A merely spectacular performance could usually be bought cheaply enough. The two German destroyer bases within striking distance of the British coast are Zeebrugge and Ostend. The latter is approximately the same distance from Dover as Brighton is. Once clear of their minefields on a chosen night a German force is in the unique position of knowing that every single object encountered afloat is an enemy. Homing merchant traffic and patrolling vessels, manned by seamen whose vigilance has been subjected to the unrelaxed tension of nearly three years’ sea-going under war conditions, can be fired on at sight. A swift dash through the darkness, with a finger twitching on the trigger of every gun; any spot in thirty-five miles of British coastline decided upon beforehand can be reached in a couple of hours, illumined in ten seconds by star-shell for the few minutes required for a futile bombardment of English soil--and the desired result is achieved. One disadvantage alone is against Germany, and it is one which may be borne in mind at a time when there is a tendency to regard surface sea-power as an anachronism. A raider disabled outside the protection of German minefields is a raider lost. Nothing can venture to her succour within the areas of the successive Allied commands along the Channel. Where she is crippled there she must lie, and, eventually, be captured. A raiding destroyer force, if caught, must therefore endeavour to escape at all costs. This is a consideration not without influence in destroyer methods of attack, and the contrast between British and German tactics and traditions was never better demonstrated than on the night of April 20-21st, 1917. The movements of the German raiding force on the night of April 20th may or may not have been those described in the German _communiqué_. In neither case have they any bearing upon subsequent events. The British destroyer leaders _Swift_ and _Broke_, on night patrol in the Channel, were proceeding on a westerly course, when, at 12.40 a.m. the _Swift_ sighted an enemy flotilla, on the port bow, proceeding in the opposite direction at high speed. The night, though calm, was intensely dark, and when first sighted the enemy were within 600 yards range. Simultaneously the fire-gongs on board the German destroyers were heard to ripple down the line and in a blaze of flashes they opened fire. The _Swift_ instantly replied, and the commanding officer, Commander Ambrose M. Peck, decided without hesitation to ram the leading enemy destroyer. At his order the wheel was wrenched round, and the _Swift_, with every occupant of her bridge temporarily blinded by flashes, drove straight for the enemy.