Other attempts at "frightful frightfulness" on the part of these "baby-killers" were a couple of aeroplane raids--of which the base was probably Ostend--carried out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day respectively--against Dover and Sheerness. It must be owned that they were decidedly daring, yet in the nature of damp-squib affairs, as it turned out. In the case of Dover, the bomb dropped was probably intended for the Castle--a pretty conspicuous target, though all it did was to disturb the soil of a cabbage-garden, and excite the pursuit of several of our own air-craft, which lost their seaward-soaring quarry in the fog brooding over the Channel; while in the case of the Sheerness invader, on Christmas Day, which made its appearance just as the visitors at Southend over the water were about to sit down to their turkey and plum-pudding--little dreaming of the extra dish of enjoyment which was thus to be added to their menu--it was at once tackled, as at Dover, by some of our own airmen and pelted with shot, being hit three or four times; though this aerial intruder also managed, in the mist, to show a clean pair of heels, or wings, and make off eastward. These were the German replies to our bomb-dropping raids on Duesseldorf and Friedrichs-hafen, and intended to be a foretaste of what we may expect in the shape of German "frightfulness" as prompted by the "insensate hatred" referred to by Mr. Churchill. Daring enough in themselves, those German visitations seemed insignificant by comparison with the raids which were being carried out almost simultaneously on the other side of the sea by our own naval airmen. For while the German aeroplanist was helping to dig a cabbage garden at Dover, one of our Squadron-Commanders--R.B. Davies, R.N.--from a Maurice-Farman biplane was much more profitably engaged in dropping a dozen bombs on a Zeppelin shed at Brussels--causing "clouds of smoke" to arise therefrom--most probably from the flames of the incendiarised air-ship. __________________________________________________________________________ THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914--[Part 21]--5 [Illustration: THE AIR-RAID ON GERMAN WAR-SHIPS OFF CUXHAVEN: BRITISH SEA-PLANES, SISTERS TO THOSE WHICH TOOK PART IN THE BRILLIANT EXPLOIT.]