nses known at present. According to
information which had reached the British admiralty, the German coast
north of the Kiel Canal is protected at intervals by the most powerful
antiaircraft artillery, including 4.1-inch guns, capable of firing
thirty-five pound shells to a height of 26,000 feet at the rate of ten
every minute. The risk which the British sea planes underwent was
great, but there seems to have been no hesitation on the part of the
aviators to fly to the attack.

Early in the morning of March 25, 1916, two sea-plane "mother ships,"
accompanied by a squadron of eight protected cruisers and fast
destroyers under the command of Commodore Tyrwhitt, started from the
east coast of England. When about fifty miles from Schleswig-Holstein
five sea planes and one "battle aeroplane" (according to the German
version of the attack) rose from the mother ships and flew toward
shore. What happened during the next two hours is still a matter of
doubt. Only two of the machines returned from the invasion, torn and
riddled with bullets and shrapnel, reporting the most terrific shell
fire from batteries of antiaircraft guns. The aviators declared,
however, that they "successfully bombarded the airship sheds." The
subsequent German report denied the claim, stating that none of the
machines succeeded in even reaching the Zeppelin stations, which were
several miles inland. Three of the sea planes were shot down by the
German guns, and the aviators were made prisoners. It was a gallant
attempt against heavy odds on the part of the British Flying Corps,
and its failure probably was due to the small number of machines
employed. If fifty or sixty machines had taken part in the attack, ten
or twelve might have been lost, but the others would probably have
been able to reach the sheds and do great damage to the Zeppelins
stationed there.

It was from the same sheds that three days later the Zeppelins arose
for their tremendous raids of England, during the week of March 30 to
April 4, 1916, as many as seven of the airships appearing over the
British Isles at the same time. During this series of raids London was
visited by one of the airship squadrons, the visit resulting in
twenty-eight deaths and forty-four injuries. Another squadron turned
northward and dropped bombs on Stowmarket, Lowestoft, and Cambridge,
while a third section of the air fleet attacked the northeast coast.
One of the attacking air cruisers was hit by gunfire, as w