Here we are, the last post (bugle sounds) for the Alphabet Blog
Challenge and once again I have to credit somebody else for the
topic of the most baffling letter of all. My amazingly
perceptive daughter came up with Zeppelin. How could I refuse
when I've already blogged about my 4xgreat-grandfather Zachariah
Rudd? It makes perfect sense to write about the Zeppelin raids
which affected my ancestors, not least because my ancestors
lived in London and along the East Coast of England (the
counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Kent were repeatedly
raided from 1915-17) but because my paternal grandmother Freda
often spoke of her parents who saw the Zeppelins as they came
across the North Sea. Before the First World War, Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin developed an airship specifically for
long-distance passenger flights. When the war broke out in
August 1914, these airships were taken over by the German army.
Throughout the war the Germans were prepared to try new forms of
warfare and in January 1915 they mounted th