and fuel tanks of greater capacity. The flying boats of the later
War period carried considerable crews, were heavily armed, capable of
withstanding very heavy weather, and carried good loads of bombs on
long cruises. Their work was not all essentially seaplane work, for the
R.N.A.S. was as well known as hated over the German airship sheds in
Belgium and along the Flanders coast. As regards other theatres of War,
they rendered valuable service from the Dardanelles to the Rufiji River,
at this latter place forming a principal factor in the destruction of
the cruiser Konigsberg. Their spotting work at the Dardanelles for
the battleships was responsible for direct hits from 15 in. guns on
invisible targets at ranges of over 12,000 yards. Seaplane pilots were
bombing specialists, including among their targets army headquarters,
ammunition dumps, railway stations, submarines and their bases, docks,
shipping in German harbours, and the German Fleet at Wilhelmshaven.
Dunkirk, a British seaplane base, was a sharp thorn in the German side.

Turning from consideration of the various services to the exploits of
the men composing them, it is difficult to particularise. A certain
inevitable prejudice even at this length of time leads one to discount
the valour of pilots in the German Air Service, but the names of
Boelcke, von Richthofen, and Immelmann recur as proof of the courage
that was not wanting in the enemy ranks, while, however much we may
decry the Gotha raids over the English coast and on London, there is no
doubt that the men who undertook these raids were not deficient in the
form of bravery that is of more value than the unthinking valour of
a minute which, observed from the right quarter, wins a military
decoration.

Yet the fact that the Allied airmen kept the air at all in the early
days proved on which side personal superiority lay, for they were
outnumbered, out-manoeuvred, and faced by better material than any
that they themselves possessed; yet they won their fights or died. The
stories of their deeds are endless; Bishop, flying alone and meeting
seven German machines and crashing four; the battle of May 5th, 1915,
when five heroes fought and conquered twenty-seven German machines,
ranging in altitude between 12,000 and 3,000 feet, and continuing the
extraordinary struggle from five until six in the evening. Captain
Aizlewood, attacking five enemy machines with such reckless speed that
he rammed one and still r