A century after a German Zeppelin airship carried out a terrifying bombing raid over west Suffolk resulting in five deaths, the story of that fateful night is to be retold at a local museum.
In March 1916, Sudbury lost five of its residents and property was severely damaged after the huge Zeppelin airship dropped a string of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the town.
Local historian Tony Wheeler, who left a £3million legacy to local charities when he died in June 2012, had been researching the raid prior to his death. And now his work has been completed by David Burnett, secretary of Sudbury Museum Trust.
The results of the research including photographs and text have been compiled into a presentation that will be shown continuously on a big screen at the Sudbury Museum and Heritage Centre.
Mr Wheeler bequeathed £105,000 to Sudbury Museum Trust and some of that money was used to refit the heritage centre with interactive displays and digital touch-screens amid the artefacts. The Anthony Wheeler Room was opened last year and this is where the presentation will feature. Alongside the screen, a 7ft-long model of Zeppelin L14 hovers above a bomb that was dropped during the 1916 raid.
Four of the deaths that night were in East Street next to the Horse and Groom pub where neighbours Thomas Ambrose, 50, his wife Ellen, 37, and widow Ellen Wheeler, 64, died in their homes. Weaver John Smith, who was 50, was killed as he crossed the road after drinking at the pub.
The fifth victim was a soldier fatally injured at his billet on Constitution Hill. It is thought that the Zeppelin’s commander mistook light from lime kilns for a factory.
The coroner recorded a verdict of ‘death caused by missiles from an enemy aircraft’.
Museum trustee Valerie Herbert, who has also researched the incident, said: “Zeppelin raids caused fear and insecurity as well as death and damage.
“The airships were huge. It’s been calculated that L14 was half the length of North Street and twice the width.
“The Zeppelin model we have is shown being attacked by a night fighter made on the same scale and that looks like a large flying insect by comparison.”
According to Mrs Herbert, the German Navy flew the airships from their base near Cuxhaven on the Baltic. Before the war, the commander of L14 Kapitan Leutnant Bocher was a captain with the Hamburg-Amerika steamship line.
Six months after the raid on Sudbury he was in command of Zeppelin L33 when it came down at Great Wigborough in Essex, where he has taken prisoner with his crew.
More than 550 were killed and over 1,300 injured in the 51 Zeppelin raids launched on Britain. It took two years to find an effective way of downing the hydrogen-filled Zeppelins by firing bullets that first pierced the skin and then exploded.
Sudbury Museum and Heritage Centre, which is behind the Town Hall and can be accessed via Gaol Lane, is open during office hours on weekdays and occasionally on Saturday. There is no entry charge.
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