Sheffield's First Air Raid - 25th September 1916
"There is no such thing as a non-combatant in this war". David Lloyd George
The raid occurred on the night of Monday 25th September 1916 when a single Zeppelin dropped 36 bombs in a line between Burngreave and through Attercliffe to Darnall. The Zeppelin in question was a German Naval Zeppelin L22 that was under the command of Kapitanleutnant Martin Dietrich
Photo of the German Zeppelin L22 which bombed Sheffield - 25th September 1916
The Zeppelin approached the city from the south east and circled clockwise over the city before dropping incendiaries and high explosives in a south easterly and then easterly direction over the northern districts of Pitsmoor and Attercliffe. The first bomb fell in Burngreave Cemetery and the second close to Danville Street where the first fatality occurred. The next bomb claimed the lives of two elderly women in a house in Grimethorpe Road. At the corner of Petre Street and Lyon Road a man looking out of a window was killed by shrapnel and at Writtle Street a woman died from wounds and shock.( see note 1)
However worse was to come. Two bombs fell in rapid succession in Cossey Road, the first of which demolished three houses in a row and penetrated the cellar of the middle one - 26 Cossey Road. In the cellar of no 26, four families were sheltering from the raid but stood little chance of surviving the explosion - three men, four women and three children were killed outright. The second bomb hit 10 Cossey Road killing a young couple and their baby son as they lied together in bed.
The next bomb fell in Corby Street a further nine victims. Corby Street ran parallel to the Atlas Steel and Iron Works and the Norfolk Steel Works but the works remained untouched. At number 136 Corby Street, seven people in the same family were were killed, five of which were children. In total the bomb claimed a further nine victims.
A bomb in Princess Street demolished the Primitive Methodist Chapel. Further bombs exploded near to Washford Road bridge and in Woodbourn Road where a man was blown to pieces as he warned a household to put out their lights. The Zeppelin finally disappeared east over the Darnall district of the city.
The bombing had resulted in 24 fatalities outright. There was a further four fatalities in the days after the raid, leading to an overall total of 28. There were also 19 persons who received injuries in the raid. With regard to property, 89 houses were seriously damaged whilst another 150 suffered minor damage. The Baltic Arms at 420 Effingham Road was damaged in the raid.
The City's defences at the time of the attack were described as a "fiasco" and shambolic. The officers of the local anti-aircraft defences were attending a ball at the Grand Hotel and so no order was given or received to engage the L22. The airship remained unmolested. Needless to say, the bombing did lead to the installation of extra searchlights and guns on the city's hills but it proved to be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.
I cannot find any information about the objectives of the raid. A number of accounts point to the fact that Sheffield was one of the world's largest armaments producers and local industry was critical in the supply of material to the armies fighting the war against Germany and her allies. If this is the case then the raid can only count as being a spectacular failure - minimal if any damage was caused to local industry. However if the aim of the raid was to spread fear and anger among the civilian population then the raid can be classed as a success.
On Armistice Day 1922 a Memorial was unveiled outside the Baltic Works in Effingham Road, Sheffield. To quote
"the memorial was intended to perpetuate the infamy of the Germans as much as remember the dead"
The chairman of the Baltic Works told the large crowd attending the ceremony that if the Germans had had their way, the works and the surrounding houses would have ceased to exist. The memorial still stands near the entrance to the now defunct steel works. It reads
"Lest we Forget' on September 26th 1916 nine men, ten women and ten children were killed by a German air raid on Sheffield. One of the bombs fell close to this spot"
As for the L22 it had a short career. It's first mission was on March 3rd 1916 and in total covered 30 reconnaissance missions; it's eight attacks on England resulted in the dropping of 9215 kg in bomb weight. It was finally destroyed by a British Curtis H12 Flying Boat flown by RNAS Flight Commander Robert Leckie (later Air Vice Marshal) near Terschelling, Northern Netherlands on May 14th, 1917 during a reconnaissance mission. All the crew members perished in the attack.
Sources
The First Blitz - Andrew Hyde
The Baby Killers - Thomas Fegan
Notes
1. A post was made to a local history message board in June
2007 which points out that the casualty was his great grandmother
"My Great Grandma, Elizabeth Bellamy nee Pigott was killed during the raid by
Zeppellin L22 on 26 Sep 1916. She was living at 43 Writtle Street (off Petre
Street) and was protecting my mum who was 11 months old and in a cot at the same
house"
2.The same message board also points out that the Sheffield Local Studies
Library also has in its possession a notebook that has the writers personal
reminiscences of a Zeppelin raid in Sheffield
"From Matilda Street the Zeppelin sounded like a traction engine coming from
Darnall. The sound seemed to go by Woodseats, Ecclesall and Crookes. And shortly
I saw flashes of blue light and heard sharp, very loud reports. Over the Midland
Station it appeared to be. But the first bomb dropped on the corner of
Burngreave cemetery. Most damage and loss of life was done on Petre Street where
most was killed. Houses were wiped out and windows and rooms wrecked in the
vicinity. A chapel in Princess Street was demolished. There were [AA] batteries
at the Manor, Wincobank Hill and Ecclesall. But not a shot was fired. The
officers were at a ball at the Grand. "
The writer then goes on to detail the location of the AA guns
One set of guns and a searchlight was just off High Storrs Road, about where the
infant school is now, and the other site was along Marsh House Rd, which was a
track across a field at the time. Apparently they used to practice with the
lights, and it was a public entertainment to go up there and watch the lights
from these sites and others at Norton and Wincobank Hill.
3. Specification of the L22 Zeppelin ( From The Zeppelin Museum Website)
Baunummer: LZ 64
Typ: q
Länge: 178,5 m
Durchmesser: 18,7 m
Volumen: 35.800 m3
Zellenanzahl: 18
Leergewicht: 24.100 kg
Nutzlast: 17.498 kg
Motorenanzahl: 4
Motorleistung: 240 PS
Gesamtleistung: 960 PS
Geschwindigkeit: 26,4 m/s
1. Fahrt: 03.03.1916
Außer Dienst: 14.05.1917
Eigentümer: Marine
Kommandant: Kapitänleutnant Martin Dietrich
ab 07.10.1916 Kapitänleutnant Hollender
ab 14.02.1917 Kapitänleutnant Hankow
ab 22.02.1917 Oberleutnant z. See Lehmann
Bauwerft: Löwenthal
Standorte: Tondern
ab 15.03.1916 Nordholz
ab 16.04.1916 Tondern
ab 20.09.1916 Nordholz
ab 03.03.1917 Hage
ab 05.04.1917 Wittmundhaven
Einsätze: 30 Aufklärungen
8 Angriffe mit 9.215 kg Bomben
Bemerkung:
Am 14. Mai 1917 kehrte L22 von einer Aufklärungsfahrt nicht mehr zurück. In den USA gebaute Curtiss-Flugboote mit großer Reichweite hatten es bei Terschelling abgeschossen. Es gab keine Überlebenden.
4. In mid 2006 two
authors called Mark Goodwill and Glynn May wrote a two part article in The
Star about the Zeppelin Raids of 26 Sept 1916. They also have a very
informative web-site that gives further details of the
Zeppelin raid on
Sheffield in 1916
An Overview of the Zeppelin Raids on England 1914 - 1918 (from Wikipedia)
The first ever aerial bombardment of civilians was on January 19, 1915, in which two German Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on the English towns of Great Yarmouth, Sherringham, Kings Lynn, and the surrounding villages. In all, four people were killed, sixteen injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740, although the public and media reaction were out of proportion to the death toll.
London was accidentally bombed in May, and, in July 1916, the Kaiser allowed directed raids against urban centres. There were 23 airship raids in 1916 in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defences improved. In 1917 and 1918 there were only eleven Zeppelin raids against England, withand the final raid occurred on August 5, 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser, commander of the German Naval Airship Department. By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. It has been argued that the raids were effective far beyond material damage in diverting and hampering wartime production, and diverting twelve squadrons and over 10,000 men to air defences.
This page was last updated on 18/03/08 11:32