Books: Zepp Over the Quad

THE CENTRAL BLUE (709 pp.)—Sir John Slessor—Praeger ($7.50).

One night in 1915 a young pilot in a 90-h.p. B.E.2C., a primitive, kitelike fighter plane, was jogging along through the fog when he glimpsed far above him—"like a cod's-eye view of the Queen Mary" —the great bladdery hull of the German Zeppelin L-15. It was one of several dirigibles bound for London with bombs. The pilot's orders were to climb above the hydrogen-filled monster and drop on it a "Heath Robinson"* device made of a fuse, gasoline and fishhooks. Before he reached it, the Zeppelin...