Newspaper

TWO MORE AIR ATTACKS
NORTH-EAST COAST VISITED
Zeppelins on Scottish Coast Last Night
NORTH AND SOUTH-EASTERN ENGLAND BOMBED

Press Bureau, Monday, 1.15 a.m.
The Secretary of the War Office makes the following announcement: –
Air Raid: – A Zeppelin raid took place last night, when the coast of Scotland and the Northern and South-Eastern Counties of England were attacked.
Bombs were dropped at various places, but no details are at present available.
A further communication will be issued later.
At 6.30 last evening the Secretary of the War Office made the following announcement: –
Two airships approached the North-East Coast last night.
Only one crossed the coast, the other having turned back.
As far as is at present known 16 persons were killed and about 100 injured. Eight dwelling-houses were demolished and a serious fire was caused in a French-polishing shop.


ON THE NORTH-EAST COAST
MAGISTRATE AND TRAM INSPECTOR KILLED
DAMAGE TO DWELLINGS

(Passed by Censor.)
A town on the North-East Coast was visited on Saturday night by a Zeppelin, which dropped a number of explosive bombs, doing considerable damage to working-class dwellings and causing several deaths. The invader appeared to approach the town from a westerly direction at a great height. Bombs were dropped in a line and the loud detonations woke the inhabitants, many of whom went into the streets.

The attack had been prepared for, the frame being stopped. This was fortunate, for one bomb fell on an empty car, wrecking it. The neighbouring streets suffered. In one case a bomb fell on a bed, but did not explode. A tram inspector was killed in the street. Further inland a girl was killed in a shop, while in one street many houses were badly damaged, but the casualties were remarkably few. One roof was blown completely off. Another house collapsed, but the inmates escaped injury.

A well-known magistrate who is the leader of the local Labour party was killed in the street. Three fires were caused, but were promptly extinguished.

The Zeppelin went off to sea, the visit only lasting a few minutes.

On Sunday morning the streets were crowded with sightseers. The attack caused absolutely no panic, but the prevailing feeling is one of indignation. The victims include a baby and several children, while the damage was practically confined to small working-class property.


MANY NARROW ESCAPES
FORCE OF THE EXPLOSION

The Press Association correspondents in the districts on the North-East Coast visited by the Zeppelin on Saturday night telegraph the following accounts: –

Two tremendous explosions announced the arrival of hostile aircraft over a North-East town. It proved only a passing visit, apparently only two bombs being dropped, and both, fortunately, falling upon a large tract of waste ground.

The force of the explosion was such that most of the houses in the vicinity were more or less damaged, but only two persons were injured.

One flying fragment soared over the roof of a house and entered the back kitchen window, one man sustaining several cuts on his thigh, while another man had his wrist cut.

There were many narrow escapes. A large piece of shell blew a hole in the wall of a house and passed over a bed without injuring a lady who was in it.

Another piece of flying shell entered the window of the premises of a small shopkeeper and narrowly missed the tradesman and his wife as they stood.

A large plate-glass window at a local inn was lifted bodily out of the frame and deposited intact beside the counter.

Another bomb dropped on the bank of a river, but practically no damage was done and no one was injured.


NINETEEN BOMBS DROPPED

In a town nineteen bombs were dropped and in one street several houses were damaged, some being completely demolished and others having the roofs blown off and fronts blown out.

While a search was being made among the wreckage of a shop yesterday morning the body of a girl was found, that being the first indication that any fatality had occurred there.

In another part of the town a tram conductor had a leg blown off.


IN A COLLIERY DISTRICT

At another town the Zeppelin was plainly seen at about eleven o’clock. It dropped two bombs at a colliery village, the missiles falling in a field behind a main street, and not fifty yards from a street of houses.

Craters about four feet in depth and thirty feet in circumference were made in the earth. One of the bombs struck a hencoop belonging to a miner and killed about a dozen chickens.

About a mile further to the east two more bombs were dropped on a refuse heap of a colliery about 100 yards from the pit, neither of which did any material damage.

A line of steel rails was pierced as though by a blowpipe, and a fragment of a bomb dropped behind one of the colliery chimneys. Two more bombs were dropped in a field at the back of the houses at another colliery village, and the windows of many houses were shattered.

A hole was drilled clean through a steel electric tram standard, and the windows of a neighbouring school were broken. In none of these instances, remarkable to relate, were there any casualties of any description.


THE CASUALTIES

The police official report of the Zeppelin attack on Saturday night on the North-East Coast states that fourteen explosive and seven incendiary bombs were dropped. The total of killed was 16 (ten men, three women, and three children), and nine men, eleven women and five children were seriously injured, 80 other persons being slightly injured.

Before visiting on Saturday night the town at which the most serious casualties occurred, the hostile aircraft seems to have circled over certain villages, at each of which it dropped bombs. It then turned eastwards and passed over the town cut to sea. It arrived at that point at about 11 p.m. On the south side of the river about half-a-dozen streets suffered, and in some of them a number of houses were demolished. There were some very narrow escapes. In one house which was blown down there were five people, but all scrambled from beneath the debris comparatively unhurt. Houses around were badly shattered and all the glass in the windows for several hundred yards distance was blown out.

In another part of the town a bomb dropped in the roadway and made a hole about six feet in depth, bursting the water pipe. Nearer the sea there was very great damage done to houses in one of the smaller streets where the death-rate was also heavy.

One bomb crashed through a tenement house passing through two empty beds. A boy was taking some food to his sister when he was killed instantly, and his sister was gravely injured, as was another sister to whom she was talking at the time. At a Roman Catholic church a stained-glass window which costs £250 was completely destroyed.

The Zeppelin was plainly visible as searchlights were flashed upon it. There was some gun-firing, but as far as is known the raider was not hit.

Arrangements for removing the injured were complete and efficient, the seriously injured being conveyed to hospital by motors. The less severely injured walked to their destination and there was a steady stream of people at the different hospital centres applying for treatment all through the night.

Date: 03-Apr-1916

Where to find this: Sunderland City Library – Local Studies Centre

Contributed by Simon W | Silvia Rago