Additional general notes on the memorial
From the church guide:
The windows were put in to commemorate the bombing of Washingborough by Zeppelin L14 on the night of 23rd September 1916. The windows have the two Zeppelin numbers L30 and L32, neither of which were responsible for the bombing.
A searchlight at Washingborough caught L14 in its beam and a 12 pounder gun at Canwick fired nineteen times at it causing the crew to drop the entire load of weaponry.
Seventeen incendiary bombs were dropped on Heighington. Of twelve high explosive bombs, one bomb fell in a Washingborough garden and others in fields and a further fifteen between Washingborough and Greetwell. There were no casualties but a chicken shed and an orchard were destroyed and some outbuildings damaged.
The following day, many sightseers from Lincoln came to view the damage. A large number wanted to cross the Witham by means of the chain ferry and sadly on one trip it tipped its passengers into the river and two boys were drowned, caught under the flat bottom of the ferry.
Arthur Ernest Robinson was seventeen and lived on Carlton Street, Lincoln. He is buried in Newport Cemetery. George Melson was just seven. He lived on Winnowsty Lane and is buried in Eastgate Cemetery.
L14 was the most successful German airship of the war, attacking Britain 17 times and dropping more than 22 tons of bombs. It was destroyed by its crew after the war.
L 30 and L32 were airborne that same night but were involved in bombing raids elsewhere. L 30 failed to make land and dropped its bombs over the sea. L32 bombed parts of Kent and was shot down with the loss of the entire crew. It’s not clear why those numbers were represented in the windows. Nor is there an obvious reason for including the letters ZZ. German airships had a ‘tactical’ number such as L31, L32 and a production number which began with the letters LZ, an abbreviation for Luftschiff [airship] Zeppelin. Maybe ‘ZZ’ looked more menacing?"