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‘We think we can explain the Zepp raid. It was not a Frenchman, but a British sailor on a gun boat on Earle’s repair slipway in about 1916. I was aged about 11 years and my sister a bit younger. We lived in Williamson Street off Hedon Road in Hull, opposite White’s Sugar Mill. Our parents always got us up when the buzzer alarm sounded. On this raid night my father, with other neighbours, was outside listening and watching. They spotted the Zepp lit up in the search-lights and he called us out to see it. We always remember seeing it above White’s Sugar Mills, lit up in the search lights. The next thing — a gun fired and my father saw the shell hit the fail end of the Zepp. It made a hasty get away. Mr Webster, our neighbour was time keeper/gate man at Earle’s Shipyard and he told our parents the sailors were lined up on the beck, but the Captain would not give the order to fire the gun, so one sailor went over to the gun and fired it. He had been out with his pals for a drink and disobeyed the captain, who ordered the sailor to be arrested and kept in chains. But 2 or 3 days later Lord Kitchener ordered the sailor to be released and he was presented with a gold watch and told he had saved East Hull. The Zepp had dropped its bombs in the sea. About a week later a group of sailors came down our street. My mother and other neighbours were in the street and some of the sailors came and asked them if they would like to meet the sailor who had fired the gun and saved East Hull, but he was a very shy man!’

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