Zeppelin LZ 55



Zeppelin LZ 55 (Army tactical number LZ 85) was a P-class Zeppelin of the Imperial German Army in World War I. It was shot down by the old British pre-dreadnough battleship HMS Agamemnon in 1916 during Salonika campaign

History
On 5 May 1916 LZ55 made another attack on Thessaloniki (Salonika) harbour. Part way through the attack it was caught in spotlights. and all the ships in the area opened fire with their anti-aircraft guns. LZ55 continued its attack but HMS Agamemnon (1906) 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun hit LZ 55; breaking it in half according to one of the crew. The airship crashed in the swamps at the mouth of the Vardar River west of Thessaloniki  and its crew were captured. The crash site soon became a tourist attraction, with a report that "a dozen Canadian nurses. They had come up ... and waded through to it. What a sight they did look, skirts up round their waists wading through mud and slime up to their knees."

The metal structure of the Zeppelin was dragged by Allied soldiers from the swamps to the White Tower of Thessaloniki. There it was reconstructed so that Allied engineers could study how the Germans built airships.