The Naval Flying Corps--What The Navy Department Has Accomplished And Is
Accomplishing in the Way of Air-Fighting--Experience of a Naval Ensign
Adrift in the English Channel--Seaplanes and Flying Boats--Schools of
Instruction--Instances of Heroism
In writing of aviation in the navy an incident which befell one of our
naval airmen in the English Channel seems to demand primary
consideration, not alone because of the dramatic nature of the event,
but because it sets forth clearly the nature of the work upon which our
flying men of the navy entered as soon as the United States took hostile
action against Germany. Our navy aviators, in fact, were the first force
of American fighters to land upon European soil after war was declared.
Here is the story as told by Ensign E. A. Stone, United States Naval
Reserve, after he was rescued from the Channel, where with a companion
he had clung for eighty hours without food and drink to the under-side
of a capsized seaplane pontoon. "I left our station in a British
seaplane as pilot, with Sublieutenant Moore of the Royal Naval Air
Service as observer, at 9 o'clock in the morning. Our duty was to convoy
patrols. When two hours out, having met our ships coming from the
westward, we thought we sighted a periscope ahead, and turned off in
pursuit. We lost our course. Our engine dropped dead, and at 11.30
o'clock forced us to land on the surface of a rough sea. We had no kite
nor radio to call for assistance, so we released our two
carrier-pigeons. We tied a message with our position and the word
'Sinking' on each. The first, the blue-barred one, flew straight off and
reached home. But the other, which was white-checked, lit on our machine
and would not budge until Moore threw our navigation clock at him, which
probably upset him so that he failed us.
"Heavy seas smashed our tail-planes, which kept settling. I saw that
they were pulling the machine down by the rear, turning her over. We
tore the tail-fabric to lessen the impact of the waves. It wasn't any
use. The tail-flat was smashed and its box filled with water.
"This increased the downward leverage and raised her perpendicularly in
the air. At 2.30 P.M. we capsized. We climbed up the nose and 'over the
top' to the under-side of the pontoons. Our emergency ration had been in
the observer's seat at the back, but we had been so busy trying to
repair the motor and save ourselves from turning over that we didn't
remember this until too late. When I crawled aft for food Moore saw that
I was only helping the machine to capsize. He yelled to me to come back
and I did, just in time to save myself from being carried down with the
tail and drowned.
"From then on for nearly four days, until picked up by a trawler, we
were continually soaked and lashed by seas, and with nothing to eat or
drink. We had nothing to cling to, and so to keep from being washed
overboard we got upon the same pontoon and hugged our arms about each
other's bodies for the whole time. We suffered from thirst. I had a
craving for canned peaches. Twice a drizzle came on, wetting the
pontoon. We turned on our stomachs and lapped up the moisture, but the
paint came off, with salt, and nauseated us. Our limbs grew numb. From
time to time the wreckage from torpedoed ships would pass. Two full
biscuit-tins came close enough to swim for, but by then in our weakened
state we knew that we would drown if we tried to get them. We did haul
in a third tin and broke it open; it was filled with tobacco.
"Every day we saw convoys in the distance and vainly waved our
handkerchiefs. We had no signal-lights to use at night. Our watches
stopped, and we lost all track of time. We realized how easy it was for
a submarine out there to escape being spotted. On Sunday night we spied
a masthead light and shouted. The ship heard and began to circle us. We
saw her port light. Then when the crew were visible on the deck of the
vessel, she suddenly put out her lights and turned away.
"'She thinks we are Huns,' said Moore.
"'I hope she does,' said I. 'Then they'll send patrol-boats out to get
us. 'We couldn't be worse off if we were Germans.'
"But no rescue came. The next afternoon a seaplane came from the east.
It was flying only 800 feet overhead, aiming down the Channel. It seemed
impossible that she could not sight us for the air was perfectly clear.
She passed straight above without making any signal, flew two miles
beyond, and then came back on her course.
"'Her observer must be sending wireless about us,' I said.
"'Yes, that is why we get no recognition,' said Moore, 'and now she's
decided to go back and report.'
"But that plane hadn't even seen us. Our spirits fell. We had been
afraid of two things, being picked up by a neutral and interned, or
captured by an enemy submarine. Now we even hoped that the enemy--that
anything---would get us, to end it all.
"We sighted a trawler about 6 P.M. on Tuesday. She had been chasing a
submarine, and so did not seem to take us very seriously at first. We
waved at her half an hour before she changed her course. We were both
too weak to stand up and signal. We could only rise on our knees.
Moore's hands were too swollen to hold a handkerchief, but I had kept my
gloves on and was able to do so. The trawler moved warily around us, but
finally threw a life-preserver at the end of a line, I yelled that we
were too weak to grasp it. She finally hove to, lowered a boat, and
lifted us aboard. Then we collapsed.
"I remember asking for a drink and getting water. The skipper would let
us take only sips, but he left a bottle alongside me and I drained it.
He gave us biscuits, but we couldn't chew or swallow them. We felt no
pain until our clothing was ripped off and blood rushed into our swollen
legs and arms. Moore lost six toes from gangrene in the hospital. My
feet turned black, but decay did not set in."
When the pigeon released by Stone and Moore returned to the base every
machine from that seaplane-station, as well as from a station on the
French coast, was sent out to search for the missing seaplane, while
destroyers and patrol-vessels were notified to be on the lookout. Which
shows, after all, how difficult the job of detecting such small objects
as submarines is. Stone had enlisted as a seaman, and was trained in
aviation. On December 11, 1917, he was detached from the air-station at
Hampton Roads and ordered to France for duty, arriving there January 21,
1918. In February he was ordered to report to the commander of the
United States naval forces at London for patrol duty in England.
Which shows the way the Navy Department worked in with the French and
British Admiralties, using either our own planes or those of our allies.
When the navy's plans concerning the American Naval Flying Corps are
completed, it will have an air service of fully 125,000 men, of which
10,000 will be aviators. There will be 10 ground men for every aviator.
Observers, inspectors and specialists of various sorts will fill out the
total. These seaplanes are of immense value in the war zones. They leave
bases for regular patrol duty, watching the ocean carefully, and
locating submersibles at a great height. Once a submarine is thus
located the seaplane descends to the surface and notifies vessels of the
patrol-fleet of the location of the craft, or in cases when the undersea
craft is on or near the surface, the aviator will drop bombs upon the
vessel. Seaplanes are also sent from the decks of naval vessels to scout
the waters through which a fleet may be travelling, while large vessels
serving as parent-ships for the smaller seaplanes--from which they fly
and to which they return--ply the infested waters. The service is a
valuable one, and a thrilling one, and only the best types of men were
selected by the Navy Department to engage in it.
In 1917 Congress appropriated $67,733,000 for aviation for the navy, a
sum which permitted the department to proceed on an extensive scale. And
right here it may be said that the navy has fared much better than the
army in the progressive development of air service. Within a year the
flying personnel of the navy had grown to be twenty times greater than
it was when we went to war, and where a year ago we had one
training-school, we now have forty naval aviation-schools.
The navy has not only strained every nerve to turn out aviators and to
produce airplanes, but the development of improved types of planes has
not been overlooked, and we now have abroad several fine types of
seaplane as well as airplane. The seaplane is merely an airplane with
pontoons, It starts from the ground or from the deck of a vessel.
Then there is the flying-boat, developed under naval auspices. This boat
takes wing from the water, and is regarded as the most desirable form of
aircraft for sea purposes. It is a triumphant instance of our ingenuity,
and is built in two sizes, both effective under the peculiar conditions
which may dictate the use either of one or the other. The navy has also
developed a catapult arrangement for launching seaplanes from the decks
of war-ships. This is a moving wooden platform, carrying the seaplane,
which runs along a track over the ship's deck. The platform drops into
the sea, and the seaplane proceeds on its course through the air.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Committee on Public Information_. SCENE AT
AN AVIATION STATION SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA, SHOWING FIFTEEN SEAPLANES ON
BEACH DEPARTING AND ARRIVING.]
The progress of the navy was so great in arranging for the home
coast-defense aerial service that Secretary Daniels agreed to establish
air coast-patrol stations in Europe, and it was not long before our
naval aviators were rendering signal service both along the French and
the British coasts. There is the understanding that the United States
has already taken the lead in naval aviation, not in quantity, to be
sure, but in quality and efficiency, as to which the presence of foreign
experts studying our new improvements may be regarded as confirmatory
evidence.
The Navy Department now has an aircraft factory of its own at
Philadelphia, and there flying-boats are now being turned out. Also,
five private plants throughout the country are working on navy aircraft
exclusively.
The Aircraft Board, which succeeded the Aircraft Production Board, is
made up in three parts: a third from the navy, a third from the army,
and a third civilian. This board is under the joint direction of the
Secretaries of War and the Navy.
The naval flying-schools are located at Pensacola, Fla., Miami, Fla.,
Hampton Roads, Va., Bay Shore, L.I., and San Diego, Cal. Some of the
aviators are drawn from the regular naval forces, but the great majority
are of the reserves, young men from civil life, college men and the
like, who have the physical qualifications and the nerve to fly and
fight above tumultuous waters.
The men training in the naval aviation-schools are enrolled as Second
Class Seamen in the Coast Defense Reserve. Their status is similar to
that of the midshipmen at Annapolis. Surviving the arduous course of
training, they receive commissions as ensigns; if they do not survive
they are honorably discharged, being free, of course, to enlist in other
branches of service. The courses last about six months, the first period
of study being in a ground school, where the cadets study navigation,
rigging, gunnery, and other technical naval subjects. Thence the pupil
goes to a flight-school, where he learns to pilot a machine. Here, if he
comes through, the young cadet is commissioned as an ensign. All pilots
in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps hold commissions, but not all of the
pilots in the regular navy are commissioned officers, a few rating as
chief petty officers.
The men who act as observers--who accompany the pilots on their trips,
taking photographs, dropping bombs and the like--are not commissioned.
They are selected from men already in the service, regular seamen,
marines, reserves, or volunteers. Of course, these men have their
opportunities of becoming pilots. The United States seaplanes carry
extremely destructive weapons, which will not be described until after
the war. The Germans, it may be assumed, know something about them.
The spirit of our naval pilots, both students and qualified graduates,
is of the highest, and foreign naval officers have been quick to express
their appreciation of their services. When Ensign Curtis Read was shot
down in February, 1918, while flying over the French coast, his funeral
was attended by many British army and navy officers, and by
representatives of both branches of the French service. Besides the
company of American sailors there were squads of French and British
seamen, who marched in honor of the young officer. The city of Dunkirk
presented a beautiful wreath of flowers.
"Nothing," wrote Ensign Artemus Gates, captain-elect of Yale's 1917
football eleven, and a comrade of Read's in France, to the young
officer's mother, "could be more impressive than to see a French
general, an admiral, British staff-officers, and many other officers of
the two nations paying homage."
The death of Ensign Stephen Potter, who was killed in a battle with
seven German airplanes in the North Sea on April 25, 1918, followed a
glorious fight which will live in our naval annals. Potter was the first
of our naval pilots to bring down a German airplane, and indeed may have
been the first American, fighting under the United States flag, to do
this. His triumph was attained on March 19, 1918. Between that time and
his death he had engaged in several fights against German airmen,
causing them to flee.
And in this country our course of training has been marked by many
notable examples of heroism and devotion, none more so than the act of
Ensign Walker Weed, who, after his plane had fallen in flames at Cape
May, N.J., and he had got loose from his seat and was safe, returned to
the burning machine and worked amid the flames until he had rescued a
cadet who was pinned in the wreckage. It cost Weed his life, and the man
he rescued died after lingering some days; but the act is none the less
glorious because the gallant young officer gave his life in vain.
Related to the aviation service, to the extent at least that they
observe from an aerial post, are the balloon men of the navy, officers
who go aloft with great gas-bags, which, when not in use, are carried on
the decks of the larger war-ships engaged in work. From the baskets of
these sausage-shaped balloons the observers, armed with telescopes and
binoculars, the ocean and the ships of the convoy lying like a map
below, sweep the surface of the water for lurking submarines and enemy
raiders. The balloons are attached to the war-ships, and are towed along
through the air. Just how effective this expedient is, is known only to
the Navy Department, but the fact that it is retained argues for its
usefulness.
Convoyed merchant vessels steam in a wedge or V-shaped formation. At the
apex is a destroyer, following which is an armored cruiser of the
_Colorado_ or _Tennessee_ type. Astern of the cruiser is another
destroyer, which tows the captive balloon at the end of a very light but
strong steel wire. This balloon-towing destroyer really forms the point
of the wedge formation. Behind it are placed the two diverging lines of
merchant ships, which follow one another, not bow to stern, but in a
sort of echelon position. Down through the centre of the wedge is a line
of armed trawlers, while armed vessels steam outside the V. Somewhat
astern of the convoy is another destroyer, which tows another captive
balloon. As a final means of protection, destroyers fly about on each
wing of The convoy.