INTO THE BIGHT AND END OF L 53.
I.
With lustful pride the Huns called the North Sea the German Ocean, and
if there was any part of this dirty sheet of water which justified the
name, it was that portion known as the Bight of Heligoland.
Here before the war were the growing harbours and shipyards with which
she was challenging the British supremacy of the sea; and during the
war her yards which turned out submarines, her seaplane and Zeppelin
bases, and the refuges of her High Seas Fleet.
Climbing into a flying-boat and crossing a hundred miles of sea, brings
you to the Hook of Holland. Turning north you pass Scheveningen,
which is near The Hague, where peace conferences met to mitigate the
horrors of war, or do away with it entirely, and supplied the Hun
with a ready-made list of forbidden atrocities--atrocities which he
immediately made haste to perpetrate.
Passing up the coast you come to the Dutch islands of Texel, Vlieland,
Terschelling, and Ameland. Once around the corner of Terschelling
Island, and you are in the Bight.
If you draw a line true north-east from this island it will touch
Denmark just below the Horn Reefs, near the boundary-line between
Schlesvig and Jutland, and all the water to the east of this line is
the Bight, the particular property, more or less, during the war, of
the Hun seaplanes, the Zeppelins, and the German Navy.
Going along the coast from Terschelling into the Bight you find the
island of Borkum, in the mouth of the Ems river. The Hun seaplane
pilots stationed here carried out reconnaissance and bombing patrols
out to the Dogger Banks and down to the Dutch coast. A short distance
up the Ems is Emden, one of the bases from which the pirate Fritz
sallied forth to do his dirty work.
Continuing, you pass the island of Norderney with its seaplane station,
and reach the Jade river, with Wilhelmshaven, an important seaplane
and submarine base. In the angle of the coast are the Zeppelin sheds
of Wittmundshaven. Farther on is the Weser river, with Vagesack and
Bremen, which spawned out the Undersea-boats, and the Zeppelin base of
Ahlhorn.
Turning north you find the Zeppelin sheds of Nordholz, and reach
Cuxhaven, the place made famous by the celebrated raid of the R.N.A.S.
early in the war. Here in the Elbe is Brunsbuttel, a submarine base,
on the North Sea end of the Kiel Canal, and farther up the river is
Hamburg, where once upon a time German shipowners dreamed dreams of
possessing the maritime supremacy of the world.
Some thirty miles outside the coast, and protecting the mouth of the
Elbe, you come across the fortified island of Heligoland, with its
fine artificial harbour for war vessels, its submarine base, and its
seaplane station. The guns of Heligoland were of great range, and threw
a tremendous weight of metal, and could prevent our surface ships from
approaching within a radius of twenty miles.
I was informed by a Royal Naval Air Service officer, who had a good
deal to do with the successful attack on Zeebrugge and Ostend, that he
had a plan to destroy the garrison of Heligoland by means of poison
gas and an attack under smoke-screens, but that those in authority
considered the scheme too barbarous, as everybody on the island would
have perished.
Going north from Heligoland you come to Sylt Island, with its seaplane
base, and inside on the mainland the Zeppelin sheds of Tondern,
destroyed by naval aeroplanes flown from the deck of H.M.S. _Furious_.
Just north of Sylt you pass out of the Bight near the Horn Reefs.
So the Bight was the hotbed of all German naval schemes, and they
ploughed it with the keels of their ships, and sowed it with mines, and
the British Navy could not follow the Hun fleet inside or prevent their
submarines coming out. The British Navy, as soon as they could collect
sufficient mines, and there was a great shortage of mines in the first
years of the war, mined the Germans in their turn, until the Hun
surface ships and submarines had finally to make their way out behind a
row of mine-sweepers.
Flying-boat pilots from England could get into the Bight, but it was a
long way away, and they could not get in far enough or stay long enough
to do very useful work. So Colonel Porte, at Felixstowe, devised the
towing-lighters. These lighters were little flat-bottomed steel barges,
with hydroplane bottoms, on which the flying-boats could crawl up. They
could be towed, with the boats in place, by a destroyer at thirty knots.
The idea was to put flying-boats on the lighters, tow them across to
the Bight behind destroyers, and slip them into the water. The boats,
not having first to cross the North Sea, would have enough petrol to
carry out long reconnaissance and return to England.
Early in 1918 the Navy was preparing the pleasant little surprise for
the Huns at Zeebrugge and Ostend. While the assault was in progress it
was essential that the ships engaged in the attack should not be fallen
upon by the enemy from the rear. Therefore their north flank was to be
protected by the Harwich Light Forces cruising off Holland.
But besides this, the Navy people wanted to know what chance there was
of the German Fleet coming out. Under ordinary circumstances the Huns
would have to go a long way round, because of our mine-fields; but they
might have got wind of the show, and be sweeping a short-cut passage
through them, to be used by a strong striking force.
Our surface ships could not of course go in for the information, the
submarines had done all that they could, airships were out of the
question because of Hun seaplanes, so the flying-boats were told to do
the job.
Thus it came about that the first two lighter trips were carried out in
the Bight.
II.
At noon on March 2 we were ordered to prepare to go into the Bight.
I chose the three best machines out of the War Flight string of nine
boats, and the men groomed them to a finish.
Everything that was put on board was carefully weighed and the total
weight checked to a nicety, so as to make certain that the pilots could
get off in the open sea.
Norman A. Magor, a Canadian from Montreal, was chosen to lead the
flight. He was a fine pilot. He had taken a boat from Felixstowe to
Dunkirk, when the float seaplane pilots there had packed up because of
the deadliness of the Hun fliers. While there he destroyed the German
submarine U-C 72 just off Zeebrugge. Later on while on patrol from
Felixstowe, in a fight against overwhelming odds, his boat was shot
down in flames. He was a gallant gentleman.
[Illustration: Lighter with Flying-boat being towed in heavy sea.]
In the evening, as the light was fading, the three boats were rolled
out on the concrete, an electric heater, to keep the oil warm, was
clipped on beneath each engine, and thick padded covers fitted, to keep
the heat in, so that the engines would start easily. They were shoved
down the slipway and turned over to the Old Man of the Sea.
Jumbo was in his element. His motor-boats seized the flying-boats as
they touched the water and towed them to the sterns of their appointed
lighters, which were lying at buoys at the ends of the slipways. The
five men in the crew of each lighter had flooded the water-tanks in the
sterns, and the boats were quickly floated into their cradles, hauled
up by a winch into position and secured. With a hiss the compressed air
was turned into the tanks, the water was blown out, and the lighters
rose into towing trim.
Now the pilots carrying their flying gear assembled on the slipway.
I checked the crews over and asked if everybody was ready. On this
a great cry arose from Jumbo--he had forgotten his provisions, and
in answer to the cry we saw men staggering down the concrete under
the weight of huge boxes. The Old Man of the Sea never went on an
expedition without a good supply of food.
We were ready.
The night was still, not a breath of air was stirring, and a light haze
hung over the oily-smooth surface of the harbour.
Heralded by the mournful wail of a syren three destroyers loomed up
beside the lighters. They had slipped across the harbour without their
sharp sheerwaters raising a ripple. Jumbo leaped into activity. The
noisy exhausts of three motor-boats shattered the silence, we all found
ourselves bumped on board, and in two minutes the lighters were off
their buoys and at the sterns of their respective destroyers.
I was going out in the leading destroyer to watch the evolution, and
Jumbo was going out on the leading lighter.
As we fetched up at our destroyer she switched on a yard-arm group,
lighting up the flying-boat and her own stern with the waiting men.
Jumbo sprang on board the lighter and received the wire hawser, making
it fast to the towing bollards. A waterproof electric cable was passed
to carry the current for the electric heaters.
The lighter, swinging with the tide, tried to put one of the wings of
the flying-boat on board the destroyer, but the wing was successfully
fended off by an active bluejacket, with a pudding-bag on the end of a
boat-hook, a weapon which had been prepared for just such an emergency.
The pudding-bag was a piece of cloth stuffed with soft odds and ends,
fastened to the business end of the boat-hook to prevent any injury to
the planes.
In the meantime the motor-boat ran alongside the destroyer with the
flying crew, and we climbed on board. As we landed on the deck her
syren gave a short blast, the yard-arm group was extinguished, and she
went ahead. I looked astern and could just see the other two destroyers
with their lighters following. From the time of leaving the slipway
five minutes had not elapsed.
As we passed out between the guardships into the expectant darkness of
the North Sea the tow was lengthened, and I went up on the bridge.
Behind us on the lighter were Jumbo and his four men, settling down
for the night in the cramped forecastle, in which were two bunks, an
electric heater tapped off the main cable, and a big box of provisions.
Once outside our mine-fields we were picked up by the covering force of
light cruisers and destroyers, and we started across for the Texel at
eighteen knots. Fascinated by the brooding mystery of the darkness and
the rush through the black water at a pace which seemed greater than
the speed of a flying-boat, I spent most of the night on the bridge,
being comforted at intervals with cocoa, excellent cocoa which can only
be had on board ship. But before daybreak I snatched two hours' sleep
in Number One's bunk.
I had apparently just closed my eyes when I was turned out by a message
that I was wanted on the bridge. As I climbed the iron ladder the
unearthly light of the false dawn was filtering through the darkness.
Far away on the port bow I saw the light cruisers, grey ships barely
discernible on a grey sea.
A signal had come through to stand by.
There was a round wind of ten knots blowing, ruffling the surface of
the water. It promised to be a fine morning for flying.
We came upon some fishing smacks and then the Haaks light-ship, black
and gaunt against the light in the east, and strange and unfamiliar
when seen for the first time from the level of the water. Here the
whole flotilla turned south for ten miles, and at six o'clock the
signal for zero time was received.
Jumbo, on the lighter, had the covers stripped from the engines and the
heaters removed. At the same time the tow was shortened and Magor and
Potter and the two ratings were transferred. They started the engines
of the flying-boat, tested them full out, and then throttled them down
until they were just ticking over. Webster and Fallon in the second
boat, and Clayton and Barker in the third boat, had also tested their
engines.
When the correct time had elapsed the engines of the flying-boats were
stopped, the destroyers slowed down to three knots, and the boats were
slid off the lighters backwards into the water. The destroyers made a
right-hand turn and drew away from them.
The warships formed a four-mile circle, travelling at speed in case an
Undersea-boat was lurking about. In the centre, bobbing up and down on
the water, were the three boats, looking incredibly small. Presently I
saw white water breaking beneath their bows, they ran along the water,
bucketing a bit in the swells created by the ships, and took to the air.
Getting into formation they headed in a north-easterly direction and
gradually diminished in size until they were no more than specks in the
sky.
Then I lost sight of them.
When he had got off Terschelling, Magor swung his formation east and
went into the Bight. They photographed all mine-sweepers and surface
craft they met and jotted their position on the chart. At Borkum they
ran into two two-seater Hun seaplanes.
Magor crashed down on the tail of the first seaplane and Potter filled
it with lead from his machine-gun. It burst into flames, nose-dived
into the water, and a pennant of black smoke, ever increasing in
volume, tailed off down wind.
Clayton fell upon the second seaplane, his gunner failed to get a burst
home, and the fleeing Hun was chased to Borkum, where he landed behind
the island close to a gunboat.
But the Hun observer in the seaplane Magor brought down had riddled the
flying-boat with bullets. Great gashes were torn in the petrol tanks,
fortunately above the level of the liquid, and a water-pipe on the
port engine was pierced.
Magor shut down that engine and flew on the other.
The other two boats joined him and the formation proceeded on the
appointed courses, taking photographs and making notes.
In the meantime Anderson, Magor's engineer, stripped off his leather
flying-coat and climbed out on the wing to the damaged engine. He
was passing through the air at sixty knots. It whipped his clothing
against his arms and legs, making them difficult to move; it tried to
wrench his tools and materials from his hands, and would have blown
him overboard had he relaxed his vigilance. For one hour, an hour
completely filled with sixty long minutes, he fought with the air and
completed the repair.
Magor, when he could start up his second engine, was two hundred miles
from Felixstowe, and had completed his reconnaissance, so he turned the
formation for home, crossed the North Sea, and landed in the harbour at
half-past twelve o'clock.
Nineteen days later the second lighter trip was sent into the Bight.
Tiny Galpin and Rhys Davis were leading, Webster and Tees were in the
second boat, and Barker and Galvayne were in the third. The latter
pilot was killed later when the pilots of four boats attacked fifteen
Huns off Terschelling, and put them to flight.
Tiny led his flight into the Bight, and also encountered two enemy
seaplanes. But these pilots were not having any. They dropped their
bombs and made off inland at high speed.
He met a flotilla of mine-sweepers who fired shells at him. So he and
the other two pilots swooped down and swept the decks with machine-gun
fire. When the mine-sweeper first opened fire the wireless operator
seized his Aldis lamp and began signalling furiously to one of the
ships. Tiny, reaching out, pulled him away from the side and demanded
an explanation. The operator wrote on his pad--
"Sir, he was making e's to me."
He had not realised they were enemy craft, and thought that the quick
flash of the gun was the light of a signal-lamp with which somebody was
making a series of e's to him, the calling-up signal.
After sweeping around in the Bight as requisite, Tiny headed his
formation for home. But now Webster's engines developed trouble, and he
had to land three times to make repairs before the coast of England was
sighted.
As a result of these two reconnaissances it was decided that the Huns
were not making any serious effort to sweep a short-cut channel through
our mine-fields, so they were not aware of the show to be staged at
Zeebrugge and Ostend. The pilots engaged in the operation received a
letter of appreciation from the Lords of the Admiralty.
III.
Illustrating the work of the lighters, although the incident did not
take place until late in 1918, there is the yarn about Zeppelin L 53.
Many subsequent lighter trips were attended by this Zeppelin. Its
crew watched the evolution from a great height. The pilots of the
flying-boats when slipped from their lighters were unable to get at
the airship, as they were heavily laden with petrol. Her skipper,
Commander Proells, kept well out of range of the anti-aircraft guns of
the cruisers, and he thought himself safe enough.
But the L 53 annoyed Colonel Samson, D.S.O., who at this time was
Officer Commanding No. 4 Group, R.A.F., and he had a thirty-foot deck
made to fit on one of the towing lighters, and on this, held in place
with a quick release gear, he put a Camel aeroplane, a single-seated
fighter land-machine with great speed and climb.
On the first experiment, and while being towed by a destroyer at thirty
knots, Colonel Samson tried to take the Camel off the lighter. But the
deck was not at the right angle and the machine stalled off, nose-dived
into the water, the lighter passing over the pilot and aeroplane. Both
were fished out. Undeterred by this mishap he had the deck altered, and
on the second trial it proved satisfactory, the aeroplane getting away
in good style.
It was decided to have a go at the Zeppelin on the next lighter trip,
and Cully, a Canadian, one of the old R.N.A.S. pilots, was chosen for
the job and was told to stand by.
On August 11 a little show was to be staged in the Bight.
The Harwich light cruisers were to carry six coastal motor-boats
to a position off Terschelling Island. Here they would be dropped
into the water and sent well into the Bight over the mine-fields to
torpedo any mine-sweepers and other surface craft, and collect if
possible information which would make glad the heart of the Admiralty
Intelligence Department.
About this department an American who had occasion to deal with them
said--
"That gang is one that delivers the goods every time. I don't believe
the boys in the U.S.A. can teach them anything. They look outside
like an out-of-date, low-pressure, single-cylinder show, but inside,
believe me, customer, they're a nickel-plated, triple-expansion,
consume-their-own-smoke outfit, working above the licensed pressure and
with a nigger on the safety-valve."
The show was to be all the same as putting in ferrets. The coastal
motor-boats were small hydroplanes filled full of big engines and
could do forty knots full out. They carried a torpedo on their stern
and a machine-gun mounted in the cockpit. Three flying-boats on
lighters were to accompany the cruisers. They were to get off and
keep in touch with the C.M.B.'s to direct them to enemy craft and
lead them safely back to the ships, as owing to their liveliness on a
rough sea their compasses were not of much value. The Camel was to go
along on the lighter as a surprise packet for Old Man Zeppelin. Three
more flying-boats were to leave Yarmouth and pick up the cruisers at
Terschelling.
At daybreak on the morning appointed the whole circus was on the job.
At six o'clock the towing hawsers of the lighters were shortened
and the crews of the flying-boats and Cully were put on board their
respective machines. The three flying-boats were slipped, but their
pilots could not get them off the water owing to a long swell, the
absence of wind, and a heavy overload of petrol and armament. They were
taken up on the lighters again.
But the light cruisers dropped the C.M.B.'s. They immediately dug out
towards the Bight at top speed, flinging the tops of the rollers into
spray far on each side of them, so that it looked as though they were
supported on white and gleaming wings.
The three flying-boats from Yarmouth boomed up, and on receiving the
order started on after the C.M.B.'s.
[Illustration: Cully's Camel on way to Terschelling.]
The flotilla then cruised off Terschelling until fifteen minutes after
eight o'clock, when the flagship signalled to the destroyer towing the
Camel lighter that the L 53 had been sighted.
Immediately Cully saw the Zeppelin glistening in the sunlight.
It was about thirty miles away, at a height of ten thousand feet.
It looked about as big as his little finger.
He climbed into the cockpit of his machine. The propeller was swung. He
tested the rotary engine.
When the towing destroyer had got up to thirty knots, he ran his engine
full out, slipped the quick release, ran along the lighter deck only
five feet, and took to the air.
At forty-one minutes after eight o'clock he started to climb towards
Commander Proells' airship at a speed of fifty-two miles an hour.
In the meantime the crews of the Yarmouth flying-boats had sighted the
Zeppelin. Owing to some misunderstanding they returned to the light
cruisers to report, and received an order to return to their base.
When the flying-boats were just out of sight on the homeward journey,
fifteen Hun monoplanes appeared in the sky. They had been summoned
from Borkum by the Zeppelin with wireless. They swept over the
flotilla, dropping bombs on the ships, which replied by filling the
surrounding atmosphere with bursting shells. It was a lively five
minutes. With all the bombs that were dropped no hit was registered on
a ship, but a shell found a monoplane and brought it down. At this, and
having unloaded all their bombs, the fourteen Huns withdrew.
On their way back to Borkum the monoplanes met the C.M.B.'s. The
motor-boats separated and ran along at forty knots, twisting, turning,
doubling. But the Huns were all over them, firing into the thin shells
of the structures streams of machine-gun bullets. The crews of the
boats replied with their machine-guns. But it was a fight against heavy
odds.
The engine of one boat was knocked out by a bullet. It stopped. The Hun
monoplanes swooped down like gulls on a fish. The pilots tore the boat
to pieces with bullets and it began to sink. But another C.M.B. hurled
itself alongside and took off all the crew, wounded and unwounded.
Three C.M.B.'s in all were sunk, their crews being taken off under the
greatest difficulties and dangers by the crews of the three surviving
boats, and after a long contest the crews of these boats won their way
to Holland, where they were interned.
During this time Cully in the Camel had been climbing steadily, all
unaware of the fighting going on below him. He climbed the first
thirteen thousand feet in twenty minutes. He had edged in towards the
Dutch coast and was now between the coast and the Zeppelin and hidden
from her crew by the sun.
Commander Proells had also been climbing, and he was still above Cully.
His airship was of the type known as the height-climbing 50's, the
last word in construction, six hundred and forty feet long, with five
engines, and containing two million cubic feet of inflammable gas.
The L 53 had all this time been broadside on to Cully. He now saw her
turn end on. He thought that he had been sighted by her crew, and that
her Commander had turned out to sea away from him. He swung the nose of
the Camel directly towards her and continued to climb. But he saw that
the great airship was growing bigger and bigger. He realised at last
that she was heading straight for him.
The two aircraft were closing with tremendous rapidity.
Cully was at eighteen thousand feet.
Commander Proells was at nineteen thousand feet.
He felt the controls of the Camel get sloppy and knew he could get it
to climb no higher.
If Commander Proells could get up another couple of hundred feet he
could not attack him with any chance of success.
But the crew of the great Zeppelin apparently did not see the tiny
midge in the sun, for they held on their course at the same height.
At forty-one minutes after nine o'clock, one hour after Cully had left
the lighter in the Camel, the two machines met head on, the airship
only two hundred feet above the aeroplane.
Cully pulled back his controls and stalled his machine until the Camel
was almost standing on its tail.
As the bow of the Zeppelin came into his sight he started both Lewis
guns. The port gun jammed after fifteen rounds. But the other gun ran
through its tray of ninety-seven rounds.
Cully looking through his telescopic sight, saw the flaming incendiary
bullets darting into the dark belly of the airship.
He also saw a side of one of the four gondolas, a propeller flapping
slowly around, and was three-quarters of the way down the body of the
airship when his second gun stopped owing to the lack of ammunition.
So intent was he on the job that he did not know whether he was being
fired at or not, but rather thought he was not.
With the stopping of his second gun he dived away to the right, looking
back over his shoulder. The Zeppelin was going strong. It appeared to
be undamaged. He had failed.
And then he saw three little bursts of flames.
They were on the envelope about sixty feet apart, and as he watched the
flames increased in size with terrible rapidity.
Satisfied, he turned back to his instruments and got the Camel, which
had been panicking all over the shop, in hand.
When he looked again L 53 was slowly falling, burning furiously at the
bow.
The nose bent down and broke off.
A black bundle in flames shot past him. It was one of the crew who had
jumped out of a gondola. He had a parachute and was the only survivor,
being picked up by a Dutch vessel.
The aluminium skeleton of the bow of the Zeppelin was now fully
exposed. But the fabric of the tail was still smoking and burning. She
was standing vertically upright, nose down, and was falling rapidly
below him with ever-increasing momentum.
Then he could see her no more because of the smoke.
As L 53 fell she left behind her a column of light blue smoke. He
noticed that it was blown into the shape of a huge question mark.
Having finished the Zeppelin, Cully suddenly awoke to the need
of looking out for himself. He flew straight to the Dutch coast,
went south until he arrived at the Texel, and then went out to the
rendezvous at Terschelling Bank. Here, at six thousand feet, there were
patchy clouds between him and the water, and he could see no destroyers.
His pressure petrol tank ran out.
He switched over to the emergency gravity tank. It contained only
enough petrol for twenty minutes, not nearly enough for him to get back
safely to the Dutch coast.
Looking down, he saw a providential Dutch fishing boat, and decided to
land beside it. As he dived down he saw two destroyers come out from
under the edge of a cloud. And then he saw the whole flotilla.
Looping and rolling over the fleet to relieve his pent-up feelings, he
picked up his destroyer with the lighter, fired a light as a signal,
and landed in front of her. He was picked up, the Camel was hoisted on
the lighter, and the flotilla started back for Harwich.
IV.
Here end the yarns about the beginnings and first year of the War
Flight. On the 12th of April I began to turn over the little show to my
successor, and took up work under the Technical Department, a shore job.
The high lights in the picture alone have been painted in, the grilling
hours of monotonous and apparently unproductive patrol put in by the
pilots over that grim and unfriendly graveyard of ships, the North
Sea, have been left out. Results only have been more or less fully
presented, the loyal and often heartbreaking work of the ratings in the
sheds has not even been sketched. But the hard and the soft, the comedy
and the tragedy, are now in the past, and it is out of such stuff,
seemingly raw and grey at the time, that Romance is made.
* * * * *
The German submarines, defeated and surrendered, have come streaming in
through the guardships, up past the slipways, their crews on deck, and
the white ensign flying above them, and are lying rusting and rotting,
huddled together, in "Submarine Trot" off Parkeston, in Harwich harbour.
New and better flying-boats than we used have been built. And _Old
'61_, her day done, has been dismantled and broken up. But glance down
the bare bones of her career.
1917. March. Launched.
April. First patrol on Spider Web.
First enemy submarine sighted.
Bombed submarine.
Sighted submarine.
April. Sighted submarine.
Bombed submarine.
Encountered four enemy destroyers.
May. Submarine bombed by consort.
June. Met six winged Huns.
October. Carried out first lighter trials.
December. Exchanged shots with four Huns.
1918. January. Hull worn out, new one fitted.
February. Met eight Huns off Zeebrugge.
Engaged five Huns, one shot down.
March. Engaged five Huns, two shot down.
First lighter trip into Bight.
April. Handed over for experimental work.
October. Dismantled.
Hours of patrol work 300
Total flying time 368
Also the men of the War Flight are mostly back in civilian life.
They were nearly all 1914 and 1915 men, competent "tradesmen,"
cheerfully working overtime at their trades for a small wage, while men
outside, absolutely free from discipline, were making big money for
similar work. Not that the men were working for the money in it. They
worked to down the Hun. But the point is mentioned because the high
cost of living hit many of these service men very hard.
The officers are now scattered to the four corners of the earth, such
as are still alive, in South Africa, Ceylon, Canada, South America, and
the United States. There are few of them remaining in the new service.
As required by the nature of the work, they were nearly all a bit older
than the usual run of aeroplane pilots, and a peace time service made
no appeal.
For "them as likes figures" the work they did in twelve months may be
boiled down to--
_April 13, 1917, to April 12, 1918_:
8 average number of boats a month:
190 flying days.
605 patrols carried out.
105,397 nautical miles flown.
47 enemy submarines sighted.
25 enemy submarines bombed.
1 Zeppelin destroyed.
Also, at this time, the Service we belonged to and loved came to
an untimely end, and although the War Flight carried on until the
Armistice, and did great work under the Royal Air Force, the rose by
another name did not smell as sweet.
* * * * *
On the last day of March there was a dinner given by the Mess to
Rear-Admiral Cayley, C.B. He was a staunch friend of the Station, and
had been in charge of operations from Harwich. But even he was leaving
to take up new duties.
At this dinner many admirable speeches were made, both in style and
substance, encouraging the Royal Naval Air Service pilots to play the
game, and whole-heartedly turn over their allegiance to the new service
that was being born at midnight--a service which many of the active
service men felt might open the door for intrigue and unrest, and quick
and unfortunate changes in command and policy, at a time when all hands
should be busy mopping up the Hun.
But the Royal Naval Air Service was passing away.
It was the older of the two British flying services, having its
beginnings in 1910. It had never been noted for its red-tape methods,
its ingenuity in creating forms to be filled in, or the number of
ground personnel required to administer it. But the debt which the
nation owes to it for the development of engines and efficient
aircraft, no less than for its operations on land and sea over the
whole world, has hardly been appreciated. For at one time, without the
pilots developed under its traditions and the machines and engines
developed by its foresight, things would have gone hard with our arms
in France.
It was a small service that had done great things. But its work was not
appreciated, as it followed the traditions of its parent, and adopted,
not without a struggle it is true, the virtue of silence. And now
its people were asked to give up the legends about the mighty pilots
who had created the service, the traditions which had accumulated so
rapidly in war time, the uniform and routine which so well fitted their
work, the comradeship which had permeated the personnel owing to its
limited number, and the name which numberless brave men had laid down
their lives to make honourable.
And bitterest pill of all, the Navy, our natural parent, was willing we
should be put under the guardianship of an unknown and alien stepmother.
* * * * *
At this dinner the toast to the King was drunk in the mess sitting for
the last time.
* * * * *
Blow this khaki! I feel hardly human.
[Illustration]