[Carruthers]

Stem and base only, of a First World War German incendiary bomb which was dropped on the railway lines near Wallsend Station, Northumberland, on the night of 14 April 1915, by the German Naval Airship Zeppelin L9. This, the second Zeppelin raid in which bombs were dropped on England, started out as a reconnaissance flight, but when within a hundred miles of Flamborough Head, Kapitanleutenant Mathy in L9, with a good supply of bombs on board, was authorised to raid the Tyne. The L9 appeared off the mouth of the Tyne at about 7pm, and proceeded northwards to Blyth, before coming inland to raid Tyneside. The airship was met by the rifle-fire of the 1st Battalion Northern Cyclists at Cambois. Mathy's first bomb fell in a field at West Sleekburn, followed by twenty-two others before the Tyne was reached at about 8.40pm. L9 unloaded the eight remaining bombs and went out to sea south of South Shields. The only casualties occurred at Wallsend, where a woman and a child were injured. Note that the first German airship raid on Great Britain took place on the night of 19/20 January 1915, when Zeppelins L3 and L4 dropped bombs on East Anglia, and casualties were sustained in Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.

First World War period incendiary bomb dropped on railway lines near Wallsend Station, Northumberland, on the night of 14th April, 1915 by German Naval airship L.9 in the course of the second Zeppelin raid in which bombs were dropped on England.

Bomb remnant of German incendiary bomb, comprising stem and base only (H 53cm x 18cm diameter).

Courtesy of the Imperial War Museum Zeppelin Incendiary Bomb