[2][3] On 4 November 1917, after a 29-hour flight from Friedrichshafen under the command of Hugo Eckener, the airship arrived at Yambol in Bulgaria (spelled 'Jambol' in German sources), the last available airbase before flying over two thousand miles across the Mediterranean and Entente-held Africa.

[2] Despite these difficulties, L 59 continued on over Sudan, only to be turned back on 23 November 1917, with the ship 125 miles (201 km) due west of Khartoum when she received an "abort" message.

[2] L 59's volunteer crew implored the commander to continue, but he ordered the ship to turn back and returned to Bulgaria after averting another potential disaster due to loss of buoyancy over Asia Minor.

[8] It was later claimed by Richard Meinertzhagen, the chief of British intelligence in the area based at Cairo, that the recall message reporting that Lettow-Vorbeck had surrendered was faked.

"[11] Later a transcript of the radio message was reported to have been found in Germany archives,[12] as well as a Turko-German wireless intercept (marked 'Secret') preserved in the files of the British Public Records office.

After several reconnaissance flights and bombing missions, L 59 took off from Yambol to attack the British naval base at Malta, proceeding across the Balkans to the Strait of Otranto.

Her commanding officer, Oberleutnant zur See Robert Sprenger, reported that he watched her fly past at about 210 m (700 ft), so "close in fact that the details of the gondola could be seen clearly."

The airship and its long-distance resupply mission was featured in The Ghosts of Africa, a 1980 historical novel by British-born Canadian novelist William Stevenson set during the East African Campaign.

The protagonist of O Olho de Hertzog, a 2010 novel by João Paulo Borges Coelho set in post–World War I Mozambique, arrives in Africa by jumping from the airship using a parachute.