The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1916-10-04 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

DNESDAY, OCTOBER 4. 1916.  The destruction of a Nragort or fourth Zeppelin in the 1159100,ag5. London area—this time a monster of the very attern—is a subject for the utmost! P;ise'tion. It proves very conclusively eat to successes of our anti-aircraft deare not mere flukes or strokes of 1114"5 th -k or e result of n happy combination god fortune and individual intrepidity highest order, but have been the 'too of an enormously Unproved defen_ tows in whioh gunners below ming° ;,jrh aviators aloft in the endeavour 10!atta to a summary end the murderous 11) Pt tos of the nocturnal raiders. Eye' °° 'Potter's Bar on Sunday night are l ,Ponder's End on Sunday night are 01 chat the job was accomplished with 111 and dispatch. The fmishing 10`i9 pears to have been administered hiO 'P fiTing man, but prior to that the ywhil bad been rendered unmanageable result of having been struck reby shells from the guns on the Pa:ry, When it is remembered that the jtip was 17,000 feet up at the time realised not only that the marksbe oraip of the gunners was super-excellet but also that we now possess weapon. apgde of reaching a Zeppelin even moold Kg an altitude where the danger to its go would be far greater than any artilir could threaten. Four of these much aeted murder machines have now been id down in as many weeks, and it is not poising that the German newspapers, eich not so long ago painted lurid pinatas of Britain gone mad with terror of ac raiding Zeppelins, are beginning to o whether it is a paying proposition to retinue this particularly beloved form of frothiness. The "Frankfurter Zeitung," Is instance, appears to have suddenly pide the discovery that the true vocation. dill, Zeppelin is to act as a naval scout, gil that even the accomplishment of wy damage and great carnage by bombdepping on "the fortress of London" is, dueugh warming to the good German out a pleasure to be forsworn in the *nests of the great High Seas Fleet. certain it is that recant details of the geppelin raids have given them furiously ID *ink in Germany, and that service in the Count's inflated airships is no longer the mat popular of all forms of war service It i one thing to take part in ..graaaa" the hated English when it can be done without fear of consequences, but quite another when the wortld-be destroyers are themselvee as like as not to it with death in trgly frightful guise. The moral eflect of such incidents as those which took place at Caley and Potter's liar is already manifesting itself if the ticrnian Press is anything to go by. It was clearly manifest In the haste displayed, alter the destruction of the Zapon Sunday night, by those in command of the remaining airships, who unloadcd their bombs indiscriminately and Men headed without delay for home. The eathorities responsible for the defence of the country against these cowardly raiders are doing splendidly. It is up to the petal public to give all the aid they as and, as we said when last discussing is subject, they cannot more effectually kelp than by seeing to it that the defence nglations, and notably those in regard, Is lighting, are strictly obeyed. Dark thougiair own locality may be o' r.,!ghts, the darkness is only the gloom of twilight thee compared with many towns it meld imp on the East Coast and in Terk,hire and Lincolnshire. A much greater degree of darkness could be secured without injury to anybody and with agect of giving the district so much an chance of foiling the enemy in the Irent oh his coining into our immediate melhourhood. We hope that the authoritua ail: not rest satisfied until a condition rested to lights much more nearly ap?nuking that prevailing at, say, Norwich *Beverley, exists. •