ZEPPELIN DISEASES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12536, 6 May 1915, Page 2

ZEPPELIN DISEASES.

TWO SHIPS COME TO GRIEF. INFLUENCE OF WEATHEH. Two Zeppelins came to grief in .1 snowstorm off the Danish coast. .The L 3 was wrecked and 'burned on the Danish island of Faiide, and the L 4 was lost on the west coast of Denmark. L 3 was of 27 tons displacement and *as built only last year, while L 4 was one of the most recentlv constructed. LI was wrecked at sea' near Heligoland, and L2 caught fire and was destroyed at Juhaunisthal. Both tho L - and L 4 were within a lew miles of the German frontier, but were unable to reach safety. It is reported from Copenhagen that there was no loss of life in the accident to L 3. The airship had left Hamburg at 4 a.m.. and had'been cruising during the' dnv off the north-west coast of Denmark-. | Her motors failed one after the_ other. I and at about 6 o'clock in the evening the airship landed with a crash on the beach of Fanoe bland, snapping m two as she, struck. Her crew of two olhcers and 14 petty, officers afid men jumped out uninjured ■ ••■iii Immediately alter the Kinship landed | she burst into ilaincs. I'm: cup-lam do-i clares that he set the Zeppelin on hrt purposely "to prevent her from being blown further ashore and imperilling tnes and adjacent buildings," .In any case, the ship was alrcadv utterly destroyed. The crew hud time to hind their ammunition and bombs. Tlley. were interned 1 for the night at a local hotel, -\hlcll activity on the part of airships has been reported during the past few days oii the west coast and at the bottom of tilt) Great Belt. In some cases the airships have been seen exchanging signals with warships. , . The facts about the L 4 show that _ she was returning south when she ran into bad weather, first, meeting with log ami then heaw storm., of sleet and snow.. .1 wo of her motors failed, and the gieat airship becoming' unmanageable the crew decided to abandon her. AY hen near land and over the surf at ]?oersmose : near Maaband, on the west soast of Jutland, the men jumued from the airship. two officer's and nine potty officers *nd men landed safelv.'but one man, who delayed taking the plunge, fell from a considerable height and broke both legs. fhere is no news so far of the other four men. who were either drowned or carried away in the airship. which as soon as it was relieved of the weight of the crew, ascended and disappeared seawards. Those of the crew who landed safelv made their way to the coastguard station, currying their wounded comrades with them. The men at fust told an absurd story, saving thev were the crew of a trawler which had been blown up by a mine, taptain Count von Platen, commanding the aircraft, then claimed to lie allowed to return to Germany on the ground that he was merely shipwrecked. He refused to "i\e his word .of honour not, to attempt to escape. The cie.ys ,d both tho wrecked airships will be interned on the island of Od.ense. A larce airship, evidently a derelict was sighted off the Cscoe lighthouse, and it was ~th.uus.dit in Chiisliuia that it was the airship" 1.4. This vessel tool; part in the raid on the Norfolk coast on

.January , • , , , Discussing the circumstanen? which. le<l tu the destruction of tin.' two airships the Copenhagen .Meteorological Infinite savs thai if the liiitifth authorities had nut prudentlv stopped the British 'weather ivports I.lk airships would have_ received v.ariiin- hi tin? Midden barometric < hauu" whieli occurred oxer th-e North Sea that afternoon, and would haw abandoned their reconnoitring expedition. The crew declare that the airship was not damaged, but that the snow weighed it down so much that it- was uuimvigahie, ;md to remain :n it would 'have meant certain death.