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The tiny island of Coreisa is a pinprick of rock out there. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:34 | |
It's only five miles from the shore, | 0:00:34 | 0:00:36 | |
but for most, it might as well be Mars. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
No scheduled boats go there, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
so you have to find a local willing to take you. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
I'm seeking four-legged invaders | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
discovered on a small isle near here in 1964 by an inquisitive explorer. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:57 | |
This is Gordon Corbett, | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
a curator of mammals at the Natural History Museum in London. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
He'd heard whispers of a mysterious creature living on an island | 0:01:04 | 0:01:07 | |
in these waters, a colony that had no place being there. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:11 | |
Locals thought they might be rats, but Gordon had his own suspicions. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:19 | |
He travelled out to the island | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
to catch one and take a specimen back to London. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
This is the animal he caught, he'd found a freshwater vole. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:28 | |
How had this shy river creature crossed miles of seawater, | 0:01:28 | 0:01:33 | |
how had it survived marooned on the island? | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
It was astonishing to discover water voles | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
on tiny isles off Western Scotland. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
Normally they thrive in freshwater, avoiding the perils of the open seas. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:51 | |
So how did water voles get to this rocky outcrop, Coreisa? | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
Did a pregnant female find herself on a passing boat? | 0:01:58 | 0:02:01 | |
Or were they washed out on sea currents? | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
The island of Coreisa is about the size of three football pitches. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
There's little shelter and no running water. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:15 | |
But for the next two days... this is home. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
'And I've got company. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
'Scientists from Aberdeen University are studying how over generations | 0:02:23 | 0:02:28 | |
'the voles have adapted to this alien environment. | 0:02:28 | 0:02:33 | |
'Helping me get settled is biologist Matt Oliver.' | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
Well, interestingly the water voles here have a very different | 0:02:36 | 0:02:40 | |
behaviour and eco type from water voles in the Scottish mainland. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:44 | |
We've got very little fresh water on this island at all, | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
and instead the water voles have a more mole-like existence, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
they live in burrows underneath the ground eating roots and shoots, | 0:02:50 | 0:02:53 | |
and they don't have many competitors, | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
so they've got more or less a free reign of the place. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:58 | |
These shy creatures aren't too keen to meet us, | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
so team leader Stuart Piertney | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
is laying a trap baited with tatties and carrots. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
-Put a bit of extra bedding material in. -OK. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
The door closes behind him, simple as that. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
And it doesn't do the vole any harm to be trapped? | 0:03:14 | 0:03:16 | |
Absolutely not. These guys think of these | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
as little mini hotel rooms, they really like the idea | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
they can get a good feed. We know that | 0:03:21 | 0:03:23 | |
because from one day to the next, we'll be catching the same voles. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
With the traps set, we work on our own survival strategy. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
Good morning and good news. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
The water voles have checked into the traps overnight, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
so now it's rise and shine for them too. | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
-So the first job is to get him out of the trap. -Yep. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
-And there he is. -They're much bigger than I thought they'd be. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
Yes. They've got hardy tails, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:02 | |
so you can keep hold of them with the tail | 0:04:02 | 0:04:04 | |
and he's as happy as Larry in the hand there. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:06 | |
In essence these guys are all related, | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
it's all brothers and uncles and aunties. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
Theory would predict that with a small isolated population like this | 0:04:10 | 0:04:14 | |
they should have lost their genetic variation, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
which should make them not very fit, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
they should be prone to the effects of parasites, | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
but you can see that's not the case at all, | 0:04:20 | 0:04:22 | |
these guys are looking really healthy, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
so they seem to be bucking the trend one way or another. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
The team are unravelling the genetic puzzle | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
of how a healthy colony may have flourished from just one female. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:36 | |
The findings could help preserve endangered species | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
that have dwindled to a few individuals. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
As for the descendants of the original water vole invader, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
they may have become inmates on this island, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:53 | |
but I can think of worse places to be marooned. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
In 1915, we looked across the North Sea and trembled. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:05 | |
The Great War was tearing the continent apart. | 0:05:05 | 0:05:08 | |
And here on the quiet shores of Norfolk | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
a terrifying new style of attack was about to be unleashed - by aerial invaders. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:19 | |
On the night of the 19th of January 1915, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
townsfolk on the dark streets of Great Yarmouth | 0:05:23 | 0:05:26 | |
were transfixed by an eerie noise from the fog bank above. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
An eyewitness described the sound as 20 bicycles charging down a hill, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:39 | |
then a brilliant flash appeared in the sky, | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
a searchlight from a flying machine illuminated the streets, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:47 | |
followed by a string of bomb blasts. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
On that foggy night, many people couldn't believe their eyes. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
But later, the local paper left no doubt. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
A Zeppelin air raid - the first on British shores. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:04 | |
With that attack on Great Yarmouth, | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
the Germans unleashed three years of terror. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
Aerial warfare was invented, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:11 | |
as the invaders outsmarted Britain's defenders. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:15 | |
Zeppelins were long-range killing machines | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
carrying over 1,000lbs of bombs. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
They had hit Norfolk first, but the Germans had a bigger prize. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
In the summer, they struck London. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
95 died there by the year's end, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:32 | |
and fear spread across the land. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:37 | |
Historian Graham Mottram knows why we struggled | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
to shoot down the airships. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:42 | |
We were only - what? - | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
11 years after the Wright brothers' first flight? | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
So aircraft were still very limited. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
We had I think it was 93 aeroplanes, something like that, | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
at the outbreak of the First World War, and of course | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
the art of anti-aircraft gunnery was still very, very primitive. | 0:06:56 | 0:07:00 | |
We were looking at trying to modify artillery pieces to try and... | 0:07:00 | 0:07:05 | |
and shoot high in the air, in the hope of bringing these things down. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
The Zeppelins' night-time blitz | 0:07:09 | 0:07:11 | |
would strike along the length and breadth of Britain, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
killing hundreds during the First World War. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:19 | |
We scrambled to invent air defences from scratch. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:24 | |
The Royal Flying Corps were fighting on the Western Front, | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
so early protection of home shores relied largely on Royal Navy aircraft. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:33 | |
They flew from coastal airstrips, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
and the Navy also tried a desperate new tactic. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
The aim was to intercept the airship raiders over the water, | 0:07:41 | 0:07:45 | |
which meant taking off from the sea. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:49 | |
You've got this 60ft long barge - on it there's a wooden deck, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
and on that wooden deck we put a Sopwith Camel. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
Towing it quickly across the North Sea into the teeth of a strong wind | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
meant there was enough flying wind across the deck. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
-You'd get lift-off! -You'd get lift-off. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:06 | |
Let go of the string that secures the aircraft at the back of the boat | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
and it leaps into the air. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
This is, effectively, a very early aircraft carrier. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:14 | |
That is precisely what it is. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:16 | |
Even if a fighter plane could find a Zeppelin in the pitch darkness, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:22 | |
it was still a David and Goliath struggle to destroy an airship. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:26 | |
Look at its size, compared to a fighter plane of the same period. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:31 | |
It's dwarfed by the Zeppelin. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
To lift men and bombs, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
a vast quantity of lighter-than-air hydrogen gas was contained inside a massive frame. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:43 | |
The metal skeleton held enough gas-bags | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
to survive many hits from a machine gun. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
But the Zeppelin's greatest fear was fire. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:57 | |
Their hydrogen gas was highly flammable. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
Could anyone conjure up a fiery magic bullet to save Britain from the Zeppelins? | 0:09:02 | 0:09:07 | |
Tony Edwards knows the secret of the new incendiary ammunition. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:13 | |
That was filled with phosphorous, and in the side of the bullet | 0:09:15 | 0:09:18 | |
there was a very, very small hole filled with solder. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
When the bullet was fired, | 0:09:22 | 0:09:23 | |
the bullet twisted up the barrel in the rifling, the solder melted, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:27 | |
and as the bullet left the muzzle of the gun, | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
it was spewing phosphorous. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:31 | |
Phosphorus ignites when in contact with the air, it sets light | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
and it leaves a smoke trail so it's burning all the way to its target. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:40 | |
As well as phosphorous shells, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
by 1916 our armoury also included bullets | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
with an explosive nitro-glycerine core. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
Now we had the chemical weapons to kill the Zeppelins. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
But it would take brave men to try. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
I've got a precious album that belonged to Egbert Cadbury, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:04 | |
a courageous Zeppelin hunter. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
Cadbury was based in Great Yarmouth. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:09 | |
Originally, he was a Navy pilot, | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
but in 1918 he was co-opted into the newly formed RAF. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
On the night of the 5th of August 1918, | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
Major Cadbury launched the last attack against the airship invaders, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
when the Germans unleashed the super-Zeppelin... | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
..the L70 - the most advanced Zeppelin yet. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:33 | |
Almost 700 feet long, with seven engines, | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
capable of carrying 10,000lbs of bombs. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
I've actually got a priceless recording of Major Cadbury | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
recounting his struggle against the fearsome Zeppelin | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
on that fateful night. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
'We received warning from naval patrols at sea | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
'that hostile aircraft were approaching The Wash at great height. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:00 | |
'I immediately flew off in pursuit.' | 0:11:03 | 0:11:05 | |
Unbeknown to Cadbury, he wasn't only taking on the super-Zeppelin. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:13 | |
At the helm was this man, Commander Peter Strasser, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
architect of the Zeppelin war on Britain, | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
desperate to prove the worth of his airships against aircraft. | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
Despite being three times the length of a jumbo jet, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
the L70 was not easy to find in pitch blackness. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
'You sat in the cockpit, and had to depend upon your eyesight | 0:11:32 | 0:11:36 | |
'to spot the airship against a starry sky. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:39 | |
'It was rather like trying to find a fly in a darkened bedroom.' | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
The airship was almost over the coast. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
To intercept it Cadbury knew he would have to push his plane | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
to altitudes close to its physical limit, | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
where the air was so thin the engine was at risk of stalling. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
In an open cockpit at 17,000ft there would have been a biting wind. | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
The engine would have been rattling, spitting oil... | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
It would have been impossible to hear a Zeppelin over the racket. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
But miraculously, Cadbury caught a glimpse of his prey. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:11 | |
'She looked simply immense - | 0:12:13 | 0:12:14 | |
'as indeed she was, being 300 yards long from stem to stern.' | 0:12:14 | 0:12:18 | |
Held aloft by 2.2 million cubic feet of flammable hydrogen. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:24 | |
A tiny incendiary bullet could bring the super-Zeppelin down. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
Gunner Bob Leckie made ready with his machine gun. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:33 | |
'Suddenly the darkness was ripped open. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:36 | |
'Bob Leckie gave her a few bursts of fire of tracer bullets.' | 0:12:36 | 0:12:40 | |
A hit! | 0:12:44 | 0:12:46 | |
'And as I banked away, | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
'she went blazing down to the clouds 2,000 feet beneath us. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
'We lost sight of her as she continued her downward journey | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
'into the North Sea, nearly three miles below.' | 0:12:57 | 0:13:00 | |
Strasser, the German Zeppelin commander, fell to his death. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:06 | |
His ambitious plans for more audacious airship raids | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
died with him. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:11 | |
It started over the Norfolk coast, and it ended there. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:18 | |
Sir Egbert Cadbury went on to manage his family's chocolate empire, | 0:13:18 | 0:13:23 | |
but he kept a souvenir. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
This is a cigarette case made from lightweight aluminium taken from | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
the super-Zeppelin. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
It actually has Cadbury's signature inscribed on it. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
A small reminder of a largely forgotten first Blitz on Britain, | 0:13:35 | 0:13:40 | |
when events on this coast shook the nation to its core. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:45 |