Zeppelin Attack on Rossendale

Note: this attack smashed the front windows of the house of Marie PROSSOR (then Marie BRAMHILL) in Chapel Terrace. My father also wrote of the event. Though he was only aged three, it made a big impact and apparently took place at the end of a long walk with his father from Liverpool.

From the Rossendale Free Press:

A HUGE Zeppelin airship struck fear into Rossendalians in a night-time bombing raid that went wrong.

For Count Zeppelin’s airmen showed their incompetence by following the wrong train and dropping between 10 and 12 bombs on soft earth. The 179-metre-long "cigar-shaped engine of death" – as it was popularly called – was witnessed over Lumb, Rawtenstall, Ewood Bridge, Stonefold, Haslingden, Helmshore, Holcombe and Ramsbottom.

It was seen over Lumb shortly after midnight on 25 September 1916, after following a train pilots thought was heading for Manchester. It became almost stationary over Bacup for a while and then resumed its course. Bombs were clearly visible as they fell in the raid that ended at 2.45am.

Schoolboy Jack Waddington, of Back Chapel Street, Haslingden, said: "As soon as I heard the Zeppelin I was under the bed in a flash. All the lights were out as was the custom in war but a lot of people went out into the streets."

One bomb dropped near Clod Lane, Haslingden, where there was a gun cotton factory. Another target was a farm in Lumb (no damage), and bombs dropped on Rawtenstall broke several windows.

Ewood Bridge station was destroyed by bombs and, after passing over Helmshore, the Zeppelin flew over Holcombe and damaged windows and doors at a row of cottages. The church clock, school and post office were badly damaged.

The airship dropped two more bombs over Ramsbottom; one fell on a mineral water works in Regent Street and damaged machinery.

No Rossendale lives were lost in the whole raid.