uty of the army.

[Illustration: (C) U. & U.

_One Aviator's Narrow Escape._]

The invading machines flew low above the factory roofs. The
adventurers had come far on an errand which they knew would awaken
the utmost enthusiasm among their fellows at home and they were
determined to so perform their task that no charge of having left
anything undone could possibly lie. Commander Briggs, the first of
the aviators to reach the scene, flew as low as one hundred feet
above the roofs, dropping his bombs with deadly accuracy. But he
paid for his temerity with the loss of his machine and his liberty.
A bullet pierced his petrol tank and there was nothing for him to do
save to glide to earth and surrender. The two aviators who
accompanied him although their machines were repeatedly hit were
nevertheless able to drop all their bombs and to fly safely back to
Belfort whence they had taken their departure some hours before. The
measure of actual damage done in the raid has never been precisely
known. Germany always denied that it was serious, while the British
ascribe to it the greatest importance--a clash of opinion common in
the war and which will for some years greatly perplex the student of
its history.

The second raid, that upon Cuxhaven, was made by seaplanes so far as
the air fighting was concerned, but in it not only destroyers but
submarines also took part. It presented the unique phenomenon of a
battle fought at once above, upon, and below the surface of the sea.
It is with the aerial feature of the battle alone that we have to
do.

Christmas morning, 1915, seven seaplanes were quietly lowered to the
surface of the water of the North Sea from their mother ships a
little before daybreak. The spot was within a few miles of Cuxhaven
and the mouth of the River Elbe. As the aircraft rose from the
surface of the water and out of the light mist that lay upon it,
they could see in the harbour which they threatened, a small group
of German warships. Almost at the same moment their presence was
detected. The alarms of the bugles rang out from the hitherto quiet
craft and in a moment with the smoke pouring from their funnels
destroyers and torpedo boats moved out to meet the attack. Two
Zeppelins rose high in the air surrounded by a number of the smaller
airplanes, eager for the conflict. The latter proceeded at once to
the attack upon the raiding air fleet, while the destroyers, the
heavier Zeppelins, and a number of subm