World War I and Beyond

During World War I (1914-1918), Germany built a fleet of more than sixty Zeppelins. The airships were used to patrol European waters and to drop bombs on London and other cities in England. The airships were a little slow­er than the fighter planes of the time. By flying high, however, they made it diffi­cult for fighter pilots to catch them.

The first Zeppelin shot down in air combat was LZ-37, in June 1915. While bombing the French town of Calais, this airship was attacked by a British plane. The pilot flew above the Zeppelin and dropped six bombs; the sixth bomb exploded. The airship caught fire and plunged to the ground. The British pilot, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Reginald A. J. Warneford, became a national hero, but he was killed twelve days later when his airplane crashed.

After World War I, airships stayed in the news. In 1919, the British airship

R-34 flew across the Atlantic Ocean from Scotland to New York (July 2-6 ) and then back to England (July 9-13). In 1926, the Italian-built airship Norge —with Roald Amundsen as one of its passengers—flew over the North Pole. Amundsen had been the first explorer to reach the South Pole, in 1911.