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[Page 15]
many gigantic will-o'-wisps as from every quarter of the town and harbour shrapnel shells burst in the cloudless morning sky. High up looking not much larger than seagulls, hovered five enemy planes and the dull crashes which shook the entire town every minute or two testified to the fact that they were not here out of idle curiosity.
By this time every one in the ship was out on deck watching the scene. No "funk holes" having been provided for the crews of the English T.B.D's we had perforce to remain on the ships. It was useless to tell the men to go below under shelter, they wanted to see all there was to be seen and not only that, they were running about the decks laughing like so many schoolboys or as they picked up the shrapnel which was falling like rain on our decks.
By 4.15 the raiders had been driven off and the barrage subsided only to break out again when at 5.0 a.m. five more planes took up the tale anew. By this time it was growing light and the planes clearly visible some 6000 - 8000 feet up and coming in from the North East. It was obvious to us watchers that their main objective was the aerodromes the other end of the harbour because all their bombs seemed and actually did fall in their vicinity.
This time the light having grown stronger the sky appeard to have suddenly given birth to thousands of tiny cirrus cloudlets giving it a most peculiar mottled appearance. In and out and among these cloudlets anyone of which might have - and did in five cases later - meant death to the raiders the enemy planes moved. One could hardly help admiring the skilfull way in which they turned and twisted, banked and dived in order to puzzle the gun layers hard at in below them. Each plane appeared to carry a load of five bombs having got rid of which away it sped sea-wards. This second raid was like the first, soon driven off, their two last machines however appeared to be badly hit by the eccentric way they were working wobbling. As they got over the outer harbour still being chased by our shrapnel, a tremendous cheer broke out as the leading one emerged from a veritable small fog of bursting shells, seemed to pause for a moment, and then crashed nose down into the sea. Her mate was also obviously in trouble. She tried at first to rise and did so for a few feet almost perpendicular, she then righted herself, her engines apparently stopped, and planed down in the water coming to rest as easy as a sea-bird. T.B.D's were quickly on the spot and picked up two prisoners from this