Zeppelin raid veteran recalls war

Henry Allingham recalled the first aerial attack on the UK

Britain's oldest war veteran has stepped back in time to recall when the country first came under aerial attack.

Henry Allingham, 108, was a Royal Naval Air Service mechanic in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, when the Germans launched a Zeppelin raid on the port in 1915.

Ninety years on, World War One veteran Mr Allingham travelled from his home in Eastbourne, East Sussex, to Great Yarmouth to an exhibition on the war.

He visited the Time and Tides Museum exhibition on Wednesday.

Two people died during the attack when a bomb fell on a street a few hundred yards from where the museum, which opened last year, now stands.

The Germans were aiming to attack the Humber Estuary but the Zeppelin crew raided Norfolk by mistake.

Henry Allingham was a Royal Naval Air Service mechanic in 1915

"I remember being based in Yarmouth very well," said Mr Allingham, who grew up in Clapton, east London and was an engineer with motor company Ford in civilian life.

"I had some very happy times here and some very sad times. I can't, to be honest, remember exactly what I was doing on the night of that raid.

"It's a long time ago. I remember explosions. But I think it had pretty much happened before we realised what was happening."

During a tour of the exhibition he saw histories of people involved in the defence of Great Yarmouth, details of the times it was attacked, and fragments of bombs which fell.

Mr Allingham was one of the few to serve from the beginning to the end of World War One between 1914 and 1918 and saw action and the Battle of Jutland - the only major naval encounter of the war - in 1916.

During World War Two he worked on weapons development for De Haviland.