One, the L.21, crossed the English coast at Atwick at 21:20, and then turned north to evade patrolling aircraft before heading to Leeds, where it was driven off by heavy anti-aircraft fire.

An effective blackout shielded Barnsley from attack, so the airship headed southwest to the Potteries where it dropped a number of bombs on industrial targets in Stoke, causing some damage, but no casualties.

However, reports of the L.21's movements had reached Great Yarmouth, so at dawn Egbert Cadbury and Flight Sub Lieutenant Gerard W. R. Fane took off in their B.E.2c fighters to intercept.

[7] [8] For unknown reasons, when the SL 11 became the first German airship to be shot down over England, it was described officially and in the press as the Zeppelin L 21 (the LZ 61's tactical number).

One suggestion for this confusion was a calculation by the authorities that the downing of a hated and feared Zeppelin 'baby killer', would be received better with the public than the destruction of an almost unknown Schütte-Lanz type.