On the night of Saturday 23/24 September 1916 a huge naval Zeppelin was seen over the skies of Sheffield which, for the purposes of secrecy in the local newspapers was referred to as ‘a North Midlands town’. It was later established that the airship was the L22 which approached Sheffield from the East Coast and its Captain was a man called Martin Dietrich. The ship slowly passed over the city around 11 pm as most people were preparing for bed. Its outline could clearly been seen in the sky and the noise of its engines could also be heard. Thankfully the stringent wartime lighting regulations meant that the city was in relative darkness when the attack occurred.
Most people stayed inside their houses when the alarm buzzers sounded, but some brave souls went outside to gaze at the Leviathan as it hovered in the sky. They could clearly see flashes as the airship dropped its bombs over the city, and they could both see and hear firing from the anti-aircraft guns attempting to shoot the airship down. It was estimated that between twelve to twenty bombs were dropped on the various districts of Pitsmoor and Attercliffe. These bombs consisted of both the explosive and the incendiary kind. The first two bombs dropped onto Burngreave cemetery and the second landed on a street of working class houses.
As a result, almost every one of those houses had its doors and windows blown in. Another bomb fell on the Primitive Methodist Chapel situated in Princess Street, Sheffield. Initially it was thought that around twenty four people had been killed, although this later decreased to eleven. One man told a reporter that he had been outside and had seen two bombs drop, so he had rushed inside to seek the safety of the cellar. He and his wife and their three children were actually on their way into the cellar when another bomb dropped in the yard. The blast blew the man off his feet and his wife was knocked down to the bottom of the cellar steps. Thankfully neither were seriously injured, and they both recognised that if they had stayed upstairs they would all be dead.
The house next door was also badly damaged but thankfully the occupiers were away at the seaside. Another area which was damaged was a few streets away when a bomb landed on two blocks of houses where it was estimated around nine people in total were killed. Only a heap of debris remained and an end wall where ten or eleven bodies were recovered. Another bomb dropped on a nearby house where in the attic five children were sleeping. A stout wooden balk fell across the beds, but none of the children were hurt although they were all covered in light debris. Several more bombs were dropped making large craters and holes.
Yet despite all this drama, there were some lighter moments. As rescuers started to work amid all the trauma of finding dead and crushed bodies, a group of Royal Engineers found two eggs in a woman’s kitchen which had not even been cracked. Outside the Zeppelin slowly passed over Sheffield once and then returned, making three circles over the Sheffield Town Hall as if looking for a suitable target to attack. Searchlights lit it up in the sky and the anti-aircraft guns were seen and heard firing at it.
The German version of the raid appeared in the their newspapers on Tuesday 26 September 1916. One report gave Berlin’s view of the raid on Sheffield and stated that:
‘During the night of 23/24 September several detachments of our marine airships dropped numerous bombs on places of strategic importance including Sheffield and Nottingham. They were bombarded by a large number of anti-aircraft batteries, however some of these were silenced by us with well aimed salvoes.’
Despite the Germans proud boast that they targeted places of strategic importance, in reality this was far from the truth. Four of the explosive bombs dropped on two fields, whose only occupants were sheep. Another two explosive bombs fell onto roads and lanes. Most of the incendiary bombs also fell onto open spaces apart from one house whose occupants had a most lucky escape. It crashed through the roof of a house where a man, his wife and his child were sleeping. Thankfully it fell into the water system in the bathroom, which diminished the effect. Consequently any small fires were soon extinguished by the family.
Nevertheless the next day rescue teams were being sent in to recover the bodies and take them to the mortuary. Thankfully it was later established that just ten incendiary bombs and six explosive bombs had been dropped on the city in total. The Zeppelin L22 although it escaped undamaged after this particular raid, was destroyed the following year on 14 May 1917. The airship had been brought down over the North Sea. It had been seen approaching the British coast when a squadron of planes were sent up to attack it. One of the planes fired at it and the airship burst into flames, as two of its crew jumped from the gondola beneath the ship into the cold waters below.
Later reports of a Zeppelin with its gondola enveloped in smoke was spotted flying over Holland, but observers claimed that after watching it for fifteen minutes, it could no longer be seen in the sky.