miles to the north of
the scene of the accident, watched the destruction and then continued
inland over the French positions, dropping bombs for more than an
hour. They returned undamaged to the German lines.

Still another Zeppelin, _L-19_, was lost in the North Sea, on February
2, 1916, while returning from an "invasion" of England. Hit by gunfire
from the British antiaircraft batteries--or by the Dutch, as some
reports have it, for crossing over Dutch territory--the _L-19_
gradually dropped lower and lower until it floated on the surface of
the sea. The British trawler, _King Stephen_, appeared and the crew of
the Zeppelin asked to be taken off, and offered to surrender. The
captain of the trawler frankly declared that he would not take the
chance of rescuing twenty-eight well-armed German sailors, as his own
crew only amounted to nine men, unarmed. He steamed away, leaving the
Zeppelin crew to drown. When destroyers of the British fleet appeared
later on, guided to the spot by the trawler captain's report, the
Zeppelin and its crew had vanished.

CHAPTER LV

LOSSES AND CASUALTIES IN AERIAL WARFARE--DISCREPANCIES IN OFFICIAL
REPORTS--"DRIVEN DOWN" AND "DESTROYED"

To tabulate or chronicle accurately the losses and casualties suffered
by the various armies in their aerial warfare is absolutely
impossible. Not so much because of censorship or secrecy, but because
of the fact that when an aeroplane is "driven down" by the French
behind the German lines, it cannot be said that this aeroplane is
actually destroyed or even damaged, or that its pilot has received a
wound. Similarly when German machines attack and force a French or
British machine to descend swiftly behind its own lines. The reporting
of machines "driven down" among those "destroyed" is the cause of all
the discrepancies between the official reports of the contending
forces.

The following figures have been gathered with the greatest care from
the British "Roll of Honor," covering the killed, missing and wounded
members of the Royal British Flying Corps. They are for the month of
February, 1916, a month of comparative quiet, and there can be no
doubt that proportionately larger casualty lists could be compiled
from the more active months of the summer of 1916. The first week of
February resulted in nine officers killed, one wounded, and five
"missing"; two noncommissioned officers were also reported "missing."
The second week six officers wer