THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AIR FORCE
Those who fear, or pretend to fear, that England may witness a
revolution like the French Revolution of the eighteenth century or the
Russian Revolution of the twentieth century would be well advised to
compose their minds by the study of English history. That history, in
all its parts, shows the passion of the English people for continuity of
development. The first care of the practical Englishman who desires
change is to find some precedent, which may serve to give to change the
authority of ancient usage. Our laws have always been administered in
this spirit; we are willing to accept, and even to hasten, change, if we
can show that the change is no real change, but is only a reversion to
an older practice, or a development of an established law. It was a
saying of King Alphonso of Aragon that among the many things which in
this life men possess or desire all the rest are baubles compared with
old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to converse with, and
old books to read. The English people are of a like mind; what they most
care for is old customs to cherish. The very rebels of England are
careful to find an honourable pedigree for their rebellion, and to
invoke the support of their forefathers. A revolution based only on
theory, a system warranted only by thought, will never come home to
Englishmen.
The national love for continuity of development is well seen in the
history of the genesis of the national air force. The whole of that
force, aeroplanes, airships, kite balloons, and the rest, must be
affiliated to a certain small balloon detachment of the Royal Engineers
at Chatham. Little by little, very slowly and gradually at first, while
only the balloon was in question, with amazing rapidity later, when the
aeroplane and the airship came into being and were needed for the war,
that single experimental unit of the Royal Engineers grew and
transformed itself into a vast independent organization. Names and
uniforms, constitutions and regulations, were altered so often that the
whole change might seem to be an orgy of official frivolity if it were
not remembered that the powers brought within reach of man by the new
science were increasing at an even greater speed. But there was no
breach of continuity; the process was a process of growth; the new was
added, and the old was not abolished.
From the days of the Montgolfiers for more than a century the value of
the balloon in war was a matter of debate and question and experiment.
At the battle of Fleurus, in 1794, the triumphant French republican army
used a captive balloon, chiefly, perhaps, as a symbol and token of the
new era of science and liberty. Balloons were used in the Peninsular
Campaign, but Napoleon's greatest achievements owed nothing to
observation from the air. Even in the American Civil War, where the
Federals certainly derived some advantage from their use, balloons were
criticized and ridiculed more than they were feared. In Great Britain
military experiments with balloons began at Woolwich Arsenal in 1878. In
the following year Captain R. P. Lee, of the Royal Engineers, reporting
on the work done at the arsenal, stated that they had a thoroughly sound
and reliable fleet of five balloons, and a few trained officers and men,
competent to undertake their management. One of these balloons
accompanied the troops on manoeuvre at the Easter Volunteer Review at
Brighton. Captain H. Elsdale, of the Royal Engineers, who was in charge
of the party, took part in the final march past; he was in the car of
the balloon at a height of two hundred and fifty feet, while Captain J.
L. B. Templer, a militia officer, managed the transport on the ground. A
balloon section was present at the Aldershot manoeuvres both in 1880 and
in 1882; it was judged a success, and instructions were issued in the
autumn of 1882 that the Balloon Equipment Store, as the establishment at
Woolwich was called, should be removed to the School of Military
Engineering at Chatham, where a small balloon factory, depot, and school
of instruction was established in 1883. The practice with the balloons
was under the charge of Major Lee, and in that year Major Templer came
to Chatham to carry out certain experiments in the manufacture of
balloons. He brought with him a family of the name of Weinling, to
construct balloons on a system devised by himself. The fabric of the
balloons was the internal membrane of the lower intestine of the ox,
sometimes called gold-beater's skin. The Weinling family had a secret,
or what they believed to be a secret, for the secure joining together of
the pieces of this skin. As they held for some time an unchallenged
monopoly in the manufacture of aircraft for the British Empire, they
have earned the right to a niche in the temple of Fame. They were five
in number--Mrs. Weinling and her elder son Fred, who were the first to
arrive at Chatham, her two daughters, Mary Anne and Eugene, and a
younger son Willie, who was about eighteen years old and was subject to
fits. Their work was carried on not without interruption. In November
1883 Major Templer wrote a letter to the president of the Royal Engineer
Committee, stating that he was delayed in the completion of the skin
balloon by the principal workman having been sentenced to three months'
imprisonment for an assault on the police. As the Weinling family were
the only persons who had ever worked in skin-balloon manufacture, and
as he himself was the only other person acquainted with the art, Major
Templer asked and obtained leave to have two sappers trained to the
work. But this new departure led before long to further troubles. The
family were very jealous of their secret, and when the balloon factory
began to be enlarged it was only with the greatest difficulty that the
members of the family could be induced to give instruction to other
workers.
Nevertheless, in the course of a year, several balloons were made, of
three sizes, the largest size having ten thousand cubic feet of
capacity, and the smaller sizes seven thousand and four thousand five
hundred cubic feet. When, in the autumn of 1884, an expedition was sent
to Bechuanaland under Sir Charles Warren, to expel the filibusters who
had raided the territory, to pacificate the country, and to reinstate
the natives, a balloon detachment under Major Elsdale and Captain F. C.
Trollope, of the Grenadier Guards, attached to the Royal Engineers, was
included in the expedition. They took with them in the detachment three
balloons, and a staff consisting of fifteen non-commissioned officers
and men. There was no fighting. At Mafeking, which was then a native
village, it was found that owing to the elevation above sea-level
neither of the two smaller balloons had lift enough to raise a man into
the air, and that the largest balloon could take up only one observer. A
native chief, Montsiou by name, went up a short distance in the balloon.
The remark that he made serves to show the value of aircraft in
impressing primitive peoples. 'If the first white men', he said, 'who
came into this country had brought a thing like that, and having gone up
in it before our eyes, had then come down and demanded that we should
worship and serve them, we would have done so. The English have indeed
great power.' The chief was right. For any nation to which is entrusted
the policing and administration of large tracts of uncivilized country,
an air force, civil and military, is an instrument of great power.
Balloons were used again on active service in the following year, 1885,
in the Soudan. A small detachment, under Major Templer with Lieutenant
R. J. H. L. MacKenzie, of the Royal Engineers, and nine non-commissioned
officers and sappers, accompanied the expeditionary force. The best of
the material had been sent to Bechuanaland, so the equipment was very
imperfect, but ascents made in a balloon of one of the smaller types, at
El Teb and Tamai, and elsewhere, proved useful for reconnaissance.
On the return of these two expeditions no attempt was made to keep up a
regular balloon section. What was done must for the most part be
credited to the energy of those few officers who believed in the future
of balloons. Majors Elsdale and Templer ran the factory for building
balloons and making hydrogen, and a few non-commissioned officers,
trained in balloon work, were held on the strength of depot companies.
Most of the practice, in observation of gunfire and the like, was
carried out with captive balloons; the few trips adventured in free
balloons were undertaken only when the gas had so deteriorated that the
balloon had not lift enough for captive work. Major Elsdale did what he
could to improve equipment, and urged that two or three officers should
be appointed to give their whole time to balloons and to form the
nucleus of a balloon corps. He is himself remembered for his pioneer
experiments in aerial photography; he sent up cameras attached to small
free balloons, with a clockwork apparatus which exposed the plates at
regular intervals and which finally ripped the balloon to bring it to
earth again. Major Templer, for his part, took a house at Lidsing, about
four miles from Chatham and the same distance from Maidstone, and, in
1887, started a small summer training camp for balloon work in one of
the fields adjoining his house. Lieutenants G. E. Phillips and C. F.
Close, of the Royal Engineers, attended this camp, which was held again
in the following years. In 1889 Lieutenants B. R. Ward and H. B. Jones,
also of the Royal Engineers, joined it, and the authorities were soon
faced with the necessity of coming to a decision whether balloons should
be introduced as a definite part of the service. In that year
Lieutenant-General Sir Evelyn Wood was in command of the Aldershot
Division; he arranged for a balloon detachment, consisting of
Lieutenants Ward and Jones, Sergeant-Major Wise, and some thirty
non-commissioned officers and men, to be sent to Aldershot early in the
summer to take part in the annual manoeuvres. The experiment was a
success. The balloons operated with a force which marched out from
Aldershot against a flying column of the enemy encamped near the
Frensham ponds. A fortunate piece of observation work is believed to
have won Sir Evelyn Wood's favour for the new arm. The balloons were
asked to answer the question, 'Has the enemy any outposts in rear of his
camp?' Lieutenant Ward made an ascent, and though it was getting dusk
and the country was not very open, he was able to see the enemy placing
pickets round his camp on the nearer side, but could detect no movement
beyond the camp. He reported that there were no outposts in rear of the
camp; and a night attack sent out from Aldershot was a complete success.
The German Emperor was present at these same manoeuvres, and a march
past on the Fox Hills was organized for his benefit. The balloon
detachment was ordered to take part in it. Balloons, being an
unrecognized part of the army, were not hampered by any of those
regulations which prescribe the etiquette to be observed on formal
occasions. Lieutenant Ward, who was in command of the detachment,
resolved that he would march past in the air, at an altitude of about
three hundred feet, in a balloon attached to the balloon wagon. The
weather was fine and calm, and the balloon sailed by in state, with the
result that the spectators all gazed upwards and had not a glance to
spare for the horse artillery, the cavalry, or any other arm of the
service.
Sir Evelyn Wood reported favourably on the use of balloons, and in 1890
a balloon section was introduced into the British army as a unit of the
Royal Engineers. The question of a site for the depot caused some delay.
Opinion favoured Aldershot, but the General Officer Commanding objected
that Aldershot should be reserved for military training. Major Templer
was in favour of Lidsing, where for several years he had carried on at
his own costs. In the result the depot moved to Aldershot, and having
taken over a piece of very soft ground at South Farnborough, near the
canal, began to erect sheds. The contractor for a balloon shed was
nearly ruined by the expense of making foundations. So things
fluctuated; the factory remained at Chatham, and the depot and section,
after a summer spent at Aldershot, collected at Chatham again for the
winter of 1890-1. In 1892 a definite move was made to Aldershot, which
continued thereafter to be the centre for balloon work. In 1894 the
balloon factory, under the superintendence of Colonel Templer, was fully
established at South Farnborough. Finally, in 1905, a new and better
site was found for it in the same neighbourhood, and by successive
additions to the sheds and workshops then erected the present Royal
Aircraft Establishment came into being. Some difficulty is presented to
the historian by the chameleon changes of official nomenclature, which
disguise a real identity and continuity. The Balloon Equipment Store at
Woolwich became the untitled factory at Chatham, which in its turn
became the balloon factory at South Farnborough. In 1908 it was
decorated, and became His Majesty's Balloon Factory; a little later it
was named the Army Aircraft Factory; and, later again, in 1912, the
Royal Aircraft Factory. So it continued until far through the war, when,
its initials being required for the newly-welded Royal Air Force, it was
renamed yet again, and was called the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
These changes in nomenclature were, of course, office-made, and have
none of the significance that attaches to the history of popular names.
But the Royal Aircraft Establishment itself was a natural growth, and
derives, without break, from the unofficial establishment of balloons at
Woolwich.
In 1899 the South African War began. Four balloon sections took an
active part in the campaign. The first section, commanded by Captain H.
B. Jones, operated with the troops under Lord Methuen, and proved its
value at the battle of Magersfontein. The second section, commanded by
Major G. M. Heath, was with Sir George White throughout the siege of
Ladysmith. An improvised section, commanded by Captain G. E. Phillips,
was raised at Cape Town, and joined Sir Redvers Buller's force at Frere
Camp, for the relief of Ladysmith. The regular third section, commanded
by Lieutenant R. D. B. Blakeney, embarked for South Africa early in
1900, and joined the Tenth Division at Kimberley. It is not easy to make
a just estimate of the value of the balloons in this war. Some
commanding officers were prejudiced against them, and the difficulties
and miscarriages which are inevitable in the use of a new instrument did
nothing to remove the prejudice. The steel tubes in which the hydrogen
was compressed were cumbrous and heavy to transport. The artillery were
not trained to make the fullest use of the balloons; the system of
signalling by flags was very imperfect; and the signallers in the air
often failed to attract the attention of those with the guns. For all
that, the balloons proved their value. The Ladysmith balloon did good
service in directing fire during the battle of Lombard's Kop, and, more
generally, in reporting on the Boer positions. Later on in the siege it
was impossible to get gas, and the balloons fell out of use. At
Magersfontein it was by observation from the air that the howitzer
batteries got the range of the enemy's ponies concealed in a gully, and
accounted for more than two hundred of them. On the 26th of February
1900 an officer in a balloon reported on General Cronje's main position
at Paardeberg, and the report was of value in directing the attack on
the position.
These operations put a heavy strain on the factory. Its normal output of
one balloon a month was increased during the war to two balloons a
month, and new buildings at a cost of more than four thousand pounds
were proposed in 1900, and approved by the Aldershot Command. Even
during the South African War there were other calls on the factory. In
the summer of 1900 a balloon section, under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel J. R. Macdonald, was embarked for China; in the
following year the factory supplied two balloons and stores for the
Antarctic Expedition of Captain Scott. These demands interfered with
experimental activities, which when the war was ended, and especially
when the new factory was built in 1905, were renewed with great zest. As
early as January 1902 Colonel Templer, having visited Paris to report on
the doings of M. Santos Dumont, recommended that experiments with
dirigible balloons should be carried out at once, but received from the
War Office the reply that the estimates for the year, which, apart from
these experiments, amounted to L12,000, must be cut down to half that
sum. Nevertheless from time to time grants were obtained for the
construction of elongated balloons, for a complete wireless telegraphy
equipment, and, in 1903, for a dirigible balloon. The factory was a
small place, but it was full of energy. In 1904 experiments were carried
out with man-lifting kites, with photography from the air, with
signalling devices, with mechanical apparatus for hauling down the
balloons, and finally with petrol motors. It must always stand to the
credit of those who were in charge of the factory that when the new era
came, revolutionizing all the conditions, and when, not many years
later, the Great War made its sudden and enormous demands, they rose to
the occasion. Up to May 1906 Colonel Templer was superintendent of the
balloon factory. He was succeeded by Colonel J. E. Capper, who held the
position till October 1909. During these early years the balloon factory
and balloon school, though nominally separate, were under the same
control. The chief point of difference was that the factory employed
some civilians, whereas the school was wholly in the hands of the
military. Mr. Haldane decided to separate them, and in 1909 appointed
Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman superintendent of the balloon factory, while Colonel
Capper, who was succeeded within a year by Major Sir Alexander
Bannerman, Bart., took over the command of the balloon school. Colonel
Capper was a firm believer in the future of the aeroplane, and a true
prophet. In a lecture on military ballooning, delivered at the Royal
United Service Institution in 1906, just before he was appointed
superintendent of the balloon factory, he concluded with a forecast.
'There is another and far more important phase of aerial locomotion,' he
said, 'which in the near future may probably have to be reckoned
with.... In a few years we may expect to see men moving swiftly through
the air on simple surfaces, just as a gliding bird moves.... Such
machines will move very rapidly, probably never less than twenty and up
to a hundred miles per hour; nothing but the heaviest storms will stop
them. They will be small and difficult to hit, and very difficult to
damage, and their range of operations will be very large.' Colonel
Capper acted on this belief, and during his time at the factory did what
he could with meagre funds to encourage aviation. The policy which, in
the spring of 1908, he recommended to the War Office was to buy any
practicable machines that offered themselves in the market, and at the
same time not to relax effort at the factory. The attempts of Lieutenant
Dunne and Mr. Cody to construct an efficient aeroplane seemed hopeful,
and the factory took them under its wing. Lieutenant Dunne worked at
Blair Atholl from 1907 onward, and Mr. Cody, in the winter of 1907-8,
began to construct his machine at Farnborough. In the autumn of 1908 the
Hon. C. S. Rolls offered to bring to Farnborough a biplane of the
Farman-Delagrange type, and to experiment with it on behalf of the
Government, in return for the necessary shed accommodation. The
acceptance of this proposal had been authorized when an accident to Mr.
Cody, caused by want of space, discredited the fitness of the factory
ground for aeroplane work, and the arrangement with Mr. Rolls was
deferred. He renewed his proposal in the spring of 1909, this time with
the offer of a Wright machine, and he had established himself at
Farnborough, when his death, at the Bournemouth meeting of 1910, cut
short a career of brilliant promise, for Mr. Rolls was not only one of
the best of practical aviators, but was alert in all that concerned the
science of his craft. At the factory the experiments of Mr. Cody and
Lieutenant Dunne were supported and continued, but progress was slow and
uncertain, and when, early in 1909, the two machines between them had
involved an expense of something like L2,500, further experiments with
them were abandoned for a time. Their performance did not seem to
warrant a large national outlay, and the bulk of Colonel Capper's work
was devoted to what seemed the more promising task of supplying airships
for the army. The earliest of these had been designed by Colonel
Templer, and two envelopes of gold-beater's skin were ready by 1904, but
the cost of making them had been so great that further progress on the
ship was arrested until 1907. In September of that year the first
British army airship, the _Nulli Secundus_, sausage-shaped, about a
hundred and twenty feet long and less than thirty feet in diameter, took
the air and passed successfully through its trials. It was driven by an
Antoinette engine of from forty to fifty horse-power, and attained a
speed of about sixteen miles an hour.
On the 5th of October the ship flew from Farnborough to London, circled
round St. Paul's Cathedral, manoeuvred over the grounds at Buckingham
Palace, and, on her return journey, as she could make no headway against
the wind, descended in the centre of the cycle-track at the Crystal
Palace, having been in the air for three and a half hours. Five days
later, to avoid damage by a squall, the ship was deflated, packed up,
and returned to Farnborough by road. Colonel Capper, influenced
doubtless by the success of the _Lebaudy_ airship in France, decided to
rebuild _Nulli Secundus_ as a semi-rigid, but funds were short, and work
could not be commenced on her until the following year. In the
reconstruction every possible portion of the original ship was
ingeniously utilized. The reconstructed ship was taken out for her first
trial in the air on the 24th of July 1908. During this flight of four
miles, lasting eighteen minutes, she suffered various mishaps. After two
more short flights she was deflated at the end of August, and the career
of the _Nulli Secundus_ was ended. Another smaller and fish-shaped
airship, nicknamed the _Baby_, was put in hand during the autumn of
1908, but was not completed until the following spring. To enable her to
carry a more powerful engine the _Baby_ was enlarged by cutting the
envelope in half and introducing a wide belt of gold-beater's skin in
the middle. Rechristened the _Beta_, she was ready for flight at the end
of May, and on the 3rd of June 1910 made a successful night-flight from
Farnborough to London and back, covering a distance of about seventy
miles in just over four hours.
The output of the factory was small, almost insignificant, compared with
the efforts being made by foreign nations. Colonel Capper preferred not
to attempt the construction of rigid airships till more was known of
them. The Zeppelins were the only reputed success, and no Zeppelin, at
that time, had succeeded in making a forced landing without damage to
the ship. But the output of the factory is no true measure of the
progress made. The officers in charge worked with an eye to the future.
Early in 1906 a proposal was put forward by Brevet Colonel J. D.
Fullerton, Royal Engineers, and was warmly supported by Colonel Templer,
for the appointment of a committee consisting of military officers,
aeronauts, mechanical engineers, and naval representatives, to
investigate the whole question of aeronautics. A modified form of this
proposal was put forward three years later, in 1909, by Mr. Haldane,
then Secretary of State for War. He invited Lord Rayleigh and Dr.
Richard Glazebrook, the chairman and the director of the National
Physical Laboratory, to confer with him, and asked them to prepare for
his consideration a scheme which should secure the co-operation of the
laboratory with the services, thus providing scientific inquiry with
opportunities for full-scale experiment. A scheme was drafted; it was
discussed and approved at a conference held in the room of the First
Lord of the Admiralty, and was submitted to the Prime Minister, Mr.
Asquith, who took action on it, and appointed 'The Advisory Committee
for 'Aeronautics', under the presidency of Lord Rayleigh. Seven of its
ten members were Fellows of the Royal Society. The chairman was Dr.
Glazebrook. The Army was represented by Major-General Sir Charles
Hadden, the Navy by Captain R. H. S. Bacon, the Meteorological Office by
Dr. W. N. Shaw. The other members were Mr. Horace Darwin, Sir George
Greenhill, Mr. F. W. Lanchester, Mr. H. R. A. Mallock, and Professor J.
E. Petavel. To these, soon after, were added Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, when
he took over the charge of the balloon factory, and Captain Murray F.
Sueter, R.N., who deserves not a little credit for his early and
persistent efforts to foster aeronautics in the navy. The great value of
this committee was that it brought together the various bodies concerned
with aeronautics, and combined their efforts. In particular, it gave to
the new science the highly skilled services of the National Physical
Laboratory, which organized at Teddington a new department, with
elaborate plant, for the investigation of aeronautical questions. From
this time onward the National Physical Laboratory worked in the closest
co-operation with the balloon factory. Mathematical and physical
investigations were continuously carried on at the laboratory, and
improvements suggested by these researches were put to the practical
test at the factory. Questions of air resistance, of the stresses and
strains on materials, of the best shape for the wing of an aeroplane and
the best fabric for the envelope of an airship--these and scores of
other problems were systematically and patiently attacked. There were no
theatrically quick results, but the work done laid a firm and broad base
for all subsequent success. Hasty popular criticism is apt to measure
the value of scientific advice by the tale of things done, and to
overlook the credit that belongs to it for things prevented. The science
of aeronautics in the year 1909 was in a very difficult and uncertain
stage of its early development; any mistakes in laying the foundations
of a national air force would not only have involved the nation in much
useless expense, but would have imperilled the whole structure. Delay
and caution are seldom popular, but they are often wise. Those who are
stung by the accusation of sloth are likely to do something foolish in a
hurry. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of our aeronautical
development than its comparative freedom from costly mistakes. This
freedom was attained by a happy conjunction of theory and practice, of
the laboratory and the factory. The speculative conclusions of the
merely theoretical man had to undergo the test of action in the rain and
the wind. The notions and fancies of the merely practical man were
subjected to the criticism of those who could tell him why he was wrong.
The rapid growth in power and efficiency of the British air force owed
much to the labours of those who befriended it before it was born, and
who, when it was confronted with the organized science of all the German
universities, endowed it with the means of rising to a position of
vantage.
The same sort of credit belongs to the conduct of the balloon factory
under Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, who had charge of it during that very crucial
period from the autumn of 1909 to the summer of 1916. When he took over
the factory he found at Farnborough one small machine shop, one shed for
making balloons, and one airship shed. The workers were about a hundred
in number, fifty men and fifty women. Seven years later, when
Lieutenant-Colonel O'Gorman was appointed to the Air Board as consulting
engineer to the Director-General of Military Aeronautics, the hundred
had swollen to four thousand six hundred, and the buildings situated on
the forest land of Farnborough had increased and multiplied out of all
recognition. This development was made necessary by the war, but it
would have been impossible but for the foresight which directed the
operations of the period before the war. The factory, working in close
co-operation with the Advisory Committee and the National Physical
Laboratory, very early became the chief centre for experimental aviation
with full-sized machines. Systematic and rapid advance was hardly to be
hoped for from unaided private initiative. Many private makers of
machines were zealous and public-spirited, but there was no considerable
private demand for aeroplanes, and a firm of manufacturers cannot carry
on at a loss. Poor though it was in resources, and very meagrely
supported by Government grants, the factory was what the country had to
depend on; and it rose to its opportunities.
Aviation, in its early stages, was cramped and harassed by engine
failure. The improvement of the light engine, in design and
construction, was the most pressing of needs; but no sufficiently rapid
improvement could be hoped for except by the encouragement of private
enterprise. For some years the factory refrained from producing any
official engine design, and the superintendent attempted to encourage
the efforts of private firms. In order to specify the conditions which
makers must observe, and to apply proper tests to the engines supplied,
it was thought desirable to build an engine laboratory. Accordingly an
engine test plant was devised and installed. It was set in a
wind-tunnel, where by steeply tilting the engine both sideways and
lengthways, in varying currents of air, the actual flying conditions
could be imitated, and the performance of the engine measured. This
plant for the testing of engines might have been used with valuable
results, but for one hindrance--the makers of engines were unwilling to
send them to the factory to be tested, and the plant remained idle.
There was a misunderstanding, which after a time became acute, between
the factory and the private makers of aircraft. The factory, zealous for
the public interest, believed that it could best serve their interest by
encouraging, supervising, and co-ordinating the efforts of the makers.
The makers, jealous of supervision and control, did not accept that
view. A wise judgement will be slow to blame either. The officials of
the factory were strong in the knowledge that their work was
disinterested and aimed only at the public good. The makers, remembering
that progress in aviation had come chiefly by way of private enterprise,
feared the paralysing effect of official control, and the habitual
tendency of officials, especially of competent officials, to extend
their ambitions and their powers. The makers, in short, dreaded a
Government monopoly. A difference of this kind, even when it is gently
and considerately handled, always furnishes a happy hunting-ground for
the political agitator and the grievance-monger. The thing came to a
head during the war, when the success of the Fokkers, which reached its
height during the early months of 1916, made the public uneasy. The
Fokkers late in 1915 had been fitted with guns which fired through the
airscrew. This was the secret of their success, which was short-lived,
but was made the occasion, in Parliament and elsewhere, for a long array
of charges against the administration and command of the Royal Flying
Corps. A parliamentary committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice
Bailhache, was appointed to investigate these charges. Their report
vindicated the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Aircraft Factory, and
expressed admiration for the work done by both under the stress and
strain of war. The charges, it should be added, were not supported by
the private makers, or 'the trade', as they are called; none of them
made any complaint, and some of them went out of their way to record
their gratitude for the help they had received from the factory.
Nevertheless, the uncertainty of its relations with the trade caused the
factory, in its early days, to undertake a great diversity of business.
The designing of aircraft was plainly a matter of the first importance,
and for this designing it was necessary to collect a trained staff. The
difficulty here was that there were no professional designers; the
aeronautical world was a strange ferment of inventors, amateurs,
enthusiasts, heretics of all sorts, wedded to their own notions, and
mutually hostile. The factory decided to employ only those designers who
had had a solid course of training in engineering shops. By degrees
engineers trained in shipyards and officers skilled in motor-car design
were added to the staff of the drawing office until, by 1916, it had
increased from some half-dozen to two hundred and seventy-five.
When the war came this drawing office proved its value. An immense
number of aeroplanes was required, and many firms had to be employed to
make them. Some of these firms were well staffed, others not so well.
The factory made elaborate detailed dimensioned drawings, marked with
every permitted kind and degree of variation--as many as four hundred
drawings to a single aeroplane. With the help of these drawings all
kinds of firms--organ-builders, makers of furniture, or pianos, or
gramophones, or motor-cars--could be turned on to aeroplane manufacture.
In the course of two years half a million drawings were issued to
various firms; and those firms to whom the whole business of engineering
was strange were successfully initiated in one of its most delicate and
difficult branches. Here, too, the outcry was raised, in the newspapers
and in Parliament, that the factory was attempting to make a Government
monopoly of aircraft design and air-engine design. The accusation was
disproved; it would probably never have been made but for the admirable
efficiency of the factory in rising to meet a national crisis. National
defence, it is agreed, cannot safely be left wholly to private
enterprise, even in England. The factory carried out an immense number
of experiments in connexion with aeroplanes and airships. The quest for
stability, longitudinal and lateral, in aeroplanes was the chief
preoccupation of these early years. Powerful engines are useless in a
ship which cannot be trusted to keep afloat. It was this quest, as much
as anything, which drew the factory into designing aeroplanes. The
various types of aeroplane designed at the factory bear names which
consist of a pair of initial letters, with a number affixed. The letters
indicate the type of the machine; the number indicates its place in the
series of continually improving variants of the same type. Three of
these types were gradually being evolved at the factory in the course of
the year 1911. The earliest to attain to practical success was the B.E.
type of machine. Every pilot who had his training in the early days of
the war was familiar with this machine, though not every pilot knew that
the initials are a monument to Louis Bleriot, who first flew the
Channel. His achievement gave a great vogue to his monoplane, which was
imitated by many designers; and when the factory produced a biplane
fitted, like all monoplanes, with a tractor airscrew, in front of the
machine, the biplane was called the Bleriot Experimental. The F.E. type
is the Farman Experimental, a pusher biplane, which for a long time held
its own by virtue of two advantages. The observer, being seated in the
very prow of the machine, could fire a gun forward without being
obstructed by the airscrew. This advantage disappeared after 1915, when,
by the invention of synchronizing gears, which timed the bullets to pass
between the revolving blades of the screw, tractor machines were
enabled to fire directly ahead. But another advantage persisted. In
night-flying, when the eyes are strained to pick up dim shapes in the
dark, a clear field of vision is all-important, and the F.E. type of
machine continued to be used in night raids throughout the war. The
third type was the S.E., or Scouting Experimental. The fifth variant of
this type, the S.E. 5, gained an enormous reputation in the war as a
fighting machine, and indeed was preferred by some pilots to the best
scout machines of private makers.
A fourth factory machine, produced just before the war, and no less
famous than the other three, was called the R.E., or Reconnaissance
Experimental. It was the first almost completely stable machine.
Stability is not of the first importance to a fighting scout, whose
attention is concentrated on his own manoeuvres, but where a machine is
used for observation, and the pilot must needs pay heed to all that is
visible on the earth beneath, stability is essential. A perfectly stable
machine maintains an even keel in varying gusts of wind. If it is
tilted, it rights itself. If it is nose-dived, the pilot has only to let
go of the control, and after a descent of some hundreds of feet it comes
out of the dive and resumes its horizontal flight. The perfecting of
this type of machine was achieved at the factory, and was the work of
many minds. On the mathematical side the theory of stability was
investigated by Mr. F. W. Lanchester, an authority on the theory of
flight, and by Professor G. H. Bryan, a great pioneer, who in 1911
produced his book on _Stability in Aviation_. He had long been
interested in the subject; his work, which is recognized as
epoch-making, laid a sound mathematical basis for the theory of flight,
and directed the work of others along the lines of fruitful experiment.
The theoretical conclusions of Professor Bryan were reduced to a
practical form by Mr. Leonard Bairstow and the members of the staff of
the National Physical Laboratory, who put the doctrine to the proof of
experiment, at first with models, and then with full-scale machines. The
dangerous work of trying conclusions with the air fell to the young men
of the factory. A brilliant young Cambridge man, Mr. E. T. Busk, of
King's College, who had been trained in the laboratory of Professor
Bertram Hopkinson, joined the staff of the factory in the summer of
1912, having previously spent a month at the National Physical
Laboratory, to acquaint himself with the work there. He understood the
theoretical basis of aeroplane design, and he was a daring and skilful
pilot. The R.E. machine was designed by the staff of the factory; Mr.
Busk, in collaboration with Mr. Bairstow, worked at the problem of
giving it stability. He cheerfully took all risks in trying the
full-sized machines in the air. When the R.E. 1 had been theoretically
warranted, by experiments with models, to right herself after a
nose-dive, he tested the theory by flying the machine to a great height,
turning her nose down and letting go the controls. As he expected, she
righted. To test the machine he flew her in all weathers, hurling her
against the wind storms. For the purposes of these practical tests he
invented an instrument of his own called the Ripograph, which recorded
on a single strip all the pilot's movements in warping and steering, as
well as the speed, inclination, and roll of the machine. This machine,
when the rudder was turned right or left, automatically banked itself;
and when the engine was cut off, took the angle of gliding flight. It
was a later variant of the same machine, an R.E. 8 belonging to the
Australian Flying Corps, of which it is told that, when the pilot and
observer had both been shot dead, in December 1917, the machine
continued to fly in wide left-hand circles, and ultimately, when the
fuel was exhausted and the engine stopped, fell near St.-Pol, some
thirty miles from the scene of combat, without completely wrecking
itself. When the war broke out Mr. Busk was more than ever needed at the
factory. On the 5th of November 1914 he mounted in an experimental B.E.
2c machine to a height of about eight hundred feet. Exactly what
happened will never be known; the petrol vapour must have been ignited
by a spark; the machine burst into flames, and after drifting aimlessly
for a time, fell on Laffan's Plain. The death of such men as Charles
Rolls and Edward Busk was a part of the heavy price that had to be paid
for victory; before victory was in sight. There was no other way; the
work that they did could not be spared, and could never have been even
attempted except by the quiet of absolute courage.
The business undertaken by the factory, apart from its main business of
research and experiment, was almost bewildering in its diversity. From
the first the officials of the factory insisted on maintaining a high
standard of workmanship, which spells safety in the air. This question
of workmanship became doubly important during the war, when, in order to
improve the performance of machines, all avoidable weight had to be
sacrificed, and the factor of safety, as it is called, reduced to the
lowest permissible limit. The breaking of a spar or a wire, the failure
of a bolt or a nut, may mean a fatal accident. Further, the factory did
what it could to standardize the component parts of an aeroplane, so as
to facilitate repair; and this, before the war came, had been largely
achieved. It designed and fitted up the instruments necessary for the
pilot's use, which record for him his speed through the air, the
consumption of his fuel, the rate of revolutions of his airscrew, the
height attained, and other essentials. The average pilot, it is well
known, is supplied with more instruments than he uses, but it is true
nevertheless that familiarity with the use of instruments has often
staved off disasters. At first the factory had refrained from initiating
engine designs, but when competition and trial had shown that there was
no immediate prospect of obtaining a thoroughly satisfactory engine from
English makers, it asked permission of the War Office, and in 1913
designed its own engine. Among its notable devices one or two may be
mentioned. The mooring-mast for airships, to which they can be tethered
in the open, was invented at the factory, and developed independently
for naval work, by the Admiralty. The fair-shaped wires and struts, to
decrease air resistance, were a great improvement. These parts of an
aeroplane offer so considerable a resistance to its passage through the
air, that when their transverse section, instead of being round, is
streamlined, the speed of the machine is increased by several miles an
hour. In short, during those early years the factory, which directly or
indirectly had to supply most of the requirements of the balloon school,
the Air Battalion, and the Royal Flying Corps, combined in itself all
the functions of what later on were highly organized separate Government
departments--inspection, stores, repairs, the testing of inventions, and
the like.
From what has been said it will be seen that the factory continued, as
it began, in close relations with the army. It had been founded, under
army auspices, at an important inland military centre, and it was not so
well adapted, by its history or situation, to serve the navy. The
results obtained by research at the National Physical Laboratory, and by
experiment at the factory, furthered the science of aviation, and were
open to all. But when flight began, a united national air force was not
thought of by any one, or was thought of only in dreams. Meantime the
new invention offered to the navy, no less than to the army, new
opportunities of increasing the power of its own weapon. The problems of
the navy were not the problems of the army, and a certain
self-protective jealousy made the two forces keep apart, so that each
might develop unhampered by alien control. The navy trusted more to
private firms, and less to the factory. It was a difference of tendency
rather than a clean-cut difference of policy. Both army and navy made
use of the results obtained at the laboratory and the factory. The army
employed many private makers for the supply of machines and engines, and
the navy, in the course of the war, ordered a very large number of that
most famous of factory machines--the B.E. 2c. But the navy stood as far
aloof from the factory as possible, and looked mainly to private firms
not only for the supply of machines and engines, but for much of its
experimental work. Several of the firms who devoted themselves to the
needs of naval aviation did excellent service as pioneers. The most
distinguished of these was the firm of the Short brothers--that is, of
Messrs. Oswald, Eustace, and Horace Short. The impulse of their work was
scientific, not commercial. As early as 1897 Mr. Eustace Short was an
amateur balloonist, and his younger brother Oswald, at the age of
fifteen, began to accompany him on his voyages. In a public library they
came across that celebrated record of balloon voyages, _Travels in the
Air_, by James Glaisher, and made up their minds to construct a balloon
of their own. Success led them on step by step; in 1905 they contracted
to supply captive war balloons for the Government of India, and in 1906
they became the club engineers of the newly formed Royal Aero Club. The
reported successes of the Wright brothers in America shifted the
interest of the club, and of the club engineers, from balloons to
flying machines; in 1908 they built their first glider--a complete
miniature Wright machine, without the power plant--for the Hon. C. S.
Rolls. At about this time they were joined by the eldest of the three
brothers, Mr. Horace Short, an accomplished man of science and a lover
of adventure; from this time onward the firm of the Short brothers never
looked back. From sketches made by Mr. Horace Short, they built six
biplanes to the order of the Wrights. They constructed, in 1909, the
aeroplane on which Mr. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon won the prize offered by
the _Daily Mail_ for the first all-British machine which should fly a
circular mile. They made the outer cover, gas-bags, valves,
pressure-gauges, and controlling rudders for the first rigid airship
constructed to the order of the Admiralty. Their early work was done at
Shellness, the flying centre for members of the Royal Aero Club, but in
1909 they moved their sheds to Eastchurch in the Isle of Sheppey, which
thereafter became the flying centre of the navy. It was here that the
first four naval aviators were taught to fly. The tale of the successes
of the various Short machines would make something not unlike a complete
history of early naval aviation. The first landing on the water by an
aeroplane fitted with airbags, the first flight from the deck of a ship,
the first flight up the Thames, not to mention many other incidents in
the progress of record-making, must all be credited to the Short
factory. The brothers held that the right way to advance aviation was to
strengthen the resources of the aeroplane-designing firms, so that they
might carry out their ideas without being dependent on Government
demands, and the extraordinary success of the Short designs for
aeroplanes and seaplanes did much to promote that creed.
At the factory the work with airships was continued, though it
languished somewhat as interest in aviation grew. England had shown the
way in the use of gold-beater's skin, which is greatly superior in
endurance and impermeability to any other fabric, but the knowledge
leaked through to Germany, and when the price of the skin, always high,
suddenly rose higher from heavy German buying, England fell back on
rubbered cotton. The _Baby_, altered and enlarged, was rechristened the
_Beta_, and a new ship, called the _Gamma_, made of rubbered fabric, was
added in 1910. The _Gamma_, though twice reconstructed and altered, was
never satisfactory. In 1912 _Beta_ No. 2, built in streamline shape,
about a hundred feet long, stiffened at the nose with ribs like
umbrella-ribs, and driven by a forty-five horse-power Clerget engine,
was more of a success. Other airships, the _Delta_ and _Epsilon_, of
increased size and engine-power, were designed between 1911 and 1913. In
this latter year the Air Committee, a body appointed in 1912 by the
Committee of Imperial Defence, advised that the navy, that is to say,
the Naval Wing of the newly-formed Royal Flying Corps, should take over
the development of all lighter-than-air craft. This advice, which was
carried into effect by the end of the year, put an end to military
experiments with airships, and supplied the navy with the nucleus of
that airship force which during the war did so much good service, in
convoy, in scouting for submarines, and in patrolling the coast and the
English Channel.
The earliest experiments undertaken by the Admiralty with craft lighter
than air had been ambitious and unfortunate. It was always recognized by
those who gave thought to aeronautics that for naval purposes the
airship has some advantages over the aeroplane. It can remain longer in
the air, so that its range of action is greater; it can easily carry
wireless apparatus both for transmitting and for receiving; it can take
up a stationary point of vantage where the aeroplane must needs keep
moving; it can lift a greater weight; and (not least important) it can
enormously add to the efficiency of the observer by supplying him with
comfortable and habitable quarters. These things did not escape the
attention of the small and enthusiastic band of naval officers who from
the first were believers in the air. Their ideas took shape in proposals
which were submitted by the Director of Naval Ordnance (Captain Bacon)
to the First Sea Lord (Lord Fisher) on the 21st of July 1908. What was
proposed, in effect, was that Messrs. Vickers, Son & Maxim, who had been
so successful in the design and manufacture of submarines, should be
asked to undertake the construction of a large rigid airship of the
Zeppelin type. After many meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence,
at which Captain Bacon propounded his views with great vigour, the
committee recommended that the sum of L35,000 should be placed in the
Navy Estimates for 1909-10, for the construction of an airship to be
designed and built under Admiralty supervision. The Treasury agreed, and
Messrs. Vickers's tender for the airship was accepted on the 7th of May
1909. The huge Cavendish Dock at Barrow-in-Furness was appropriated to
the work, and the greatest possible secrecy was observed in all the
preparations. A special section was formed to assist in the construction
of the ship--Captain Murray F. Sueter, R.N., and, with him, Lieutenant
Neville Usborne, Lieutenant C. P. Talbot, and Chief Artificer Engineer
A. Sharpe. For two years public curiosity was kept alive on a diet of
conjecture. A good part of this time was taken up in improvements and
modifications of the design of the ship. When at last in May 1911 the
shed was opened and the huge airship was brought out to her mooring-mast
in the dock, those who had expected a larger and better Zeppelin seemed
justified in their belief. The ship was 512 feet long and 48 feet in
diameter, with a blunt bow and a pointed stern. Her capacity was
approximately 700,000 cubic feet. The framework was made of a new alloy
called 'duralumin', nearly as strong in tension as mild steel and not
much heavier than aluminium. It was covered with 46,000 square yards of
water-tight silk fabric, so treated with aluminium dust and rubber that
the upper surface of the hull, which had to resist the rays of the sun,
showed the silver sheen of a fish, while the lower surface, which had to
resist the damp vapours of the water, was of a dull yellowish colour.
The hydrogen was contained in seventeen gas-bags of rubbered fabric. The
ship was fitted with two Wolseley motors of one hundred and eighty
horse-power each, and with a whole series of vertical and horizontal
rudders. She was popularly called the _Mayfly_--a name which, both in
and out of Parliament, suggested to bright wits an ill-omened pun.
She never flew. For four days she remained tethered to the mooring-mast
in the centre of the Cavendish Dock, and successfully completed her
mooring trials. During this time the wind was rough, reaching in gusts a
velocity of forty-five miles an hour. This wind, being a severer test
than any previous airship had successfully encountered when moored in
the open, proved the strength of the ship. But her very strength, and
the completeness of her fittings, told against her in another way; the
lift of an airship, consisting as it does of a small excess of buoyancy
over weight, is always a matter of the most delicate and difficult
calculation, and her lift proved to be insufficient. She was taken back
into her shed, without mishap, and alterations were at once put in hand.
On the 24th of September 1911 she was again drawn out of her shed to be
transferred to the mooring-post; in the process she broke her back, and
became a total wreck. The ensuing court of inquiry pronounced that the
accident was due to structural weakness; the naval officers and men
were exonerated from all blame.
This accident had a far-reaching effect. It disappointed public hopes
and strengthened the case of objectors. There are always critics who
take a certain mild pleasure in failure, not because they prefer it to
success, but because they have predicted it. The pioneers of aeronautics
could not afford to lose friends; they had none too many. The men in
high authority at the Admiralty were not convinced that airships were a
desirable and practicable addition to naval resources. They would all
have died to save England, but they held that she was to be saved in the
old way, on the sea. One gallant and distinguished admiral, when he
first saw the _Mayfly_, said, 'It is the work of a lunatic'. The
consequences of the failure were soon apparent. The president of the
court of inquiry recommended to the First Sea Lord (Sir A. K. Wilson)
that the policy of naval airship construction should, for the time, be
abandoned. At a conference held on the 25th of January 1912, in the
First Sea Lord's room at the Admiralty, it was decided, in accordance
with this recommendation, that the airship experiments should be
discontinued. Moreover, the special section, the nucleus of a naval air
service, was, by the decision of the Admiralty, broken up, and Captain
Sueter and his officers were returned to general service. When the
construction of rigid airships was at last taken up again early in 1914,
they were too late for the market; the heavy demands of the war delayed
their completion, and no British rigid airship was in use at the time of
the battle of Jutland.
It is to the credit of the pioneers of the Naval Air Service that when
they were faced with this disaster, after years of fruitless effort,
they did not lose heart or hope, but held on their course. Time was on
their side. In the later autumn of 1911 the Committee of Imperial
Defence, as shall be explained in the next chapter, appointed a
technical sub-committee to give advice on the measures which should be
taken to secure for the country an efficient aerial service. On the 5th
of February 1912 Captain Sueter gave evidence to this body of experts,
and sketched in broad outline his ideas for the development of a naval
air service. Airships and aeroplanes, he said, were both required, and
neither of them should be developed at the expense of the other. An
airship had the great advantage that she could carry long-distance
wireless apparatus, and could send or receive a message over a space of
three hundred miles. She could stop her engines and drift over suspected
places, for the detection of submarines and mines. The seaplane, he
maintained, should also be developed, and he saw no insuperable
difficulties in devising a machine that should be able to alight on
either water or land and to rise again into the air from either. 'I
think you have got a certain amount of intellect', he said, 'in the Navy
to do it, and I think you have got a certain amount of intellect in the
Army to do it. The two together, with the Advisory Committee--there are
talented people there--and the manufacturers in the country; between us
all we could devise something. We did not have great difficulty with the
submarine boats; and that was all new at first.' The problem of the air,
he held, was vital for the Navy; and when he was asked whether we must
try to command the air as well as the sea, he replied, 'I think it will
come to that. I do not say that we wish to do so, but I think we will be
forced to do so.' In a memorandum submitted to the same sub-committee by
Captain Bertram Dickson the meaning of the command of the air is more
fully explained. 'In the case of a European war', he writes, between two
countries, both sides would be equipped with large corps of aeroplanes,
each trying to obtain information of the other, and to hide its own
movements. The efforts which each would exert in order to hinder or
prevent the enemy from obtaining information ... would lead to the
inevitable result of a war in the air, for the supremacy of the air, by
armed aeroplanes against each other. _This fight for the supremacy of
the air in future wars will be of the first and greatest importance_,
and when it has been won the land and sea forces of the loser will be at
such a disadvantage that the war will certainly have to terminate at a
much smaller loss in men and money to both sides.'
The whole matter is clearly stated in these passages. The people of
Great Britain live in an island. They do not desire--they have never
desired--to dominate the world, or to dictate to other peoples how they
shall live. They do desire to be free of the world, and to take their
luck in it, passing to and fro without hindrance. This freedom of theirs
has repeatedly been imperilled by foreign powers, who have always
desired a greater degree of uniformity and control than is tolerable to
Britain. In order to keep their doors open the people of this island
have been compelled to fight at sea, and have attained a measure of
naval power which is sometimes called the mastery of the seas, but
which, in essence, is no more than the obstinate and resolute assertion
of their right to be the masters of themselves. They have been
adventurers and pirates; they have never been tyrants. They fight
desperately because they know that even on distant seas they are
fighting for their lives, and for all that makes their lives worth
living. Their many victories, under which they groan, have compelled
them to learn the imperial art, an art which they practise not without
skill, but reluctantly, and without zest. With the conquest of the air
their task of self-defence has been doubled. It is not to be wondered at
that those who were responsible for keeping open the gates of the sea
should turn their eyes away from the new duty. But the new duty--command
of the air, so to call it--was plainly visible to those who once looked
at it. We must keep the highways open, or our freedom is gone. We must
command the air. 'I do not say that we wish to do so,' said Captain
Sueter, 'but I think we shall be forced to do so.' The whole of our
naval history is summed up in that sentence; and the whole of our air
policy is foretold.
The force that was to compel us was already in being. The science of
aeronautics had passed from the experimental to the practical stage, and
foreign powers were rapidly building up very formidable air forces. Of
these foreign forces we naturally knew most of the French, for France
was both our neighbour and our friend. In October 1911 a very full and
illuminative report was supplied to the Government by Lieutenant Ralph
Glyn, an officer attached to the newly-formed Air Battalion. It
described, with reasoned comments, the aeronautical exercises carried
out by the French air corps at the Camp de Chalons during the previous
August. At that time the French War Ministry had at its disposal, so far
as could be ascertained, something between two hundred and two hundred
and twenty aeroplanes. The biplanes were all Farmans. The monoplanes,
which were on the whole preferred by expert opinion to the biplanes,
were of many types, all famous for achievement--Nieuports, Bleriots,
Deperdussins, R.E.P.'s, Antoinettes, and others. The methods of training
were elaborate and complete, and the air corps were continually
practised in co-operation with all other arms--infantry, cavalry, and
artillery. 'There is no doubt at all', says the writer, 'but that the
Germans have suddenly realized that the French Army since the general
employment of aeroplanes with troops has improved its fighting
efficiency by at least twenty per cent.... For the last five years the
Germans have concentrated their whole attention upon the building,
manoeuvring, and employment with troops, of dirigibles. They have gained
a slight advance over France, in fact, in this branch of aeronautics;
but they have quite dropped behind in the question of heavier-than-air
machines. France now after an equal period has just, and only just,
formed a really efficient fighting aerial corps; and this lead of five
years she is determined to maintain.'
This is not an over-statement. From the first the French, who had
thought out the whole business, laid great stress on reconnaissance and
control of artillery fire as the main uses of aircraft. For
reconnaissance the aeroplanes were practised to co-operate with cavalry.
For fire control official maps, divided into geometrical squares, so
that a pair of numbers will identify a position within a score or so of
yards, were supplied in duplicate to the pilots of the aeroplanes and to
the commanding officers of batteries. The system of signalling employed
was mostly primitive, but already in 1911 the French were experimenting
with captive balloons which received the messages from the aeroplane,
and by wireless, or some kind of visible signal, transmitted them to the
guns. 'Practice', says Lieutenant Glyn, 'has made almost perfect a
remarkable system which renders the efficient French artillery more
formidable than ever.' Further, infantry were trained to co-operate with
aircraft, so as to learn to take advantage of the new arm; and aerial
photography was practised, under strict conditions of secrecy, with a
surprising degree of success. In short, almost all the uses which later
became the commonplaces of the war were exemplified in the French
manoeuvres of 1911. Battle in the air and the use of aircraft as a
weapon of direct offence were later developments.
In October and November of the same year Captain F. H. Sykes, of the
General Staff, and Captain J. D. B. Fulton, of the Air Battalion,
visited many of the French military and civil aerodromes, and were
present at the military aeroplane competition at Rheims. 'The trials
held at Rheims', says Captain Sykes, 'are considerably in advance of
anything yet attempted.' The machines were flown by the best available
pilots, and were under the personal supervision of the makers and
designers. Aerodromes were better and more numerous than in England;
many of them were situated in wide plains, so that the learner could
make his first cross-country flights over good even landing ground.
Captain Sykes, in his report, suggests that aeroplane sheds should be
erected and flying schools started at stations not very far apart from
one another in England, so that cross-country training may be
facilitated. 'These stations should be as near as possible', he adds,
'to where troops are quartered, so as to afford an opportunity for
aeroplanes to work with troops on field days. The cost would, I think,
be inconsiderable in comparison to the value gained.' This suggestion
was carried out, but not until the war had compelled an immense
expansion of the air force.
The French, then, were ahead of us, and were showing us the way. Of
German preparations less was known, and estimates of the German air
force, even when made by experts, were largely guesswork. The Zeppelin
airships enjoyed a world-wide fame, and there is good reason to think
that the German Government practised a certain measure of frankness with
regard to their airship establishment in order the more effectively to
shroud the very resolute effort they were making to overtake the French
in the production of aeroplanes. If ever they thought that the airship
alone would do their business, that dream soon passed away. A good deal
of valuable information concerning the German air force was obtained in
the summer of 1912, just after the formation of the Royal Flying Corps.
In June of that year the Technical Sub-committee of the Committee of
Imperial Defence (a body whose cumbrous name does no justice to its
swift decisions) dispatched two of its members, Captain Sueter and Mr.
O'Gorman, to France, Austria, and Germany, to report, primarily, on the
whole airship question. In Germany these delegates took occasion to
visit five aeroplane factories--the Rumpler, Etrich, Albatross, Harland,
and Fokker, besides inspecting various flying grounds and wireless
stations. Their report is full of interest. 'No year passes', they
remark, 'in which orders equal to our total equipment are not placed by
Germany, France, and Italy.' In Germany they found there were thirty
airships available, and a large Government factory for rigids 'only
thinly pretending to be a private speculation'. They append a list of no
fewer than twenty-eight military flying grounds at which there were
flying camps. They were deeply impressed by the evidence of large
expenditure, direct and indirect, on aerial preparation, and the
systematic manner of that expenditure. 'The position of Germany', they
say, 'appeared to us to be widely different from what it is described in
the English press ... and far more active.' During their trip in the
Zeppelin airship _Viktoria Luise_ they were struck with the fervour of
popular enthusiasm. 'On passing over villages, isolated farms, &c.,
everybody turned out and cheered and waved.' This popular enthusiasm was
further demonstrated by the substantial evidence of large subscriptions
from municipal bodies and private persons. Everywhere they found reason
to suspect a certain amount of concealed Government support and subsidy
underlying ostensibly private ventures.
This report was presented in July 1912. The technical sub-committee, at
a later date, drew some further lessons from it. 'The report', they
say, 'shows that German airships have, by repeated voyages, proved their
ability to reconnoitre the whole of the German coastline on the North
Sea. In any future war with Germany, except in foggy or stormy weather,
it is probable that no British war vessels or torpedo craft will be able
to approach within many miles of the German coast without their presence
being discovered and reported to the enemy. Unless we had obtained
command of the air, any idea that our torpedo craft could seek shelter
among the Frisian Islands and remain there undetected must be
abandoned.... The report also shows that German airships have covered a
distance equal to the distance from Germany to the British coast without
replenishing fuel.... In favourable weather the German airships can
already be employed for reconnaissance over vast areas of the North Sea,
and one airship, owing to the extended view from high altitudes under
favourable weather conditions, is able to accomplish the work of a large
number of scouting cruisers. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of
this advantage to Germany. By a systematic and regular patrol of the
approaches to the coast, it will be possible in fair weather for German
airships to discover the approach of an enemy and to give timely warning
of attack, and if the approaches are reported free from the enemy the
defenders of the ports and the crews of ships in these ports will be
relieved for many hours from the intense and harassing strain caused by
uncertainty as to the probability of attack.' Further, the sub-committee
point out that the great continental airships, which can easily carry
thirty persons, can certainly carry a sufficient weight of bombs to
destroy torpedo-craft, dock gates, power stations, magazines, and the
like; and that they are far less dependent on favourable weather than is
generally supposed. 'In short, every one of the strategical and
tactical advantages which the Committee of Imperial Defence anticipated
in 1909 when recommending the construction of a rigid airship for the
Navy, has been, or is in a fair way of being, realized by the German
airships. These results have only been attained by perseverance under
the most discouraging conditions of disaster and loss.'
The total air force possessed by Great Britain, to set over against
these great foreign organizations, consisted of two small army airships,
named _Beta_ and _Gamma_, and a very small number of aeroplanes.
The report of Captain Sueter and Mr. O'Gorman put the whole matter in a
new light, and showed the need for action. In regard to aeroplanes, this
action had already been taken. In the winter of 1911-12 the
sub-committee had recommended the formation of a corps of aviators; and
this recommendation, as shall be told in the next chapter, had been
promptly carried into effect. As for airships, which chiefly concerned
the navy, the question was now not whether the Admiralty were willing to
take up experimental work with a newfangled invention, but whether they
could afford to neglect a weapon of certain value, which might prove to
be a determining factor in war. Airships of the largest size and power
must be provided, said the sub-committee, in the near future. But to
build these airships at once, they were agreed, would be to court
disaster. A large airship is of little use to men who have had no
training in the handling and navigation of airships. Such experience as
was available was to be found at the Royal Aircraft Factory, which had
produced and flown airships for military purposes. The Admiralty
responded at once; in September 1912 the naval airship section, which
had been disbanded earlier in the year, was reconstituted, and Commander
E. A. D. Masterman, Lieutenants N. F. Usborne, F. L. M. Boothby, and H.
L. Woodcock, and a small number of ratings were attached to the airship
squadron of the Military Wing at Farnborough, to gain experience of work
with airships. The airships themselves were to be supplied from various
sources. The factory was to build a new airship of the _Gamma_ type. A
small Willows airship, which happened to be on the market, though it had
no military value, was held to be worth its cost for training purposes.
The sub-committee also recommended the purchase of two foreign airships.
Here there were difficulties. The best airships of Germany were the
rigid Zeppelin and the semi-rigid Parseval. The Zeppelin Company was
forbidden by the German Government to sell its ships to foreigners; but
negotiations for the purchase of a Parseval airship were successful. An
Astra-Torres non-rigid airship of about 400,000 cubic feet of capacity
was acquired from France in the course of the year 1913. In July of the
same year Mr. Winston Churchill, the then First Lord of the Admiralty,
who regularly gave his strong support to naval aeronautics, approved of
the construction of two rigid airships and six non-rigid airships.
Treasury sanction was obtained for this programme. The rigid airships
were to be built by Messrs. Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness. Of the six
non-rigids, three were to be of the Parseval type, and three of the
Forlanini type. One of the Parsevals was to be built in Germany, and two
by Messrs. Vickers, who had succeeded in obtaining a licence for the
construction of this type of ship; one of the Forlaninis was to be built
in Italy, and two by Messrs. Armstrong Whitworth. When the war broke
out, the Parseval airship completing in Germany was confiscated by the
German Government; and the Forlanini airship, under process of
construction in Italy, was retained by the Italian Government. The
building of one of the rigid airships had just begun, and work on it was
for a time abandoned. It is necessary thus to anticipate later events,
in order to show how it came about that no airships of the larger type,
suitable for distant reconnaissance with the fleet, were in the service
of Great Britain during the war.
The building and manoeuvring of airships is not a pastime within the
reach of a private purse. The British Government had taken advantage of
the enterprise and rivalry of private makers of aeroplanes, whom it
wisely permitted to run the risks and show the way. No such policy was
possible in the manufacture of airships, which is essentially a
Government business. There was therefore, it is perhaps not fanciful to
say, something agreeable to the German temper, and disagreeable to the
English temper, in the airship as a weapon of war. The Germans put an
absolute trust in their Government. Yet, after all, it is the spirit of
a people that matters; the most magnificent and exclusive of Government
organizations will fail through weakness if it is not ultimately based
on the voluntary efforts and ingrained habits of the people who stand
behind the Government and support it. The German navy was a powerful and
splendid growth, fostered by the Government. But it was a forced growth,
and the failure of the German operations at sea, regarded broadly, must
be credited not to the British navy, but to the whole body of British
seamen, naval and civilian. The British navy was at its appointed
stations; the temper of a seafaring people, self-reliant, resourceful,
and indomitable, was everywhere, and shone like a phosphorescence over
thousands of unregarded acts of sacrifice.
The private enterprises of officers and men in the navy are limited by
the conditions of the service, but such opportunities as could be found
or made were not neglected. While the _Mayfly_ was building at
Barrow-in-Furness Commander Oliver Swann purchased an Avro aeroplane and
with the help of subscriptions from other officers and officers' wives
made many experiments with a view to adapting it for work over the
water. He tried different types of floats on the machine, and at last,
on the 18th of November 1911, he succeeded in getting off the water for
a very short flight. He was the first in England to achieve this feat,
and from that time forward the development of seaplanes progressed
rapidly. A full account of these experiments was sent by Captain Sueter
to Lord Rayleigh's Advisory Committee, and thereafter a valuable series
of researches was conducted at the National Physical Laboratory by Mr.
G. S. Baker and others. One result of these researches was the
development of a boat-shaped type of float, with flared bows, in
addition to the toboggan shape.
Experiment was active also at Eastchurch. During the summer of 1911 the
four naval officers whom Mr. Cockburn had taught to fly continued to
make practice flights on the two machines supplied by Mr. McClean. In
October Lieutenant Samson succeeded in persuading the Admiralty to buy
the two aeroplanes and to send to Eastchurch twelve naval ratings, as
the basis of a naval flying school. The experiments of this little band
of pioneers were all directed to adapting the aeroplane to naval work.
Lieutenant Longmore and Mr. Oswald Short designed and tested airbags, by
the aid of which a machine successfully alighted on the water.
Lieutenant Samson designed and got leave to build in Chatham Dockyard a
platform with a double trackway for starting aeroplanes from the decks
of ships. The idea at this time was that the machine should start from
the ship and by the aid of the airbags should alight on the water under
the lee of the ship, whence it could be lifted on board. The platform
was erected on board H.M.S. _Africa_, and Lieutenant Samson made a
successful flight from it in December 1911. Thereafter, with the help of
Mr. Horace Short, he worked out a design for a seaplane; the machine
was completed in March 1912 and its first flight was made at Portland.
On this seaplane Lieutenant Samson flew, first and last, for about a
hundred and fifty hours, without breaking a strut or a float, which is a
signal testimony to the merits of both the design and the construction.
The Royal Aircraft Factory, working for the Air Department of the
Admiralty, also produced a seaplane, which was successfully tested on
Fleet Pond. Meantime the first flying boat had been designed by Mr.
Sopwith, so that all the material requisite for naval aviation was
rapidly making its appearance. If the number of aviators was still very
small, that was due to lack of opportunity, not to lack of zeal among
naval officers. When the original four were taught to fly their names
were selected from a list of about two hundred, all of whom had
volunteered for the new service.
Scattered incidents and experiments, like those narrated above, are what
make up the history of the beginnings of the national air force. In such
a story no closely-knit dramatic sequence is possible. The history of
the growth of an oak tree from an acorn may perhaps be told in dramatic
form, but who can tell the history of the obscure workings of yeast, or
of the growth of a field of grass? The earliest aviators were
self-willed and diverse. As Captain Bertram Dickson remarked, when he
was questioned concerning their enrolment for the national service, 'One
man is a rich man; another man is an artist, or he is an actor; another
man is a mechanic. They are funny fellows. You will get a certain number
if you pay them well, because they are out for making money; you will
get others who will do it for sport, and others who will do it for the
advertisement.' The problem for the Government and for those who advised
the Government was how to make a united body out of these odds and
ends; how to reduce these talented, excitable, artistic, highly
individual elements to the discipline and purpose of a great service.
Two admirable instructors were at hand--the army and the navy. The thing
had to be done quickly, and most of those soldiers and sailors who
realized the importance of the problem were agreed in thinking that the
only right way was to get the army and the navy each of them to develop
its air service. Some others, looking at the thing in a broader light,
held that the air should have its own service. The laws and habits of
the land, they argued, are not the laws and habits of the sea; surely
the air differs from both of them as much as they differ from each
other. But this opinion could not be acted on at short notice. A great
service cannot be built up from the beginning in one year, or even in
the lifetime of one generation of men. Time is needed; and time was what
was lacking. The only resource for immediate purposes was to engage the
sympathies of the army and the navy, who are always willing to
co-operate, though never to coalesce, and let each of them build, up its
own air service after its own fashion. A certain formal unity, which
might by degrees become a real unity, could be given to the two air
services by the magic of a uniform and a name.
Meantime, what of the Air Battalion, which was formed in the spring of
1911, and continued in being until it was annulled and superseded by the
formation of the Royal Flying Corps in the spring of 1912? The Air
Battalion numbered among its officers men distinguished for their
achievement, but it was born out of due time. These years, 1911 and
1912, were years of divided counsels and uncertain policy. Rumours and
reports of the passenger-carrying flights of the Zeppelin, which by this
time had outlived its early misfortunes, and of the formidable
development of the French military aeroplane, distracted opinion and
paralysed effort. The old debate between heavier than air and lighter
than air was reopened. England could not hope to overtake Germany in the
construction of airships; could she hope to match France in the
production of aeroplanes? And if she could, was there not a chance,
after all, that the future, even for military purposes, lay with the
airship? The very composition of the Air Battalion reflected these
uncertainties. Its headquarters were at Farnborough; the flying camp for
aeroplanes was at Larkhill. Sir Alexander Bannerman, who was in command,
was a balloon expert, with a distinguished record in the South African
and Russo-Japanese wars. At a later date, in April 1912, he qualified as
an aviator on a Bristol biplane at Brooklands. His adjutant, Captain P.
W. L. Broke-Smith, had been an instructor at the balloon school, and was
a skilled military airship pilot. Of the officers attached, Captain J.
D. B. Fulton, of the Royal Field Artillery, and Captain C. J. Burke, of
the Royal Irish Regiment, have inscribed their names on the history of
aviation; Captain A. D. Carden, of the Royal Engineers, and Captain E.
M. Maitland, of the Essex Regiment, were apostles of the airship.
Captain Carden was an expert in meteorology, and Captain Maitland's name
will long be remembered in connexion with the first airship flight
across the Atlantic, achieved by the R 34, piloted by Major G. H. Scott,
in July 1919. The gradual rise in esteem of aviation is witnessed by the
fact that during the last days of the Air Battalion's short career not
only Sir Alexander Bannerman but also Captain Broke-Smith and Captain
Carden were engaged in qualifying for the aviation certificate of the
Royal Aero Club. There is, of course, no inconsistency in the union of
the two methods; the Air Battalion took all aeronautics for its
province; there need be no falling out between the aeroplane pilot and
the airship pilot so long as each recognizes and believes in the other.
What most delayed progress was that the higher authorities did not know
what to encourage. The most valuable work done for the national air
force in the winter of 1911-12 was done in committee at Whitehall, where
the whole matter was conscientiously investigated, and the scheme of the
Royal Flying Corps was prepared. Meantime the Air Battalion, in view of
its probable speedy extinction, received very little support. The number
of aeroplanes supplied to the flying camp at Larkhill was almost
ludicrously small, and a large proportion of the time spent in training
was devoted to theory and observation work.
The difficulties of the position appear in a memorandum sent by the
commandant on the 25th of August 1911 to the chief engineer at
Aldershot. This memorandum discusses the employment of the battalion
during the coming winter, and recommends that No. 2 Company (that is,
the aeroplane company) be recalled to Farnborough for a time, 'in order
that the men may live in barracks, do a little drill, and be generally
smartened up'. But as some new machines will need trying during the
winter, a detachment of the company, it is suggested, should be kept on
Salisbury Plain, and its members changed from time to time, so as to
prevent the discipline of the company from becoming too lax. Further it
is urged that extra leave for a period of two months should be granted
to officers, so that they may go abroad and see what is being done in
foreign countries. In discussing the question of special pay for
officers the commandant remarks that there is a tendency to devote
attention solely to aeroplanes. 'At present there are, I believe, forty
applicants for vacancies with the aeroplanes, and as far as I know none
for work with the dirigibles.' If the rates of pay were made less for
dirigibles than for aeroplanes, as is done in foreign countries, this
difficulty, he says, would be accentuated.
These misgivings were justified by the event. The recommendations of the
commandant were, in the main, carried out, but the conditions during the
winter made progress almost impossible. There were no proper living
quarters at Larkhill, so officers and men lived at Bulford--the officers
at the Royal Artillery Mess--and went to and from their work in horsed
transport wagons. As they used to go down to Bulford for dinner at
midday, the actual work done in the sheds was inconsiderable.
A further very real difficulty was inevitable, and might be compared to
the growing pains of any healthy organism. The air forces of Great
Britain took their origin, as has been explained, from the Royal
Engineers. For a very long time--something over a quarter of a
century--the Royal Engineers had the monopoly of the air. When science
quickened new growth, this new growth was still attached by habit and
tradition to the old body. In March 1912 eight out of fourteen officers
of the Air Battalion were members of the Royal Engineers. The remainder,
including some of the keenest students of aviation--Captain Fulton,
Captain Burke, Captain Maitland, Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett--were, in
a regimental sense, interlopers. Those who understand the strength and
virtue of regimental society and regimental tradition will easily
understand also how in a mixed body the old loyalty and the new pull
different ways and impede the smooth working of the machine.
All these difficulties deserve mention if only because they did in fact
make the work on Salisbury Plain poor and ineffective during the winter
of 1911-12. But they are not the whole of the story. 'The first thing
that strikes me', Keats once wrote to a friend, 'on hearing of trouble
having befallen another is this--"Well, it cannot be helped, he will
have the pleasure of trying the resources of his spirit."' That pleasure
was enjoyed by the little band of stalwarts who about the end of April
1911 went into camp at Larkhill as No. 2 Company, Air Battalion. If they
received scant encouragement, they got to work without waiting for more.
When Mr. Cockburn, after instructing the naval officers at Eastchurch,
returned to Larkhill to find his old machine, he found the company in
possession on the plain. Captain Fulton was in command. Most of the
officers had had some little experience of flying. 'Captain Fulton',
says Mr. Cockburn, 'had had some practice on my machine; Lieutenant
Conner had had some also, but not nearly so much. Captain Burke had
learnt in France, and was about on a par with Captain Fulton. These two
were certainly the best pilots at that time. Lieutenant
Barrington-Kennett had had a short course on a Bleriot some time before,
but had not flown for some months. Lieutenant Cammell was flying a
Bleriot of weird and wonderful type, his own property. These were the
originals, but Captain Loraine and Lieutenant Hynes joined soon
afterwards.' To these names should be added another--Lieutenant H. R. P.
Reynolds, of the Royal Engineers.
Having taught the navy to fly, Mr. Cockburn now lent his help to the
army. 'The machines', he says, 'with the exception of the Bleriot were
either Farmans or Bristol box-kites.... Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett
had no experience on these, and Lieutenant Reynolds had no experience on
anything. The experience of the remainder was not sufficient to admit of
their acting as Instructors, so Captain Fulton got permission for me to
carry on and take Barrington-Kennett and Reynolds in hand. This was an
easy business compared with Eastchurch--a three miles' straight with
good landing all the way made the first flights an easy matter. There
were no incidents, except in a joy-ride for Lieutenant Cammell when his
cap blew off and back into the propeller, causing a most tremendous
noise which scared us badly, me particularly, as I didn't know the
cause.... Progress was good; every one was very keen; and the Air
Battalion soon developed into quite respectable pilots without any
accidents.'
The company had a glorious and adventurous summer. It is strange to
compare their doings with the elaborate exercises which were being
practised at the same time by the French air corps at the Camp de
Chalons. On Salisbury Plain very little effort was made to co-operate
with other arms, except spasmodically. The pilots were new to their
work, and the triumph was to get into the air at all. The first united
effort of the battalion, says Mr. Cockburn, was to fly from Larkhill to
Farnborough. 'It was a most exciting event; they went off at intervals,
and every one of them got there. It was a very creditable performance
both for them and for their mechanics. It must be remembered that the
latter were all inexperienced, but what they lacked in experience they
made up for in zest, always ready to learn, and as keen as possible to
go up. One of them at this time was the eldest of the McCuddens, and
many of the others are now (1918) officers holding considerable
positions in the Royal Air Force. They were a fine lot of men, and
deserve their success as pioneers.'
The higher grade Aero Club certificate was obtainable by the successful
performance of a cross-country flight to a destination named a short
time before the start. Cross-country flights were much in fashion, so
that pilots were away from the battalion for about half their time. They
flew in mufti; Lieutenants Barrington-Kennett and Reynolds more than
once got into trouble for being away as much as a week at a time. These
absences were sometimes due to engine failure, sometimes (it was
believed) to the discovery of a well-provided country house and kind
hosts.
The army manoeuvres of August 1911, appointed to be held in
Cambridgeshire, were the event of the summer; and the Air Battalion was
detailed to take part in them. Owing to the shortage of water in that
droughty summer the event never came off, but the aeroplane company
started from Larkhill, and met with plenty of incident on the way. Air
Commodore Brooke-Popham, who was at that time attached to the company
from the Staff College, has very kindly set down his memories of the
flight. He started from Larkhill with Captain Burke on the old Farman,
with the object of making Oxford, but owing to a slight adverse wind and
the low speed of the machine, which made only thirty miles an hour in a
calm, they had to be content with Wantage, and got to Oxford the next
morning. Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, with a mechanic, made a forced
landing in the neighbourhood of Burford, but with the assistance of
Captain Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant Hynes, who went to his rescue in
the only motor vehicle possessed by the company, he got into the air
again, and also reached Oxford. Meantime Lieutenant Conner had had a
crash in a fog, without hurting himself, on high ground at West Ilsley,
south of Oxford. Maps, in those days, were mostly provided by the
officers themselves, and Lieutenant Conner had steered himself
successfully by the aid of a map torn out of a Bradshaw Railway Guide.
Eventually the mobilized military air force of the British Empire, that
is to say, Captains Burke, Brooke-Popham, and Massy, Lieutenants
Barrington-Kennett and Reynolds, arrived in Oxford, at the end of the
first stage. Here there were no tools available for repair, the few
belonging to the company having been dispatched, by orders given at
cross-purposes, straight to Cambridge. Nevertheless the little band of
enthusiasts bravely started on the last stage of their journey. Captains
Burke and Brooke-Popham had engine failure about ten miles out of
Oxford, and, landing in a ridge-and-furrow field, broke a tail skid.
Most of the day was consumed in getting this skid mended, patchwork
fashion, by a coachbuilder in Oxford, to procure whose aid Captain
Brooke-Popham returned to Oxford by earth. When the machine flew again
it was forced to land at once, this time with serious damage. The other
three officers had all been compelled by the bumpy weather to land not
many miles away. In the evening they started again. Captain Massy had
engine trouble fifty yards from the start, and completely wrecked his
machine without hurting himself at all. Lieutenant Reynolds, who was the
next to go, ran into a thunder-storm. His famous accident deserves to be
recorded in his own words:
'That evening, soon after seven o'clock, I started again, it was warm
and fine but rather suggestive of thunder; the air was perfectly still.
I scarcely had occasion to move the control lever at all until I got to
Bletchley, where it began to get rather bumpy; at first I thought
nothing of this, but suddenly it got much worse, and I came to the
conclusion it was time to descend. A big black thunder-cloud was coming
up on my right front; it did not look reassuring, and there was good
landing ground below. At this time I was flying about 1,700 feet
altitude by my aneroid, which had been set at Oxford in the morning. I
began a glide, but almost directly I had switched off the tail of the
machine was suddenly wrenched upwards as if it had been hit from below,
and I saw the elevator go down perpendicularly below me. I was not
strapped in, and I suppose I caught hold of the uprights at my side, for
the next thing I realized was that I was lying in a heap on what
ordinarily is the under surface of the top plane. The machine in fact
was upside-down. I stood up, held on, and waited. The machine just
floated about, gliding from side to side like a piece of paper falling.
Then it over-swung itself, so to speak, and went down more or less
vertically sideways until it righted itself momentarily the right way
up.
'Then it went down tail first, turned over upside-down again, and
restarted the old floating motion. We were still some way from the
ground, and took what seemed like a long time in reaching it. I looked
round somewhat hurriedly; the tail was still there, and I could see
nothing wrong. As we got close to the ground the machine was doing long
swings from side to side, and I made up my mind that the only thing to
do was to try and jump clear of the wreckage before the crash. In the
last swing we slid down, I think, about thirty feet, and hit the ground
pretty hard. Fortunately I hung on practically to the end, and,
according to those who were looking on, I did not jump till about ten
feet from the ground.'
Those who were looking on were two men, stark naked, who had been
bathing near by. About fifty or sixty people soon collected, and some
time passed before it occurred to any one to remark that these two men
had no clothes on.
The military air force of the Empire had now been reduced to two
serviceable aeroplanes which got to Cambridge, one piloted by Lieutenant
Barrington-Kennett, the other by Lieutenant Cammell, who had been
delayed at Larkhill for some days but had flown by way of London without
mishap. These officers were well received and entertained by the
resident members of the University.
Later in the autumn the Government bought some new machines for the
battalion. In one of these, a two-seater Nieuport monoplane, with a
fifty horse-power Gnome engine, Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett made a
record passenger-carrying flight. On the 14th of February 1912 he flew
249-1/2 miles in four hours thirty-two minutes. In a rapidly advancing
tide every wave makes a record, which is obliterated by the next wave.
But the use of the word 'record', so frequent in the annals of aviation,
does convey some sense of the exhilaration of the pioneers. Another of
the machines supplied by the Government was a Breguet biplane with a
sixty horse-power Renault engine. 'It was a most unwholesome beast,'
says Mr. Cockburn, 'with flexible wings, steel spars, and wheel
control.' It required enormous strength to steer it, and was
perseveringly and valorously flown by Lieutenant Hynes. There was also a
Deperdussin two-seater monoplane, which Captain Fulton flew; and the
earliest of the B.E. machines from the Aircraft Factory, which fell to
the lot of Captain Burke. The battalion was much impressed by the number
of instruments fitted to their new machines. In the machines they were
accustomed to there was nothing but a revolution counter, and sometimes,
though not always, a compass. If the pilot's scientific ambitions went
beyond this simple outfit, he carried a watch on his wrist and an
aneroid slung round his neck. The risks that these early pilots
cheerfully faced at the call of duty were serious enough, and it is
surprising that their casualties were so few. The only fatal accident in
the Air Battalion was the death of Lieutenant R. A. Cammell, R.E., who
was killed while flying a Valkyrie monoplane at Hendon on the 17th of
September 1911. The machine was not familiar to him, and it is believed
that he forgot to work the forward elevator; at the height of about
ninety feet the monoplane tilted to one side, and fell with a crash.
Lieutenant Cammell was one of the pioneers of British military aviation.
So early as June 1910 he had been sent to France to take over a Bleriot
machine. He attended the Rheims meeting of that year and sent home some
valuable reports. He was a daring and skilful aviator, and had
qualified also as an airship pilot.
The story of Great Britain's apprenticeship in the air has now been
brought down to the point at which the Royal Flying Corps, famous on
every battle front of the world war, makes its first appearance. So far
it has been a story of small things, of interrupted experiments and
tentative advances; of the caution of the Government, and the boldness
of the private adventurer. There is nothing new in the story; the air
was attacked and mastered in the English fashion. When we are confronted
with great issues, it is our habit, or so we are fond of saying, to
'muddle through'. Foreign nations, and especially enemy nations, do not
so describe our activities. But we are great self-critics, and not free
from that kind of inverted self-esteem which makes a man speak of his
own achievements with deceitful and extravagant modesty. The business of
history is to tell the truth; the truth is that we muddle through with
amazing success. This success we affect to regard as an undeserved
reward bestowed by Providence on improvidence. But is the law of cause
and effect really made void on our behalf? The people of the island, it
is true, are slow to make up their minds; their respect for experience
and their care for justice make them distrust quick action if it is not
instinctive action. They are unimaginative in this sense, that they are
not very readily excited by the theatrical exhortations which are
addressed to them from day to day. In a much deeper sense they are
imaginative; they have a sure instinct for the realities of life. When
they are presented with a doubtful novelty, they prefer to wait; and
they can afford to wait, for they know that their young will be eager to
show the way, and, in the meantime, they are not afraid.