Zeppelin experts!

[asdarley]

My Dad, born 1910, used to regale the family with tales of being taken from his bed as a child to look up into the night sky at a Zeppelin.

Now this would have taken place over Hemsworth ( near Pontefract) in South Yorkshire ( Dad mentioned the pit winding gear being stopped so the Zeppelin wouldn't hear it!)

Could this be true? Or was my Dad just telling porkies? I'd love to know!

[Tony Lund]

I do seem to remember reading about a Zeppelin dropping its bombs harmlessly on a park or garden belonging to a wealthy landowner at Pontefract.

Tony.

[deano]

Hi

google Sheffield Zeppelin.

Dean

[auchonvillerssomme]

There were a number of airships over the area so he wasn't making it up. Wakefield, Barnsley and Sheffield are all named in German Air Raids on Britain by Joseph Morris.

Mick

[asdarley]

Thank you gentlemen! Never disbelieve your old dad!!

If your interested here is a full account of the momentous event

Pontefract raid

[AJP1963]

My Dad, born 1910, used to regale the family with tales of being taken from his bed as a child to look up into the night sky at a Zeppelin.

Now this would have taken place over Hemsworth ( near Pontefract) in South Yorkshire ( Dad mentioned the pit winding gear being stopped so the Zeppelin wouldn't hear it!)

Could this be true? Or was my Dad just telling porkies? I'd love to know!

Yes its true one flew over Keighley West Yorks to drop wreaths off for dead german prisoners of war

Regards

Andy

[Frank_East]

Edoric's post on the Zeppelin raid over Pontefract is taken from the Pontefract Digest, a local magazine which runs in parallel with the Knottingley Digest. I understand these two magazines are now only available on subscription. They can be real sources of local history.

My mother witnessed these raids over Castleford as a child and I always took her account to be an authentic.Years later, I could not find it confirmed by Arthur Banks's publication A Military Atlas of the First World War which showed the Zeppelin flight paths over Nothern England.

I think the reference to the Zeppelin dropping the wreath over Keighley is actually the act of the Hindenburg which in May 1936 dropped a package containing flowers and a cross over the grave of a former German Great War POW.The POW was Lieutenant Franz Schulte of the No 1 Gard Regiment who died of flu at Morton Banks POW Camp and his was intially interred in Morton Cemetery which must be in the area of Keighley.Franz's brother, John P Schultz, apparently a priest, aboard the Hindenberg returning from the US had arranged for a diversion when the Hindenberg's track was planned from Barrow in Furness to Thorne in the then West Riding, then out via the North Sea back to Germany.

When the German Cannock Chase Cemetery was created, Lietenant Schultz's body was reinterred there. Last September when passing through the area we decided to see if we could locate his grave.The situation at Cannock is not conducive to the visitor as we could not find a register of the graves and there did not appear to be anyone about who could supply information. However I decided to search for Franz Schulte's grave and after about 20 minutes I found it at the bottom of the right hand slope. Lunch at Hoar Cross made a good day out and completed some of the background to the Hindenburg's flight.

It has been claimed that the Hindenburg 's track over England was a deliberate act for taking military intelligence photographs.I remember seeing the Hindenburg as a young child flying over a the eastern area of Castleford,quite low on a northerly track.Shortly afterwards it must have a change of direction towards the east and then proceeded in a south east direction to pass over Thorne and out to sea.The interesting point about this, I remember the Luffewaffe's attempt to destroy the vital A1 bridge over the Liverpool/York railway line at Fairburn some years later.The bomb which was quite huge from the crater it created, missed the bridge by about 100 yards and we children in the company of older children were quickly on the scene next morning but were kept to a safe distance by military personnel.This bridge would lie in the track of the Hindenburg and I have always associated the attempt to destroy the bridge as a connection with the Hindenburg.The other installation photographed may have been Ferrybridge Power Station which lies close by but this target was defended by a an AA and Searchlight Battery situated in the nearby Fryston Park.

[centurion]

I don't know about the earlier Hindenberg flights but the Graf Zeppelin flew what would today be called an Elint (ELectronic INTelligence) mission along the North Sea after the outbreak of war in 1939 to try and determine if the British were indeed installing Radio Detection Finding (later RADAR) stations along the coast. This was the last hurrah of the military rigid airship (the Graf Zeppelin was broken up soon after).

[Max]

I do seem to remember reading about a Zeppelin dropping its bombs harmlessly on a park or garden belonging to a wealthy landowner at Pontefract.

Tony.

Tony

If this is Nostell Priory you are talking about, then the same thing happened in WW2 when a bomber dropped its load after coming back from an unsuccessful raid on Sheffield. The bombs later went off killing several members of the local ARP my great uncle amongst them.

Andy