Now all roads lead to France and heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead returning lightly dance.
Edward Thomas, Roads

Saturday, March 8, 2014

8 March 1917: The Death of Graf von Zeppelin



Father of the German airship, Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von Zeppelin, died of pneumonia on 8 March 1917 at the age of 78. When the leading airship commander Peter Strasser subsequently died aboard the height-climber L-70 as it was shot down over the English Channel on 5 August 1918, the event marked the end of the airship as a strategic bomber. Hugo Eckener would go on to lead Germany's postwar airship program.

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