"I must tell you something about the beano we had yesterday. It was a day! Engaged with three Taubes in the morning and in the afternoon—and I went and dropped 18 bombs and 6 grenades on various works and the railway at Ostend, with incidentally another scrap with a German machine. Hope we tickled them up and gave them —— at Ostend. We've got 'em scared stiff—absolutely. It's a great game entirely. I hope we get to hear about what damage we did at Ostend, though I'm afraid it's impossible. I know I got the railway with one bomb—a clinking shot right in the middle. I tell you they let us have it. The machine was hit in nine places."[104]
The writer was evidently "keen as mustard", and against such airmen the German air service could make no headway.
The biggest air raid on record took place on Tuesday, 16th February, 1915, when no less than thirty-four sea-planes and aeroplanes belonging to the Naval Wing made a combined attack on the German positions on the Belgian littoral. They were assisted by eight French airmen, who made a determined attack on the German aeroplane depot at Ghistelles, situated inland and south of Ostend, thereby preventing the German airmen from intercepting our main attack. This big "flight"—a regular "aery navy"—was commanded by the redoubtable Wing-Commander Samson, R.N., who had made things so hot for the Germans in Belgium that a price of £1000 was set on his head; Wing-Commander Longmore, R.N., and Squadron-Commanders Porte, R.N., and Courtney and Rathbone of the Royal Marine Light Infantry.
It was a great performance. Most of the British aeroplanes crossed the Channel in the teeth of very violent winds, flying in the bitter cold of high altitudes and obstructed by not infrequent "flurries" of snow. Once over the water, they flew down over Ostend, Middelkirke, and Zeebrugge. Bombs were dropped on the German guns hidden from the view of our ships at all three places: the stations at Ostend and Blankenberghe were either destroyed or much damaged, as well as the power-station and mine-sweeping vessels at Zeebrugge and a Zeppelin shed. Unfortunately no submarines were seen. All this was carried out in the face of a very heavy gun-fire from every class of weapon that the Germans could get to bear on our "wild ducks". But all got away without loss of life or limb, and with only a couple of machines damaged. The celebrated airman Grahame-White, who served in the expedition as a flight-commander, fell into the sea off Nieuport, but was rescued by a French vessel. This is the last big air raid carried out by the Naval Wing up to the time of writing, and space forbids any mention of the hundred-and-one smaller exploits carried out by its fliers, either aloft in the air or working on the ground in their armoured motor-cars. The price set on Commander Samson's head by the exasperated "Boches" sufficiently indicates what a thorn in the side they proved to the German desecrators of Belgium and France.
Conclusion
"The Fleet of England is her all in all:
Her fleet is in your hands,
And in her Fleet her fate."
Having now traced the beginnings of the Royal Navy, glanced at some little-known episodes of the naval history of Great Britain, sketched the development of our men-of-war and their weapons, and finally endeavoured to portray—in a very inadequate way, I am afraid—the gallant men who man them, and some of their deeds in the greatest and most terrible war that has ever been known in the history of the world, I have arrived at the time when I must hoist the signal "Permission to part company" with my readers.
But I cannot leave the subject of this book without some reference to the part played by the navy in the Dardanelles. The outstanding points in regard to the navy's participation in these operations were without doubt the tremendous effect of the monster guns of the Queen Elizabeth, the severe fighting which fell to the lot of the Naval and Marine Brigades in the attack of the Turkish shore positions, and last, but not least, the wonderful exploits of our submarines. The achievements of Lieutenant Norman D. Holbrook, who, in the B11, crept under five rows of mines and blew up the Turkish ironclad Messudiyeh; and of Lieutenant Commander Martin Nasmith, who, in the E11, penetrated right into the Sea of Marmora, torpedoing transports and creating a scare in Constantinople itself, are examples of that brilliant daring which has been exemplified again and again during the war.