The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-23
British Fleet Takes Part in Defending England From Raid of the German Air Cruiser
BOMB HITS VESSEL
 AS TT SPEEDS IN
 PURSUIT OF GERMAN
Airship Crew Suffers Se- verely From Cold Because of High Altitude to Which They Must Ascend
By THE COMMANDER OF L-i2o (Sixth and last installnent

Dy AE1h AOMM A NDEft UT I-IzU (sixth and last installrnent) The entire eastern coast of England had been stirred by the crashing of the Ger man bombs and the almost continuous roar of the de- fense guns by this time, and the sky is red as if ablaze, Eone great smoke clouded haze of light, punctuated by the reports of the defense guns and the shrieks of the sirenes.
 The slow moving British are now putting all their means of defense to use to their fullest extent, and once in action, these measures appear to be very formidable.
 The thunder and roar continues wherever any of air cruisers can be seen, and the little white balls of smoke burst uncomfortably near to us, and we know that the shrapnel is scattering very close, and one piece may ruin us at any minute.
 A binding ray of light now stares into our faces, then another-three, ten, ff- teen flare up, concentrate on our ship, and follow us as we travel never letting go their grip. Then there is sudden, crashing explosion right in our ears, and we see and smell the powder smoke. We estimate that this shrapnel has exploded not more than 100 meters to port of us.
 Ascending rudder!'' command
 HIT BY SHRAPNEL
 Again and again, the shrapnel is burst ing near us, laundering and crashing with hellish noise that actually drowns out the air propellers of our ship
 There! A blazing flash and a metallic noise.
 By thunder! We are hit" exclainl.
 Less than 20 meters to port of us . shrapnel has exploded, and piece of it has gone right through our cabin. One of my officers brushes the pieces of iron carelessly aside.
 "A souvenir for those at homer he remarks coolly.
 At the top of my voice shout:
 Ascending rudder! Ascending rud- der.''
 The ship responds quickly and willingly mounts to heights where we feel the icy air waves, leaving the dangerous death farther and farther away the specks of fire are falling.
 HOMEWARD BOUND
 We are homeward bound on an eastern course along the Thames while a thou sand dangers still stand between us and our home hangar. The searchlights are playing through the sky everywhere as far IS we can see. but uncertainty and without any particular aim. They are striving hard now to get, at least one enemy ship to help balance the account Their rage down there must be terrific as they survey the damage we have wrought and shoot from among the lwreckage we are leaving behind. They know that they will be reproached again tomorrow by their superiors, and the na- tion's newspapers will once more be com. blaming over the failure of the defenses and attacking the ineniciency of the arrangements and asking in editorial, how many zeppelins were shot down.
 Ahead of Us there k another cordon o1 defense guns still busy at their deadly work, so to avoid them. order that ws head 10 port. Hearchlights are searching the sky, but they do not find L-l2O. so ii a wider circle we get around the batteries until clouds hide us from their view.
 There is moment of silence now, aa still uncertainty. and unsteadiIy, tn, searchlights flash across the horizon At last, these fingers of light have picked us up and try to hold us with their rays but they are too late A few minute, more and England will be left behind us We can now see the North sea.
 FLEET TAKES PART
 Yet the English persist in their attempt, to bring down one of these terrible mon sters of the air. On the route to England we had seen only light sea fighting force, which would not be dangerous to air ships, but now things have changed. The eCo.tinaes ,. Pare Nine,