German Zeppelins rendezvoused in a disastrous (for the crews) raid over England on October 19-20, 1917. Eleven airships participated in the ill-fated exercise.
The London ground-defense officials played a cat-and- mouse game with Captain Strasser's dirigibles. Realising their searchlights could not pierce the low mist, they kept them doused, and the raiders floundered helplessly, unable to find the British metropolis. The raid ended in almost total disaster. Only one airship managed to get back to Germany over the usual route. Six had to risk the neutrality of Holland or cross the Allied battle-lines in France. The remaining four were destroyed the next day by gunfire as they floated about France.
This tragic climax provided one of the heart-rending incidents of World War 1. As these four doomed aircraft drifted for hours over hostile territory, French and British observers listened to wireless appeals to their bases begging for advice, air protection, and for some reliable information as to their whereabouts.