley Zeppelin reveal that fragments of L31 were sold st the SL-11 crash site, just to confuse us! Sorry Trenchy, getting my Schutte-Lanz and my Zeppelin muddled! Adrian, what a gruesome souvenir that postcard is! Having worked in a poultry packing plant I thought I was unshockable, and I thought wrong! Adrian (t'other one!) Dear All All your observations on the Zeppelin L31 and Shutte Lanz SL11 are very interesting. I have a 3ft aluminium girder that by letter dated 1st Nov 1916 is said to be the last airship shot down (the most recent) and to come from Cuffley. However the SL11 was apparantly wooden; therefore my question is this likely to be a fragment of the L31 but as a correspondent suggest bought from the L11 crash site. Yours ever Robert Parker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Roberts Posted 6 July , 2006 Share Posted 6 July , 2006 I have a 3ft aluminium girder that by letter dated 1st Nov 1916 is said to be the last airship shot down (the most recent) and to come from Cuffley. However the SL11 was apparantly wooden; therefore my question is this likely to be a fragment of the L31 but as a correspondent suggest bought from the L11 crash site. Robert This sounds the most likely explanation. There may have been some aluminium in the Schutte-Lanz types, engine bearers for instance, but the roaring trade in souvenirs makes mix-ups between the different craft very likely. Welcome to the forum! Adrian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest whealan Posted 12 January , 2008 Share Posted 12 January , 2008 On 4th September 1916 my father, as a boy of 15, walked from his home in Crouch End the 12 miles or so to Cuffley to see the Zeppelin, or more accurately I learn from this board the SL11, which had been brought down. He collected and carefully labelled 5 different pieces of wreckage, with quite detailed comments on each. I have these in a display box at home. One piece of copper tubing is described as "Piece of internal tubing of Zeppelin. Probably part of tube from petrol-tank to the motors. The four twelve cylinder motors were preserved practically intact, except where they hit the ground. The Zeppelin was brought down at Cuffley, on the morning of Sunday Sept. 3rd 1916 at about 2.30 a.m." There are also "a piece of fused aluminium...", "a German cartridge case...", "Part of radiator of Zeppelin..." (a copper strip) and " a fragment of charred wood...One would hardly think that any wood could remain unburned in such a fire. Our British experts, on examining the wreck, were struck by the large amount of wood used in the construction of the Zeppelin, thus pointing to a shortage of aluminium in Germany, owing to the blockade". The other labels are in similar vein and are all signed "Sept 4th 1916 L.W.Wheal" Tony Wheal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithmaps Posted 13 January , 2008 Share Posted 13 January , 2008 Dear All All your observations on the Zeppelin L31 and Shutte Lanz SL11 are very interesting. I have a 3ft aluminium girder that by letter dated 1st Nov 1916 is said to be the last airship shot down (the most recent) and to come from Cuffley. However the SL11 was apparantly wooden; therefore my question is this likely to be a fragment of the L31 but as a correspondent suggest bought from the L11 crash site. Yours ever Robert Parker Robert SL 11 was indeed wooden, but was the first Zeppelin shot down! The last one in the UK was L48 at Theberton, on the 17th June 1917. I too have a 3 ft piece of Girder, from L48. I also have pieces of L32. The material which L48 was made of is noticeably thinner than that of L32. This is because L48 was the only 'height climber' brought down in the UK. Height climbers were produced on the very edge of structural rigidity in order to try to escape the defences. This may help you identify your piece? Note also. I have small pieces of L31, which were sold at Cuffley, at the site of SL11. This is because many thousands of people flocked to Cuffley, and I believe that small fragments only were sold in aid of the Red Cross, and were sold with a certificate. These parts were I believe shipped from the L31 site to satisfy demand. L31 was very much destroyed, and by then L33 had been brought down very much in tact. Full drawings and reports were made of L33, and two british airship copies were made, R33 and R34. Remember too, that a Zeppelin at that time was 'state of the art' and a very secret weapon indeed. it was a criminal offence to take any part, and many were prosecuted. this was because the airships were still being studied, in order to try to counter the threat, and all parts were eagerly sought by officialdom. All the more unlikely that anything of any size were sold. My opinion is that pieces only really escaped into the hands of those that were in charge of the investigation themselves, and later those that eventually scrapped what was left over. Pics of my piece of girder can be found on the following web page: L48 Zeppelin Any chance of posting a picture of yours? Cheers Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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