THE WINGS OF THE NAVY
The wings of the Navy, that had barely begun to sprout when the United
States became a belligerent, grew in a year and a half as if under a
conjurer’s wand. Previous to that time the appropriations that had been
granted for the development of naval aeronautics had been so small that
little could be done. Upon our declaration of war the Navy had 22 low
powered seaplanes of no value except for training purposes, five kite
and two free balloons and one dirigible balloon, and the Naval Aviation
Service had three stations, but no adequate training field, while its
personnel consisted of 45 naval aviators and less than 200 enlisted men.
When the armistice was signed the Aviation Service of the American
Navy had 1,656 trained airplane pilots, of whom half were in service
over European waters; 1,349 ground, or executive, officers; 3,912
student officers at training fields at home or abroad who would soon
have been ready for service; an enlisted personnel numbering almost
37,000; approximately 8,000 trained mechanics and 6,000 more in
training; in France, sixteen naval aviation stations besides others for
training and supply work; two stations in England and four in Ireland;
three stations in Italy and the Azores; two stations in Canada; one
station in the Canal Zone; eleven stations in the United States; 759
seaplanes and flying boats in service for patrol and bombing work and
140 airplanes or land machines for land service, with 491 seaplanes
and 100 land airplanes for training purposes, while a dozen planes of
new and experimental types were being tried out; 282 kite and seven
free balloons and 11 dirigible balloons. Many hundreds of seaplanes,
flying boats and balloons of various kinds were on order for early
delivery. All this development of material and personnel, of systems
of training for pilots, ground officers and mechanics, of stations and
service, and of the big and smoothly working organization that produced
important results in the work of the naval aviators was the growth of
but eighteen months.
To ensure the rapid production of planes a naval aircraft factory
was erected at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The contract for its
construction was signed in August, 1917, and in the following March,
228 days after the breaking of the ground, the first machine had been
completed and was given its trial flight. And a few days later this
machine and another which had followed it to completion and trial were
on their way to Europe. In the meantime, in order to meet the expansion
which was foreseen to be necessary in naval aviation plans, the naval
aircraft building was greatly enlarged. Included in the extension was
a huge assembly plant for the assembling of airplane parts separately
built in a large number and variety of private manufacturing plants
whose work for the aircraft factory was directed by its management. By
this means team work was secured, resulting in quick deliveries and an
ample supply of craft for both service and training purposes. By
September of 1918 enough naval aircraft had been shipped overseas to
meet the needs of its assembly bases there for several months. The big
rubber plants which had almost ceased the manufacturing of balloons
renewed and expanded that phase of their activities and balloon fields
and schools were created or enlarged and newly equipped. The completion
of the Liberty motor brought the later development of the flying boat,
used especially for coastal patrol work.
[Illustration:
_By Permission of New York Times Co._
NAVAL GUN ON RAILWAY MOUNT]
Candidates for flying commissions were sent to technical institutions
for special courses and afterward to flying stations for instruction in
flying. The most difficult part of the problem of seaplane construction
was that of finding skilled workmen and personnel for their direction
acquainted with the making of aircraft. The same difficulty handicapped
the procuring of trained officers and enlisted men for work at the
supply and repair stations, which were constantly busy with the
assembling and upkeep of the machines. To meet this difficulty half a
score or more of schools for naval aviation mechanics were established
in different parts of the country, with a force of instructors, who
volunteered for the work, composed of professors in technical schools
and colleges. From these schools came the trained mechanics and ground
officers who filled the roster of the Naval Aviation Service at the end
of hostilities.
The Navy Department saw at once that the most important aid its
Aviation Service could give would be coast-wise work directed against
the submarine menace. With that end in view it located its stations
at strategic and important points all down the eastern coast of the
United States, eleven in all, from Cape Cod to Key West, with another
in the Canal Zone. Similarly its patrol stations were dotted up and
down the shores of France, the British Isles and the Azores. On both
shores of the Atlantic its dirigibles and seaplanes helped to escort
outgoing convoys and went far out to sea to meet those coming in, eagle
eyes sweeping the waters to watch for and warn against the sea vipers.
The dirigibles were especially useful in this convoy work, as they were
able to keep pace with the ships.
In addition to this assistance in the convoy service the naval aviators
ranged above the waters far out from shore, hunting submarines, looking
for disabled vessels and for boats and wreckage carrying shipwrecked
passengers and crews sent adrift on the ocean by submarine officers,
and locating mines, and they carried on bombing operations by sea and
land.
The first United States forces to land in France for service against
the enemy belonged to the Air Service of the Navy, which set ashore
there within a month after our declaration of war five naval air pilots
and 100 enlisted men. From this beginning grew the nine seaplane,
one training, three dirigible and three kite stations that dotted
the French shores from Dunkirk almost to the Spanish border. Most of
these stations were used for convoy work, for submarine hunting and
for searching for mines and wrecks. But at Dunkirk was a station for
bombing operations which made day and night attacks on the German
naval bases and supply depots along the Flanders coast, with especial
attention to Zeebrugge and Ostend. After the British blockaded the
entrances to those places the naval aviators, American, British and
Belgian, coöperating in the work, dropped such a steady rain of bombs
by day and night that the Germans were prevented from clearing away the
obstructions. Two stations that were completed and in operation within
ten months included a large aviation school and flying field at a lake
near the coast, which specialized in bombing practice, and an aviation
assembly and repair base with large machine shops and accommodations
for the housing of their 5,000 men. The naval aviation stations along
the French shores were so spaced that the entire coast line could be
kept constantly under the observation of seaplanes and dirigibles. Some
of the stations were located on uninhabited islets and others in tiny
fishing villages on bleak peninsulas. This naval aviation force with
its dirigibles and seaplanes coöperated so well with the sea patrol
that between them they kept the whole of the French coast, for fifty
miles from shore, safe from submarines through the last six months of
the war.
The two naval aviation stations in Italy and that on the Islands of the
Azores coöperated with the British and the Italian air patrols in the
never ceasing hunt for submarines, the locating of mines, the watching
for wrecks and the convoy of troop and merchant ships. Especially
harmonious and cordial was the teamwork of the men of our six naval air
stations in England and Ireland with the men of the British naval air
service. The aviators flew together, they used each other’s planes,
coöperated in the guarding of the coasts and the convoy of incoming and
outgoing groups of troop transports and cargo vessels, worked together
upon perilous enterprises. Some of the most moving tales of daring
adventure and heroic endurance of the whole war narrate the deeds of
these American boys who guided the wings of the navy over the coasts
and waters of England, Ireland and France.
In the United States alone naval aircraft flew a distance of over
6,000,000 miles. On the other side, seaplanes and dirigibles aided
in the convoying and protecting of 75,000 ships. Submarine hunting,
which had a greater development than any other line of naval air work,
reached a notable point of scientific exactness in its methods. Each
patrol as it started out had mapped for it designated areas of the air
of certain sizes and shapes and locations which it covered by following
the directed courses by means of the compass. It is certain that many
submarine attacks upon our shipping were thus prevented and that, by
the dropping of bombs, several undersea boats were sunk. At the time of
the signing of the armistice the plans of the Navy for its Air Service
had not nearly reached the peak of development. But its effect upon
submarine activities was already evident and it is probable that it
saved in values of shipping that would have been destroyed but for its
protection more than its development cost the Navy Department, which
had expended upon it $100,000,000.
The Marine Corps, the Navy’s landing force of fighting men, developed
its own Aviation Service with both heavier and lighter than air craft,
for flying above both land and water, which gave important assistance
in several parts of the battle front.