A short time after the attack, the Kaiser visited Zeebrugge and gave out the statement that practically no damage had been done and that the channel was still clear. But then an Allied airplane flew over the channel and the mole and secured photographs showing two cruisers sunk in the channel just as had been planned, and effectively blocking it, and also a break in the viaduct sixty to one hundred feet in length. "Only another German lie, this time indorsed by the Kaiser," declared the British papers. A leading German daily said, however, "It would be only foolishness to deny that the British naval forces scored a great success. By a stroke, crazy in its audacity, they penetrated one of the most important strongholds over which the German flag floats." THE FLEET THAT LOST ITS SOUL Sailors and especially fighters on the sea have in all ages possessed the noblest and bravest of souls and the finest morale. This is why the British sailors have felt so bitter about the atrocities committed by the German U-boats. In case a ship is sinking, the members of the crew do not expect to leave her until all the passengers are in the lifeboats, and the captain is always the last man to leave. Sometimes he prefers to go down with his ship so that it may never be said that his soul failed him. For sea fighters in U-boats to disregard this traditional chivalry of the sea and to sink merchant ships without warning and without assuring the passengers of their safety seemed to the sailors of other lands like giving up the high ideals that had grown out of their dangerous calling--like poisoning their souls with deceit and violence. Most naval officers would rather die than surrender. Captain Lawrence, fighting for America in the war of 1812, wounded and dying, cried to his men, "Don't give up the ship." To fight rather than to surrender even in the face of the greatest odds has been for centuries the idea of sea fighters. Admiral Cervera at Santiago in 1898 knew he was outmatched by the American fleet waiting for him off the harbor; but he brought his ships out and made a brave fight in trying to escape. Lieutenant Hobson knew there were terrible odds against him when he and his little company went in under the guns of the forts and attempted to block the channel. In the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians in the Sea of Japan with their ships foul and barnacled after a voyage of thousands of miles were not afraid to face certain defeat. Brave men do not lose their souls in the face of tremendous odds or even in the face of sure death.