The naval base at Rosyth in Fife and the Forth Bridge had been the focus of an attack composed of four Zeppelins but in the event only two craft reached the Scottish coast – L14 commanded by Kapitänleutnant der Reserve Alois Böcker, and L22 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Martin Dietrich. At 9.30pm on Sunday 2 April 1916 the military gave the order for the city to take air raid action, and road traffic ground to a halt, street lighting was lowered, and civilians were advised to take refuge.

Leith Docks were attacked round about 11:30pm, and then the German airship crew plotted a course along the Water of Leith towards the city of Edinburgh. Just after midnight the young Campbell was awakened by the sound of bombs. He went down to the parlour where he waited until 1.10am on the morning of Monday 3 April and from the window he ‘saw blaze over Leith’. He then went to bed before rising again at 7.30am to get ready for school – George Watson’s. However he heard that a ‘bomb had fallen in front of school & smashed it up’. When he got to school he ‘mucked about’ in the bomb hole in the playground until he was ‘turned out’ of it.

At noon when he got out of school he ‘went round to see bomb hole’ again. Every window in front of the school was ‘smashed’. The crater was ‘about 4′ 6” across right up against Ethel Davidson’s room which was absolutely smashed’ (the crater was just over a meter wide). He went on…:

Desks, window-frames, broken glass, stones, and piles of plaster, all smashed up, filled the room. Other front rooms about as bad.

After picking up a bit of bomb for himself and a bit for Main, a friend, he walked with Ashcroft – presumably another school friend – across to Grassmarket where more damage had been reported. On the way they witnessed the ‘effects’ of the ‘Lauriston bomb’…:

They continued towards the Vennel and then down ‘to Grassmarket which was awfully crowded’. There the pavement was barred against public access and there was a ‘deep hole in front of the White Hart Hotel, whose walls were all scarred’.

A walk along King’s Stables Road followed, and ‘smashed windows’ were seen in Castle Terrace. Walking through Princes Street Gardens they  were able to see ‘effect of bomb on Castle Rock’…:

Along Lothian Road, they passed the County Hotel where every window was ‘smashed’.

Later on, when his mother had gone down to Leamington Terrace to see an uncle, Campbell ‘got a car’ (a tram) down to Leith Walk where he met his father and several teachers, and…:

Showed my bit of bomb & told them that Watson’s was still standing.

Again he walked up Castle Terrace, this time with his mother and father, and…:

The family took a tram home and Campbell noted how public transport – ‘cars’ or trams – and the streets were ‘awfully crowded’.

During that day, meandering across the city, looking at the destruction caused by the bombs, Campbell had his camera with him (it appears). After tea, he developed the film, but… unfortunately…:

…and the one surviving photograph had been simply of him in the garden!

Although Campbell noted that ten people had been killed, modern reports tell of a total of thirteen deaths with a further twenty-four injured.The cost of the damage by the bombs, each no bigger than a sack of flour, amounted to roughly £12m in today’s money.

Nearly all of the damage had been caused by devices dropped from Zeppelin L14. Zeppelin L22 ventured only briefly into the city and just caused minor damage after jettisoning most of its bombs in fields near Berwick-upon-Tweed. Later in the year, Alois Böcker was arrested by local policemen in Essex, England, in September 1916, when his Zeppelin (L33 on this occasion) was brought down by night fighters. Zeppelin L14 itself was destroyed by its crew on 23 June 1919 following the example of the naval scuttling in Scapa Flow.

 As for Archibald H. Campbell the teenager during the First World War… After his studies at Edinburgh and at Oxford, Campbell would become a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and in 1935 he was appointed Barber Professor of Jurisprudence at Birmingham University. In September 1939, and from the outbreak of the hostilities which became known as the Second World War he was summoned into service at Bletchley Park.