The sea-planes came into great prominence, for the first time during the war, on Christmas Day, when seven of them attacked German war-ships lying in Schillig Roads, off Cuxhaven. The attack started from a point in the vicinity of Heligoland, and the air-craft were escorted by a light-cruiser and destroyer force, together with submarines. The enemy put up a fight by means of two Zeppelins, three or four bomb-dropping sea-planes, and several submarines. Six out of the seven pilots returned safely--three were re-embarked by our ships, and three were picked up by British submarines. Flight-Commander Francis E.T. Hewlett, R.N., was reported missing. In our first photograph a sea-plane is being conveyed to her parent ship; in the second and third, sea-planes are being hoisted aboard.--[_Photos. by S. and G._] __________________________________________________________________________ 6--THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, DEC. 30, 1914.--[Part 21] But that was nothing to the Christmas Day feat of seven of our sea-planes--one for every day of the week--which, accompanied by light cruisers and destroyers, with several submarines, made a daring and unparalleled attack on Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, and several war-ships lying at anchor there--unparalleled, by reason of the fact that this was the first "combined assault of all arms" known to the sea--namely, from the air, the water, and from under the water. Both at Yarmouth and Scarborough the German bombarding cruisers were so nervously afraid of being caught in the act that they may almost be said to have only fired their guns and then run away again. But our triple flotilla at the mouth of the Elbe spent a deliberate three hours in the performance of its task, and then calmly withdrew with only one of the daring pilots missing. So far, it was the most thrilling episode of the war, and must give our enemies "furiously to think," in addition to furnishing them with much more for the nourishment of their hate. Of this insensate hatred against us in the hearts of the German people--and all because we have "queered their pitch," or crossed their long-cherished schemes for the destruction of our Empire--the most furious exponent is the _Koelnische Zeitung_, or _Cologne Gazette_, as we generally call it--which may be described, on the whole, as the most authoritative organ of the Fatherland--or the _Times_ of Germany, but always with a difference. The curious anomaly is that the seat of this powerful journal should be so far away from the capital--at Cologne. There is an old story--known to tourists who read their guide-books--about the "Three Kings of Cologne," but now this story has just received a pendant which gives anything but satisfaction at Cologne itself or anywhere else in Germany.