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Updated: May 11, 2025
Look!" as a swift gleam of light across the water, on a line with his eyes, betrayed the lightning swift course of a torpedo. It struck the ship, and at the same moment the Zeppelin dropped an accurate bomb. There was a terrific explosion as the torpedo struck amidships, a spurt of flame as the bomb scattered its inflammable gases over the decks, and fire burst out everywhere.
A sliding weight was employed to raise or depress the bow. In each car of the first Zeppelin was a sixteen-horse-power gasoline motor, each working two screws, with four foot blades, revolving one thousand times a minute. The engines were reversible, thus making it possible to work the propellers against each other and aid materially in steering the ship.
Now Tom and Jack, though somewhat separated, were close above the Zeppelin, and in a position where they could not be fired at. They began to drop incendiary bombs through the tubes between their knees. These bombs were fitted with sharp hooks, so that if they touched the gas bag they would cling fast, and burn until they had ignited the envelope and the vapor inside.
The last word in German design is exemplified in the rigids L.70 and L.71, together with the commercial airship 'Bodensee. Previous to the construction of these, the L.65 type is noteworthy as being the first Zeppelin in which direct drive of the propeller was introduced, together with an improved and lighter type of car.
"It is my painful duty, Miss Nora," Harrison announced solemnly, "to inform you, on behalf of Captain Griffiths, that all articles of whatsoever description, found in the vicinity of Dutchman's Common, which might possibly have belonged to any one in the Zeppelin, must be sent at once to the War Office." "Rubbish!" Nora scoffed. "The War Office aren't going to have my hat."
The Zeppelin is an impressive thing because of its size, cigar-shaped and ranging from 300 to over 500 feet in length, driven at a rate of miles an hour by four propellers and carrying a huge car. It is most valuable for use at night, of course, but has proved it is capable of doing its deadly work out of range of ordinary gunfire at day.
The age of tentative experiment was over, and, forerunner of the success of the heavier-than-air type of flying machine, successful dirigible flight was accomplished by Zeppelin in Germany, and by Santos-Dumont in France. A Brazilian by birth, Santos-Dumont began in Paris in the year 1898 to make history, which he subsequently wrote.
His first three shots missed altogether, but thereafter he landed eight within the limits. In Germany the same year the test was to drop bombs upon two targets, one resembling a captive Zeppelin, the other a military camp 330 feet square. The altitude limit was set at 660 feet. This, though a comparatively easy test, was virtually a failure.
He could see the long arms of the search-lights stretching across the sky, hear the tremendous explosions of the Zeppelin bombs over the city, and the distant growlings of the forts in the aerial fight. The enraged people tearing each other to pieces! And to what end? That they all might be as Bertin was now, reach the extinction which awaited all men, and all countries.
It enabled the French to value the Zeppelin at its true worth, which was by no means comparable to the estimate based on reports skilfully circulated for the benefit of the world at large. Recently the French military department permitted the results of their expert official examination to be made public.
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