Like War in Heaven: How the Zeppelin Terror Over London in 1915 Changed the World Forever (and created women's pajamas!)
“Nowadays there is no such animal as a noncombatant. Modern warfare is total warfare.” -German Zeppelin Corp Commander Peter Strasser (1915) Some claim that they can hear an eerie throbbing sound in the skies above London that night. A few look up and can faintly make out a large cigar shaped shadow slowly drifting across the night sky high above the city. The police have been forewarned. Observers had spotted the massive airship floating over the coast of England only mere moments before. The enormous hydrogen filled zeppelin, over 650 feet in length, is flying at approximately eighty miles per hour at an altitude of 16,000 feet. An altitude too high for any anti-aircraft fire to reach. All that the police can do is to frantically pedal bicycles through the streets of London, blowing on whistles as they go, and shouting, “Take cover! Take cover!” to passersby. Some heed the warnings and huddle in basements. Those ...