coast, to there await (often for a long time and sometimes
in vain) the return of the seaplanes and pick them up. A description
of a few of these air-raid expeditions will illustrate this.

It will be remembered that British seaplanes bombed Cuxhaven on
Christmas Day, 1914. On Christmas Eve a force consisting of the
flagship _Arethusa_, another light cruiser, a flotilla of destroyers,
and three seaplane-carrying ships, carrying the seaplanes, set out
from Harwich in a northeast gale. It was a very dark night, and on
nearing the further side of the North Sea the ships picked their way
to their destination by the lead, following the line of ten-fathom
soundings. At four in the morning they passed some outpost vessels,
who doubtless detected them and signalled their presence to the enemy,
for a great burst of German wireless was immediately observed. At
dawn, on reaching the appointed position twelve miles to the north of
Heligoland, they found themselves in a flat calm. The seaplanes were
hoisted out, rose from the water at once, and flew off in the
direction of Cuxhaven--probably to the relief of all concerned. For in
the early days of the war our seaplanes were not so reliable as those
which we employed later. They not infrequently refused to rise for a
considerable time, and floundered about on the sea helplessly, causing
a dangerous delay in enemy waters. The flotilla now steamed to an
appointed rendezvous on the west side of Heligoland, and there awaited
the return of the seaplanes. While they were thus waiting, our ships
were attacked by enemy submarines, two Zeppelins, and two seaplanes.

But no enemy surface craft came up, though it was, of course,
expected that the warning given by the outpost vessels would have
brought the German ships out in force. On this occasion all the
seaplanes returned safely and were picked up; and at noon the flotilla
steamed back, with no casualties to report, to Harwich. The fact
remains that the Harwich Force stayed within a radius of twenty miles
from Heligoland from 5 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. without any attempt being
made by the High Sea Fleet to molest it.

But our air-raiding expeditions did not always enjoy this good
fortune. For example, what is known as the Sylt raid was attended with
loss of ships and seaplanes. The objectives of this seaplane attack
were the enemy Zeppelin sheds at Tondern, on the Slesvig mainland. It
was a raid that might have led to great events, as the Brit