by Ley Reynolds

1914 German propaganda postcard of the first raid

Historical Notes

By the outbreak of the Great War both the Deutsches Heer and Kaiserliche Marine had obtained a small number of rigid airships, their substantial endurance making them suitable for reconnaissance and bombing sorties far behind the Front, despite their slow speed. The first airship operation of the war was an attack on Liege on 5th-6th August 1914, with DH Zeppelin "LZ.VI", a "k" Type ship, dropping artillery shells fitted with improvised tailfins from low altitude. In a harbinger of things to come, no damage was reported and Belgian ground-fire so damaged the airship's gas cells that it crashed near Bonn on its return flight and was completely destroyed.

Two period images of one of these machines

Followed by a group of computer generated images.

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