The seaplanes detailed to operate on the Scottish coasts fared no better, but in the case of those operating against the Tyne ports a small success fell to their share, though more by accident than by design.
Within recent years powerful batteries had been erected at Cullercoats, Tynemouth, North Shields, and Frenchman's Bay for the defence of the Tyne, and at Roker and Hendon Hill for the protection of Sunderland. These either superseded the previously ill-armed batteries or were on entirely new sites. For purposes of mobilization they were entrusted to the Tynemouth Territorials of the Royal Garrison Artillery, who held the honour of being first in precedence of all the several groups of this branch of the Service.
Upon the hasty though not unexpected order for mobilization these men nobly responded to the call. Many of them, summoned from their work in the great shipbuilding yards, had no time to don their uniforms, but they could shoot none the worse on that account.
At exactly a quarter past four, just as the sun was breaking above a bank of clouds, the first hostile seaplane was sighted by the gunners of the Cullercoats Battery.
The German airmen had already realized that, owing to the climatic conditions, all attempt to deliver a surprise attack was hopeless. But their orders were definite. There was to be no turning back.
To a certain extent their method of attack was better planned than those of their ill-fated detachments, who were already either destroyed or in full flight. They flew high and with a great space between the pairs of units. Moreover, with the sun well behind them, they offered a difficult target to the British gunners.
The nearest hostile seaplane was actually immediately above the lighthouse at the end of the North Pier of Tynemouth harbour when a twelve-pounder shell from the Cullercoats Battery struck her. In the twinkling of an eye the graceful bird-like machine was literally blown to atoms, the explosion of her petrol tanks throwing out spurts of lurid flame out of which fragments of the ill-fated craft fell with unequal velocity into the sea.
Undeterred by this catastrophe, the second aeroplane, travelling through the air at a rate of seventy miles an hour, passed over the South Pier. Several times she swayed ominously in the air currents set up by the projectiles which screeched within a few feet of the swiftly-moving target.
Now she was within the line of batteries and immediately above the most congested quarter of South Shields. It seemed as if nothing could prevent the seaplane from working havoc upon the crowded shipping between Tynemouth and Newcastle. Men, women, and children crowded into the streets, gazing in blank astonishment at the sight of a hostile aircraft making ready for its work of destruction. Tales of probable invasion had for years past fallen upon deaf ears; now that the actual danger was apparent they could not realize it.
They were not long left in doubt. The seaplane slowed down, and, descending to less than four hundred feet, dropped two bombs in quick succession. No doubt these were intended for the petroleum tanks owned by the Tyne Commissioners. Both missiles went wide of the mark. The first struck and destroyed a Russian timber barque moored at the jetty; the second demolished the best part of a row of houses, and started a disastrous fire that, before it was extinguished, laid bare nearly an eighth of South Shields.