bedroom window. ‘From the direction of Barnet a brilliant red light appeared . . . we saw it was the Zep diving head-first. That was a
sight . . . the glare lit up all of London and was rose red. Those deaths must have been the most dramatic in the world’s history. They fell – a cone of blazing wreckage –
thousands of feet, watched by eight million of their enemies. It was magnificent, the most thrilling scene imaginable.’
That morning, like hundreds of others, she made the trip to Cuffley in Hertfordshire where the airship – it was a wooden-framed Schutte-Lanz, not a Zeppelin – had hit the ground. By
now her sentiments were more measured. ‘The wreck covers only thirty feet of ground and the dead are under a tarpaulin,’she wrote. ‘I hope they will be
buried with full military honours. They are brave men. RIP!’ 4
A fifteen-year-old schoolboy, Patrick Blundstone, was staying with family friends only a few hundred yards from the site, having apparently been sent out of London to escape the raids. He saw
the bodies before they were hidden from view. ‘I would rather not describe the condition of the crew,’ he wrote in a letter to ‘Dear Daddy’ in London. ‘They were
roasted, there is absolutely no other word for it. They were brown like the outside of roast beef.’ He collected ‘some relics, some wire and wood framework’. 5 Before souvenir hunters could strip the wreckage bare, the War Office carted it off and donated it to the Red Cross, who had the wires by which engines and
gondolas were suspended beneath the envelope cut into inch-long lengths and sold at a shilling apiece with a certificate of authenticity ‘to help the wounded at the Front’.
Leefe Robinson’s victory generated a flood of relief and he became an instant hero. Within four days he was awarded the VC, pinned on him by King George V at Windsor in front of a large
crowd. A fund was started for him which raised a colossal £3,500. He was obliged to have postcards bearing his photograph, smiling shyly as he emerges from a tent to respond to constant
requests for autographs. Commemorative table napkins declared that ‘his greatest reward’ was ‘the heartfelt thanks of every woman and child in England’. Billy Leefe Robinson
stands as the prototype for the barely formed young paladins who, twenty-four years later, would stand between British civilians and German bombers. Like them,he performed his
feats in full sight of those he was seeking to protect. Half of London seems to have watched Airship SL11 sinking earthwards in a ball of fire, taking its commander Wilhelm Schramm and fifteen crew
members to their deaths. Thus was formed a direct link between combatant and civilian that was to define the way the public regarded airmen in the years ahead. Even though their domain was the air,
they were far more visible and accessible than the soldiers across the Channel or on the high seas, their daring, their prowess and their sacrifice on show for all to see.
Leefe Robinson was promoted and sent off to France eight months later as a flight commander with 48 Squadron. On his first patrol he ran into the Jasta 11 of Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron
himself, and four of the six aircraft in his flight were shot down, including his own. Leefe Robinson survived, but spent the rest of the war in prison, including spells of solitary confinement as
punishment for repeated escape attempts. He returned to England only to die in the great Spanish ’flu pandemic in December 1918.
His victory marked the end of the Zeppelins’ employment as a bomber. Henceforth they were easy meat for the night-fighters. In the next month, three more were shot down. During the winter
of 1916 there were no further attacks, but in the spring of 1917 a new menace appeared in the shape of twin-engined Gotha GIV bombers. With these the Germans had the means to pursue their initial
ambition to mount a serious aerial assault on the British
sight . . . the glare lit up all of London and was rose red. Those deaths must have been the most dramatic in the world’s history. They fell – a cone of blazing wreckage –
thousands of feet, watched by eight million of their enemies. It was magnificent, the most thrilling scene imaginable.’
That morning, like hundreds of others, she made the trip to Cuffley in Hertfordshire where the airship – it was a wooden-framed Schutte-Lanz, not a Zeppelin – had hit the ground. By
now her sentiments were more measured. ‘The wreck covers only thirty feet of ground and the dead are under a tarpaulin,’she wrote. ‘I hope they will be
buried with full military honours. They are brave men. RIP!’ 4
A fifteen-year-old schoolboy, Patrick Blundstone, was staying with family friends only a few hundred yards from the site, having apparently been sent out of London to escape the raids. He saw
the bodies before they were hidden from view. ‘I would rather not describe the condition of the crew,’ he wrote in a letter to ‘Dear Daddy’ in London. ‘They were
roasted, there is absolutely no other word for it. They were brown like the outside of roast beef.’ He collected ‘some relics, some wire and wood framework’. 5 Before souvenir hunters could strip the wreckage bare, the War Office carted it off and donated it to the Red Cross, who had the wires by which engines and
gondolas were suspended beneath the envelope cut into inch-long lengths and sold at a shilling apiece with a certificate of authenticity ‘to help the wounded at the Front’.
Leefe Robinson’s victory generated a flood of relief and he became an instant hero. Within four days he was awarded the VC, pinned on him by King George V at Windsor in front of a large
crowd. A fund was started for him which raised a colossal £3,500. He was obliged to have postcards bearing his photograph, smiling shyly as he emerges from a tent to respond to constant
requests for autographs. Commemorative table napkins declared that ‘his greatest reward’ was ‘the heartfelt thanks of every woman and child in England’. Billy Leefe Robinson
stands as the prototype for the barely formed young paladins who, twenty-four years later, would stand between British civilians and German bombers. Like them,he performed his
feats in full sight of those he was seeking to protect. Half of London seems to have watched Airship SL11 sinking earthwards in a ball of fire, taking its commander Wilhelm Schramm and fifteen crew
members to their deaths. Thus was formed a direct link between combatant and civilian that was to define the way the public regarded airmen in the years ahead. Even though their domain was the air,
they were far more visible and accessible than the soldiers across the Channel or on the high seas, their daring, their prowess and their sacrifice on show for all to see.
Leefe Robinson was promoted and sent off to France eight months later as a flight commander with 48 Squadron. On his first patrol he ran into the Jasta 11 of Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron
himself, and four of the six aircraft in his flight were shot down, including his own. Leefe Robinson survived, but spent the rest of the war in prison, including spells of solitary confinement as
punishment for repeated escape attempts. He returned to England only to die in the great Spanish ’flu pandemic in December 1918.
His victory marked the end of the Zeppelins’ employment as a bomber. Henceforth they were easy meat for the night-fighters. In the next month, three more were shot down. During the winter
of 1916 there were no further attacks, but in the spring of 1917 a new menace appeared in the shape of twin-engined Gotha GIV bombers. With these the Germans had the means to pursue their initial
ambition to mount a serious aerial assault on the British
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