General Notes:

birth-PR# 4638-1875
marr-P-CH-reg 14 P 72

www.worldwar1atsea.net:

S.S. Franz Fischer, British Vessels Lost at Sea.

Near the mouth of the Thames River 1 February 1916, 2 miles South off the coast of Kent and Essex in England, The Franz Fischer, most likely was bombed and sunk by a Zeppelin rigid airship. The Captain and all 12 crew members on the steamship Franz Fischer, formerly German and seized by the British, were lost. This is the ship that Emmanuel Vidolich reportedly went down on.
The huge Zeppelin, L-19 of the Naval Airship Division of the Imperial German Navy, was the only airship ever to bomb and sink a British ship at sea. Nine Zeppelins were dispatched from Germany 31 January 1916. 1 February, 1916 ordered to bomb Liverpool, in route the L-19 found the Franz Fischer a 970 grt/tons; 224.3 X 31.5 X 12.3; 105 n.h.p.; compound engines, anchored in the mouth of the Thames estuary. One of three survivors from another ship was below deck and claimed to hear an aircraft overhead, so no eyewitnesses for a Zeppelin-attack.
The time was at night. It is thought the Zeppelin which was stationary above the ship, dropped a bomb. It entered the Franz Fischer's funnel, the explosion blew out her bottom and she sank in less than a minute in the North Sea.  Some are not convinced of the Zeppelin attack. One source reads the Franz Fischer was probably sunk by a drifting mine which sunk the ship. Interestingly one English report: “There was a chase of a phantom airship that night, a little above eye level and slightly ahead to starboard, a row of what appeared to be lighted windows which looked something like a railway carriage with the blinds drawn. Thinking it was a hostile airship some 100 feet away, some one fired at it with pistol, whereupon the lights alongside rose rapidly and disappeared”. German history: Disasters at Sea, basic, incomplete and not always correct. Details of the attack match the hearsay descriptions so L-19 must be credited with sinking Franz Fischer. If a Zeppelin was responsible for the sinking seems, it must have been one of them that bombed the S.S. Franz Fischer.
The l-19 must have been well south of the intended course and targets and had a history of problems with navigation due to a faulty radio and intermittent contact, and engine problems.
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