Any provincial newspaper with pretensions to quality features a regular column from its (usually anonymous) London correspondent which offers a mixture of political gossip and analysis as well as anecdotes of life in the capital and other, less classifiable tidbits. Today's 'Our London correspondence' column in the Manchester Guardian, for example, previews the coming week in Parliament, analyses religious demographics in Londonderry, and discusses the 'new terror' of taxi whistles on London streets (p. 6). It also has two paragraphs on 'The mysterious airship', based on a conversation with 'a friend who watches the progress of aeronautics very closely'. It seems that

people of his sort are inclined to take the reports of the airship that travels by night seriously, and to hold that, though two or three of them (I am afraid the Manchester report is one) seem to be the product of self-deception, there is now a strong enough body of evidence to make it reasonably certain that in the course of the last two months an airship travelling by night has been seen at Sheppey, at Dover, and at different points on the Welsh coast of the Bristol Channel.

The Guardian's correspondent seems to doubt the claim that the Dover airship was the privately-owned Hansa: 'but I believe this theory was arrived at by a process of elimination, the movements of the German Government airships having been traced on the night in question'. As to 'the theory in Wales [...] that the vessel belongs to some experimenter living on the Devonshire moors',

It seems important to observe that the direction in which the 'mystery' vessel was moving and the places at which it was seen would point even more cogently to experiments conducted from Salisbury Plain. It may be added that, though a private experimenter who only flew at night would be a lunatic, there might be a very definite purpose in keeping quiet by day if the experimenter were a Government department. I learn from my friend that there is much comment on the darkness which has fallen on the Government's experiments in regard to dirigibles of the rigid type since the unfortunate accident to the naval airship No. 1 at Barrow two years ago. This year's Estimates will probably contain provision for new and slightly smaller vessels of this type. Is it possible that something has been accomplished already?

This is in line with earlier, vaguer hints in the Guardian that government or government-commissioned airships might have been responsible for the South Wales sightings, but the definite suggestion that it is a secret new government (presumably military) airship operating from Salisbury Plain appears to be new.

There follows a brief recollection of the 1909 airship scare, under the heading 'A precedent for sceptics':

Sceptics may comfort themselves by remembering that it was in South Wales not so very long ago that chance and the romantic imagination of a nocturnal wanderer combined to perpetrate the great airship hoax. The wanderer told the story, and chance produced the little tag printed in French which, when first translated, seemed to refer obscurely to shrapnel shell, but was ultimately found to be a very lucid piece of instruction in the use of motor-tyre valves. Such as the inferences to which the technical terms of a foreign tongue may lead the imagination.

A striking phrase that, 'the great airship hoax'. However, while this account is accurate as far as it goes, it is misleading in its implication that C. Lethbridge's strange encounter on Caerphilly Mountain was the cause of the scare, when it actually came at the peak, after a build-up of a week or more. It was more the cause of the end of the scare, as the sudden deflation of the sensational story contributed to a more general scepticism about the phantom airships.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of January-April 1913. See here for an introduction to the series.

'The Passing Show', a regular political commentary in the Dublin Sunday Independent, today takes note of the airship mystery (p. 6). It begins in a somewhat lighthearted fashion:

The 'phantom airship' scare is again occupying the attention of the British public, and, as usual, giving the anti-German section of the said B.P. food for grave misgiving.

This is followed by a very brief résumé of the major sightings of the past four weeks: Dover, Cardiff, Liverpool, Aberystwyth and Manchester. Nothing new here except in the last case: the Manchester airship is said to have 'been seen by reliable witnesses' and those witnesses are said to number 'Many'. Which may not be very much but the previous reports were not very forthcoming on the subject of who did the reporting. No conclusion is offered, but there is a noticeable tilt in one direction:

This is serious enough; but far worse is the fact that the officers of the Aero Club state that the vessel cannot possibly be of British origin. There is no English airship which could cover the distance in the time suggested by its appearances, whereas, as is well known, the German Zeppelins are quite capable of doing so, or of crossing from Germany and returning without landing.

It's interesting that the Sunday Independent doesn't see fit to mention, or else doesn't know of, the airship seen at Newport, Co. Mayo, three weeks ago, which might suggest that it's not just the British public which is prone to seeing German airships. On the other hand, that incident is the only one from Ireland to have been reported so far.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of January-April 1913. See here for an introduction to the series.

Flight mentions the mystery airships in its editorial comment today, though only briefly and somewhat disparagingly. By the same token, it is quite happy to make use of them. The actual topic, inspired by the Daily Telegraph, is 'Our aerial fleet' (p. 107). It begins by claiming that in 'the matter of our aerial defences we have at all times endeavoured to steer clear of alarmist tendencies', and to assume that the government was following 'a considered policy of awaiting developments until such time as it was wise to make a great forward move' rather than accusing it of 'improper procrastination'.

But there comes a time when it is necessary to talk plainly and to say the things that come uppermost in the mind after a close and careful study of the relative strength of our own and other nations' air fleets. That time has come now. We have waited to see the awakening, and we have seen nothing but a continued policy of discouraging apathy, which has left this country hopelessly behind its rivals, without an air fleet worthy of the name, and almost entirely at the mercy of the first aerial power which cares to launch its air squadrons on a mission of destruction across the North Sea.

Britain's policy amounts to little more than watching and waiting:

We play about with small dirigibles which are but of minor count for the purposes of serious war, while Germany rapidly and certainly builds huge craft, capable of taking the North Sea in their stride and which, if report is to be trusted, have already paid us visits by night. Not that we are inclined to take these reports too seriously, but the fact remains that even if German aircraft have not visited these shores it is beyond all question that there is nothing in the wide world, least of all British aircraft, to prevent them so doing whenever those directing them are inclined.

Nor should France's 'enormously strong air fleet', soon to number 'not less than five hundred aeroplanes in effective service, to say nothing of a respectable number of large dirigibles', be neglected:

True, France at the moment is our very good friend and ally, but political friendships are notoriously unstable, and even so, when did Great Britain have to depend upon her friends to supply her own obvious deficiencies?

It is rumoured that the forthcoming Army Estimates will include a provision for £1 million for aviation, but what if the rumours are wrong?

Is there any hope that the Parliamentary 'Supers' who draw their £400 per annum for walking through the lobbies obedient to the crack of the Party whip will rise up in their places and insist that the safety of the country shall take precedence of schemes of so-called social reform, which no one wants and which are frankly designed to catch the votes of the unthinking populace? We fear not.

The only bright lights are 'Mr. Joynson-Hicks, an indefatigable champion in the cause of aviation and an Aerial Defence group in the House, which has done excellent work in calling attention to the parlous state of our air service' (pp. 107-8). But they are isolated and have little influence. Therefore 'It is with something more than pleasure that we note that the Daily Telegraph has taken up this most vital question' (p. 108). Flight fully concurs, and has previously argued, that as a consequence of 'the policy of inaction',

the British aviation industry is dying. Abroad, one improvement follows another with disconcerting rapidity owing in every case to the researches and experiments of private firms. But it cannot be hoped that with our factories idle, with our expert designers and craftsmen dismissed and forced into other careers to make their livelihood, we can ever keep pace with, much less outstrip, foreign activity and improvement.

By the time Britain reaches the same conclusion as every other country, i.e. that it is necessary to equip the 'army with war machines of a number of different types, even at great cost [...] the aviation industry will have ceased to exist'. If nothing is done.

We repeat we are not alarmists, but we cannot view the position without [sic] anything but the gravest misgiving for the future. The political outlook is darker than it has been for many years, and we have it on record that in the opinion of one of our most distinguished soldiers that it is impossible to make successful war without having command of the air. And if war should come suddenly, we most certainly shall not have command of the air — but the lamp-posts of Whitehall may have unfamiliar ornaments. And well might it be under the circumstances.

Looks like there's a scare coming.

This post is part of an experiment in post-blogging the scareship wave of January-April 1913. See here for an introduction to the series.