rbed. They were rewarded in the end.
When, after the armistice, the last German submarine came through the
lock-gates at Zeebrugge, with her crew fallen in on the fore
superstructure, her captain called for three cheers,--'As that's the
last you'll see of Flanders.' The cheers were given very heartily--an
involuntary tribute to the four years' work of the naval services at
Dunkirk.

All these things were yet to come when the third of the naval aeroplane
raids into enemy territory was made on the 21st of November 1914. This,
the successful attack on the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen, Lake
Constance, was planned and executed to perfection. Lieutenant Pemberton
Billing, of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, left England on the 21st
of October under Admiralty instructions. He arrived at Belfort on the
24th and, by the courtesy of the French general in command, obtained
permission to use the aerodrome within the fortifications and its large
dirigible shed as the starting-point for a raid. German spies were
believed to be at work in Belfort, so arrangements were made for the
machines to be brought into the place by road transport at night, and
for their pilots to be boarded and lodged, during the whole of their
stay, in the dirigible shed. Having completed these preliminaries,
Lieutenant Billing carried out discreet inquiries which enabled him to
draw up a chart of the proposed route, a complete plan of the Zeppelin
factory, and a draft of instructions for the proposed raid.

Meantime the French had themselves been meditating a raid on
Friedrichshafen, and the Governor of Belfort had received some valuable
reports on the factory and the prevailing weather conditions. After some
discussion it was decided that as Zeppelins were intended to assist in
the destruction of the British fleet, the Royal Naval Air Service
should be privileged to pay the first visit, but that this privilege
should lapse if the visit were not paid within thirty days.

In the season of late autumn, when the barometer is high and the air
calm, the whole of the Swiss plateau and the Rhine valley bordering it
is often plunged in a thick mist which reaches to a height of about
3,000 feet. Above this sea of mist the air is clear and the flight of an
aeroplane safe and easy. The course chosen from Belfort to Lake
Constance, a distance of about 125 miles, was bent, like an elbow at an
obtuse angle, round the northern border of Switzerland, so that Swiss
n