adjutant of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps he made a vow
that the corps should combine the smartness of the Guards with the
efficiency of the Sappers. In spite of difficulties and disasters, the
corps went far, in the first two years of its existence, towards
attaining that ideal. In the summer of 1912 the Central Flying School at
Upavon got to work, and thenceforward supplied a steady stream of
trained reinforcements for the corps. There was inevitable delay at
first; but as soon as some of the new wooden buildings were nearing
completion they were taken over, and on the 19th of June the school was
opened. The plan was that there should be three courses every year, each
of them lasting three months and passing on its graduates for further
training either with the military squadrons or at the naval school. The
first course began on the 17th of August 1912, and was not completed
until the end of December, but the subsequent courses were punctually
completed in the time prescribed. The delay in the first course was due
chiefly to a shortage of machines. The use of monoplanes was forbidden,
and the nineteen pupils who presented themselves in August had to be
instructed on the only four available biplanes, which were soon damaged
by the maiden efforts of the learners. For a short time the pupils were
sent on leave, and the school was closed; then new machines and new
recruits began to arrive, and the work of education went forward.
Besides the main business of flying, the pupils were instructed and
examined in map-reading and signalling, the management of the
internal-combustion engine, and the theoretical aspects of the art of
reconnaissance. Of a total of thirty-four pupils who were examined at
the end of the course, only two failed to pass. During the next year and
a half, up to the very eve of the war, the work of the school went on
steadily, with improving material and increasing efficiency. There were
three fatal accidents: on the 3rd of October 1913 Major G. C. Merrick
was killed on a Short biplane; on the 10th of March 1914 Captain C. P.
Downer, on a B.E. biplane; and on the 19th of March 1914 Lieutenant H.
F. Treeby, on a Maurice Farman biplane. On an average about thirty
officers passed out from the school, into one branch or another of the
service, at the end of each course. Most of these were army officers,
but there was also a fair number of naval officers, marine officers, and
naval volunteer and civilian reservists. The school was run on army
lines, so that a good deal of adjustment and tact were called for in
dealing with the navy pupils, who were accustomed to a more generous
scale of allowances and a different system of discipline. But the
resolve to make a success of the new air force prevailed over lesser
difficulties, and harmony was maintained.
The steady flow of recruits from Upavon soon enabled the Military Wing
of the Royal Flying Corps to form new squadrons. These squadrons all
started in the same fashion; they hived off, so to say, from the earlier
squadrons. As early as September 1912, a part of Major Burke's squadron,
stationed at Farnborough, was detached, and became the basis of No. 4
Squadron, commanded by Major G. H. Raleigh, of the Essex Regiment, who
had joined the Air Battalion just before the birth of the Royal Flying
Corps. In August 1913 a single flight of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron
became the basis of No. 5 Squadron, under Major J. F. A. Higgins. In
January 1914 No. 6 Squadron, under Captain J. H. W. Becke, of the Notts.
and Derby Regiment, and in May 1914 No. 7 Squadron, which was commanded
later by Major J. M. Salmond, began to be formed at Farnborough.
The history of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps before the
war may be best illustrated by a more detailed account of the doings of
the two earliest squadrons, commanded by Major Brooke-Popham and Major
Burke. These showed the way to the others. There was no generally
recognized orthodox method of training flying men for the purposes of
war. Most of the work of the early squadrons was, in the strictest sense
of the word, experimental. There was at first a vague idea, expressed in
the Army Estimates of 1912, that the Royal Aircraft Factory was
responsible for experiments, and that the squadrons had only to apply
methods and use machinery already tested and approved by others. But it
was soon found that the problems of the air could not be effectively
anticipated in the laboratory. They were many of them soldiers'
problems. The man who is to meet the enemy in the air, and to be shot
at, has a quick imagination in dealing with such matters as the
protective colouring of aircraft, their defences against enemy bullets,
or the designing of them so as to give a good field of fire to any
weapon that they carry; and he takes a lively personal interest in such
questions as stability, speed, rate of climbing, and ease in handling.
The ultimate appeal on the various devices, for the use by aircraft of
musketry, gunnery, photography, wireless telegraphy, bomb-dropping, and
signalling, must in the long run be made to the pilot. If he is
prejudiced, and sometimes prefers a known evil to an unknown good, his
hourly experiences and dangers are a wonderful solvent of that
prejudice. It is not in the laboratory that the Derby is won, or the
manoeuvres and tactics of the air worked out.
Major Brooke-Popham's squadron on Salisbury Plain was the first to get
to work. In its origin, as has been told, it was the old aeroplane
company of the Air Battalion, so that it was free from some of the
difficulties which attend the creation of a new unit. It had at its
disposal about ten machines of various types, and, for transport, one
Mercedes car belonging to Captain Eustace Loraine and another belonging
to the Government. Besides instructional flights and practice in
reconnaissance, which were of course a regular part of the business of
the squadron, it devoted its attention at once to co-operation with
other arms, and especially to the observation of artillery fire. It was
fortunate in getting the whole-hearted support of Colonel the Hon. F.
Bingham, who was at that time commandant of the school at Shoeburyness,
and chief instructor of the artillery practice camp at Larkhill. The
great difficulty was to devise a sufficient method of signalling to the
guns. Wireless telegraphy, which was destined to provide the solution of
this problem, was then at an early stage of its development, and the
apparatus was too cumbrous and heavy to be carried on the machines.
Experiments were made with flags, with written messages carried back and
dropped to the gunners, and finally with coloured Very lights. Progress
was slow. Only a small amount of ammunition was allowed to the gunners.
On windy days flying was far from safe; on calm days there was sometimes
fog, or, if the weather was hot, the air became dangerously bumpy.
Nevertheless the squadron flew in strong winds, and took every
opportunity of demonstrating to the troops on the plain that it was
worth their while to cultivate relations with the new arm. Towards the
end of May there was a big field day, and though the wind was almost a
gale, four machines went up, flown by Major Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox,
Captain Hamilton, and by Major Burke, who had come over from Farnborough
on purpose. The important thing at this time, and for long after, was to
show the infantry what aeroplanes could do for them. At a later time,
during the war, it became necessary to teach the infantry what
aeroplanes could not do for them--that they could not, for instance,
supply them with a complete defence against enemy aircraft.
At the beginning of August 1912 Military Aeroplane Trials took place on
Salisbury Plain. These trials were competitions, arranged by the War
Office, to determine the type of aeroplane best suited to the
requirements of the army. One competition, with a first prize of L4,000,
was open to the world; the other, with a first prize of L1,000, was
limited to aeroplanes manufactured wholly, except for the engines, in
the United Kingdom. The judges were Brigadier-General Henderson, Captain
Godfrey Paine, Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, and Major Sykes. The tests imposed
and the award of the prizes showed clearly enough that what the military
authorities were seeking was a strong, fairly fast machine, a good
climber, able to take off and alight on uneven ground and to pull up
within a short distance after alighting. Further, a high value was
attached to range of speed, that is, to the power of flying both fast
and slow, and to a free and open view from the seat of the observer.
Both the first prizes were won by Mr. Cody on his own biplane, which was
of the 'canard', or tail-first type, and was fitted with an
Austro-Daimler engine of a hundred and twenty horse-power. The winning
machine did not in the end prove to be suitable for army purposes, and
only a few were ordered, but the trials gave timely and needed
encouragement to the aeroplane industry. The army machines and the army
pilots were, of course, not eligible for these competitions, but the
factory machine B.E. 2 made a great impression on those who saw it fly.
It was in this machine that Mr. G. de Havilland, with Major Sykes as
passenger, created a British record by rising to a height of 9,500 feet
in one hour and twenty minutes. A few years later, when the war had
quickened invention, a good two-seater machine could rise to that height
in less than ten minutes. The only engine of British manufacture which
completed all the trials was a sixty horse-power Green engine, fitted in
an Avro machine.
Certainly the British public did not know what was being done for them,
against the real day of trial, by the handful of officers who foresaw
that that day would soon come, and who strove unceasingly to be prepared
for it. About two hundred members of Parliament came down to Salisbury
Plain on the 8th of August to witness the competition of the aeroplanes
in the Military Trials. The wind was judged to be too tempestuous for
flying, and the flights were limited to a few short circuits round the
aerodrome in the afternoon. On the morning of that same day a brigade of
territorials, training at Wareham, asked for a couple of military
machines to co-operate with them. Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant G.
T. Porter started off in an Avro, and, a little later, Captain Hamilton
followed in his Deperdussin. The wind was so strong that Captain
Hamilton could make no headway, and was obliged to turn back. Major
Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant Porter battled their way to Wareham, but
could not get farther to co-operate with the troops, and flew back to
the plain in the afternoon. On their arrival there they found that the
wind had abated a little, and that flying had just begun in the trials.
The next day the newspapers published long accounts of the exhibition
flying over the aerodrome, with a single line at the end recording that
'military airmen also flew'.
In the early days of September No. 3 Squadron co-operated in the cavalry
divisional training, but without much success. The weather was bad, and
the cavalry, being preoccupied with their own work, had not much
attention to spare for the aeroplanes. In France, a year earlier,
aeroplanes had been systematically practised with cavalry, sometimes to
direct a forced march, sometimes to detect dummy field works, prepared
to deceive the cavalry and to lead them into a trap.
But if their co-operation with the cavalry was imperfect and
disappointing, the work done by aeroplanes a few days later, during the
army manoeuvres, was a complete vindication of the Flying Corps. There
were two divisions on each side; the attacking force, under Sir Douglas
Haig, advanced from the east; the defending force was commanded by
General Grierson. The services rendered to the defence by the airship
_Gamma_ have already been described. The fatal accidents of the summer
and the consequent prohibition of monoplanes diminished the available
force of aeroplanes, but a squadron of seven was allotted to each side.
Major Burke's squadron, with its headquarters at Thetford, operated with
the attacking force; Major Brooke-Popham was with the defence at
Cambridge. Operations started at six o'clock on the morning of Monday,
the 16th of September. At a conference on Sunday afternoon, General
Briggs, who commanded the cavalry on the side of the defence, told
General Grierson that the forces were far apart, and he could not hope
to bring in any definite information till Tuesday. General Grierson was
then reminded by his chief staff officer that he had some aeroplanes.
'Do you think the aeroplanes could do anything?' he asked of Major
Brooke-Popham, and on hearing that they could, ordered them to get out,
'and if you see anything, let us know.' Monday morning was fine and
clear; the aeroplanes started at six o'clock; soon after nine o'clock
they supplied General Grierson with complete, accurate, and detailed
information concerning the disposition of all the enemy troops. During
the rest of the manoeuvres he based his plans on information from the
air. On his left flank there were only two roads by which the enemy
could advance; he left this flank entirely unguarded, keeping one
aeroplane in continual observation above the two roads, and so was able
to concentrate the whole of his forces at the decisive point. In the
course of a few days the aeroplanes rose into such esteem that they were
asked to verify information which had been brought in by the cavalry.
Air Commodore C. A. H. Longcroft, who flew in Major Burke's squadron on
the attacking side, has kindly set down some of his memories of this
time. The work of the Flying Corps, he says, was impeded by the enormous
crowds which used to collect round the hangars. But the weather was
good, and it was soon found that no considerable body of troops could
move without being seen from the air. To avoid observation the troops
moved on either side of the road, under the hedges. They even practised
a primitive sort of camouflage, covering wagons and guns with branches
of trees, which, while they were on the road, made them more conspicuous
than ever. This first experience of moving warfare taught many lessons.
The difficulty of communication between pilot and observer when the
voice is drowned in the noise of the engine was met by devising a code
of signals, and many of these signals continued in use throughout the
war, after speaking-tubes had been fitted to machines. The selection of
landing grounds when moving camp, the methods of parking aeroplanes in
the open, and the means of providing a regular supply of fuel, were all
studied and improved.
In another way these manoeuvres, which were witnessed by General Foch,
were a date in the progress of army aviation. No weapon, however good,
can be of much use in the hands of those who have not learned to trust
it. The progress of the aeroplane was so rapid that the education of
commanding officers in its use became a thing of the first importance.
Some of them, even when war broke out, had had but few opportunities of
testing the powers of aeroplanes.
After the manoeuvres No. 3 Squadron returned to Larkhill, to do battle
all the winter with the old difficulties. The officers were accommodated
at an inn called the 'Bustard', about two and a half miles to the west
of the Larkhill sheds; the men were at Bulford camp, three miles to the
east of the sheds. After a time the men were shifted to the cavalry
school at Netheravon, which, though it was a little farther off, gave
better quarters. Meantime a new aerodrome was being made, with sheds
complete, at Netheravon, for the use of the squadron. The winter was
passed in the old exercise of co-operation with the artillery and in new
experiments. At Easter a 'fly past' of aeroplanes took place at a review
of a territorial brigade on Perham Down. General Smith-Dorrien, who
reviewed the troops, took the salute from the aeroplanes. There was a
cross-wind, so that the symmetry of the spectacle was a little marred by
the crab-like motion of the aeroplanes, which had to keep their noses
some points into the wind to allow for drift.
Several officers joined during the winter, and the squadron began to be
better supplied with machines. For the manoeuvres of 1913 it was made up
to war strength both in aeroplanes and transport. These manoeuvres,
however, did not give much opportunity to aeroplanes; the idea was that
four divisions, and with them No. 3 Squadron, should operate against a
skeleton army. The squadron had next to nothing to observe; the other
side had plenty to observe, but could not get full value out of their
skeleton force. The tactics of the air had hardly reached the point at
which a theoretic trial of this kind might have been of value. Yet a
good deal was learnt by the Flying Corps from these manoeuvres. Major
Brooke-Popham drew up a very full report on them, and in the following
winter Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, under the title 'What I learnt on
Manoeuvres, 1913', brought together the information he had obtained as
adjutant from the talk and written statements of those who took part in
them. Both reports show a relentless attention to detail, and an
unfailing imagination for the realities of war. The squadron had twelve
machines at work during the manoeuvres. Of these one was wrecked. Two
had to be brought home by road, one for lack of spare parts, the other
because it had been taken over with a damaged engine--both avoidable
accidents. The one wrecked machine, Major Brooke-Popham remarks, does
not represent the loss that would have occurred on a campaign. Four
machines had to land, and would have been captured in war. That is to
say, the loss amounted, to five machines in four days, or one-tenth of
the force every day.
One of the lessons learnt at the manoeuvres was that accurate
observations could be made from a height of at least six thousand feet.
This was one of those many things which, having been habitually
ridiculed by theorists, are at once established by those who make the
experiment. So high flying came into fashion, and brought with it a new
set of problems concerning the effect of atmospheric height on the human
body and on the aeroplane engine.
The total mileage covered by the machines on divisional and army
manoeuvres was 4,545 miles on reconnaissance and 3,310 miles on other
flights. Among the many suggestions made by Major Brooke-Popham for
improving the efficiency of the corps, some of the most important have
been vindicated by the subsequent experience of the war. It is
necessary, he says, that the Flying Corps should be taken seriously by
commanders and their staffs. The work of the flying officers involves
strain and danger; it is not enough that they should be praised for
skill and daring; they must feel that their information is wanted, that
an accurate report will be used, and that failure to obtain information
from the air will be treated as worthy of censure. If a squadron
commander finds that no one cares for the information he brings, he will
keep his machines on the ground in rough weather. On divisional
manoeuvres the Flying Corps were not always made to feel that they were
wanted.
No great stress, perhaps, should be laid on this complaint; it belongs
to the early days of military flying, and its date is past. A new
invention is often slow in gaining recognition. When its utility is as
great as the utility of flying a little experience soon converts
objectors. What was important was that the experience should be gained
before the war. Observers in the early months of the war sometimes found
it difficult to convince the military command that their reports were
true.
The value of information, says Major Brooke-Popham, depends also upon
the rapidity with which it is handed in to the proper quarters. 'More
than once movements of a hostile cavalry brigade were seen within a few
miles of our own troops. The information was not of great value to the
Commander-in-Chief, but was of great importance to the advanced guard or
cavalry commander, yet by the time it had got out to him from
headquarters probably two hours or more had elapsed.' This delay was
sometimes avoided on manoeuvres by dropping messages from the air, but
the whole large question of the relations of the Flying Corps to the
various army commands and the organization of the machinery of report
was left until the pressure of war compelled an answer. Then, during the
first winter of the war, when the growth of the Flying Corps allowed of
more complex arrangements, the machinery was decentralized, and
subordinate commanders were furnished directly with the information most
needed by them.
Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett's essay well illustrates his keenness and
foresight in preparing the corps for their ordeal of 1914. He was a
great disciplinarian, he knew every officer and man individually, he was
universally liked, and he did more perhaps than any one else to hold the
corps together and to train it in an efficient routine. He knew--no one
better--that the corps, though it did its work in the air, had to live
on the ground, and that its efficiency depended on a hundred important
details. Here are some of his suggestions:
Landing-grounds should be chosen, if possible, from the air, to avoid
the employment of numerous parties of officers touring the country in
cars. The drivers of lorries and cars should be trained in map-reading.
Semaphore signalling should be taught to all ranks, to save the
employment of messengers. There should be oil lorries for the
distribution of petrol, and leather tool-bags to be carried on
motor-bicycles to the scene of an engine break-down. Acetylene and
petrol are better illuminants than paraffin for working on machines by
night. Experiments should be made in towing aeroplanes, swinging freely
on their own wheels, behind a motor-lorry; they are often damaged when
they are carried on lorries. Recruits for the motor transport should be
taught system in packing and unloading, and should be trained in march
discipline. All recruits should be drilled in the routine of pitching
and striking camp. All ranks should know something of field cookery. The
main lessons of the manoeuvres, the writer says, are first, that
subsidiary training in the business of soldiering is of enormous
importance; and, second, that responsibility must be regularly
distributed, and duties allotted, so that when the strain of war comes,
the whole burden shall not crush the few devoted officers who have been
eager to shoulder it in time of peace. The work of the pilots and
mechanics of the British air service, he remarks in conclusion, is
second to none; if only this work can be fitted into a solid framework
of systematic administration and sound military discipline, the British
Flying Corps will lead the world.
These are not the matters that a lover of romance looks for in a history
of the war in the air. But they are the essentials of success; without
them the brilliancy of individual courage is of no avail. War is a
tedious kind of scholarship. When Sir Henry Savile was Provost of Eton
in the reign of Elizabeth, and a young scholar was recommended to him
for a good wit, 'Out upon him,' he would say, 'I'll have nothing to do
with him; give me the plodding student. If I would look for wits, I
would go to Newgate; there be the wits.' It was by the energy and
forethought of the plodding student that the Flying Corps, when it took
the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to
bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of
free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide.
The work of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron, during these years of
preparation, included a great diversity of experiment. With the progress
of flight it began to be realized that fighting in the air was, sooner
or later, inevitable, and in the winter of 1913 a series of experiments
was carried out at Hythe, by a single flight of No. 3 Squadron, under
Captain P. L. W. Herbert, to determine the most suitable kind of
machine-gun for use in aeroplanes. A large number of types were tested,
and the Lewis gun was at last chosen, with the proviso that it should go
through a series of tests on the ground. These took a long time, and it
was not till September 1914 that the first machines fitted with Lewis
guns reached the Flying Corps in France.
From the beginning of 1914 onwards, No. 3 Squadron also began a whole
series of experiments in photography; Government funds were scanty, and
the officers bought their own cameras. There was no skilled photographer
among them, but they set themselves to learn. They devised the type of
camera which was used in the air service until 1915, when Messrs. J. T.
C. Moore-Brabazon and C. D. M. Campbell brought out their first camera.
They would develop negatives in the air, and, after a reconnaissance
would land with the negatives ready to print. In one day, at a height of
five thousand feet and over, they took a complete series of photographs
of the defences of the Isle of Wight and the Solent.
From time to time there were a good many adventures by members of the
squadron outside the daily routine. The first night flight made by any
officer of the Military Wing was made on the 16th of April, 1913, by
Lieutenant Cholmondeley, who flew a Maurice Farman machine by moonlight
from the camp at Larkhill to the Central Flying School at Upavon, and
back again. Later in the year Commander Samson, of the Naval Wing,
successfully practised night flying, without any lights on the machine
or the aerodrome; but as a regular business night flying was not taken
in hand by the squadrons until well on in the war. During the month of
July 1913 Lieutenants R. Cholmondeley and G. I. Carmichael became
evangelists for the Flying Corps; they went on a recruiting tour to
Colchester, and gave free passenger trips to all likely converts among
the officers of the garrison there. Long before this, in 1912, the
squadron had begun to train non-commissioned officers to fly. The first
of these to get his certificate was Sergeant F. Ridd. He had originally
been a bricklayer, but after joining the Air Battalion had developed an
extraordinary talent for rigging, and became an all-round accomplished
airman. Others who were taught to fly soon after were W. T. J. McCudden,
the eldest of the four brothers of that name, and W. V. Strugnell, who,
later on, became a flight commander in France. The most famous of the
McCuddens, James Byford McCudden, V.C., who brought down over fifty
enemy aeroplanes, joined the squadron as a mechanic in 1913, and became
a pilot in the second year of the war. In his book, _Five Years with the
Royal Flying Corps_ (1918), he says, 'I often look back and think what a
splendid Squadron No. 3 was. We had a magnificent set of officers, and
the N.C.O.'s and men were as one family.'
The other of the two pioneer aeroplane squadrons was formed at
Farnborough in May 1912, and was put under the command of Major Charles
James Burke, of the Royal Irish Regiment. Major Burke rendered enormous
service to the cause of military flying. He took it up because he fully
realized the importance of the part it was destined to play in war. He
had served in the ranks in the South African War, and at the close of
the war was commissioned in the Royal Irish Regiment, becoming captain
in September 1909. In 1910 he learned in France to fly a Farman biplane,
and obtained the aviation certificate of the French Aero Club.
Thereafter he was employed at the balloon school, and in 1911 was
attached to the newly-formed Air Battalion. He was something of a
missionary, and in that same year contributed two papers to the Royal
United Service Institution, one on _Aeroplanes of To-day and their Use
in War_, the other on _The Airship as an aid to the solution of existing
strategical problems_. On the formation of the Royal Flying Corps he was
given command of No. 2 Squadron, which, after a time at Farnborough, was
stationed as a complete unit at Montrose on the east coast of Scotland.
He brought his squadron to a high state of efficiency, and on the
outbreak of war flew with it to France. There he did good service, till
he was invalided home in the summer of 1915 and became temporary
commandant of the Central Flying School. In 1916 he was again in France.
The war was taking a huge toll, and he rejoined his old regiment, which
was in straits for officers. In the previous year Major
Barrington-Kennett, under the same pressure, had returned to duty with
the Grenadier Guards, and had been killed in action near Festubert.
Colonel Burke rejoined the Royal Irish Regiment in the summer of 1916,
and was killed on the 9th of April 1917, on the first day of the Arras
offensive.
He impressed those who knew him by his character. He was not a good
pilot, and was almost famous for his crashes. He was not a popular
officer. He was not what would be called a clever man. But he was
single-minded, and utterly brave and determined, careless alike of
danger and of ridicule. There is often granted to singleness of purpose
a kind of second sight which is denied to mere intelligence. Major Burke
(to give him his earlier title) knew many things about military aviation
and the handling of a squadron which it was left for the war to prove,
and which, even with the experience of war to teach them, some
commanding officers were slow to learn. A paper of 'Maxims' which he
jotted down as early as 1912 contains many wise and practical remarks.
Some of them are of general application, as, for instance, these:
_When things are going well, the man in charge can give play to his
fears._
_Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems._
_If you know what you want, you can do your part, and get others to do
theirs. Most people don't know what they want._
But by far the greater number of them deal with aviation and its
problems. Here are some worthy of remembrance:
_Time in the air is needed to make a pilot._
_In training pilots, no machine should go out without knowing what it is
to do, do that and that alone, then land._
_No young pilot should be allowed out in 'bumps' until he has done
fifteen hours' piloting._
_An aeroplane will live in any wind and a lifeboat in any sea, but they
both want good and experienced men at the tiller._
_When on the ground every one overrates his capacity for air work._
_A squadron commander should want a good squadron, and not to be able to
break records._
_Waiting about on an aerodrome has spoilt more pilots than everything
else put together._
This last truth will come home to all pilots who have flown on the war
front. To have discovered it shows an instinct for command. Flying is a
nervous business; there is no wear and tear harder on a war pilot than
to be kept in attendance on an aerodrome, with the nerves at a high
degree of tension, and perhaps to be dismissed in the end. A skilful and
imaginative commander will use all possible devices to avoid or diminish
these periods of strain.
Any account of Major Burke would be incomplete if it contained no
mention of his famous machine, the first B.E. This machine was
familiarly known to the officers of the early Flying Corps, most of
whom--Sykes, Brancker, Brooke-Popham, Raleigh, Carden, Ashmore,
Longcroft, and many others--had occasionally flown it. It was an
experimental two-seater tractor biplane, designed as early as 1911 at
the factory. At that time no funds were available for constructing
aeroplanes of factory design. This difficulty was overcome by an
expedient well known to all students of law. There was no money for
construction, but there was money for repairs and overhaul. The first
B.E. was created by the drastic repair and reconstruction of another
machine. A Voisin pusher with a sixty horse-power Wolseley engine had
been presented to the army by the Duke of Westminster, and was sent to
the factory for repair. When it emerged, like the phoenix, from the
process of reconstruction, only the engine remained to testify to its
previous existence, and even that was replaced, a little later, by a
sixty horse-power Renault engine. It was now the B.E. tractor, and in
March 1912, some two months before the formation of the Royal Flying
Corps, it was handed over to the Air Battalion, and was assigned to
Captain Burke. It had a long and adventurous career, and was often flown
at Farnborough for the testing of experimental devices. When at last it
was wrecked, beyond hope of repair, in January 1915, it had seen almost
three years of service, and had perhaps known more crashes than any
aeroplane before or since. It was frequently returned to the factory for
the replacement of the undercarriage and for other repairs. The first
machine of its type, it outlived generations of its successors, and
before it yielded to fate had become the revered grandfather of the
whole brood of factory aeroplanes.
Many of the records of the early work of No. 2 Squadron, commanded by
Major Burke, are missing. This was the first squadron sent out from
Farnborough to occupy a new station, and to carry on its work as an
independent unit. It may safely be presumed that a great part of the
time spent at Farnborough was devoted to organization, and to
preparation for the new venture. The shortage of machines was the main
obstacle to early training. In May 1912 Captain G. H. Raleigh and
Lieutenants C. A. H. Longcroft and C. T. Carfrae were sent for a month
to Douai in France, to pick up what knowledge they could at the workshop
where Breguet machines were being constructed for the Flying Corps. They
then returned to Farnborough, where they began to practise cross-country
flying. Much initial training was necessary before the squadron could be
fitted for independence. In January 1913 it began to move north, by air
and road and rail; by the end of February it was installed in its new
quarters at Montrose. Five of the officers flew all the way: Captain J.
H. W. Becke and Lieutenant Longcroft on B.E. machines, Captains G. W. P.
Dawes and P. L. W. Herbert, Lieutenant F. F. Waldron on Maurice Farmans.
The first stage of the flight was to Towcester on the 17th of February.
One machine, piloted by Captain Becke, arrived at its destination that
night. The others were stranded by engine failure, loss of direction,
and the like. Lieutenant Longcroft had a forced landing at Littlemore,
near Oxford, and spent the night in the Littlemore lunatic asylum. By
the 20th all five machines had reached Towcester, and started on their
next stages--to Newark and York. At Knavesmire racecourse, near York,
part of a morning was spent in writing autographs for boys, some of
whom, perhaps, may have become pilots in the later years of the war. On
the 22nd the squadron moved off for Newcastle. It was a day of fog and
haze; only two of the pilots found the landing-ground at Gosforth Park
that night, and these two had to land many times to get their bearings.
The directions given them would have been helpful to foot-travellers;
but turnings in the road and well-known public-houses are not easy to
recognize from the air. On the 25th the squadron moved to Edinburgh, and
on the following morning to Montrose. At both places they were
tumultuously received and liberally entertained. The mechanics in charge
of the machines and transport did their business so well, often working
at night, in the rain, with no sort of shelter, that both the transport
lorries and the machines arrived at Montrose in perfect order.
At their new quarters training in flight and reconnaissance was
strenuously carried on, and the squadron flew on an average about a
thousand miles a week. Many non-commissioned officers and warrant
officers were instructed in aviation. Some thirty miles south of
Montrose, across the Firth of Tay, there is a three miles stretch of
level sand at St. Andrews, and this was used for instruction in
aviation--not without trouble and difficulty from the irresponsible and
wandering habits of spectators. The more skilled of the pilots gained
much experience in long-distance flying. All deliveries of new machines
were made by air. Inspecting officers and other visitors to the camp
were commonly met at Edinburgh in the morning, were then flown to
Montrose to spend the day, and back again to Edinburgh in time to catch
the night mail for the south.
In August 1913 Captain Longcroft, with Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes as
passenger, flew from Farnborough to Montrose in one day, landing only
once on the way, at Alnmouth. The machine was a B.E. fitted with a
special auxiliary tank under the passenger's seat, and the time in the
air for the whole journey was seven hours and forty minutes. In
September 1913 six machines of the squadron took part in the Irish
Command manoeuvres. The outward and homeward journeys by air, of about
four hundred miles each way in distance, including the crossing of the
Irish Sea, were the severest part of the test. The manoeuvre area was
bad for aviation owing to the scarcity of good landing-grounds and the
prevalence of mist and rain. Moreover, the opposing armies were
separated by too small a distance to give full scope to the aeroplanes.
The principal battle took place in a mountain defile. Each of the
machines flew on an average about two thousand miles, that is to say,
about a thousand miles in reconnaissance, and about a thousand in the
journey to and fro. There was no case of engine failure, and no one
landed in hostile territory. A statistical account of the work of the
squadron from May 1913 to June 1914 shows that, during that time, of
eighteen machines in constant use and subject to great exposure only
three were wrecked. This fact speaks volumes for the efficiency of the
squadron. They flew in all weathers, sometimes even when the wind was
faster than the machines. More than once 'tortoise races' on Maurice
Farmans were organized; the winner of these races was the machine that
was blown back fastest over a given course.
The longest flight of all was made by Captain Longcroft in November
1913. In the front seat of a B.E. machine First-Class Air Mechanic H. C.
S. Bullock fitted a petrol tank of his own design, estimated to give at
least eight hours' fuel for the seventy horse-power Renault engine. On
the 22nd of November Captain Longcroft started on this machine, and flew
from Montrose to Portsmouth and back again to Farnborough in seven hours
twenty minutes, without once landing.
Major Burke has left a diary for 1914; some of the entries in it go far
to explain the causes of the efficiency of the squadron. No detail was
too small for his attention; the discipline that he taught was the
discipline of war. 'In practice,' he says, 'a man cannot always be on
the job that will be given him on active service, but he should be
trained with that in view, and every other employment must be regarded
as temporary and a side issue. Further, though barracks must be kept
spotlessly clean, this work must be done by the minimum number of men,
in order to swell the numbers of those available for technical work and
instruction.'
The importance of the main issue was ever present to his mind. In
another entry he records how he reproved a young lieutenant, telling him
that 'he must take his work seriously and make himself older in
character'. Map-reading, signalling, propeller-swinging, car-starting,
military training, technical training, the safety of the public, the
prompt payment of small tradesmen ('which defeats accusation of Army
unbusinesslike methods'); these and a hundred other cares are the matter
of the diary. That they were all subordinate to the main issue appears
in the orders which he gave to some of the pilots of No. 6 Squadron, at
Dover, in the summer of 1914. Any pilot who met a Zeppelin, and failed
to bring it down by firing at it, would be expected, he said, to take
other measures, that is to say, to charge it. Not a few of the early war
pilots were prepared to carry out these instructions.
The work done by the other early squadrons was similar in kind. No. 4
Squadron was formed at Farnborough in the autumn of 1912 under Major G.
H. Raleigh, of the Essex Regiment, who had served with distinction in
the South African War. After completing its establishment it moved to
Netheravon, where it carried on practice in reconnaissance, co-operation
with artillery, cross-country flying, night flying, and all the business
of an active unit. The record of miles flown during 1913 by No. 4
Squadron hardly falls short of the record of the two senior squadrons;
all three flew more than fifty thousand miles. When No. 5 Squadron was
formed under Major Higgins a part of it was stationed for a time at
Dover, and the squadron moved to new quarters at Fort Grange, Gosport,
on the 6th of July, 1914, a month before the war. No. 6 Squadron was
nearly complete when the war came, but No. 7 Squadron was very much
under strength. Thus in August of that year four aeroplane squadrons
were ready for war, another was almost ready, and another was no more
than a nucleus. The rest of the magnificent array which served the
country on the battle fronts was yet to make.
The month of June in 1914 was given up to a Concentration Camp at
Netheravon. The idea of bringing the squadrons together in this camp
seems to have originated with Colonel Sykes, whose arrangements were
admirable in their detailed forethought and completeness. The mornings
were devoted to trials and experiments, the afternoons to lectures and
discussion on those innumerable problems which confront an air force.
Tactical exercises, the reconnaissance of stated areas in the search for
parties of men or lorries, photography, handling balloons, practice in
changing landing-grounds, and the like, were followed by discussions of
the day's work. Lieutenant D. S. Lewis and Lieutenant B. T. James took
every possible opportunity, during the discussions, to urge the
development of wireless telegraphy. In the speed and climbing tests the
greatest success was achieved by a B.E. machine fitted with a seventy
horse-power Renault engine. Much attention was paid to reconnaissance
and to co-operation with other arms. There was a natural rivalry among
the squadrons. Major Burke's squadron was reputed to have the best
pilots, while the Netheravon squadrons had had more training in
co-operation with other arms, and in the diverse uses of aeroplanes in
war. But the unknown dangers which all had to share were a strong bond,
and the spirit of comradeship prevailed. The officers and men of the
Royal Flying Corps were makers, not inheritors, of that tradition of
unity and gallantry which is the soul of a regiment, and which carries
it with unbroken spirit through the trials and losses of war.
The single use in war for which the machines of the Military Wing of the
Royal Flying Corps were designed and the men trained was (let it be
repeated) reconnaissance. There had been many experiments in other uses,
but though these had already reached the stage of practical application,
it was the stress of the war which first compelled their adoption on a
wide scale. The Military Wing was small--much smaller than the military
air forces of the French or the Germans--it was designed to operate with
an expeditionary force and to furnish that force with eyes. Its later
developments, which added the work of hands to the work of eyes, were
imposed on it by the necessities of war. Even artillery observation,
which is the work of eyes, was at first no regular part of its duty.
When the Germans were driven back from the Marne, and the long line of
the battle front was defined and fixed, the business of helping the
artillery became a matter of the first importance.
Many of the functions brilliantly performed during the course of the war
by aeroplanes had been claimed, during the early days of aviation, as
the proper province of the airship. A wireless installation for
receiving and sending messages was too heavy for an aeroplane; it must
be carried by an airship. No sufficient weight of bombs could be carried
by an aeroplane; the airship was the predestined bombing machine.
Machine-guns were difficult to work from an aeroplane; they were the
natural weapon of the airship. Photography was a hope worthy of
experiment, but even photography was thought to be best suited to the
airship, and internal accommodation for a camera was not asked for or
provided in an aeroplane. At the back of all this lay the strongest
argument of all: the value of reconnaissance to the army was so great,
and our military aeroplanes were so few, that it was impossible to spare
any of them for less essential work. As the Flying Corps grew in
numbers and skill it found breathing space to look around and to claim
the duties that had been judged to be outside its scope.
As a nation we distrust theory. We learn very quickly from experience,
and are almost obstinately unwilling to learn in any other way.
Experience is a costly school, but it teaches nothing false. A nation
which attends experience could never be hurried into disaster, as the
Germans were hurried by a debauch of political and military theory,
subtly appealing to the national vanity. To insure themselves against so
foolish a fate the British are willing to pay a heavy price. They have
an instinctive dislike, which often seems to be unreasonable in its
strength, for all that is novel and showy. They are ready enough to take
pleasure in a spectacle, but they are prejudiced against taking the
theatre as a guide for life. This is well seen in the disfavour with
which the practical military authorities regarded the more spectacular
developments of aviation, which yet, in the event, were found to have
practical uses. Looping the loop, and other kinds of what are now called
'aerobatics', were habitually disparaged as idle spectacles. Yet the
'Immelmann turn', so called, whereby a machine, after performing half a
loop, falls rapidly away on one wing, was a manoeuvre which, when first
used by the enemy, proved fatal to many of our pilots. The spin, at the
outbreak of the war, was regarded as a fault in an aeroplane, due
chiefly to bad construction; later on Dr. F. A. Lindemann, by his
researches and courageous experiments at the Royal Aircraft Factory,
proved that any aeroplane can spin, and that any pilot who understands
the spin can get out of it if there is height to spare. During the war
the spin was freely used by pilots to break off a fight, to simulate
defeat, or to descend in a vertical path. Similarly, little stress was
laid, at the beginning, on speed, for speed was not helpful to
reconnaissance, or on climb and height, for it was believed that at
three thousand feet from the ground a machine would be practically
immune from gunfire, and that reconnaissance, to be effective, must be
carried on below the level of the clouds. These misconceptions were soon
to be corrected by experience. Another, more costly in its consequences,
was that a machine-gun, when carried in an aeroplane, must have a large
arc, or cone, of fire, so that the gun might be fired in any direction,
up, down, or across. To secure this end guns had to be carried in the
front of a pusher machine, which is slower and more clumsy than a
tractor. But the difficulty of accurate firing from a flying platform at
an object moving with unknown speed on an undetermined course was found
to be very great. The problem was much simplified by the introduction of
devices for firing a fixed machine-gun through the tractor screw, so
that the pilot could aim his gun by aiming his aeroplane, or
gun-platform, which responds delicately and quickly to his control.
When the war began we were not inferior in aerodynamical knowledge to
the Germans or even to the French. Speaking at the Aeronautical Society
in February 1914, Brigadier-General Henderson said, 'If any one wants to
know which country has the fastest aeroplane in the world--it is Great
Britain'. This was the S.E. 4, a forerunner of the more famous S.E. 5.
If more powerful engines had been installed in the British machines of
1914, they would have given us a speed that the enemy could not touch.
But we were preoccupied with the needs of reconnaissance, and we cared
little about speed. In the early part of the war we hampered our
aeroplanes with fitments, cameras, and instruments, which were attached
as protuberances to the streamlined body of the aeroplane and made speed
impossible. In the Flying Corps itself an aeroplane thus fitted was
commonly called a Christmas tree. We thought too little of power in the
engine, a mistake not quickly remedied, seeing that the time which must
elapse between the ordering of an engine and its production in quantity
is, even under pressure, a period of about twelve months. The engines
available at the outbreak of the war for British military aircraft were
the seventy horse-power Renault and the eighty horse-power Gnome. In
Germany airship engines of two hundred horse-power and more, easily
modified for use in aeroplanes, were available in quantity some time
before the war. For military machines we were satisfied with smaller
engines, which worked well, and enabled our aeroplanes to accomplish all
that at that time seemed likely to be asked of them. If we were wrong we
were content to wait for experience to correct us.
The problems presented to the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps were
widely different from those which engrossed the attention of the
soldiers. The difference, to put it briefly, was the difference between
defence and attack. The British army does not fight at home, and this
privilege it enjoys by virtue of the constant vigilance of the British
navy. The ultimate business of the British navy, though it visits all
the seas of the world, is home defence. Yet that defence cannot be
effectively carried out at home, and when we are at war our frontiers
are the enemy coasts and our best defence is attack. This old
established doctrine of naval warfare is the orthodox doctrine also of
aerial warfare. A mobile force confined to one place by losing its
mobility loses most of its virtue. The fencer who does nothing but parry
can never win a bout, and in the end will fail to parry. The recognition
of this doctrine in relation to aerial warfare was gradual. When the
Royal Flying Corps was established and the question of the defence of
our coasts by aircraft first came under discussion, our available
airships, aeroplanes, and seaplanes, though their development had been
amazingly rapid, were weapons without much power of offence. The main
thing was to give them a chance of proving and increasing their utility.
In October 1912 the Admiralty decided to establish a chain of seaplane
and airship stations on the east coast of Great Britain. The earliest of
these stations, after Eastchurch, was the seaplane station of the Isle
of Grain, commissioned in December 1912, with Lieutenant J. W. Seddon as
officer in command. This was followed, in the first half of 1913, by the
establishment of similar stations at Calshot, Felixstowe, Yarmouth, and
Cromarty. H.M.S. _Hermes_, in succession to H.M.S. _Actaeon_, was
commissioned on the 7th of May 1913 as headquarters of the Naval Wing,
and her commanding officer, Captain G. W. Vivian, R.N., was given charge
of all coastal air stations. For airships a station at Hoo on the Medway
was established with two double sheds of the largest size; it was called
Kingsnorth, and was completed in April 1914, by which time all military
airships had been handed over to the Admiralty. All the seaplane
stations were in a sense offshoots of Eastchurch, which continued to be
the principal naval flying school. Except for some valuable experimental
work, not very much was done before the war at the seaplane coast
stations. The supply of machines was small, and when the bare needs of
Eastchurch and Grain had been met, not enough remained for the outfit of
the other stations. Nevertheless the zeal of the naval pilots,
encouraged and supported by the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston
Churchill) and by the Director of the Air Department (Captain Murray
Sueter), wrought good progress in a short time. The first successful
seaplane was produced at Eastchurch, as has been told, in March 1912.
Just before the war, the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps had in its
possession fifty-two seaplanes, of which twenty-six were in flying
condition, and further, had forty-six seaplanes on order. Those who know
how difficult it is to get new things done will easily recognize that
this measure of progress, though perhaps not very impressive
numerically, could never have been achieved save by indomitable
perseverance and effort. Sailors are accustomed to work hard and
cheerfully under adverse conditions.
In the naval manoeuvres of July 1913 the _Hermes_, carrying two
seaplanes, which were flown from its launching platform, operated with
the fleet. Four seaplanes and one aeroplane from Yarmouth, three
seaplanes from Leven, and three from Cromarty, also bore a part. The
weather was not good, and the manoeuvres proved that the smaller type of
seaplane was useless for work in the North Sea. Any attempt to get these
machines off the water in a North Sea 'lop' infallibly led to their
destruction. Further, it was found necessary for the safety of pilots
that every machine should be fitted with wireless telegraphy. A machine
fitted with folding wings was flown from the _Hermes_ by Commander
Samson, and was found to be the best and most manageable type.
In a minute dated the 26th of October 1913 the First Lord of the
Admiralty sketches a policy and a programme for the ensuing years.
Aeroplanes and seaplanes, he remarks, are needed by the navy for oversea
work and for home work. He recommends three new types of machine: first,
an oversea fighting seaplane, to operate from a ship as base; next, a
scouting seaplane, to work with the fleet at sea; and last, a
home-service fighting aeroplane, to repel enemy aircraft when they
attack the vulnerable points of our island, and to carry out patrol
duties along the coast. The events of the war have given historic
interest to all forecasts prepared before the war. Mr. Churchill's
minute is naturally much concerned with the Zeppelin, which should be
attacked, he says, by an aeroplane descending on it obliquely from
above, and discharging a series of small bombs or fireballs, at rapid
intervals, so that a string of them, more than a hundred yards in
length, would be drawn like a whiplash across the gas-bag. This is a
near anticipation of the method by which Flight Sub-Lieutenant R. A. J.
Warneford brought down a Zeppelin in flames between Ghent and Brussels
on the 7th of June 1915. The immense improvements in construction which
were wrought by the war may be measured by Mr. Churchill's
specifications for the rate of climb of the two-seater aeroplanes and
seaplanes--namely, three thousand feet in twenty minutes. When he
drafted his scheme that was a good rate of climb; before the war ended
there were machines on the flying fronts which could climb three
thousand feet in two minutes.
Under the direction of the Air Department much attention was paid by
pilots in the Naval Air Service to experimental work and the diverse
uses of aeroplanes. So early as January 1912 Lieutenant H. A.
Williamson, R.N., a submarine officer who had gained the Royal Aero Club
certificate, submitted to the Admiralty a paper which anticipated some
later successes. He advocated the use of aeroplanes operating from a
parent ship for the detection of submarines, and showed how bombs
exploding twenty feet below the surface might be used to destroy these
craft. The practical introduction of depth charges was delayed for years
by the difficulty of devising the delicate and accurate mechanism which
uses the pressure of the water to explode the bomb at a given depth. But
before the war ended the detection of submarines from the air and the
use by surface craft of depth charges for destroying them had been
brought to such a degree of efficiency that the submarine menace was
countered and held. The submarine learned to fear aircraft as the birds
of the thicket fear the hawk. It would be tedious to attempt to describe
the long series of experiments by which this result was at last
attained. The earliest attempts to detect submarines from the air were
made with seaplanes at Harwich in June 1912, and at Rosyth in September
of the same year. The shallow tidal waters were found to be very opaque,
but in clear weather a periscope could be seen from a considerable
distance, and in misty weather the seaplane, when it sighted a submarine
in diving trim on the surface, could swoop down and drop a bomb before
the submarine could dive.
Progress in bomb-dropping was not less. Nothing is easier than to drop a
detonating bomb, with good intentions, over the side of an aeroplane;
the difficulty of hitting the mark lay in determining the flight of the
bomb and in devising an efficient dropping gear. To drop a weight from a
rapidly moving aeroplane so that it shall hit a particular spot on the
surface of the earth is not an easy affair; the pace and direction of
the machine, its height from the ground, the shape and air resistance of
the bomb, must all be accurately known. They cannot be calculated in the
air; success in bomb-dropping depends on the designing of a gear for
dropping and sighting which shall perform these calculations
automatically. Very early in the history of aviation dummy bombs had
been dropped, for spectacular purposes, at targets marked on the ground.
The designing of an efficient dropping gear and the study of the flight
of bombs were taken up by the Air Department of the Admiralty from the
very first. Under their direction a very valuable series of experiments
was carried out at Eastchurch, at first by Commander Samson, and later
by Lieutenant R. H. Clark Hall, a naval gunnery lieutenant, who had
learnt to fly, and was appointed in March 1913 for armament duties with
the Royal Naval Air Service.
The whole subject was new. No one could tell exactly how the flight of
an aeroplane would be affected when the weight of the machine should be
suddenly lightened by the release of a large bomb; no one could be sure
that a powerful explosion on the surface of the sea would not affect the
machine flying at a moderate height above it. In 1912 a dummy
hundred-pound bomb was dropped from a Short pusher biplane flown by
Commander Samson, who was surprised and pleased to find that the effect
on the flight of the machine was hardly noticeable. In December 1913
experiments were carried out to determine the lowest height at which
bombs could be safely dropped from an aeroplane. No heavy bombs were
available, but floating charges of various weights, from 2-1/4 pounds to
40 pounds, were fired electrically from a destroyer, while Maurice
Farman seaplanes flew at various heights directly above the explosion.
Again the effect upon the machines was less than had been anticipated.
The general conclusion was that an aeroplane flying at a height of 350
feet or more could drop a hundred-pound bomb, containing forty pounds of
high explosive, without danger from the air disturbance caused by the
explosion.
A good war machine aims at combining the safety of the operator with a
high degree of danger to the victim. The second of these requirements
was the more difficult of fulfilment, and was the subject of many
experiments. Until the war took the measure of their powers, the German
Zeppelins preoccupied attention, and were regarded as the most important
targets for aerial attack. The towing of an explosive grapnel, which,
suspended from an aeroplane, should make contact with the side of an
airship, was the subject of experiments at Eastchurch. This idea,
though nothing occurred to prove it impracticable, was soon abandoned
in favour of simpler methods--the dropping, for instance, of a series of
light bombs with sensitive fuses, or the firing of Hales grenades from
an ordinary service rifle. To make these effective, it was essential
that they should detonate on contact with ordinary balloon fabric, and
preliminary experiments were carried out at the Cotton Powder Company's
works at Faversham in October 1913.
When two sheets of fabric, stitched on frames to represent the two skins
of a rigid airship, were hit by a grenade of the naval type with a
four-ounce charge, it was found that the front sheet was blown to shreds
and the rear sheet had a hole about half a foot in diameter blown in it.
Later experiments at Farnborough against balloons filled with hydrogen,
and made to resemble as nearly as possible a section of a rigid airship,
were completely successful. Firing at floating targets, and at small
target balloons released from the aeroplanes, was practised at
Eastchurch. It was found that, with no burst or splash to indicate where
the shot hit, this practice was unprofitable. The effective use of
small-bore fire-arms against aircraft was made possible by two
inventions, produced under the stress of the war itself, that is to say,
of the tracer bullet, which leaves behind it in the air a visible track
of its flight, and of the incendiary bullet, which sets fire to anything
inflammable that it hits.
At the outbreak of war the only effective weapon for attacking the
Zeppelin from the air was the Hales grenade. Of two hundred of these
which had been manufactured for the use of the Naval Wing many had been
used in experiment; the remainder were hastily distributed by Lieutenant
Clark Hall among the seaplane stations on the East Coast.
The Naval Air Service experimented also with the mounting of
machine-guns on aeroplanes. On this matter Lieutenant Clark Hall, early
in 1914, reported as follows:
'Machine-gun aeroplanes are (or will be) required to drive off enemy
machines approaching our ports with the intention of obtaining
information or attacking with bombs our magazines, oil tanks, or
dockyards.... I do not think the present state of foreign seaplanes for
attack or scouting over our home ports is such as to make the question
extremely urgent, but I would strongly advocate having by the end of
1914 at each of our home ports and important bases at least two
aeroplanes mounting machine-guns for the sole purpose of beating off or
destroying attacking or scouting enemy aeroplanes.'
From what has been said it is evident that the Naval Wing of the Royal
Flying Corps paid more attention than was paid by the Military Wing to
the use of the aeroplane as a fighting machine. This difference
naturally followed from the diverse tasks to be performed by the two
branches of the air service. The Military Wing, small as it was, knew
that it would be entrusted with the immense task of scouting for the
expeditionary force, and that its business would be rather to avoid than
to seek battle in the air. The Naval Wing, being entrusted first of all
with the defence of the coast, aimed at doing something more than
observing the movements of an attacking enemy. Thus in bomb-dropping and
in machine-gunnery the Naval Wing was more advanced than the Military
Wing. Both wings were active and alive with experiment, so that after a
while experimental work which had originally been assigned to the
factory and the Central Flying School was transferred to the Wing
Headquarters. During the year 1913 wireless experiments were
discontinued at the Central Flying School, and were concentrated at the
Military Wing. There was a valuable measure of co-operation between the
two wings. This co-operation was conspicuous, as has been seen, in
wireless telegraphy, which was first applied to aircraft at Farnborough.
The lighter-than-air craft, which belonged first to the army and then to
the navy, were a valuable link between the two wings. Each wing was
ready to learn from the other. In January 1914, by permission of the
Admiralty, officers of the Military Wing witnessed the experiments made
by the Naval Wing with bomb-dropping gear. If the Naval Wing in some
respects made more material progress, it should be remembered that they
received more material support. They were encouraged by the
indefatigable Director of the Air Department, and received from the
Admiralty larger grants of money than came to the Military Wing. No
doubt a certain spirit of rivalry made itself felt. Service loyalty is a
strong passion, and the main tendency, before the war, was for the two
branches of the air service to drift apart, and to attach themselves
closely, the one to the army, the other to the navy.
At the end of 1913 H.M.S. _Hermes_ was paid off, and the headquarters of
the Naval Wing was transferred to the Central Air Office, Sheerness. All
ranks and ratings hitherto borne on the books of the _Hermes_ were
transferred to the books of this newly created office, and Captain F. R.
Scarlett, R.N., late second in command of the _Hermes_, was placed in
charge, with the title of Inspecting Captain of Aircraft. He was
responsible to the Director of the Air Department, and, in regard to
aircraft carried on ships afloat, or operating with the fleet, was also
directly responsible to the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleets. In
some respects the progress made by the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying
Corps during 1913 had been continuous and satisfactory. Training had
been carried on regularly at the Central Flying School, at Eastchurch,
and, for airship work, at Farnborough. By the end of the year there
were about a hundred trained pilots. Stations for guarding the coast had
been established in five places other than Eastchurch, and arrangements
were in hand for doubling this number. The record of miles flown during
the year by naval aeroplanes and seaplanes was no less than 131,081
miles. Wireless telegraphy had made a great advance; transmitting sets
were in course of being fitted to all seaplanes, and the reception of
messages in aeroplanes had been experimentally obtained. Systematic
bomb-dropping had been practised with growing accuracy and success. A
system for transmitting meteorological charts from the Admiralty, so
that air stations and aircraft in the air should receive frequent
statements of the weather conditions, had been brought into working
order.
On the other hand, all these advances were experimental in character,
and no attempt had been made to equip the force completely for the needs
of war. In this matter there is perhaps something to be said on both
sides. Where munitions are improving every year, too soon is almost as
bad as too late. In fact, at the beginning of the war the Naval Air
Service had only two aeroplanes and one airship fitted with
machine-guns. Of the aeroplanes, one carried a Maxim gun, another a
Lewis gun, loaned to the Admiralty by Colonel Lucas, C.B., of Hobland
Hall, Yarmouth. No. 3 Airship (the _Astra-Torres_) was fitted with a
Hotchkiss gun. The offensive weapon carried by other machines was a
rifle. The various air stations were not liberally supplied with
munitions of war. The Isle of Grain had four Hales hand-grenades. Hendon
(the station for the defence of London) and Felixstowe had twelve each.
The other stations were supplied in a like proportion, except
Eastchurch, which had a hundred and fifty hand-grenades, forty-two rifle
grenades, twenty-six twenty-pound bombs, and a Maxim gun. When the war
broke out, a number of six-inch shells were fitted with tail vanes and
converted into bombs.
On the 1st of July 1914 the separate existence of the naval air force
was officially recognized. The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps
became the Royal Naval Air Service, with a constitution of its own. The
naval flying school at Eastchurch and the naval air stations on the
coast, together with all aircraft employed for naval purposes, were
grouped under the administration of the Air Department of the Admiralty
and the Central Air Office. So, for a time, the national air force was
broken in two. The army and the navy had been willing enough to
co-operate, but the habits of life and thought of a soldier and a sailor
are incurably different. Moreover, the tasks of the two wings, as has
been said, were distinct, and neither wing was very well able to
appreciate the business of the other. The Naval Wing had not the
transport or equipment to operate at a distance from the sea, and, on
the other hand, was inclined to insist that all military aeroplanes,
when used for coast defence, should be placed under naval command. The
Military Wing was preoccupied with continental geography and with
strategical problems. The two attitudes and two methods lent a certain
richness and diversity to our air operations in the war. When Commander
Samson established himself at Dunkirk during the first year of the war,
his variegated activities bore very little resemblance to the operations
of the military squadrons on the battle-front.
The review of the fleet by the King, at Spithead, from the 18th to the
22nd of July 1914, gave to the Royal Naval Air Service an opportunity to
demonstrate its use in connexion with naval operations. Most of the
available naval aircraft were concentrated at Portsmouth, Weymouth, and
Calshot to take part in the review. On the 20th of July an organized
flight of seventeen seaplanes, and two flights of aeroplanes in
formation headed by Commander Samson, manoeuvred over the fleet. This
formation flying had been practised at Eastchurch before the review.
Three airships from Farnborough and one from Kingsnorth also took part
in the demonstration. Within a few weeks all were to take part in the
operations of war. The aeroplanes and seaplanes flew low over the fleet.
Some naval officers, who had previously seen little of aircraft,
expressed the opinion that the planes flew low because they could not
fly high, and that their performance was an acrobatic exhibition,
useless for the purposes of war. These and other doubters were soon
converted by the war.
When the review was over, the seaplanes and airships returned to their
several bases. The flights of aeroplanes, under Commander Samson, went
on tour, first to Dorchester, where they stayed four or five days, and
thence to the Central Flying School. They had been there only a few
hours when they received urgent orders to return to Eastchurch, where
they arrived on the 27th of July. On the same day seaplanes from other
stations were assembled at Grain Island, Felixstowe, and Yarmouth, to be
ready to patrol the coast in the event of war. These precautionary
orders, and the orders given by the Admiralty on the previous day,
arresting the dispersal of the British fleet, were among the first
orders of the war. On the 29th of July instructions were issued to the
Naval Air Service that the duties of scouting and patrol were to be
secondary to the protection of the country against hostile aircraft. All
machines were to be kept tuned up and ready for action. On the 30th of
July the Army Council agreed to send No. 4 Squadron of aeroplanes to
reinforce the naval machines at Eastchurch. Eastchurch, during the
months before the war, had been active in rehearsal; fighting in the
air had been practised, and trial raids, over Chatham and the
neighbouring magazines, had been carried out, two aeroplanes attacking
and six or eight forming a defensive screen. Work of this kind had knit
together the Eastchurch unit and had fitted it for active service
abroad. In the meantime, at the outbreak of the war, attacks by German
aircraft were expected on points of military and naval importance.
Germany was known to possess eleven rigid airships, and was believed to
have others under construction. Our most authoritative knowledge of the
state of German aviation was derived from a series of competitions held
in Germany from the 17th to the 25th of May 1914, and called 'The Prince
Henry Circuit'. These were witnessed by Captain W. Henderson, R.N., as
naval attache, and by Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. A. Russell, as
military attache. The witnesses pay tribute to the skill and dash of the
German flying officers and to the spirit of the flying battalions. The
officers they found to be fine-drawn, lean, determined-looking
youngsters, unlike the well-known heavy Teutonic type. Owing partly to
the monotony of German regimental life there was great competition, they
were told, to enter the flying service, eight hundred candidates having
presented themselves for forty vacancies. In 'The Prince Henry Circuit',
a cross-country flight of more than a thousand miles, to be completed in
six days, twenty-six aeroplanes started. The weather was stormy, and
there were many accidents; one pilot and three observers were killed.
These were regarded as having lost their lives in action, and there was
no interruption of the programme. Among the best of the many machines
that competed were the military L.V.G. (or Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft)
biplane, which won the chief prizes, the A.E.G. (or Allgemeine
Elektrizitaets-Gesellschaft) biplane, the Albatross, and the Aviatik. On
the whole, said our witnesses, the Germans had not progressed fast or
far in aviation. They were still learning to fly; they were seeking for
the best type of machine; and had given no serious attention, as yet, to
the question of battle in the air. The test that was to compare the
British and German air forces was now at hand.