That night airships dropped high explosive bombs and incendiaries on
Bradley, Tipton, Wednesbury and Walsall.
Just nine Zeppelins had carried out one of the largest air raids Britain
had ever seen.
Newspaper reports vary but across the Midlands 70 people were killed
and more than 100 were injured in the raid.
The final bombs of the night devastated the centre of Walsall.
Even decades later the events of that dreadful night were still fresh
in many people's minds.
Tom Morgan is a local historian. He thinks that it was simply bad luck
that Walsall was a target:
"I think it was purely a matter of chance, the commander must have
decided to lighten the ship, get rid of the bombs before setting off
for home. It is just pure luck that it fell here, which, just as it
is now, was a busy part of town. Buses stop here now: trams stopped
here then."
While the Zeppelins were returning from their raid, on the East Coast
of England British fishermen were setting out to sea.
As they left Grimsby on that cold January morning, the crew of the
King Stephen can hardly have imagined the bizarre series of events that
would unfold in front of them over the next few days.
Soon they would all be at the centre of an international controversy.
and the skipper would be accused of committing war crimes.
As the King Stephen reached its fishing grounds, things were going
badly wrong for the crew of the L19.
Three of its four engines had failed, and rifle fire from the ground
had punctured its gas cells.
As dawn broke the following morning, the crew of the King Stephen noticed
a strange white object floating on the horizon.
Robb Robinson, a fishing historian, explains what the crew would have
encountered:
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"Suddenly they would see this great hulk of the remains of the Zeppelin.
It would be enormous and surreal and there would have been great trepidation
about how to deal with these people."
Perhaps that's why - even as the German airmen continued to plead for
help - the King Stephen turned and headed for home.
It was the last time the crew of the L19 were seen alive.
So was the captain of the fishing boat really guilty of a heinous war
crime or was he acting in the best interests of his crew and his country?
Top secret documents at the National Archives support the theory that
trawler captain, William Martin, was indeed trying to protect his crew.
But Inside Out reveals that the King Stephen was doing something wrong
and, when it found the airship, it was actually illegally fishing in
prohibited waters.
If found out, the captain could have been banned from fishing.
So was that the real reason that the crew of the L19 were never rescued?
William Martin died a few months later. Some say he just could not
live with the guilt.
Inside Out, 大象传媒 ONE West Midlands, 7.30pm, Monday 21 February
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