WWI Zeppelin Interest - a walking cane made from the wreckag...

Estimate

£250 - £400

WWI Zeppelin Interest - a walking cane made from the wreckage of German Zeppelin L 48 (LZ95). The knop to the top engraved ' L48 - Brought Down At Theberton 1917 ' and engraved to the rim ' GK. The stick measures 86cm long. 

Provenance: as made by the vendor's Grandfather in the early 1920s from wreckage recovered. A full letter of provenance is supplied and reads, in part: '..handcrafted by my Grandfather in the early 1920s. The metal handle was machined from the nose cone of a propeller from the...Zeppelin... the shaft was derived from part of the wooden superstructure...... my Grandfather (George Kirtland) was trained as an electrician and was working at Lang, Garnett Company at (the) time. He was involved in the evaluation of the wreckage of LA48. Post-WW1 (the company) was acquired by (an American company) and... in the months leading up to the acquisition... the staff were instructed to dispose of surplus or redundant materials....including the remnants of L48. My Grandfather took back some of the discarded parts... with the thought of making (this) walking cane'. The full letter goes into greater detail regarding the piece. 

L 48 joined attempted attack on London with 4 other Zeppelins, L 42, L 44, L 45 and L 47. Commanded by George Eichler, on his thirteenth raid, it became lost and was intercepted and destroyed by Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12, serial No. 6110 flown by Canadian pilot Second Lieutenant Loudon Pierce Watkins. He was attached to No. 37 Squadron of British Royal Flying Corps (RFC) fighters. Watkins enlisted with his three brothers. He had been based in the UK, as home defence, since 11 December 1916. Watkins shot down L 48 over water near Great Yarmouth on 17 June 1917 but it crashed near Theberton, Suffolk, a village near the town of Leiston. Three survivors; crew buried at Theberton, later to be exhumed and reburied at Cannock Chase. Of the seven Zeppelins lost over England that were shot down in 1917 during the First World War, L 48 was the only one shot down by the RFC's Home defence.