Turner's Defense: A Will Turner Story

Captain Will Turner is part of the hastily-formed Home Defence organization combating the Zeppelin night raids on England in the spring and summer of 1916. The German airships have ranged across the country invulnerable to all forms of defense. Only one Zeppelin, LZ37, has been destroyed in the air, bombed while coming in to land near Ghent in Belgium by Flight Sub Lieutenant Warneford in his Morane monoplane. This single success, combined with the lack of results achieved with machine gun-equipped airplanes, has led to the mistaken belief in the British High Command that an airship can only be destroyed by bombing from above. They are convinced the Germans are using a system to duct spent exhaust gases around the highly flammable gasbags to prevent fire. Will Turner, by now an experienced military aviator, knows this theory is flawed. A qualified and farsighted aeronautical engineer, it falls to him to penetrate to the heart of the Kaiser’s Imperial Naval Air Service to obtain the evidence needed to change British tactics.