In Fear Of Airships.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 23, 1913:
England Prepares Since the Report of German Visit.
    The mysterious airship which passed over Sheerness and Dover on the night of Oct. 14 last is probably responsible for the new British Aerial Navigation bill, which has just gone into effect, and which prevents foreign airships from passing over British forts and arsenals. Hereafter, foreign pilots who cross over England must declare the object of their journey, or they are liable to be shot at and killed.
    British naval circles were greatly alarmed when, on the night or Oct. 14, a mysterious airship hovered over Sheerness at a height of 4,500 feet, and with great speed passed over Borkum and Norderney. British suspicion was immediately directed against Germany, and this was strengthened by a Hamburg dispatch which stated that the mysterious vessel was the new naval Zeppelin airship, which, with twenty-one men on board, started from Friedrichshafen for a thirty-one-hour test flight to Johannisthal. At 2 o'clock on the afternoon of Oct. 15 the vessel returned to Kiel, flew on to the Prussian Island of Fehmarn, in the Baltic Sea, and then turned south to go to Johannisthal. A Berlin dispatch stated that the new Zeppelin aircraft, known as the L1, was the only German vessel which could possibly have been hovering over Sheerness on Oct. 13 and 14. She made her first long-distance flight about that time, but the detailed movements were never made public, as the cruise was an official trial trip for the Admiralty, and therefore secret.
    The German official account of the flight stated that it was made on Oct. 13 and ended at Johannisthal on the afternoon of Oct. 14. The suggestion was made in the British naval circle at Portsmouth that the official date was changed and that the actual time of the flight was officially put back twenty-four hours. It was definitely stated that no British airship or aeroplane was aloft at the time the engine was heard over Sheerne.
    No other country possesses any aerial vessel capable of the voyage. Supposing that it was the Zeppelin which passed over Sheerness, the chief stages of the flight would be as follows: From Friedrichshafen to Borkum, 437 miles; Borkum to Sheerness, 293 miles; Sheerness to Fehmarn, 456 miles; Fehmarn to Johannisthal, 162 miles, a total of 1,348 miles. Count Zeppelin, however, on Nov. 20 last, telegraphed to The Daily Mail that none of his airships approached the English coast on the night of Oct. 14. The London Times on last Jan. 12 expressed the belief that the mysterious airship was the Hansa, which is not the property of the German Government.
    The four new British armored ships which were begun last year will be fitted not only with overhead armor for protection against aerial attack, but also with guns of high elevation for attacking aircraft. The gun is a combination of anti-torpedo craft and anti-aircraft weapon. It has a range of 13,000 yards with 31 pound shells when required for work against surface vessels. It can be elevated nearly 80 degrees, at which angle its effective height range is 9.000 yards. At a distance of 4 1/2 miles it can send a shell to the height of 13,000 feet. A new type of shrapnel shell is used against aircraft.