THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN OBJECTS
This hand torch, used by members of its crew, is a reminder of the service of the most successful British wartime rigid airship – His Majesty’s Airship R.29.
Originally planned to consist of four delivered airships, only two of the British R23X-class were actually built. The first, constructed by William Beardmore & Co., was HMA R.27 which was commissioned in June 1918, only be lost in a hangar fire in August the same year. Commissioned nine days before its sister, R.29 had been built by Vickers Armstrong before being based at RNAS East Fortune for the whole of its brief, but eventful, naval career.
The informative Airship Heritage Trust website details a little of R.29’s achievements: ‘In a brief operational [wartime] career of less than five months, [R.29] flew 335 hours and covered an estimated 8,215 miles. Once she carried out a patrol of over 30 hours; twice more she made a flight longer than 20 hours.
‘She conducted at least: twenty-eight anti-submarine patrols, nine convoy escorts, one Grand Fleet patrol, two search missions, investigated four possible U-boat sightings … observed, investigated and reported seven different sightings of floating wreckage and oil …
