the gulls which passengers on ocean-going
liners watch wheeling and soaring around the ship as it ploughs its
way through the ocean. These gulls though were birds of prey. They
were planes of the larger type, biplanes or triplanes carrying two
men, usually equipped with two motors and heavily laden with high
explosive bombs. As they made their way toward the land they were
accompanied by a fleet of light draft monitors especially built for
this service, each mounting two heavy guns and able to manoeuvre in
shallow water. With them advanced a swarm of swift, low-lying,
dark-painted destroyers ready to watch out for enemy torpedo boats
or submarines. They mounted anti-aircraft guns too and were prepared
to defend the monitors against assaults from the heavens above as
well as from the sinister attack of the underwater boats. Up from
the land base at Nieuport came a great fleet of airplanes to
co-operate with their naval brethren. Soon upon the German works,
sheltering squadrons of the sinister undersea boats, there rained a
hell of exploding projectiles from sea and sky. Every gunner had
absolute knowledge of the precise position and range of the target
to which he was assigned. The great guns of the monitors roared
steadily and their twelve and fourteen-inch projectiles rent in
pieces the bomb proofs of the Germans, driving the Boches to cover
and reducing their works to mere heaps of battered concrete. Back
and forth above flew seaplanes and airplanes, giving battle to the
aircraft which the Germans sent up in the forlorn hope of heading
off that attack and dropping their bombs on points carefully mapped
long in advance. It is true that the aim of the aviators was
necessarily inaccurate. That is the chief weakness of a bombardment
from the sky. But what was lacking in individual accuracy was made
up by the numbers of the bombing craft. One might miss a lock or a
shelter, but twenty concentrating their fire on the same target
could not all fail. This has become the accepted principle of aerial
offensive warfare. The inaccuracy of the individual must be
corrected by the multiplication of the number of the assailants.

The attack on Zeebrugge was wholly successful. Though the Germans
assiduously strove to conceal the damage done, the later
observations of the ruined port by British airmen left no doubt that
as a submarine base it had been put out of commission for months to
come. The success of the attack led to serious