Zeppelin!
100 years ago, England was afraid of the dread machine, the Zeppelin. It was going to come and plaster them with bombs. One way to fight a Zeppelin was to lean over the side of an aircraft and try to hit it with exploding darts. But that didn't work too well.
The army said, "We're going to have a go at this", and mounted guns that normally fired along the ground to fire upwards instead. There were five or so of these in Purfleet, up by the Garrison.
The Mayor of London at that time was Lord Wakefield, who made his money from Castrol oil. He was pretty rich. He offered a prize for the gunner who shot down the first Zeppelin.
Not long after, a Zeppelin was hit by a single shell from Purfleet, and came down in the wide mouth of the Estuary.
Wakefield said "You're saving London boys, well done!" He asked for the name of the gunner, and the artillery at Purfleet sent a list of 214. They said, "It was all our team that hit it, not just the one firing the gun!" And to Wakefield's credit, they all got a gold medal with their name on, and the message "Well Hit"
From a story told at High House Community Group by Mike Ostler
The army said, "We're going to have a go at this", and mounted guns that normally fired along the ground to fire upwards instead. There were five or so of these in Purfleet, up by the Garrison.
The Mayor of London at that time was Lord Wakefield, who made his money from Castrol oil. He was pretty rich. He offered a prize for the gunner who shot down the first Zeppelin.
Not long after, a Zeppelin was hit by a single shell from Purfleet, and came down in the wide mouth of the Estuary.
Wakefield said "You're saving London boys, well done!" He asked for the name of the gunner, and the artillery at Purfleet sent a list of 214. They said, "It was all our team that hit it, not just the one firing the gun!" And to Wakefield's credit, they all got a gold medal with their name on, and the message "Well Hit"
From a story told at High House Community Group by Mike Ostler
