12 August 1916                                     

Bombed: Kent 

At 12.30pm on 12 August a single German aircraft appeared over Dover without any previous warning of approach. The aircraft came inland at great height over the South Foreland, just north of Dover, but with high cloud hindering observation it passed unobserved. Flying from Gistel, Belgium, the pilot, Leutnant Ilges of Marine Landflieger Abteilung 1, approached the town from the NNW. and flew a course to the SSE. Only when his first bomb detonated close to a shed on the RNAS airfield at Guston Road, near to Fort Burgoyne, did the Dover defenders realise they were under attack. Alerted by the explosion, the first RNAS aircraft took off three minutes later and, although ten aircraft (a mix of landplanes and seaplanes) eventually went up from Dover, Manston and Westgate, only one pilot, 2nd Lieut. C.A. Hore, 50 Squadron, RFC, saw the German aircraft and gave pursuit, only to lose its quary in a cloud bank.

While the airfields at Dover, Manston and Westgate became hives of activity, Ilges dropped his second high-explosive bomb as he approached Dover Castle. It landed in front of the officers’ mess at a military camp on North Fall Meadow occupied by 5th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, slightly wounding an officer and five privates. The third bomb exploded on a cliff south-east of the Castle wounding a soldier of 61st Protection Company, Royal Defence Corps, who was chopping wood. A number of windows in houses nearby were smashed. The fourth and final bomb landed in the sea near the East Cliff.

Alerted by the bombs, ten of the Dover anti-aircraft guns opened fire, getting off 141 rounds of varying calibre and type. With his bombing run completed just as the AA guns opened fire, Leutnant Ilges continued out to sea and set a homeward course.

23/24 August 1916                           

Bombed: Suffolk 

News of the approach of a single army Zeppelin, LZ.97, likely commanded by Hauptmann Erich Linnarz, was received at Harwich at 23.33pm. The commander of the garrison gave the ‘Take Air Raid Action’ warning three minutes later. LZ.97 came inland over the mouth of the River Debden near the Bawdsey Ferry and took a south-west course towards Felixstowe and Harwich. Passing over the AA gun at the club house on the golf course south of the ferry, LZ.97 dropped a high-explosive bomb in a field about 200 yards north of the village of Old Felixstowe, followed by another on a field at Cowpasture Farm, about 600 yards north of Walton church. The raider then appeared to head towards Landguard Fort at Felixstowe but turned away before reaching it. Now heading northwards, LZ.97 passed over Blofield Hall and dropped five HE bombs in fields between there and Trimley station where a single incendiary bomb narrowly missed the station buildings. From the station, LZ.97 steered towards the village of Trimley St. Mary, dropping four incendiary bombs on the way then, circling over the village, she dropped five more incendiaries. One fell at Street Farm, one at The Grange, one at the Rectory and two at a house known as The Limes. There one landed in the garden and the other smashed through the roof of a barn but fell into a bath full of water which extinguished it.

LZ.97 then took an easterly course away from Trimley, dropping an HE bomb at Mill Farm and another near Hill House in the parish of Walton but which failed to detonate. From there LZ.97 followed a north-east line, dropping another ten HE bombs between there and a stretch of water known as King’s Fleet, which all fell on fields or marshland without causing any damage. The sodden nature of the ground meant the exploding bombs made little noise. LZ.97 crossed back over the Debden, was heard at Hollesley at 12.12am and went out to sea near Orford Ness. At no point during the raid did anyone see LZ.97, her course only tracked by the sound of her engines and by her bombs.