ggs told me that
they had fully expected never to see us again. I went to bed after
telephoning to General Paris, who had relieved General Aston in command
of the Marines. General Paris sent the following report to the
Admiralty: "Commander Samson and all ranks appear to have behaved very
gallantly in difficult circumstances, and I consider his action was
perfectly correct."'

These motor-car operations were no part of the war in the air. But they
were carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service, and they illustrate the
immense diversity of business which was undertaken by that service
during the course of the war. Off the coast of Cornwall or over the
rivers of West Africa, in raids on German cities or in expeditions to
assist beleaguered Allies, the Naval Air Service were incessantly active
on the fringe of things. They were sailors and adventurers by tradition;
they adapted themselves to circumstance, and made the best of what they
found. Their courage put new heart into desperate men, and their
humanity (the greatest tradition of the British navy) added lustre to
their courage. The half-witted pedantry of the German doctrine and
practice of war, which uses brutality as a protective mask for
cowardice, was far from them. It was against that doctrine and practice,
as against an alien enemy, that they fought; and only those who have
been guilty of inhuman practices have ever had cause to complain of
their cruelty.

Beyond the usual reconnaissances not very much work was done in the air
from headquarters. The available aeroplanes were few, and there were
many calls on them. Nominally the Dunkirk force was to consist of three
squadrons of twelve machines each, but in these early days two or three
machines were, often the most that a squadron could muster. On the 3rd
of September Squadron Commander E. L. Gerrard arrived at Ostend with
three additional machines intended to operate from Antwerp against
airship sheds in Germany. These machines remained at Ostend, pegged down
under the lee of the sand dunes, while Squadron Commander Gerrard went
by road to Antwerp to find an aerodrome and to arrange for the proposed
raid. On the 12th of September a violent squall came up from the west
and caught the machines, uprooting or breaking the stakes to which they
were secured. The machines turned cartwheels along the sands and were
totally wrecked. The party returned to Dunkirk to refit, and as the
attack on the Zeppelin sheds in Ge