This base at Dunkirk remained an active centre for our seaplane and aeroplane work throughout the war, and did much to defeat the German plans. The possession of the coast of Flanders had a twofold value for the Germans; it served to safeguard the right flank of their invading army and it provided them with a base both for their submarine campaign and for occasional attacks on the naval forces which held the Dover Straits. There can be no doubt that it was part of their plan to take permanent possession of the Belgian coast. It is not easy to understand why, before the war, when Zeebrugge and Ostend were made into fortified harbours, a clause was inserted in the contractors' orders that the mole at Zeebrugge should be fit to carry hundred-ton guns and to withstand heavy gun recoil; also, that the Zeebrugge and Ostend locks and basins should be capable of accommodating a flotilla of torpedo-boats. These things were not done in the interests of England, nor had the Belgian Government any reason to fear naval aggression from the west. The plans which had this beginning were developed and completed during the first two years of the German occupation. Bruges, which was joined by canals both to Zeebrugge and Ostend, became the naval headquarters of the German forces, the base for submarines and torpedo-craft, and the centre for construction and repair. Everything was organized on a solid basis, as if to endure; yet at some time during the third year of the war the enemy must have begun to feel doubtful whether he could keep his hold on the Belgian coast. About thirty miles along the coast from Ostend, and forty or more miles from Zeebrugge, lay the port of Dunkirk, occupied in strength by the navies of France and Great Britain, and by the Royal Naval Air Service. Dunkirk was a thorn in the side of the Germans. The docks and harbours at Bruges, Zeebrugge, and Ostend were incessantly bombed from the air. Ships and works were seriously damaged, but the effect on the morale of the German forces was even more considerable. Repeated alarms, which sent all hands to take shelter in dug-outs, interfered with the work of every day. In the main basin at Bruges, and alongside the Zeebrugge mole, shelters, jutting out over the water, were provided for submarines and destroyers. The respect felt by the Germans for the menace of Dunkirk is perhaps best witnessed by the fierce nightly attacks from the air which they made on the town during the later period of the war. Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, who commanded the Dover Patrol from April 1915 Until the end of 1917, speaks of these as 'the martyrdom of Dunkirk'. A great many of the houses in the town were levelled with the ground. Yet the inhabitants, knowing that they were maintaining a force which gave as good as it got, went about their daily business cheerful and unperturbed. They were rewarded in the end. When, after the armistice, the last German submarine came through the