Invaders of the Isles 2 Coast


Invaders of the Isles 2

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The tiny island of Coreisa is a pinprick of rock out there.

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It's only five miles from the shore,

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but for most, it might as well be Mars.

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No scheduled boats go there,

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so you have to find a local willing to take you.

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I'm seeking four-legged invaders

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discovered on a small isle near here in 1964 by an inquisitive explorer.

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This is Gordon Corbett,

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a curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum in London.

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He'd heard whispers of a mysterious creature living on an island

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in these waters, a colony that had no place being there.

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Locals thought they might be rats, but Gordon had his own suspicions.

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He travelled out to the island

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to catch one and take a specimen back to London.

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This is the animal he caught, he'd found a freshwater vole.

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How had this shy river creature crossed miles of seawater,

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how had it survived marooned on the island?

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It was astonishing to discover water voles

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on tiny isles off Western Scotland.

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Normally they thrive in freshwater, avoiding the perils of the open seas.

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So how did water voles get to this rocky outcrop, Coreisa?

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Did a pregnant female find herself on a passing boat?

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Or were they washed out on sea currents?

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The island of Coreisa is about the size of three football pitches.

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There's little shelter and no running water.

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But for the next two days... this is home.

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'And I've got company.

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'Scientists from Aberdeen University are studying how over generations

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'the voles have adapted to this alien environment.

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'Helping me get settled is biologist Matt Oliver.'

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Well, interestingly the water voles here have a very different

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behaviour and eco type from water voles in the Scottish mainland.

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We've got very little fresh water on this island at all,

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and instead the water voles have a more mole-like existence,

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they live in burrows underneath the ground eating roots and shoots,

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and they don't have many competitors,

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so they've got more or less a free reign of the place.

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These shy creatures aren't too keen to meet us,

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so team leader Stuart Piertney

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is laying a trap baited with tatties and carrots.

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-Put a bit of extra bedding material in.

-OK.

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The door closes behind him, simple as that.

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And it doesn't do the vole any harm to be trapped?

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Absolutely not. These guys think of these

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as little mini hotel rooms, they really like the idea

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they can get a good feed. We know that

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because from one day to the next, we'll be catching the same voles.

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With the traps set, we work on our own survival strategy.

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Good morning and good news.

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The water voles have checked into the traps overnight,

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so now it's rise and shine for them too.

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-So the first job is to get him out of the trap.

-Yep.

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-And there he is.

-They're much bigger than I thought they'd be.

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Yes. They've got hardy tails,

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so you can keep hold of them with the tail

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and he's as happy as Larry in the hand there.

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In essence these guys are all related,

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it's all brothers and uncles and aunties.

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Theory would predict that with a small isolated population like this

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they should have lost their genetic variation,

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which should make them not very fit,

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they should be prone to the effects of parasites,

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but you can see that's not the case at all,

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these guys are looking really healthy,

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so they seem to be bucking the trend one way or another.

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The team are unravelling the genetic puzzle

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of how a healthy colony may have flourished from just one female.

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The findings could help preserve endangered species

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that have dwindled to a few individuals.

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As for the descendants of the original water vole invader,

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they may have become inmates on this island,

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but I can think of worse places to be marooned.

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In 1915, we looked across the North Sea and trembled.

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The Great War was tearing the continent apart.

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And here on the quiet shores of Norfolk

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a terrifying new style of attack was about to be unleashed - by aerial invaders.

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On the night of the 19th of January 1915,

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townsfolk on the dark streets of Great Yarmouth

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were transfixed by an eerie noise from the fog bank above.

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An eyewitness described the sound as 20 bicycles charging down a hill,

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then a brilliant flash appeared in the sky,

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a searchlight from a flying machine illuminated the streets,

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followed by a string of bomb blasts.

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On that foggy night, many people couldn't believe their eyes.

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But later, the local paper left no doubt.

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A Zeppelin air raid - the first on British shores.

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With that attack on Great Yarmouth,

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the Germans unleashed three years of terror.

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Aerial warfare was invented,

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as the invaders outsmarted Britain's defenders.

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Zeppelins were long-range killing machines

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carrying over 1,000lbs of bombs.

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They had hit Norfolk first, but the Germans had a bigger prize.

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In the summer, they struck London.

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95 died there by the year's end,

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and fear spread across the land.

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Historian Graham Mottram knows why we struggled

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to shoot down the airships.

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We were only - what? -

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11 years after the Wright brothers' first flight?

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So aircraft were still very limited.

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We had I think it was 93 aeroplanes, something like that,

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at the outbreak of the First World War, and of course

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the art of anti-aircraft gunnery was still very, very primitive.

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We were looking at trying to modify artillery pieces to try and...

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and shoot high in the air, in the hope of bringing these things down.

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The Zeppelins' night-time blitz

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would strike along the length and breadth of Britain,

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killing hundreds during the First World War.

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We scrambled to invent air defences from scratch.

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The Royal Flying Corps were fighting on the Western Front,

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so early protection of home shores relied largely on Royal Navy aircraft.

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They flew from coastal airstrips,

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and the Navy also tried a desperate new tactic.

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The aim was to intercept the airship raiders over the water,

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which meant taking off from the sea.

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You've got this 60ft long barge - on it there's a wooden deck,

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and on that wooden deck we put a Sopwith Camel.

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Towing it quickly across the North Sea into the teeth of a strong wind

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meant there was enough flying wind across the deck.

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-You'd get lift-off!

-You'd get lift-off.

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Let go of the string that secures the aircraft at the back of the boat

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and it leaps into the air.

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This is, effectively, a very early aircraft carrier.

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That is precisely what it is.

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Even if a fighter plane could find a Zeppelin in the pitch darkness,

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it was still a David and Goliath struggle to destroy an airship.

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Look at its size, compared to a fighter plane of the same period.

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It's dwarfed by the Zeppelin.

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To lift men and bombs,

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a vast quantity of lighter-than-air hydrogen gas was contained inside a massive frame.

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The metal skeleton held enough gas-bags

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to survive many hits from a machine gun.

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But the Zeppelin's greatest fear was fire.

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Their hydrogen gas was highly flammable.

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Could anyone conjure up a fiery magic bullet to save Britain from the Zeppelins?

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Tony Edwards knows the secret of the new incendiary ammunition.

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That was filled with phosphorous, and in the side of the bullet

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there was a very, very small hole filled with solder.

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When the bullet was fired,

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the bullet twisted up the barrel in the rifling, the solder melted,

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and as the bullet left the muzzle of the gun,

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it was spewing phosphorous.

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Phosphorus ignites when in contact with the air, it sets light

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and it leaves a smoke trail so it's burning all the way to its target.

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As well as phosphorous shells,

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by 1916 our armoury also included bullets

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with an explosive nitro-glycerine core.

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Now we had the chemical weapons to kill the Zeppelins.

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But it would take brave men to try.

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I've got a precious album that belonged to Egbert Cadbury,

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a courageous Zeppelin hunter.

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Cadbury was based in Great Yarmouth.

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Originally, he was a Navy pilot,

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but in 1918 he was co-opted into the newly formed RAF.

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On the night of the 5th of August 1918,

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Major Cadbury launched the last attack against the airship invaders,

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when the Germans unleashed the super-Zeppelin...

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..the L70 - the most advanced Zeppelin yet.

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Almost 700 feet long, with seven engines,

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capable of carrying 10,000lbs of bombs.

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I've actually got a priceless recording of Major Cadbury

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recounting his struggle against the fearsome Zeppelin

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on that fateful night.

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'We received warning from naval patrols at sea

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'that hostile aircraft were approaching The Wash at great height.

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'I immediately flew off in pursuit.'

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Unbeknown to Cadbury, he wasn't only taking on the super-Zeppelin.

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At the helm was this man, Commander Peter Strasser,

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architect of the Zeppelin war on Britain,

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desperate to prove the worth of his airships against aircraft.

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Despite being three times the length of a jumbo jet,

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the L70 was not easy to find in pitch blackness.

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'You sat in the cockpit, and had to depend upon your eyesight

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'to spot the airship against a starry sky.

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'It was rather like trying to find a fly in a darkened bedroom.'

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The airship was almost over the coast.

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To intercept it Cadbury knew he would have to push his plane

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to altitudes close to its physical limit,

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where the air was so thin the engine was at risk of stalling.

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In an open cockpit at 17,000ft there would have been a biting wind.

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The engine would have been rattling, spitting oil...

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It would have been impossible to hear a Zeppelin over the racket.

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But miraculously, Cadbury caught a glimpse of his prey.

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'She looked simply immense -

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'as indeed she was, being 300 yards long from stem to stern.'

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Held aloft by 2.2 million cubic feet of flammable hydrogen.

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A tiny incendiary bullet could bring the super-Zeppelin down.

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Gunner Bob Leckie made ready with his machine gun.

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'Suddenly the darkness was ripped open.

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'Bob Leckie gave her a few bursts of fire of tracer bullets.'

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A hit!

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'And as I banked away,

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'she went blazing down to the clouds 2,000 feet beneath us.

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'We lost sight of her as she continued her downward journey

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'into the North Sea, nearly three miles below.'

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Strasser, the German Zeppelin commander, fell to his death.

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His ambitious plans for more audacious airship raids

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died with him.

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It started over the Norfolk coast, and it ended there.

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Sir Egbert Cadbury went on to manage his family's chocolate empire,

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but he kept a souvenir.

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This is a cigarette case made from lightweight aluminium taken from

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the super-Zeppelin.

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It actually has Cadbury's signature inscribed on it.

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A small reminder of a largely forgotten first Blitz on Britain,

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when events on this coast shook the nation to its core.

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