L 4 (LZ 27)

L 4, factory number LZ 27, was an M-class Zeppelin built by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin at Friedrichshafen for the Imperial German Navy, which made its maiden flight on 18 August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Based at Fuhlsbüttel under Kapitänleutnant Graf Zdenko Magnus von Platen-Hallermund, it carried out, with L 3, the first air raid on England of the war, bombing coastal towns in Norfolk on 19 January 1915. On 17 February 1915, on a reconnaissance mission over the North Sea, it met a snowstorm and made an emergency landing in neutral Denmark at Børsmose Beach. Eleven crew members escaped, but the airship rose again with four mechanics still aboard and vanished over the sea; the four were presumed drowned, the first fatalities of the Navy airship division.