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Airships over Birmingham ?

L

lesg128

george 1st
Hello everyone.
For many years I have had vague recollections of an Airship such as the ill fated (RS 101 ? ) flying over Birmingham in the 1930's. This seems so real I wonder if it was true.
As I'm an 'old codger' I would guess it was around 1935-36. At that time I would be living in the Bordesley Green area.
Can anyone confirm or tell me I was dreaming?:rolleyes:
 
This might not be the one you mentioned, but airships have indeed been over Birmingham.
 
Many thanks Postie.
Have looked at image of Airship over Birmingham.
You seem to have confirmed that I may have seen the RS101 over B'ham. I will see if I can find out when the Airship was last over Brum.
Incidentally you seem to indicate 4 views but I was only able to call up one!
Thanks for your swift response.:)
 
Hello again Postie.
Have looked for R101 Airship and found it crashed in 1930,
just before I was born.
I wonder if the Hindenburg or Graf Zeppelin ever travelled over Birmingham on their flights to the Americas? This was in the 1935-37 era.
 
Hello Les
4 views means that a total of 4 members have viewed this paticular posting.
Next time you look , you will see the number has gone up.
 
As a regular I completed my 12 weeks RAF basic training at RAF Cardington in 1948 and I remember the gigantic R101 hanger housing inflated barrage balloons use for parachute training, we were told by our PT instructor that running round the hanger was equal to a 1/4 of a mile. I seem to remember some memorial to the tragedy being in Cardington church. Eric
 
I read somewhere that the Hindenburg's route took it from Germany north west over the coast at Vlissingen, then heading for Nova Scotia. Although the route looks curved on the maps we know, it was the shortest route following the earth's curvature, and the line would pass not far from Birmingham, so it couild well have been the Hindenburg you saw in 1936 or on its only fateful 1937 crossing.
 
Thanks Lloyd
It was encouraging to hear that it is possible that my recollections of an Airship over Birmingham may have been reality and not a dream.

Also Cookie273uk I saw the hangars at Cardington from a hill near Bedford it must have been about 6 or 7 miles away and they looked massive.
 
My mother spoke of it many times, the R101 darkened the skies as it flew over Yardley Wood in Oct 1931 on it's way to India but it crashed in France
Everyone ran out of their houses to look, she had some photo's taken with a box brownie somewhere
 
My mother spoke of it many times, the R101 darkened the skies as it flew over Yardley Wood in Oct 1931 on it's way to India but it crashed in France
Everyone ran out of their houses to look, she had some photo's taken with a box brownie somewhere
Click to expand...

Couldn't have been the R101 as that crashed in 1930. Apart from which, if it was heading south-east(ish) towards France, what would it be doing over Birmingham which is north-west of Cardington? I reckon it was probably the Hindenburg your mom saw.

Big Gee

Edit: no, wasn't the Hindenburg, as that airship first flew in 1936.

Edit No 2: check Postie's post - the R101 flew over Brum in October 1929 on a test flight. We got there in the end!
 
Last edited:
Zeppelin raids of the 1st world war on the UK 19/1/1915 Yarmouth 14/4/1915 Tyneside 16/4/1915Lowestoft and Maldon, 30/4/1915 Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds,1/5/1915 Southend,17/5/1915 Ramsgate 27/5/1915Southend,31/5/1915 London.6/6/1915 East coast7-13/9/1915 East Coast,13/10/1915 London and Eastern Counties.31/1/1916 East Coast and 6 or 7 Zeppelins over Midlands,1/1/1916 Zeppelin bought down in Thames estuary. 30/7/1916 South east counties,9/8/1916 Eastern England ,23/9/19162 Zeppelins bought down in Essex,1/10/1916 south east and 1 Zeppelin bought down in Potters Bar .8/3/1917 Count Zeppelin dies at 78.There are no more Zeppelin raids recorded for the remainder of the war.Between 2/7/1919 and 6/7/1919 R 34 flew from east Fortune (near Edinburgh) to Long Island,America,and on 9/7/1919started on the return journey to Pulham,Norfolk,arriving 13/7/1919 .The first crossing made by a dirigible..
 
Thanks Big Gee
The Express and Star report is very interesting!!

Also Polly Kettle where did you get all that info?

However I am committed to sometime between 1935 to 1936. The only thing I can come up with is the Hindenburg built around that time which Hitler was using for propaganda purposes. There are some reports of this Airship going around Europe on test flights before it began the ill-fated flight to America.
 
polly kettle said:
Zeppelin raids of the 1st world war on the UK 19/1/1915 Yarmouth 14/4/1915 Tyneside 16/4/1915Lowestoft and Maldon, 30/4/1915 Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds,1/5/1915 Southend,17/5/1915 Ramsgate 27/5/1915Southend,31/5/1915 London.6/6/1915 East coast7-13/9/1915 East Coast,13/10/1915 London and Eastern Counties.31/1/1916 East Coast and 6 or 7 Zeppelins over Midlands,1/1/1916 Zeppelin bought down in Thames estuary. 30/7/1916 South east counties,9/8/1916 Eastern England ,23/9/19162 Zeppelins bought down in Essex,1/10/1916 south east and 1 Zeppelin bought down in Potters Bar .8/3/1917 Count Zeppelin dies at 78.There are no more Zeppelin raids recorded for the remainder of the war.Between 2/7/1919 and 6/7/1919 R 34 flew from east Fortune (near Edinburgh) to Long Island,America,and on 9/7/1919started on the return journey to Pulham,Norfolk,arriving 13/7/1919 .The first crossing made by a dirigible..
Click to expand...


Hi Polly Kettle,

The last raid on this country was actually in August 1918, although it
did not cross the coast. To the best of my knowledge the last raid which
came inland was on 17th June 1917, and of the 6 Zeppelins involved,
the L48 was shot down at Theberton in Suffolk. My grandmother used
to tell of seeing the flames from Southwold a few miles away.

The raid of 5 August 1918 was notable as the 5 Zeppelins included
the L70, commanded by Peter Strasser, the head of the German Naval Airships Division, and this airship was shot down just off Cromer.
Those bodies which were recovered including Peter Strasser were taken out and buried at sea as the good people of Cromer would not allow them to be buried on English Soil. Only one crewman, whose body was recovered later at Weybourne, was buried locally.

All the Zeppelin (and I Shutte-Lanz airship) crews who were buried
in various cemeteries were disinterred in the second half of the 20th century, and reburied at the German Cemetery at Cannock Chase, each
crew under a separate massive stone slab just behind the entrance hall.
A peaceful site well worth a visit.

Kind regards

Dave
 
My mother saw a Zeppelin over Birmingham in WW1. People did indeed run out into the streets. I posted such in the WW1 section if you wish to have a look.
 
My dad aged 89 says the engines made a loud but weird noise quite unlike an aeroplane because they used the engines to steer so you kept hearing sudden bursts of noise as different engines were revved up followed by almost silence
 
My Grandma lived in the Pleck,Walsall during WW1 and I remember her telling me she saw a Zeppelin. Being a clever ,know it all teenager I thought she was probably a bit dotty.
It was only recently that I discovered that the Mayoress of Walsall was killed by a bomb dropped by a Zeppelin.( Decapitated by the lurid contempory account I read).
Apart from spent AA shrapnel the chance of being killed during these air raids were pretty small.I suppose rubber necking was reasonably safe. A lot different to the air raids of WW2.
 
Dear Lesg 128,I am lucky to have a book of my Granmothers "The Silver Jubilee Book" for George the 5th and Queen Mary.1910-1935.At the end of each year is a summary of events.On October 5 1930 the R101" struck a hillside at Beauvais in France only 6 of the 54 crew and passengers were saved"."The inquiry into the disaster conducted by Sir John Simon resulted into the abandonment of all airship construction by Great Britain".That,s the last mentiion of any airships in this book.The last but one picture in the book is of "Sir John Simon British Foreign Secretary,and Mr Antony Eden ,Lord privy Seal,with Her Hitler at the Chancellery in Berlin ,where on March 25 1935 they began an important series of discussions on the European situation" If there is anything else your looking fpr during the period this book covers I will be pleased to help Regards Polly
 
:)Thanks polly kettle.
I will keep in mind your kind offer to supply details of any other info from your Silver Jubilee book which relate to that period.
Regards Lesg128:)
 
Hi Dave 89
That info on the German Airship crew graves is very interesting. Must go to Cannock and take a look.
Thanks
Lesg128
 
hi all
my dad once told me a story that in the 1920's he worked for a little while as a shoe boy in a london hotel, he was about 15yrs old, the hotel was a small one and one day the owner came running into the scullury and shouted Harry, harry, come here boy. when dad got out side the man pointed up in the sky and there was a great silver cigar shaped thing going very slowly, it had a big red and black swastika on the tail fin and dad was told it was the hindenburg, dad said it really was a great sight.
regards
paul stacey
 
I have read that during the Nazi era Airships were used for taking clandestine photographs of the places they flew over, as did Lufthansa planes.I am pretty sure they were not the only people at it though.:cool:;)
 
My dad,remembers seeing an airship go over Ward End park,c1918,(he's 95 and still going strong).My mother in law saw the same airship go over The Oratory in Edgbaston.
 
Dave M said:
These and a lot more in the German Memorial site Cannock Chase
Click to expand...

Hi Dave

I've visited several times over the years, and it never fails to make an impression on me. Of course the cemetery has many other graves, and
I would expect that anyone visiting for the first time would be surprised
that so many German servicemen died on British soil. I understand that many of them died in POW camps in WW1 from a flu epedemic which swept the country at that time.

You may have noticed that one of the slabs is for the crew of the SL11
whilst all the others have L numbers. It did originally say L11, but I pointed out to the custodian that this was wrong, - there was an L11,
but this crew was from a Shutte-Lanz airship, rather than a Zeppelin. I
will never know if my input contributed to it being altered! Just for the record, Shutte-Lanz airships had a wooden frame rather than the duralumin frame of the Zeppelin. The WW1 military Zeppelins were operated by both the German Army and Navy. The army used the
LZ prefixed factory numbers, whilst the navy renumbered theirs with
L prefixed numbers. All Shutte-Lanz airships had SL prefixes.

Kind regards

Dave
 
Hi folks, my Mother is 90 years of age and still going strong. She has commented that when she was a little girl she attended school at Tilton Road Girls School after she finished her primary education at Garrison Lane Primary School. She was at Tilton Road School when all of the children were invited to go up on the roof - it had a flat roof that was also used as a playground area - and watch a Zeppelin fly over. The date must have been somewhere about 1932 - 1936.

Since I've expressed some doubts in the past about this sighting I'm reluctant to tell my Mother that she was correct and it it was a Zeppelin - I will tell her - but I'm never going to hear the end of it. I can just hear the words now ....... " I told you so didn't I ". :angry2:
 
Hi Folks. My Gran told me that he saw a Zeppelin Airship over Aston Station.
Airships would have been seen over the Birmingham area as far back as 1912. E.T Willows flew the "Willows 1" over the area in 1912 before opening his airship factory in Handsworth where he built the "Willows 2" and several of the Sea Scout Airships for the Royal Naval Air Service. From about 1915 onward the RNAS would have been moving Airships from the east coast to the west and vice versa on a regular basis and their flight path would bring them over the area. Even after WW1 the RAF continued the use of military airships in the training role.
R100 and R101 would probably have flown over the area also during the 30's
 
Snowball said:
roof that was also used as a playground area - and watch a Zeppelin fly over. The date must have been somewhere about 1932 - 1936.

Since I've expressed some doubts in the past about this sighting I'm reluctant to tell my Mother that she was correct and it it was a Zeppelin - I will tell her - but I'm never going to hear the end of it. I can just hear the words now ....... " I told you so didn't I ". :angry2:
Click to expand...


Hi Snowball,

Although the Hindenburg has had many mentions, and of course is most famous for its sad demise at Lakehurst, it wasn't built until the mid 1930s.
LZ127, the Graf Zeppelin however, commenced flights in 1928, and I believe did a tour of the UK in 1931 but could have also crossed the UK on other occasions. This was the most successful of all airships, covering around a million miles in its 9 year service life. I would guess that if it
was a Zeppelin that your mum saw, this would have been the one.

Just had a further look on the internet, and there is a mention of LZ127 being seen over Small Heath Park on July 3rd, but unfortunately no year!

As the Zeppelins were about 800 feet long, I think it would have looked massive from Tilton Road (I lived there for a couple of years)

Kind regards

Dave
 
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