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Title: The War in the Air; Vol. 1

Author: Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

Release date: March 1, 2009 [eBook #28226]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Christine P.
        Travers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
        http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR IN THE AIR; VOL. 1 ***




Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Christine P.
Travers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









  HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR


  BASED ON OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

  BY DIRECTION OF THE HISTORICAL SECTION OF
  THE COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE




  THE WAR IN THE AIR

  Being the Story of
  The part played in the Great War
  by the Royal Air Force


  VOL. I


  BY

  WALTER RALEIGH




  OXFORD
  THE CLARENDON PRESS
  1922




  Oxford University Press

  _London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen
  New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town
  Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai_

  Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY




PREFACE


The History of which this is the first volume is, in the main, the
history of the part played in the war by British air forces. It is based
chiefly on the records of the Air Ministry collected and preserved at
the Historical Section. The staff of the Section have spared no trouble
to collect an immense amount of material and arrange it for use, to
consult living witnesses, to verify facts down to the minutest details,
and to correct any errors that may have crept into the narrative. Their
main purpose has been to secure that any statement of fact made in this
book shall be true and demonstrable. If in any particular instances they
have failed in this purpose, it has not been for lack of pains and care.

Official records do not in themselves make history. They are colourless
and bare. In the business of interpreting and supplementing them we have
been much helped by the kindness of many military and naval officers and
of many civilian experts. Their help, most of which is acknowledged in
the text, has supplied us with the liveliest things in this book. We
could wish that we had more of it. Naval and military officers do not
advertise, and are reluctant to speak publicly of the part that they
played in the war. They are silent on all that may seem to tell to their
own credit or to the discredit of others, and this silence easily
develops into a fixed habit of reticence. We are the more grateful to
those who have helped us to a true account by telling of what they saw.
The best part of the book is yet to come; if the theme is to be worthily
treated, it must be by the help of those who remember and of those who
know.

The writer of this history has endeavoured to make his narrative
intelligible to those who, like himself, are outsiders, and, with that
end in view, he has avoided, as far as possible, the masonic dialect of
the services. For the few and cautious opinions that he has expressed he
alone is responsible. In controverted questions, though he has not
always been careful to conceal his own opinion, he has always tried so
to state the grounds for other opinions that those who hold these other
opinions may think his statement not unfair. If his own opinion is
wrong, the corrective will usually be found near at hand. The position
of an outsider has grave disabilities; if a measure of compensation for
these disabilities is anywhere to be found, it must be sought in freedom
from the heat of partisan zeal and from the narrowness of corporate
loyalty.

Some of the men who early took thought for their country's need, and
quietly laboured to prepare her against the day of trial, are here
celebrated, and their names, we hope, rescued from neglect. The men who
flew over the fire of enemy guns were so many that comparatively few of
their names, and these chosen almost by accident, can here be mentioned.
There were thousands of others just as good. The heroes of this story,
let it be said once and for all, are only samples.

Some apology perhaps is necessary for the variety which has been found
inevitable in naming particular men. A man's christian name and surname
are his own, but change and promotion were rapid during the war, so that
the prefixes to these names varied from year to year. Where we are
describing a particular deed, we give the actors the rank that they held
at the time. Where we speak more generally, we give them the rank that
they held when this history was written.

                                        WALTER RALEIGH.




TABLE OF CONTENTS


  INTRODUCTION                                                pp. 1-14

New means of warfare in the Great War--submarines and aircraft. The
first free flight of an aeroplane, December 17, 1903. Attitude of the
peoples; English stolidity. The navy and the air. The German menace
hastens the making of our air service. The British air force at the
outbreak of the war, and at its close. The achievement of the British
air force. Uses of aircraft in war extended and multiplied--reconnaissance,
artillery observation, photography, contact patrol, battle in the air,
bombing. Naval developments--kite balloons, coast patrol, convoy of
vessels, seaplanes and seaplane-carriers, work against submarines.
Secret dropping of agents. Development of machines. New scientific
devices. Men of science and men of action. The supremacy of the
infantry in war. The making of its tradition by the Royal Air Force.


  CHAPTER I. The Conquest of the Air.                        pp. 15-66

Our ignorance of man's history. The conquest of the sea and the conquest
of the air. Pioneers of flight. The physical basis of flight. Essential
features of an aeroplane. Two kinds of aircraft--floating machines and
soaring machines. Early legends and adventures. Progress the reward of
risk. Wilbur Wright's view. Progress towards aerial navigation in the
age of Louis XIV, and of the French Revolution. The Royal Society and
Bishop Wilkins. Joseph Glanvill's prophecies. Sir William Temple's
satire. Study of the flight of birds by Borelli. Lana's aerial ship. The
discovery of gases. Soap-bubbles filled with hydrogen in 1782. The
Montgolfier hot-air balloon, 1783. The hydrogen balloon of Professor
Charles. The first aeronaut--Pilâtre de Rozier. First ascents in Great
Britain; James Tytler and Vincenzo Lunardi. Lunardi's narrative. Dr.
Johnson and Horace Walpole on balloons. The _Great Nassau_. The balloon
as a spectacle. Scientific work of James Glaisher. His highest ascent,
September 5, 1862. Pioneers of aviation--Sir George Cayley, John
Stringfellow. Foundation of Aeronautical Society, 1866. Francis Wenham's
paper on aerial locomotion. Fermentation of ideas. The study of soaring
birds--Cayley, M. Mouillard. The gliders; stories of Captain Lebris; the
work and writings of Otto Lilienthal; his death and influence. Percy
Pilcher and his work. Other experiments--Montgomery, Chanute, Phillips,
Maxim, Ader. Laurence Hargrave; his inventions; his public spirit.
Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley; his whirling table; his discoveries.
His flying machine of 1896. His design of a machine to carry a man;
failure of trials in 1903. Wilbur and Orville Wright; their method of
attacking the problem; practice in equilibrium. The history of their
experiments; difficulties and disappointments. Their perseverance, and
their great discovery--the combination of wing-warping with a movable
rudder. Their glider of 1902--the victory machine. Their perfect
control. Their first power machine. Their flights on December 17, 1903.
The age of the flying machine had come at last.


  CHAPTER II. The Aeroplane and the Airship.                pp. 67-109

The Wrights improve their machine, and practise it in many flights over
Huffman Prairie. Indifference of the neighbouring farmers; and of
American, French, and British Governments. Wilbur Wright's visit to
France, 1908. Record flights. Struggle to secure patents. Death of
Wilbur Wright.

European pioneers. Ellehammer. German airships and French aeroplanes.
Mr. Haldane's prophecy. French airship experiments. Successful voyage of
_La France_, 1884. German airships of Wölfert and Schwarz. Brutality of
the crowd. Alberto Santos Dumont; his airships. Controversy on the
rotary principle. Santos Dumont's successes. Disasters to the airships
of Severo and Bradsky. Count von Zeppelin. His first airship. Advantages
and disadvantages of the rigid type. Early trials. List of pre-war
Zeppelins. Wrecks and progress. Parseval airships. Schütte-Lanz
airships. French aviation. Captain F. Ferber. The Antoinette engine. The
Voisins. Delagrange, Farman, Blériot, Esnault-Pelterie. First aeroplane
flight over French soil by Santos Dumont. Diverse experiments. French
improvements. The monoplane. Tractors and pushers. Ailerons. Centralized
control. The wheeled undercarriage. The horizontal tail-plane. Early
French flights. Wilbur Wright at Le Mans. Competitions and prizes.
Blériot's cross-Channel flight. Grahame-White and Paulhan. Glenn
Curtiss. The _Circuit de l'Est_. Aviation meetings. The Champagne week.
The Gnome engine. Blackpool and Doncaster. Chavez flies across the Alps.
Record-making and record-breaking.


  CHAPTER III. Flight in England.                           pp. 110-45

English aviation late and sporadic. Private adventure and sport as
against continental organization. Prospect of war the cause of the
formation of the Royal Flying Corps. A few pioneers encouraged by the
Government--Mr. Cody, Lieutenant Dunne. The Dunne aeroplane. The history
of Mr. A. V. Roe. He makes the first flight over English soil, in 1907,
at Brooklands. Receives notice to quit. Is refused the use of Laffan's
Plain. Is threatened with prosecution for flying over Lea Marshes. His
perseverance and success. The famous Avro machine, 1913. Dependence of
England on private effort. The Aero Club. Mr. Sopwith and Mr. de
Havilland. Their famous machines. Mr. José Weiss and his gliders. Mr.
Howard Wright sets up the first aeroplane factory in 1908. The Hon. Alan
Boyle makes the first cross-country trip, 1910. The Short Brothers at
Shellness, Isle of Sheppey. Their work for the Aero Club. Mr. Cecil
Grace and the Hon. Charles Rolls. Mr. Moore-Brabazon flies a circular
mile, 1909. Mr. Frank McClean establishes the aerodrome at Eastchurch.
Mr. G. B. Cockburn teaches four naval officers to fly. Beginnings of the
naval air service. Mr. Holt Thomas brings Paulhan to Brooklands, where
an aerodrome is made. Paulhan makes a flight of nearly three hours.
Beginners at Brooklands. Mr. Alan Boyle's story. The Arcadian community
at Brooklands. Foundation of the London aerodrome at Hendon. Aeroplane
races. The 'Circuit of Europe' and the 'Circuit of Britain'. Crowds of
spectators at Hendon. Promoters of flight; Mr. Holt Thomas. The Larkhill
aerodrome. Military flying; Captain Fulton; Captain Dickson, his skill
as a pilot, his appearance at the army manoeuvres of 1910, his
patriotism, his death in 1913; Lieutenant Gibbs, his adventures in
Spain. Civilians at Larkhill; Mr. Robert Loraine, Mr. Barber, Mr.
Cockburn. The Bristol Flying School at Larkhill; M. Henry Jullerot, Mr.
Gordon England, Mr. Harry Busteed. Creation of the Air Battalion, Royal
Engineers, in February 1911. Debt of the nation to Captain Fulton and
Mr. Cockburn. Private enterprise more useful to military than to naval
flying.


  CHAPTER IV. The Beginnings of the Air Force.              pp. 146-97

English respect for precedent. The air force developed by stages from a
balloon detachment of the Royal Engineers. The balloon in war. Balloon
experiments at Woolwich and Chatham. Balloons in Bechuanaland, 1884; in
the Soudan, 1885. Success of balloons at Aldershot manoeuvres, 1889.
Balloon Factory established at South Farnborough, 1894. Balloons in
South African War, 1899-1900. Energy of the factory. Colonel Templer and
Colonel Capper. The first British army airship, the _Nulli Secundus_,
1907. Appointment of Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1909, to
combine theory and practice. The National Physical Laboratory. Growth of
the factory under Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, 1909-16. Its services to
aviation. Private makers of aircraft stand aloof. The designing office
at the factory. Its services during the war. Famous factory types of
aeroplane--the B.E., the F.E., the S.E., the R.E. The question of
stability; work of Mr. Lanchester and Professor Bryan. The story of Mr.
Busk. Workmanship and safety. Notable devices invented at the factory.

The navy employs private firms of aircraft makers. The Short brothers.
Factory airships from 1908 to 1913. All airships assigned to the navy in
1913. The _Mayfly_ fiasco, 1908-11. Captain Murray Sueter and Captain
Bertram Dickson on the command of the air. The true doctrine--freedom
and the open highways.

French military aviation in 1911. Reports of Lieutenant Glyn and Captain
Sykes. German aeronautics in 1912. Report of Captain Sueter and Mr.
O'Gorman. Changed conditions of naval warfare. British naval airship
section reconstituted. Purchase of foreign airships. British rigid
airships ordered in 1913, too late for the war. German belief in the
airship. Private efforts of British naval officers. Commander Oliver
Swann first gets off the water in an Avro aeroplane fitted with floats,
1911. Lieutenant C. R. Samson flies off the deck of H.M.S. _Africa_,
1911. Lieutenant Samson's first seaplane. The first flying boat.

The problem of the making of an air force. The need of discipline. Early
doings of the Air Battalion, 1911. Difficulties of policy. Lighter than
air and heavier than air. Aeroplanes few; airships unpopular. Royal
Engineers and others. Mr. Cockburn teaches the battalion to fly. They
fly from Larkhill to Farnborough. Cross-country flights. Army manoeuvres
of 1911; adventurers of the Air Battalion. The accident to Lieutenant
Reynolds. Record flight of Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett. Death of
Lieutenant Cammell. Our apprenticeship in the air. The English fashion.


  CHAPTER V. The Royal Flying Corps.                       pp. 198-276

Institution of the Royal Flying Corps. Plans prepared by General
Henderson, Captain Sykes, and Major MacInnes. History in the making.
Choice of the squadron as the unit of the new force. Pressure of time.
Institution of the Central Flying School. The question of the rank of
pilots. The question of the independence of the Flying Corps. The
attitude of the navy. The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps becomes
the Royal Naval Air Service. The Naval Flying School at Eastchurch. The
case against the independence of the air force; and the case for it. The
temper of the air. The language difficulty. The Air Committee of 1912
and its functions. Need for an Air Ministry. Experimental work of the
Naval Air Service. Uses of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps.
Debt to the Royal Engineers. Training and establishment. Variety of
trades enrolled. The group of early officers, under Captain Sykes.
Captain Patrick Hamilton. The first two aeroplane squadrons, commanded
by Captain Brooke-Popham and Captain Burke. The Airship Company of the
Air Battalion becomes No. 1 Squadron of the Flying Corps. The story of
Major Maitland. The airships handed over to the navy, 1913. Development
of wireless telegraphy. A brief history and description of wireless
telegraphy. Experiments in adapting it for the use of aircraft. The work
of Captain Lefroy; and of Lieutenant Fitzmaurice. Success of wireless at
the manoeuvres of 1912. Improvement of apparatus. Wireless in seaplanes;
successes of 1913. Wireless in aeroplanes.

Work of the headquarters staff of the Military Wing. The beginnings of a
great tradition. The experimental branch. The story of Major Musgrave.
The work of the aeroplane squadrons. Captain Eustace Loraine. Fatalities
of 1912. The ban on monoplanes. Mr. Howard Flanders. Work at the Central
Flying School. Fatal accidents. Formation of new squadrons.

No. 3 Squadron on Salisbury Plain. Co-operation with artillery and
infantry. Military aeroplane trials. 'Military airmen also flew.'
Co-operation with cavalry. No. 3 Squadron at the manoeuvres of 1912.
Lessons of the manoeuvres. Winter difficulties. Manoeuvres of 1913.
Reports by Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett.
Details and efficiency. Experiments with machine-guns; and with cameras.
The first night flight. Non-commissioned pilots. Major McCudden on No. 3
Squadron.

No. 2 Squadron. Major C. J. Burke; his story and character. His maxims.
His famous machine, the first B.E. The squadron moves by air from
Farnborough to Montrose. Practice at St. Andrews. The Irish Command
manoeuvres of 1913. Statistics of the squadron. Captain Longcroft's long
flight. Major Burke's diary.

Other squadrons. The Concentration Camp at Netheravon. Reconnaissance in
war. Other uses of aeroplanes at first claimed for airships. Uses
ultimately found for aerial acrobatics--the loop, the spin. The
machine-gun and the pusher machine. Aerodynamical knowledge. The S.E. 5.
The 'Christmas tree'. Importance of engine power.

The Naval Wing. Problems of defence. Coastal stations. Seaplanes at the
naval manoeuvres of 1913. Mr. Churchill's programme. Detection of
submarines. Bomb-dropping experiments. Anti-airship experiments.
Machine-guns. The Central Air Office, Sheerness. Poor supply of
munitions. Separation of the naval and military wings. The Royal Naval
Air Service at the Naval Review, 1914. War orders.

German aviation British report on the 'Prince Henry Circuit', May, 1914.
The coming of the war.


  CHAPTER VI. The War: The Royal Flying Corps from Mons to
  Ypres.                                                   pp. 277-356

The Prussian doctrine of war. The Serajevo murders. Austria and Serbia.
Germany refuses mediation and makes war on Russia and France. Great
Britain declares war, August 4, 1914. The cause of civilization. The
German plan of campaign. The British army in France. Mobilization of
Royal Flying Corps. The Aircraft Park. The squadrons. List of officers
of the four squadrons. The machines. Amiens. Maubeuge. Flying Corps
fired on by British troops. Union Jack markings. The German wheel
through Belgium. French strategy. The retreat from Mons. First aerial
reconnaissances. The reconnaissances of August 22. Sergeant-Major
Jillings wounded in the air. Lieutenants Waterfall and Bayly brought
down. Aerial reconnaissance on its trial. Early mistakes. List of places
occupied by H.Q., R.F.C., during retreat. German movements observed. A
typical air report. The western wind. The finding of Sir Douglas Haig.
Help to General Smith-Dorrien at Le Cateau. The detection of enveloping
movements. The British army escapes from von Kluck. Von Kluck wheels
towards the Oise. His change of direction observed from the air. One of
the reports. British retreat continues. The Sixth French Army on the
Ourcq. Summary of British aerial work during the retreat. Alarms.
Experiences of pilots. High spirits. Early bomb-dropping. First German
machine seen by British at Maubeuge. Fighting in the air. German
machines brought down. The battle of the Marne. Machines assigned to
corps commands, September 6.

Observation of the battle. Advance of headquarters to Fère-en-Tardenois.
General Joffre's thanks to the Flying Corps. Storm of September 12. The
battle of the Aisne. Adventure of Lieutenants Dawes and Freeman.
Position warfare. Artillery observation. Wireless--Lieutenants Lewis and
James. An early wireless message. The clock code. Popularity of
wireless. Photography. The dropping of darts. German 'Archies'. The race
for the sea. British army moves north; Flying Corps shifted to St. Omer.
No. 6 Squadron arrives. Strategic reconnaissance. Long-distance flights.
The battle of Ypres. Union Jack marking abolished. Photography and
wireless. Earlier methods of ranging. Their inferiority. Fighting
quality of British aeroplanes; German prisoners' evidence. The losses of
Ypres. Withdrawal of German troops observed from the air. Sympathy of
Flying Corps for the infantry. The German officer and his pilot.


  CHAPTER VII. The Royal Naval Air Service in 1914.        pp. 357-409

Strength of the Naval Wing. Progress in wireless and in armament.
Uncertain purposes. The stimulant of war. Mr. F. K. McClean. Coastal
patrols. Channel patrols. Airship logs. A Zeppelin sighted. Hardships of
North Sea patrols. Squadron Commander Seddon's experience. Practice
value of patrols. Seaplanes at Scapa Flow. Seaplane-carriers--_Empress_,
_Engadine_, and _Riviera_. Imperfections of the seaplane. The doctrine
of the initiative in war. Offensive policy of the Royal Naval Air
Service. The Eastchurch Squadron under Commander Samson goes to Ostend,
August 27, 1914. Their motor-car reconnaissance to Bruges. They are
ordered to return to England. Delayed by an accident. The Admiralty
changes its policy, and orders them to operate from Dunkirk against
Zeppelins. Adventures in armed motor-cars. Fight with Germans between
Cassel and Bailleul. The expedition to Lille. Armoured cars. Marine
reinforcements. The fight outside Doullens. Advanced base at Morbecque.
Attacks designed on German communications in co-operation with French
territorials and cavalry. The affair at Douai--Commander Samson's story.
Diverse activities of Naval Air Service. Shortage of machines. Storm of
September 12. The Naval Air Service co-operates on the Belgian coast
with the Seventh Division of the British army. Air raids on Düsseldorf.
The evacuation of Antwerp. The British Empire and 'side-shows'.

Naval aeroplanes work for the British army. The base at Dunkirk; its
importance, and its influence on the war.

The air raid on Friedrichshafen, November 21, 1914. Secret preparations.
The course from Belfort to Lake Constance. Lieutenant Sippe's log.
Effect of the bombs. Squadron Commander Briggs taken prisoner. German
alarm and later costly defences. The praise of the Avro. The question of
Swiss neutrality.

The air raid on Cuxhaven, Christmas Day 1914, supported by light
cruisers and destroyers. The purposes of the raid. The supporting force
unmolested in the Bight of Heligoland. Inspected by Zeppelins. Commodore
Tyrwhitt's remarks on Zeppelin tactics. Reconnaissance flight of
seaplane No. 136 over the German navy.

The war in 1914. Increase of British responsibilities, and of the air
force. The temper of the air force. The Epic of Youth.


  CHAPTER VIII. The Expansion of the Air Force.             pp. 410-89

The squadrons take to France, in August 1914, all efficient pilots, and
all serviceable machines. What was left. Further call for fighting
aeroplanes. The making of the new air force. British mastery of the air
by July 1916.

British power of organization. Early control of military aviation. The
Military Aeronautics Directorate. Sir David Henderson takes command in
France. Major Trenchard and Major Brancker take charge at home.

General Trenchard and the Royal Flying Corps. His previous history.
Given command of the Military Wing at Farnborough, to make something out
of nothing. Helped by Major Brancker, who is appointed Deputy Director
of Military Aeronautics. Previous history of Major Brancker. His flight
as observer during cavalry manoeuvres in India, 1911. Returns to
England, learns to fly, and joins Military Aeronautics Directorate.

Lord Kitchener at the War Office asks for new squadrons. Bold action of
Directorate. Enlistment of mechanics. Agreement with Admiralty for
allotment of machines and engines. The placing of orders. Avoidance of
standardization. Opinion of pilots on their machines liable to error.
Examples--the Sopwith Tabloid and the D.H. 2. Sudden demands of the
war. Machines ordered. New firms employed.

Training scheme for pilots. New aerodromes all over England. Lord
Kitchener's energy. Formation flying. Fifty new squadrons demanded.
Official objections. 'Double this. K.' Good repute of British aviation
for safety, quality, and performance. The architecture of the new air
force. Institution of wings to co-operate with army corps, November
1914. Transfers and promotions. Wings paired to form a brigade. Army
wings and corps wings. Introduction of equipment officers who do not
fly. Race for efficiency in machines. The importance of morale. Harmful
newspaper agitations. General Trenchard's achievement. Lessons of
experience. Fighting aeroplanes; wireless; anti-aircraft guns;
photography. Experimental machine with every squadron. Training of
pilots at the Central Flying School. Training of observers begins late
in the war. Meaning of the observer's badge.

General Henderson relinquishes command. His death, 1921, and character.

Continuous growth of Flying Corps. Observation and fighting. Bombing
raids and night-flying. Programmes of the Royal Flying Corps command.
Contrast between German and British artillery observation. Need for
British anti-aircraft guns. Number of machines in a squadron raised to
eighteen in 1916. Programmes of 1916 and 1917. The war ends before the
latter is completed. Small early reinforcements. The supply of pilots.
French supply machines to us during earlier years of the war. Military
and naval officers posted to Paris to arrange supply.

The expansion of the Royal Naval Air Service. The problem of helping the
navy from the air. The seaplane. The vessels designed to carry aircraft.
Difficulty of landing an aeroplane on the deck of a moving vessel. The
feat first accomplished, August 1917.

Kites and balloons. The Parseval kite balloon. The Drachen and the
Cacquot. Wing Commander Maitland's report. Kite-balloon centre
established at Roehampton. The first kite-balloon ship--the _Manica_.
Experiments with kite balloons towed by ships. Demand of the army for
kite balloons on the western front. This demand supplied by the navy.

The invention of the type of small airship called the Submarine Scout.
The flying boat. Sopwith Bat boat. Work of Colonel J. C. Porte at
Felixstowe. His earlier career. Achievements in 1918 of Felixstowe
flying boats.

Torpedo aircraft. Experiments. Use of the torpedo seaplane at Gallipoli.
Slowness of its practical development. Causes of this delay. Operational
difficulties. The _Cuckoo_, a torpedo aeroplane, produced in 1917. The
_Argus_ built to carry torpedo aeroplanes, 1918. The value of torpedo
aircraft. Dreaded by Dreadnoughts. Unpopular with pilots.

The navy and private firms. Need for fighting machines, and for powerful
engines. Rivalry between military and naval air services. Demand for
squadrons on western front. Two naval squadrons offered in 1914, and
refused. Development of aerial fighting, and of bomb-dropping. The
Fokker menace in 1916. Admiralty lend four Nieuport scouts to help No. 6
Squadron. Success of the experiment. A naval squadron on the western
front near Amiens, October 1916. Four fighting naval squadrons on the
western front in 1917. The achievements of these squadrons.

The problem of unity of control. The War Office and the Admiralty.
Director of the Air Department responsible to each of the Sea Lords. The
Central Air Office at Sheerness, under the Nore Command, abolished in
February 1915, and the Royal Naval Air Service placed under the orders
of the Director of the Air Department. Points of difficulty raised by
Commander-in-Chief of the Nore. Verdict of the naval law branch. The
question of discipline. Rapid growth of Naval Air Service. Small
professional training of officers entered from civil life. The navy
absorbs the Royal Naval Air Service into itself, August 1915.
Consequences of this. Appointment of senior naval officers to air
service commands. Discipline and science. Some advantages of the
change--establishment of training depot at Cranwell, and of the famous
Fifth Group at Dunkirk.

Naval plan for long-distance bombing raids over Essen and Berlin. No. 3
Wing at Luxeuil formed for this purpose. The army's needs; the Luxeuil
Wing broken up. Probable effects of such raids. Believers in
frightfulness are very susceptible to fright.

The emergence of the new air force. How the air will come into its
own.




INTRODUCTION


When Great Britain declared war upon Germany in August 1914, she staked
her very existence as a free nation upon an incalculable adventure. Two
new means and modes of warfare, both of recent invention, enormously
increased the difficulties of forecast and seemed to make precedents
useless. Former wars had been waged on the land and on the sea; the
development of submarines and aircraft opened up secret ways of travel
for armed vessels under the sea and promised almost unlimited
possibilities of observation and offence from the heights of the air.

Of these two new weapons the submarine was brought earlier to a state of
war efficiency, and because it seemed to threaten the security of our
island and the power of our navy, it excited the greater apprehension.
But the navigation of the air, whether by airship or aeroplane, is now
recognized for the more formidable novelty. The progress of the war has
proved that within the narrow seas the submarine can be countered, and
that the extension of its capabilities on the high seas is beset with
difficulties. For aircraft the possibilities are immense. It is not
extravagant to say that the 17th of December 1903, when the Wright
brothers made the first free flight through the air in a power-driven
machine, marks the beginning of a new era in the history of the world.

The differences to be looked for in this new era were both
over-estimated and under-estimated, according to the temper of those who
considered them. Imaginative people, and sentimental people, looked for
the speedy fulfilment of Tennyson's vision:

  For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
  Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
  Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
  Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
  Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
  From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
  Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
  With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;
  Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
  In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the World.

The Germans, who as a people fall easy victims to agreeable sentiment,
indulged extravagant hopes from war in the air, and expected great
achievements from their Zeppelins. On the other hand, the English, who
are less excitable, were comparatively slow as a nation to appreciate
the importance of the new invention. Conservative and humorous minds are
always conscious chiefly of the immutable and stable elements in human
life, and do not readily pay respect to novelty. Those who were
responsible for the naval and military defences of the country preserved
great coolness, and refused to let judgement outrun experience. They
knew well that the addition to man's resources of yet another mode of
travel or transport does not alter the enduring principles of strategy.
They regarded the experiment benevolently, and, after a time, were
willing to encourage it, but 'up to the end of the year 1911', says an
official report, 'the policy of the Government with regard to all
branches of aerial navigation was based on a desire to keep in touch
with the movement rather than to hasten its development. It was felt
that we stood to gain nothing by forcing a means of warfare which tended
to reduce the value of our insular position and the protection of our
sea-power.' When the Wright brothers offered to sell their invention to
the British Admiralty, the offer was refused.

It is natural enough that believers in the new art, who devoted years of
disinterested thought and labour to getting it recognized, and who truly
foresaw its enormous importance, should be impatient of so cautious an
attitude. But the attitude itself was also natural and excusable. The
British navy is a great trust, responsible not so much for the progress
of the nation as for its very existence. Untried courses, new
investments, brilliant chances, do not commend themselves to trustees.
By adherence to a tried policy and to accustomed weapons the navy had
ridden out many a storm that threatened national wreckage; what it had
done so often it believed that it could do again; and it was slow to
grasp at new weapons before their value was proved. So the progress of
aerial science followed what, in this country, is the normal course. We
have had many great poets and many great inventors. We sometimes starve
our poets, but we make classics of their works. We sometimes leave our
inventors to struggle unaided with difficulties, but when they succeed
we adopt their inventions as part of the national inheritance, and pay
to their names a respect greater than bounty-fed dependence can ever
command or deserve. Their failures are their own, their successes
belong to their country; and if success brings them no other reward,
they can at least claim a part in the honour universally paid to
soldiers and sailors, whose profession is sacrifice.

As soon as it became clear that no nation could without extreme peril to
itself neglect the new weapon, the Government took up the problem in
earnest. Private enterprise might, no doubt, have been trusted to
improve and develop aircraft for the various uses of peace, but the
question was a question of war. The purposes and ambitions of the German
Empire had again and again been freely expressed, in no moderate
language, and the German menace lay like a long vague shadow across the
peace of Europe. Peaceful citizens, with many other things to think of,
might fail to see it, but no such blindness was possible for those who
had charge of the defences of the country. The Committee of Imperial
Defence, in the few years before the war, took expert advice. The
Government, acting on this advice, furnished us with the nucleus of an
air force. They made their own flying school, and established their own
factory for the output of aircraft. They organized an air service with
naval and military wings. They formed advisory and consultative
committees to grapple with the difficulties of organization and
construction. They investigated the comparative merits and drawbacks of
airships and aeroplanes. The airships, because they seemed fitter for
reconnaissance over the sea, were eventually assigned wholly to the
Naval Wing. No very swift progress was made with these in the years
before the war. The expenses of adequate experiment were enormous, and
the long tale of mishaps to Zeppelins seemed to show that the risks were
great. The experts who were consulted pointed out that the only way to
test the value of the larger type of airship was to build such airships
ourselves, that Germany had patiently persevered in her airship policy
in the face of disaster and loss, and that if we were to succeed with
airships it would be necessary to warn the public that heavy losses, in
the initial stage, were unavoidable. Opinion in this island, it is right
to remember, was strong against the airship, or gas-bag, and Germany's
enthusiastic championship of the Zeppelin made the aeroplane more
popular in England. So our airship policy was tentative and
experimental; a few small airships were in use, but none of the large
size and wide range required for effective naval reconnaissance. Good
and rapid progress, on the other hand, was made with aeroplanes and
seaplanes, and when war broke out we had a small but healthy service,
both naval and military, ready to take the air.

Four squadrons of the Military Wing, or Royal Flying Corps, that is to
say, forty-eight machines, with a few additional machines in reserve,
bore a part in the retreat from Mons. A detachment of the Naval Wing, or
Royal Naval Air Service, was sent to Belgium, and after bearing a part
in the defence of Antwerp, established itself at Dunkirk, which remained
throughout the war a centre for aerial operations. These were the
beginnings; in the four years and three months of the war the air
service grew and multiplied a hundredfold. At the date of the armistice,
the 11th of November 1918, there were operating in France and Belgium
ninety-nine squadrons of the Royal Air Force. In August 1914 there had
been less than two hundred and fifty officers in the service, all told;
in November 1918 there were over thirty thousand. In August 1914 the
total of machines, available for immediate war service, was about a
hundred and fifty; in November 1918 there were more than twenty-two
thousand in use, almost all of them enormously more powerful and
efficient than the best machines of the earlier date. In the course of
the war our air forces accounted for more than eight thousand enemy
machines; dropped more than eight thousand tons of bombs on enemy
objectives; fired more than twelve million rounds of ammunition at
targets on the ground; took more than half a million photographs;
brought down nearly three hundred enemy balloons; and suffered a total
of casualties not far short of eighteen thousand. Not less important in
its influence on the fortunes of the war than any of these achievements,
perhaps more important than all of them, was the work done by aircraft
in detecting movements of the enemy and in directing the fire of our
gunners upon hostile batteries. This work cannot be exactly assessed or
tabulated, but the German gunner knew where to look for the enemy he
most dreaded.

A rapid summary of this kind shows that the history of the war in the
air is inseparable from the history of the development of the art of
flying. Of those who were competent to handle a machine in the air
during the years before the war by far the greater number served with
the colours. With the outbreak of war civilian flying, except for
training purposes, abruptly ceased. The necessities of war compelled and
quickened invention. When a nation is fighting for its life, money and
energy are expended without check, and it may be doubted whether in the
whole history of mankind any art in its infant stage has been so
magnificently supported and advanced by war as the art of flying was
supported and advanced by the greatest war of all.

No history can be expected to furnish a full record of all the acts of
prowess that were performed in the air during the long course of the
war. Many of the best of them can never be known; the Victoria Cross has
surely been earned, over and over again, by pilots and observers who
went east, and lie in unvisited graves. The public dearly loves a hero;
but the men who have been both heroic and lucky must share their
honours, as they are the first to insist, with others whose courage was
not less, though their luck failed them. There is a quaint system, in
use in the air service, of reckoning the activities of the service in
terms of hours flown, taking as the unit for addition every single hour
flown by each individual machine. By this method of calculation, the
hours flown by the air service, on all fronts, during the war can be
shown to be much over a million. The work of an ant-hill, reckoned on
the same basis, would present a stupendous total. If the heroism of the
air service, that is to say, their deeds of surpassing courage and
devotion, could be thus computed, the figure would run into thousands;
and this would be the fairest, though not the most dramatic, statement
of the case. The officers in command have always been unwilling to pay
regard to 'star turns'; what they have coveted for the service is not a
low range of achievement rising now and again into sharp fantastic
peaks, but a high tableland of duty and efficiency. They obtained their
desire, in a result more surprising than any single exploit can ever be.
They made courage and devotion the rule, not the exception. The work of
the air service on a war front consists of often-repeated short periods
of intense strain. One pilot described it well by saying that it is like
going to the dentist every day. To exact the highest standard of conduct
under this strain, not as an ideal to be aimed at, but as a working
rule, might well seem to be winding up human nature to a point where it
must break. The commanders of the air service did not hesitate to take
the risk. They trusted human nature, and were amply rewarded. The
experiences of the war revealed, to a generation that had almost
forgotten them, the ancient and majestic powers of man, the power of
his mind over his body, the power of his duty over his mind. When the
builders have been praised for their faith and for their skill, the last
word of wonder and reverence must be kept for the splendid grain of the
stuff that was given them to use in the architecture of their success.

Those matters are fittest for history which exhibit a process of growth.
The great periods of human history are not the long periods; they are
those times of change and crisis when the movements of humanity are
quickened and made visible, when the stationary habits and conservative
traditions of mankind are broken up, and one phase of civilization gives
place to another, as the bud, long and slowly matured, suddenly bursts
into flower. The story of the war in the air is a perfect example of
this quickening process, whereby developments long secretly prepared,
and delayed until hope is saddened, are mysteriously touched with life,
and exhibit the tendencies of ages condensed in the events of a few
crowded years. The flying machine, which at the end of the nineteenth
century was a toy, ten years later was added to the most valuable
resources of man, and ten years later again bid fair to alter the
conditions of his life on the surface of the earth. The war, though it
did not cause this great change, accelerated it enormously. War is
exacting, and it is difficult to think of any peaceful uses of aircraft
which do not find their counterpart in naval and military operations.
When General Townshend was besieged in Kut, there came to him by
aeroplane not only food (in quantities sadly insufficient for his
needs), but salt, saccharine, opium, drugs and surgical dressings,
mails, spare parts for wireless plant, money, and a millstone weighing
seventy pounds, which was dropped by means of a parachute. In the actual
operations of the war the uses of aircraft, and especially of the
aeroplane, were very rapidly extended and multiplied. The earliest and
most obvious use was reconnaissance. To the Commander-in-Chief a
detailed knowledge of the enemy's dispositions and movements is worth
more than an additional army corps; aeroplanes and balloons furnished
him with eyes in the air. As observation was the first purpose of
aircraft, so it remains the most important. During the war it was
developed in many directions. The corps machines operating on the
western front devoted themselves among other things to detecting enemy
batteries and to directing the fire of our own artillery. As soon as a
wireless installation for aeroplanes came into use, and the observer was
thus brought into close touch with his own gunners, this kind of
observation became deadly in its efficiency, and was the chief agent in
defeating the German scheme of victory by gun-power. When once a hostile
battery was located, and our guns, by the aid of observation from the
air, were ranged upon it, the fire of that battery was quickly silenced.
Other branches of observation, developed during the war, were
photography from the air and contact patrol. Complete photographic maps
of Hun-land, as the territory lying immediately behind the enemy lines
was everywhere called, were made from a mosaic of photographs, and were
continually renewed. No changes, however slight, in the surface of the
soil could escape the record of the camera when read by the aid of a
magnifying glass. Contact patrol, or reports by low-flying aeroplanes on
the exact position of the advancing infantry, came later, and
supplemented the use of the telephone, which was liable to be destroyed
by shell-fire. Our contact patrols saved us from a world of those most
distressing of casualties, the losses inflicted on troops by their own
guns.

Serious battle in the air, which was engaged on no large scale until
the second year of the war, was, in its essence, an attempt to put out
the eyes of the other side. In the early days officers often took a
revolver, a carbine, or a rifle, into the air with them, but machines
designed expressly for fighting, and armed with Lewis or Vickers guns,
did not appear in force until it became necessary to counter the attacks
made by the Fokker on our observation machines. Then began that long
series of dramatic combats, splendid in many of its episodes, which
fascinated the attention of the public, and almost excluded from notice
the humbler, but not less essential, and not less dangerous, duties of
those whose main business it was to observe.

Lastly, the offensive powers of aircraft have been so rapidly developed,
especially during the latest period of the war, that it was only the
coming of the armistice that saved mankind from a hurricane of
slaughter. In 1914 a few small bombs were carried by officers into the
air, and were gingerly dropped over the side of the machine. Accuracy of
aim was impossible. In the large modern bombing machine the heavier
bombs weigh almost three-quarters of a ton; they are mechanically
released from the rack on which they are hung, and when the machine is
flying level, at a known pace and height, good practice can be made, by
the aid of an adjustable instrument, on any target. Even more desolating
in its effect is the work done by low-flying aeroplanes, armed with
machine-guns, against enemy troops on the march. Raids on the enemy
communications, for the destruction of supplies and the cutting off of
reinforcements, played a great part in the later phases of the war; and
long-distance raids over enemy centres served to bring the civil
population into sympathy with the sufferings of the army.

All these activities belong to war on the land, and the aeroplanes of
the Royal Naval Air Service bore a part in them. Members of the naval
squadrons at Antwerp carried out the earliest bombing raids into
Germany. The kite balloons, which rose like a palisade behind our lines
and kept the enemy under observation, were, in the early time of the
war, supplied by the navy. Moreover, the navy had work of its own to do
in the air. The business of coast defence and patrol, the convoy of
vessels--in short, all the office-work that would fall to an
Inspector-General of the Seven Seas had to be done by the navy. The
seaplane and the flying boat can come to rest on the surface of the sea,
but it is no secret that they are not always comfortable there, and
there were attached to the Naval Air Service certain special vessels,
constructed or adapted to be seaplane-carriers. The credit of defeating
Germany's submarine campaign belongs, in part at least, to the air
service, working in co-operation with the destroyers and a swarm of
smaller craft. In favourable weather submarines below the surface of the
water can sometimes be seen from the air, and the depth-charge, another
invention of the war, dropped by surface craft, is the means of their
destruction.

An occasional duty of aircraft may fitly be mentioned here. It is
sometimes desirable that a missionary should be deposited at a quiet
spot behind the enemy lines, and when he wishes to communicate with
those who sent him out it sometimes becomes necessary to supply him with
a basket of pigeons. When communication is interrupted on the troubled
surface of the earth, it can often be renewed in the air.

As the uses of aircraft multiplied, so did their designs, and where many
various tasks were performed, in the beginning of the war, by a single
type of machine, good in its day, there are now many types of machine,
each with special fitness for its own purpose. How far these
developments may yet go, no man can tell, and prophecy is idle; what is
certain is that many operations of war and peace which have never yet
been performed are within the reach of the aircraft that are now at our
disposal. A beleaguered city could be victualled. A force of a thousand
men, with rations and ammunition, could be landed, in a few hours, to
operate in the rear of an invading army. But the world is tired of war,
and the advances of the immediate future will rather be made in the
direction of peaceful traffic and peaceful communication.

The history of the war in the air is the history of the rapid progress
of an art and the great achievements of a service. In the nature of
things the progress of the art must claim a share in the record. If the
battle of Trafalgar had been fought only some ten short years after the
first adventurer trusted himself to the sea on a crazy raft, the ships,
rather than the men, would be the heroes of that battle, and Nelson
himself would be overshadowed by the _Victory_. The men who fought the
war in the air have overcome more than their enemies; they, and those
who worked for them on the ground, have successfully grappled with
problem after problem in the perfecting of the art of flight. A whole
world of scientific devices, from the Pitot tube, which indicates the
speed of the machine through the air, to the Dreyer automatic oxygen
apparatus, which enables the pilot to breathe in the rarefied upper
reaches of the atmosphere and to travel far above the summit of high
mountain ranges, has become a part of daily usage. A machine is the
embodiment of human thought, and if it sometimes seems to be almost
alive, that is because it springs of live parents. The men of science,
who worked for humanity, must have an honour only less than the honour
paid to the men of action, who died for their country. These last, the
pilots and observers who are dead and gone, would not ask to be exalted
above other branches of the fighting services. Their pride was to serve
the army on the land and the navy on the sea. The men who march often
admire and extol the courage of the men who fly, and they are right; but
the men who fly, unless they are very thoughtless, know that the
heaviest burden of war, its squalor and its tediousness, is borne on the
devoted shoulders of the infantryman. All other arms, even ships of war
themselves, in many of their uses, are subservient to the infantry. Man
must live, and walk, and sleep on the surface of the earth, and there,
in the few feet of soil that have been fertilized by contact with the
air, he must grow his food. These are the permanent conditions, and they
give the infantry its supremacy in war. A country that is conquered must
be controlled and administered; a city that surrenders must be occupied.
Battles can be won in the air or on the sea, and the mark of victory is
this, that the patient infantry, military and civil, can then advance,
to organize peace. An immense sympathy for the sufferings of the
infantry, an immense admiration for their dogged perseverance in their
never-ending task, is felt by all those whose business it is to assist
them from the air. It would be an ill service to the men of the air
force, and a foolish ambition, to try to raise them in consideration
above the heads of the men whose servants and helpers they are.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon. The air
service has its own advantages, its own trials, and its own marks of
distinction. Life in the service was lived at high pressure, and was
commonly short. Throughout the war our machines were continually at work
over enemy territory, but the pilots of the beginning of the war were
not crossing the lines at its close. A few were acting in administrative
posts; some had returned, disabled, to civil life; the rest have
passed, and their work has been carried on by generation after
generation of their successors. The air service still flourishes; its
health depends on a secret elixir of immortality, which enables a body
to repair its severest losses. The name of this elixir is tradition, and
the greatest of all the achievements of the air service is that in a
very few years, under the hammer of war, it has fashioned and welded its
tradition, and has made it sure. Critics who speak of what they have not
felt and do not know have sometimes blamed the air service because,
being young, it has not the decorum of age. The Latin poet said that it
is decorous to die for one's country; in that decorum the service is
perfectly instructed. But those who meet the members of a squadron in
their hours of ease, among gramophones and pictorial works of art
suggestive of luxury, forget that an actor in a tragedy, though he play
his part nobly on the stage, is not commonly tragic in the green-room.
If they desire intensity and gravity, let them follow the pilot out on
to the aerodrome, and watch his face in its hood, when the chocks are
pulled away, and he opens the throttle of the engine. No Greek sculpture
is finer in its rendering of life and purpose. To see him at his best
they would have to accompany him, through the storm of the anti-aircraft
guns, into those fields of air where every moment brings some new trial
of the quickness of his brain and the steadiness of his nerve. He is now
in the workshop where tradition is made, to be handed down as an
heirloom to the coming generations. It will not fail to reach them. The
Royal Air Force is strong in the kind of virtue that propagates itself
and attains to a life beyond a life. The tradition is safe.




CHAPTER I

THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR


We know next to nothing of man's greatest achievements. His written
history is the history of yesterday, and leaves him very much the same
being as it finds him, with the same habits, the same prejudices, and
only slightly enhanced powers. The greatest and most significant
advances were prehistoric. What invention, of which any record remains,
can compare in importance with the invention of speech; and what day in
the world's history is more worthy of celebration than that day, the
birthday of thought and truth, when a sound, uttered by the breath, from
being the expression of a feeling became the mark of a thing? The man
who first embarked on the sea has been praised for the triple armour of
his courage; but he must be content with praise; his biography will
never be written. The North American Indians are reckoned a primitive
people, but when first they come under the notice of history they bring
with them one of the most perfect of human inventions--the birch-bark
canoe. What centuries of dreams and struggles and rash adventures went
to the inventing and perfecting of that frail boat? What forgotten names
deserve honour for the invention of the paddle and the sail? The whole
story is beyond recovery in the rapidly closing backward perspective of
time. Man's eyes are set in his head so that he may go forward, and
while he is healthy and alert he does not trouble to look behind him. If
the beginnings of European civilization are rightly traced to certain
tribes of amphibious dwellers on the coast of the Mediterranean, who
reared the piles of their houses in the water, and so escaped the
greater perils of the land, then some sort of rudimentary navigation was
the first condition of human progress, and sea-power, which defies the
devastators of continents, had earlier prophets than Admiral Mahan. But
the memory of these thousands of years has passed like a watch in the
night.

The conquest of the sea can never be recorded in history; even the
conquest of the air, which was achieved within the lifetime of all but
the very youngest of those who are now alive, admits of no sure or
perfect record. The men who bore a part in it, and still survive, are
preoccupied with the future, and are most of them impatient of their own
past. Where knowledge begins, there begin also conflicting testimonies
and competing claims. It is no part of the business of this history of
the war in the air to compare these testimonies or to resolve these
claims. To narrate how man learned to fly would demand a whole treatise,
and the part of the history which ends in December 1903 is the most
difficult and uncertain part of all. Yet the broad outlines of the
process can be sketched and determined. It is a long story of legends
and dreams, theories and fancies, all suddenly transformed into facts; a
tale of the hopes of madmen suddenly recognized as reasonable ambitions.
When in the light of the present we look back on the past our eyes are
opened, and we see many things that were invisible to contemporaries. We
are able, for the first time, to pay homage to the pioneers, who saw the
promised kingdom, but did not enter it. No place has hitherto been found
for their names in serious history. _The Dictionary of National
Biography_, with its supplement, includes the lives of all the famous
men of this nation who died before King George the Fifth was king. Yet
it contains no mention of Sir George Cayley, the Father of British
Aeronautics; nor of John Stringfellow, who, in 1848, constructed the
first engine-driven aeroplane that ever flew through the air; nor of
Francis Herbert Wenham, whose classic treatise on Aerial Locomotion,
read at the first meeting of the Aeronautical Society, in 1866, expounds
almost every principle on which modern aviation is founded; nor of James
Glaisher, who, in 1862; made the highest recorded balloon ascent; nor of
Percy Sinclair Pilcher, who lost his life in experimenting with one of
his own gliders in 1899. These men attracted little enough notice in
their own day, and were regarded as amiable eccentrics; but they all
thought long and hard on aerial navigation, and step by step, at their
own costs, they brought it nearer to accomplishment.

Now that the thing has been done, it seems strange that it was not done
earlier. At no time was it possible for man to forget his disabilities;
the birds were always above him, in easy possession. If he attributed
their special powers wholly to the lightness of their structure and the
strength of their muscles, the variety of flying creatures might have
taught him better. The fact is that there is no unique design for
flight; given the power and its right use, almost anything can fly. If
the sea-gull can fly, so can the duck, with a much heavier body and a
much less proportion of wing. The moth can fly; but so can the beetle.
The flying-fish can fly, or rather, can leap into the air and glide for
a distance of many yards. With the requisite engine-power a portmanteau
or a tea-tray could support itself in the air. The muscular power of
man, it is now generally accepted, is not sufficient to support his
weight in level flight on still air, but if the principles of flight had
been understood, there was no need to wait for the invention of the
powerful internal-combustion engine; a steam-engine in a well-designed
aeroplane might have performed very useful flights. It was knowledge
that lingered. Newton, when he saw an apple fall in his garden at
Woolsthorpe, 'began to think of gravity extending to the orb of the
moon'. If he had been in the habit of skimming flat stones on calm
water, he might have bent his mind to the problem of flight, and might
even have anticipated some of the discoveries in aerodynamics which were
reserved for the last century--in particular, the relations of speed and
angle of incidence to the reactions of air resistance on a moving plane.
The fact which is the basis of all aeroplane flight is that a perfectly
horizontal plane, free to fall through the air, has its time of falling
much retarded if it is in rapid horizontal motion. This is what makes
gliding possible. Now let the plane which is being propelled in a
horizontal direction be slightly tilted up, so that its front, or
leading edge, is higher than its back, or trailing edge. The reaction of
the air can then be resolved into two components, technically called
'lift' and 'drag'; lift, which tends to raise the plane, and drag, which
retards it in its forward motion. When the angle of incidence of the
plane is small, that is, when it is only slightly tilted from its
direction of motion, the greater part of the air reaction is converted
into lift. This is what makes flying possible. A moderate speed through
the air will enable the plane to lift much more than its own weight.

This is not a technical treatise, but some further facts of signal
importance in the theory and practice of flight are better explained at
once, in so far as the beautiful exactitude of mathematical
demonstration can be expressed in the crudities of popular speech. The
lift produced by the reaction of the air acts on the whole plane, but
not equally on all parts of it. At a flying angle, that is, when the
angle of incidence of the plane is small, the upward force is greatest
on those parts of the plane which are immediately behind the leading
edge. The wings of any soaring bird are long and narrow, and thus are
perfectly designed for their work. A square-winged bird would be a poor
soarer; a bird the breadth of whose wings should be greater than their
length could hardly fly at all. The wings of a flying machine are called
planes, or aerofoils; the length of the wing is called the span of the
plane; the breadth of the wing is called the chord of the plane. The
proportion of the span to the chord, that is, the proportion of the
length of the wing to its breadth, is called the 'aspect ratio' of the
plane; and a plane, or wing, that is long and narrow is said to have a
high aspect ratio. A higher aspect ratio than is found in any bird or
any flying machine would theoretically improve its powers of flight, but
the practicable span of the plane, or length of the wing, is limited by
the need for rigidity and strength. The albatross, nevertheless, the
king of soaring birds, has enormously long and narrow wings; and the
planes of some flying machines have an aspect ratio almost as high as
the slats of a Venetian blind.

The wings of a flying machine, it has been said, are called planes, but
they are not true planes. Like the wings of a bird, they are 'cambered',
that is to say, they curve upward from the leading edge and downward
again to the trailing edge. Some of the most valuable work contributed
by the laboratory to the science of flight has had for its object the
determination of the best form of camber, or curve of the plane. In the
result, that form of camber has been found to be best which attains its
maximum depth a little way only behind the leading edge, and gradually
becomes shallower towards the trailing edge. Such a form of curve
produces a comparatively smooth and untroubled partial vacuum above the
plane, just behind its leading edge, and this vacuum is the factor of
chief importance in the lift of the plane.

The above is a brief and rough statement of some principles of aviation
which have been ascertained by long experiment and the labour of many
minds. It is by experiment that flight has been achieved. The Newton
who shall reduce all the observed phenomena to a few broad and simple
laws is yet to come. A bird is simpler than an aeroplane in that its
wings both support it and drive it forward, whereas all aerial machines,
both those that are heavier than air and those that are lighter than
air, are at present driven forward by the thrust of an airscrew,
revolving at the rate of some twenty to thirty times a second.

There are only two kinds of flying machine, the lighter than air and the
heavier than air, of which two kinds the simplest types are the
soap-bubble and the arrow. These two kinds have often been in
competition with each other; and their rivalry, which has sometimes
delayed progress, still continues. The chief practical objection to
machines lighter than air is that they are buoyed up by vulnerable
receptacles containing hydrogen or some other highly inflammable gas. As
soon as helium, which is a light non-inflammable gas, shall be produced
in quantity at a reasonable expense, this objection will be lessened.
The advantage of the lighter-than-air, or floating, machine over the
heavier-than-air, or soaring, machine is that it can remain stationary
in the air without loss of height, and that its great size and lifting
power enable it to supply comfortable quarters for its staff, who not
only travel in it, but, if need be, can inhabit it for days. The airship
has a promising future, but it can never wholly supersede the soaring
machine, which is heavier than air, and flies as birds fly.

A fascinating story, part legend, part fiction, might be told of the
earliest reputed inventors. The fable of Daedalus perhaps grew up round
the memory of a man of mechanical genius, for Daedalus was the author of
many inventions before he flew from Crete to Italy. Aulus Gellius, in
his entertaining book of anecdotes called the _Attic Nights_, tells how
the philosopher Archytas of Tarentum invented a mechanical pigeon,
which was filled with some kind of light air, and flew. The two schools
of aeronautics were here reconciled. Other mechanists were Roger Bacon,
who is reported to have designed a flying chariot; and Regiomontanus,
astronomer and mathematician, who made a mechanical eagle which flew to
meet the Emperor Charles the Fifth, on his solemn entry into the city of
Nuremberg. It is not necessary to inquire whether these stories are true
or false; what is certain is that the inventors did not leave their
inventions as a legacy to their fellows. For a like reason Leonardo da
Vinci, who busied himself with a mechanism which should enable man to
operate wings with his legs, and who left a short treatise on the art of
flight, has no place in the history. His mechanism is merely a drawing;
his treatise remained in manuscript. The adventurers who risked their
lives on wings of their own making are truer ancestors of the flying
man. In 1507 John Damian, who was held in esteem as an alchemist and
physician at the court of King James IV of Scotland, 'took in hand to
fly with wings, and to that effect he caused make a pair of wings of
feathers, which being fastened upon him, he flew off the castle wall of
Stirling, but shortly he fell to the ground and brake his
thigh-bone'.[1] The poet Dunbar attacked him in a satirical poem, and
the reputation of a charlatan has stuck to him, but he deserves credit
for his courageous attempt. So does the Marquis de Bacqueville, who, in
1742, attached to his arms and legs planes of his own design, and
launched himself from an upper story of his house in Paris, in the
attempt to fly across the river Seine to the Tuileries, about two
hundred yards away. He glided some distance, and then fell on a
washerwoman's barge in the stream, breaking his leg in the fall. These
and other disastrous attempts might be defended in the words of Wilbur
Wright, written in 1901, while he was experimenting with his own
gliders. 'There are two ways', he says, 'of learning how to ride a
fractious horse: one is to get on him and learn by actual practice how
each motion and trick may be best met; the other is to sit on a fence
and watch the beast awhile, and then retire to the house and at leisure
figure out the best way of overcoming his jumps and kicks. The latter
system is the safest; but the former, on the whole, turns out the larger
proportion of good riders. It is very much the same in learning to ride
a flying machine; if you are looking for perfect safety you will do well
to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn
you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual
trial.'[2] This pronouncement, by the highest authority, may serve as an
apology for some of those whose attempts were reckoned madness or
quackery, and whose misfortunes, during many long centuries, are the
only material available for the history of human flight.

    [Footnote 1: From the _History of Scotland_, by John Lesley, Bishop
    of Ross, written about 1570.]

    [Footnote 2: _Journal of the Western Society of Engineers_, vol. vi,
    No. 6, December 1901.]

Two periods of modern European history are notable for a quickening of
human interest in the problem of aerial navigation. They are the age of
Louis XIV of France, and the age of the French Revolution. Both were
times of great progress in science, and of illimitable hopes; but the
earlier period, which in England witnessed the foundation of the Royal
Society, was notable chiefly for advance in the physical and
mathematical sciences; while the later period was more addicted to
chemistry, and was the age of Lavoisier, Priestley, Cavendish, and
Black. The former age, though it attained to nothing practical, made
some progress in the theory of flight; the latter age invented the
balloon.

The Royal Society took its origin in the meetings in London, during the
troublous times of the Civil War, of 'divers worthy persons inquisitive
into natural philosophy'. One of these worthy persons was John Wilkins,
mathematician, philosopher, and divine, who, being parliamentarian in
his sympathies, was, on the expulsion of the Royalists from Oxford, made
Warden of Wadham College in that University. At Wadham, in the Warden's
lodgings, the 'Experimental philosophical Club', as Aubrey calls it,
renewed its meetings. Sprat, the early historian of the Royal Society,
explains that religion and politics were forbidden topics. 'To have been
always tossing about some theological question would have been to make
that their private diversion of which they had had more than enough in
public; to have been musing on the Civil Wars would have made them
melancholy; therefore Nature alone could entertain them.' After the
Restoration a meeting was held at Gresham College in London, and a
committee was appointed, with Wilkins as chairman, to draw up a scheme
for the Royal Society. The King approved of the scheme submitted to him,
and the society received its charter in 1662.

Wilkins was a famous man in his day; he married a sister of Oliver
Cromwell, and in his later years was Bishop of Chester. But his great
work was the founding of the Royal Society; and his philosophical (or,
as they would now be called, scientific) writings, which belong to his
earlier years in London, show very clearly with what high expectations
the society started on its labours. The first of these writings,
published in 1638, is a discourse to prove that there may be another
habitable World in the Moon. The second considers the possibility of a
passage thither. The third maintains that it is probable that our Earth
is one of the planets. The fourth, which is entitled _Mercury; or, the
Secret Messenger_, discusses how thoughts may be communicated from a
distance. The fifth and last, published in 1648, is called _Mathematical
Magic_, and is divided into two books, under the titles _Archimedes; or,
Mechanical Powers_, and _Daedalus; or, Mechanical Motions_. In this
latter book Wilkins treats of mills, clocks, and the contrivance of
motion by rarefied air; of the construction of an ark for submarine
navigation, and of its uses in war; of a sailing chariot, to be driven
on the land as ships are on the sea; of the possibility of perpetual
motion; and, in chapters vii and viii, of the art of flying. There are
four ways, according to Wilkins, whereby flying in the air may be
attempted. The first is by spirits or angels; but this branch of the
subject does not belong to natural philosophy. The next is by the help
of fowls, which the learned Francis Bacon thought deserving of further
experiment. Two ways remain of flying by our own strength; we may use
wings fastened immediately to the body, or we may devise a flying
chariot. If we are to use wings, he says, we must be brought up in the
constant practice of them from youth, first 'running on the ground, as
an ostrich or tame goose will do ... and so by degrees learn to rise
higher.... I have heard it from credible testimony, that one of our own
nation hath proceeded so far in this experiment, that he was able by the
help of wings, in such a running pace, to step constantly ten yards at a
time.' The arms of a man extended are weak, and easily wearied, so he
thinks it would be worth the inquiry whether the wings might not be
worked by the legs being thrust out and drawn in again one after the
other, so as each leg should move both wings. But the best way of flying
would be by a flying chariot, big enough to carry several persons, who
might take turns to work it. Wilkins is quite honest in recognizing the
difficulties of this scheme. He deals fully with the chief of
them--whether so large and heavy a machine can be supported by so thin
and light a body as the air; and whether the strength of the persons in
it can be sufficient for the motion of it. In his attempt to show that
these objections are not insuperable, he makes some true remarks. He had
watched soaring birds, and had seen how they could swim up and down in
the air without any sensible motion of the wings. When the right
proportions of the machine are found out, and men by long practice have
attained to skill and experience, we may perhaps, he thinks, be able to
imitate the birds. If, after all, it be found that some greater motive
power is required, we must not despair of the invention of such a power.
The main difficulty will be not so much in maintaining the machine in
flight as in raising it from the ground. 'When once it is aloft in the
air, the motion of it will be easy, as it is in the flight of all kind
of birds, which being at any great distance from the earth, are able to
continue their motion for a long time and way, with little labour and
weariness.' The right proportion of the wings, both for length and
breadth; the special contrivances necessary for ascent, descent, or a
turning motion--these and many more such questions can only be resolved,
he maintains, by particular experiments. The sails of ships have been
perfected by degrees, and the attempt to fly must meet with many
difficulties and inconveniences for which only long experience and
frequent trial can suggest a remedy.

So far Wilkins went; and he went no farther. His speculations, however,
made a deep impression on his own age, gave a bias to the researches of
his fellows, and, incidentally, aroused a storm of ridicule. When Joseph
Glanvill, in his vigorous little treatise called _Scepsis Scientifica_
(1665), wrote a forecast of the possible achievements of the Royal
Society, he borrowed his hopes from Wilkins. 'Should these heroes go
on', he says, 'as they have happily begun, they will fill the world
with wonders, and posterity will find many things that are now but
rumours, verified into practical realities. It may be, some ages hence,
a voyage to the southern unknown tracts, yea, possibly the Moon, will
not be more strange than one to America. To them that come after us it
may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into remotest regions,
as now a pair of boots to ride a journey. And to confer at the distance
of the Indies, by sympathetic conveyances, may be as usual to future
times, as to us in a literary correspondence. The restoration of grey
hairs to juvenility, and renewing the exhausted marrow, may at length be
effected without a miracle; and the turning the now comparative desert
world into a paradise, may not improbably be expected from late
agriculture.' Again, when Sir William Temple, some thirty years later,
cast contempt upon the Moderns in his _Essay of Ancient and Modern
Learning_, it was the speculations of Wilkins that provoked his keenest
satire. 'I have indeed heard of wondrous Pretensions and Visions of Men,
possess'd with Notions of the strange Advancement of Learning and
Sciences, on foot in this Age, and the Progress they are like to make in
the next; as, the Universal Medicine, which will certainly cure all that
have it; the Philosopher's Stone, which will be found out by Men that
care not for Riches: the transfusion of young Blood into old Men's
Veins, which will make them as gamesome as the Lambs, from which 'tis to
be derived; an Universal Language, which may serve all Men's Turn, when
they have forgot their own: the Knowledge of one another's Thoughts,
without the grievous Trouble of Speaking: the Art of Flying, till a Man
happens to fall down and break his Neck: Double-bottom'd Ships, whereof
none can ever be cast away, besides the first that was made: the
admirable Virtues of that noble and necessary Juice called Spittle,
which will come to be sold, and very cheap, in the Apothecaries' Shops:
Discoveries of new Worlds in the Planets, and Voyages between this and
that in the Moon, to be made as frequently as between York and London:
which such poor Mortals as I am think as wild as those of Ariosto, but
without half so much Wit, or so much Instruction; for there, these
modern Sages may know where they may hope in Time to find their lost
Senses, preserved in Vials, with those of Orlando.'

Both Sir William Temple and Joseph Glanvill were men of acute
intelligence and complete sanity; the one an aged statesman deeply
versed in the deceits and follies of men; the other a young cleric,
educated in the Oxford of the Commonwealth, and stirred to enthusiasm by
what he had there heard of the progress of natural philosophy. In this
perennial debate the man of the world commonly triumphs; he plays for
the stakes that are on the table, and does not put faith in deferred
gains. For something like two hundred years Sir William Temple's triumph
was almost complete. Now things have changed, and Glanvill's rhapsody
comes nearer to the truth. Wireless telegraphy, radium, the discoveries
of bacteriology, and not least the conquest of the air, have taken the
edge off the sallies of the wit, and have verified the dreams of the
prophet.

What most delayed the science and art of flight, which made no progress
during the whole of the eighteenth century, was an imperfect
understanding of the flight of birds. The right way to achieve flight,
as events were to prove, was by the study and practice of gliding. But
birds were believed to support, as well as to raise, themselves in the
air chiefly by what in the jargon of science is called orthogonal
flight, that is, by direct downward flapping of the wings. This view
received authoritative support from a famous treatise written in the
seventeenth century by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, an Italian professor of
mathematical and natural philosophy. Borelli, who held professorships at
the Universities of Florence and Pisa, and corresponded with many
members of the Royal Society, was an older man than Wilkins, but his
book on the movements of animals (_De Motu Animalium_), which included a
section on the flight of birds (_De Volatu_), was not published till
1680, when both he and Wilkins were dead. It was long held in high
esteem for its anatomical exposition of the action of flying, and some
of its main contentions cast a damp upon the hopes of man. The bones of
a bird, says Borelli, are thin tubes of exceeding hardness, much
lighter, and at the same time stronger, than the bones of a man. The
pectoral muscles, which move the wings, are massive and strong--more
than four times stronger, in proportion to the weight they have to move,
than the legs of a man. And he states his conclusion roundly--it is
impossible that man should ever achieve artificial flight by his own
strength. This view, dogmatically stated by one who was a good
mathematician and a good anatomist, became the orthodox view, and had an
enduring influence. All imitation of the birds by man, and further, all
schemes of navigating the air in a machine dynamically supported,
seemed, by Borelli's argument, to have been thrust back into the limbo
of vanities.

There remained only the hope that some means might be found of buoying
man up in the air, thereby leaving him free to apply his muscular and
mechanical powers to the business of driving himself forward. Another
celebrated treatise of the seventeenth century pointed the way to such a
means. Francesco Lana, a member of the Society of Jesus in Rome, spent
the greater part of his life in scientific research. He planned a large
encyclopaedia, embodying all existing science, in so far as it was based
on experiment and proof. Of this work only two volumes appeared during
his lifetime; he died at Brescia in the year 1687. But long before he
died, he had produced, in 1670, a preliminary sketch of his great work;
and it is this earlier and shorter treatise which contains the two
famous chapters on the Aerial Ship. The aerial ship is to be buoyed up
in the air by being suspended from four globes, made of thin copper
sheeting, each of them about twenty-five feet in diameter. From these
globes the air is to be exhausted, so that each of them, being lighter
than air, will support the weight of two or three men. The ship being
thus floated can be propelled by oars and sails.

Any modern reader, without asking for further specifications, can
pronounce this design absurd. Lana was prevented by his vow of poverty
from spending any money on experiment, so that he had to meet only
argumentative objections, not those much more formidable obstacles, the
ordeal of the inventor, which present themselves when a machine is
theoretically perfect and will not work. The difficulties which he
foresaw are real enough. The process of exhausting the air from the
globes might, he thought, prove troublesome. The pressure of the
atmosphere on the outer surface, it might be held, would crush or break
the globes, to which he replied that that pressure would be equal on all
sides, and would therefore rather strengthen the globes than break them.
The ship, some might object, could not be propelled by oars; Lana thinks
it could, but suggests, to comfort the objectors, that oars will rarely
be necessary, for there will always be a wind. The weight of the machine
and of the persons in it will fortunately prevent it from rising to
heights where breathing becomes impossible. 'I do not foresee', says
Lana, 'any other difficulties that could prevail against this invention,
save one only, which to me seems the greatest of them all, and that is
that God would never surely allow such a machine to be successful,
since it would create many disturbances in the civil and political
governments of mankind. Where is the man who can fail to see that no
city would be proof against surprise, when the ship could at any time be
steered over its squares, or even over the courtyards of
dwelling-houses, and brought to earth for the landing of its crew?...
Iron weights could be hurled to wreck ships at sea, or they could be set
on fire by fireballs and bombs; nor ships alone, but houses, fortresses,
and cities could be thus destroyed, with the certainty that the airship
could come to no harm as the missiles could be hurled from a vast
height.'

The extravagance of Lana's design must not be allowed to rob him of the
credit of being, in some sense, the inventor of the balloon. A balloon
filled with gas, and lighter than air, was in his day inconceivable; the
composition of the atmosphere was unknown, and the chemistry of gases
was not understood. But he had followed the physical investigations of
the seventeenth century, and was well acquainted with Torricelli's
demonstration of the weight of the atmosphere. The only practical way
for him to make a vessel lighter than air was to empty it of the air
within it, and Torricelli's invention of the barometer seemed to bring
such a device within reach. The common pump begat the barometer; the
barometer begat the balloon. But the enormous pressure of the atmosphere
on a vessel encasing a vacuum, though Lana had triumphed over it in
argument, could not be so easily dealt with in practice. The success of
the balloon was delayed until, by the discovery and production of a gas
lighter than air, a frail and thin envelope could be supported against
the pressure from without by an equal pressure from within.

For ballooning what was chiefly necessary was a thorough knowledge of
gases and of the means of producing them. The older chemistry, or
alchemy, devoted all its attention, for centuries, to the precious
metals, and knew nothing of gas. Medical chemistry, which succeeded it,
was concerned chiefly with the curative properties of various chemical
preparations. When Robert Boyle, and the investigators who came after
him, put aside this age-long preoccupation with wealth and healing, and
set themselves to determine, by observation and experiment, the nature
of common substances, and the possibility of resolving them into simpler
elements, modern chemistry began. Four states of matter, namely, earth,
air, fire, and water, were recognized by the older chemists, and were by
them called elements; it was the work of the eighteenth century to
investigate these, and especially to separate the constituents of air
and of water. In 1774 Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen. In 1782 Henry
Cavendish showed that hydrogen, when burnt, produces water. At a much
earlier date hydrogen had been produced by the action of acid on metals,
and had been found to be many times lighter than air. Dr. Joseph Black,
professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, was the first to
suggest, in 1767, that a balloon inflated with hydrogen would rise in
the air; and the experiment was successfully tried with soap-bubbles by
Tiberius Cavallo, in the year 1782.

Nevertheless, the famous first balloon, which ascended in 1783, was not
filled with hydrogen, and was invented by what may be called a happy
accident. The brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier were the sons of a
wealthy paper-maker at Annonay, not very far from Lyons. The suggestion
of their balloon came to them from observing that thick opaque clouds
float high in the air. Linen material was readily accessible to them at
the factory, and they resolved to try whether a large balloon, some
thirty-three feet in diameter, filled with smoke vapours, would rise in
the air. Their experiment was successful. On the 5th of June 1783 they
filled their balloon with smoke (and therefore with hot air) over a fire
of chips and shavings; it rose easily, and travelled to a distance of
about a mile and a half before it cooled and sank. The fame of this
experiment quickly reached Paris, the centre of science and fashion, and
awakened rivalry. Under the direction of Professor Charles, a well-known
physicist, two brothers whose surname was Robert made from varnished
silk a balloon of about thirteen feet in diameter; it was filled with
hydrogen, and on the 27th of August 1783, in the presence of a large and
excited assembly, it rose from the Champ de Mars and travelled some
fifteen miles into the country, where it fell, and produced a panic
among the peasantry. On the 19th of September Joseph Montgolfier was
brought to Versailles to give a demonstration of his new invention in
the presence of the King and Queen. On this occasion his balloon rose
1,500 feet into the air, carrying with it a sheep, a cock, and a duck,
the first living passengers, whom it deposited unhurt when it came to
ground again after a short flight. Thereafter society went balloon-mad.
Pilâtre de Rozier, a young native of Metz, determined to attempt an
aerial voyage. During the month of October he experimented with a
captive balloon of the Montgolfier type, from which he suspended a
brazier, so that by a continued supply of heated air the balloon should
maintain its buoyancy. On the 21st of November 1783, accompanied by the
Marquis d'Arlandes, he rose in a free balloon from the Bois de Boulogne,
and made a successful voyage of twenty minutes, during which time he
travelled over Paris for a distance of about five miles. Ten days later,
on behalf of the savants, M. Charles retorted with a voyage of
twenty-seven miles, in a hydrogen balloon, from Paris to Nesle; he was
accompanied by one of the brothers Robert, and when Robert left the car
at Nesle the balloon, lightened of a part of its burden, rose rapidly
with M. Charles to a height of two miles in the air. Most of the
fittings of the modern hydrogen balloon, the hoop and netting, for
instance, from which the car is suspended, and the valve at the top of
the balloon for the release of the gas, were devised by Charles. The
unfortunate Pilâtre de Rozier met his death on the 15th of June 1785, in
an attempt to cross from Boulogne to England. In order to avoid a
constant wastage of hydrogen in controlling the height of the balloon,
he devised a double balloon; the larger one, above, was filled with
hydrogen, the smaller one, below, was worked with hot air from a
brazier, on the Montgolfier principle. At a height of some three
thousand feet, while it was still over French territory, the double
balloon caught fire and fell flaming to the earth.

The earliest balloon ascents in England followed close upon the French
experiments. On the 25th of November 1783 Count Francesco Zambeccari
sent up an oil-silk hydrogen balloon, ten feet in diameter, from the
Artillery Ground in Moorfields; it travelled forty-eight miles, and fell
at Petworth in Sussex. On the 22nd of February 1784 a balloon of five
feet in diameter, liberated at Sandwich in Kent, travelled seventy-five
miles, and after crossing the Channel, fell at Warneton in Flanders. To
inflate a bag with gas and let it take its chance in the air is no great
achievement, but these were flights of good promise. The first person in
Great Britain to navigate the air was James Tytler, a Scot, who on the
27th of August 1784 ascended in a fire-balloon, that is, a balloon
filled with hot air, from Comely Gardens, Edinburgh, and travelled about
half a mile. Tytler had been employed by the booksellers to edit the
second edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, of which he wrote the
greater part, at a salary of seventeen shillings a week; he passed his
life in poverty, and his balloon adventure attracted little attention.
The public mania for ballooning as a spectacle began with the ascents of
Vincenzo Lunardi, secretary to the Neapolitan ambassador in England.
Lunardi's first ascent, which was well advertised, was made from the
Artillery Ground in Moorfields on the 15th of September 1784, in the
presence of nearly two hundred thousand spectators. His hydrogen
balloon, of about thirty-two feet in diameter, sailed high over London,
and descended near Ware in Hertfordshire. His record of his sensations,
written in imperfect English, and published in 1784 under the title of
_An Account of the First Aerial Voyage in England_, deserves quotation:

'At five minutes after two, the last gun was fired, the cords divided,
and the Balloon rose, the company returning my signals of adieu with the
most unfeigned acclamations and applauses. The effect was that of a
miracle on the multitudes which surrounded the place; and they passed
from incredulity and menace into the most extravagant expressions of
approbation and joy.

'At the height of twenty yards, the Balloon was a little depressed by
the wind, which had a fine effect; it held me over the ground for a few
seconds, and seemed to pause majestically before its departure.

'On discharging a part of the ballast, it ascended to the height of two
hundred yards. As a multitude lay before me of a hundred and fifty
thousand people, who had not seen my ascent from the ground, I had
recourse to every stratagem to let them know I was in the gallery, and
they literally rent the air with their acclamations and applause. In
these stratagems I devoted my flag, and worked with my oars, one of
which was immediately broken and fell from me. A pigeon too escaped,
which, with a dog, and cat, were the only companions of my excursion.

'When the thermometer had fallen from 68° to 61° I perceived a great
difference in the temperature of the air. I became very cold, and found
it necessary to take a few glasses of wine. I likewise eat the leg of a
chicken, but my bread and other provisions had been rendered useless by
being mixed with the sand which I carried as ballast.

'When the thermometer was at fifty, the effect of the atmosphere, and
the combination of circumstances around, produced a calm delight, which
is inexpressible, and which no situation on earth could give. The
stillness, extent, and magnificence of the scene rendered it highly
awful. My horizon seemed a perfect circle; the terminating line several
hundred miles in circumference. This I conjectured from the view of
London; the extreme points of which, formed an angle of only a few
degrees. It was so reduced on the great scale before me, that I can find
no simile to convey an idea of it. I could distinguish Saint Paul's and
other churches, from the houses. I saw the streets as lines, all
animated with beings, whom I knew to be men and women, but which I
should otherwise have had a difficulty in describing. It was an enormous
beehive, but the industry of it was suspended. All the moving mass
seemed to have no object but myself, and the transition from the
suspicion, and perhaps contempt, of the preceding hour, to the
affectionate transport, admiration and glory of the present moment, was
not without its effect on my mind. I recollected the puns[3] on my name,
and was glad to find myself calm. I had soared from the apprehensions
and anxieties of the Artillery Ground, and felt as if I had left behind
me all the cares and passions that molest mankind.

    [Footnote 3: In some of the papers, witticisms appeared on the
    affinity of Lunatic and Lunardi.]

'Indeed, the whole scene before me filled the mind with a sublime
pleasure, of which I never had a conception. The critics imagine, for
they seldom speak from experience, that terror is an ingredient in every
sublime sensation. It was not possible for me to be on earth in a
situation so free from apprehension. I had not the slightest sense of
motion from the Machine, I knew not whether it went swiftly or slowly,
whether it ascended or descended, whether it was agitated or tranquil,
but by the appearance or disappearance of objects on the earth. I moved
to different parts of the gallery, I adjusted the furniture, and
apparatus, I uncorked my bottle, eat, drank, and wrote, just as in my
study. The height had not the effect, which a much lesser degree of it
has near the earth, that of producing giddiness. The broomsticks of the
witches, Ariosto's flying-horse, and even Milton's sunbeam, conveying
the angel to the earth, have all an idea of effort, difficulty, and
restraint, which do not affect a voyage in the Balloon.

'Thus tranquil, and thus situated, how shall I describe to you a view,
such as the ancients supposed Jupiter to have of the earth, and to copy
which there are no terms in any language. The gradual diminution of
objects, and the masses of light and shade are intelligible in oblique
and common prospects. But here every thing wore a new appearance, and
had a new effect. The face of the country had a mild and permanent
verdure, to which Italy is a stranger. The variety of cultivation, and
the accuracy with which property is divided, give the idea ever present
to a stranger in England, of good civil laws and an equitable
administration; the rivers meandering; the sea glist'ning with the rays
of the sun; the immense district beneath me spotted with cities, towns,
villages, houses, pouring out their inhabitants to hail my appearance:
you will allow me some merit at not having been exceedingly intoxicated
with my situation.

'The interest which the spectators took in my voyage was so great, that
the things I threw down were divided and preserved as our people would
relicks of the most celebrated saints. And a gentlewoman, mistaking the
oar for my person, was so affected with my supposed destruction, that
she died in a few days.'

       *       *       *       *       *

For many months after this the Flying Man was the chief topic of
conversation in the town. Even in the previous year reports of the
French ascents had produced a fever of excitement in London. 'Balloons',
said Horace Walpole, writing in December 1783, 'occupy senators,
philosophers, ladies, everybody.' All other interests yielded
precedence. Miss Burney's _Cecilia_ was the novel of the season, but it
had to give way. 'Next to the balloon,' said Mrs. Barbauld, in a letter
written in January 1784, 'Miss Burney is the object of public
curiosity.' A few weeks earlier, Dr. Johnson passed the day with three
friends, and boasted to Mrs. Thrale that no mention had been made by any
of them of the air balloon, 'which has taken full possession, with a
very good claim, of every philosophical mind and mouth'. Some days after
Lunardi's first ascent Johnson wrote to a friend, 'I had this day in
three letters three histories of the flying man in the great Ballon. I
am glad that we do as well as our neighbours.' Three letters were
enough, and on the same day Johnson wrote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Do
not write about the balloon, whatever else you may think proper to say'.
On the 29th of September 1784 Lunardi's balloon caught fire by accident,
and was burnt on the ground. Johnson's quiet and sensible comment is
conveyed in a letter to his friend Dr. Brocklesby, on the 6th of
October: 'The fate of the balloon I do not much lament: to make new
balloons is to repeat the jest again. We now know a method of mounting
into the air, and, I think, are not likely to know more. The vehicles
can serve no use till we can guide them; and they can gratify no
curiosity till we mount with them to greater heights than we can reach
without; till we rise above the tops of the highest mountains, which we
have yet not done. We know the state of the air in all its regions, to
the top of Teneriffe, and therefore, learn nothing from those who
navigate a balloon below the clouds. The first experiment, however, was
bold, and deserved applause and reward.'

Johnson died in December of that same year; the balloon had made its
appearance just in time for his comments. Another critic, Horace
Walpole, was in two minds about balloons. Sometimes they seemed to him
'philosophic playthings'. He was growing old, and did not care to spend
his time in 'divining with what airy vehicles the atmosphere will be
peopled hereafter, or how much more expeditiously the east, west, or
south will be ravaged and butchered, than they have been by the old
clumsy method of navigation'. Yet in spite of his elegant indifference,
he could not help being interested; and some of his divinations come
very near to the truth. He pictures Salisbury Plain, Newmarket Heath,
and all downs, arising into dockyards for aerial vessels; and he
professes himself willing to go to Paris by air, 'if there is no air
sickness'. The best defence of the new invention was spoken by Benjamin
Franklin, who when he was asked in Paris, 'What is the use of balloons?'
replied by another question--'What is the use of a newborn infant?'

The infancy of the balloon lasted long; indeed, if lack of self-control
be the mark of infancy, the balloon was an infant during the whole of
the nineteenth century. In the early days, new achievements, in distance
or height, kept public expectation alive. Jean Pierre Blanchard, a
French aeronaut, and rival of Lunardi, succeeded, on the 7th of January
1785, in crossing the English Channel from Dover. Thereafter ascents
became so numerous that it is impossible to keep count of them.
Glaisher, writing about 1870, says that the most remarkable ascent of
the century was that fitted out by Robert Hollond, Esq., M.P. The
balloonist was Charles Green, and they were accompanied by Mr. Monck
Mason, who published an account of the voyage. In Mr. Green's balloon,
afterwards called the _Great Nassau_, they left Vauxhall Gardens on the
afternoon of Monday, the 7th of November 1836, with provisions to last a
fortnight. They were soon lost in the clouds, and after crossing the
sea, had no very clear idea of what country they were over. After
eighteen hours' journey, fearing that they had reached Poland or Russia,
they came to earth, and found that they had travelled five hundred
miles, to the neighbourhood of the town of Weilburg, in the duchy of
Nassau. Charles Green was the most experienced aeronaut of his time; he
was the first to use coal-gas in place of hydrogen, and he was the
inventor of the guide-rope, which is dropped from a balloon to allow her
to be secured by a landing party, or is trailed on the ground to reduce
her speed and to assist in maintaining a steady height.

The dangers of the balloon were diminished by the labours of scientific
men, but its disabilities remained. No one who travelled in a balloon
could choose his destination. The view of the earth, and of the clouds,
obtainable from a height, was beautiful and unfamiliar, but in the
absence of any specific utility the thing became a popular toy. In
public gardens a balloon could be counted on to attract a crowd, and the
showman soon gave it its place, as a miracle of nature, by the side of
the giant and the dwarf, the living skeleton, and the fat woman. A horse
is not seen to advantage in the car of a balloon, but it is a marvel
that a horse should be seen there at all, and equestrian ascents became
one of the attractions of the Cremorne Gardens in 1821.

It was not until 1859 that an organized attempt was made to reclaim the
balloon for the purposes of science. In that year a committee, appointed
by the British Association to make observations on the higher strata of
the atmosphere, met at Wolverhampton. Volunteers were lacking until, in
1862, James Glaisher, one of the members of the committee, declared his
willingness to prepare the apparatus and to make the observations from a
balloon. Glaisher had spent many years on meteorological observation, in
Ireland, at Cambridge University, and at the Royal Observatory,
Greenwich. He proposed to investigate the effect of different elevations
on the temperature of the dew-point; on the composition and electrical
condition of the atmosphere, and on the rate and direction of the wind
currents in it; on the earth's magnetism, and the solar spectrum; on
sound, and on solar radiation. From 1862 to 1866 he made twenty-eight
ascents, with Henry Coxwell as his balloonist. The most famous of these
was from Wolverhampton on the 5th of September 1862, when Glaisher
claimed to have reached a height of fully seven miles. After recording a
height of 29,000 feet Glaisher swooned; Coxwell lost the use of his
limbs, but succeeded in pulling the cord of the valve with his teeth.
When Glaisher swooned the balloon was ascending rapidly; when he came
to, thirteen minutes later, it was descending rapidly, and the height
that he claimed was an inference, supported by the reading of a minimum
thermometer. Critics have pointed out that his calculations made no
allowance for the slackening of the upward pace of the balloon as it
neared its limit, nor for the time it would take, with the valve feebly
pulled, to change its direction and acquire speed in its descent. They
are inclined to allow him a height of about six miles, which is a
sufficiently remarkable achievement.

All these ascents, though they proved that the balloon had a certain
utility for the exploration of the upper reaches of the atmosphere, did
little or nothing for aerial navigation. The great vogue of the balloon
distracted attention from the real problem of flight. That problem was
not abandoned; a number of men, working independently, without any sort
of public recognition, made steady advance during the whole course of
the nineteenth century. By the end of the century, three years before
flight was achieved, those who were most deeply concerned in the attempt
knew that success was near. The great difficulty of scientific research
lies in choosing the right questions to ask of nature. Every lawyer
knows that it is easy to put a question so full of false assumptions
that no true answer to it is possible; and many a laborious man of
science has spent his life in framing such questions, and in looking for
an answer to them. The contribution of the nineteenth century to the
science of flight was that it got hold of the right questions, and
formulated them more or less exactly, so that the answers, when once
they were supplied by continued observation and experiment, were things
of value.

The earliest of these pioneers was Sir George Cayley, a country
gentleman with estates in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, who devoted his
life to scientific pursuits. He was born in 1773, and the balloons which
excited the world during his boyhood directed his mind to the subject of
aerial navigation. He invented many mechanical contrivances, and he laid
great and just stress on the importance of motive power for successful
flight. In 1809 he published, in _Nicholson's Journal_, a paper on
Aerial Navigation, which has since become a classic, for although it
stops short of a complete exposition, it is true so far as it goes, and
contains no nonsense and no fantasy. He endeavoured, in the first year
of Queen Victoria's reign, to establish an aeronautical society, but the
ill repute of the balloon and the bad company it kept deprived him of
influential support. He did his duty by his county, as a Whig magnate,
and amused his leisure with science, till his death in 1857.

Cayley's work is difficult to assess. He had all the right ideas, though
the means of putting them into practice did not lie ready to his hand.
If he had been a poor man, he might have gone farther. He designed, so
to say, both an airship and an aeroplane; there was no one to execute
his designs, and the scheme fell through. He more than once anticipated
later inventions, but he put nothing on the market. His mind was fertile
in mechanical devices, so that if one proved troublesome, he could
always turn his attention to another. He is content to enunciate a
truth, and to call it probable. 'Probably', he says, in discussing
engines of small weight and high power, 'a much cheaper engine of this
sort might be produced by a gas-light apparatus and by firing the
inflammable air generated with a due portion of common air under a
piston.' This is an exact forecast of the engine used to-day in all
flying machines. He has some good remarks on the shape that offers least
resistance to the air in passing through it, that is, on the doctrine of
the streamline. He knew that the shape of the hinder part of a solid
body which travels through the air is of as much importance as the shape
of the fore-part in diminishing resistance. He does not seem to have
known that it is of more importance. He knew that the resistance of the
air acting on concave wings, or planes, at a small angle of incidence
was resolved chiefly into lift, and he suspected that the amount of the
lift was greater than the mathematical theory of his day allowed. Above
all, his treatise is stimulating, and suggests further inquiry and
experiment along lines which have since proved to be the right lines.

Cayley's ideas were developed in practice by John Stringfellow, a
manufacturer of lace machinery at Chard, in Somersetshire, and by his
friend W. S. Henson, a young engineer. They constructed a light
steam-engine, and designed an aeroplane, of which they entertained such
high hopes that they took out a patent, and applied to Parliament for an
Act to incorporate an Aerial Steam Transit Company. The reaction of
public opinion on their proposals took the form of drag rather than
lift, and they were thrown back on their own resources. In 1847 they
made a model aeroplane, twenty feet in span, driven by two four-bladed
airscrews, three feet in diameter, and they experimented with it on Bala
Down, near Chard. It did not fly. Henson, completely discouraged,
married and went to America; Stringfellow persisted, and in 1848 made a
smaller model, ten feet in span, with airscrews sixteen inches in
diameter. This machine, which had wings slightly cambered, with a rigid
leading edge and a flexible trailing edge, made several successful
flights, first in a long covered room at Chard, and later, before a
number of witnesses, at Cremorne Gardens. After this success
Stringfellow did no more for many years, until the foundation of the
Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in 1866 roused him again to
activity. At the society's exhibition of 1868, held in the Crystal
Palace, he produced a model triplane, which ran along suspended from a
wire, and, when its engine was in action, lifted itself as it ran.

The foundation of the Aeronautical Society, with the Duke of Argyll as
president and with a council of men of science, attracted fresh minds to
the study of flight, and gave the subject a respectable standing. Mr.
Wenham's paper, read to the society on the 27th of June 1866, proved
that the effective sustaining area of a wing is limited to a narrow
portion behind the leading edge; that, in order to increase this area,
the planes of a flying machine might advantageously be placed one above
another--an idea which was borrowed and put into practice by Mr.
Stringfellow in his triplane--and that a heavy body, supported on
planes, requires less power to drive it through the air at a high speed
than to maintain it in flight at a low speed. For some years the society
flourished; then its energies declined, and it fell into a state of
suspended animation. At its second exhibition, in 1885, there were only
sixteen exhibits as against seventy-eight at the exhibition of 1868. The
prospects of practical success seemed remoter than ever. At last, thirty
years after its foundation, it sprang into renewed activity, and, with
Major B. F. S. Baden-Powell as secretary, did an immense work, from 1897
onwards, in directing and furthering the study of aviation. The
_Aeronautical Journal_, which was published quarterly by the revived
society, is a record of the years of progress and triumph.

The cause of this sudden revival is to be sought in the extraordinary
fermentation which had been going on under the surface, both in Europe
and America. The public was careless and sceptical; inventors who were
seeking practical success were shy of premature publicity; papers read
to learned societies were more concerned with theory than with practice;
but there was hope in the air, and hundreds of minds were independently
at work on the problem of flight. Some idea of the variety of
suggestions and devices may be gathered from Mr. Octave Chanute's
_Progress in Flying Machines_, a reprint of a series of articles by him,
which appeared, from 1891 onwards, in _The Railroad and Engineering
Journal_ of New York City. It was said in the ancient world that there
is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has believed it; there is no
imaginable way of flight that has not engaged the time and effort of
some inventor. Yet among the multitude of attempts it is not difficult
to trace the ancestry of the modern flying machine. Wing-flapping
machines left no issue. Machines supported in the air by helicopters,
that is, by horizontal revolving blades, can be made to rise from the
ground, but cannot easily be made to travel. The way to success was by
imitation of soaring birds; and it is worthy of note that some of the
best minds were, from the first, fascinated by this method of flight,
and were never tired of observing it. Cayley remarks that the swift,
though it is a powerful flyer, is not able to elevate itself from level
ground. Wenham records how an eagle, sitting in solitary state in the
midst of the Egyptian plain, was fired at with a shotgun, and had to run
full twenty yards, digging its talons into the soil, before it could
raise itself into the air. M. Mouillard, of Cairo, spent more than
thirty years in watching the flight of soaring birds, and devoted the
whole of his book, _L'Empire de l'Air_ (1881), to the investigation of
soaring flight. The pelican, the turkey-buzzard, the vulture, the
condor, have all had their students and disciples. M. Mouillard, indeed,
maintains that if there be a moderate wind, a bird can remain a whole
day soaring in the air, with no expenditure of power whatever. To those
who have watched seagulls this may perhaps seem credible; but air is
invisible, and soaring birds are skilful to choose a place, in the wake
of a ship or in the neighbourhood of a cliff, where there is an
up-current of air, so that when they glide by their own weight, though
they are losing height in relation to the air, they are losing none in
relation to the surface of the earth.

The parents of the modern flying machine were the gliders, that is, the
men who launched themselves into the air on wings or planes of their own
devising. The scientific investigators, who experimented with machines
embodying the same principle, did much to assist the gliders, but in
justice they must take a second place. The men who staked their lives
were the men who, after many losses, were rewarded with the conquest of
the air. There are stories of a certain Captain Lebris, how in 1854,
near Douarnenez in Brittany, he constructed an artificial albatross, and
tying it by a slip rope to a cart which was driven against the wind,
mounted in it to a height of three hundred feet. But the first glider of
whom we have any full knowledge is Otto Lilienthal of Berlin. He devoted
his whole life to the study of aviation at a time when in Germany people
looked upon such a pursuit as little better than lunacy. The principal
professor of mathematics at the Berlin Gewerbe Academie, on hearing that
Lilienthal was experimenting with aeronautics, advised him to spend no
money on such things--a piece of advice which, Lilienthal remarks, was
unhappily quite superfluous. In 1889 he completed, with the help of his
brother, a series of experiments on the carrying capacity of arched, or
cambered, wings, and published the results in a book entitled _Bird
Flight as the Basis of Aviation_. In his youth every crow that flew by
presented him with a problem to solve in its slowly moving wings.
Prolonged study led him to the conclusion that the slight fore-and-aft
curvature of the wing was the secret of flying. But he knew too much to
suppose that this conclusion solved the problem. A dozen other
difficulties, including the difficulty of balance, remained to be
mastered. When German societies for the advancement of aerial navigation
began to be formed, he at first held aloof from them, for the balloon,
which he regarded as the chief obstacle to the development of flight,
monopolized their entire attention. His insistence on the cambered wing
did not convince others, who went on experimenting with flat planes.
German and Austrian aviators, it is true, were induced by his book to
put aside flat surfaces and introduce arched wings. 'However,' he
remarks, 'as this was done mainly on paper, in projects, and in
aeronautical papers and discussions, I felt impelled myself to carry out
my theory in practice.' So, in the summer of 1891, on a pair of
bird-like wings, with eighty-six square feet of supporting surface,
stabilized by a horizontal tail and a vertical fin aft, he began his
gliding experiments. His whole apparatus, made of peeled willow sticks,
covered with cotton shirting, weighed less than forty pounds. He was
supported in it wholly on his forearms, which passed through padded
tubes, while his hands grasped a cross-bar. He guided the machine and
preserved its balance by shifting his weight, backwards or forwards or
sideways. In this apparatus, altered and improved from time to time,
Lilienthal, during the next five years, made more than two thousand
successful glides. At first he used to jump off a spring-board; then he
practised on some hills in the suburbs of Berlin; then, in the spring of
1894, he built a conical hill at Gross-Lichterfelde to serve him as a
starting-ground. Later on, he moved to the Rhinow hills. His best glides
were made against a light breeze at a gradient of about 1 in 10; and he
could easily travel a hundred yards through the air. 'Regulating the
centre of gravity', he says, 'becomes a second nature, like balancing on
a bicycle; it is entirely a matter of practice and experience.' His most
alarming experiences were from gusts of wind which would suddenly raise
him many metres in the air and suspend him in a stationary position. But
his skill was so great that he always succeeded in resuming his flight
and alighting safely. He continued to improve and develop his machine.
He made a double-surface glider, on the biplane principle, and flew on
it. He experimented with engines, intended to flap the extremities of
the wings--first a steam-engine of two horse-power, weighing forty-four
pounds, then a simpler and lighter type, worked by compressed carbonic
acid gas. But he explains that these can be safely introduced only if
they do not impair the gliding efficiency of the machine, and he does
not seem to have made much progress with them. His last improvement was
a movable horizontal tail, or elevator, worked by a line attached to his
head, to control the fore-and-aft balance of the machine. This fresh
complexity was perhaps the cause of his death. On the 9th of August 1896
he started on a long glide from a hill about a hundred feet high; a
sudden gust of wind caught him, and it is supposed that the involuntary
movements of his head in the effort to regain his balance made matters
worse; the machine plunged to the ground, and he was fatally injured.

Lilienthal was a good mathematician, a careful recorder of the results
of his experiments, and a disinterested student of nature. Complete
success was denied to him, but his work informed and stimulated others.
The Wright brothers, when they first took up the problem of flight, had
the advantage of acquaintance with Professor S. P. Langley's
aeronautical researches, but their gliding experiments were shaped and
inspired by what they had read of Lilienthal's achievements.

The other pioneer, who has earned a place beside Lilienthal, is Percy
Pilcher. In 1893, at the age of twenty-seven, he became assistant
lecturer in naval architecture and marine engineering at Glasgow
University. He devoted all his spare time to aeronautics, and in 1895
built his first glider, which he named 'The Bat'. The machine was built,
with the help of his sister, in the sitting-room of their lodging in
Kersland street, Glasgow, and was tested on the banks of the Clyde, near
Cardross. Some defects were revealed by the tests; when these were
remedied, and the glider was towed by a rope, Pilcher rose to a height
of twenty feet, and remained in the air for nearly one minute.
Thereafter he built, in rapid succession, three new gliders, all of
different design, which he called 'The Beetle', 'The Gull', and 'The
Hawk'. The professor of naval architecture at Glasgow, Sir John Biles,
says of him, 'He was one of the few men I have met who had no sense of
fear.... I was deterred from helping him as much as I ought to have done
by a fear of the risks that he ran. He at one time talked to Lord Kelvin
about helping him: Lord Kelvin spoke to me about it, and said that on no
account would he help him, nor should I, as he would certainly break his
neck. This was unfortunately too true a prophecy.' The Hawk was the best
of his gliders; at Eynsford in Kent, on the 19th of June 1897, he made a
perfectly balanced glide of 250 yards across a deep valley, towed only
by a thin fishing line, 'which one could break with one's hands'. After
this, Pilcher began to make plans for fitting an engine to his glider.
Since the first appearance of the Otto engine in 1876, and of the
Daimler engine eight years later, the oil-engine had steadily developed
in lightness and power, but no engine exactly suitable for his purpose
was on the market, so he resolved to build one. An engine of four
horse-power, weighing forty pounds, with a wooden airscrew five feet in
diameter, was, by his calculations, amply sufficient to maintain his
glider in horizontal flight. The light engine has now been so enormously
improved, that it comes near to developing one horse-power for every
pound of weight. The violent have taken the kingdom of the air by force:
in Pilcher's day the problem was more delicate. He worked at his engine
in his leisure time, and, leaving the firm of Maxim & Nordenfeldt, by
whom he had been employed from 1896 onwards, made, in 1898, his own
firm of Wilson & Pilcher. In the spring of 1899 he was much impressed
by Mr. Laurence Hargrave's soaring kites, exhibited by the inventor at a
meeting of the Aeronautical Society, and it seems that he embodied some
of Mr. Hargrave's ideas in his latest built machine, a triplane. He
intended to fly this machine at Stanford Hall, Market Harborough, where
he was staying with Lord Braye, but on the day appointed, the 30th of
September 1899, the weather proved too wet. Nevertheless Pilcher
consented to give some demonstrations on The Hawk, towed by a light
line; during the second of these, while he was soaring at a height of
thirty feet, one of the guy-wires of the tail broke, and the machine
turned over and crashed. Pilcher never recovered consciousness, and died
two days later. His name will always be remembered in the history of
flight. If he had survived his risks for a year or two more, it seems
not unlikely that he would have been the first man to navigate the air
on a power-driven machine. He left behind him his gallant example, and
some advances in design, for he improved the balance of the machine by
raising its centre of gravity, and he provided it with wheels, fitted on
shock-absorbers, for taking off and alighting.

Lilienthal and Pilcher are pre-eminent among the early gliders, for
their efforts were scientific, continuous, and progressive. But there
were others; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the
comparative value of experiments carried on, many of them in private, by
inventors of all countries. Professor J. J. Montgomery, of California,
carried out some successful glides, on machines of his own devising, as
early as 1884; and Mr. Octave Chanute, the best historian of all these
early efforts, having secured the services of Mr. A. M. Herring, a much
younger man who had already learned to use a Lilienthal machine, made a
series of experiments, with gliders of old and new types, on the shores
of Lake Michigan, during the summer of 1896. About the same time some
power-driven machines, attached to prepared tracks, were successfully
flown. In 1893 Horatio Phillips flew a model, with many planes arranged
one above another like a Venetian blind, on a circular track at Harrow;
and in the same year Sir Hiram Maxim's large machine, with four thousand
feet of supporting surface, was built at Baldwin's Park in Kent, and,
when it was tested, developed so great a lift that it broke the guide
rails placed to restrain it. Clement Ader, a French electrical engineer,
worked at the problem of flight for many years, and, having obtained the
support of the French Government, constructed a large bat-like machine,
driven by a steam-engine of forty horse-power. In 1897 this machine was
secretly tried, at the military camp of Satory, near Paris, and was
reported on by a Government commission; all that was known thereafter
was that the Government had refused to advance further funds, and that
Ader had abandoned his attempts. When the Wrights had made their
successful flights, a legend of earlier flights by Ader grew up in
France; a heated controversy ensued, and the friends of M. Santos
Dumont, who claimed that he was the first to fly over French soil, at
length induced the French Government to publish the report on the trial
of Ader's machine. The report proved that the machine had not left the
ground.

It is not in mortals to command success; but those who study the record
of the ingenious, persevering, and helpful work done for a quarter of a
century by Mr. Laurence Hargrave, of Sydney, New South Wales, will agree
with Mr. Chanute that this man deserved success. His earliest important
paper was read to the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1884. In the
course of the next ten years he made with his own hands eighteen
different flying machines, of increasing size, all of which flew. His
earlier machines were not much larger than toys, and were supplied with
power by the pull of stretched india-rubber. On this scale he was
successful with a machine driven by an airscrew and with a machine
driven by the flapping of wings. As his machines grew in size he turned
his attention to engines. He was successful with compressed air; he made
many experiments with explosion motors; and he succeeded in producing a
steam-engine which weighed seven pounds and developed almost two-thirds
of one horse-power. In 1893 he invented the box-kite, which is a true
biplane, with the vertical sides of the kite doing the work of a
stabilizing fin. This kite had a marked influence on the design of some
early flying machines. He also invented the soaring kite. His hope that
man would fly was more than hope; he refused to argue the question with
objectors, for 'I know', he said, 'that success is dead sure to come'.
Moreover he put all his researches at the disposal of others. He refused
to take out any patents. He did all he could to induce workers to follow
his example and communicate their ideas freely, so that progress might
be quickened. His own ideas, his own inventions, and his own carefully
recorded experiments were a solid step in that staircase of knowledge
from which at last man launched himself into the air, and flew.

In America the pioneer who did most to further the science of human
flight was Professor Samuel Pierpont Langley, of the Smithsonian
Institute, in Washington. He was well known as an astronomer before ever
he took up with aeronautics. From 1866 to 1887 he was professor of
astronomy at the Western University of Pennsylvania, at Pittsburg.
During his later years there he built a laboratory for aerial
investigations, and carried out his famous experiments. His whirling
table, with an arm about thirty feet long, which could be moved at all
speeds up to seventy miles an hour, was devised to measure the lifting
power of air resistance on brass plates suspended to the arm. In 1891 he
published his _Experiments in Aerodynamics_, which embodied the definite
mathematical results obtained by years of careful research. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the importance of this work. The law which
governs the reaction of the air on planes travelling at various speeds
and various angles of incidence had been guessed at, or seen in
glimpses, by earlier investigators; but here were ascertained numerical
values offered to students and inventors. The main result is best stated
in Professor Langley's own words: 'When the arm was put in motion I
found that the faster it went the less weight the plates registered on
the scales, until at great speed they almost floated in the air.... I
found that only one-twentieth of the force before supposed to be
required to support bodies under such conditions was needed, and what
before had seemed impossible began to look possible.... Some
mathematicians, reasoning from false data, had concluded that if it took
a certain amount of power to keep a thing from falling, it would take
much additional power to make it advance. My experiment showed just the
reverse ... that the faster the speed the less the force required to
sustain the planes, and that it would cost less to transport such planes
through the air at a high rate of speed than at a low one. I found
further that one horse-power could carry brass plates weighing two
hundred pounds at the rate of more than forty miles an hour in
horizontal flight.'

When these researches were known and understood, their effect upon the
practical handling of the problem of flight was immediate and decisive.
The aeroplane, or gliding machine, had many rivals; they were all killed
by Professor Langley's researches, which showed that the cheapest and
best way to raise a plane in the air is to drive it forward at a small
upward inclination; and that its weight can be best countered not by
applying power to raise it vertically, but by driving it fast. In the
statistical tables that he prepared he called the upward pressure of the
air _Lift_; the pressure which retards horizontal motion he called
_Drift_. The words make a happy pair, but the word _Drift_ is badly
needed to describe the leeway of an aeroplane in a cross-wind, so that
in England another pair of words, _Lift_ and _Drag_, has been
authoritatively substituted.

From this time onward Langley devoted himself to those other problems,
especially the problems of balance, of mechanical power, and of safety
in taking off and alighting, which had to be solved if he was to make a
machine that should fly. He was much influenced, he says, by a
mechanical toy, produced as early as 1871 by an ingenious Frenchman
called Penaud, and named by its inventor the 'planophore'. This toy,
which weighed only a little over half an ounce, was supported on wings,
and was driven forward by an airscrew made of two feathers. The motive
power was supplied by twisted strands of rubber which, as they
untwisted, turned the airscrew. The wings were set at a dihedral angle,
that is, they were bent upwards at the tips; and fore-and-aft stability
was secured by a smaller pair of wings just in front of the airscrew.
'Simple as this toy looked,' says Professor Langley, 'it was the father
of a future flying machine, and France ought to have the credit of it.'
His own steam-driven flying machine was produced and successfully flown
in 1896. It had two wings and a tail, with a supporting surface in all
of seventy square feet; its total weight was seventy-two pounds; the
engine, constructed by himself, weighed only seven pounds and developed
one horse-power, which served to drive two airscrews, revolving in
opposite directions. The best flight of this machine was more than
three-quarters of a mile, and was made over the Potomac river. When, on
its first flight, it had flown for a minute, 'I felt', says Professor
Langley, 'that something had been accomplished at last, for never in any
part of the world or in any period had any machine of man's construction
sustained itself in the air before for even half of this brief time'.
His flying machines were called by Langley 'aerodromes', and the word
'aeroplane' was used by him, as it is used in the _New English
Dictionary_ of 1888, only in the sense of a single plane surface used
for aerial experiments. But no usage, however authoritative, can
withstand the tide of popular fashion; the machine is now an aeroplane,
while aerodrome is the name given to the flying-ground from which it
starts.

The success of his machine became widely known, and in 1898 the War
Department of the United States, having ascertained that Langley was
willing to devote all his spare time to the work, allotted fifty
thousand dollars for the development, construction, and test of a large
'aerodrome', big enough to carry a man. The construction was long
delayed by the difficulty of finding a suitable engine. This difficulty
hampered all early attempts at flight. The internal-combustion engine
was by this time pretty well understood, and, with the will to do it,
might have been made light enough for the purpose. But it was almost an
axiom with engineering firms that a very light engine could not wear
well and was untrustworthy in other ways. One horse-power to the
hundredweight was what they regarded as the standard of solid merit.
Further, they were prejudiced against that extremely rapid movement of
the parts which is necessary if the crank-shaft is to revolve more than
a thousand times a minute. They were asked to depart from all their
cherished canons and to risk failure and break-down in order that man
should achieve what many of them regarded as an impossibility. It was
with Langley as it was with Pilcher and the Wrights; he had to make his
own engine. By 1901 he had completed with the aid of his assistants an
engine of fifty-two horse-power, weighing, with all its appurtenances,
less than five pounds to the horse-power. A year and a half more was
spent in adapting and co-ordinating the frame and appliances, and in
carrying out the shop tests. At last, on the 7th of October 1903, from a
house-boat moored in the Potomac river, about forty miles below
Washington, the first trial was made. The machine caught in the
launching mechanism, and fell into the river, where it broke. It was
repaired, and a second trial was made on the 8th of December 1903. Again
the machine failed to clear the launching car, and plunged headlong into
the river, where the frame was broken by zealous efforts to salve it in
the dark. Nine days after this final failure the Wrights made their
first successful power-driven flight, at Kitty Hawk, on the coast of
North Carolina.

Langley was almost seventy years old when his last and most ambitious
machine failed. He lived for two years more. If his contributions to the
science of flight, which are his chief title to fame, were ruled out of
the account, he would still be remembered as something more than a good
astronomer--a man of many sciences, who cared little for his own
advancement, and much for the advancement of knowledge.

From what has been said it is now possible to conceive how things stood
when the brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, first attacked the problem
of flying in the air. Men had flown, or rather had glided through the
air, without engines to support and drive them. Machines had flown,
without men to control and guide them. If the two achievements could be
combined in one, the problem was solved; but the combination, besides
bringing together both sets of difficulties and dangers, added new
dangers and difficulties, greater than either. Plainly, there were two
ways, and only two, of going about the business. Professor Langley held
that in order to learn to fly, you must have a flying machine to begin
with. Wilbur Wright, whose views on the point never varied from first to
last, held that you must have a man to begin with. The brothers were
impatient of 'the wasteful extravagance of mounting delicate and costly
machinery on wings which no one knew how to manage'. When they began
their experiments they had already reached the conclusion that the
problem of constructing wings to carry the machine, and the problem of
constructing a motor to drive it, presented no serious difficulty; but
that the problem of equilibrium had been the real stumbling-block, and
that this problem of equilibrium was the problem of flight itself. 'It
seemed to us', says Wilbur Wright, 'that the main reason why the problem
had remained so long unsolved was that no one had been able to obtain
any adequate practice. We figured that Lilienthal in five years of time
had spent only about five hours in actual gliding through the air. The
wonder was not that he had done so little, but that he had accomplished
so much. It would not be considered at all safe for a bicycle rider to
attempt to ride through a crowded city street after only five hours'
practice, spread out in bits of ten seconds each over a period of five
years; yet Lilienthal with this brief practice was remarkably successful
in meeting the fluctuations and eddies of wind gusts. We thought that if
some method could be found by which it would be possible to practise by
the hour instead of by the second there would be hope of advancing the
solution of a very difficult problem.'

When this was written, in 1901, it was a forecast; it is now the history
of a triumph. By prolonged scientific practice, undertaken with every
possible regard to safety, on soaring and gliding machines, the Wrights
became master pilots and conquerors of the air. Their success had in it
no element of luck; it was earned, as an acrobat earns his skill. So
confident did they become that to the end their machines were all
machines of an unstable equilibrium, dependent for their safety on the
skill and quickness of the pilot. Their triumph was a triumph of mind
and character. Other men had more than their advantages, and failed,
where these men succeeded. Great things have sometimes been done by a
happy chance; it was not so with the Wrights. They planned great things,
and measured themselves against them, and were equal to them.

Wilbur and Orville Wright were the sons of Milton Wright, of Dayton,
Ohio. They came of New England stock. One of their ancestors emigrated
from Essex in 1636, and settled at Springfield, Massachusetts; a later
ancestor moved west, to Dayton. Wilbur was born in 1867, and Orville in
1871. They had two elder brothers and one younger sister; but Wilbur and
Orville were so closely united in their lives and in their thoughts,
that it is not easy to speak of them apart. Mr. Griffith Brewer, who
knew them both, was often asked which of the two was the originator, and
would reply, 'I think it was mostly Wilbur'; but would add, 'The thing
could not have been done without Orville'. Wilbur, being four years the
elder, no doubt took the lead; but all their ideas and experiments were
shared, so that their very thought became a duet. Wilbur, who died in
1912, was a man of a steady mind and of a dominant character, hard-knit,
quiet, intense. He has left some writings which reflect his nature; they
have a certain grim humour, and they mean business; they push aside all
irrelevance, and go straight to the point. After adventures in printing
and journalism the two brothers set up at Dayton as cycle manufacturers.
The death of Lilienthal, reported in the newspapers in 1896, first
called their attention to flight, and they began to read all available
books on the subject. They found that an immense amount of time and
money had been spent on the problem of human flight--all to no effect.
Makers of machines had abandoned their efforts. As for gliders, after
the death of Lilienthal, Mr. Chanute had discontinued his experiments,
and, a little later, Mr. Pilcher fell and was killed. When knowledge of
these things came to the brothers, it appealed to them like a challenge.
From 1899 onwards they turned all their thoughts to the problem. They
watched the flight of birds to see if they could surprise the secret of
balance. They studied gliding machines, and resolved to construct a
machine of their own, more or less on the model of Mr. Chanute's most
successful glider, which was a biplane, or 'double-decker'. When their
machine was partly built, they wrote to the weather bureau at
Washington, and learned that the strongest and most constant winds were
to be found on the coast of North Carolina. They then wrote to the
postmaster of Kitty Hawk, who testified that the sand-hills of that
place were round and soft, well fitted for boys playing with flying
machines. They took the parts of their machine to Kitty Hawk, assembled
and completed it in a tent, and forthwith began their long years of
continuous and progressive experiment. Their chief helper was Mr.
Chanute. 'In the summer of 1901', they said, 'we became personally
acquainted with Mr. Chanute. When he learned that we were interested in
flying as a sport and not with any expectation of recovering the money
we were expending on it, he gave us much encouragement. At our
invitation he spent several weeks with us at our camp at Kill Devil
Hill, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, during our experiments of that and
the two succeeding years.'

The first two summers, 1900 and 1901, brought them some familiarity in
the handling of their first two gliders, which they navigated lying face
downward on the lower plane. In all their gliding experiments they
studied safety first. They knew that the business they had embarked on
was of necessity a long and dangerous one; that they were bound to
encounter many dangers, and that each of them had only one life. They
took no avoidable risks. Gliding seemed to them, at first, to have been
discredited by the deaths of Lilienthal and Pilcher, so they planned to
try their machine by tethering it with a rope and letting it float a few
feet from the ground, while they practised manipulation. The wind proved
to be not strong enough to sustain the weighted machine, and they were
compelled to take to gliding. All their early glides were made as near
the ground as possible. The machine had no vertical rudder, but they
fitted it, in front, with what they called a horizontal rudder, that is,
an elevator. By the use of this they could bring it to the ground at
once when the wind was tricky and their balance was threatened. The
lateral balance they attempted to control by warping the wings, but with
no satisfactory results. They made glides longer than any on record, but
while the problem of stability was still unsolved, there could be no
real progress. At the end of 1901, Wilbur Wright made the prediction
that men would some time fly, but that it would not be in their
lifetime.

They returned to Dayton, and spent the winter in experiment and
research. They had taken up aeronautics partly as a sport; they were now
drawn deeper and deeper into the scientific study of it. They made a
wind-tunnel, sixteen inches square and about six feet long, and tested
in it the lift and drag of model wings, made in various sizes and with
various aspect ratios. The tables which they compiled from these
experiments were continually used by them thereafter, and superseded
the tables of Lilienthal and Langley, which took no account of the
aspect ratio. When they returned to Kitty Hawk, in the autumn of 1902,
they took with them a greatly improved glider. The aspect ratio of the
planes was six to one, instead of about three to one, as in their second
glider. Further, while preserving the horizontal vane, or elevator, at
the front of the machine, they added a vertical vane, or rudder, at the
rear. It was their failure to control the lateral balance in the
experiments of 1901 that suggested this device to them. From the first
they had discarded the method, practised by Lilienthal and Pilcher, of
adjusting the lateral balance by shifting the weight of the operator's
body. This method seemed to them 'incapable of expansion to meet large
conditions, because the weight to be moved and the distance of possible
motion were limited, while the disturbing forces steadily increased,
both with wing area and with wing velocity'. Accordingly they invented a
method of warping the wings, to present them to the wind at different
angles on the right and left sides. Thus the force of the wind was used
to restore the balance which the wind itself had disturbed. But in their
early gliders this warping process acted in an unexpected way. The wing
which, in order to raise that side of the machine, was presented to the
wind at the greater angle of incidence often proved to be the wing which
lagged and sank. The decrease in speed, due to the extra drag, more than
counterbalanced the effect of the larger angle. When they attempted to
remedy this by introducing a fixed vertical vane in the rear, 'it
increased the trouble and made the machine 'absolutely dangerous'. Any
side-slip became irrecoverable by causing the vertical fixed vane to
strike the wind on the side toward the low wing, instead of on the side
toward the high wing, as it should have done to correct the balance.
'It was some time', the brothers remark, 'before a remedy was
discovered. This consisted of movable rudders working in conjunction
with the twisting of the wings.' So that now three different parts of
the machine had to be controlled by wires, worked swiftly and correctly
by the operator, to preserve the balance. There were the wing tips which
had to be warped. There was the horizontal vane in front which had to be
adjusted, to keep the machine in level flight or to bring it to the
ground. There was the vertical vane behind which had to be moved this
way and that to secure the desired effect from the warping of the wings.
'For the sake of simplicity,' says Wilbur Wright, 'we decided to attach
the wires controlling the vertical tail to the wires warping the wings,
so that the operator, instead of having to control three things at once,
would have to attend to only the forward horizontal rudder and the wing
warping mechanism; and only the latter would be needed for controlling
lateral balance.'

The thing was done. They had built an aeroplane that could fly; and the
later introduction of an engine was as simple a matter as the harnessing
of a horse to a carriage. 'With this apparatus', says Wilbur Wright,
speaking of the glider of 1902, 'we made nearly seven hundred glides in
the two or three weeks following. We flew it in calms and we flew it in
winds as high as thirty-five miles an hour. We steered it to right and
left, and performed all the evolutions necessary for flight. This was
the first time in the history of the world that a movable vertical tail
had been used in controlling the direction or the balance of a flying
machine. It was also the first time that a movable vertical tail had
been used, in combination with wings adjustable to different angles of
incidence, in controlling the balance and direction of an aeroplane. We
were the first to functionally employ a movable vertical tail in a
flying aeroplane. We were the first to employ wings adjustable to
respectively different angles of incidence in a flying aeroplane. We
were the first to use the two in combination in a flying aeroplane.'

It is a large claim, and every word of it is true. New inventions are
commonly the work of many minds, and it would be easy to name at least
half a dozen men to whose work the Wrights were indebted. But these were
tributaries; the main achievement belongs wholly to the Wrights. Their
quiet perseverance, through long years, in the face of every kind of
difficulty, is only a part of their distinction; the alertness and
humility of mind which refused all traffic with fixed ideas, and made
dangers and disappointments the material of education, is what stamps
them with greatness. They put themselves to school to the winds. They
knew that there is no cheap or easy way to master nature, and that only
the human spirit, at its best and highest, can win through in that long
struggle. Their patience never failed. 'Skill', says Wilbur Wright,
'comes by the constant repetition of familiar feats rather than by a few
overbold attempts at feats for which the performer is yet hardly
prepared.' Man must learn to fly as he learns to walk. 'Before trying to
rise to any dangerous height a man ought to know that in an emergency
his mind and muscles will work by instinct rather than by conscious
effort. There is no time to think.'

The machine of 1902, which might be called the victory machine, deserves
a full description. It was a double-decked machine, with two planes
fixed by struts one above the other about five feet apart. The planes
were thirty-two feet in span, and five feet in chord. The total area of
their supporting surfaces was about three hundred and five square feet.
The operator lay on his face in the middle of the lower plane. The
horizontal rudder in front had a supporting surface of fifteen square
feet. The vertical tail, as they called it, which was the true rudder,
was reduced after trial to six square feet. The machine was supported on
the ground by skids, and was very strongly built. It weighed a hundred
and sixteen and a half pounds, to which must be added about a hundred
and forty pounds for the weight of the operator. It performed about a
thousand glides, with only one injury, though it made many hard landings
at full speed on uneven ground. The longest glide was 622-1/2 feet,
traversed in twenty-six seconds. The glides were made from the Kill
Devil sand-hills, near Kitty Hawk--mounds of sand heaped up by the wind,
the biggest having a height of a hundred feet.

The time had now come to invite an engine to bear a part in the
proceedings. In the autumn of 1903 the brothers returned to Kitty Hawk
for their fourth season of experiment. They had built in the winter a
machine weighing six hundred pounds, including the operator and an eight
horse-power motor. Finding that the motor gave more power than had been
estimated, they added a hundred and fifty pounds of weight in
strengthening the wings and other parts. The airscrews, built from their
own calculations, gave in useful work two-thirds of the power expended.
Before trying this machine, however, they continued their practice with
the old glider, and made a number of flights in which they remained in
the air for over a minute, often soaring for a considerable time in one
spot, without any descent at all.

It was late in the season, the 17th of December 1903, when they first
tried the power machine. A general invitation to be present at the trial
had been given to the people living within five or six miles, but 'not
many were willing to face the rigours of a cold December wind in order
to see, as they no doubt thought, another flying machine _not_ fly'.
Five persons besides the brothers were present. Mr. Orville Wright's
narrative, written for the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain, must
be given in his own words:

'On the morning of December 17th, between the hours of 10.30 o'clock and
noon, four flights were made, two by Mr. Orville Wright, and two by Mr.
Wilbur Wright. The starts were all made from a point on the levels, and
about 200 feet west of our camp, which is located about a quarter of a
mile north of the Kill Devil Sand Hill, in Dare County, North Carolina.
The wind at the time of the flights had a velocity of twenty-seven miles
an hour at 10 o'clock, and 24 miles an hour at noon, as recorded by the
anemometer at the Kitty Hawk weather bureau station. This anemometer is
30 feet from the ground. Our own measurements, made with a
hand-anemometer at a height of four feet from the ground, showed a
velocity of about 22 miles when the first flight was made, and 20-1/2
miles at the time of the last one. The flights were directly against the
wind. Each time the machine started from the level ground by its own
power alone, with no assistance from gravity or any other sources
whatever. After a run of about 40 feet along a mono-rail track, which
held the machine eight inches from the ground, it rose from the track
and, under the direction of the operator, climbed upward on an inclined
course till a height of 8 or 10 feet from the ground was reached, after
which the course was kept as near horizontal as the wind gusts and the
limited skill of the operator would permit. Into the teeth of a December
gale the Flyer made its way forward with a speed of 10 miles an hour
over the ground, and 30 to 35 miles an hour through the air. It had
previously been decided that, for reasons of personal safety, these
first trials should be made as close to the ground as possible. The
height chosen was scarcely sufficient for manoeuvring in so gusty a wind
and with no previous acquaintance with the conduct of the machine and
its controlling mechanisms. Consequently the first flight was short. The
succeeding flights rapidly increased in length and at the fourth trial a
flight of 59 seconds was made, in which time the machine flew a little
more than a half-mile through the air and a distance of 852 feet over
the ground. The landing was due to a slight error of judgement on the
part of the operator. After passing over a little hummock of sand, in
attempting to bring the machine down to the desired height the operator
turned the rudder too far, and the machine turned downward more quickly
than had been expected. The reverse movement of the rudder was a
fraction of a second too late to prevent the machine from touching the
ground and thus ending the flight. The whole occurrence occupied little,
if any, more than one second of time.

'Only those who are acquainted with practical aeronautics can appreciate
the difficulties of attempting the first trials of a flying machine in a
25-mile gale. As winter was already well set in, we should have
postponed our trials to a more favourable season, but for the fact that
we were determined, before returning home, to know whether the machine
possessed sufficient power to fly, sufficient strength to withstand the
shock of landings, and sufficient capacity of control to make flight
safe in boisterous winds, as well as in calm air. When these points had
been definitely established, we at once packed our goods and returned
home, knowing that the age of the flying machine had come at last.'




CHAPTER II

THE AEROPLANE AND THE AIRSHIP


The age of the flying machine had come at last. A power-driven aeroplane
had been built, and had been flown under the control of its pilot. What
remained to do was to practise with it and test it; to improve it, and
perfect it, and put it on the market. The time allowed for all this was
not long; in less than eleven years, if only the world had known it, the
world would be at war, and would be calling for aeroplanes by the
thousand.

Romance, for all that it is inspired by real events, is never quite like
real life. It makes much of prominent dates and crises, and passes
lightly and carelessly over the intervening shallows and flats. Yet
these shallows and flats are the place where human endurance and purpose
are most severely tested. The problem of flight had been solved; the
people of the world, it might be expected, springing to attention, would
salute the new invention, and welcome the new era. Nothing of the kind
happened. America, which is more famous for journalistic activity than
any other country on earth, remained profoundly inattentive. The Wrights
returned to their home at Dayton, and there continued their experiments.

A legend has grown up that these experiments were conducted under a
close-drawn veil of secrecy. On the contrary, the proceedings of the
brothers were singularly public--indeed, for the preservation of their
title to their own invention, almost dangerously public. 'In the spring
of 1904,' says Wilbur Wright, through the kindness of Mr. Torrence
Huffman, of Dayton, Ohio, we were permitted to erect a shed, and to
continue experiments, on what is known as the Huffman Prairie, at Simms
Station, eight miles east of Dayton. The new machine was heavier and
stronger, but similar to the one flown at Kill Devil Hill. When it was
ready for its first trial every newspaper in Dayton was notified, and
about a dozen representatives of the Press were present. Our only
request was that no pictures be taken, and that the reports be
unsensational, so as not to attract crowds to our experiment grounds.
There were probably fifty persons altogether on the ground. When
preparations had been completed a wind of only three or four miles was
blowing--insufficient for starting on so short a track--but since many
had come a long way to see the machine in action, an attempt was made.
To add to the other difficulty, the engine refused to work properly. The
machine, after running the length of the track, slid off the end without
rising into the air at all. Several of the newspaper men returned again
the next day, but were again disappointed. The engine performed badly,
and after a glide of only sixty feet the machine came to the ground.
Further trial was postponed till the motor could be put in better
running condition. The reporters had now, no doubt, lost confidence in
the machine, though their reports, in kindness, concealed it. Later,
when they heard that we were making flights of several minutes'
duration, knowing that longer flights had been made with airships, and
not knowing any essential difference between airships and flying
machines, they were but little interested.'

The indifference and scepticism of the public and the press provided a
very effective veil of secrecy, and the brothers prosecuted their
researches undisturbed. In 1904 they made more than a hundred flights,
practising turning movements and complete circles, and learning how to
handle the machine so as to prevent it from 'stalling', that is, from
losing flying speed and falling to earth out of control when the air
resistance caused by its manoeuvring reduced its speed. In 1905 they
built another machine and resumed their experiments in the same field.
They did not want to attract a crowd. The cars on the electric line
adjoining the field ran every thirty minutes, and they timed their
flights between the runs. The farmers living near by saw the flying, but
their business was with the earth, not the air, and after looking on for
two years they lost what little interest they had. On the 5th of October
1905 one of them, from a neighbouring field, saw the great white form
rushing round on its circular course in the air. 'Well,' he remarked,
'the boys are at it again'; and he kept on cutting corn. The season's
work is summarized by Mr. Orville Wright in a letter dated the 17th of
November 1905, and communicated to the Aeronautical Society of Great
Britain:

'Up to September 6 we had the machine on but eight different days,
testing a number of changes which we had made since 1904.... During the
month of September we gradually improved in our practice, and on the
26th made a flight of a little over eleven miles. On the 30th we
increased this to twelve and one-fifth miles, on October 3 to fifteen
and one-third miles, on October 4 to twenty and three-fourth miles, and
on the 5th to twenty-four and one-fourth miles. All of these flights
were made at about thirty-eight miles an hour, the flight of the 5th
occupying thirty minutes three seconds.... We had intended to place the
record above the hour, but the attention these flights were beginning to
attract compelled us suddenly to discontinue our experiments in order
to prevent the construction of the machine from becoming public.

'The machine passed through all of these flights without the slightest
damage. In each of these flights we returned frequently to the
starting-point, passing high over the heads of the spectators.'

A young druggist called Foust, a friend of the Wrights, was present at
the flight of the 5th of October. He was told not to divulge what he had
seen, but his enthusiasm would not be restrained, and he talked to such
effect that next day the field was crowded with sightseers and the
fences were lined with photographers. Very reluctantly the brothers
ended their work for the year. They took apart their flyer, and brought
it back to the city.

From this time on, for a period of almost three years, the brothers
disappear from view. The secrets which it had cost them so much time and
effort to discover might, by a single photograph, be made into public
property. They were bound to do what they could to assert their claim to
their own invention. Their first task was to secure patent rights in
their machine; and, after that, to negotiate with the American, French,
and British Governments for its purchase. The bringer of so great a gift
as flight is worthy of his reward; but the attitude of the brothers to
their hard-won possession was not selfish or commercial. They thought
more of their responsibilities than of their profits; and in attempting
to dispose of their machine they handled the matter as if it were a
public trust. These years were full of disappointment, much unlike the
earlier years of progress and open-air holiday and happiness. No one,
except a few intimates and disciples, believed in the Wrights'
achievements. The American Government would not touch their invention.
When it was thrice offered to the British Government, between the years
1906 and 1908, it was thrice refused, twice by the War Office and once
by the Admiralty. At an earlier period the French Government, more
active than the other two, sent Captain Ferber, who had made many
gliding experiments of his own, to report after viewing the machine at
Dayton. The Wrights refused to show it to him, but their account of what
they had done impressed him by its truthfulness, and he reported in
their favour, though he told them that there was not a man in all France
who believed that they had done what they claimed. The French Government
would not buy; and things were at a standstill, until Mr. Hart O. Berg,
a good man of business who had helped the Wrights to secure their
patents, urged on them the necessity of putting in an appearance in
Europe and showing what they could do. By this time they had made
various improvements, especially in their engine, and had supplied
themselves with two machines. With one of these, in the summer of 1908,
Wilbur Wright came to France; with the other Orville Wright was to
attempt to secure the contract in America for an army aeroplane. A
French syndicate had agreed to buy the Wright patents and a certain
number of machines on condition that two flights of not less than fifty
kilometres each should be made in a single week, the machines to carry a
passenger or an equivalent weight, and the flights to be made in a wind
of not less than eleven metres a second, that is, about twenty-five
miles an hour. The conditions for the American army contract were no
less severe. The machine was to remain in continuous flight for at least
an hour; it was to be steered in all directions; and was to land,
without damage, at its starting-point. The place chosen for the French
tests was the Hunaudières racecourse, near Le Mans. There Wilbur Wright
set up his shed, and, from the 8th of August onward, made many little
flights, showing his complete control of his machine by the elaborate
manoeuvres which he performed in the air. On the 9th of September there
came the news that Orville Wright had flown for over an hour at Fort
Myer in America. This liberated Wilbur Wright, who had been holding back
in order to give America the precedence, and on the 21st of September he
flew for more than an hour and a half, covering a distance of over sixty
miles. About three weeks later he fulfilled the conditions of his test
by successive passenger-carrying flights. Encouraged by his example, two
distinguished French pioneers, Henri Farman and Léon Delagrange, soon
began to make long flights on French machines, and from this time
onwards the progress of flying was rapid and immense. A great industry
came into being, and, after a short time, ceased to pay any tribute
whatever to the inventors. Merely to secure recognition of their
priority, it became necessary for the Wrights to bring actions at law
against the infringers of their patents. The tedious and distasteful
business of these law-suits troubled and shortened the days of Wilbur
Wright, who died at Dayton on the 30th of May 1912. In 1913, by
arrangement between the parties, a test action was begun against the
British Government. When the war broke out, and the trial of this action
was still pending, the supporters of the Wrights hastily met, and
offered to forgo all their claims for fifteen thousand pounds, a sum
substantial enough to establish the Wrights' priority, yet merely
nominal as a payment for the benefits conferred. So the matter was
settled. The last thoughts of Wilbur Wright were given, not to financial
profits, but to further developments of the art of flight. He was
constantly meditating on the possibility of soaring flight, which should
take advantage of the wind currents, and maintain the machine in the air
with but little expenditure of power. In a letter written not many days
before he died, and addressed to a German aviator at the Johannisthal
flying camp, he says, 'There must be a method whereby human beings can
remain in the air once they really find themselves aloft.... The birds
can do it. Why shouldn't men?' The coming of the war, with its
peremptory demand for power and yet more power, did much to develop
strong flight, but postponed experiment on this delicate and fascinating
problem.

The name of the Wrights is so much the greatest name in the history of
flying that it is only fair to give their achievements a separate place.
In 1905 they were in possession of a practical flying machine. In 1908
they proved their powers and established their claims in the sight of
the world. During these three years events had not stood still; European
inventors were busy with experiments. There were rumours of the American
success, but the rumours were disbelieved, and the problem was attacked
again from the beginning. Long after the Wrights had circled in the air,
at their own free will, over the Huffman Prairie, European inventors
were establishing records, as they believed, by hopping off the ground
for a few yards in machines of their own construction.

The earliest of these European pioneers was Mr. I. C. H. Ellehammer, a
Danish engineer, who had built motor-cycles and light cars. In 1904 he
built a flying machine, and having prepared a ground in the small Danish
island of Lindholm, suspended the machine by a wire attached to a
central mast, and tested its lifting power. In the course of his
experiments he increased his engine-power, and added to the first
bird-like pair of wings a second pair placed above them. With this
improved machine he claims to have made, on the 12th of September 1906,
the first free flight in Europe, travelling in the air for forty-two
metres at a height of a metre and a half. With later machines he had
some successes, but the rapid progress of French aviation left him
behind, and his latest invention was an application to the aeroplane of
a helicopter, to raise it vertically in the air. The helicopter idea
continues to fascinate some inventors, and it would be rash to condemn
it, but the most it seems to promise is a flight like that of the
lark--an almost vertical ascent and a glide to earth again. A machine of
this kind might conceivably, at some future time, become a substitute,
in war, for the kite balloon; it is not likely to supersede the
aeroplane.

Of all European countries France was the most intelligent and the most
alert in taking up the problem of flight. The enduring rivalry between
the airship and the flying machine is well illustrated in the history of
French effort. Long before the first true flying machine was built and
flown balloons of a fish-like shape had been driven through the air by
mechanical airscrews. A bird is much heavier than the air it displaces;
a fish is about the same weight as the water it displaces; and the
question which of the two examples is better for aircraft, whether
flying or swimming is the better mode, remained an open question,
dividing opinion and distracting effort. The debate is not yet
concluded. It is now not very hazardous to say that both methods are
good, and that the partisans of the one side and the other were right in
their faith and wrong in their heresy-hunting. National rivalry
certainly quickened the competition between the two modes; the early
progress of aviation in France gave a great impulse to the development
of the Zeppelin in Germany. But the two modes are so entirely distinct
that they are better treated separately. None of the chief nations of
the world has dared wholly to neglect either; from the very beginning
the two have grown up side by side, and interest has been concentrated
now on the one and now on the other. When, in 1912, Great Britain took
in hand the creation of an air force, military and naval, France was
already furnished with a very large number of aeroplanes, organized for
service with the army, and Germany was provided with airships of
unprecedented power and range. France also had some airships, and
Germany, alarmed by the progress of French aviation, had begun to turn
her attention to aeroplanes, but the pride of Germany was in her
airships, and the pride of France was in her aeroplanes. These were the
conditions with which Great Britain had to reckon; they had grown up
rapidly in the course of a few years; and it will be convenient to speak
first of the airship, which, invented by France, was adopted and
improved by Germany; and then of the aeroplane, which was made by France
into so formidable a military engine that Germany had no choice but to
imitate again. Meantime Great Britain, during the earlier years of these
developments, entrusted her aerial fortunes to a few balloons, which
were operated by the Royal Engineers and were not very favourably
regarded by the chiefs of the army. The unpreparedness of Great Britain
in all national crises is a time-honoured theme. The Englishman, if he
does not wholly distrust science, at least distrusts theory. Facts
excite him, and rouse him to exertion. In an address delivered in 1910,
Mr. R. B. Haldane, who consistently did all that he could to promote and
encourage science, uttered a prophecy which deserves record. 'When a new
invention,' he said, 'like the submarine or the motor, comes to light,
the Englishman is usually behind. Give him a few years and he has not
only taken care of himself in the meantime, but is generally leading. As
it was with these inventions, so I suspect it will prove to be with
aircraft.'

The airship, like the balloon, was a French invention. When the balloon
first came into vogue many attempts were made to deflect or guide its
course by the use of oars. Those who made these attempts were almost
unanimous in declaring that the use of oars enabled them to alter the
course of a balloon by several points of the compass. Another method of
steering employed sails, held up to the wind by the drag of a guide-rope
on the ground. The control to be obtained by means like these was
pathetically small, and the real problem was soon seen to be the problem
of a motor. The spherical balloon is obviously unsuited for
power-navigation; in 1784, only a year after the invention of the
balloon, General Meusnier, of the French army, made designs for an
egg-shaped power-balloon to be driven by three airscrews, supported on
the rigging between the car and the balloon. To keep the balloon fully
inflated and stiff, in order to drive it against the wind, he planned a
double envelope, the inner space to contain hydrogen, the outer space to
be pumped full of air. He may thus be said to have invented the
ballonet, or air-chamber of the balloon, and to be the father of later
successful airships. His designs were mere descriptions; they could not
be carried out; there was at that time no light engine in existence, and
his own suggestion that the airscrews should be worked by manual labour
may be called a design for an engine that weighs something over half a
ton for every horse-power of energy exerted. In 1798 the French author
Beaumarchais recommended the construction of airships in the long shape
of a fish. As the years passed, models were made on this plan. In 1834
Mr. Monck Mason exhibited at the Lowther Arcade in London a model
airship, thirteen and a half feet long, and six and a half feet in
diameter; its airscrew was operated by a spring; it was fitted with
horizontal planes for setting its course; and in its very short flights
it attained a speed of something over five miles an hour. A larger
model, with two airscrews driven by clockwork, was exhibited in 1850 by
M. Jullien, a clockmaker of Paris, and flew successfully against a
slight breeze. The first successful man-carrying airship was built in
1852 by Henry Giffard, the French engineer, and was flown at Paris on
the 24th of September in that year. It was spindle-shaped, with a
capacity of 87,000 cubic feet, and a length of 144 feet. The airscrew,
ten feet in diameter, was driven by a steam-engine of three horse-power,
and the speed attained was about six miles an hour. It would take long
to record all the unsuccessful or partially successful experiments in
the history of the airship--the elaborately constructed ships which
never rose from the ground, the carefully thought out devices which did
not work. Progress was very slow and gradual, a mere residue in a
history of failures. The first use of the gas-engine was in an Austrian
dirigible, which made a single captive ascent at Brunn in 1872, and
developed a speed of three miles an hour. After 1870 the reconstituted
French Government showed itself willing to encourage aeronautics, and in
1872, at the cost of the State, a large dirigible was built by Dupuy de
Lôme, the inventor of the ironclad. This ship, with an airscrew driven
by manpower, attained a speed of five and a half miles an hour. The
first really successful power-driven airship, that is, the first airship
to return to its starting-point at the end of a successful voyage, was
built in 1884 for the French army by Captain Krebs and Captain Charles
Renard, who subsequently became director of the French department of
military aeronautics. This dirigible, named _La France_, was
fish-shaped; its length was a hundred and sixty-five feet; its greatest
diameter, near the bows, was twenty-seven and a half feet, or one-sixth
of its length; it was fitted with an electric motor of eight and a half
horse-power which operated an airscrew of twenty-three feet in diameter,
situated in front of the car; it was steered by vertical and horizontal
rudders, and made several ascents in the neighbourhood of Meudon. It was
the progenitor and type of all later non-rigid dirigibles.

The success of _La France_ brought Germany into the field. Towards the
close of the century a German engineer called Wölfert constructed a
dirigible rather smaller than the French airship, with a slightly more
powerful engine, and two airscrews of twelve feet in diameter. This was
in one respect a forerunner of the most famous of the German airships,
for the car, instead of hanging loose, was rigidly connected to the
envelope by means of struts. The trials took place in 1896 at Tempelhof,
near Berlin; the airship was held captive by ropes; it answered well to
its rudders, and attained a speed of about nine miles an hour.
Encouraged by this experiment, Dr. Wölfert in the following year built a
second smaller dirigible, fitted with a Daimler benzine motor, and made
a free ascent in it on the 14th of June 1897, near Berlin. As soon as it
was well in the air, the ship caught fire and fell flaming to the
ground, killing Dr. Wölfert and his assistant. Later in the same year
the first completely rigid dirigible was built by a German called David
Schwarz; it was made of thin aluminium sheeting, internally braced by
steel wires, and was driven by a twelve horse-power Daimler motor which
worked twin airscrews, one on either side. It took the air near Berlin
on the 3rd of November 1897, but something went wrong with the airscrew
belts, and it was seriously damaged in its hasty descent. Thereupon the
crowd of people who had assembled to applaud it fell upon it, and
wrecked it. The behaviour of the crowd deserves a passing mention in any
history of flight; it was not the least of the ordeals of the early
aeronaut. The aeroplane or airship pilot who disappointed the
expectations of his public found no better treatment than Christian and
Faithful met with in Bunyan's Vanity Fair. There is here no question of
national weaknesses; in France and Germany, in England and America, the
thing has happened again and again. If an ascent was announced, and was
put off because the weather was bad, the crowd jeered, and hooted, and
threw stones. On more than one occasion a pilot has been driven by the
taunts of the crowd to attempt an impossible ascent; and has met his
death. If a damaged machine fell to earth, the crowd often wreaked their
vengeance on it, as deer fall upon a wounded comrade. The men who made
up the crowd were most of them kind and trustworthy in their private
relations, and in matters that they understood were not unreasonable or
inconsiderate. But aerial navigation was a new thing, and their attitude
to it was wholly spectacular. They came to see it because they craved
excitement, and under the influence of that cruel passion they were
capable of the worst excesses of the Roman populace at a gladiatorial
show.

In the years that joined the centuries, that is, from 1898 to 1903,
aviation seemed a forlorn hope, but there was great activity in the
construction of airships, and something like a race for supremacy
between France and Germany. In 1898 the Brazilian, Alberto Santos
Dumont, made his first gallant appearance in an airship of his own
construction. Born in 1873, the son of a prosperous coffee-planter of
San Paulo in Brazil, Santos Dumont was a young and wealthy amateur,
gifted with mechanical genius, and insensible to danger. The accidents
and perils that he survived in his many aerial adventures would have
killed a cat. One of his airships collapsed and fell with him on to the
roofs of Paris. Another collapsed and fell with him into the
Mediterranean. A third caught fire in the air, and he beat out the
flames with his Panama hat. He survived these and other mishaps, unhurt,
and after making more than a hundred ascents in airships, turned his
attention to aeroplanes, and was the first man to rise from French soil
in a flying machine. From his boyhood mechanisms had attracted him; he
was well acquainted with all the machines on his father's plantation,
and he records an observation that he made there--the only bad machine
on the plantation, he says, was an agitating sieve; the good machines
all worked on the rotary principle. He became a champion of the wheel,
and of the rotary principle. There was something of the fierceness of
theological dispute in the controversies of these early days. The wheel,
it was pointed out, is not in nature; it is a pedantic invention of man.
Birds do not employ it to fly with, nor fish to swim with. The
naturalist school of aeronauts declared against it. In 1892 M. A. le
Compagnon made experiments, not very successfully, in Paris, with a
captive dirigible balloon driven by a pair of oscillating wings. As late
as 1904 Mr. Thomas Moy, in a paper read to the Aeronautical Society of
Great Britain, maintained that the greatest hindrances to the solution
of the problem of mechanical flight have always been the balloon and the
airscrew. Mr. William Cochrane, in a paper read a few months earlier,
laid it down that the airscrew must give place to a more efficient form
of propulsion. Utterances like these help to explain the fervour with
which Santos Dumont, in the book called _My Airships_ (1904), defends
the rotary principle, which is the life of machines. Like the Wrights,
he believed in practice, and was a skilled and experienced balloonist
before he attempted to navigate an airship. His first airship was almost
absurdly small; it had little more than six thousand feet of cubic
capacity, was cigar-shaped, and was driven by a three and a half
horse-power petrol motor. The others followed in rapid succession. M.
Deutsch de la Meurthe had offered a prize of a hundred thousand francs
for the first airship that should rise from the Aero Club ground at St.
Cloud and voyage round the Eiffel Tower, returning within half an hour
to its starting-point. On the 19th of October 1901 the prize was won by
Santos Dumont in the sixth of his airships. The ship had over twenty-two
thousand feet of cubic capacity; its length was more than five times its
diameter; and it was driven by a twelve horse-power petrol motor. It
travelled six and three-quarter miles within the half-hour, part of the
journey being accomplished against a wind of about twelve miles an hour.
This achievement quickened interest in airships and gained a European
fame for Santos Dumont. His later airships were modelled on the egg
rather than the cigar; the smallest of these was so perfectly under
control that he was able, he says, to navigate it by night through the
streets of Paris.

The development of the airship continued for many years to pay toll in
wreckage and loss of life. In 1902 three notable airships were built and
flown in France; two of these were destroyed in the air above Paris,
within a few minutes of their first ascent. Senhor Augusto Severo, a
Brazilian, made a spindle-shaped airship, ninety-eight feet long, driven
by two airscrews, placed one at each end of a framework which formed the
longitudinal axis of the airship. It ascended on the 12th of May, and
when it had reached a height of thirteen hundred feet, exploded in
flames. Senhor Severo and his assistant perished in it. The other ship
was designed by Baron Bradsky, secretary to the German Embassy in Paris;
its total weight was made exactly equivalent to the weight of the air
that it displaced, and it was to be raised by the operation of an
airscrew rotating horizontally under the car. By the action of this
screw the car itself began to rotate, and to drag the ship round with
it; the resistance of the air on the body of the ship put too great a
strain on the steel wires by which the car was suspended; they broke,
and from a height of many hundred feet Baron Bradsky and his engineer,
M. Morin, fell to earth with the car, and were killed. This second
disaster happened on the 13th of October 1902, at Stains, near Paris.
Twelve days later, on the 25th of October, a much more fortunate
airship, the dirigible built for the brothers Lebaudy, made its first
ascent at Moisson. This vessel was more successful than any of its
predecessors, and became the model for airships of the semi-rigid type.
It was fish-shaped, with a capacity of more than eighty thousand cubic
feet, and was driven by a forty horse-power Daimler petrol motor, which
worked two airscrews, eight feet in diameter, at a rate exceeding a
thousand revolutions a minute. The lower part of the envelope was flat,
and secured to a rigid metal framework; six steel tubes, attached to
this framework, supported the car below, and, besides distributing the
load, conveyed the thrust of the airscrew to the ship above. In the
course of a year the ship made twenty-eight return journeys, covering
distances up to twenty-two miles. In November 1903 it broke all records,
first by making the longest voyage that had ever been made by a
navigable balloon, that is, from Moisson to Paris, a distance of about
forty miles, and next, a week later, by successfully combating a wind of
more than twenty miles an hour. 'Aerial navigation', said Colonel
Renard, who witnessed this trial, 'is no longer a Utopia.' After a time
the ship was taken over by the French army, and its immediate Lebaudy
successors, _La Patrie_ of 1906 and _La République_ of 1908, also became
military airships. Both were wrecked after a short career, but the
military airship had made good its promise, and three new
airship-building firms were established in France. In 1902 the Astra
Company, in 1909 and 1910 the Zodiac Company and the Clément-Bayard
Company, began to build airships, some for the French army and some for
foreign powers.

Meanwhile, at the time when Santos Dumont was gaining credit for the
smallest airship ever known, the largest known airship had been designed
and launched in Germany. On the 2nd of July 1900 the first Zeppelin made
its trial trip from the floating shed at Manzell, near Friedrichshafen,
on Lake Constance. When the Great War shall be only a faded memory, when
the sufferings of millions of men and women shall be condensed into
matter for handbooks, and their sacrifices shall be expressed only in
arithmetical figures, certain incidents and names, because they caught
the popular imagination, will still be narrated and repeated. The names
that will live are the names that symbolize the causes for which they
stood. Edith Cavell will never be forgotten; when she persevered in her
work of mercy, and calmly faced the ultimate cruelties of a monstrous
system, all that was best in the war seemed to find expression in that
lonely passion. She was brought home to England in a warship, and was
carried to her grave on a gun-carriage, under the Union Jack, because
her cause was her country's cause, and England claimed a title in her
sacrifice. It is a far cry from Edith Cavell to the old soldier who gave
Germany the giant airship, but the Zeppelin will also be remembered,
because the popular imagination, which is often both just and fanciful,
found a symbol of Germany's cause in this engine of terror, so carefully
and admirably planned down to the minutest detail, so impressive by its
bulk, so indiscriminate in its destructive action, and so frail. Its
inventor was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a Lieutenant-General in the
German army. His first balloon ascent had been made during the American
Civil War, in one of the military balloons of the Federal army. Later
on, in the Franco-Prussian War, he distinguished himself by his daring
cavalry reconnaissances in Alsace. At about that time there was in
Alsace a Frenchman named Spiess, who had drawn a design for a rigid
airship not unlike the later Zeppelin, and had endeavoured, without
success, to patent it. The suggestion has been made, but with no proof,
that Count Zeppelin may have seen Spiess's plans, and borrowed from
them. If so, the borrowed idea took long in maturing. It was not until
1898 that the Count went to work on a large scale, and formed a company
with a capital of a million marks. It was not until 1908, after ten
years of struggle and disaster, that the German Government made him a
grant for the continuance of his experiments, and the German people,
impressed by his pertinacity and courage in misfortune, raised for him a
subscription of three hundred thousand pounds, to enable him to build
the great airship works at Friedrichshafen. From this time the Zeppelin
was a national ship. Sheds to harbour airships were built at strategic
points on the western and eastern fronts, and plans were set on foot to
house naval Zeppelins at Heligoland, Emden, and Kiel. With
characteristic German thoroughness a network of weather stations on
German soil, and, it is believed, of secret weather reports from other
countries, was provided for the guidance of airship pilots. All this was
a monument to the perseverance, which might almost be called obstinacy,
of the indomitable Count. He built enormous and costly airships, one
after another; one after another they were wrecked or burnt, and then he
built more. The German people watched him as King Robert the Bruce
watched the spider, with a scepticism that was gradually turned into
wonder, till, in the end, when disaster after disaster found him willing
patiently to begin again, they resolved to make him their teacher and to
take a lesson from him.

Count Zeppelin was about sixty years old when he began to make airships;
he had been long studying the problem and preparing his plans; so that
his many airships do not much differ among themselves in general design,
and a description of the first gives a fair enough idea of its
successors. It was a pencil-shaped rigid structure, about four hundred
and twenty feet long, with a diameter almost exactly one-eleventh part
of its length. The framework, built of aluminium, consisted of sixteen
hoops, connected by longitudinal pieces, and kept rigid by diagonal wire
stays. Before it was covered it resembled a vast bird-cage, and looked
as frail as a cobweb, but was stronger and stiffer than it looked. It
was divided by aluminium bulkheads into seventeen compartments; of these
all but the two end compartments contained separate balloons or
gas-bags. Two or three of these might collapse without completely
destroying the buoyancy of the ship. The whole structure was covered
with a fabric of rubberized cotton. A triangular latticed aluminium keel
ran along below, to give strength to the ship, and to furnish a
passage-way from end to end. At points about a third of the way from
either end of the ship spaces in the keel were made for the two cars, in
each of which was a sixteen horse-power Daimler motor driving two small
high velocity airscrews, one on each side of the ship. The lateral
steering was done by a large vertical rudder, placed aft. The
longitudinal balance was controlled in several ways. In the first ship a
heavy sliding weight in the keel was moved at will, fore and aft. This
was supplemented or superseded in later ships by four sets of elevating
planes, two sets in the fore-part and two sets aft. An advantage of the
rigid ship is that she can tilt herself without danger from the pressure
of the gas on the higher end. Moreover, she can be driven at a very high
speed, and the gas-bags, being housed in the compartments and protected
from the outer air, are less liable to sudden contraction and expansion
caused by variations of temperature.

The great disadvantage of the rigid type has hitherto been that in bad
weather the airship cannot land. A non-rigid airship in a nasty wind can
land and deflate itself at once by ripping the panel in the envelope, at
no greater price than the loss of its gas, and probably some damage to
its car. To land in a rigid ship is at best a ticklish business; indeed,
the rigid airship is in exactly the same case as a large sea-going
vessel; its chief dangers are from the land, which it cannot touch with
impunity. Its troubles have been greatly diminished, since the war, by
the development of the mooring-mast, which does away with the necessity
of housing the ship after every flight. The prevailing type of weather
in this country is unsettled, and the changes in the force and direction
of the wind are rapid and numerous. The landing and housing of an
airship demands hundreds of men for its performance, and is not safely
to be undertaken in a wind that blows more than eighteen miles an hour.
A staff of from eight to ten men is sufficient to anchor a large airship
to a mooring-mast, where it has been proved by experiment that she can
safely ride out a wind that blows fifty miles an hour. At Pulham, our
largest airship station, which was taken over from the Royal Air Force
by the Controller-General of Civil Aviation in December 1920, a number
of valuable experiments have since been carried out with an improvised
mooring-mast, and it has been shown that with a properly designed and
constructed mast, fitted with adequate receiving gear and hauling
apparatus, there will be no difficulty in landing the largest rigid
airships in a wind of from thirty-five to forty miles an hour. This
spells an immense advance. Sheds will still be necessary for overhauls
and repairs, as a dry dock is necessary for sea-going vessels. But an
airship on service may be moored to the mast, as a sea-going vessel is
moored to a quay, and can take on board or discharge cargo, passengers,
and fuel.

The trial trip of the first Zeppelin was short, because of accidents to
the steering-gear, but on the whole was not unsuccessful. The ship was
perfectly stable, and in its voyage of three and a half miles proved
that it could make headway against a wind of sixteen miles an hour. A
second ascent, lasting for an hour and twenty minutes, was made on the
17th of October 1900. These trials were of value in discovering the
faults of the ship; in the following year it was broken up, and Count
Zeppelin went to work again. In his second ship of 1905 the power of
each engine was increased to eighty-five horse-power, and other
improvements were made. This ship suffered many minor mishaps. At last,
in January 1906, it ascended over Lake Constance to a height of 1,800
feet; then the motors failed, the helm jammed; when the ship attempted
to descend the ground was frozen and the anchors would not hold, it was
driven against some trees, and a high wind arising in the night made it
a total wreck.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following list shows the number of Zeppelin airships built up to the
outbreak of the war, and the fate of each of them:

  _Zeppelin   _Year of
     No._     Completion_   _Name_               _Remarks_

  1             1900        L.Z.I      Broken up after experiments spring
                                         1901.
  2             1905        L.Z. II    Wrecked January 1906.
  3             1906        Z. I       Taken over by the army. Broken
                                         up February 1913.
  4             1908        L.Z. IV    Burnt August 1908.
  5             1909        Z. II      Taken over by the army. Wrecked
                                         April 1910.
  6             1909        L.Z. VI    Burnt September 1910.
  7             1910     _Deutschland_ Wrecked June 1910.
  8             1911       _Ersatz_    Wrecked May 1911.
                         _Deutschland_
  9             1911        Ersatz     Taken over by the army. Broken
                            Z. II        up summer 1914.
  10            1911      _Schwaben_   Wrecked June 1912.
  11            1912      _Viktoria_   Wrecked June 1915.
                           _Luise_
  12            1912        Z. III     Taken over by the army. Broken
                                         up summer 1914.
  13            1912       _Hansa_     Broken up summer 1916.
  14            1912        L. I       Taken over by the navy. Wrecked
                                         September 1913.
  15            1913        Ersatz     Taken over by the army. Wrecked
                            Z. I       March 1913.
  16            1913        Z. IV      Taken over by the army. Broken
                                         up spring 1916.
  17            1913       _Sachsen_   Broken up spring 1916.
  18            1913        L. 2       Taken over by the navy. Burnt
                                         October 1913.
  19            1913        Ersatz     Taken over by the army. Wrecked
                            E.Z. I       June 1914.
  20            1913        Z. V       Taken over by the army. Crashed
                                         after damage by gunfire in
                                         Poland, August 1914.
  21            1913        Z. VI      Taken over by the army. Crashed
                                         at Cologne after damage by gunfire
                                         over Liége, 6th August 1914.
  22            1914        Z. VII     Taken over by the army. Crashed
                                         in the Argonne after damage by
                                         gunfire, August 1914.
  23            1914        Z. VIII    Taken over by the army. Brought
                                         down by gunfire at Badonvillers,
                                         23rd August 1914.
  24            1914        L. 3       Taken over by the navy. Wrecked
                                         off Fanö, 17th February 1915.
  25            1914        Z. IX      Taken over by the army. Dismantled
                                         August 1914.

The list is full of wreckage; what it does not show is the immense
progress made in a few years. As early as 1907 Count Zeppelin made a
voyage of eight hours in his third airship, covering 211 miles. In 1909
he voyaged, in stages, from Friedrichshafen to Berlin, landing at Tegel
in the presence of the Emperor on the 29th of August, and returning
safely to Friedrichshafen by the 2nd of September. But the growing
efficiency of the Zeppelin and the growing confidence of the German
public are best seen in the records of passenger-carrying flights. The
Zeppelin Company, being founded and supported by national enterprise,
did not sell any ships to foreign powers. For passenger-carrying
purposes it supplied ships to the subsidiary company usually called the
Delag (that is, the Deutsche Luftschiffahrt Aktien-Gesellschaft), which
had its headquarters at Frankfort-on-the-Main. The Delag acquired six
Zeppelin airships, which, unlike the military and naval ships, bore
names. A record of the voyages made by the _Viktoria Luise_, the
_Hansa_, and the _Sachsen_ will show how rapidly the German people were
familiarized with the Zeppelin, and how safe air-travel became, when
safety was essential, as it is in all passenger-carrying enterprises.
The _Viktoria Luise_ made her first trip on the 4th of March 1912, with
twenty-three passengers on board, from Friedrichshafen to
Frankfort-on-the-Main--a distance of about two hundred miles, which she
covered in seven and a half hours. She made her hundredth trip on the
23rd of June 1912; her two-hundredth on the 21st of October in the same
year; in the following year her three-hundredth trip was made on the
30th of June, and her four-hundredth on the 26th of November. In these
four hundred trips she carried 8,551 persons and travelled 29,430 miles.
Some of them were made over the sea; on the 27th of June, for instance,
she left Hamburg in the morning, and reached Cuxhaven in about two
hours. There she picked up with a Hamburg-America liner starting for New
York, and accompanied the steamer for some distance; then she steered
for Heligoland, and flying round the island very low was greeted with
cheers by the inhabitants. Part of her return journey was made against a
head-wind of sixteen miles an hour, and she reached Hamburg after a
voyage of eight hours, during which she had covered a distance of about
two hundred and fifty miles. The _Hansa_, beginning in July 1912, by the
end of 1913 had made two hundred and seventy-five trips, carrying 5,697
persons and travelling 22,319 miles. The _Sachsen_, beginning in May
1913, before the end of the year had made two hundred and six trips,
carrying 4,857 persons and travelling about 13,700 miles. A wrecked
Zeppelin is such a picture of destruction, such a vast display of
twisted metal and rags lying wreathed across a landscape, that those who
see it are apt to get an exaggerated idea of the dangers of airship
travel. With all his misfortunes, it was Count Zeppelin's luck for many
years that no life was lost among those who travelled in his ships.

In May 1906, before Count Zeppelin's enterprise had received the
stamp of Imperial and national approval, there was formed, under the
inspiration of the German Emperor, a society for airship development.
The success of the Lebaudy airship in France prompted the
construction in Germany of two types of semi-rigid airship--the
Parseval and the Gross. Only four of the latter type were built, and
all four suffered mishap; the last and best of them, built in 1911,
is said to have shown a better performance than the best contemporary
Zeppelin. The Parseval was designed in 1906 by Major August von Parseval,
of the Third Bavarian Infantry Regiment, who retired from the German
army in 1907 in order to devote himself entirely to scientific work.
He was already famous for the kite balloon, which he had invented in
collaboration with Hauptmann Bartsch von Sigsfeld, who died in 1906.
The Parseval kite balloon was adopted or imitated by all other
nations during the war. The Parseval airship was as good an airship,
of the non-rigid type, as had ever been built; it was supplanted,
later on, by the rigid type, because an airship's lift depends on
its size, and very large airships could not be built without a rigid
framework. The society for airship development bought up Major von
Parseval's plans, and began to construct Parseval airships. The
statutes of the society forbade it to sell ships for profit, so an
allied company was formed, the Luftfahrzeugbau-Gesellschaft, with
works at Bitterfeld, and a subsidiary company, the L.V.G., or
Luftverkehrs-Gesellschaft, to exploit Parseval airships for
passenger-carrying, with its headquarters at Berlin and sheds at
Johannisthal. Two passenger-carrying ships were built, the
_Stollwerk_ in 1910, and the _Charlotte_ in 1912. The Parseval
ships, perhaps because, being non-rigid, they were held to be
inferior to the Zeppelins, were freely sold to foreign powers--one
to the Austrian army in 1909, one to the Russian and one to the
Turkish army in 1910, one to the Japanese army in 1912, another to
the Russian and two to the Italian army in 1913; last of all, in the
same year, one to the British Admiralty. Some eighteen Parseval
airships were built and launched between 1909 and 1913. The third
great airship-building company in Germany was the Schütte-Lanz
Company, with its factory in Mannheim. It was named from Heinrich
Lanz, the founder of machine works near Mannheim, who supplied the
money, and Professor Schütte, of the Technical University, Danzig,
who supplied the skill. Its rigid airships were made of wood; they
were built from 1912 onwards expressly for the uses of the army and
navy, and they played a great part in the war.

Those who were responsible for the development of the airship in Germany
took the people into partnership, and devoted themselves largely to
passenger-carrying. The airship became popular; and the officers and men
who worked it were practised in navigation all the year round. The
people, for their part, regarded the Zeppelin with the enthusiasm of
patriotic fervour. France had taken the lead and had shown the way with
the dirigible, but Germany, by recruiting the people for the cause, soon
out-distanced her. The passenger ships served as training-ships for
crews, and, if occasion should arise, were readily convertible to
warlike purposes. Yet things changed and moved so fast, that before the
war broke out, although the German people still believed that the
Zeppelin gave them the sovereignty of the air, the German Government had
been troubled by doubts, had changed its policy, and was striving hard
to overtake the French in the construction and manning of army
aeroplanes. The consequence was that the war found Germany better
provided with aeroplanes for use on the western front than with airships
for operations oversea. The German Emperor, speaking to a wounded
soldier, is reported to have said that he never willed this war. One
proof that this war was not the war he willed may be found in the state
of preparation of the German air force. If war with England had been any
part of the German plan, German airships would have been more numerous,
and would have been ready for immediate action, as the armies that
invaded Belgium were ready. The German theory was that England was not
prepared for war, which, with certain brilliant and crucial exceptions,
was true, and that therefore England would not go to war, which proved
to be false. The French were supplying themselves with a great force of
aeroplanes, and for all that could be known, air operations on the
western front might determine the fortunes of the campaign. So the
German Government turned its attention to machines that are heavier than
air.

What had brought about this situation was the rapid and surprising
development of the aeroplane by France. Here it is necessary to go back
and take up the story again at the beginning of those few and headlong
years.

French aviation derives directly from Lilienthal and collaterally from
the Wrights. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church; but the
martyrs, for the most part, die in faith, without assurance of the
harvest that is to come. When Lilienthal was killed he can hardly have
known that his example and his careful records would so soon bear fruit
in other countries. He was regarded by his fellow-countrymen as a
whimsical acrobat, who took mad risks and paid the price. But as soon as
he was dead, the story of what he had done got abroad, and began to
raise up for him disciples and successors, who carried on his
experiments. The chief of these in France was Captain F. Ferber, an
officer of artillery and a student of science, who from 1896 onwards was
a teacher in the military school at Fontainebleau. It was in 1898 that
he first came across an account of Lilienthal; the reading of it
impressed him as deeply as it impressed the Wrights. Here was a man, he
thought, who had discovered the right way of learning to fly; if only
the way were followed, success was sure. Like the Wrights, Ferber lays
stress chiefly on practice. It was he, not Lilienthal, who was the
author of the saying, 'To design a flying machine is nothing; to build
one is nothing much; to try it in the air is everything'. In the book on
aviation which he wrote shortly before his death in 1909 he expounds his
creed and narrates his experiences. His mathematical knowledge, he says,
served him well, for it saved him from being condemned as an empiric by
those dogmatic men of science, very numerous in France (and, he might
have added, in the universities of all countries), who believe that
science points the way to practice, whereas the most that science can
do, says Ferber, is to follow in the wake of practice, and interpret it.
So he set himself to work on a plan as old as the world--first to create
the facts, and then to expound them in speech and writing.

He began to build gliders, but had no success with them until he found
out for himself what he had not gathered from his reading of
Lilienthal--that an up-current of wind is necessary for a prolonged
glide. His first successful flight was made with his fourth glider on
the 7th of December 1901. He got into touch with Mr. Chanute, another of
Lilienthal's scattered disciples, and through him was supplied with
papers and photographs concerning the gliding experiments of the
Wrights. These were a revelation to him, and he used them in making his
fifth glider, which was a great improvement on its predecessors. He
lectured at Lyons to the Aero Club of the Rhone on the progress of
aviation by means of gliding, and published his lecture in the _Revue
d'Artillerie_ of March 1904. About this time the air was full of rumours
of flight. M. Ernest Archdeacon, of Paris, took up the subject with
ardour, wrote many articles on it, and encouraged others to work at it.
A young man, called Gabriel Voisin, who heard Captain Ferber lecture at
Lyons, came on to the platform after the lecture and declared that he
wished to devote his life to the cause of aviation. The next morning he
started for Paris, and with the help of M. Archdeacon founded the
earliest aeroplane factory in France--the firm of the brothers Voisin,
which became the mainstay of early French aviation.

Ferber himself was carrying out a series of experiments at Nice with an
aeroplane which he fitted with a six horse-power engine and suspended
from a tall mast, when he was invited by Colonel Renard to help with the
work of the official research laboratory at Chalais Meudon. He joined
the staff, but found that the officials of a Government organization are
as ill qualified as the theorists of a university for progress in
practical invention. The lower members of the hierarchy are men under
orders, who do what they are told to do; the higher members are hampered
by having to work through subordinates, who often do not understand
their aims and take no particular interest in the work in hand.
Nevertheless, he improved his aeroplane, stabilizing it by means of a
long tail, and fitting it with wheels for landing, in place of the skids
which were used by the Wrights. Then, like those who had gone before
him, he was held up by the question of the engine. Engineers are a
conservative race of men, and perhaps the perfected aeroplane would
still be waiting for a suitable engine if they had not been prompted to
innovation by the fashion of motor-racing. There are strange links in
the chain of cause and effect; the pneumatic tyre made the motor-bicycle
possible; for motor-bicycle races a light engine was devised which later
on was adapted to the needs of the aeroplane. Ferber made acquaintance
with M. Levavasseur, who had invented an engine of eighty horse-power
weighing less than five pounds per horse-power, and had won many races
with it. This engine was named the _Antoinette_ in honour of the
daughter of M. Gastambide, a capitalist, who had supplied the inventor
with funds. The most famous of early French aviators, Santos Dumont,
Farman, Blériot, Delagrange, and others, owed much to this engine.
Ferber might have had it before any of them, for M. Levavasseur offered
to build it for him--twenty-four horse-power with a weight of about a
hundred and twelve pounds--but public moneys could not be advanced for
an engine that did not exist, so the other pioneers, who had followed
Ferber in gliding experiments, preceded him in flying. In 1906 Ferber
obtained Government permission to join the Antoinette firm for a period,
and by 1908 he was flying in an aeroplane of his own design. He was
killed in September 1909, on the aerodrome of Beuvrequen, near Boulogne,
by capsizing on rough ground in the act of alighting. His own estimate
of his work was modest; he had acted, he said, as a ferment and a
popularizer, and had helped to put France on the right track; but it was
his pride that he belonged to the great school, the school of
Lilienthal, Pilcher, Chanute, and the Wrights, who went to work by a
progressive method of practical experiment, who combined daring with
patience, and found their way into the air.

Ferber, after his visit to America, had failed to induce the French
authorities to purchase the Wright aeroplane, which he had never seen,
but which, from descriptions and photographs, he was able to
reconstruct, much as a geologist reconstructs an animal from fossil
bones. The refusal of the French Government to purchase and the
withdrawal of the Wrights from their public experiments gave France a
period of respite for two years, during which time French aviation
rapidly developed on lines of its own. At the back of this movement was
M. Archdeacon, who as early as 1903 had established a fund and had
offered a cup as a prize for the first officially recorded flight of
more than twenty-five metres. The Voisin brothers, Gabriel and Charles,
having set up their factory at Billancourt-sur-Seine, built machines for
him, box-kites and aeroplanes. After a time the Voisin brothers went
into business on their own account, and employed M. Colliex as their
engineer. Their earliest customers, Léon Delagrange, who had been
trained as a sculptor, and Henri Farman, who had combined the
professions of cyclist, painter, and motor-racer, were distinguished
early French flyers. That both these men had been artists seems to bear
out the favourite contention of Wilbur Wright and of Captain Ferber. To
be an artist a man must create or initiate; the accumulation of
knowledge will do little for him. A politician or a lawyer can reach to
high distinction in his profession without the power of initiating
anything. It is enough for him to handle other men's ideas, to combine
them and balance them, to study and conciliate other men, and to suggest
a compromise. But the artist, like the scientific discoverer, must act
on his own ideas, and do battle, single-handed, with the nature of
things.

The earliest experiments of M. Archdeacon and the Voisins were made with
man-carrying Hargrave box-kites, or with gliders made on the same
principle, which were towed in the air behind a fast motor-boat
travelling down the Seine. The next step was to fit an aeroplane with an
engine and wheels so that it might attempt to rise from the ground. The
Voisins collaborated with most of the early French aviators, with Louis
Blériot and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, as well as with Farman and
Delagrange. At one time they were closely associated with Blériot, at
another time with Farman. Their first machines depended for lateral
stability on the vertical panels of the box-kite structure. This was
insufficient, and the French designers had to grapple, one by one, with
all the difficulties that had been met and conquered by the Wrights.
They had this advantage, that the design of the Wrights' machine was,
though not exactly, yet in its main features known to them. All the
early aeroplanes which mounted their elevators in front of the machine
may, without much doubt, be affiliated to the Wrights. The elevator is
not best placed in front; its action in that position is too quick and
violent, but it is under the eye of the operator, and with cool nerves
he can learn to work it.

While the group of enthusiasts who gathered round the Voisins were
designing and experimenting, Santos Dumont, having turned his attention
to machines heavier than air, suddenly appeared among them, made the
first successful flight over French soil, and carried off the Archdeacon
prize. His machine was a biplane, built on the box-kite principle, with
three vertical panels on each side between the planes, and a box-kite
elevator projecting far in front. The wings were fixed at a considerable
dihedral angle, and the engine was a twenty-four horse-power Antoinette.
In his first trial, which took place at Bagatelle on the 23rd of July
1906, Santos Dumont attached a spindle-shaped balloon to the upper
surface of the machine, to help it into the air. The combination of the
two modes he soon found to be impossible; with the balloon attached to
it the machine could not develop speed enough to support itself in the
air. His next step was to practise the machine by running it down an
inclined cable; then he discarded as much weight as he could, doubled
the horse-power of the motor, and began to taxi freely along the ground.
On a day in September the machine raised itself for a very short space
into the air. The first officially witnessed flight, of about eighty
yards, took place on the 23rd of October 1906, and gained the Archdeacon
Cup. About a month later he made a flight of more than a furlong.
Thereafter he established himself at Saint-Cyr and developed a machine
of the monoplane type, with a long tail. But he was too far from the
resources of Paris, and when, on the 13th of January 1908, Henri Farman
overtook his records and won the Deutsch-Archdeacon prize for a flight
of one kilometre in a closed circuit, Santos Dumont lost his leading
position in the world of aviation, after a brief and meteoric career
which has stamped his name on history.

During these early years the Voisin brothers had the foresight and
wisdom to put themselves wholly at the service of others. The promise of
flight had taken hold of many minds in France and there was no lack of
inventors and would-be inventors who wished to test their own ideas and
to have machines built to their own designs. If the Voisins had refused
to gratify them, these clients would have disappeared; and the work done
for them, though much of it was done in the old blind alleys of
horizontal elevating airscrews and wing-flapping machines, yet had this
advantage, that it kept the workshop active and made it self-supporting.
Inventors are a difficult and jealous people; they received every
indulgence from the Voisins. The machines built for them were named
after them, though most of the skill and experience that went to the
making came from the factory. In the same way M. Archdeacon gave up all
practical experiment after 1905 and was content to play the part of the
good genius of aviation, presiding at the Aero Club, offering prizes for
new achievements, bringing inventors together and encouraging the
exchange of ideas. The rapidity of French progress was not a little due
to this self-effacing and social instinct, so characteristic of the
French spirit, which kept the patron and the engineers in the
background, and brought order and progress out of the chaos of personal
rivalry.

Progress was slow at first. The experiments made in 1906 by Blériot in
conjunction with the Voisins were made, for safety, on the water of the
Lake of Enghien, but it proved impossible to get up sufficient speed on
the water to rise into the air. In 1907 a greater success attended the
experiments made at Vincennes, at Bagatelle, and at Issy-les-Moulineaux,
where Henri Farman had obtained permission to use the army manoeuvre
ground and had built himself a hangar, or shed, for his aeroplane. On
the 30th of March, at Bagatelle, the Delagrange aeroplane made a flight
of sixty metres. A few months later, Farman, on a similar machine fitted
with landing-wheels which worked on pivots, like castors, began to make
short flights. On the 30th of September he flew for eighty metres.
Seeing is believing, but many of those who saw Farman fly did not
believe. The machine, they said, was only hopping into the air with the
speed it had gathered on the ground; it would never fly. When, on the
26th of October, Farman made a flight of more than seven hundred metres
the pessimists found another objection. The machine, they said, would
never be able to turn; it could only continue in a straight line. They
had hit on a real difficulty, but the Voisins and Farman himself, who,
starting without any knowledge of aeroplanes or flying, had soon
developed practical ideas of his own, were hard at work to meet it. The
Wrights had simplified the handling of a machine by combining the
control of the vertical rudder with the control of the wing-warping. In
the early Voisin machines there was no wing-warping, and the pilots had
to attempt to balance and turn the machine without it; but a rod with a
wheel attached to it was used to control both the elevating plane in
front and the vertical rudder behind. By turning the wheel the rudder
was operated, by moving the rod the elevator was raised or lowered. It
was on a machine of this kind that Farman began to practise gradual
turning movements. The lateral inclination of the machine was feared
and, as much as possible, avoided in these first experiments, though it
is not only harmless in turning movements, but is necessary for their
complete success, just as the banking of a motor race-track is necessary
to keep the machines on the course. Farman made rapid progress; and, as
has been said, by the beginning of 1908 he gained the two thousand pound
Deutsch-Archdeacon prize for a closed circuit of one kilometre in
length. The wonderful skill of this achievement will be fully
appreciated only by the best modern pilots, who would not like to be
asked to repeat it on a machine unprovided with ailerons (that is to
say, hinged flaps on the trailing edge of the planes), and controlled
only by the elevator and the rudder. There is nothing very extravagant
in dating the conquest of the air, as some French writers have dated it,
from the circular flights of Farman. It is true that the Wrights had
attained a much higher skill in manoeuvring, but they had retired, like
Achilles, to their tent, whereas Farman's flight showed the way to many
others. In the spring of the same year Delagrange began to execute
turning flights; on the 6th of July Farman gained the prize offered by
M. Armengaud, the president of the society of aerial navigation, for a
flight of a quarter of an hour's duration, and after the arrival of
Wilbur Wright at Le Mans progress became so rapid that records were
broken week by week and almost day by day. In January 1909 the Aero Club
of France issued their first list of pilots' certificates. Eight names,
all famous, made up the list--Léon Delagrange, Alberto Santos Dumont,
Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Henri Farman, Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright,
Captain Ferdinand Ferber, Louis Blériot. To make this a list of the
chief French pioneers, the names of the Wrights would have to be
omitted, and the names of some who were not famous pilots but who did
much for flying, especially the names of M. Ernest Archdeacon and
Gabriel Voisin, would have to be included.

These men, and those who worked for them, gave to France her own school
of aviation. Louis Blériot and Robert Esnault-Pelterie broke away from
what, since the days of Francis Wenham, had been accepted as the
orthodox doctrine of the biplane, and, taking the bird for master,
devised swift, light, and easily handled monoplanes. The Blériot
monoplane, which first flew the Channel; the R.E.P. (or Robert
Esnault-Pelterie) monoplane; the Antoinette monoplane, on which Hubert
Latham performed his exploits; the small and swift Demoiselle monoplane,
designed and flown by Santos Dumont; and the Tellier monoplane, which
for a time held the record for cross-country flight--all these made
history by their performances in the crowded years from 1908 to 1910.
The monoplane is, without any doubt, the prettiest of machines in the
air. When Captain Ferber gave this reason to Mr. Chanute for preferring
it to the biplane, Mr. Chanute, he says, laughed a good deal at an
argument so characteristically French. But there is sense and weight in
the argument. No flying animal is half so ugly as the early Wright
biplane. In the world of natural fliers beauty and efficiency are one.
Purity of line and economy of parts are beautiful and efficient. A good
illustration of this may be found in the question of the airscrew. The
early French biplanes of the Voisin and Farman type were what would now
be called 'pusher' machines; their airscrews operated behind the main
planes, and their tails were supported by an open structure of wood or
metal which left room for the play of the screw. In this ugly
arrangement the loss of efficiency is easy to see. The screw works in a
disturbed medium, and the complicated metal-work presents a large
resistance to the passage of the machine through the air. The monoplane,
from the first, was a 'tractor' machine; its airscrew was in front of
the planes, and its body, or fuselage, was covered in and streamlined,
so as to offer the least possible resistance to the air. A later
difficulty caused by the forward position of the airscrew had nothing to
do with flying. When the war came, and machine-guns were mounted on
aeroplanes, a clear field was needed for forward firing. This difficulty
was ultimately met by the invention of a synchronizing gear, which timed
the bullets between the strokes of the airscrew-blades. In all but a few
types of machine the airscrew is now retained in the forward position.
The debate between monoplane and biplane is not yet concluded; the
biplane holds its own because with the same area of supporting surface
it is much stronger and more compact than the monoplane.

Instead of wing-warping, which puts a strain on the supporting surfaces
and is liable to distort them, the French (to whom Blériot is believed
to have shown the way) introduced ailerons, that is, small subsidiary
hinged planes attached to the extremities of the wings. By controlling
these, one up and the other down, in conjunction with the rudder, the
pilot can preserve his lateral balance, and turn the machine to right or
left. Later on, these ailerons, when they were borrowed by the Voisin
and Farman biplanes, were not fitted to the extremities of the planes,
but became hinged flaps forming the extreme section of the trailing
edge; and this position they have kept in all modern aeroplanes. An even
greater advance was made by the French school in its device for the
control of the machine. The machine which Wilbur Wright flew in France
was controlled by two upright levers, grasped by the pilot, one in
either hand. The left-hand lever moved only backwards and forwards; it
controlled the elevator and directed the machine upwards or downwards.
The right-hand lever controlled the rudder and the warping of the wings.
By moving it backwards or forwards the pilot turned the machine to right
or left; by moving it sideways he warped the wings. There is nothing
instinctive or natural in these correspondences; the backward and
forward movement which in one lever spells up and down in the other
spells right and left. It is a testimony to the extraordinary
cool-headed skill of the Wrights, and to their endless practice and
perseverance, that they were able to fly such a machine in safety, and
to outfly their rivals. The French school centralized the control in a
single lever with a universal joint attachment at the lower end. The
movements of this lever in any direction produced the effects that would
instinctively be expected; a backward or forward movement turned the
machine upwards or downwards, a sideways movement raised one wing or the
other so as to bank the machine or to bring it to a level position
again. The vertical rudder was controlled either by a wheel attached to
this central lever, or by the pressure of the pilot's feet on a
horizontal bar. The French moreover improved the means of taking off and
alighting. The early Wright machines were launched on rails, and
alighted on skids attached to the machine like the skids of a sledge. To
rise into the air again after a forced landing was impossible without
special apparatus. By means of wheels elastically fixed to an
undercarriage the French inventors made the aeroplane available for
cross-country journeys. But the greatest difference between the two
types of aeroplane, the American and the French, was their difference in
stability. The Wright machine demanded everything of the pilot; it could
not fly itself. If the pilot relaxed his attention for a moment, or took
his hands from the levers, a crash was the certain result. The machine
was a bird which flew with extended bill and without a tail; whereas the
French machines had a horizontal tail-plane, which, being held rigidly
at a distance from the main planes, gave to the machine a far greater
measure of longitudinal stability.

All these advantages told in favour of French aviation, and secured for
it progress and achievement.

A few dates and facts may serve to show its rapid progress at a time
when it was making history week by week. On the 30th of September 1908
Henri Farman made the first cross-country flight, from Châlons to
Rheims, a distance of twenty-seven kilometres, which he covered in
twenty minutes. Three days later, at Châlons, he remained in the air for
just under three-quarters of an hour, covering twenty-five miles, that
is, about forty times the distance that had won him the
Deutsch-Archdeacon prize in January. Between April and September of the
same year Léon Delagrange had four times in succession raised the
world's official records (which, of course, took no note of the Wrights)
for duration of flight. On the 31st of October Louis Blériot made the
first cross-country circuit flight, from Toury to Artenay and back, a
distance of about seventeen miles, in the course of which flight he
twice landed and rose again into the air. All these and many similar
achievements were dwarfed by Wilbur Wright's performance at the
Hunaudières racecourse near Le Mans. His first flight, on Saturday the
8th of August, lasted one minute and forty-seven seconds. Three days
later, though he flew for only four minutes, the figures of eight and
other manoeuvres which he executed in the air caused M. Delagrange, who
witnessed them, to remark, 'Eh bien. Nous n'existons pas. Nous sommes
battus.' On the last day of the year he flew for two hours and twenty
minutes, covering seventy-seven miles. In the intervening time he had
beaten the French records for duration, distance, and height.
Cross-country work he did not attempt; his machine at that time was
ill-fitted for it. During the winter he went to Pau to instruct his
first three pupils--the Count de Lambert and MM. Paul Tissandier and
Alfred Leblanc.

At the beginning of the year 1909 the mystery and craft of flying was
still known only to the few. In the two years that followed it was
divulged to the many, and became a public spectacle. The age of the
designers was followed by the age of the performers. Flying machines and
men who could fly them rapidly increased in number. A man working in a
laboratory on difficult and uncertain experiments cannot engage or
retain the attention of the public; a flying man, who circles over a
city or flies across great tracts of populated country, is visible to
all, and, when he is first seen, excites a frenzy of popular enthusiasm.
These years were the years of competition and adventure, of races, and
of record-breaking in distance, speed, duration, and height. Flying was
the newest sport; and the aviator, whose courage, coolness, and skill
carried him through great dangers, was the hero of the day. The press,
with its ready instinct for profitable publicity, offered magnificent
encouragement to the new art. Large money prizes were won by gallant
deeds that have made history. The _Daily Mail_, of London, offered a
prize of a thousand pounds for the first flight across the English
Channel. Hubert Latham, in his Antoinette monoplane, attempted this
flight on the 19th of July from the neighbourhood of Calais, but the
failure of his sparking plugs brought him down on to the water about six
miles from the French coast, where he was picked up by his accompanying
destroyer. He was preparing another attempt when Louis Blériot, suddenly
arriving at Calais, anticipated him. At half-past four on the morning of
Sunday, the 25th of July, Blériot rose into the air on his monoplane,
furnished with an Anzani engine of twenty-five horse-power, and headed
for Dover. He flew without map or compass, and soon out-distanced the
French destroyer which had been appointed to escort him. For ten minutes
he lost sight of all land, but he corrected his course by observing the
steamers below him, and landed in the Northfall meadow behind Dover
Castle after a flight of forty minutes. Two other newspaper prizes, one
of ten thousand pounds offered by the London _Daily Mail_ for a flight
from London to Manchester, in three stages, the other of ten thousand
dollars offered by the New York _World_ for a flight from Albany to New
York, were won in 1910. The first of these flights was attempted on the
24th of April by an Englishman, Claude Grahame-White, who flew a Farman
biplane, but was compelled by engine trouble to descend near Lichfield,
where his machine was damaged by wind in the night. Three days later
Louis Paulhan, also mounted on a Farman biplane, covered the whole
distance to Manchester in something over four hours, with only one
landing. Paulhan had first learned to fly in July 1909; Grahame-White
had obtained his pilot's certificate from the French Aero Club as late
as December 1909. The flight of a hundred and twenty miles from Albany
to New York, down the Hudson river, was achieved on the 29th of May in
two hours and thirty-two minutes by Glenn H. Curtiss, one of the most
distinguished of American pioneers. Later on in 1910 a prize of a
hundred thousand francs was offered by the Paris newspaper, the _Matin_,
for what was called the _Circuit de l'Est_, a voyage from Paris and back
by way of Troyes, Nancy, Mézières, Douai, and Amiens, a distance of four
hundred and eighty-eight miles, to be completed in six stages, on
alternate days, from the 7th of August to the 17th of August. This
competition was won by Wilbur Wright's pupil, Alfred Leblanc, on a
Blériot monoplane. The eastern part of this circuit, a territory not
much larger than Yorkshire, has since been made famous and sacred by the
battles of the Marne and Verdun and a hundred other places.

Of more value for the furtherance of the art than any of these
individual exploits were the series of meetings which brought aviators
together in friendly rivalry, to see and to be seen. The most notable
of these meetings was also the first, the Champagne Week of Rheims,
which was organized by the Marquis de Polignac, and was held, during the
last week of August 1909, on the Bétheny Plain, near Rheims. The number
of spectators day by day was from forty to fifty thousand, and the
gate-money taken during the week was about £35,000. Henri Farman, Hubert
Latham, and Glenn Curtiss earned among them almost £6,000 in prizes. The
Grand Prix de la Champagne for the flight of longest duration was won by
Farman, who remained in the air, plodding steadily round the course, for
more than three hours. He also won the passenger-carrying prize in a
flight which carried two passengers round the ten-kilometre course in
about ten minutes and a half. Latham gained the altitude prize by flying
to a height of more than five hundred feet. The Gordon Bennett Cup, for
the best speed over two rounds of the course, was won by Curtiss in
fifteen minutes fifty and three-fifths seconds, with Blériot only some
five seconds behind him. There were many other prizes distributed among
the more fortunate of the competitors. Perhaps the greatest gain of the
meeting was that it did away with the notion that the aeroplane is a
fair-weather toy. There was rain and storm, and Paulhan flew in a wind
of twenty-five miles an hour. The meeting witnessed the first public
success of the most famous (and most revolutionary) of aeroplane
engines--the rotary Gnome engine, in which the cylinders rotate bodily
round a fixed crank-shaft. This engine was built by the brothers Louis
and Laurent Séguin, who had a small motor factory in Paris. Most of the
regular aviators looked askance at it, but Séguin offered to instal it
in a Voisin biplane of the box-kite pattern which had just been won as a
prize by Louis Paulhan. In the result the old box-kite flew as never
box-kite flew before, and produced a great impression at the Rheims
meeting. The Gnome engine was also mounted by Henri Farman on one of the
machines that he flew at Rheims, and by the solitary English competitor,
Mr. G. B. Cockburn, who, according to Mr. Holt Thomas, was the first to
use this engine in the air.

Other meetings followed in rapid succession, gaining recruits for the
new art and converting the nations to a belief in it. Two of these, held
simultaneously at Blackpool and Doncaster, soon after the Rheims
meeting, were spoilt by bad weather and high winds, but at Blackpool
Hubert Latham gave a marvellous display on his Antoinette machine by
flying in a wind of about forty miles an hour, when no one else ventured
the attempt. During 1910 aviation weeks were held in February at
Heliopolis, Egypt, and in April at Nice. In October of the same year an
International Aviation Tournament was held in America at Belmont Park,
Long Island, where the highest honour, the prize for the Gordon Bennett
speed contest, was won by Claude Grahame-White on a Blériot machine. In
Great Britain many meetings were held during the summer of 1910: one at
Wolverhampton; another at Bournemouth, where the Hon. C. S. Rolls, who a
month before had flown across the Channel and back without alighting,
was killed; another at Lanark; and yet another at Blackpool, where
George Chavez flew to a height of 5,887 feet. In the following month
Chavez flew across the Alps, over the Simplon Pass, into Italy, but was
fatally injured in alighting at Domodossola. These are specimen deeds
only, taken from a story of adventure and progress, danger and disaster,
which, if it were fully told, would fill volumes. Records, as they are
called, were made and broken so fast that the heroic achievement of the
spring became the daily average performance of the ensuing autumn. The
movement was fairly under way, and nothing could stop it.




CHAPTER III

FLIGHT IN ENGLAND


In all these doings England bore but a small part. English aviators were
few; and those who distinguished themselves in public competition had
learned their flying in France. To speak of England's share in these
amazing years of progress is to tell the history of a backward parish,
and to describe its small contribution to a great world-wide movement.
Yet the story, for that very reason, has an extraordinary interest.
England never has been cosmopolitan. All her beginnings, even where she
has led the way and set the fashion to the world, were parochial. If a
change is in question, England makes trial of it, late and reluctantly,
on a small scale, in her own garden. All the noisy exhortations of a
thousand newspapers cannot touch her apprehension or rouse her to
excitement. Next year's fashions do not much preoccupy her mind; she
knows that they will come to her, in due time, from France, to be taken
or rejected. When a change is something more than a fashion, and vital
conditions begin to be affected, her lethargy is broken in a moment and
she is awake and alert. So it was with the fashion of air-travel. The
first aviator's certificate granted by a British authority was issued by
the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom to Mr. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon
in March 1910, when already the exploits of flying men were the theme of
all the world. By the 1st of November in the same year the Royal Aero
Club had issued twenty-two certificates; that is to say, twenty-two
pilots, some of them self-taught, and some trained in France, were
licensed by the sole British authority as competent to handle a machine
in the air. Eight years later, in November 1918, when the armistice put
an end to the active operations of the war, the Royal Air Force was the
largest and strongest of the air forces of the world. We were late in
beginning, but once we had begun we were not slow. We were rich in
engineering skill and in material for the struggle. Best of all, we had
a body of youth fitted by temperament for the work of the air, and
educated, as if by design, to take risks with a light heart--the boys of
the Public Schools of England. As soon as the opportunity came they
offered themselves in thousands for a work which can never be done well
when it is done without zest, and which calls for some of the highest
qualities of character--fearlessness, self-dependence, and swift
decision. The Germans, before the war, used to speak with some contempt,
perhaps with more than they felt, of the English love of sport, which
they liked to think was frivolous and unworthy of a serious nation.
Their forethought and organization, which was intensely, almost
maniacally, serious, was defeated by what they despised; and the love of
sport, or, to give it its noblest name, the chivalry, of their enemies,
which they treated as a foolish relic of romance, proved itself to be
the most practical thing in the world.

The English pioneers of flight, who had learned their flying abroad,
brought back their knowledge, and did what they could to arouse their
country to effort. What their success would have been if the peace of
Europe had continued unbroken and unthreatened it is impossible to say,
but progress would probably have been slow--an affair of sporadic
attempts and scattered adventures. The two strongest motives, patriotic
devotion and commercial gain, would have been lacking. The English have
never been good at preparing for a merely possible war; they are apt,
indeed, to regard such preparation as ill-omened and impious. This
strenuous and self-dependent breed of men, being conscious that they do
not desire war, and believing that he is thrice armed who has his
quarrel just, have always been content, in the face of many warnings, to
repose their main confidence in the virtue of their cause and the
strength of their character. The risks that they run through this
confidence have often been pointed out, but it should also be remembered
that by their reluctance to act on theory they have often been saved
from the elaborate futility and expense of acting on a false theory. The
disaster which has befallen Germany cannot but strengthen them in their
belief that it is dangerous to devote care and thought to preparing for
all imaginable conflicts. So also in the activities of civil life,
before they undertake a large outlay they ask to be assured of solid
gains. They leave it to the adventurers, who have never failed them, to
blaze the track for commerce. Where a new science is concerned, this
mode of progress is slow. Private enterprise and personal rivalry too
often bring with them the tactics of secrecy. Science is not an
individual possession, and the man who tries to appropriate it to
himself often sterilizes his work and forfeits his place in the history
of progress. In his anxiety to assert his own claims he forgets that his
work has been made possible only by what has come to him as a free gift
from others, that his own contribution to human knowledge is a slight
thing, that in protecting himself against imitators he is also depriving
himself of helpers and pupils, and is bartering the dignity of science
for the rewards of a patentee. The Wrights in America and Captain Ferber
in France left behind them a full and frank record of all their doings,
thereby conferring an enormous benefit on others, and securing for
themselves an unassailable position in the history of flight. Much may
be said in favour of the traditional English doctrine of free
competition. Where knowledge is readily accessible, and the field is
open to all, free competition stimulates and rewards industry and skill.
On the other hand, where a new science is struggling into being,
commercial competition often retards it by a network of restrictions and
concealments, and converts knowledge, which ought to be a public trust,
to the darker purposes of private gain. The coming of the war burst
these bonds, and immensely quickened the progress of the science of
flight. Inventors, who are usually poor men, so soon as their country
called on them, put themselves at her disposal, and found their chief
reward in helping to save her at her need.

The course of events during the early years of the twentieth century
left England no time for developing the art of flight in her own
tentative and permissive fashion. The coming of the new art coincided
with the rapid gathering of the storm-cloud that was to burst in the
Great War. In 1903 the Wrights first flew in a power-driven machine. In
1909 the achievements of the Rheims meeting marked the end of the
infancy of the art. In 1912 the Royal Flying Corps was formed. During
this same period of ten years armaments were being piled up by all the
greater European countries, international tension was increasing, and
ominous events, small in themselves, but impressive by the gravity and
solemnity with which they were regarded by the chancelleries of Europe,
recurred in a series of growing intensity and significance. Germany was
not threatened in any part of the world, but Germany was known to
believe in war, and many responsible observers were uneasily and
reluctantly forced to the conviction that Germany intended war, and
would make war for unlimited purposes on any small occasion created or
chosen by herself. The Royal Flying Corps was formed not for far-sighted
ulterior ends, as an instrument of progress and research, but for a very
present need, as a weapon to be placed in the hands of the country on
the day when battle should be joined. Two years before the corps was
formed the aeronautical force at the disposal of the nation was centred
in the balloon factory and balloon school at Aldershot. The naval and
military officers who had interested themselves in aeronautics were few,
but they were competent and enthusiastic; they believed in the air, and
were quick to recognize inventions of promise. The consequence of this
was that the aeroplane and the airship in England, from the very first,
grew up more or less tended by the Government, and received as much
encouragement as could possibly be given under the severe restrictions
of parliamentary finance. Almost every airship that was built was built
by the Government. Almost every pioneer of flight in England sooner or
later came into touch with the Government, and did work for the nation.
As early as 1904 Mr. S. F. Cody, who had been connected in early life
with the theatrical profession in America, and had made many experiments
in aeronautics, was supplying kites to the balloon factory. In 1906 he
was appointed chief instructor in kiting, and in 1908 he built for
himself an aeroplane, similar in type to the machine of Mr. Glenn H.
Curtiss, and made many experimental flights over Laffan's Plain. He was
a picturesque and hardy individualist of the old school; though he had
had no technical training as an engineer, his wide practical knowledge,
his courage, and his exuberant vitality made him a man of mark, and
engaged the admiration of the public. Most of his work was official; he
was killed by the breaking of his machine in the air while flying over
Laffan's Plain, in August 1913. Another early inventor, Lieutenant J. W.
Dunne, joined the balloon factory in 1906, and at once began to carry
out systematic trials with gliders. Encouraged by Colonel J. E. Capper,
who was in charge of the factory, and assisted by Sir Hiram Maxim, he
devised a biplane glider with a box-kite tail, which when it was
suspended from a kind of revolving gallows at the Crystal Palace
attained a speed in the air of seventy miles an hour and rose to a
height of seventy feet. Later on the experiments were transferred to
Blair Atholl in Perthshire, where the power-driven Dunne aeroplane was
produced and flown. It had backward sloping wings which performed the
function of a stabilizing tail. Most aeroplanes are modelled more or
less closely on flying animals; the Dunne aeroplane took hints from the
zannonia leaf, which, being weighted in front by the seed-pod, and
curved back on either side, becomes, as the tips of the leaf wither and
curl, a perfectly stable aerofoil for conveying the seed to a distance.
The gliding powers of the zannonia leaf were first noticed by Ahlborn of
Berlin, and several foreign aeroplanes were modelled on it. The
stability of the Dunne machine was surprising, and it performed many
good flights before the war, but it sacrificed speed and lifting power
to stability, so that its history in the war is a blank. Stability
spells safety, and safety is not the first condition insisted on by war.
An obstinately stable machine is good for trudging along in the air, but
it is not easy to manoeuvre in face of the enemy. The Dunne machine
adjusted itself more readily to the gusts and currents of the air than
to the demands of the pilot. Skilled war-pilots prefer to handle a
machine which is as quick as a squirrel and responds at once to the
pressure of a finger on the control. If the aeroplane had been developed
wholly in peace, some of the stable machines of the early inventors
would have come into their own, and would have had a numerous following.

The first flight ever made over English soil was made by Mr. A. V. Roe,
in a machine of his own construction. Mr. Roe began life as an
apprentice at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Locomotive Works,
and very early distinguished himself in cycle racing. He then qualified
as a fitter at Portsmouth Dockyard, studied naval engineering at King's
College, London, and spent three years, from 1899 to 1902, in the
merchant service as a marine engineer. The seagulls and the albatross of
the southern seas set him thinking, and he began to make model gliders.
Returned home again, he spent some time as a draughtsman in the motor
industry. The news of the Wrights' achievements found in him a ready
believer, and he wrote to _The Times_ to combat the prevailing
scepticism. His letter was printed, with a foot-note by the engineering
editor to the effect that all attempts at artificial flight on such a
basis as Mr. Roe described were not only dangerous to human life, but
were foredoomed to failure from the engineering standpoint. From 1906
onwards Mr. Roe devoted all his time and all his savings to aviation. In
1907 he made a full-size flying machine and took it to the Brooklands
motor track. He had no sufficient engine power, and while he was waiting
many months for the arrival of a twenty-four horse-power Antoinette
engine from France he induced sympathetic motorists to give him
experimental towing flights. It was difficult, he says, to induce the
motorists to let go at once when the machine began to swerve in the air;
they often held on with inconvenient fidelity, and many of the
experiments ended in a dive and a crash. In the spring of 1908 his
Antoinette engine arrived, and on the 8th of June he made the first
flight ever made in England, covering some sixty yards at a height of
two feet from the ground. Then he received notice to quit Brooklands. He
had never been much favoured by the management, who perhaps thought that
the wreckage of aeroplanes would not add to the popularity of a
motor-racing track, and his experiments had been made under very
difficult conditions, for he was not allowed to sleep in the shed where
his machine was housed, nor to practise with the machine during the
hours when the track was in use. He applied to the War Office for leave
to erect his shed by the side of Mr. Cody's at Laffan's Plain, but was
refused. He then consulted a map of London, and pitched upon Lea
Marshes, where there were some large fields open to the public, and some
railway arches, a couple of which he rented and boarded up. In the
stable of a house at Putney belonging to one of his brothers he had
already built a tractor triplane which he now removed to Lea Marshes.
Under the stress of his misfortunes he had parted with his Antoinette
engine, so he had nothing better for his triplane than a nine
horse-power J.A.P. motor-cycle engine designed by John Alfred Prestwich.
With this, the lowest-powered engine that has ever flown in England, he
made, in June 1909, the first successful flight on an all-British
aeroplane. Thereafter he made many flights; the earliest of these were
short and low, earning him the name of 'Roe the Hopper', but before long
he was making flights of three hundred yards in length at a height of
from six to ten feet. One day in the summer of 1909 a young woman who
had come down to commit suicide in the river Lea saw his machine
skimming about and went home; then she wrote to Mr. Roe urging him to
let her take his place as pilot and so save his life at the expense of
hers. Mr. Roe very tactfully replied that he would gladly let her fly
the machine when he had perfected it, thus offering her something to
look forward to. But his chief troubles were with the local authorities,
who employed a bailiff to watch him and prevent his flying. At
Brooklands Mr. Roe had become accustomed to early rising, and it was
some time before the bailiff caught him in the act of preparing to fly,
but he was caught at last, and police-court proceedings were instituted.
Just at that time Blériot flew the Channel, and the case was dropped, so
that the authorities were not called upon to decide whether flying is
legal or illegal. As for Mr. Roe, he moved on to Wembley Park, where he
flew with steadily increasing success. In 1910 he made an aviation
partnership with his brother, who had prospered as a manufacturer of
webbing in Manchester. In the same year he had his revenge on
Brooklands, for the new manager, Major Lindsay Lloyd, saw the
possibilities of aviation, and converted the centre of the track into an
aerodrome. There the Roes were welcomed, and there they produced and
flew their thirty-five horse-power tractor triplane. After a visit to
America they settled down to their work and had their revenge on the War
Office by producing the famous Avro machine, so named after its
inventor. In its original form it was a tractor biplane with a Gnome
engine of fifty horse-power, shortly afterwards increased to eighty
horse-power. It became, and has remained, the standard training machine
for the Royal Air Force. It is sufficiently stable, and yet sensitive,
and can fly safely at high or low speeds. It set the fashion to the
world in tractor biplanes. Mr. Roe had never believed in the front
elevators of the early American and French aeroplanes, with the pilot
sitting on the front edge of the plane, exposed to the air; nor in the
tail held out by booms, as it is in the pusher machines, with the
airscrews revolving between the body of the machine and the tail. For
his perfected machine of 1913 he had the advice of experts and
mathematicians, but the general design of the machine was his own,
worked out by pure air-sense, or, in his own words, by 'eye and
experience'. Early in 1914 the German Government bought an Avro
seaplane, which soon after was the first heavier-than-air machine to
make the voyage from the mainland to Heligoland. No machine designed in
the early days of flying can compare with the Avro. As it was in 1913,
so, but for improvements in detail not easy to detect, it remained
throughout the war. Its achievements in the field belong to the
beginnings of the war; it raided the airship sheds at Friedrichshafen,
and, handled by Commander A. W. Bigsworth, it was the first of our
machines to attack and damage a Zeppelin in the air. For fighting
purposes it has had to give way to newer types, but as a training
machine it has never been superseded, and even those aeroplanes which
surpass it in fighting quality are most of them its own children.

The early history of Mr. A. V. Roe has been here narrated, not to praise
him, though he deserves praise, nor to blame the Government, though it
is always easy to blame the Government, but to show how things are done
in England. His career, though distinguished, is typical; many other
pioneers and inventors, whose story will never be written, faced
difficulties as he did, and helped to lay the foundations of their
country's excellence in the newly-discovered art. It has become almost
usual, among those who do nothing but write, to insist that the duty of
officials, and other persons publicly appointed, is to save Englishmen
the trouble of thinking and acting for themselves. If the nation were
converted to this belief, the greatness of England would be nearing its
term. But the nation stands in the old ways, and clings to the old
adventurous instincts. As it took to the sea in the sixteenth century to
defeat the Spanish tyranny, so it took to the air in the twentieth
century to defeat the insolence of the Germans. The late Mr. Gladstone
once explained, in the freedom of social conversation, that it is the
duty of a progressive party leader to test the strength of his movement
by leaning back, so that he may be sure that any advance he makes is
adequately supported by the pressure of the forces behind him. It is not
the most heroic view of the duties of a leader, but it has in it some of
the wisdom of an old engineer, whose business compels him to measure
forces accurately. Queen Elizabeth, if she never expounded the doctrine
in relation to the leadership of a nation, at least acted on it. The
English people have always proved themselves equal to the demand thus
made upon them; if initiative be lacking in the leaders, there is plenty
of it among the rank and file. The leaders themselves, once they are
buoyed up and carried forward by the rising tide, often seize their
opportunity, and surpass themselves.

The history of flight in England from 1908, when Mr. Roe and Mr. Cody
first flew, to 1912, when flying became a part of the duty of the
military and naval forces of the Crown, is the history of a ferment, and
cannot be exhibited in any tight or ordered sequence of cause and
effect. Before the Government took in hand the building up of an air
service, there were many beginnings of private organization. A man
cannot fly until he has a machine and a place for starting and
alighting. These are expensive and elaborate requirements, not easily
furnished without co-operation. The Aeronautical Society did much to
make flight possible, but its labours were mainly scientific and
theoretical. In 1901 Mr. F. Hedges Butler earned his place among the
pioneers of the air by founding the Aero Club of the United Kingdom.
This club has played a great and honourable part in the promotion of
aerial navigation. When it was founded no power-driven aeroplane had as
yet carried a man in the air, and the original interest of its members
was in the airship, which had been brought into high credit by M. Santos
Dumont; but they were quick to recognize the coming of the aeroplane,
and the Hon. C. S. Rolls, who helped Mr. Butler to found the club, was
one of the boldest and most skilful of early pilots. The club brought
together inventors and sportsmen, and supplied them with a suitable
ground for their experiments. It undertook the training of aviators, and
from 1910 onwards, issued its certificates, which, when the Government
began to build the Flying Corps, were officially recognized as a warrant
of proficiency in the new art. An immense service was rendered in these
early years by gentlemen adventurers, engineers and pilots, who, all for
love and nothing for reward, built machines and flew them. Some of
these, when the storm broke, became the mainstay of the national force.
To take only two names out of the first hundred to whom the Aero Club
granted its certificate--a list crowded with distinction and
achievement--it is not easy to assess the national debt to Mr. T. O. M.
Sopwith and Mr. Geoffrey de Havilland. It was in the latter part of 1911
that Mr. Sopwith, having flown with skill and distinction on the
machines which he had bought, began to build an aeroplane from his own
designs. At that time there were no aeroplane draughtsmen, and he had to
stand by and instruct his mechanics point by point. He could not afford
to rent a proper workshop; the machine was built in a rough wooden shed,
unsupplied with water, and lighted after dark by paraffin lamps. Six men
built the machine, and Mr. Sopwith flew it from the ground on which the
shed stood. Its performance was better than had ever been obtained from
a machine of equal horse-power. It was subsequently bought by the
Admiralty, and Mr. Sopwith began to build another aeroplane of higher
power, and a flying boat. In 1912 he took premises at Kingston, and
there finished these two machines. The aeroplane was successful; the
flying boat was smashed during its trial flight. Another was put in
hand, and was bought by the Admiralty. Aeroplane designing was in its
experimental stage, so that no large orders were obtainable, and even
where three of a kind were ordered, numerous alterations, demanded
during the process of construction, prevented three of a kind from being
built. These were the beginnings of the famous Sopwith machines, and
especially of the single-seater biplane scout type, with its many
varieties. The Sopwith 'Tabloid', the Sopwith 'Pup', the Sopwith
'Camel', and, last and best of all, the Sopwith 'Snipe', which was new
at the front when the war ended--all these were engines of victory. So
were the equally famous machines designed for the Government by Mr. de
Havilland, of which the D.H. 4 is perhaps the greatest in achievement.
Mr. de Havilland built his first machine early in 1910, at his own cost.
On its trial it travelled some forty yards down a slope under its own
power, then it rose too steeply into the air, and when it was corrected
by Mr. de Havilland, who piloted it, the strain proved too great for the
struts, which were made of American whitewood; the left main plane
doubled up, and the machine, falling heavily to the ground thirty-five
yards from its starting-point, was totally wrecked. The great things of
the air have most of them been done by survivors from wrecks. Mr. de
Havilland went to work again on a much improved machine, designed to be
an army biplane; in December 1910 he became a member of the staff of the
balloon factory at Farnborough, and had a main hand, as shall be told
hereafter, in the best of the Government aeroplane designs.

These are instances only; the story of progress is everywhere the same.
The wonderful national air force was built by the skill and intelligence
of a few men out of the mass of material offered to them by the private
pioneers. The work of these pioneers can best be concisely described in
connexion with the various centres, or aerodromes, where they gathered
together to put their ideas to the test of practice. Not all the early
experimenters were attracted to these communities; some preferred to
work in secret; but the most fruitful work was done in open fellowship.
Among those who, in the days before aerodromes, devoted time and effort
to the problem of flight, Mr. José Weiss deserves more than a passing
mention. After experimenting with models, he devised a man-carrying
bird-like glider, twenty-four feet in span, and in the year 1905, while
flight was still no more than a rumour, flew it successfully on the
slopes of Amberley Mount, between Arundel and Pulborough. His pilots
were Mr. Gordon England and Mr. Gerald Leake. The former of these, in a
wind of about twenty-five miles an hour, rose some hundred feet above
his starting-point and then glided safely to earth again. The machine,
says Mr. Weiss, who, shortly before his death in 1919, kindly furnished
this account, had no vertical rudder, and relied on ailerons only, so
that it was difficult to steer. 'The combination of ailerons', he adds,
'with the vertical rudder introduced by the brothers Wright was the
factor which determined the advent of the aeroplane.' The advent of the
aeroplane and its development for war purposes has given an air of
antiquity to the researches of Mr. Weiss. Yet many subtle and delicate
problems connected with soaring and gliding flight are still unsolved;
there was no time for them during the war. Mr. Weiss was firmly
convinced that in moving currents of air flight without an engine is
possible, though he did not under-estimate the difficulties to be
surmounted. His glider was inherently stable, and had funds been
available, might have been made into an efficient power-driven machine.
The Etrich glider, which was invented at about the same time in Austria
and closely resembles the Weiss machine, became the model and basis for
the famous German Taube type of monoplane.

Once flying had begun in England it was not very long before home-built
aeroplanes were obtainable. Most of the pioneers built their own
machines. The first aeroplane factory for the supply of machines to
customers was set up by Mr. T. Howard Wright in two of the arches of
the London, Chatham and Dover Railway at Battersea, alongside of certain
other arches occupied by the balloon factory of Messrs. Eustace and
Oswald Short, who were at that time the official balloon constructors to
the Aero Club. Like the Voisins in France Mr. Howard Wright put his
skill at the service of others. During the winter of 1908-9 he was
engaged in building experimental aeroplanes of strange design, chiefly
for foreign customers. His own biplane, which resembled the Henri Farman
machine, made its appearance in 1910. He also built a type of monoplane,
known as the Avis, for the Scottish Aviation Company, a firm in which
the Hon. Alan Boyle and Mr. J. Herbert Spottiswoode were interested. On
this monoplane Mr. Boyle made the first cross-country trip in England;
the trip lasted for five minutes, and was made over the ground just
outside the Brooklands track. It was on this monoplane also that Mr.
Sopwith, who understood motor racing, rapidly learned to fly, and a
little later, before he became a designer and manufacturer, it was on a
Howard Wright biplane that he flew from Eastchurch to a point in
Belgium, thus winning Baron de Forest's prize for the longest flight
into the continent of Europe. After a time Mr. Howard Wright joined the
Coventry Ordnance Works, where he built a machine for the Military
Trials of 1912, and he subsequently took charge of the aviation
department of the torpedo-boat firm of Messrs. J. S. White and Co. of
Cowes.

The Short brothers followed suit. After seeing Wilbur Wright fly at Le
Mans, in 1908, Mr. Eustace Short engaged the help of his brother, Mr.
Horace Short, who was an expert in steam-turbines, and they established
a primitive aerodrome at Shellness, on the marshes of the Isle of
Sheppey, near the terminus of the Sheppey Railway. Here the more
enthusiastic of the members of the Aero Club set to work with
aeroplanes. The leading pioneers were Mr. Frank McClean, Mr. Alec
Ogilvie, Mr. Moore-Brabazon, and Mr. Percy Grace, all of whom at a later
date held commissions in one or other of the national air services; and
two more, who held no such commissions, because before the Flying Corps
was in being they had given their lives to the cause--Mr. Cecil Grace
and the Hon. Charles Rolls. None of these men was in the business for
profit, they were sportsmen and something more than sportsmen; they
loved the new adventure and they spent their own money freely, but
pleasure was not their goal; they understood what flying meant for the
welfare of their country, and they worked for the safety and progress of
the British Empire. It was at Shellness in October 1909 that Mr.
Moore-Brabazon, on a machine designed and built by Mr. Horace Short and
fitted with a Green engine, flew the first circular mile ever flown on a
British aeroplane. There were many other experiments and achievements at
Shellness. These were the days, says Mr. C. G. Grey (to whose knowledge
of early aviation this book is much indebted), when the watchers lay
flat on the ground in order to be sure that the aeroplane had really
left it. At the close of 1909, Mr. Frank McClean, who devoted his whole
fortune to the cause of aviation, purchased a large tract of ground,
level and free from ditches, in the middle of the Isle of Sheppey, close
to the railway station at Eastchurch, and gave the use of it free to the
Aero Club. To this ground the Short brothers, who, besides building
their own machines, had taken over the Wright patents for Great Britain,
removed their factory, and Eastchurch very quickly became the scientific
centre of British aviation. Early in 1911 the Admiralty were persuaded
to allow four naval officers to learn to fly. The machines on which they
learned were supplied free of cost by Mr. McClean, and another member
of the Aero Club, Mr. G. B. Cockburn, who was the solitary
representative of Great Britain at the Rheims meeting of 1909, supplied
the tuition, also free of cost. The instructor naturally marked out for
this purpose, says Mr. Cockburn, was Mr. Cecil Grace, a fine pilot, a
great sportsman, and a man quite untouched by the spirit of
commercialism, but only a few weeks earlier he had been lost while
flying over the Channel from France to England. So Mr. Cockburn
undertook the task, and for about six weeks took up his residence at
Eastchurch. The four naval officers were Lieutenants C. R. Samson, R.
Gregory, and A. M. Longmore, of the Royal Navy; and Captain E. L.
Gerrard, of the Royal Marine Light Infantry. They were keen and apt
pupils, as they needs must have been to qualify for their certificates
in six weeks of bad weather, which included one considerable snow-storm.
Instruction in those days was no easy matter; the machines were pushers;
the pilot sat in front with the control on his right hand, the pupil sat
huddled up behind the instructor, catching hold of the control by
stretching his arm over the instructor's shoulder, and getting
occasional jabs in the forearm from the instructor's elbows as a hint to
let go. Mr. Cockburn weighed over fourteen stone, and Captain Gerrard
only a little less, so the old fifty horse-power Gnome engine had all it
could do to get the machine off the ground. In a straight flight along
the aerodrome the height attained was often no more than from twenty to
thirty feet; then the machine had to make a turn at that dangerously
small elevation, or fly into the trees at the end. Fortunately the
aerodrome was clear except for a few week-end pilots who practised on
Saturdays and Sundays; the instructor and his pupils were energetic,
flying at dawn and at dusk to avoid the high winds; and the training was
completed with only two crashes, neither of them very serious. The navy
pupils were encouraged throughout by frequent visits from their senior
officer at Sheerness, Captain Godfrey Paine, who befriended aviation
from the first. Eastchurch soon became the recognized centre for the
training of naval officers in the use of aeroplanes, and when, upon the
death of Mr. Horace Short, in 1917, the Short brothers vacated
Eastchurch, and concentrated at their Rochester works, Eastchurch passed
wholly under naval control. No honour or reward that could be given to
the members of the Royal Aero Club, and especially to Mr. McClean and
Mr. Cockburn, can possibly equal this, that they were part founders of
the Naval Air Service.

If Eastchurch was the earliest centre of scientific experiment and
practical training in aviation, it was at the great Brooklands aerodrome
that flying first became popular. Mr. Roe had been allowed to use a shed
in the paddock for his first aeroplane, and had made his first flight
there, at a very humble elevation, but the conversion of the centre of
the track into an aerodrome was not effected till late in 1909. The
motor-racing track, about three and a half miles in length, enclosed a
piece of land which was partly farmland and partly wilderness, watered
by the river Wey. On the west side of it there was the Weybridge sewage
farm, which, when flying began, added new terrors to a forced descent.
When Mr. Henri Farman visited England, in January 1908, he inspected
Brooklands and expressed an unfavourable opinion of its fitness as a
site for an aerodrome. So nothing was done until the visit of M. Louis
Paulhan, late in 1909. The performances of M. Paulhan at the Rheims
meeting, and later at the Blackpool meeting, excited much admiration,
and Mr. G. Holt Thomas, who had long studied aviation, and never grew
tired of advocating its claims, determined to engage popular interest
and, if possible, official support by bringing Paulhan to London, there
to display his powers. By arrangement with Mr. Locke King, the
proprietor of Brooklands, and Major Lindsay Lloyd, the new manager, one
of the fields of the farm was cleared of obstacles and was mowed and
rolled, as a landing ground for Paulhan. There in the closing days of
October 1909 Paulhan gave many exhibition flights on a Farman biplane.
The longest of these, which lasted nearly three hours and covered
ninety-six miles, was made on the 1st of November and was witnessed by
Lord Roberts. The exhibition was not a financial success; thousands of
spectators watched the flying from outside the ground, without
contributing to the expenses; but it impressed the committee of the
Brooklands Automobile Racing Club, and they resolved to turn the
interior of their track into an aerodrome. Obstacles were removed, pits
and ponds were filled in, the solider portions of the ground were
furnished with a fairly good grass surface, rows of wooden sheds were
erected, and the pioneers of the new art were invited by public
advertisement to become their tenants. By the spring of 1910 many
aeroplanes were at work on the Brooklands ground, most of them running
about it in the earnest endeavour to get up sufficient speed to rise
into the air.

There were no instructors. Among the earliest of the pioneers was the
Hon. Alan Boyle, and an account which he has kindly supplied, telling
how he learned to fly his little Avis machine, describes the usual
method of the learners. 'I asked Mr. Howard Wright', he says, 'to build
me this monoplane, which we placed upon the market as proprietors....
She was fitted with an Anzani engine of nominal twenty-five horse-power,
but which really gave about eighteen to twenty horse-power.... She
usually ran for about five minutes, and then got overheated and tired
and struck work.... I took my little Avis to Brooklands about February
1910, after it had been exhibited at the Aero Show. I partitioned off a
corner of my shed, and slept in a hammock, so that I was able to take
advantage of the still hours in the early morning. It is amusing to look
back now and remember how I used to watch anxiously a little flag which
I flew above my shed, to see what strength of wind was blowing. At first
I never used to go out until the flag was practically hanging from the
mast, or was only flapping very gently in the light air, which occurred
usually in the very early morning. At that time there were at
Brooklands, I think, the following: Grahame-White, who was even then a
comparatively experienced pilot; Charles Lane, who like me had brought
out a monoplane, but with a curious tail, a fixed cambered surface with
another elevating plane above and within eight inches or so of it.
However, it flew very steadily indeed, when it was tested some months
later.... A. V. Roe was also there experimenting with his triplanes.
Later on he got them flying well. He did the most astonishing things
with them. They were beautiful little machines and beautifully built,
and it was a delight to watch them in the air. It was wonderful the way
in which they answered to the helm. He used to go straight to a point,
put his rudder over, and without any fuss or "bank" or anything, you
would suddenly find the machine pointing in the exact opposite
direction.... Then there were also there, with Blériot machines, Messrs.
James Radley and Graham Gilmour. The latter was afterwards killed.
Radley got his certificate on the same day as I. We were all learners at
Brooklands in those days: I am the possessor of a silver cup kindly
presented by the Brooklands Race Club authorities for making a circular
flight, which shows we were not very advanced. In fact no one except
Grahame-White and A. V. Roe knew anything about it at all, and they
didn't know much.

'I started by simply rolling about the ground in the ordinary way, and
then in a short time opened her out and made short hops in an endeavour
to get off the ground. I remember quite well, after I had been out,
walking along my wheel tracks and examining them, and being fearfully
pleased when I saw them disappear for a yard or two. That showed that I
had flown.

'After I had done this sort of thing for about a month, Mr. Manning came
down and produced a larger jet for my engine, and warned me that if the
machine would fly, she would do so now with the extra power the new jet
would give the engine. He then sat down to pick up the pieces, and off I
went! After making a few hops to get my hand in I opened her out and
made a long steady flight of about a hundred yards, six feet up, and
landed shouting. I had waited and worked for that for some time, so you
can imagine my delight.

'I did "straights" for some weeks and then started to do curves, and of
course the banking of the machine terrified me. However, I grew used to
that, and made my curves shorter and shorter until at last I thought I
would try for a circle. I pointed the Avis to a part of the ground which
had not yet been levelled, and of course once I was over that I jolly
well had to get round somehow: so I made my first circuit. After I had
been doing circuits for some time and had begun to have a little
confidence in myself, I decided that it was necessary to do a
_volplane_. I made inquiries and was told that immediately I shut off
the engine it was necessary to put the nose of the machine down to
approximately her gliding angle, otherwise she would "stall" and glide
back on her tail. You will sympathize with me when I say that I
preferred to avoid this latter alternative, although as a matter of
fact, having a flat tail which carried no weight, she would no doubt
have taken up her gliding angle naturally. Anyway, I didn't know this,
and in April (I think) in some trepidation I got over that step in my
progress. I confess that I went four times round Brooklands with my hand
on the switch before I could make up my mind to do the deed, and of
course when I did so, I found there was nothing in it, and realized the
delight of coming down without the noise of the engine in my ears. So
much for learning to fly.'

Brooklands was a well-known place; large crowds of people had often
visited it to see the motor races; and it was near London; so that from
the first it attracted sportsmen and aeroplane designers. It became the
experimental ground of the British aircraft industry. Among its early
tenants were the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, founded by the
late Sir George White of Bristol, and commonly known as the Bristol
Company; Messrs. Martin and Handasyde, the makers of the Martinsyde
machines; Mr. A. V. Roe; the Scottish Aviation Company, with their Avis
monoplanes; Mr. J. V. Neal, who, in the endeavour to avoid the Wrights'
patents, produced a curious biplane with a new system of control, and
many others. Sheds were occupied by Mr. Douglas Graham Gilmour, one of
the finest pilots in his day that this country had produced, who was
killed in an accident at Richmond, and by Mr. F. P. Raynham, who became
notable as a test-pilot. Many sportsmen rented sheds and tried their
hands at building machines. Mrs. Hewlett, the wife of the novelist,
having learned to fly, started a school at Brooklands in partnership
with M. Blondeau, a French engineer and pilot. Her son, like the
swallows, was taught to fly by his mother. By the middle of 1911 a whole
village of sheds had grown up. Most of the tenants were men of means,
but they spent so much money on their experiments that they had very
little left for the amenities of life. Mr. C. G. Grey remembers men, the
possessors of comfortable incomes, who lived for years on thirty or
forty shillings a week, and spent the rest on their aeroplanes. It was
a society like the early Christians; it practised fellowship and
community of goods. To the eyes of a casual visitor there was no
apparent difference between the owner of an aeroplane and his mechanics;
all alike lived in overalls, except in hot weather, when overalls gave
place to pyjamas. If any one lacked tools or materials he borrowed them
from another shed; they were lent with goodwill, though the owner knew
that his only chance of seeing them again was to borrow them back. The
social centre of the place was a shed in the middle of the front row,
which was let by Major Lindsay Lloyd as a restaurant, and was called
'The Blue Bird'. This restaurant was run by the wife of one of the
community; it united in itself all the utilities of a public-house, a
club, a parliament, and a town-hall. Living as they did for ends of
their own and apart from the great world, the brotherhood naturally took
pride in themselves as a chosen people, dedicated to high purposes, and
they scorned the Philistines who came in crowds to see the motor racing.
On race days the Philistines were permitted, for reasons connected with
the balance sheet, to have tea at 'The Blue Bird'; some of them would
wander over the aerodrome, and even into the sheds, to ask the sort of
question that is often asked by those who will not undertake the
liabilities but think it graceful to assume the airs of a patron.

After a few years, when aeroplane construction and design settled down
into a regular industry, the glory of this primitive Arcadian community
passed away, and its members were scattered far and wide. Brooklands
became a place of business; in one row of sheds the Bristol Company, in
another Messrs. Vickers, established schools where many distinguished
pilots who served their country in the war learned to make their first
flights. Before the war broke out the British branch of the Blériot
Company had also taken a number of sheds, and had transformed them into
a regular aircraft factory; the Martin and Handasyde firm had adapted
three or four sheds, and were building a couple of monoplanes for a
transatlantic attempt by that brilliant flyer, the late Mr. Gustav
Hamel. In June of 1914 he was drowned in flying the English Channel, and
the firm suffered a severe set-back. Lastly, when the war came, the
Brooklands aerodrome, with all its flyable machines, was taken over by
the military authorities, and the days of ease and innocence were ended.
A large Vickers factory was built, and turned out many machines for the
Flying Corps; the Blériot and the Martinsyde firms also continued their
activities for a couple of years, and then moved, the one to Addlestone,
the other to Woking. During the war Brooklands was used as a training
station, a wireless experimental depot, and an acceptance park by the
Royal Flying Corps, which permitted the use of it, for experimental
flying, to the Vickers, Martinsyde, and Blériot firms.

Other early aerodromes, almost contemporary with Brooklands, were
Hendon, in the northern suburbs of London, and Larkhill, on Salisbury
Plain, a few miles from Amesbury. The Hendon aerodrome, like Brooklands,
owed its first fame to the initiative of Mr. Holt Thomas. After the
Brooklands adventure he kept in touch with M. Louis Paulhan, and in
April 1910 persuaded him to make an attempt to win the £10,000 prize
offered by the _Daily Mail_ for a flight from London to Manchester.
During the previous winter M. Paulhan had been flying with success in
America, while his rival, Mr. Grahame-White, had been busy with his
flying school at Pau, in the south of France. Mr. Grahame-White brought
a Farman biplane to London, and obtained permission to use Wormwood
Scrubbs for his starting-place. Mr. Holt Thomas, looking for a
starting-place for Paulhan, heard of a field at Hendon which was being
used by a firm of electrical engineers for experiments with a small
monoplane, and got leave to start Paulhan thence. After Paulhan's
success, Mr. Grahame-White and his business partner, the late Mr.
Richard T. Gates, visited Hendon, and finding that the field was one of
a number bordering the Midland Railway without any roads cutting across
them, fixed on the place as the site of what was afterwards called the
London aerodrome. Here the Grahame-White Aviation Company made it their
business, from 1911 onwards, to familiarize Londoners with the spectacle
of flying and with its practice. They built a number of sheds and let
them to manufacturing firms. One of these was the Aircraft Manufacturing
Company, formed in 1911 by Mr. Holt Thomas, who at that time was working
the British rights for the French Farman Company. Another was the W. H.
Ewen Aviation Company, which subsequently became the British Caudron
Company. A third was the British Deperdussin Company; the wonderful
little Deperdussin monoplane, in the 1912 Gordon Bennett Trials at
Rheims, carried its pilot, M. Vedrines, at a speed of nearly two miles a
minute for a flight of over an hour. Hendon, moreover, laid itself out
to attract spectators. There were stands and enclosures, with prices of
admission to suit all purses. Aeroplane racing was a regular feature of
the meetings. As early as 1911 about a hundred and twenty members of the
two Houses of Parliament paid a visit to the place by invitation and
were some of them taken into the air. In July 1911 two great races,
modelled on the _Circuit de l'Est_ of 1910, made Hendon one of their
stages. The earlier of these, somewhat magniloquently called the
'Circuit of Europe', was organized by a syndicate of newspapers. The
appointed course was from Paris to Paris by way of Liège, Utrecht,
Brussels, and London--a distance of about a thousand miles. The second,
not many days later, organized by the _Daily Mail_ newspaper, and called
the 'Circuit of Britain', laid its course from Brooklands to Brooklands,
by way of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Exeter and Brighton, with Hendon as the
first stopping-place on the outward journey. Both competitions were won
by Lieutenant Conneau of the French navy, who flew under the name of
'Beaumont'. Whether because only one Englishman (Mr. James Valentine)
took part in the earlier competition, or because the second was better
advertised and first awoke the public to the significance of aviation,
it was to witness the second that enthusiastic crowds first flocked to
Hendon. Mr. Holt Thomas, who helped to organize the 'Circuit of Europe',
found a stolid indifference in the English public. As he drove to Hendon
along the Edgware road he noticed that the people on their way to the
aerodrome were mostly French. Indeed, he adds, at the aerodrome itself
there were almost more police than public to witness what was a great
event in the history of flight. For the 'Circuit of Britain', on the
other hand, an enormous crowd gathered at Hendon. The fields on Hendon
Hill were black with spectators. One farmer, remembering to make hay
while the sun shone, erected a canvas screen all along the upper part of
his field, and by charging threepence for admission to the other side
reaped a good harvest. The competitors arrived on a Saturday afternoon,
and left again for the north early on the Monday morning. Thousands of
spectators spent Sunday night in the fields, gathering round bonfires or
singing to keep themselves warm. In this competition the French
monoplane pilots carried off the honours; Beaumont was first, and
Vedrines second. The only competitor who completed the full course on a
British-built machine was the stalwart and persevering Mr. Cody on his
own biplane.

The man who makes a machine and the man who flies one are the heroes of
the epic of flight. Next to them, all credit must be given to the
public-spirited financiers and patrons who encouraged flight, especially
to those of them who were not deceived, and knew that they are the
servants, not the masters, of the conquerors of the air. As a promoter
of flight Mr. Holt Thomas deserves more than a passing mention. He
worked early and late for the progress of the art and for its
recognition by the Government. He was fond of calling attention to
comparative figures, pointing out, for instance, in April 1909, that the
sum already spent by Germany on military aeronautics was about £400,000;
by France about £47,000; and by Great Britain about £5,000. He
befriended and rewarded distinguished aviators. In September 1910 he
attended the military manoeuvres in France, the first in which
aeroplanes were used for reconnaissance, and there, among the experts of
many nations, came across no other Englishman. He also attended the
British manoeuvres of the same year, where Captain Bertram Dickson made
some reconnaissance flights. In 1911 he founded the Aircraft
Manufacturing Company. He foresaw a great future for military aviation
and constantly did battle with the argument, fashionable among some
soldiers, that the British army, being a small army, required only a
small air force. He held, from the first, that a national air force had
many tasks to fulfil other than reconnaissance, and that it should be a
separate organization, distinct from both army and navy. Men like Mr.
Thomas, who, though they had no official standing, devoted study and
effort to the problems of military aviation, were not a little
serviceable to the country; they agitated the question, and kept it
alive in the public mind. When the Royal Flying Corps at last was formed
they might justly claim that they had helped it into existence.

The only other aerodrome which need here be mentioned is the Larkhill
aerodrome, often called the Salisbury Plain aerodrome, or the Bristol
Flying School. Eastchurch saw the beginnings of naval flying; Larkhill
was the earliest centre of military flying. In 1909 Captain J. D. B.
Fulton, of the Royal Field Artillery, was stationed at Bulford camp. M.
Blériot's cross-Channel flight, in July of that year, excited his
interest, and he set himself to build a monoplane of the Blériot type.
This proved to be a slow business, so he bought from the Grahame-White
firm a Blériot machine fitted with a twenty-eight horse-power Anzani
engine, and began to experiment with it on the plain. Captain Fulton was
a highly skilled mechanical engineer; some of his patents for
improvements in field guns had been adopted by the War Office, and from
the proceeds of these he was able to meet the costs of his experiments.
His title to be called the founder of military aviation in Great Britain
must be shared with others, especially with Captain Bertram Dickson,
also of the Royal Field Artillery, who was the first British officer to
fly. After seeing the flying at the Rheims meeting in August 1909,
Captain Dickson procured a Henri Farman biplane, and learned, at
Châlons, to fly it. He was a natural flyer, as Captain Fulton was a
natural engineer. During 1910 he attended many aviation meetings in
France; at Tours and elsewhere he held his own in competition with some
of the most famous of French aviators. His ruling passion was not sport,
but patriotism; he was chiefly concerned to put the aeroplane as a
weapon into the hands of his country. In the summer of 1910 he made the
acquaintance of Sir George White of Bristol, and joined the staff of the
British and Colonial Aeroplane Company. At the army manoeuvres of that
autumn he appeared, a herald of the future, on a Bristol biplane, but
found some difficulty in persuading the officers in command to make use
of his services. The cavalry, in particular, were not friendly to the
aeroplane, which, it was believed, would frighten the horses; and when a
reconnaissance flight was arranged and had to be put off because the
wind was high and gusty, aviation fell in esteem. Nevertheless, some of
Captain Dickson's flights served to show how an aeroplane might help an
army. It was natural enough that the cavalry should prefer to carry on
the work of reconnaissance in the usual way. Men believe in the weapons
they are skilled to handle. When the rapier was introduced into England
in the sixteenth century, it found no friends among the masters of the
broadsword; its vogue was gained among young gentlemen educated in
France and Italy. To let an aeroplane attempt their work would have
seemed to the cavalry like dropping the bone to catch at the shadow. But
youth will be served, and in a very few years the shadow cast by Captain
Dickson's aeroplane spread and multiplied and covered the field of
battle. His own career came to an untimely end. A few weeks after the
manoeuvres he suffered a severe accident at the Milan aviation meeting,
where he performed some of those admirable glides from a height, with
the engine off, for which he had become famous. Just after one of these
he had opened the throttle of his engine, and was rising again, when
another aviator, called Thomas, who was rapidly planing down on an
Antoinette, crashed into him from above. He lay between life and death
for some weeks, and in his delirium talked incessantly of his work, and
of the War Office, and of what he hoped to do for it. His health had
been severely strained by the early work he had done in tropical
countries, where he had been employed in exploration and the
delimitation of boundaries; though he recovered from his accident and
flew again, he grew steadily worse, and died in Scotland on the 28th of
September 1913.

Along with Captain Fulton and Captain Dickson a third army aviator must
be mentioned--Lieutenant Lancelot Gibbs, who also learned to fly at
Châlons, and was present, on a Farman biplane, at the manoeuvres of
1910. At the Wolverhampton meeting, earlier in the same year, he had had
a slight accident which injured his spine, so that before very long he
had to give up flying. He had flown at many early meetings, and had
distinguished himself in duration flights. The dangers encountered by
these pioneers may be illustrated from the experiences of Lieutenant
Gibbs in Spain. He had arranged to give an exhibition of flying at
Durango, near Bilbao, in April 1910. The delivery of his machine, which
was sent from Paris by the Spanish railways, was delayed, and many hours
of work had to be spent on it before it could fly, so that the thirty
thousand people who had assembled were kept waiting for more than an
hour. They grew impatient, and when the machine was wheeled out of its
shed, so that they might see the work of preparing it, they crowded
round it and handled it roughly. It had to be taken back into the shed
again. Thereupon they began to throw stones, which disabled the mechanic
and broke the shed. One of them advanced to Lieutenant Gibbs with a
drawn knife and said that flying was an impossibility, there was no such
thing as aviation, and therefore they were going to knife him. The crowd
shouted 'Down with science, long live religion!' Lieutenant Gibbs saved
himself by his courage and calm, and was taken away by an escort, under
a heavy shower of stones, to the judge's house. Within half an hour the
shed, with all it contained, was burned to the ground.

These three soldiers, Captain Fulton, Captain Dickson, and Lieutenant
Gibbs, have earned their place in history as the first British military
aviators. Of the three Captain Fulton had most to do with Salisbury
Plain and the beginnings of the air force. Some civilians were also at
work. During the manoeuvres of 1910 Mr. Robert Loraine, in a Bristol
machine fitted with transmitting apparatus, succeeded in sending
wireless messages, from a distance of a quarter of a mile, to a
temporary receiving station rigged up at Larkhill. The earliest
permanent establishment at Larkhill seems to have been an aeroplane shed
tenanted by Mr. H. Barber, who subsequently held a commission in the Air
Force. Mr. Barber was a man of independent means, and being convinced
that flying would play a great part in war, he spent his time in
devising aeroplanes for naval and military purposes. He founded a firm
of his own, called 'The Aeronautical Syndicate', and produced a type of
monoplane with elevator in front, which, in its later development, was
named the 'Valkyrie'. He taught a good many people to fly, but none of
them, except himself, became expert pilots. The 'Valkyrie' was the last
survivor of the earliest type of flying machine, often called the
'Canard' type, because the elevator is extended in front like the head
of a duck in flight, and serves to balance the machine. When this type
of machine was at last superseded by the more shapely modern design, Mr.
Barber's syndicate died a natural death. At the outbreak of war he
joined the Royal Flying Corps, and became one of its leading technical
instructors, with the rank of captain.

The second shed erected at Larkhill was built by the War Office and was
intended for the use of the Hon. C. S. Rolls, so that he might give
instruction to army pilots. The death of Mr. Rolls at the Bournemouth
meeting in July 19th (one of the heaviest losses that aviation has
suffered in this country) put an end to that scheme, and the shed was
assigned, later on, to Captain Fulton. The third shed was erected by Mr.
G. B. Cockburn, who on his return from France applied to the War Office
for leave to carry on at Larkhill. Mr. Cockburn was the first, he says,
actually to fly over Salisbury Plain. He worked hand in hand with
Captain Fulton, to whom he lent his Farman machine (the first machine
built by Henri Farman after he left the Voisin firm) in order that
Captain Fulton might pass the tests for the pilot's certificate in
November 1910. The two together did much good work at Larkhill, and were
successful in gaining a certain measure of recognition for the aeroplane
among the army units on the plain.

From these beginnings Larkhill rapidly developed. Towards the end of
1910 the Bristol Company, having come to an agreement with the War
Office, established themselves at Larkhill in a solidly built row of
sheds. The Government were not as yet prepared to undertake any large
expenditure upon aeroplanes; their attitude was tentative; they had been
advised by the Committee of Imperial Defence that the experiments with
aeroplanes, hitherto carried out at the balloon school, should be
discontinued, but that advantage should be taken of private enterprise
in this branch of aeronautics. Accordingly, the Bristol Company opened
at Larkhill the Bristol School of Aviation, which remained in existence
until the outbreak of the war. The chief instructor was M. Henry
Jullerot, one of the best pilots in France; he was assisted by Mr.
Gordon England, who had shown so much skill in handling the gliders of
Mr. Weiss, and by Mr. Harry Busteed, the first notable Australian pilot.
Salisbury Plain is perhaps the best stretch of country in England for
the training of aviators; the school grew and prospered; the Bristol
machine proved to be excellently well fitted for the purposes of
instruction, and the pupils, being relieved from the dangers that attend
a forced landing in populous country, distinguished themselves by their
bold flying. There were many camps of soldiers in the neighbourhood, so
that the work done at Larkhill did much to convert the army to a belief
in aviation. The tokens of the conversion were soon visible. On the 28th
of February 1911 an Army Order was issued, creating the Air Battalion of
the Royal Engineers. It ran as follows: 'With a view to meeting Army
requirements consequent on recent developments in aerial science it has
been decided to organize an Air Battalion, to which will be entrusted
the duty of creating a body of expert airmen.... The training and
instruction of men in handling kites, balloons and aeroplanes, and other
forms of aircraft, will also devolve upon this battalion. The
establishment of this battalion will be organized into (i) headquarters
and (ii) two companies.... The officers will be selected from any
regular arm or branch of the Service on the active list.... A selected
candidate will, on joining the Air Battalion, go through a six months'
probationary course.... An officer who satisfactorily completes the
probationary period will be appointed to the Air Battalion for a period
of four years.... The Warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and
men will be selected from the Corps of Royal Engineers. The existing
Balloon School will be superseded by the Air Battalion, and the new
organization will be regarded as taking effect from April 1st, 1911.'

The formation of the Air Battalion was a great step in advance. Up to
this time flying had been a hobby or fancy of individual men; it was now
organized and provided for as a part of the duty of the army. The
battalion was duly formed under the command of Sir Alexander Bannerman,
with Captain P. W. L. Broke-Smith, of the Royal Engineers, as adjutant.
Airships were assigned to No. 1 Company and aeroplanes to No. 2 Company.
This latter company, commanded by Captain Fulton, went into camp at
Larkhill about the end of April. When Mr. Cockburn, after completing
the course of instruction that he gave at Eastchurch, returned to
Larkhill, he found the battalion in process of formation. Its history,
and its development, a year later, into the Royal Flying Corps, must be
narrated in the next chapter, and the steps traced by which a small
balloon factory at Chatham, started in the year 1882, was transformed
into the Air Force of to-day. A few words may here be added concerning
Captain Fulton and Mr. Cockburn, who bore so large a part in the
creation of an air force. While he held his command in the Air
Battalion, Captain Fulton did all he could to get it recognized as a
separate branch of the army, distinct from the Royal Engineers. When the
Royal Flying Corps was formed he was appointed to the Central Flying
School as instructor, and was put in charge of the workshops there.
Thence he passed to the aeronautical inspection department, which was
placed entirely under his control and became, what it has remained, one
of the foundations of the strength and efficiency of the air force. He
could not be spared from this work for combatant service, so he saw
little of the war at the front; but more flying officers than ever heard
his name owe him a debt of gratitude for his faithful work in providing
for their safety. He died of an affection of the throat in November
1915. Mr. Cockburn, who was continuously at work on Salisbury Plain for
a period of something like four years, continued, as a civilian, to give
his help, first in the aeronautical inspection department, and, later
on, in the investigation of aeroplane accidents.

The account which has now been given of the early years of flying in
England may serve to show what a wealth of private enterprise lay ready
to the hand of the Government when the building of the air force began.
The Royal Air Force, like the tree of the Gospel parable, grew from a
small seed, but it was nourished in a rich soil. The great experiment
of flying attracted a multitude of adventurous minds, and prepared
recruits for the nation long before the nation asked for them. This
early predominance of private enterprise, it is worth remarking, told in
favour of military rather than naval flying, and, when the Flying Corps
was formed, started the Military Wing at an advantage. Little has been
said as yet, because in truth there is little to say, of pioneer work in
the air done by sailors. Yet no one would dare to assert that the
average sailor is less resourceful, less inventive, less open to new
ideas, than the average soldier. No doubt there were many senior
officers in the navy, as there were many in the army, who in the early
days regarded aviation with professional impatience and scorn. Further,
the higher command of the navy were not quick, when aircraft became
practically efficient, to divine or devise a use for them. The
difficulty of employing them over the sea was formidable, and none of
their uses was quite so obvious as their use (questioned by more than
one distinguished army general) for reconnaissance in a land campaign.
But the real difference which told in favour of military aviation lay in
the nature of the services. A sailor is attached to his ship, and flying
is an art which of necessity must be practised and developed, in its
beginnings, over wide level tracts of land. The value of the airship for
distant reconnaissance at sea is now fully recognized, but airship
building is not a possible hobby for a young naval officer. Those naval
officers who believed in the future of the new weapon were reduced to
attempting to influence the Government, so that it might undertake the
necessary work. While the army officer could attend aviation meetings
and demonstrate his opinions in practice, his less fortunate brother in
the navy had no resource but to engage in a melancholy course of
politics, with small prospects of public result, and smaller prospects
of private advancement.

The consequence of all this is that the history of the work done by the
navy with aeroplanes and airships is essentially a history of official
decisions and official acts. Great credit must be given to individual
navy men for their insight and persistence in advocating the claims of
the air, but the history of the work done can be fully narrated, without
further preamble, in an account of the origin and growth of the national
air force.




CHAPTER IV

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 £12,000, 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 £2,500, 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 Blériot, 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 Blériot 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 £35,000 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 Châlons 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, Blériots,
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 Blériot some time before,
but had not flown for some months. Lieutenant Cammell was flying a
Blériot 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 Blériot 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
Châlons. 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 Bréguet 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 Blériot
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.




CHAPTER V

THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS


In November 1911 the Prime Minister requested the standing sub-committee
of the Committee of Imperial Defence, under the chairmanship of Lord
Haldane, to consider the future development of aerial navigation for
naval and military purposes, and the measures which might be taken to
secure to this country an efficient aerial service. Things had moved
fast since 1908, when a distinguished general had expounded to a similar
committee the futility of observation from the air. This time the
committee came to a quick decision, and recommended immediate action.
The chief of their recommendations were as follows:

     The creation of a British Aeronautical Service, to be regarded as
     one, and to be designated 'The Flying Corps'.

     The Corps to consist of a Naval Wing, a Military Wing, and a
     Central Flying School for the training of pilots.

     The Flying Corps to be kept in the closest possible collaboration
     with the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and with the Aircraft
     Factory, so that the work of experiment and research should have
     its due influence on practice.

     A permanent consultative committee, named 'The Air Committee', to
     be appointed, to deal with all aeronautical questions affecting
     both the Admiralty and the War Office.

The preparation of a detailed scheme was delegated to a technical
sub-committee consisting of Colonel the Right Hon. J. E. B. Seely, as
chairman, Brigadier-General G. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Brigadier-General
David Henderson, Commander C. R. Samson, R.N., Lieutenant R. Gregory,
R.N., and Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, with Rear-Admiral Sir C. L. Ottley and
Captain M. P. A. Hankey as secretaries. The deliberations of this body
were remarkable for agreement and dispatch; their report was ready by
the 27th of February 1912; it passed through its successive stages with
very few alterations, and was approved by the Committee of Imperial
Defence on the 25th of April.

The Royal Flying Corps was constituted by a Royal Warrant on the 13th of
April 1912; a special Army Order was issued two days later setting up
the necessary regulations, and on the 13th of May the old Air Battalion
and its reserve were finally absorbed by the new body.

The advantage of government by committee is that it obtains, by
successive stages, the sanction and support of the many for the plans
initiated by the few. Nothing was ever created by eight men. But eight
or more men, expert in various ways, can render invaluable service by
listening, criticizing, and befriending. The plans which were considered
and adopted by the technical sub-committee had been prepared in private
by a small informal body of three, that is to say, by Brigadier-General
David Henderson, Captain F. H. Sykes, and Major D. S. MacInnes.

Brigadier-General David Henderson had served at the battle of Khartoum
in 1898, and had distinguished himself in the South African War. He was
the author of a book on _The Art of Reconnaissance_, which ran through
several editions. His interest in reconnaissance, and his appreciation
of its importance in war, made him a friend to aviation. In 1911, at the
age of forty-nine, he had learned to fly at Brooklands, and thereafter,
as Director of Military Training at the War Office, did all in his
power to encourage the new movement. Captain Frederick Hugh Sykes was a
General Staff officer who had seen service in many lands. In the South
African War he served with the Imperial Yeomanry, and was severely
wounded. In 1901 he joined the 15th or King's Hussars, and for two years
was stationed in West Africa. Thereafter he was attached to the
Intelligence Department at Army Headquarters in India, passed the Staff
College, and in February 1911 became General Staff officer in the
Directorate of Military Operations under Brigadier-General Sir Henry
Wilson. It was in July and August 1904, while he was on leave from West
Africa, that he made his first acquaintance with the air. He obtained
permission to be attached to the balloon units training with the army on
Salisbury Plain; made many ascents, and went through the course and
examination at the Farnborough balloon school. Thenceforward he took
every possible opportunity to improve his knowledge of aeronautics. He
was quick to discern the significance of aviation. When, in 1910, he saw
flight in France, he recognized that the work of cavalry in distant
reconnaissance was dead and done with. During his time at the War Office
he spent the mornings, before breakfast, in learning to fly, and in June
1911 took his pilot's certificate on a Bristol biplane at Brooklands.
Within the office he insisted on the importance of military aeronautics,
and when the Committee of Imperial Defence took up the question he was
naturally chosen to serve on the committee which prepared a draft
organization. Associated with him was Major Duncan Sayre MacInnes, of
the Royal Engineers, who had been through the South African War, and at
the time of the formation of the Flying Corps was serving with the
Military Training Directorate. Only those who worked with him will ever
know how great a debt the Flying Corps owes to his industry and
devotion. During the war he was employed under the Directorate of
Military Aeronautics, and in 1916 was made Director of Aircraft
Equipment, with the rank of brigadier-general. He wore himself out in
the service of the country, and died in May 1918. These three men laid
the groundwork of the plans which were approved by the technical
sub-committee.

The record of the preliminary meetings of the sub-committee, and of the
evidence given by witnesses, is full of interest, and shows history in
the making. 'It has been suggested to me', said the chairman, 'that the
Royal Flying Corps is a better name than the Royal Air Corps.' And
again, when the name for the tactical unit of the force was under
consideration, and objection was taken to the words 'company' and
'group'--'Why not squadron?' said the chairman. It is the happiness of
the small technical sub-committee that the scheme which they approved
was equal to the strain of an unexampled war, and that the very names
which they chose are now engraved on the history of the nation.

The choice of the squadron, consisting of three flights of aeroplanes,
with four machines to a flight, as the unit of the new force was
judicious and far-sighted. In France the unit was the 'escadrille',
consisting of six machines, and roughly corresponding to what we call a
flight. This precedent was rejected. Not enough competent officers, it
was feared, were available to command a large number of small
independent units. On the other hand, if too large a unit had been
chosen, it would have been difficult to put the air service at the
disposal of the various army formations which might ask for assistance
from the air. The squadron, when it was created, was elastic and
manageable, and secured for the air force, as the war has proved, that
corporate spirit and that pride in history and tradition which are the
strength of the regimental system.

The deliberations of the sub-committee were conducted in a severely
practical spirit. Many of the constructive problems which came before
them still remain problems, and might have been debated, with much to be
said on both sides, till the conversion of the Jews; but the pressure of
time made itself ominously felt in all their proceedings. The country,
as a whole, was not awake to the German menace. The sudden appearance of
the German gunboat _Panther_ at Agadir in July 1911 ought, it may be
said, to have awakened it. But the average Englishman could hardly bring
himself to believe that a great European nation would seek war as a
duellist seeks a quarrel, from sensitive vanity and pride in his own
fighting skill. The army and the navy were quicker to discern the
reality of the threat. The military machine that was to supply the small
expeditionary force was working at high pressure, and the air was tense.
If Germany intended to make her bid for the mastery of Europe, it was
recognized that she had every reason for making it soon. 'All the heads
of departments', said the chairman, at a meeting in January 1912, 'are
very anxious to get on with this--Lord Haldane told me so last night,
Mr. Churchill told me so two or three days ago, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer himself is anxious to see it done, and wisely: but what is
the best method to pursue in order to do in a week what is generally
done in a year?' 'At the present time in this country,' he said later,
'we have, as far as I know, of actual flying men in the Army about
eleven, and of actual flying men in the Navy about eight, and France has
about two hundred and sixty-three, so we are what you might call
behind.'

Moreover, the committee realized that an air service would be needed by
the army of Great Britain more than it is needed by the armies of
foreign powers. In a memorandum by the War Office, drawn up in the same
month of January 1912, it is pointed out that a British expeditionary
force might have to operate as a detached force, and that to such a
force information is all-important. The need for haste appears in many
of the recommendations of the committee. For the supply of trained
flyers to the army and the navy, and for the formation of a reserve, the
first necessity was to start work at the Central Flying School, for
which a site had been chosen on the Upavon Downs of Salisbury Plain,
north of the Upavon-Everley road. The buildings necessary for this
school could not be ready till the end of June, so the committee
recommended that the work of the school should, in the meantime, be
carried on in canvas tents and sheds.

Some problems of wide import forced themselves on the attention of the
committee, and were of necessity settled with a view to immediate
results and immediate efficiency. When shelter is needed from a pitiless
storm, the leisurely plans of the architect must give way. One of these
problems was the rank of pilots. Should every pilot be an officer, or
should we follow the example of France, and train some mechanics to the
work of piloting? From the first, Mr. Churchill was in favour of
admitting to the State school of aviation not only a proportion of
officers of both services, but also petty officers, non-commissioned
officers and men, as well as civilians. In the report of the technical
sub-committee the war establishment for an expeditionary force is
planned on these lines. The Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was
to contain seven aeroplane squadrons, each squadron to number twelve
machines, with an additional machine for the commanding officer. Two
pilots were allowed for each aeroplane, and, in addition, to provide for
the wastage of war, an equal number in reserve. The war establishment,
calculated on this basis for the purposes of the expeditionary force,
required the services of three hundred and sixty-four trained pilots, of
whom, it was suggested, one hundred and eighty-two should be officers,
and one hundred and eighty-two non-commissioned officers.

This part of the scheme cannot be said to have failed in practice: it
never reached the test of practice. The surest and readiest way to
obtain the services of skilled flyers was to offer them commissions in
the Flying Corps, and it was felt to be invidious that some pilots
should enter the corps as officers, while others, of equal skill, should
enter in the non-commissioned ranks. Some of the witnesses were of the
opinion that not many men of the skilled mechanic class would be ready
or willing to risk their lives as pilots. The experience of the war has
disproved this forecast; an observer in war must have at least as cool a
head and as stout a heart as a pilot, and every one who has flown on the
western front knows that among the very best observers not a few were
non-commissioned officers. But the fact is that the question was settled
by lack of time. To give effect to the scheme outlined in the report of
the technical sub-committee would have required much time and experiment
and adjustment; in practice the simpler way was chosen, and the business
of piloting was reserved, in the main, for commissioned officers.
Courage is found everywhere among English-speaking peoples; the real
point to secure is that the pilots of one squadron, or the pilot and
observer of one machine, should not only meet on duty, but should live
together. That perfect understanding and instant collaboration which
spells efficiency in the air is the product of habitual intimacy and
easy association during leisure hours.

In the early days of the Royal Flying Corps a certain small number of
non-commissioned officers were trained to do the work of piloting, so
that the officers who flew with them in two-seater machines might be
freed for the more important work of observation. This experiment was
not favourably reported on, and the opinion has often been expressed
that men chosen from the non-commissioned ranks of the army or the
lower-deck ratings of the navy do not make good pilots. A wise judgement
on the question will consider all the circumstances. Promotion in both
army and navy was slow before the war, so that a non-commissioned
officer or petty officer was often a married man, considerably in
advance of the age at which the most successful war pilots are made. The
inspired recklessness of youth does not long persist among those who
from boyhood up have to earn their living by responsible work. Moreover,
commanding officers, whether in the army or the navy, were naturally
reluctant to let their skilled men be taken from them, so that the men
whom they sent to be trained as pilots were too often men for whom no
other good use could be found. 'If they don't break their necks,' said
one naval officer, 'it will wake them up.' Again, in 1918, when cadets,
after a preliminary technical training, were graded as officer cadets or
non-commissioned officer cadets, all the more promising men were given
commissions, so that only men of inferior intelligence were left to
become non-commissioned pilots. It is surely rash to lay stress on vague
class distinctions. A stander-by who happened, during the war, to
witness the management of an Arab camel convoy by a handful of British
private soldiers, remarked that though these soldiers knew no language
but their own, their initiative and tact, their natural assumption of
authority, and their unfailing good temper, which at last got the convoy
under way, showed that they belonged to an imperial race. The question
of the rank of pilots is really a social question, a question, that is
to say, not of individual superiority but of smooth collaboration. If a
whole squadron of the Flying Corps had been staffed, as was at one time
suggested, by men picked from the non-commissioned ranks, there can be
no doubt that it would have made a name for itself among the very best.

The largest question of all in the making of the Flying Corps was the
question whether the air service was to be a new and independent
service, taking rank with the army and the navy, or was to be, for the
most part, divided between the army and the navy, and placed under their
control. This question, it might seem, was settled by the opening words
of the sub-committee's recommendations: 'The British Aeronautical
Service should be regarded as one, and should be designated "The Flying
Corps".' But subsequent developments soon showed that this settlement
was not accepted on all hands. The navy never fully accepted it. The
British navy is a body enormously strong in its corporate feeling,
conscious of its responsibilities, proud of its history, and wedded to
its own ways. Its self-reliant character, which had made it slow to
recognize the importance of the air, made it slow also, when the
importance of the air was proved, to allow a weapon necessary for naval
operations to pass out of its own control. When the active combatant
service of the Royal Flying Corps came into being, it consisted of a
Naval Wing and a Military Wing. The Naval Wing had its headquarters at
Eastchurch, where the Naval Flying School had been established. For
administrative purposes the Naval Flying School was placed under the
orders of the captain of H.M.S. _Actaeon_, and all officers and men were
to be borne on the books of the _Actaeon_. Experiments with seaplanes
and flying boats were still in their infancy, and the organization of
the Naval Wing was wisely left undetermined for the time. The
distribution of the aeroplane squadrons of the Military Wing was left
for the consideration of the War Office, but the sub-committee
recommended that one squadron should be stationed at Salisbury Plain,
within reach of the Central Flying School, and one at Aldershot, in the
neighbourhood of the Aircraft Factory. All recruits training as pilots,
whether for the Naval Wing or the Military Wing, were to graduate at the
Central Flying School, and thence were to be detailed to join either the
Naval Flying School at Eastchurch, for a special course of naval
aviation, or one of the military aeroplane squadrons, for a special
course of military aviation.

That was the plan. So far as the Military Wing was concerned, it was
punctually carried out. In the Naval Wing a certain centrifugal tendency
very early made itself felt. The official name 'Royal Flying Corps,
Naval Wing', after making its appearance in a few documents, dropped out
of use, and its place was taken by a name which in process of time
received the stamp of official recognition--'The Royal Naval Air
Service'. Thereafter the words 'Military Wing', though they were still
used, were no longer required, and 'The Royal Flying Corps' became a
sufficient description of what was a distinctively military body. The
Admiralty from the first worked independently. Soon after the Naval Wing
of the Royal Flying Corps was created the First Lord of the Admiralty
set up a new department to supervise it, and placed Captain Murray
Sueter in charge, as Director of the Air Department. At an earlier date
Commander C. R. Samson had been placed in charge of the Naval Flying
School. The energies of the school, pending the establishment of the
Central Flying School, were devoted mainly to elementary training in
flying. By the provisions of the original scheme this elementary
training belonged to the joint Central Flying School, while the Naval
Flying School was to be used for experiment and for specialized
training in naval air work. But the Naval Flying School continued
throughout the war to train naval flying officers from the beginning,
teaching them the art of flying as well as its special applications for
naval purposes.

The question whether there should be a single air service, specialized
in its branches, or separate air services, organized for mutual
assistance, is a question that stirs deep feeling, so that the very
virtues which make men serviceable to their country are ranged in
opposition one to another. The old allegiances are not easily forgotten;
when a sailor learns to fly he remains a sailor, and the air for him is
merely the roof of the sea. The knowledge, moreover, gained from his
life at sea is knowledge not only useful but essential to him if he is
to do good work in the Naval Air Service. He must be able to recognize
the various types of war vessels, and the various nationalities of
vessels of the merchant marine. He must know all about the submarine,
the mine, and the torpedo. He must be well versed in weather
observation, and able to navigate safely without the aid of landmarks.
He must understand naval tactics, and must be able to bear a part in
them. All this, it has been urged by many sailors, is a much more
complicated and experienced business than the mere flying of an
aeroplane. The Naval Air Service, they contend, should be a part of the
navy.

There is force and weight in these contentions, yet they are not
conclusive. If the navy were itself a new invention, a very similar kind
of argument might be used to subordinate it to the army. The main
business of the navy, it might be said, is to supply the army with
transport facilities and mobile gun-platforms. But this is absurd; the
sea will not submit to so cavalier a treatment. Those who believe in a
single air force base their opinion on certain very simple
considerations. As the prime business of a navy is the navigation of the
sea, so, they hold, the prime business of an air force is the navigation
of the air; all its other activities depend on this. The science of
aeronautics is yet in its childhood; its development must not be cramped
by tying it too closely to a service which works under narrower
conditions. If there should be another great war (and though no one
desires it, no one dares to think it impossible), the fittest man to
hold the command of united land and sea forces might well be a Marshal
of the Air. But the strongest argument for a single air force is not so
much an argument as an instinct. Every kind of warfare develops in men
its own type of character. The virtues of the soldier and the virtues of
the sailor are not the same; or, if they are the same (for courage and
duty can never be superseded), they are the same with surprising
differences. The soldier is drilled to fight men when the occasion
arises; the sailor is at war all his life with the sea. The character of
the sailor--his resourcefulness and vigilance, his patience and
stoicism, his dislike of formality--is put upon him by his age-long
conflict with his old enemy. In seafaring men there is a temper of the
sea, admired by all who have ever made acquaintance with it. Those who
were privileged to watch the performance of our flying men in the war
know that there is developed in them a temper not less remarkable and
not less worthy of cultivation--the temper of the air. War in the air
demands a quickness of thought and nerve greater than is exacted by any
other kind of war. It is a deadly and gallant tournament. The airman
goes out to seek his enemy: he must be full of initiative. His ordeal
may come upon him suddenly, at any time, with less than a minute's
notice: he must be able to concentrate all his powers instantaneously to
meet it. He fights alone. During a great part of his time in the air he
is within easy reach of safety; a swift glide will take him far away
from the enemy, but he must choose danger, and carry on. One service
cannot be judged by the standards of another service. A soldier who
knows nothing of the sea might easily mistake naval discipline for lack
of discipline. A like mistake has often been made by those who are
brought into casual relations with the air force. But the temper of the
air force is a new and wonderful thing, born of the duties and dangers
which war in the air has brought with it. To preserve that temper as a
national inheritance is the dearest wish of those who covet for the air
force a place beside the navy and the army.

Now that the officers for the air force are being trained, as officers
for the navy and the army have long been trained, at a cadet college
with its own traditions, the question will solve itself. The necessity
for collaboration during the war did something to unite the branches of
the force. But perfect unity can be attained only by men who have lived
and worked together. Men who have lived apart speak different languages.
In April 1918, when the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying
Corps were united in the Royal Air Force, it was found necessary to deal
with this language difficulty. The Naval Air Service and the Flying
Corps used different names for the same thing. The Naval Air Service
used the names they would have used aboard ship. The officers' mess they
called 'the ward-room mess', and the dining-room 'the mess deck'. The
cookhouse with them was the galley; rations were victuals; and kit was
gear. In July 1918 an order was issued by the Air Ministry prescribing
the terms to be adopted in the new force. The use of starboard and port
for right and left was ordered as a concession to the sailors; and at
all air stations the time of day was to be denoted, as on board ship, by
the sounding of bells. In some few cases the naval and, military usages
were both discarded in favour of a new term proper to the air force.
Thus, non-commissioned officers and men, who are described in the navy
as 'ratings' and in the army as 'other ranks', were named, in accordance
with a practice which had already grown up, 'airmen'. Names are full of
compliment and fantasy: 'airman' is the official name for those members
of the air force who spend their time and do their work on the ground.

These are not light matters. One of the strongest bonds of human
sympathy is community in habits of speech. Divergences in speech are
fruitful in every kind of hostility. It was a Scottish captain of the
merchant marine who expressed a dislike for the French, and when called
on for his reasons, replied that as a people they are ridiculous, for
they call a boy a 'mousse'.

The navy and the army have always been loyal comrades, ready to help
each other at short notice. These relations persisted between the two
branches of the air force. In the scheme for the Royal Flying Corps it
had been provided that each branch of the service should be treated as a
reserve to the other branch. Thus in a purely naval war the whole of the
Flying Corps was to be available for the navy, and in a war that should
call for no assistance from the navy (if such a war can be conceived)
the whole of the corps was to be available for the army. In accordance
with these ideas machines flown by naval officers played a very
successful part in the army manoeuvres of 1912 and 1913.

Further, in order to co-ordinate the efforts of the Admiralty and the
War Office, a permanent consultative committee, called the Air
Committee, was provided for in the original scheme, and held its first
meeting in July 1912. This committee was a kind of nucleus of an Air
Ministry; the importance attached to it may be judged from its
composition. Colonel Seely, by this time Secretary of State for War,
was its first chairman, and later on Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the
Second Sea Lord of the Admiralty, became its vice-chairman. The officers
in command of the Central Flying School, of the Naval Wing, and of the
Military Wing had seats on it. So had the Director of Military Training,
the Director of the Air Department, and the Superintendent of the Royal
Aircraft Factory. The committee proved its value as a place of
conference, where those who were responsible for aerial development in
its various branches might compare their ideas. But it had no executive
powers, so that its success in promoting an active policy automatically
diminished its own importance. It could consider and advise, but the
decision rested with the Admiralty and the War Office. It was useful at
an early stage; then, like the Ghost in _Hamlet_, having prompted others
to action, it faded away.

The need for a central controlling body, that is to say, for an Air
Ministry, was soon to be acutely felt. The naval and military air forces
were friends, but they were also rivals. In so far as this rivalry
prompted them to compete in skill and valour, it was wholly good. But
rival orders for munitions of war, and especially for aeroplanes, given
to manufacturing firms by two branches of one service, are not so good.
The output of the factories was not unlimited, and only a central
authority could determine how that output might be best used for the
nation's need.

The activities of the Naval Air Service, from the time it came into
being until the outbreak of war, were very largely experimental. Those
who were responsible for naval operations had at first no complete,
definite, and practical scheme for the employment of aircraft in naval
warfare. It would have been difficult for them to produce such a scheme;
opinion was fluctuating and divided, and the progress of aeronautical
science supplied improved machines and opened out new possibilities
every month. The time of the service was spent in demonstrating these
new possibilities, rather than in organizing and training their forces
for the needs of a definite programme. Nevertheless, this experimental
period witnessed rapid growth and prepared the way for surprising
achievements by the Naval Air Service during the war.

The uses of the Military Wing, on the other hand, were definitely
conceived from the first. It was brought into being to fulfil a certain
purpose. Its officers knew when and where and how their services would
be required. They knew, that is to say, that on the outbreak of war they
would be mobilized, that they would operate with an expeditionary force,
and that their business would be, by observation from the air, to keep
the commanders of that force acquainted with the movements and
dispositions of the enemy. The constitution of the Military Wing was
elastic, so that its numbers could be increased and its uses multiplied,
but its original purpose, to supply the needs of an expeditionary force,
dictated its first establishment and its early training. Its first duty
was reconnaissance. All its other and later uses were consequences of
this central purpose, and were forced on it by the hard logic of events.
The full establishment of the Military Wing was to comprise a
headquarters, seven aeroplane squadrons, and one airship and kite
squadron (providing two airships and two flights of kites). Later in the
year there was also established at South Farnborough what was then
called a Flying Depot, Line of Communications, but was afterwards named
an Aircraft Park. Its duties were the maintenance of a reserve of
aeroplanes, and the carrying out of such repairs as were beyond the
powers of the squadron workshops yet were not serious enough to compel
the return of the machine to its maker.

In its beginnings and during its early years the Military Wing was
greatly indebted to the technical knowledge and the inventive skill of
the Royal Engineers. It was they who had produced the army balloon and
the army airship. Before the Royal Flying Corps was founded they had
devised a practicable and efficient aeroplane, and they had been chiefly
responsible for the organization of the Air Battalion. The best tribute
that could be paid to their fostering care was paid by the Royal Flying
Corps when, being fully fledged, it started on its great career.

The building up of the Military Wing to fit it for its purpose was not a
light task. Skilled officers, skilled men, an adequate supply of the
best machines, suitable flying grounds in various parts of Great
Britain, a well-staffed central school for training--these were some of
the first necessities. After two years, when war came, only four out of
the seven squadrons were ready for instant service in France. But the
value of this little force was out of all proportion greater than its
numerical strength. Through all the difficulties and delays that clog a
new movement it had kept a single purpose in view and had worked for it.
The great achievements of the Royal Flying Corps during the war may seem
to make its early history and early efforts a trivial thing in the
comparison. But the spirit was there; and some of the merits of the
later performance may be detected in the tedious and imperfect
rehearsals, the long hours of duty-flights and experiment, demanding
that three-o'clock-in-the-morning kind of courage which is willing to
face danger in the midst of a world at ease.

In March 1912 Colonel Seely had announced in the House of Commons that
there would be required at once for the Military Wing a hundred and
thirty-three officers, and for the Naval Wing about thirty or forty
officers. It was not proposed at first to teach all these officers at
the Central Flying School. They would learn to fly privately, and would
go to the school for more advanced instruction. The skilled men required
were of many kinds. The most important of these were mechanics, men who
had served at full pay in engineering workshops, who had some knowledge
of electricity, and could make intelligible sketches of machinery. A
list of some other classes whose services were invited proves that
though the air service was small its needs were many and complex. Men of
the following trades were to be enrolled, by enlistment or transfer, in
the Military Wing: blacksmiths, carpenters and joiners, clerks,
coppersmiths, draughtsmen, electricians, fitters, harness-makers,
instrument repairers, metal-turners, painters, pattern-makers,
photographers, riggers, sail-makers, tinsmiths, turners, wheelwrights,
whitesmiths, wireless operators, wood-turners. Men of the following
minor trades were also invited: cable-jointers, chauffeurs, drillers,
dynamo attendants, electric-bell fitters, joiners' helpers, machinists,
motor fitters, plumbers' mates, switchboard attendants, tool-grinders,
wiremen. Last, a welcome was promised to men above average intelligence
whose education at school had reached what is called the Fifth Standard.
When an aeroplane glides down to earth as easily as a bird, and comes to
rest, a chance onlooker would hardly guess what a world of intricate
labour and pains has gone to the attainment of that beautiful
simplicity. It is the workshop which gives safety in flight; and because
the workshop needs highly skilled men, whose services are in demand, at
high wages, for many other purposes, an air force must always be
difficult and expensive to maintain in time of peace.

Captain F. H. Sykes was given the command of the Military Wing on its
formation. His adjutant was Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett. Captain
H. R. M. Brooke-Popham in March of that year joined the Air Battalion,
and was serving at Farnborough when the Royal Flying Corps came into
being. Most of the aeroplane company were then at Larkhill, but Captain
C. J. Burke, with his B.E. machine, and Captain A. G. Fox, of the Royal
Engineers, with a Bristol box-kite, were at Farnborough. Some of the
officers of the airship company were making strenuous and successful
efforts to get the aviation certificates which were demanded from
officers of the new formation. In April and May about a dozen officers
from various units joined at Farnborough. One of the first of these was
Captain Patrick Hamilton, of the Worcestershire Regiment, who had done
much flying in the Argentine (and, incidentally, had been stoned by the
human herd for refusing to give an exhibition flight in impossible
weather). He was a keen and skilled aviator; he had made more than two
hundred flights, and had had some narrow escapes--one particularly, when
his machine capsized and glided a hundred feet upside-down, at a sharp
angle to the ground. By the two strong masts of the monoplane and by the
breaking of the machine he was preserved unhurt. He remarked that it was
a good lesson, for 'to an aviator experience is everything'. He brought
with him to Farnborough his two-seater Deperdussin monoplane with a
sixty horse-power Anzani engine. Others who joined about the same time
were Major H. R. Cook of the Royal Artillery, who became instructor in
theory at the Central Flying School, Captain E. B. Loraine of the
Grenadier Guards, Captain C. R. W. Allen of the Welch Regiment, Captain
G. H. Raleigh of the Essex Regiment, Lieutenant C. A. H. Longcroft of
the Welch Regiment, and Lieutenant G. T. Porter of the Royal Artillery.
A sort of class was held at Farnborough for these early recruits; they
heard lectures, and did practical work in the overhaul of engines.

There were only four serviceable machines available at that time, one
B.E., one Bréguet, and two Bristol box-kites, so the recruits, who
wanted above all things to fly, were disappointed. They were taken up in
the baskets of captive spherical balloons, where they spent hour after
hour sketching the various parts of Farnborough, counting the cows on
the common, and writing descriptions of what they could see from the
balloon. The labours of the pencil and the pen are not easily carried on
in the basket of a captive balloon: it swings and twirls in a breeze,
and very often produces air sickness. This form of instruction was
relieved by an ascent in the airship _Gamma_, and by occasional trips in
free balloons.

Towards the end of April Captain H. R. M. Brooke-Popham took over from
Captain Fulton the command of the old aeroplane company on Salisbury
Plain, and on the 13th of May, when the Royal Flying Corps was formed,
this company became No. 3 Squadron of the new formation. No. 2 Squadron
was formed from the nucleus of aeroplane pilots at Farnborough, and was
placed under the command of Captain C. J. Burke. In August the Central
Flying School was started at Upavon, with Captain Godfrey Paine, R.N.,
as commandant.

The airship company at Farnborough, being lineally descended from the
old balloon school, became No. 1 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps
Military Wing. The command of this squadron was given to one of the
earliest of aeronautical pioneers, Captain E. M. Maitland, who, almost
alone among the pioneers, preferred the airship to the aeroplane. Edward
Maitland Maitland, after being educated at Haileybury and Trinity
College, Cambridge, joined the Essex Regiment as a second lieutenant in
1900. He served in the South African War, and in the spring of 1908
turned his attention to ballooning. On the 18th of November in that
year, along with Mr. C. C. Turner and the late Professor A. E. Gaudron,
he ascended from the Crystal Palace in the _Mammoth_, a balloon of more
than a hundred thousand cubic feet in capacity, supplied by the
enterprise of the _Daily Graphic_, and travelled in the air to Mateki
Derevni in Russia, a distance of 1,117 miles, which was traversed in
thirty-six and a half hours. His main interest was not in Russia, but in
the air, and he returned to England at once. When in 1919 he accompanied
the airship R 34 on the first famous air voyage across the Atlantic, he
remained in America for only a few hours. During the years 1909 and 1910
he was attached to the balloon school at Farnborough, and carried out
aeroplane experiments at his own costs. He piloted a Voisin biplane in
1909 at the Doncaster meeting, which, because it started the day before
the Blackpool meeting, may be called the first flying meeting in
England.

In August 1910 he flew a Howard Wright biplane at Larkhill when there
were only two other machines there, namely, Captain Fulton's Blériot and
the first biplane of the Bristol Company. On this occasion he crashed
and broke both his ankles. When the Air Battalion was formed in 1911 he
chose to work with airships, and was given the command of the airship
company. His courage and gallantry were unfailing, and his parachute
descents were legion. When Professor Gaudron fell ill, and was prevented
from giving his exhibition descents in a parachute at the Alexandra
Palace, Captain Maitland took his place. He was the first to make a
parachute descent from an airship; this was from the airship _Delta_, in
1913. In 1915, for the purpose of experiment, he descended in a
parachute liberated from a spherical balloon at a height of 10,500 feet.
In 1917 he jumped, with his parachute, from an airship over the sea at a
height of a thousand feet. He believed that the parachute is a
necessary adjunct to the airship, and that by practice and experience it
can be brought into safe habitual use. So he did not sit on a fence and
watch the thistledown, but took every opportunity that presented itself
for a parachute descent. One such opportunity he refused. When, on the
24th of August 1921, he was killed in the disaster to the R 38, he spent
his last moments in endeavouring to check and control the fall of the
airship. He was free from self-regard, and had the devotion of all who
served with him. His life, though it ended in its prime, was
surprisingly long, for he had made danger his friend, and in the
advancement of the cause to which he dedicated himself had welcomed
every risk.

Under Major Maitland's command the airship squadron--that is to say, No.
1 Squadron--grew in strength and efficiency, but it was cut off in its
youth from the aeroplane squadrons. Expert opinion, which was divided on
the military value of airships, was united on their naval value. Not
without protest the decision was made to hand over all the airships to
the navy, and at the close of the year 1913 this was done. An airship is
much more costly than an aeroplane, whether to construct or to work, and
when it flies at a moderate height for the purposes of military
reconnaissance, it is much more vulnerable. This, no doubt, was the
consideration which determined the severance of the airships from the
army. Yet the airships, during their brief period of service with the
Military Wing, had demonstrated in the most convincing fashion the
enormous value of aerial reconnaissance, and, more important still, had
put the whole Flying Corps in their debt by adapting wireless telegraphy
to the uses of aircraft. The value of this work was not at once
apparent. The time before the war was spent chiefly in experiment.
During the retreat from Mons no ground receiving stations could be
established. But when the German rush was beaten back, and the opposing
armies were ranged along a fixed line, wireless telegraphy became a
necessity for aeroplanes. The machines and the plant needed for this new
development were not in existence; but a good deal of the preliminary
work, much more troublesome and uncertain than the multiplication of a
pattern, had been done. In a very short time there appeared at the front
large numbers of machines fitted with wireless. The credit of this
sudden apparition belongs, in part at least, to the Royal Engineers, and
to their child, the balloon school, which by a steady process of growth
had been transformed into the airship squadron of the Royal Flying
Corps.

The power of sending messages through space, in any direction, over
great distances, is so enormous an addition to the utility of aircraft
that a few words must here be said about wireless telegraphy. The
discovery was made by the gradual researches of men of science. These
researches had their beginning in a famous paper by James Clerk Maxwell,
who subsequently became the first professor of experimental physics at
Cambridge. His paper, _On a Dynamical Theory of the Electro-magnetic
Field_, read to the Royal Society in 1864, contains a theoretical
demonstration that electro-magnetic action travels through space in
waves with the velocity of light. Twenty-three years later, in 1887,
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, of the University of Bonn, published the results
of his experiments in producing these waves by means of oscillating
currents of electricity. His investigations confirmed what Clerk Maxwell
had proved mathematically. Thereafter progress was rapid, and during the
closing years of the nineteenth century the problem of subduing the
waves to the service of man was attacked and solved. In 1889 Professor
Oliver Lodge was measuring electrical radiation. At Liverpool
University College he constructed a Hertz radiator to emit the waves,
and received them at various points of the building. Edouard Branly's
invention of the 'coherer', an instrument designed to receive Hertzian
waves, was communicated to the British Association at Edinburgh in 1893.
During the same year Nikola Tesla published his researches on high
frequency currents; on these much of the later work on wireless
telegraphy was based. In 1895-6 William Rutherford set up at the
Cavendish Laboratory apparatus by which he received signals in distant
parts of Cambridge up to a distance of half a mile from the oscillator.
Many other men of science, among whom was Captain H. B. Jackson, of the
Royal Navy, were at work on the problem, when in 1896 Signor Guglielmo
Marconi arrived in England with an apparatus of his own construction
which ultimately brought wireless telegraphy to the stage of practical
and commercial utility. By 1899 signals had been transmitted across the
English Channel.

Man has no sense organs which record the impact of electrical waves, but
he has succeeded in devising instruments which register that impact, and
which make it perceptible to the organs of sight or of hearing. The
operation of the electrical waves may be best explained, perhaps, by the
analogy of sound. When the string of a piano is struck by its hammer it
vibrates, and communicates its vibrations to the surrounding air; these
vibrations, travelling outwards in waves, produce corresponding
vibrations in the ear-drum of a listener. The string is tuned, by its
tension and its weight, to a single note; the ear can adapt itself to
receive and transmit to the brain only a limited range of notes. There
are many vibrations in the air which are too rapid or too slow for
reception by the human ear. The sound-waves of the piano-string produce
their effect on any neighbouring body which is capable of vibrating at
the same rate as the incoming waves, as, for instance, another string
tuned to the same note, or a volume of air enclosed in a vessel which
vibrates in correspondence. These are in 'resonance' with the vibrating
string; they repeat the original disturbance and reinforce its effect.

So it is with electricity. If the electricity with which any conducting
body is charged be suddenly disturbed, electrical waves are generated
which travel outwards in all directions with the velocity of light. The
problem of wireless telegraphy is the problem of producing these waves
by means of an instrument called a transmitter, and of recording their
impact at a distance by means of an instrument called a receiver. In its
simplest form the transmitting instrument consists of two conducting
bodies, or plates, charged the one with positive the other with negative
electricity, separated from each other by air or some other insulating
material, and connected by a coil of wire called an inductance coil. To
explain the how and why, so far as these questions can be explained,
would involve a whole treatise on electricity; for the present purpose
it is enough to say that when the two plates are connected through the
coil, the electrical discharge is oscillatory in character, as the
current runs to and fro between the one plate and the other, and that
these oscillations are radiated into space in the form of waves. The
frequency of the waves, the rapidity, that is, with which wave follows
wave, depends on the size and proximity of the plates and on the length
and form of the coil which connects them. The receiving instrument is
similarly constructed, and can be so adjusted that the waves which it
would generate if it were a transmitter would have the same frequency as
those it is to receive. It is thus in resonance with the transmitter,
and the effect of the incoming impulses is greatly enhanced.

If the waves produced are to be perceptible at any considerable
distance, the transmitting instrument must be capable of absorbing a
large amount of energy and radiating this energy into space in the form
of waves.

The storing capacity of the instrument is increased by having large
plates close together, but its radiating properties are impaired if the
plates are too close.

The chief advance made by Signor Marconi lay in his use of the earth as
one of the plates. In his wireless installation, a network of insulated
wires, suspended in the air above, is one plate, the earth is the other;
and the two are connected by an inductance coil. This device cannot be
applied to aircraft, for obviously no connexion with the earth is
possible. Both of the plates, or networks of wire, have to be carried on
the airship or aeroplane. No great weight could be carried on the early
type of aeroplane, and no great space was available.

This brief and imperfect description has been given in order to make
clear some of the difficulties which attend the application of wireless
telegraphy to aircraft, and especially to aeroplanes.

The theory of flight was worked out by men of science in the laboratory;
flight itself was first achieved by men who had had no systematic
scientific training, but who endeavoured to acquaint themselves with
scientific results, and to apply them, as best they might, to the
difficulties with which they were familiar in practice. So it was also
with the application of wireless telegraphy to aircraft. The men of the
laboratory were not familiar with all the conditions which had to be
observed, nor with all the unforeseen obstacles which present themselves
in practice. It remained for those who knew the conditions and the
obstacles to work out the practical problem for themselves. The
vibration and noise, which make it difficult in an aeroplane to hear
anything but the engine, the risk of fire, and the imperfect protection
of the instruments from splashes of oil and the rush of the air--all
these things complicated the problem.

As early as 1907 Captain Llewelyn Evans, who commanded the 1st Wireless
Company of the Royal Engineers at Aldershot, lent his help to Colonel
Capper of the balloon school in devising wireless communication between
aircraft and the ground. The apparatus had to be extemporized. The first
experiments were made by Lieutenant C. J. Aston, R.E., in a captive
balloon. In May 1908 a free run was made in the balloon _Pegasus_, in
which a receiving set of wireless had been installed. When the balloon
was over Petersfield, Lieutenant Aston received very good signals from
the Aldershot wireless station twenty miles distant. During the same
month the sending of messages from the balloon was also tried with
promising results.

These experiments soon came to an end. The time was not ripe for further
developments. No airships or aeroplanes were as yet in use in England,
and all available energy had to be concentrated on producing wireless
telegraphy sets for the use of the army. In October 1909 Captain H. P.
T. Lefroy, R.E., was placed in charge of all experimental work in
wireless telegraphy for the army. This appointment he retained until the
outbreak of the war. He had been commissioned in the Royal Engineers in
1899, and had begun to study wireless at Gibraltar in 1905. Approaching
the question from the service side, he was able to do much to adapt
wireless telegraphy to the new conditions presented by the conquest of
the air. As soon as the army airship _Beta_ was available he had her
equipped with wireless apparatus, and on the 27th of January 1911 went
up in her from Farnborough. Many messages were sent from the airship to
the ground station up to a range of thirty miles, and for a short time,
while the airship engine stopped running, it was found possible to
receive messages from the ground. In the roar of the engine nothing
could be heard.

In the summer of 1911 Captain Lefroy spent much of his time in designing
a transmitting apparatus for aeroplanes. In January 1912 he went up with
Mr. Geoffrey de Havilland in the first B.E. machine, to test its
suitability for wireless. In May 1912 he set about fitting the same
machine, which was then being flown by Major Burke, with a generator
driven from the engine crank-shaft by bicycle-chain gear. These
experiments prepared the way for later achievement.

In the same year the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps began to
experiment with a light wireless set for aeroplanes. As no machines were
available for fitting, a station was constructed on Burntwick Island,
the conditions being as nearly as possible the conditions in an
aeroplane. Stray signals were received from this station by H.M.S.
_Actaeon_, about one mile distant. In June 1912 Commander Samson, flying
the first Short seaplane, fitted with a practice wireless set such as
used in destroyers, succeeded in sending messages a distance of three,
four, and, on occasions, of ten miles. In August 1912 Lieutenant Raymond
Fitzmaurice, R.N., who had served as a wireless telegraphy officer with
the fleet, was appointed to arrange for the installation of wireless
apparatus in naval aircraft. A few days after his arrival at Eastchurch
he was ordered to go to Farnborough to take charge of the wireless in
the airship _Gamma_ on the defending side in the forthcoming army
manoeuvres. Captain Lefroy was to take charge of the wireless in the
airship _Delta_, which was intended to operate on the attacking side.
Both these airships had been equipped with wireless apparatus by Captain
Lefroy, on instructions from the War Office, to ascertain what could be
done by wireless from aircraft in the manoeuvres. The set of wireless
for the _Gamma_ had to be improvised from odds and ends--an old magneto
and some Moscicki jars. The 'aerial', which does the work of one of the
plates of a condenser, was a double trailer of wire let down from the
bottom of the car off two drums; the 'earth', which does the work of the
other plate, was made of insulated wires triced out to the bow and stern
of the gas-bag. The magneto was run by a belt from one of the ballonet
blowers. Receiving instruments were also installed, but these could only
be used when the engine was stopped.

As soon as the weather was favourable the two airships sailed from
Farnborough; the _Gamma_ for Kneesworth camp, on the defending side, the
_Delta_ for Thetford, on the attacking side. The _Delta_ broke down over
North London, but so successful was the wireless installation that her
messages reporting the break-down were received near Thetford and at
Portsmouth by H.M.S. _Vernon_; the _Beta_ took her place, but was too
small to carry the wireless installation. The _Gamma_ was thus the only
craft fitted with wireless, and the efforts of the attacking side were
devoted to intercepting her messages at a ground station. The _Gamma_
was an unqualified success. Her signals came in strong and loud from a
distance of thirty-five miles to a station at Whittlesford fitted with
naval service receiving apparatus. Speaking of the work of aircraft,
General Grierson, who commanded the defending force, says: 'The
impression left on my mind is that their use has revolutionized the art
of war. So long as hostile aircraft are hovering over one's troops all
movements are liable to be seen and reported, and therefore the first
step in war will be to get rid of the hostile aircraft. He who does this
first or who keeps the last aeroplane afloat will win, other things
being approximately equal.... The airship, as long as she remained
afloat, was of more use to me for strategical reconnaissance than the
aeroplanes, as, being fitted with wireless telegraphy, I received her
messages in a continuous stream and immediately after the observations
had been made.... It is a pity that the airship cannot _receive_
messages by wireless, but doubtless modern science will soon remedy this
defect.'

This was the first triumph of aerial reconnaissance in England. Every
morning the _Gamma_ went out at daybreak and scouted over the enemy;
within half an hour the general in command was in receipt of very full
information which enabled him to make out his dispositions and movements
for the day. Some attempts were made to conceal troops at the halt from
the view of aircraft; but, as General Grierson remarks, for troops on
the move there is only one certain cover--the shades of night. So
complete was the information supplied from the air that the commander of
the defending force was enabled to organize his attack and end the
manoeuvres a day sooner than was expected. After the manoeuvres the
_Gamma_ flew by night over Cambridge and bombarded that seat of learning
with Very lights. It took three hours to fly twenty miles, from
Kneesworth to Cambridge, against a strong head wind, and at one o'clock
at night the mechanic informed Major Maitland, who commanded the
_Gamma_, that only one-quarter hour's supply of lubricating oil
remained. So the ship had to shut off her engines and float on the tide
of the air. By throwing out all her ballast she kept afloat till dawn,
and made a safe landing in the neighbourhood of Bristol. 'I don't think
I shall ever forget', says Captain Fitzmaurice, 'the feeling of perfect
peace and quiet one experiences when ballooning by night.' The same
feeling was experienced by Lunardi during his first ascent in a
balloon. The history of aeronautics, if it could be fully written, is in
the main a history of Peace in the air.

The two years before the war were years of progress. In 1912 M. Lucien
Rouzet invented a transmitting apparatus which, in proportion to its
power, was lighter in weight than anything that had previously been in
use; a number of these sets were purchased by the Naval and Military
Wings to be used in aircraft. During May 1913 successful wireless trials
were carried out by Lieutenant Fitzmaurice in a Short seaplane piloted
by Sub-Lieutenant J. T. Babington. During one of these a flight was made
along the coast from the Isle of Grain to the North Foreland, the
seaplane being in communication with the receiving stations at Grain and
Eastchurch and with ships at sea during the whole of its flight. Its
signals were read up to a distance of forty-five miles. During this
flight the seaplane signalled a wireless salute to the Royal Yacht,
which was taking the King and Queen to Flushing on a visit to Germany.
In the naval manoeuvres of the summer, Lieutenant Fitzmaurice and
Commander Samson were sent out to scout over the sea due east from
Yarmouth in the latest Short seaplane, No. 81. Her engine failed, and
she was compelled to come down on the sea, but the wireless messages
which she had sent to H.M.S. _Hermes_ served to locate her, and when the
_Hermes_ went to look for her she was found near the expected place on
board a German timber boat which had come to her assistance.

The airships _Delta_ and _Eta_ were both equipped with wireless for the
army manoeuvres of 1913, and were based on Dunchurch, near Rugby. In
all, _Delta_ sent sixty-six messages during her seven voyages, and on
the 24th of September carried out a successful night reconnaissance.
The _Eta_, owing to engine trouble, played no effective part in the
manoeuvres, but during her journey from Farnborough to Dunchurch she
maintained wireless communication with Aldershot till she reached
Woodstock, when she called up Dunchurch and kept in communication for
the remainder of the voyage. Captain Lefroy in his report says: 'It
seems probable that H.M. Airships _Delta_ and _Eta_ can exchange
messages with each other when 100 miles apart in the air, which may
prove useful for organization purposes, &c. I received clear signals
from the North Foreland station (and a ship to which she was talking)
when 130 miles N.W. of it, and whilst H.M.A. _Eta_ was cruising
northwards at touring speed.'

Just before the 1913 army manoeuvres, Lieutenant B. T. James, piloting a
B.E. aeroplane, succeeded in receiving wireless signals with the engine
running at full power. To enable him to do this his machine was fitted
with Captain Lefroy's new receiving set in which magneto disturbances
were screened off and the signals strengthened by Brown relays, that is,
microphones invented by Mr. S. G. Brown. In June 1914 Lieutenants D. S.
Lewis and B. T. James flew from Netheravon to Bournemouth each in a B.E.
aeroplane equipped with sending and receiving apparatus; they flew about
ten miles apart, and kept in close communication with each other the
whole way.

Captain Lefroy continued to act as wireless expert to the Royal Flying
Corps up to the outbreak of the war. The work done by him and by
Lieutenant Fitzmaurice was of great value. When the war broke out
wireless sets had been fitted to sixteen seaplanes, as well as to the
two airships _Astra-Torres_ and _Parseval_, which did good service in
patrolling the Channel during the passage of the Expeditionary Force.

The development of wireless telegraphy for the uses of aircraft was
only one small part of the work which had to be arranged and supervised
by the headquarters staff at Farnborough. They had to recruit, organize,
and train the new force. Energy, faith, and self-sacrifice were asked
for, not in vain, from the officers and men who came into the corps. The
headquarters staff was small, but with the help of the officers
commanding the squadrons and the staff of the flying school at Upavon,
they inaugurated a great tradition. There were no precedents. The staff
had first to invent their work, and then to do it. The details of supply
and transport, the ordering of machines from the makers, the training
and equipment of every recruit--all these things had to be thought out
in advance. The official text-books, regulations, and standing orders,
which were all complete and ready for issue when the war came, bear
witness to the foresight and initiative of Major Sykes and the small
staff who worked under him at headquarters. The Flying Corps resembles
the navy in this respect, that its daily work in time of peace is not
very much unlike its daily work in time of war, so that if the work is
hard and incessant, at least it is rewarded by the sense of achievement.

One particular achievement was greater than all the rest. When flight
began it attracted men of romantic and adventurous temper, some of whom
were much concerned with their own performances and had a natural liking
for display. If these tendencies had been encouraged, or even permitted,
they would have ruined the corps. The staff, to a man, set their faces
like flint against all such indulgences. Publicity, advertisement, the
rubbish of popular applause, were anathema to them. What they sought to
create was a service temper, and they were so successful that the
typical pilot of the war was as modest and dutiful as a lieutenant of
infantry. The building up of the Flying Corps on these lines, remote
from the public gaze, deprived it of popular support, but it gained for
it what was a thousand times more valuable--a severe code of duty, a
high standard of quiet courage, and an immense corporate pride. To have
kept the infant corps and all its doings in the public eye would have
been as disastrous an experiment as to attempt to educate a child on the
music-hall stage.

A great part of the early work of the Flying Corps was experimental.
Various kinds of experiment were assigned by the corps headquarters to
the several squadrons, and the headquarters staff took care that any
success achieved by one squadron should become the rule for the
betterment of all. An experimental branch of the Military Wing was
formed in March 1913 under Major Herbert Musgrave; it dealt, among other
things, with experimental work in connexion with ballooning, kiting,
wireless telegraphy, photography, meteorology, bomb-dropping, musketry,
and gunnery, and co-operation with artillery. Major Musgrave deserves
more than a passing mention in any military history of the air. After
serving throughout the South African War as a lieutenant in the Royal
Engineers he had passed through the Staff College. The possibilities of
aviation very early took possession of his mind. In 1909, from the
cliffs of Dover, he saw M. Blériot arrive in a monoplane, and was so
impressed by the sight that he went straight to the War Office to draw
attention to the military significance of this portent, and its threat
to our insular security. From this time forward his mind was set on
aeronautics. He applied for military aviation service before the Flying
Corps was formed, and in May 1912 repeated his application. 'A Staff
Officer', he noted in his diary, 'should know the capabilities of
aviation. He should be able to observe from an aeroplane and to travel
by aeroplane with dispatches.' At last, in October 1912, during a short
period of leave, he learned to fly at the Bristol Flying School on
Salisbury Plain. In the following spring he was gazetted a squadron
commander in the Royal Flying Corps. He was at once appointed assistant
commandant and officer in charge of experiments. His utility to the
Flying Corps, while it was in the making, was immense. He urged that new
squadrons should be formed even while machines were lacking, so that the
organization and discipline should be perfected in advance. The flying
training of the corps, he insisted, should always have a clear military
purpose in view. He was no militarist, but he was a good soldier, and he
knew the imminence of war with Germany. As early as December 1911, in a
lecture which he delivered in Malta, he predicted the war. 'When it
comes,' he said, 'be assured it will come suddenly. We shall wake up one
night, and find ourselves at war.... Another thing is certain. This war
will be no walk-over.... In the military sphere it will be the hardest,
fiercest, and bloodiest struggle we have ever had to face; let us fully
make up our minds to that, and probably every one of us here to-night
will take part in it. We need not be afraid of overdoing our
preparations.'

For two years Major Musgrave worked hard in helping to prepare the
Flying Corps for its coming ordeal. In the spring of 1914 a headquarters
flight was placed at his disposal for technical work in many kinds. Up
to this time there had been two kinds of experimental work; the National
Physical Laboratory was responsible for purely scientific experiments,
while the commanders of squadrons tested new ideas in practice. But
these two sets of men worked under very different conditions, and
neither of them fully understood the aims and difficulties of the other
branch. The headquarters flight was intended to serve as a link between
theory and practice. Major Musgrave gave special attention to wireless
telegraphy, and with the assistance of Lieutenants D. S. Lewis and B. T.
James, both also of the Royal Engineers and both pioneers of wireless,
he made good progress in its practical application to the needs of the
Flying Corps. When the war came, the headquarters flight was broken up
in order to bring the four original squadrons up to strength, but the
wireless section was attached for a time to No. 4 Squadron, and in
September 1914 a headquarters wireless unit was formed at
Fère-en-Tardenois in France, with Major Musgrave in command. From this
unit the whole wireless telegraphy organization of the Royal Flying
Corps was gradually developed. In December 1914 the unit was enlarged,
and became No. 9 Squadron stationed at headquarters. Having worked out
all details for the supply of wireless machines to the squadrons in the
field, Major Musgrave in March 1915 left the Royal Flying Corps to take
up duty with the staff of the army. He was severely wounded in August
1916. Almost two years later, on the night of the 2nd of June 1918,
having persuaded a battalion commander to let him accompany a patrol, he
was killed by a rifle grenade, inside the German lines. He desired no
personal advancement, and would have thought no other honour so great as
to die for his country. Such men, though the records of their lives are
buried under a mass of tedious detail, are the engineers of victory.

When the airships were handed over to the navy, it became necessary to
reorganize No. 1 Squadron as an aeroplane squadron. This was put in hand
on the 1st of May 1914, and was not completed when the war broke out.
The senior aeroplane squadrons of the Military Wing were, therefore, No.
2 Squadron under Major Burke, and No. 3 Squadron under Major
Brooke-Popham.

The officers of these squadrons, to whom it fell to set the example and
to show the way, were a remarkable group of pioneers. Some of them were
accomplished flyers, who took delight in the mastery of the air. But
none of them practised the art for the art's sake. They were not
virtuosos, bent on exhibiting the heights to which individual skill can
attain. They did not play a lone hand. The risks that they took were the
risks, not of adventure, but of duty. They were soldiers first. One and
all they were impressed with the importance of military aviation for
their country's need. 'It has got to come,' said Captain Patrick
Hamilton, 'and we have got to do it.' Their lives were pledged to their
country, and until their country should call for them, were held in
trust, not to be lightly thrown away. Some were called early, during the
exercises of peace; others during the war. Others again, a minority,
were marked down for a third chance, and were given the duty of carrying
on, through the war and after it. The time of the call, early or late,
made no difference; the work of the corps was not interrupted. When
Captain Eustace Loraine, the first to go, was killed with his passenger,
Staff-Sergeant R. H. V. Wilson, near Stonehenge, on the 5th of July
1912, the order was issued that flying would go on as usual that
evening. An order like this not only creates a tradition, it pays the
right honour to the dead, who died on duty no less than if they had been
brought down by the guns of the enemy. The casualties of the first
summer were not light in proportion to the strength of the corps, and in
one respect were very heavy, for almost all of those who were killed
were creators and founders, whose work and influence would have been
invaluable in building up the corps. They could ill be spared. They left
nothing but their example; yet any one who remembers what the Flying
Corps achieved during the war may well wonder whether that example does
not count for as much as a long life of devoted service.

Captain Eustace Broke Loraine had served with the Grenadier Guards in
the South African War. His great-grandfather was the famous British
admiral, Sir Philip Broke, who in 1813 commanded H.M.S. _Shannon_, and
after a fifteen minutes' battle outside the port of New York compelled
the surrender of the United States frigate _Chesapeake_. That battle, it
has been truly said, was won before it was fought; the _Shannon_ had
been many years cruising at sea; she was in perfect fighting trim, her
men were disciplined and her gunners practised. The men of the
_Chesapeake_ were fresh from the shore, strangers to each other and to
their officers, so that the heavier armament of the _Chesapeake_ was of
no avail. When Captain Loraine joined the Flying Corps he applied his
great-grandfather's methods, and set himself by study, care, discipline,
and skill to prepare the materials of victory. He was a highly skilled
pilot, perhaps overbold. The machine he was flying on the 5th of July
was the fast two-seater Nieuport monoplane on which Lieutenant
Barrington-Kennett had achieved some records. It seems that he attempted
too sharp a turn, lost flying speed, side-slipped, and nose-dived. He
was only a few hundred feet up, and there was no time to save the crash.
Those who knew him believe that he would have done much for the Flying
Corps. He spared no pains to understand his business, and to make theory
and practice help each other. Staff-Sergeant Wilson, who was killed with
him, was the senior technical non-commissioned officer of No. 3
Squadron, a first-class man, and a heavy loss.

Other fatalities were to follow. On the 6th of September Captain Patrick
Hamilton and Lieutenant A. Wyness-Stuart, flying a hundred horse-power
Deperdussin monoplane on reconnaissance duties connected with the
cavalry divisional training, crashed and were killed at Graveley, near
Hitchin. Four days later Lieutenant E. Hotchkiss and Lieutenant C. A.
Bettington, flying an eighty horse-power Bristol monoplane from Larkhill
to Cambridge, crashed and were killed at Wolvercote, near Oxford. A
committee was appointed to investigate these accidents, and in the
meantime an order was issued by the War Office forbidding the use of
monoplanes in the Royal Flying Corps. This order altered the scheme for
the army manoeuvres, where it had been intended to allot a squadron of
monoplanes to one force and a squadron of biplanes to the other, in
order to compare results. No. 3 Squadron, nevertheless, assembled near
Cambridge in such strength as it could muster; there were Major
Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox, and Second Lieutenant G. de Havilland of the
squadron; these were joined by Mr. Cody, who came as a civilian with his
own machine, and by officers of the Naval Air Service, who flew Short
biplanes.

The ban on monoplanes, it may be remarked in passing, was a heavy blow
to one of the earliest pioneers of aviation in this country. Mr. L.
Howard Flanders, who had worked with Mr. A. V. Roe at Lea Marshes, and
had designed the 'Pup' monoplane for Mr. J. V. Neale at Brooklands, had
subsequently formed a company for the building of aeroplanes, with works
at Richmond. He obtained a War Office contract for four monoplanes, but
when, after trial, he was engaged in reconstructing the under-carriages,
the use of the monoplane was forbidden to army pilots. This and other
disappointments put an end to Mr. Flanders's building activities, but
his name deserves record among the pioneers.

When Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett of the Grenadier Guards became
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 £4,000,
was open to the world; the other, with a first prize of £1,000, 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 Bréguet 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 attaché, and by Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. A. Russell, as
military attaché. 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
Elektrizitäts-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.




CHAPTER VI

THE WAR: THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS FROM MONS TO YPRES


The German war of the twentieth century, like the German wars of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was carefully planned and prepared
by the military rulers of Prussia. To elucidate its origins and causes
will be the work of many long years. Yet enough is known to make it
certain that this last and greatest war conforms to the old design. The
Prussians have always been proud of their doctrine of war, and have
explained it to the world with perfect frankness. War has always been
regarded by them as the great engine of national progress. By war they
united the peoples of Germany; by war they hoped to gain for the peoples
of Germany an acknowledged supremacy in the civilized world. These
peoples had received unity at the hands of Prussia, and though they did
not like Prussia, they believed enthusiastically in Prussian strength
and Prussian wisdom. If Prussia led them to war, they were encouraged to
think that the war would be unerringly designed to increase their power
and prosperity. Yet many of them would have shrunk from naked assault
and robbery; and Prussia, to conciliate these, invented the fable of the
war of defence. That a sudden attack on her neighbours, delivered by
Germany in time of peace, is a strictly defensive act has often been
explained by German military and political writers, never perhaps more
clearly than in a secret official report, drawn up at Berlin in the
spring of 1913, on the strengthening of the German army. A copy of this
report fell into the hands of the French.

'The people,' it says, 'must be accustomed to think that an offensive
war on our part is a necessity.... We must act with prudence in order to
arouse no suspicion.'

The fable of the war of defence was helped out with the fable of
encirclement. Germany, being situated in the midst of Europe, had many
neighbours, most of whom had more reason to fear her than to like her.
Any exhibition of goodwill between these neighbours was treated by
German statesmen, for years before the war, as a covert act of hostility
to Germany, amply justifying reprisals. The treaty between France and
Russia, wholly defensive in character, the expression of goodwill
between France and England, inspired in part by fears of the restless
ambitions of Germany, though both were intended to guarantee the
existing state of things, were odious to Berlin. The peace of Europe
hung by a thread.

On Sunday, the 28th of June 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir
to the throne of Austria, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, paid a
visit to Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and were there murdered by
Bosnian assassins. It has not been proved that Germany had any part in
the murder, but she was quite willing to take advantage of it. The Kiel
canal, joining the Baltic with the North Sea had just been widened to
admit the largest battleships, and the German army had just been raised
to an unexampled strength. The gun was loaded and pointed; if it was
allowed to be fired by accident the military rulers of Germany were much
to blame. They were not in the habit of trusting any part of their plans
to accident. But the excitement caused by the Archduke's murder was
allowed to die away, and an uneasy calm succeeded. On the 23rd of July
the Austrian Government, alleging that the Serajevo assassinations had
been planned in Belgrade, presented to Serbia, with the declared
approval of Germany, an ultimatum, containing demands of so extreme a
character that the acceptance of them would have meant the abandonment
by Serbia of her national independence. Serbia appealed to Russia, and,
acting on Russia's advice, accepted all the demands except two. These
two, which involved the appointment of Austro-Hungarian delegates to
assist in administering the internal affairs of Serbia, were not bluntly
rejected; Serbia asked that they should be referred to the Hague
Tribunal. Austria replied by withdrawing her minister, declaring war
upon Serbia, and bombarding Belgrade. This action was bound to involve
Russia, who could not stand by and see the Slavonic States of southern
Europe destroyed and annexed. But the Russian Government, along with the
Governments of France, Great Britain, and Italy, did their utmost to
preserve the peace. They suggested mediation and a conference of the
Powers. Germany alone refused. Alleging that Russia had already
mobilized her army, she decreed a state of war, and on Saturday, the 1st
of August, declared war upon Russia. France by her treaty with Russia
would shortly have become involved; but the German Government would not
wait for her. They judged it all-important to gain a military success at
the very start of the war, and to this everything had to give way. They
declared war on France, and massed armies along the frontier between
Liége and Luxembourg, with the intention of forcing a passage through
Belgium. England, who was one of the guarantors of the integrity of
Belgium, was thus involved. At 11.0 p.m. on the 4th of August, Great
Britain declared war on Germany, and the World War had begun.

The events of the twelve days from the 23rd of July to the 4th of
August, when they shall be set forth in detail, will furnish volumes of
history. Those who study them minutely are in some danger of failing to
see the wood for the trees. The attitude of the nations was made clear
enough during these days. When Austria issued her ultimatum, many people
in England thought of it as a portent of renewed distant trouble in the
Balkans, to be quickly begun and soon ended. It was not so regarded in
Germany. The people of Germany, though they were not in the confidence
of their Government, were sufficiently familiar with its mode of
operation to recognize the challenge to Serbia for what it was,
Germany's chosen occasion for her great war. The citizens not only of
Berlin, but of the Rhineland, and of little northern towns on the Kiel
canal, went mad with joy; there was shouting and song and public
festivity. Meantime in England, as the truth dawned, there were hushed
voices and an intense solemnity. The day had come, and no one doubted
the severity of the ordeal. Yet neither did any one, except an unhappy
few who had been nursed in folly and illusion, doubt the necessity of
taking up the challenge. The country was united. Not only was the safety
and existence of the British Commonwealth involved, but the great
principle of civilization, difficult to name, but perhaps best called by
the appealing name of decency, which bids man remember that he is frail
and that it behoves him to be considerate and pitiful and sincere, had
been flouted by the arrogant military rulers of Germany. Great Britain
had a navy; her army and her air force, for the purposes of a great
European war, were yet to make. The motive that was to supply her with
millions of volunteers was not only patriotism, though patriotism was
strong, but a sense that her cause, in this war, was the cause of
humanity. There are many who will gladly fight to raise their country
and people in power and prosperity above other countries and other
peoples. There are many also among English-speaking peoples who are
unwilling to fight for any such end. But they are fighters, and they
will fight to protect the weak and to assert the right. They are a
reserve worth enlisting in any army; it was by their help that the
opponents of Germany attained to a conquering strength. The systematic
cruelties of Germany, inflicted by order on the helpless populations of
Serbia and Belgium and northern France, are not matter of controversy;
they have been proved by many extant military documents and by the
testimony of many living witnesses. They were designed to reduce whole
peoples to a state of impotent terror, beneath the level of humanity.
The apology made for them, that by shortening resistance to the
inevitable they were in effect merciful, is a blasphemous apology, which
puts Germany in the place of the Almighty. The effect anticipated did
not follow. The system of terrorism hardened and prolonged resistance;
it launched against Germany the chivalry of the world; it created for
use against Germany the chivalry of the air; and it left Germany
unhonoured in her ultimate downfall.

The German plan of campaign, it was rightly believed, was a swift
invasion and disablement of France, to be followed by more prolonged
operations against Russia. By this plan the German army was to reach
Paris on the fortieth day after mobilization. There was no promise that
Great Britain would help France, but the attitude of Germany had long
been so threatening that the General Staffs of the two countries had
taken counsel with each other concerning the best manner of employing
the British forces in the event of common resistance to German
aggression. It had been provisionally agreed that the British army
should be concentrated on the left flank of the French army, in the area
between Avesnes and Le Cateau, but this agreement was based on the
assumption that the two armies would be mobilized simultaneously. When
the principal British Ministers and the leading members of the naval and
military staffs assembled at Downing street on the 5th and 6th of
August, we were already behindhand, and the whole question of the
employment and disposition of the expeditionary force had to be
reopened. It was expected by some soldiers and some civilians that the
little British army would be landed at a point on the coast of France or
Belgium whence it could strike at the flank of the German invaders. The
strategic advantages of that idea had to yield to the enormous
importance of giving moral and material support to our Allies by
fighting at their side; moreover, there could be no assurance that the
coast of Belgium would not fall into the hands of the Germans at a very
early stage in the campaign. Accordingly, it was agreed to ship our army
to France, and to leave the manner of its employment to be settled in
concert with the French.

The original British Expeditionary Force, under the command of
Field-Marshal Sir John French, began to embark on the 9th of August; by
the 20th its concentration in a pear-shaped area between Maubeuge and Le
Cateau was complete. It consisted of the First Army Corps, under
Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Haig; the Second Army Corps, under
Lieutenant-General Sir James Grierson, who died soon after landing in
France and was succeeded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien; and the
Cavalry Division, under Major-General E. H. H. Allenby. The Germans made
no attempt to interfere with the transport of the expeditionary force
from England to France. They had many other things to think of, and
there is evidence to show that they viewed with satisfaction the placing
of that admirable little force in a situation where they hoped that they
could cut it off and annihilate it. That they were disappointed in this
hope was due not a little to the activity and efficiency of the newest
arm, numbering about a thousand, all told, the Royal Flying Corps.

The Royal Flying Corps took the field under the command of
Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson. It consisted of Headquarters,
Aeroplane Squadrons Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and an Aircraft Park. Fairly
complete arrangements, thought out in detail, had been made some months
earlier for its mobilization. Each squadron was to mobilize at its peace
station, and was to be ready to move on the fourth day. On that day the
aeroplanes were to move, by air, first to Dover, and thence, on the
sixth day, to the field base in the theatre of war. The horses,
horse-vehicles, and motor-bicycles, together with a certain amount of
baggage and supplies, were to travel by rail, and the mechanical
transport and trailers by road, to the appointed port of embarkation,
there to be shipped for the overseas base. The Aircraft Park, numbering
twelve officers and a hundred and sixty-two other ranks, with four
motor-cycles and twenty-four aeroplanes in cases, were to leave
Farnborough for Avonmouth on the seventh day. Instructions were issued
naming the hour and place of departure of the various trains, with
detailed orders as to machines, personnel, transport, and petrol. On the
second day of mobilization a detachment from No. 6 Squadron was to
proceed to Dover, there to make ready a landing-ground for the other
squadrons, and to provide for replenishment of fuel and minor repairs to
aircraft. Squadron commanders were urged to work out all necessary
arrangements for the journey. How carefully they did this is shown by
some of the entries in the squadron diaries. In the diary of No. 2
Squadron (Major C. J. Burke's) a list is given of the articles that were
to be carried on each of the machines flying over to France. Besides
revolvers, glasses, a spare pair of goggles, and a roll of tools, pilots
were ordered to carry with them a water-bottle containing boiled water,
a small stove, and, in the haversack, biscuits, cold meat, a piece of
chocolate, and a packet of soup-making material.

The programme for mobilization was, in the main, successfully carried
out. The headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps left Farnborough for
Southampton on the night of the 11th of August, their motor transport
having gone before. They embarked at Southampton, with their horses, and
reached Amiens on the morning of the 13th. The movements of the Aircraft
Park, though it was the last unit to leave England, may be next
recorded, because it was in effect the travelling base of the squadrons.
The personnel and equipment were entrained at Farnborough during the
evening of Saturday, the 15th of August, and travelled to Avonmouth. Of
the twenty machines allotted to them only four, all Sopwith Tabloids,
were actually taken over in cases. Of the other sixteen (nine B.E. 2's,
one B.E. 2 c, three B.E. 8's, and three Henri Farmans) about half were
used to bring the squadrons up to establishment; the remainder were
flown over to Amiens by the personnel of the Aircraft Park, or by the
spare pilots who accompanied the squadrons. The Aircraft Park embarked
at Avonmouth very early on the morning of the 17th, arriving at Boulogne
on the night of the 18th. They disembarked, an unfamiliar apparition, on
the following morning. The landing officer had no precedent to guide him
in dealing with them. Wing Commander W. D. Beatty tells how a wire was
dispatched to General Headquarters: 'An unnumbered unit without
aeroplanes which calls itself an Aircraft Park has arrived. What are we
to do with it?' If the question was not promptly answered at Boulogne it
was answered later on. The original Aircraft Park was the nucleus of
that vast system of supply and repair which supported the squadrons
operating on the western front and kept them in fighting trim.

On the 21st of August the Aircraft Park moved up to Amiens, to make an
advanced base for the squadrons, which were already at Maubeuge. Three
days were spent at Amiens in unloading, unpacking, and setting up
workshops. Then, on the 25th, they received orders to retire to Le
Havre. The retreat from Mons had begun, and Boulogne was being evacuated
by the British troops. How far the wave of invasion would flow could not
be certainly known; on the 30th of August, at the request of the French
admiral who commanded at Le Havre, the machines belonging to the
Aircraft Park were employed to carry out reconnaissances along the coast
roads; on the following day German cavalry entered Amiens. There was a
real danger that stores and machines landed in northern France for the
use of the Royal Flying Corps might fall into the hands of the Germans;
accordingly a base was established, for the reception of stores from
England, at St.-Nazaire, on the Loire. The advanced base of the Aircraft
Park moved up, by successive stages, as the prospects of the Allies
improved, first from Le Havre to Le Mans, then, at the end of September,
to Juvisy, near Paris; lastly, in mid-October, the port base was moved
from St.-Nazaire to Rouen, and at the end of October the advanced base
left Juvisy for St.-Omer, which became its permanent station during the
earlier part of the war.

The squadrons flew to France. No. 2 Squadron, at Montrose, had the
hardest task. Its pilots started on their southward flight to
Farnborough as early as the 3rd of August; after some accidents they all
reached Dover. Their transport left Montrose by rail on the morning of
the 8th of August and arrived the same evening at Prince's Dock, Govan,
near Glasgow, where the lorries and stores were loaded on S.S. _Dogra_
for Boulogne. No. 3 Squadron was at Netheravon when war broke out; on
the 12th of August the machines flew to Dover and the transport moved
off by road to Southampton, where it was embarked for Boulogne. The
squadron suffered a loss at Netheravon. Second Lieutenant R. R. Skene, a
skilful pilot, with Air Mechanic R. K. Barlow as passenger, crashed his
machine soon after taking off; both pilot and passenger were killed. No.
4 Squadron on the 31st of July had been sent to Eastchurch, to assist
the navy in preparations for home defence and to be ready for
mobilization. From Eastchurch the machines flew to Dover and the
transport proceeded to Southampton. By the evening of the 12th of August
the machines of Nos. 2, 3, and 4 Squadrons were at Dover. At midnight
Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes arrived, and orders were given for all
machines to be ready to fly over at 6.0 a.m. the following morning, the
13th of August.

The first machine of No. 2 Squadron to start left at 6.25 a.m., and the
first to arrive landed at Amiens at 8.20 a.m. This machine was flown by
Lieutenant H. D. Harvey-Kelly, one of the lightest hearted and highest
spirited of the young pilots who gave their lives in the war. The
machines of No. 3 Squadron arrived safely at Amiens, with the exception
of one piloted by Second Lieutenant E. N. Fuller, who with his mechanic
did not rejoin his squadron until five days later at Maubeuge. One
flight of No. 4 Squadron remained at Dover to carry out patrol duties,
but a wireless flight, consisting of three officers who had made a study
of wireless telegraphy, was attached to the squadron, and was taken
overseas with it. Some of the aeroplanes of No. 4 Squadron were damaged
on the way over by following their leader, Captain F. J. L. Cogan, who
was forced by engine failure to land in a ploughed field in France.

No. 5 Squadron moved a little later than the other three. It was delayed
by a shortage of shipping and a series of accidents to the machines.
When the Concentration Camp broke up, this squadron had gone to occupy
its new station at Gosport. On the 14th, when starting out for Dover,
Captain G. I. Carmichael wrecked his machine at Gosport; on the same day
Lieutenant R. O. Abercromby and Lieutenant H. F. Glanville damaged their
machines at Shoreham, and Lieutenant H. le M. Brock damaged his at
Salmer. The squadron flew from Dover to France on the 15th of August;
Captain Carmichael, having obtained a new machine, flew over on that
same day; Lieutenant Brock rejoined the squadron at Maubeuge on the
20th; Lieutenants Abercromby and Glanville on the 22nd. Lieutenant R. M.
Vaughan, who had flown over with the squadron, also rejoined it on the
22nd; he had made a forced landing near Boulogne, had been arrested by
the French, and was imprisoned for nearly a week.

The transport of the squadrons, which proceeded by way of Southampton,
was largely made up from the motor-cars and commercial vans collected at
Regent's Park in London during the first few days of the war. The
ammunition and bomb lorry of No. 5 Squadron had belonged to the
proprietors of a famous sauce: it was a brilliant scarlet, with the
legend painted in gold letters on its side--_The World's Appetiser_. It
could be seen from some height in the air, and it helped the pilots of
the squadron, during the retreat from Mons, to identify their own
transport.

The names of the officers of the Royal Flying Corps who went to France,
the great majority of them by air, deserve record. They were the first
organized national force to fly to a war overseas. The following is
believed to be a complete list up to the eve of Mons, but it is not
infallible. Officers and men were changed up to the last minute, so that
the headquarters file, having been prepared in advance, is not
authoritative. The squadron war diaries are sometimes sketchy. Even when
surviving pilots set down what they remember, the whole war lies between
them and those early days, and their memory is often fragmentary. The
following list is compiled, as correctly as may be, from the diary of
Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett (a careful and accurate document),
the war diaries of Squadrons Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, which were kept in
some detail, the headquarters' records, and the reminiscences of some of
the officers who flew across or who travelled with the transport.


HEADQUARTERS

  Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson, K.C.B., D.S.O.; Commander,
    Royal Flying Corps.
  Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes, 15th Hussars; General Staff Officer,
    1st Grade.
  Major H. R. M. Brooke-Popham, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light
    Infantry; Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General.
  Captain W. G. H. Salmond, Royal Artillery; General Staff Officer, 2nd
    Grade.
  Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett, Grenadier Guards; Deputy
    Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster-General.

_Attached._

  Captain R. H. L. Cordner, Royal Army Medical Corps.
  Captain C. G. Buchanan, Indian Army.
  Lieutenant the Hon. M. Baring, Intelligence Corps.
  2nd Lieutenant O. G. W. G. Lywood, Norfolk Regiment (Special Reserve);
    for Wireless duties.


NO. 2 SQUADRON

_Squadron Commander._

  Major C. J. Burke, Royal Irish Regiment.

_Flight Commanders._

  Captain G. W. P. Dawes, Royal Berkshire Regiment.
  Captain F. F. Waldron, 19th Hussars.
  Captain G. E. Todd, Welch Regiment.

_Flying Officers._

  Lieutenant R. B. Martyn, Wiltshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant L. Dawes, Middlesex Regiment.
  Lieutenant R. M. Rodwell, West Yorkshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant M. W. Noel, Liverpool Regiment.
  Lieutenant E. R. L. Corballis, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
  Lieutenant H. D. Harvey-Kelly, Royal Irish Regiment.
  Lieutenant W. R. Freeman, Manchester Regiment.
  Lieutenant W. H. C. Mansfield, Shropshire Light Infantry.
  Lieutenant C. B. Spence, Royal Artillery.
  Captain A. B. Burdett, York and Lancaster Regiment.
  Captain A. Ross-Hume, Scottish Rifles.
  Lieutenant D. S. K. Crosbie, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
  Lieutenant C. A. G. L. H. Farie, Highland Light Infantry.
  Lieutenant T. L. S. Holbrow, Royal Engineers.
  2nd Lieutenant G. J. Malcolm, Royal Artillery.

_Supernumerary._

  Major C. A. H. Longcroft, Welch Regiment; Squadron
    Commander.
  Captain U. J. D. Bourke, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire
    Light Infantry; Flight Commander.
  Captain W. Lawrence, 7th Battalion, Essex Regiment (Territorial
    Force); Flight Commander.

_Attached._

Lieutenant K. R. Van der Spuy, South African Defence Forces.


NO. 3 SQUADRON

_Squadron Commander._

  Major J. M. Salmond, Royal Lancaster Regiment.

_Flight Commanders._

  Captain P. L. W. Herbert, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment.
  Captain L. E. O. Charlton, D.S.O., Lancashire Fusiliers.
  Captain P. B. Joubert de la Ferté, Royal Artillery.

_Flying Officers._

  2nd Lieutenant V. H. N. Wadham, Hampshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant D. L. Allen, Royal Irish Fusiliers.
  Lieutenant A. M. Read, Northamptonshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant E. L. Conran, 2nd County of London Yeomanry.
  Lieutenant A. Christie, Royal Artillery.
  Lieutenant A. R. Shekleton, Royal Munster Fusiliers.
  2nd Lieutenant E. N. Fuller, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  Lieutenant W. C. K. Birch, Yorkshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant G. F. Pretyman, Somerset Light Infantry.
  Lieutenant W. R. Read, 1st Dragoon Guards.
  2nd Lieutenant A. Hartree, Royal Artillery.
  Lieutenant V. S. E. Lindop, Leinster Regiment.
  Lieutenant G. L. Cruikshank, Gordon Highlanders (Special Reserve).
  Lieutenant W. F. MacNeece, Royal West Kent Regiment.
  2nd Lieutenant L. A. Bryan, South Irish Horse.
  Major L. B. Boyd-Moss, South Staffordshire Regiment.
  2nd Lieutenant E. W. C. Perry, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.


NO. 4 SQUADRON

_Squadron Commander._

  Major G. H. Raleigh, Essex Regiment.

_Flight Commanders._

  Captain G. S. Shephard, Royal Fusiliers.
  Captain A. H. L. Soames, 3rd Hussars.
  Captain F. J. L. Cogan, Royal Artillery.

_Flying Officers._

  Lieutenant P. H. L. Playfair, Royal Artillery.
  Lieutenant K. P. Atkinson, Royal Artillery.
  Lieutenant R. P. Mills, Royal Fusiliers (Special Reserve).
  Lieutenant T. W. Mulcahy-Morgan, Royal Irish Fusiliers.
  Lieutenant R. G. D. Small, Leinster Regiment.
  Lieutenant W. G. S. Mitchell, Highland Light Infantry.
  Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck, Liverpool Regiment (Special Reserve).
  Lieutenant C. G. Hosking, Royal Artillery.
  Lieutenant H. J. A. Roche, Royal Munster Fusiliers.
  Lieutenant I. M. Bonham-Carter, Northumberland Fusiliers.
  2nd Lieutenant A. L. Russell, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.

_Wireless Flight._

  Lieutenant D. S. Lewis, Royal Engineers.
  Lieutenant B. T. James, Royal Engineers.
  Lieutenant S. C. W. Smith, East Surrey Regiment (Special Reserve).

_Attached._

  Captain D. Le G. Pitcher, Indian Army.
  Captain H. L. Reilly, Indian Army.


NO. 5 SQUADRON

_Squadron Commander._

  Major J. F. A. Higgins, D.S.O., Royal Artillery.

_Flight Commanders._

  Captain D. G. Conner, Royal Artillery.
  Captain G. I. Carmichael, Royal Artillery.
  Captain R. Grey, Warwickshire Royal Horse Artillery (Territorial Force).

_Flying Officers._

  Lieutenant H. F. Glanville, West India Regiment.
  Lieutenant F. G. Small, Connaught Rangers.
  Lieutenant R. O. Abercromby, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant C. W. Wilson, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  Lieutenant H. le M. Brock, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
  Lieutenant R. M. Vaughan, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
  Lieutenant L. da C. Penn-Gaskell, Norfolk Regiment (Special Reserve).
  Lieutenant A. E. Borton, Royal Highlanders.
  Lieutenant Lord G. Wellesley, Grenadier Guards.
  Lieutenant C. G. G. Bayly, Royal Engineers.
  Lieutenant C. E. C. Rabagliati, Yorkshire Light Infantry.
  2nd Lieutenant A. A. B. Thomson, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant L. A. Strange, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant R. R. Smith-Barry, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant D. C. Ware, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant V. Waterfall, East Yorkshire Regiment (Special Reserve).
  Captain R. A. Boger, Royal Engineers.
  Captain B. C. Fairfax, Reserve of Officers.

_Attached._

  Lieutenant G. S. Creed, South African Defence Forces.


AIRCRAFT PARK

_Squadron Commander._

  Major A. D. Carden, Royal Engineers.

_Flight Commanders._

  Major Hon. C. M. P. Brabazon, Irish Guards.
  Captain W. D. Beatty, Royal Engineers.
  Captain R. Cholmondeley, Rifle Brigade.
  Lieutenant G. B. Hynes, Royal Artillery.

_Flying Officers._

  Lieutenant G. T. Porter, Royal Artillery.
  2nd Lieutenant C. G. Bell, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  2nd Lieutenant N. C. Spratt, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
  Lieutenant R. H. Verney, Army Service Corps.

Something must be said of the machines which flew to France. Experience
at manoeuvres had favoured the factory B.E. 2 biplane; of the other
types most in use the Henri Farman had been found fatiguing to fly, and
the Maurice Farman was too slow. Accordingly, in the winter of 1913-14
Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes had urged the gradual substitution of
B.E. machines for the Farmans. Major W. S. Brancker, writing for the
Director-General of Military Aeronautics, objected to this proposal on
the ground that until a satisfactory type of fighting aeroplane should
be evolved, the Henri Farman was the only machine that could mount
weapons effectively; and further, that a slow machine had some
advantages for observation. The first of these objections was not fully
met until firing through the airscrew was introduced; the second was for
a long time an accepted idea. The war was to prove that a slow machine,
exposed to armed attack, cannot live in the air. The battle of the
machines ended, for the time, in compromise. It was judged important
that the Flying Corps should have four squadrons ready for war by the
spring of 1914, and large changes would have caused delay. In the event,
at the date of mobilization, No. 2 Squadron and No. 4 Squadron were
furnished throughout with B.E. 2 machines; No. 3 Squadron made use of
Blériots and Henri Farmans, and No. 5 of Henri Farmans, Avros, and B.E.
8's. A single type of machine for a single squadron is a thing to be
desired; the squadron is easier for the pilots and the mechanics to
handle; but in the early days of the war there was no formation flying;
each machine did its work alone, so that uniformity was of less
importance.

When the Flying Corps arrived in France they were received by the French
with enthusiasm, and had their full share of the hospitality of those
days. The officers were treated as honoured guests; the men with the
transport were greeted by crowds of villagers, who at all their
stopping-places pressed on them bottles of wine, bunches of flowers,
fruit, and eggs. At Amiens the transport and machines were parked
outside the town, without cover, and the officers were billeted at the
'Hôtel du Rhin' and elsewhere. The hardships of the war were yet to
come. Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett, with his mind always set on
the task before them, remarks: 'There seemed to be a general
misunderstanding amongst the troops as to the length of time during
which rations have to last. They were apt to eat what they wanted at one
meal and then throw the remainder away. R.F.C. peace training does not
encourage economy with food, as the men are financially well off, and
can always buy food and drink in the villages.'

On Sunday, the 16th of August, the headquarters of the Flying Corps, the
aeroplanes of Nos. 2, 3, and 4 Squadrons, and the transport of Nos. 3
and 4 Squadrons moved from Amiens to Maubeuge. Second Lieutenant E. W.
C. Perry and his mechanic, H. E. Parfitt, of No. 3 Squadron, who were
flying a B.E. 8 machine (familiarly known as a 'bloater'), crashed over
the aerodrome at Amiens; the machine caught fire, and both were killed.
There was another accident on the 18th, when the aeroplanes and
transport of No. 5 Squadron followed. Second Lieutenant R. R.
Smith-Barry and Corporal F. Geard, also flying a B.E. 8 machine, crashed
at Péronne; the officer broke several bones, and the corporal was
killed. Three of these machines in all were flown over at the beginning;
they had been allotted to the Aircraft Park, and were taken on charge of
the squadrons in the field to fill vacancies caused by mishaps. The
third of them was the machine flown over by Captain G. I. Carmichael.

At Maubeuge the French authorities gave all the help they could,
providing blankets and straw for the troops. The Flying Corps were now
in the war zone, but for the first two or three days the conditions were
those of peace. They saw nothing of the British army till one evening
British troops marched through Maubeuge on their way to Mons. 'We were
rather sorry they had come,' says Wing Commander P. B. Joubert de la
Ferté, 'because up till that moment we had only been fired on by the
French whenever we flew. Now we were fired on by French _and_
English.... To this day I can remember the roar of musketry that
greeted two of our machines as they left the aerodrome and crossed the
main Maubeuge-Mons road, along which a British column was proceeding.'
To guard against incidents like this the Flying Corps, while stationed
at Maubeuge, turned to, and by working all night painted a Union Jack in
the form of a shield on the under-side of the lower planes of all the
machines.

While the Flying Corps remained at Maubeuge and began to carry out
reconnaissances over Belgium, the little British army had moved up north
to Mons, where it first met the enemy. By the 22nd of August it was in
position, on a front of some twenty-five miles, the First Army Corps
holding a line from Harmignies to Peissant on the east, the Second Army
Corps holding Mons and the canal that runs from Mons to Condé on the
west. On the right of the British the Fifth French Army, under General
Lanrezac, was coming up to the line of the river Sambre.

The original German plan was broad and simple. The main striking force
was to march through Belgium and Luxembourg into France. Its advance was
to be a wheel pivoting on Thionville. Count von Schlieffen, who had
vacated the appointment of Chief of the General Staff in 1906, had
prepared this plan. He maintained that if the advance of a strong right
wing, marching on Paris through Belgium, were firmly persisted in, it
would draw the bulk of the French forces away from their eastern
fortress positions to the neighbourhood of Paris, and that there the
decisive battle would be fought. His successor, von Moltke, believed
that the French, on the outbreak of war, would at once deliver a strong
offensive in Lorraine and so would themselves come into the open, away
from the bastion of the eastern fortresses. He must be prepared, he
thought, to fight the decisive battle either on his left wing in
Lorraine, or on his right wing near Paris, or, in short, at any point
that the initial operations of the French should determine. This was not
the conception of Count von Schlieffen, who had intended to impose his
will on the campaign and to make the enemy conform to his movements.
When he was on his death-bed in 1913, his thoughts were fixed on the
war. 'It must come to a fight,' were the last words he was heard to
mutter, 'only give me a strong right wing.' Von Moltke, though he did
not absolutely weaken the right wing, weakened it relatively, by using
most of the newly formed divisions of the German army for strengthening
the left wing.

The French, when the war came, delivered their offensive in Alsace and
Lorraine as had been expected, but not in the strength that had been
expected. They were held up, and retired, not without loss, to strong
defensive positions covering Épinal and Nancy. Meantime, the advance of
the German armies through Belgium was met by a French offensive in the
Ardennes, which also failed, whereupon General Joffre ordered a retreat
on the whole front, and began to move some of his forces westward, to
prepare for the battle in front of Paris.

The successes won by the German left wing and centre against a yielding
and retreating enemy were mistaken by the German high command for
decisive actions, which they were not. The French armies which had been
driven back on the Lorraine front rapidly recovered, and on the 25th of
August delivered a brilliant counter-offensive, inflicting heavy losses
on the Germans, and in effect upsetting all the German plans. The
indecision which marked the movements of the German right wing through
northern France had its origin in von Moltke's modifications of von
Schlieffen's plans and in the readiness of the Germans to believe that
the war was virtually won.[4]

    [Footnote 4: This brief summary is based on two admirable articles
    in _The Army Quarterly_ for April and July 1921, compiled by the
    Historical Section (Military Branch) of the Committee of Imperial
    Defence.]

The heroic stand made by the Belgians at Liége purchased invaluable time
for the preparations of the Allies. When, on the 17th of August, the
last fort of Liége fell, the great wheel of the German northern armies
began to revolve. Its pace was to be regulated by the pace of the armies
nearest to its circumference; that is to say, the First Army, under von
Kluck, and the Second Army, under von Bülow. Three divisions of cavalry
were to advance against the line Antwerp-Brussels-Charleroi, moving
westward across Belgium in order to discover whether a Belgian army was
still in being, whether the British had landed any troops, and whether
French forces were moving up into northern Belgium. The Belgian army
retired within the defensive lines of Antwerp, and by the 20th of August
Brussels was in the hands of the enemy. By the 22nd, von Bülow's army
had entered Charleroi and was crossing the Sambre. The repulse of the
French centre in the Ardennes left the British army and the French Fifth
Army completely isolated on the front Mons-Charleroi. The French Fifth
Army began to retreat. On Sunday morning, the 23rd of August, von
Kluck's army came into action against the British position at Mons.

The British army had taken up its position in high hopes. It was not a
British defeat which began the retreat from Mons, and the troops were
not well pleased when they were ordered to retire. But the retreat was
inevitable, and the most that the British could do was by rearguard
actions to put a brake upon the speed of the advancing enemy until such
time as they should be able to form up again in the Allied line and
assail him. Much depended on their power to gain information concerning
the movements of the enemy, so that they might know their own dangers
and opportunities. Von Kluck had at first no definite news of the
whereabouts of the British army. As late as the 20th of August the
German Supreme Command had issued a communication to the German armies
stating that 'a disembarkation of British Forces at Boulogne and their
employment from the direction of Lille must be taken into account. It is
the opinion here, however, that a landing on a big scale has not yet
taken place.' General von Zwehl, Commander of the Seventh Reserve Corps,
writing in September 1919, tells how the Germans had no reliable
information concerning the British expeditionary force. 'It was only on
the 22nd of August,' he says, 'that an English cavalry squadron was
heard of at Casteau, six miles north-east of Mons, and an aeroplane of
the English fifth flying squadron was shot down that had gone up from
Maubeuge. The presence of the English in front was thus established,
although nothing as regards their strength.' The first news that reached
General von Kluck of the presence of the British forces came to him from
a British, not from a German, aeroplane.

[Illustration: Map Illustrating Aerial Reconnaissance Area. 19th to 24th
Aug. 1914]

The first aerial reconnaissances by the Royal Flying Corps were carried
out on Wednesday, the 19th of August, by Captain P. B. Joubert de la
Ferté of No. 3 Squadron, in a Blériot, and Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck
of No. 4 Squadron, in a B.E. They started at 9.30 a.m., and flew without
observers. Captain Joubert de la Ferté was to reconnoitre
Nivelles-Genappe in order to report what Belgian forces were in that
neighbourhood; Lieutenant Mapplebeck was to find out whether enemy
cavalry were still in force in the neighbourhood of Gembloux. The
machines were to fly together as far as Nivelles, 'so that if one was
obliged to descend the other could report its whereabouts'. The machines
lost their way and lost each other. Lieutenant Mapplebeck eventually
found himself over a large town which he failed to recognize as
Brussels. Later he picked up his position at Ottignies, and soon found
Gembloux, where he could see only a small body of cavalry moving in a
south-easterly direction. After leaving Gembloux he was enveloped in
cloud for some miles, came down to 300 feet over Namur, followed the
Sambre, missed Maubeuge, and landed near Le Cateau, whence he flew back
to the aerodrome at Maubeuge. He had been away from 9.30 a.m. to 12.0
midday. Captain Joubert de la Ferté, whose machine was slower than
Lieutenant Mapplebeck's, attempted to steer by compass through the banks
of cloud, and after two hours of wandering landed at Tournai. He made
inquiries concerning the Belgian army, but nothing was known of them. He
left Tournai at 12.15 p.m., lost his way again, and at 2.0 p.m. landed
at Courtrai. Here he was told by the gendarmerie that the headquarters
of the Belgian flying corps was at Louvain. He left Courtrai at 3.0 p.m.
and passed over Ath, Hal, Braine l'Alleud, Nivelles, returning to
Maubeuge at 5.30 p.m. He reported occasional trains in the main stations
and pickets on the roads to Brussels.

On the 20th Major C. A. H. Longcroft, with Captain U. J. D. Bourke as
observer, reconnoitred as far as Louvain and reported a force of all
arms moving south-west through Tervueren, and another force moving into
Wavre. They also saw an aerodrome just east of Louvain with seven
machines on the ground. Lieutenant E. R. L. Corballis, who, with Captain
G. E. Todd, flew over the area Nivelles-Hal-Enghien, reported that there
was no sign of troops and that all bridges in the area appeared to be
intact. The German flood was spreading but was still some distance away.
On the following day (an important day of enemy movements) the weather
in the morning was too foggy for observation, and in the afternoon was
rainy and misty. Three reconnaissances which were made in the afternoon
showed that the country immediately in front of the British was very
quiet, but in the wood one mile south of Nivelles Lieutenant Corballis
reported a large body of cavalry with some guns and infantry (this was
later identified as the German 9th Cavalry Division), and another body
of infantry moving south on Charleroi. At Pont-à-Celles on the Charleroi
canal, south of Nivelles, three villages were seen to be burning.

On the 22nd there were twelve reconnaissances which revealed the
presence of large bodies of troops moving in the direction of the
British front, and did much to dissipate the fog of war. The first
machine to return came in soon after eleven. This was piloted by Captain
G. S. Shephard, with Lieutenant I. M. Bonham-Carter as observer. They
had landed at Beaumont (about twelve miles east of Maubeuge) for petrol.
Here they were informed that French cavalry had encountered German
infantry north of the Sambre canal on the previous afternoon, and had
had to fall back. The next machine to return came in at 11.50 a.m. with
a wounded observer, Sergeant-Major D. S. Jillings of No. 2 Squadron. He
was the first British soldier to be wounded in an aeroplane, and this
casualty seemed to bring the German armies nearer than a dozen
unmolested reconnaissances could have done. The machine, piloted by
Lieutenant M. W. Noel, had come under heavy rifle fire first of all at
Ollignies, south-east of Lessines, and then, after passing over a
cavalry regiment just south-west of Ghislenghien, had been met with
rifle and machine-gun fire. Frequent rifle fire was encountered all the
way back to Ath, and just south-east of Ath, over Maffle, Sergeant-Major
Jillings had been wounded in the leg by a rifle bullet. Confirmation of
the presence of large bodies of enemy in this area came from Captain L.
E. O. Charlton flying as observer with Second Lieutenant V. H. N.
Wadham. They started at 10.0 a.m. and passed over Charleroi, Gembloux,
and Brussels without seeing any large movements, but reported that the
northern part of Charleroi and many other towns and villages in that
area were burning. From Brussels they went on towards Grammont, and
landed at Moerbeke, two miles south-east of Grammont, to make inquiries.
Here they received information which hastened their departure. They
learnt that a force of 5,000 Germans was in Grammont, that cavalry and
cyclists were in Lessines, and that cavalry were expected from Enghien
to arrive in Ath that evening. When passing over Bassilly, about
half-way between Ath and Enghien, they were fired on by enemy troops
which they estimated at the strength of an infantry brigade, and they
drew further fire from patrols in Ath. They came in with their
information at 1.10 p.m.; Lieutenant W. H. C. Mansfield just before this
had reported large bodies moving into Enghien and Soignies. Afternoon
reconnaissances added little that was new except that there were cavalry
and infantry in the area north of the Mons-Condé canal, and cavalry as
far west as Peruwelz.

[Illustration: Reconnaissance Report of Lieutenant C. G. G. Bayly.

_To face page 303._]

The most important reconnaissance of the day is unfortunately not
recorded in the war diary. The value of the report when it came in was
recognized at once, and Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson took it
personally to General Headquarters. It stated that a long column, whose
strength was estimated to be that of an army corps, was moving westward
on the Brussels-Ninove road. At Ninove the column continued south-west
towards Grammont. This was von Kluck's Second Corps, and the report
seemed to show an attempt at an enveloping movement. The same report
confirmed what had already been seen, the presence of enemy troops
moving along the great Chaussée on Soignies. This column was taking
advantage of the trees on either side of the road to shield its
movements. This was the first day on which a machine failed to return
from over enemy territory. Lieutenants V. Waterfall and C. G. G. Bayly,
of No. 5 Squadron, started on a reconnaissance in an Avro at 10.16 a.m.
and next day were reported missing. It was the bringing down of this
machine, no doubt, which gave the Germans their first assurance of the
presence of the British forces. The observer's report, so far as he had
written it, was picked up near the wreckage of the machine by some
Belgian peasants, and eventually found its way to the War Office in
London.

Sir John French on the evening of the 22nd held a conference at Le
Cateau, whereat the position of the Germans, so far as it was then
known, was explained and discussed. At the close of the conference Sir
John stated that owing to the retreat of the French Fifth Army, the
British offensive would not take place. A request from General Lanrezac
arrived at 11.0 p.m., asking for offensive action against the German
right flank, which was pressing him back from the Sambre. This could not
be undertaken, but Sir John French promised to remain in his position
for twenty-four hours.

In his book, _A Staff Officer's Scrap Book_, Sir Ian Hamilton, who was
attached to the Japanese army during the Russo-Japanese War, has the
following entry: 'The Russians are sending up balloons to our front, and
in front of the Twelfth Division. Judging by manoeuvres and South
African experiences, they should now obtain a lot of misleading
intelligence.' Observation from the air, when the war broke out, had
still to prove its worth. The Royal Flying Corps, though confident of
its own ability, was a new and untried arm. In the early reports there
are occasional inaccuracies. Some of the early observers, among those
who were hastily enrolled to bring newly formed squadrons up to
strength, had not much military knowledge, and were not practised in
reading the appearances of things seen from the air. At the time of the
battles of Ypres, 1914, observers of No. 6 Squadron, which had prepared
itself in hot haste for foreign service, mistook long patches of tar on
macadamized roads for troops on the move, and the shadows cast by the
gravestones in a churchyard for a military bivouac. Mistakes like these,
though they were not very many, naturally made commanding officers shy
of trusting implicitly to reports from the air. Yet the early reports of
the first four squadrons did show without any possibility of mistake how
formidable the German movements were.

Sir John French remained at Mons and was led into fighting a battle in a
perilous position against much superior forces. The air reports of the
22nd had given some hints of the success of von Bülow's army in crossing
the Sambre, had indicated a possible enveloping movement from the
direction of Grammont, and had revealed something of the strength of the
enemy troops on the British front. On the following day the attack began
on the position at Mons, and pilots and observers were flying over and
behind the battle-field looking for enemy movements, and locating enemy
batteries.

On the 24th the retreat was in progress. As early as the morning of the
23rd the Royal Flying Corps had begun to shift its quarters from
Maubeuge to Le Cateau. The transport and machines of No. 3 Squadron
moved southward on that day, and on the 24th headquarters and other
squadrons also moved to Le Cateau. 'We slept,' says Major Maurice
Baring, 'and when I say we I mean dozens of pilots, fully dressed in a
barn, on the top of, and underneath, an enormous load of straw....
Everybody was quite cheerful, especially the pilots.' On the afternoon
of the 25th they moved again to St.-Quentin. The rapidity of the retreat
put a heavy strain upon the headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps,
which had to travel before the retreating army, to select an old
aerodrome or to make a new one almost every day, and in the brief hours
between arrival and departure to carry on all the complicated and
delicate business of ministering to the needs of the squadrons. The
places occupied by headquarters during the retreat were as follows:

  Sunday, 16th    August          Maubeuge.
  Monday, 24th    August          Le Cateau.
  Tuesday, 25th   August          St.-Quentin.
  Wednesday, 26th August          La Fère.
  Friday, 28th    August          Compiègne.
  Sunday, 30th    August          Senlis.
  Monday, 31st    August          Juilly.
  Wednesday, 2nd  September       Serris.
  Thursday, 3rd   September       Touquin.
  Friday, 4th     September       Melun.

[Illustration: Movements of the Royal Flying Corps from Aug. 16th to
Oct. 12th 1914.]

In some of these places regular aerodromes were available, in others a
landing-ground had to be improvised. Sometimes officers of headquarters
would be sent on a long way ahead in motor-cars to select a
landing-ground, while another officer in a motor-car was detailed to
guide the transport. This he did by taking with him a small number of
men and dropping them one by one at the partings of the ways. When the
route was very complicated, these guides became so many that they had to
be carried in a transport lorry. The transport drivers were not as yet
skilled in the art of map-reading, and to lose the transport would have
left the Flying Corps helpless. Sometimes the officers who selected
the landing-ground moved with the transport, and made their choice when
the transport reached its destination. The only recognized French
aerodromes which were used by the Royal Flying Corps during the retreat
were those at Compiègne, Senlis, and Melun.

Whilst the aerodromes were changing almost daily, the officers carried
on reconnaissance, sometimes starting out not knowing whether their
aerodrome would be in British or enemy hands by the time they should
return. On the 24th, whilst the squadrons were moving from Maubeuge to
Le Cateau, the enemy advance as seen from the air looked menacing
enough. Captain G. S. Shephard and Lieutenant I. M. Bonham-Carter were
watching von Kluck's right wing soon after 4.0 a.m. They returned at six
o'clock with news of extensive movement about Ath and Leuze. They
reported a broken column nearly ten miles long with its head pointing at
Peruwelz. The column branched off the main Ath-Tournai road at Leuze.
This was part of von Kluck's Second Corps, and its line of march would
take it to the west of the extreme western flank of the British army.
The news was not reassuring. Captain H. C. Jackson as observer with
Lieutenant E. L. Conran went up at 8.30 a.m. and came back at 12.30 p.m.
with information of long enemy columns moving from Grammont through
Lessines into La Hamaide and further troops on the Ath-Leuze road. They
had flown as far as Ninove and Alost, but found the country there clear.
On returning over Lessines at 11.30 a.m. they saw three German
aeroplanes on the ground; they dropped a bomb overboard, but missed.

In the evening of the 24th, the first day of the retreat, the position
was on the whole not unsatisfactory. The British Fifth Division had not
only defended six miles of front, but with the aid of the cavalry and
the 19th Infantry Brigade had met and beaten off von Kluck's enveloping
attack. But that attack was soon renewed. On the following morning a
heavy movement of German troops southward from Marchiennes, with
cavalry, guns, and transport, was reported at six o'clock. Marchiennes
is almost midway between Valenciennes and Douai, to the west of the
British line of retreat. This moving line of troops continued southward
through Somain for a distance of about five miles, and then bent in a
south-easterly direction, pointing straight at Le Cateau, until it
reached Bouchain, where there were mounted and dismounted troops
extending over three miles. But Le Cateau was not the objective of these
troops. General von Kluck believed that the next stand of the British
army, after Mons, would be made on a position running east and west
through Bavai, and resting its right on the fortress of Maubeuge. The
troops seen at Bouchain were intended to envelop it and take it in the
rear. Meantime the British army, having escaped the lure of Maubeuge,
was continuing its painful march southward on both sides of the Forest
of Mormal; and the claw that was extended to catch it closed upon air.

[Illustration: Map Illustrating Aerial Reconnaissance Area.
25th & 26th August 1914.]

These movements of von Kluck's army on the 25th were influenced by
his own air reports, which appear to have misled him. The army order
issued by him from Soignies at 8.30 p.m. on the night of the 24th
assumed that the British army would accept battle on the line
Maubeuge-Bavai-Valenciennes. Von Kluck was very hopeful. 'The
outflanking of the left of the British Army,' he says, 'on the
assumption that it remained in position, appeared to be guaranteed.'
An important air report which reached him at 1.0 a.m. on the 25th
led him to suspect that the British were withdrawing on Maubeuge.
Speaking of this report, he says: 'Enemy columns of all arms were in
retreat on the roads Bellignies-Bavai, La Flamengrie-Bavai, and
Gommegnies-Bavai. The direction in which the movement was being made
beyond Bavai had not yet been determined; nevertheless, the army
commander began to suspect that the British were withdrawing on
Maubeuge.' He sent out orders in great haste by motor-car for the
army to advance in a more southerly direction. At 9.0 a.m. however,
a new air report came as a surprise. Long British columns of all
arms were moving from Bavai along the Roman road to Le Cateau, and
numerous small columns, single companies, batteries, squadrons, and
cars were crossing the Selle, north and south of Solesmes. 'The
enemy was marching in an almost opposite direction to what was
supposed earlier in the morning.' A fresh order was at once sent out
to attack the British and bring them to a standstill. Von Kluck does
not quote these air reports. But he says enough to show that he was
misled chiefly by his own preconceptions. Hope told a flattering
tale, and he seems to have been possessed by the idea that the
British army would be tempted into the fortress of Maubeuge.

The whole body of information which on any one day was obtained from the
reconnaissances of the Royal Flying Corps could be set out in detail
only by quoting all the reports in full. That would be too cumbrous a
method of writing history. The reports contain much that is
comparatively insignificant. But the reader of this book may desire to
know exactly what an air report is like, and his curiosity shall be
gratified. Here is the report, of no special tactical significance, but
full of incident, of a long air reconnaissance made by Lieutenant G. F.
Pretyman and Major L. B. Boyd-Moss in a machine of No. 3 Squadron, on
the day of the battle of Le Cateau:

  _No. of Reconnaissance_: 57. _Hour Started_: 11.10 a.m.
  _Date_: 26.8.1914.           _Hour Ended_: 1.40 p.m.
  _Aeroplane No._: 387.        _Pilot_: Lieutenant G. F. Pretyman.
                               _Observer_: Major L. B. Boyd-Moss.

  _Time._    _Place._       _Observation._

  11.50      Honnechy.      Gun-fire and shells bursting all along
                            the line from Honnechy towards
                            Cambrai. Caudry partly in flames.

  11.52      Le Cateau.     Burning. Howitzers open fire on us.
                            Artillery moving through village
                            of Ors. Several motor-cars moving
                            south through Croix.

  11.55     Forêt de        Big column of troops moving along
             Mormal.        the road running along western
                            edge of the forest. Head at Englefontaine--Rear
                            at point where the
                            branch road leads off to Gommegnies.
                            Artillery moving through
                            centre of forest towards Landrecies.

  12.0     Le Quesnoy.      Full of troops.

  12.5     Bavai.           Scattered parties of troops and
                            wagons on all roads leading N.
                            No big columns.

  12.15    Blaugies.        Blocked with transport. Dropped
                            bomb into transport parked 1/2 mile
                            S. of village. Transport stretching
                            along the road from Dour
                            to Houdain (not closed up--big
                            intervals).

  12.40    Wargnies.        Can make very little progress against
                            wind.

  12.50    Saultain.        Transport from Saultain to Preseau
                            moving south.

  12.59    Valenciennes.    All roads leading E.-N.E. and S.E.
                            clear.

  1.5      Valenciennes.    No troops _visible_ in town.

  1.6                       Landing-cross and two aeroplanes
                            close to Valenciennes-Cambrai
                            road 1-1/2 miles from Valenciennes.
                            Aircraft gun fires on us from landing-place.
                            Mechanical transport halted on road. Squadron
                            of cavalry in bivouac.

  1.15                      In clouds--making very little progress.

  1.30 N. of Cambrai.       Descend to 3,000 out of clouds. Troops marching
                            S.W. down main road.

  1.35                      Cambrai in flames and occupied by Germans.

  1.40 W. of Cambrai.       Under heavy infantry fire. Engine put out of
                            action by bullet. Glide two miles farther W.
                            clear of enemy, and land. Burn machine and join
                            French Cavalry retreating towards Arras.
                            Commandeer two bicycles and go to Gouzeaucourt
                            where we get car and report to H.Q. 12th
                            Brigade near Le Catelet.

                            Get back to St. Quentin about 11.30 p.m. and
                            report to General Smith-Dorrien.

                         (_Signed_) L. B. BOYD-MOSS, Major.

The machine, it will be seen, dropped a bomb on a park of transport
vehicles, was fired at by howitzers, and was brought down by heavy
infantry fire. A more dreaded enemy here makes an early appearance--the
prevailing westerly wind. This wind was the heaviest trial for pilots
during years on the western front; it made it easy to get at the enemy
and difficult to get away from him; the road to safety always, while the
west wind was blowing, lay uphill.

On this same day--the day of the battle of Le Cateau--the First Army
Corps under Sir Douglas Haig was delayed, and failed to reach its
appointed position in touch with the Second Army Corps. Lieutenant A. E.
Borton and Lieutenant F. G. Small were dispatched from headquarters in a
machine of No. 5 Squadron to 'find Sir Douglas Haig'. With them went
Lieutenant D. S. Lewis in a B.E. machine fitted with wireless apparatus.
He was to report by wireless when Sir Douglas Haig was found.
Lieutenants Borton and Small in their Henri Farman, being unable to find
a suitable landing-ground in the rear of the First Army Corps, landed
between the firing lines in a field protected by a rise in the ground
from the direct fire of the enemy. With the aid of a cavalry patrol they
succeeded in delivering their message to Sir Douglas Haig, after which
they returned to their machine, started up the engine, and flew away in
the presence of two Uhlans, who had just ridden into the field.
Meantime, Lieutenant Lewis, to whom they were unable to signal, lost
touch with them; he circled in the air for an hour under fire, and
returned with one shell splinter and four bullet-holes in his machine,
and with one of his hands grazed by a bullet. Captain L. E. O. Charlton
was also sent at 11.30 a.m. to report to General Smith-Dorrien at
Bertry. 'I found him', he says, 'in considerable anxiety as to his left
about Haucourt and Selvigny. Having been on that flank at 9.30 a.m., I
was able to reassure him as to its safety, and made another ascent to
confirm my previous reconnaissance. During the reconnaissance I was able
to report that the enemy had made no progress, though their shell-fire
had increased. I was sent up again to examine the right about Le Cateau,
and on reporting at 2.45 p.m. the General told me that the Fifth
Division had been unable to withstand a most determined artillery
attack, and had come back. He added that he had no doubt he would
succeed in getting them back somehow, and requested me to inform Sir
Archibald Murray. I left at 3.0 p.m. and reported to General
Headquarters as ordered.'

General Smith-Dorrien did succeed in getting them back. The stand made
at Le Cateau was a great fight against odds; and the part played in the
battle by the Royal Flying Corps seems a little thing when it is
compared with the gallant resistance of the infantry. But British
machines were flying over the enemy, under fire, within full view of the
British army, and some British officers who took part in the battle have
described how the sight of our aeroplanes above them raised the spirits
of the troops and gave them a feeling of security.

Copies of the original reports made out by observers before and during
the retreat from Mons are preserved in the war diary of headquarters,
Royal Flying Corps. It is not possible to say when each of these reports
reached General Headquarters; they were sent in as soon as possible
after the machines landed--some of them at once by telephone. When the
reports are systematically mapped out, day by day, they give a fairly
accurate picture of the German advance and throw light on the German
plans. General von Kluck speaks more than once of driving the British
army before him, but the complete map of the German movements, as they
were reported day by day from the air, shows that his predominant idea
was to envelop them. Always the crab-like claw is seen extended to the
west and beginning to close in on the line of the British retreat;
always the British army is already at a point farther south on the line,
out of the reach of the claw. When with swollen and blistered feet and
half asleep on the march, the patient British soldier carried on, he was
doing more to defeat the Germans than he could have done if his dearest
wish had been granted and he had been allowed to make a desperate stand.
It is a wonderful army that can suffer the long depression and fatigue
of such a retreat and yet keep its fighting quality unimpaired.

Von Kluck's advance after the battle of Le Cateau was directed to the
south-west. Speaking of the situation on the 28th. of August, he says,
'The occupation of the Somme area marked the conclusion of the fighting
with the British Army for the time being. In spite of the great efforts
of the First Army the British had escaped the repeated attempts to
envelop them. They continued their retreat southwards.' On the same day
the headquarters of the German army propounded a new task. 'The left
wing of the main French forces', they wrote, 'is retreating in a
southerly and south-westerly direction in front of the victorious Second
and Third Armies. It appears to be of decisive importance to find the
flank of this force, whether retreating or in position, force it away
from Paris, and outflank it. Compared with this new objective the
attempt to force the British Army away from the coast is of minor
importance.'

The German Supreme Command were giving most of their attention to the
operations on their left wing, where the Fifth and Sixth German Armies
were converging for the attack on Nancy, which town, when it fell, was
to witness the triumphal entry of the German Emperor. Meantime, the
French, trusting to the strength of their eastern fortifications, were
rapidly taking troops away from their eastern armies to form a new
French army, the Sixth, which was to operate to the north of Paris and
was to take part in the counter-offensive against the German First and
Second Armies. This was unknown to the German Command, who thought that
victory lay within the grasp of their eastern armies.

On the evening of the 30th of August General von Kluck received wireless
messages from the headquarters of the Second Army reporting a decisive
victory, and asking the First Army to wheel inwards towards the line La
Fere-Laon in order to gain the full advantages of the victory. General
von Kluck replied that the First Army had wheeled round towards the
Oise and would advance on the 31st by Compiègne and Noyon to exploit the
success of the Second Army. This was the much-discussed wheeling
movement, or swerve, which was discovered by the British from the air.
Von Kluck had been ordered by the German Supreme Command on the 28th to
continue his march towards the Lower Seine. Now, in response to von
Bülow's request, he wheeled his army south-eastwards towards the Oise.
The German Supreme Command was informed of this, and replied, 'The
movement begun by the First Army is in accordance with the wishes of the
Supreme Command'. The Royal Flying Corps reports of the 31st of August
gave to the British Command the first intimation of what was happening.
Here is one of them:

  _Date_: 31.8.1914.           _Pilot_: Lieutenant A. E. Borton.
                               _Observer_: Captain E. W. Furse.

  _Hour at which reconnaissance commenced_: 9.20 a.m.

  _Time._  _Place._          _Observation._

  9.55   Villeneuve.         Motor T.

  9.58   E. Roberval.        "

  10.2   At Station N. of    Motor T. halted clear of road.
         Verberie.

  10.6   La Croix.           Cavalry and transport much opened
                             out, head La Croix.

  10.13  Compiègne.          Clear.

  10:20  Chevincourt.        Cavalry about 1 Bde. moving towards
                             Thourotte. Head near that
                             place. More cavalry and guns
                             following across fields. Bivouac at
                             Chevincourt. Transport coming
                             in from Marest road 10.25.

  10.26  Mareuil.            Cavalry column still continues--opened
                             out--new column trotting S.

  10.27  Lassigny.           Artillery just S. of town moving
                             south. Column ended just S. of
                             Lassigny (1/2 mile). Another column,
                             tail Lassigny, was moving towards Thiescourt.
                             Also mounted troops. About one mile N. of
                             Lassigny mounted troops in bivouac
                             and on road from Roye, stretching
                             right up to Roye. Columns included
                             guns and motor transport.
                             Parked transport just N. of Roye.

  10.50  Roye.               Three Batteries halted in field 1-1/2 m.
                             S.E. of Roye. Besides the column
                             stretching south to Lassigny,
                             there was another column stretching
                             S.E. on Noyon road. German
                             aeroplane on ground S. of Roye.

  10.55  Conchy.             Infantry and guns moving due east
                             through Conchy.
         Orvillers.          Few troops in village.

  11.0   Ressons.            Went up road east of railway. This
                             was clear.

  11.3  Margny.              Squadrons moving S.E.

  11.7  Compiègne road       Troop car moving towards Compiègne.
        2-1/2 miles S.E. of
        Cuvilly.

        Estrées-St.-Denis.   Squadrons at intervals down this
                             road from Roye. Just S. of
                             Estrées a Bde. of Cav. and one
                             battery halted clear of road.

        Bazicourt.           Cav. Inf. and Transport seen.
                             Squadron Cav. moving N. out of
                             Bazicourt. Inf.--much opened
                             out--moving east into Bazicourt
                             from Rosoy. Inf. looked in dark
                             uniform. Transport--some halted
                             and some moving south.

  11.25  Sarron.             2 Regts. Cav. moving east from
                             Brenouille.

  11.27 Pont-St.-Maxence.    Motor Transport. Some halted.
                             Some going south.

                             No bridges over Oise appeared
                             to be destroyed. Some barges
                             might have been sunk in stream at
                             Compiègne.

                         (_Signed_) E. W. FURSE.

[Illustration: Map Illustrating Aerial Reconnaissance Area.
August 31st 1914.]

It will be seen that Captain E. W. Furse, when he picked up the enemy,
first observed Marwitz's cavalry corps which crossed the Oise at
Thourotte on the morning of the 31st. He then saw part of the German
Third Corps, which, after spending the night in Roye, moved on the 31st
through Lassigny, crossed the Oise at Ribecourt, and in the evening
reached Attichy on the Aisne. The remainder of the Third Corps moved on
Noyon and at night reached Vic on the Aisne. These movements on Noyon
and Ribecourt differed in direction from the previous movements of the
German left wing.

The reports supplement and confirm one another. Captain D. Le G.
Pitcher, of No. 4 Squadron, had gone up with Captain A. H. L. Soames
soon after 7.0 a.m., and had returned at 8.40 a.m. with the news of a
column stretching from Roye to Chevincourt. This information was at once
telephoned from the aerodrome at Senlis to General Headquarters. The
movements of some of the other formations of the German First Army were
also seen to have changed direction. Lieutenant C. G. Hosking and
Lieutenant K. P. Atkinson on a B.E. of No. 4 Squadron flew over Roye and
Lassigny, confirming the report of movements in that area. Then turning
west they passed over various columns moving in a southerly direction
until they reached the road that follows along the east bank of the
river Avre from Amiens through Montdidier, and here they found part of
the German Second Corps. The head of the main body was in Montdidier at
2.0 p.m., and its tail was in La Neuville. Flying south along the road
they found the advanced guard of the column at Le Ployron.

All these air reports left little doubt as to the enemy's movements, and
the operation orders sent out by General Headquarters from
Dammartin-en-Goële at 8.50 p.m. on the 31st of August gave the
information that the enemy appeared to have completed his westerly
movement, and that large columns were advancing in a general southerly
or south-easterly direction on Noyon-Compiègne. Sir John French directed
that the retirement should be continued on the following day in a
south-westerly direction.

Air reconnaissances of the 1st of September, whilst confirming the news
of von Kluck's wheel in a south-easterly direction, also reported heavy
columns as having reached Villers-Cotterets and Crépy-en-Valois. To
withdraw the British out of reach of a night attack Sir John French
decided to continue the retreat earlier than he had intended. The corps
commanders were ordered to get clear by a night march. We know now from
von Kluck's own statement that, perturbed at leaving the British army on
his flank, he determined to make another effort to catch them up. He
therefore ordered his corps to turn south to settle with the British. So
on the 1st of September he was again in pursuit of the British, but the
British were slipping from his grasp. There was fighting on this day,
which held up the pursuit, and by the evening the German army had made
an average advance of no more than ten miles.

Von Kluck persisted on the following day, but in vain. The British
escaped towards the Marne. 'A chance of dealing a decisive blow', he
says, 'against the British Army was now no longer to be hoped for,
and it was therefore decided to move the two Corps on the left wing,
the Third and Ninth, in the general direction of Château-Thierry
against the flank of the French retreating from Braisne-Fismes on
Château-Thierry-Dormans in front of the Second Army.'

[Illustration: Map Illustrating Aerial Reconnaissance Area.
2nd to 9th Sept. 1914.]

The air reports which came in on the 3rd of September showed much of
this further change of plan. Long columns were seen marching almost due
east towards the Ourcq and later in the day other columns were nearing
the Marne. Some had already crossed the Marne at Château-Thierry, whilst
others were making for crossings west of that town. At 4.35 p.m. General
Headquarters sent out the following telegram:

'Present information leads to the belief that the enemy is moving from
west to east and that no immediate attack is intended. Unless the
situation again changes troops will remain in their present billets. The
Commander-in-Chief is most anxious that the Army should have a complete
rest to-morrow. No digging or other operations except those necessary
for protection will be undertaken unless special orders are issued.'

Pilots who went out soon after dawn on the morning of the 4th found a
thick mist over the river Marne extending to the depth of a mile on
either bank, but various columns were seen stirring out of bivouacs on
the north of the river and there were other movements well to the south
of the river. At 12.20 p.m. Lieutenant R. P. Mills saw movements between
Bellot and Rebais and artillery in action on the high ground one mile
south-east of Bellot. In the afternoon there came fuller reports of
movements towards the Petit Morin. The situation as traced at Royal
Flying Corps headquarters on the night of the 4th from observations made
during the day is very accurate. It shows that the German Ninth Corps,
which had secured the crossings at Château-Thierry on the previous
evening, had progressed to near Montmirail; that the Third and Fourth
Corps had got well clear of the Marne and were about and across the
Petit Morin; and that the Second Corps and Marwitz's cavalry were held
up at the Marne east of Meaux.

Von Kluck had marched into a bag between the Fifth French Army on the
Marne and the newly formed Sixth French Army advancing to the Ourcq.
Just at this time the German Supreme Command seems to have become aware
of the danger threatening the German armies on the right wing. On the
night of the 4th of September orders had been sent out from German First
Army headquarters at La Ferté Milon, detailing the movements to be made
on the following day. These movements had already begun when at 7.15
a.m. on the 5th fresh instructions arrived from the Supreme Command
ordering the First and Second Armies to remain facing the eastern front
of Paris; the First Army between the Oise and the Marne, occupying the
Marne crossings west of Château-Thierry, and the Second Army between the
Marne and the Seine, occupying the Seine crossings from Nogent to Méry.
This led, says von Kluck, to 'the difficult backwards wheel' of the
First Army, and to what he calls 'the important events that occurred
during the second week of September'--events known to history as the
battle of the Marne. Von Kluck allowed the original movements ordered
for the 5th to be carried out, and, he says, 'the conclusion of this
advance marked the culminating point of the operations of the First
Army'. On this same day General Joffre told Sir John French that he
intended to take the offensive forthwith as the conditions seemed
favourable, and on the morning of the 6th this offensive opened.

The main work of the Royal Flying Corps throughout the days of the
retreat was reconnaissance, and enough has been said of their reports to
show that Sir John French was well served by his new arm. He had been
warned before the battle of Mons, not only of the heavy movement on his
front but of the enveloping attempt on his flank, and throughout the
retreat he was punctually informed of von Kluck's enveloping efforts.
The change of direction made on the 31st of August was immediately seen
and reported. Von Kluck's renewed pursuit of the British on the two
following days did not escape observation. Finally, the German swerve to
the left on the 3rd of September was closely followed from the air.
These are the main conclusions that come from a study of the air reports
of those days. General Headquarters were perhaps at first a little shy
of trusting the air reports, but they realized their value during the
retreat, and paid more and more attention to them--an attention which
found practical results in the operation orders issued. The Royal Flying
Corps played their part in helping the British army to escape. Further,
they were making themselves, and were improving in skill every day. The
lessons learned on the retreat from Mons bore their full fruit at a
later period, when the officers of the original squadrons held the
command of those Flying Corps units which operated in the mobile
campaigns of distant theatres of the war.

Their work during the retreat was done under difficulties. There were
alarms at Compiègne of Uhlans seen in the vicinity of the aerodrome, and
a guard was provided from the Camerons. Major B. H. Barrington-Kennett
remarks on the difficulty of defending a Flying Corps camp from attack
by cavalry. It would seem advisable, he says, when camped in an open
aerodrome to park the aeroplanes inside a laager formed by lorries and
cars. The head-lights of the cars would lighten a good field of fire,
and would probably, if switched on at the approach of cavalry, cause the
horses to stampede. The Royal Flying Corps, he adds, should be armed and
practised with machine-guns and rifles, so that they may protect
themselves without asking for an escort.

At Juilly on the 1st of September there was another alarm. The country
to the north was thickly wooded, and German cavalry, which proved later
to be those escaped from the affair at Néry, were reported within a few
miles, with no British troops between. General Headquarters at
Dammartin-en-Goële, some two miles away, hastily took their departure,
and the Royal Flying Corps transport was sent off at once to Serris. But
the aeroplanes could not leave, for already it was dark. The suggestion
was made that the aeroplanes should fly off in the dark, but
fortunately, says Major C. J. Burke, this was not attempted. The Flying
Corps stood to arms to defend itself. A sunken road running east and
west past the aerodrome was occupied, rifles and ammunition were served
out to the mechanics, and machine-guns were set in position. After a
time a troop of North Irish Horse arrived, to aid in the defence. All
night watch was kept, but the German cavalry did not appear. In the
morning, for the first time since the beginning of the retreat, there
was no ground mist, and the machines got away at once.

The history of the retreat is made up of incidents like this. Some of
the flying officers have kindly communicated their memories and
impressions. 'The extraordinary part about the retreat', says Wing
Commander P. B. Joubert de la Ferté, 'was the contrasts that one
experienced from day to day; one night sleeping under a hedge in a
thunder-storm; the next in a comfortable private house; the third in the
most modern type of hotel with every luxury and convenience, the whole
forming a picture the impression of which has lasted throughout the
war.... One curious thing was, unless one was brought down or left
behind near the firing line one never came up against the actual
unpleasantnesses of war, and it was not until the advance to the Aisne
started that those of us who had not been on ground duty, or unlucky,
saw any signs of fighting other than from the air. What we saw during
the advance confirmed our impressions from the air as to the
unspeakableness of the Hun in his methods of dealing with the civilian
population. I saw half a dozen villages on fire during the first day of
the battle, twenty miles west of Mons, where by no possible means could
there have been any armed resistance to the passage of the Huns. It was
simply frightfulness on the part of the Uhlans, and what we saw later on
the ground at Pezarches, Coulommiers, and La Fère was a clear indication
of wilful and unnecessary destruction of private property. The sight of
a draper's shop with every window smashed, every shelf emptied, and the
contents thrown into the street was quite a common one.'

Major F. G. Small says, speaking of the 27th of August: 'The retreat
continued to Compiègne Forest, Huns pressing our troops all the while.
On returning from late reconnaissances in the dusk, it was most
interesting to watch the local fighting in the roads between their
vanguards and our rearguards. The spreading of fires all over the
country around Compiègne Forest was a more curious sight than even the
later trench offensive, the fires spreading like long flaming worms
along the main road, as the Huns fired each village they went through.
The northern portion of Compiègne Forest was blazing at this date.'

The speed of the retreat caused some embarrassments. On the 31st of
August, while the Flying Corps occupied Senlis racecourse, two officers,
belonging to Nos. 4 and 5 Squadrons, motored to Paris to get some
aircraft spares, and returning in the evening found the Germans in
occupation. In the dusk they were mistaken for German officers and drove
their car right up to the cottages which a few hours earlier had been
the headquarters of the Flying Corps. Aviation teaches quick resource;
the officers managed to escape.

The pilots were not down-hearted. At Compiègne, where they were billeted
in a school, Major Baring records that they were in tearing spirits.
Besides their main duty of observation from the air, they rendered other
occasional services. 'The usual orders on the retreat', says Wing
Commander L. A. Strange, 'were dawn reconnaissances, dropping
hand-grenades and petrol bombs on the enemy, and when it was impossible
to notify pilots of the next aerodrome, the orders were to fly
approximately twenty miles south and look out for the remainder of the
machines on the ground, if machines had left the last aerodromes.'

During the retreat the dropping of bombs was still in an early
experimental stage. There were some mildly successful exploits. About
dusk on the 1st of September an unnamed officer of the Flying Corps,
flying over the woods north of Villers-Cotterets, noticed two columns of
the enemy's cavalry converging at the angle of cross-roads. He dropped
two bombs, which caused confusion and a stampede. There was no
bomb-dropping gear in use at this time, but small hand-grenades were
carried in the pockets, and larger bombs were slung or tied about the
person. The first experience of German bombs was at Compiègne on the
29th of August; while the Flying Corps were stationed there a German
machine flew over the aerodrome and dropped three small bombs, which did
no harm. On our side there was no time during the retreat for experiment
with new devices; it was not until the Germans took up fixed positions
on the Aisne that the inventive powers of the Flying Corps got to work
on the devising of bombing gear, the improving of artillery observation,
and the mounting of machine-guns.

The retreat also witnessed the beginnings of fighting in the air. The
first German machine to be seen by the British appeared over the
aerodrome at Maubeuge on the 22nd of August. There are various accounts
of this. Major C. J. Burke in his diary says: 'At about 2.25 p.m. an
Albatross biplane passed over the town. Major Longcroft with Captain
Dawes as passenger, Lieutenant Dawes with Major Burke as passenger, on
B.E.'s, gave chase. The gun machine piloted by Lieutenant Strange also
went out. The machine (Albatross) had far too long a start, and got into
a rain cloud.' Wing Commander L. A. Strange says: 'Chased a German
Albatross machine for forty-five minutes, Lieutenant Penn-Gaskell
observer, with Lewis gun. Was unable to get higher than 3,500 feet,
while the Albatross was at about 5,000 feet. Observed no effect from the
fire. As a result of this received orders to discard Lewis gun and
mounting, and transfer the controls from rear seat to the front seat,
the passenger to carry rifle in the back seat.' Major J. T. B. McCudden
says: 'About the 22nd August a strange aeroplane flew over us at about
4,000 feet, and the aerodrome look-out reported it to be a German
machine, the first we had seen in the War. We all turned out armed with
rifles, and about six machines got ready to go up in pursuit.... All the
machines which went up were loaded with hand-grenades, as the intention
then was to bring a hostile aeroplane down by dropping bombs on it. The
German easily got away, although it looked at one time as if Captain
Longcroft would be able to intercept him on a B.E. 2 a. About half an
hour after the German had departed a Henri Farman of No. 5 Squadron,
fitted with a machine-gun, was still climbing steadily over the
aerodrome at about 1,000 feet in a strenuous endeavour to catch the
Boche.'

No. 5 Squadron from the first had been zealous in experimenting with
machine-guns. Experience of fighting in the air, which began with this
adventure, soon taught how enormous is the advantage, whether for attack
or escape, given by superiority in height.

It was not, however, until the 25th of August that an enemy machine was
brought down by a British aeroplane. Sir John French in his first
dispatch, dated the 7th of September 1914, alludes to the earliest
combats. His tribute must be quoted in full: 'I wish particularly to
bring to your Lordships' notice the admirable work done by the Royal
Flying Corps under Sir David Henderson. Their skill, energy, and
perseverance have been beyond all praise. They have furnished me with
the most complete and accurate information, which has been of
incalculable value in the conduct of operations. Fired at constantly
both by friend and foe, and not hesitating to fly in every kind of
weather, they have remained undaunted throughout. Further, by actually
fighting in the air, they have succeeded in destroying five of the
enemy's machines.'

Unfortunately during the retreat combat reports were not made out, so
that there is no account in the war diaries of the actual fighting. Some
of the fights are mentioned. On the 25th of August three machines of No.
2 Squadron chased an enemy monoplane. It was forced to land; Lieutenant
H. D. Harvey-Kelly and Lieutenant W. H. C. Mansfield landed near it and
continued the chase on foot, but the Germans escaped into a wood. When
some trophies had been taken from the machine it was burnt. Another
German machine was forced to descend on the same day near Le Quesnoy,
where it was captured. Aeroplanes at this time had no special armament;
officers carried revolvers and sometimes a carbine; but the confidence
and determination with which they attacked did the work of a
machine-gun, and brought the enemy down. In one instance, a little later
on, a British pilot and observer, who were destitute of ammunition,
succeeded by manoeuvring boldly above a German machine in bringing it to
the ground and taking it captive.

On the afternoon of the 5th of September neither the German Supreme
Command (which had its headquarters at Luxembourg) nor the staff of the
German First Army had any idea that an offensive of the whole French
army was imminent. The Supreme Command was expecting a decisive victory
in the east against the Verdun-Nancy-St.-Dié defences. They believed
that the German First and Second Armies could easily hold the weak
French forces around Paris until this decision should be achieved, and
they did not know how great a part of the French strength had been
transferred from the east to the west. From the 5th to the 9th of
September they issued no orders to their First and Second Armies, who
were left to fight out the decisive battle of the war, without their
help and almost without their knowledge, against superior forces.

General Joffre's 'Instruction' for the offensive on the 6th was brought
to British General Headquarters by a French staff officer at 3 a.m. on
the morning of the 5th. Unfortunately, orders to the British army to
continue the retreat in accordance with General Joffre's previous
instructions had already been given to the corps commanders. The Second
Corps had moved off before midnight and the First and Third Corps a
little later. Consequently the British army by the end of the day was
some twelve to fifteen miles farther back than the French
Commander-in-Chief expected, and although its subsequent advance across
the Marne had a decisive effect, the hard fighting of the battle was
borne by the French army on the Ourcq. During the 5th, General Maunoury,
commanding the Sixth French Army on the British left, and later on
General Joffre himself, visited Sir John French, and all arrangements
for the morrow's offensive were discussed. Sir John French's operation
orders issued at 5.15 p.m. on the 5th of September directed the army to
advance eastward with a view to attacking. The preliminary movement of
the British army, a wheel to the east, pivoting on its right, was to be
completed by the right wing at 9 a.m. and by the left wing at 10 a.m. on
the 6th.

On the early morning of the 6th Sir John French gave verbal instructions
that the Royal Flying Corps were to send aeroplanes to report for
reconnaissance direct to the First and Second Corps. The officer
commanding No. 5 Squadron, with three machines, was to report for
tactical reconnaissance direct to Sir Douglas Haig at Chaubuisson farm,
one and a half miles east of Fontenay; and the officer commanding No. 3
Squadron, also with three machines, was to report direct to Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien at Combreux Château, near Tournan. With each detachment
was to go a wireless aeroplane from No. 4 Squadron to keep Royal Flying
Corps headquarters informed by wireless. The machines were to return to
headquarters at night. This was the beginning of the decentralization of
the Royal Flying Corps, whereby certain squadrons, which came to be
called corps squadrons, were attached to the corps commands. The German
air service from the beginning had been thus organized. With the German
First Army headquarters there was one aeroplane section for
long-distance strategic reconnaissance and each of the corps, with the
exception of the Fourth Reserve Corps, had its own section for tactical
work. From Maubeuge to the Marne the squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps
had been kept together under the immediate control of General Henderson.
The experiment of detaching machines to report direct to the First and
Second Corps worked well on the 6th of September, and Sir John French
gave orders that this arrangement was to continue.

Aeroplanes which were sent out on the morning of the 6th brought
information of confused movements of the German First Army. On the
British front a certain amount of movement northwards was seen in the
afternoon. Of the progress of the battle on his flanks Sir John French
had little knowledge. Aeroplanes were sent up to reconnoitre the
position. One which flew over the area of the Sixth French Army west of
the Ourcq saw at about five o'clock a good deal of movement and shells
bursting in the area Étavigny-Marcilly-May-en-Multien. Another machine
which flew along the line of the Fifth French Army on the British right
came back with the information that at four o'clock fighting was going
on south of Esternay and north of Villiers-St.-Georges. By seven o'clock
that evening Sir John French had no definite news of the progress of the
French armies on his wings save what was contained in these air reports,
and the orders which he issued stated simply that all troops should be
ready to move at any time after 8.0 a.m. on the morrow.

Early on the 7th the situation became clearer; a general retirement of
the Germans on the British front was in progress. Sir John French had
issued orders at 8.0 a.m. for the advance to be continued in the
direction of Rebais, the army to move in echelon from the right and to
attack the enemy wherever met. Aeroplanes on morning reconnaissance
returned soon after the army began to move with information of early
activity behind the German lines and general movement northwards. Later
in the morning columns were seen moving in a north-westerly direction
towards the Ourcq. These reconnaissances seemed to show that von Kluck
was hurriedly withdrawing two of his corps--the Second and the
Fourth--to reinforce his right wing across the Ourcq.

Early reconnaissances on the 8th told of congested movement over the
bridge at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, south of which masses of troops were
awaiting their turn to cross. But the British advance was necessarily
slow. The country was well suited to rearguard actions and skilful use
was made of the ground by the German machine-gunners. By the evening the
British had forced the passage of the Petit Morin, but they spent the
night south of the Marne. Meantime, as air reports showed, von Kluck's
right was heavily engaged by Maunoury's Sixth Army to the west of the
Ourcq. On the night of the 8th General Joffre, taking advantage of the
withdrawal of the two German corps from the British front, ordered that
Maunoury's army should hold the enemy troops on the right bank of the
Ourcq, whilst the British on the following day should advance across the
Marne between Nogent l'Artaud and La Ferté-sous-Jouarre against the left
and rear of the enemy on the Ourcq. The Marne with its steep wooded
sides was well suited to rearguard actions and a stubborn resistance was
expected. But air observers who came in early on the morning of the 9th
brought back the news of enemy columns formed up facing in a northerly
direction. Some were already on the move, and it became apparent that
the enemy intended no determined, but only a delaying stand on the
Marne.

Captain D. Le G. Pitcher, piloted by Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck, whilst
reconnoitring near Château-Thierry about 12.45 p.m. saw large bodies of
enemy troops in the neighbourhood of Château-Thierry and infantry moving
on Domptin. This position was west of the British Third Infantry
Brigade, and the whole of the First Corps was ordered to halt until the
situation should be cleared up. The First Corps did not move forward
again until 3.0 p.m. By the evening of the 9th the First and Second
Corps were across the Marne, but the Third Corps on the left had been
held up and was mostly south of the river. General Maunoury had had a
hard fight, but by the late afternoon the Germans, pressed by the
advance of the British across the Marne, had begun to retire in a
north-easterly direction. Captain R. A. Boger, piloted by Captain R.
Grey, brought this welcome news direct to the General Officer Commanding
the Third Corps (Lieutenant-General W. P. Pulteney) at 5.0 p.m. He had
seen long columns moving north-east from Lizy through Ocquerre on to
Coulombs. This was believed to be von Kluck's Fifth Division. Other
observers came in with similar information. By the evening of the 9th
the retirement of the enemy was general from the Ourcq to Verdun. The
battle of the Marne was won. The German armies retired, with no very
great disorder, to strong positions along the heights of the northern
bank of the river Aisne. Paris was saved; for the first time for over a
hundred years an invading Prussian army had been turned and driven back;
but the war was yet to come.

During the battle the Royal Flying Corps had been active over the enemy,
and, as has been shown, reported his movements fully day by day. The
machines which worked direct with the corps had supplied much useful
tactical information, which was passed on direct to the corps commanders
as soon as the machines landed. The observers usually reported by word
of mouth, and so were able to convey a full and true impression. They
reported which river-bridges were broken and which intact, and they
dropped messages on to the advanced British infantry in places, warning
them of danger ahead. They sometimes located for corps commanders the
head of the leading troops of their corps. After a three days' stay at
Melun, the headquarters of the Flying Corps moved on the 7th of
September to Touquin--the first move forward since the retreat from
Mons. At Pezarches, about a mile away, a field was chosen for an
aerodrome. Fighting had taken place there, and small one-man trenches
had to be filled in before any machine could land. On the 9th of
September headquarters moved forward again to Coulommiers, and on the
12th to Fère-en-Tardenois, which place became the headquarters for the
battle of the Aisne. Here the squadrons were established at Saponay,
some two miles to the north-west. For many long months and years the
Flying Corps was not again to be employed in a war of movement against a
powerful European army, so that the work they did from the time when
they arrived at Maubeuge to the time when they settled at
Fère-en-Tardenois has a unique value. The French Commander-in-Chief paid
tribute to their skill. His message ran: 'Please express most
particularly to Marshal French my thanks for the services rendered to us
every day by the English Flying Corps. The precision, exactitude, and
regularity of the news brought in by them are evidence of their perfect
organization and also of the perfect training of pilots and observers.'

The weather during the early part of the Marne battle had been excellent
for flying. The air had been still and the heat tropical. On the 9th of
September, the critical day of the battle, the weather broke, and for
the next few days there were violent storms and heavy rains which
greatly impeded air work of any sort. The worst of these storms occurred
on the night of the 12th of September, when the squadrons had newly
arrived at Saponay. Four machines of No. 5 Squadron were completely
wrecked, and others damaged. Lieutenant L. A. Strange saved his Henri
Farman machine, which had made a forced landing, by pushing it up
against a haystack, laying a ladder over the front skids, and piling
large paving-stones on the ladder, using hay twisted into ropes for
tying down the machine. A diary of No. 3 Squadron records that when the
machines of that squadron arrived at Saponay, about five hours before
the transport, 'a terrible storm was raging, and before anything could
be done to make the machines more secure the wind shifted, and about
half the total number of machines were over on their backs. One Henri
Farman went up about thirty feet in the air and crashed on top of
another Henri Farman in a hopeless tangle. B.E.'s of No. 2 Squadron were
blowing across the aerodrome, and when daylight arrived and the storm
abated, the aerodrome presented a pitiful sight. The Royal Flying Corps
in the field had probably not more than ten machines serviceable that
morning.... Hangars were not yet issued.' The protection of machines
from accidents like this became comparatively easy when the line of
battle was stabilized and fixed aerodromes were made.

On Sunday, the 13th of September, the Allied armies had crossed the
Aisne, but were held up by the enemy line of defence which, ran along
the heights from east of Compiègne to north of Rheims. There was dogged
fighting, with attacks and counter-attacks, but little or no progress
was made. The Germans had regained the initiative, and the British army
was forced to dig itself in along the line of battle. On the 18th of
September General Joffre changed his plans and began to push forces up
on the Allied left in order to envelop the German right flank. To give
this movement a chance the enemy had to be held on the front, and the
cavalry were called on to take their turn in the trenches--a duty which
before long became very familiar to them. But the Germans extended and
reinforced their line for a similar outflanking movement. These
enveloping attempts did not cease until the opposing armies were ranged
along a line of trenches stretching from the Swiss frontier to the coast
of Belgium.

During the battle of the Aisne, from the 12th to the 15th of September,
the British forced the passage of the river and captured the Aisne
heights including the Chemin des Dames. Thereafter fighting degenerated
into a sullen trench warfare, culminating on the 26th of September and
the two following days in a series of fierce attacks by the Germans.
These attacks were repulsed and were not again renewed.

On the 12th of September Lieutenant L. Dawes and Lieutenant W. R.
Freeman, of No. 2 Squadron, had a notable adventure. They left in the
morning to carry out an aerial reconnaissance to St.-Quentin. A little
south of Anizy-le-Château, between Soissons and Laon, their machine
began to rock and vibrate in the air, as if the tail were loose. They
planed down at once, and landed in a small field, finishing up in a
wood, where they damaged their undercarriage, wings, and airscrew. Large
German columns were on the roads on both sides of them, within about two
hundred yards. Taking only a biscuit and some tubes of beef extract with
them, they hid in another wood close by. Some German cavalry came up to
the machine, and then went all round the first wood, but found nothing,
and after an hour and a half went away. The two officers lay hid until
the evening, and then started in the direction of the Aisne, some eight
miles distant. During the night they passed several German pickets, but
the war was young, the spirit of exhilaration still prevailed in the
German army, and the pickets were making so much noise that they passed
unobserved. At 3.0 in the morning they reached the Aisne, where they lay
down and slept. At 6.0 they were wakened by the firing of a gun close
by, and realized that they were in front of the German position. German
cavalry patrolled the road in front of them, and they were under heavy
shell-fire from the British. They swam the Aisne, dried their clothes in
a house by the canal, and then walked to the British guns, which were
still in action. They were given food by the Third Cavalry Brigade, and
were taken back on a supply column to rejoin their squadron after an
absence of more than two days. It might be supposed that their troubles
were now at an end, but they had yet to face their squadron commander,
Major Burke, who sternly rebuked them for violating the order that no
two pilots should fly together in the same machine.

The work of observation now entered a new phase. When armies are in
fixed positions movement behind the front and along the lines of
communication does not greatly vary from day to day. The Flying Corps
were employed to map out the enemy's chief railheads, his aerodromes
(which were surprisingly numerous), his camps, and his dumps. They began
also to observe the positions of enemy batteries in order to range them
for our own artillery, and they made some attempts to take photographs
from the air of the enemy trenches and lines of communication.

Maubeuge had fallen on the 7th of September and, in addition to the
Seventh Reserve Corps and other troops, the siege artillery which had
been used to reduce Maubeuge was brought down to the Aisne, and the
British guns were outranged and outnumbered. The spotting of hostile
batteries became an operation of the first importance, and the Flying
Corps quickly rose to its opportunities. When trench warfare began, the
aeroplanes attached to corps commands took up artillery officers daily
from each division over the German batteries. The positions of these
batteries were noted on maps, and the maps were sent in every day to the
divisional artillery commander, who allotted the targets to his
batteries. When any part of the British lines was shelled, information
was obtained from the air and orders were given to those of our
batteries which could best reply, to concentrate on the enemy's guns.
The wireless machines of No. 4 Squadron had been attached to the army
corps direct during the battle of the Marne, but their opportunities had
been few. On the Aisne they were first used to observe for the
artillery. Two pioneers of wireless telegraphy are associated in work
and in memory with these early attempts at wireless co-operation with
the artillery--Lieutenants Lewis and James. Donald Swain Lewis had
joined the Royal Engineers in 1904, and, after qualifying as a pilot in
May 1912, had transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in December 1913. By
example and precept he had done all that he could before the war to
adapt wireless telegraphy to the uses of the Flying Corps and to
convince others of its necessity. Before the battle of the Aisne ended
he had won his victory. He was in the habit of going out alone in a B.E.
machine, piloting the machine and operating the wireless at the same
time. A brother-officer noted of him in a diary: 'Lewis, R.E., came in
from spotting with his machine shot full of holes; I believe he likes
it!' Later on in the war, at home and in the field, he continued his
work. In April 1915 he was appointed to command No. 3 Squadron, in
succession to Major J. M. Salmond, and did much to maintain and advance
the great reputation of that pioneer among squadrons. After a spell at
home during the winter of 1915-16, he returned to France in February
1916, to command the Second Wing, co-operating with the Second Army in
the Ypres salient. By this time he held the rank of lieutenant-colonel,
but he continued to fly over the enemy lines. On the 10th of April 1916,
flying a Morane parasol, east of Wytschaete, with Captain A. W. Gale, an
officer of the Trench Mortars, as passenger, he was brought down by a
direct hit from the enemy's anti-aircraft guns. He had been showing
Captain Gale some of the objectives on which the trench mortar fire had
been directed during the week, and was killed in action while he was
carrying out the duties of that artillery observation which he had done
so much to perfect.

Baron Trevenen James had been a mathematical scholar and head of his
House at Harrow; in 1907 he passed into Woolwich, and two years later
was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. He was early interested in
aviation; in June 1912, after only three days' practice, he obtained the
Royal Aero Club certificate at Hendon, flying a Howard Wright biplane.
In April 1913 he joined the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, and
was at once employed in carrying out experiments with wireless. In
December 1913 he was joined by Lieutenant Lewis, and the two became
famous for the theory and practice of their craft. On the outbreak of
war Lieutenant James was attached to No. 4 Squadron for wireless duties;
when in September 1914 the headquarters wireless telegraphy unit was
formed, under the command of Major H. Musgrave, at Fère-en-Tardenois,
Lieutenant James was attached to it, and shared with Lieutenant Lewis
the duty of reporting by wireless over the fire of the enemy guns. Like
Lieutenant Lewis, he was subsequently killed in the air. On the 13th of
July 1915 his commanding officer reports: 'He was observing from the
aeroplane alone, as he generally did. He was ranging a battery, and was
being heavily shelled. His machine was hit by a shell, and was seen to
dive to the ground from a great height. The Germans dropped a note from
one of their machines saying that he was dead when he fell.... He met
the end I am sure he would have wished for--if it had to be--suddenly,
alone, and doing his duty.'

These two, then, Lieutenants Lewis and James, had been untiring in their
enthusiasm and perseverance during the years before the war. On the
Aisne their reward was granted them. 'I wish to express', says General
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien in a telegram dated the 27th of September 1914,
'my great admiration for the splendid work the Royal Flying Corps is
doing for my Corps from day to day. Nothing prevents them from obtaining
the required information, and they frequently return with rifle or
shrapnel bullets through their aeroplane or even their clothing, without
considering such, to them, ordinary incidents as worth mentioning.
To-day I watched for a long time an aeroplane observing for the six-inch
howitzers for the Third Division. It was, at times, smothered with
hostile anti-aircraft guns, but, nothing daunted, it continued for hours
through a wireless installation to observe the fire and indeed to
control the Battery with most satisfactory results. I am not mentioning
names, as to do so, where all are daily showing such heroic and
efficient work, would be invidious.' Lieutenants Lewis and James are now
beyond the voices of envy, and their names may fitly be recorded in the
memory of their country.

One of the earliest of the messages sent down by wireless from the air
is dated the 24th of September 1914. It is worthy of full quotation:

  4.2 p.m.   A very little short. Fire. Fire.
  4.4 p.m.   Fire again. Fire again.
  4.12 p.m.  A little short; line O.K.
  4.15 p.m.  Short. Over, over and a little left.
  4.20 p.m.  You were just between two batteries. Search two
             hundred yards each side of your last shot.
             Range O.K.
  4.22 p.m.  You have them.
  4.26 p.m.  Hit. Hit. Hit.
  4.32 p.m.  About 50 yards short and to the right.
  4.37 p.m.  Your last shot in the middle of 3 batteries in action;
             search all round within 300 yards of your last
             shot and you have them.
  4.42 p.m.  I am coming home now.

The later signals directing artillery fire were not so full of colour
as these early messages. They consisted of code letters. The clock code
for signalling the results of artillery fire was first used in 1915 and
afterwards generally throughout the war. The target was taken as the
centre of a clock and imaginary lines were circumscribed around it at
distances of 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 yards. These lines
were lettered Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, F, respectively. Twelve o'clock was
always taken as true north from the target and the remaining hours
accordingly. An observer noted the fall of the rounds with reference to
the imaginary circles and clock-hours and signalled the result, for
instance, as Y 4, or C 6. A direct hit was O.K, and there were other
signals. Messages from the battery or any other ground station were
signalled to the observer in the aeroplane by means of white strips
which were laid out on the ground to form the letters of a code.

During the battle of the Aisne, the wireless machines were few in number
and other methods of signalling were mostly in use. On the 15th of
September Captain L. E. O. Charlton fired Very lights over enemy guns
previously observed. On the 24th of September 'Lieutenant Allen and two
others with aeroplanes indicated targets and observed fire,
communication being by flash signals'. Sometimes the pilots returned and
landed to report on gun positions. But when once the gunners had
profited by the superior accuracy and speed of report by wireless, they
were hungry for more machines. On the 23rd of September the commander of
the Second Corps telegraphed to General Headquarters: 'I hope that you
will be able to spare the wireless aeroplane and receiving set to Third
Division again to-morrow. The results were so good yesterday that it
seems a pity not to keep it with the Division, which has got accustomed
to its uses and is in a position to benefit even more largely by the
experience gained.' The answer was that the machine had been damaged by
anti-aircraft fire, but would be ready again shortly. A wireless
aeroplane was as popular as an opera-singer, and the headquarters
wireless section soon developed into No. 9 Squadron of the Royal Flying
Corps. The attitude of the gunners may be well seen in an entry made in
the war diary of No. 3 Siege Battery, dated the 23rd of January
1915--'Airman' (Captain Cherry) 'reported for co-operation (lamp only,
alas!).'

The photography was a mere beginning. On the 15th of September
Lieutenant G. F. Pretyman took five photographs of the enemy positions;
these were developed later on the ground, and were the forerunners of
that immense photographic map of the western front in thousands of
sections, constantly renewed and corrected, which played so great a part
in the later stages of the war. Some other experiments had no later
history. Steel darts called 'flêchettes', about five inches long and
three-eighths of an inch in diameter, were dropped over enemy
horse-lines and troops by No. 3 Squadron. A canister holding about 250
of these darts was fixed under the fuselage; by the pulling of a wire
the bottom of the tin was opened and the darts were released. To do any
harm these darts had to score a direct hit on some living object, so
that a whole canister of them was probably a less formidable weapon than
a bomb. Even on a battle-field life is sparsely distributed on the
ground.

There was hardly any fighting in the air during the battle of the Aisne,
and reconnaissance machines were not attacked by other aeroplanes. They
were fired at from the ground by anti-aircraft artillery. The
anti-aircraft guns got their name of 'Archies' from a light-hearted
British pilot, who when he was fired at in the air quoted a popular
music-hall refrain--'Archibald, certainly not!' The Germans used kite
balloons for observation. In the attempt to drop a bomb on one of these
Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck was attacked, on the 22nd of September, by a
German Albatross, and was wounded in the leg. He was the first of our
pilots to be wounded in the air from an enemy aeroplane--a long list it
was to be.

The Royal Flying Corps were few indeed in comparison with the air forces
opposed to them, but they were full of zeal and initiative. On the 19th
of September they received a valued compliment from the French General
Staff, who asked the British Commander-in-Chief to permit them to carry
out reconnaissances along the front of the Fifth French Army. This was
already being done, but Sir David Henderson promised to take measures to
make the reconnaissance more complete.

In the battle of the Aisne the British forces were co-operating with
General Maunoury's Sixth French Army on their left. The so-called race
for the sea was, in fact, a race for the flank of the opposing army. On
the 20th of September De Castelnau's army formed up on the left of
Maunoury and at first made some progress, but was pushed back by the
reinforced army of General von Bülow, and was held on a line extending
from Ribecourt on the Oise to Albert. On the 30th of September General
Maud'huy's army came into position on the left of De Castelnau, along a
line extending from Albert to Lens, while at the same time cavalry and
territorials occupied Lille and Douai on the German right. This army in
its turn was opposed by the German Sixth Army sent up from Metz, which
pushed the French behind Arras, occupied Lens and Douai, and began to
shell Lille. General Maud'huy could do no more than fight to hold his
ground till another army should come to his relief on his left. For this
purpose the British army was shifted from the Aisne to its natural
position in defence of the Channel ports, and came into action along a
line extending northwards from La Bassée. The actual line was fixed by
a series of fierce engagements culminating in the battles of Ypres,
1914.

The Allied plan was to hold the French and Belgian coast and to take the
offensive in the north. With this purpose in view the Seventh Division
of the British army and the Third Cavalry Division, both of which came
under the command of Sir Henry Rawlinson, were disembarked, from the 6th
of October onward, at Zeebrugge and Ostend. But Antwerp was taken by the
Germans on the 9th of October, and the first business of this famous
force was to cover the Belgian retreat along the coast. The German
Fourth Army was being rapidly pushed forward into Belgium; Lille
capitulated on the 13th of October; Zeebrugge and Ostend were occupied
by the Germans on the 15th. Still the idea of a counter-offensive was
not abandoned, and the works and defences of Zeebrugge were left intact
in the hope of its speedy recapture. On the night of the 1st of October
the British army had begun to move northwards from the Aisne. By the 9th
of October the British Second Corps had detrained at Abbeville and
received orders to march on Béthune; on the 12th the Third Corps began
detraining and concentrating at St.-Omer and Hazebrouck, and
subsequently moved up to Bailleul and Armentières. A week later, on the
19th, the First Corps under Sir Douglas Haig detrained at Hazebrouck and
moved on Ypres. General Headquarters left Fère-en-Tardenois on the 8th
of October and after a five-days' stay at Abbeville established
themselves at St.-Omer.

The Royal Flying Corps had moved north with the British Expeditionary
Force, from Fère-en-Tardenois by way of Abbeville, to St.-Omer, where
they were established by the 12th of October. No. 2 Squadron remained
behind for a few days, to carry on with Sir Douglas Haig's corps on the
Aisne, but joined up at St.-Omer on the 17th of October. In addition to
the four original squadrons, No. 6 Squadron, newly arrived from England
under Major J. H. W. Becke, came under Brigadier-General Henderson's
orders on the 16th of October. This squadron had been stationed at South
Farnborough as a reserve for the squadrons in the field. When General
Rawlinson's force was sent to Ostend, to attempt the relief of Antwerp,
Lord Kitchener said, 'I want a squadron to go with it'. He ordered that
No. 6 Squadron should be ready in forty-eight hours. The squadron was
hastily completed; some pilots and machines were obtained from the
Central Flying School; some machines were bought from private firms;
equipment, tools, and the like were collected at night; and on the 7th
of October the squadron flew to Bruges and began at once to carry out
reconnaissances. On the following day they flew to Ostend, and, their
transport having arrived, were concentrated on the racecourse. Five days
later they retired to Dunkirk, and by the 16th of October were
established at Poperinghe, where they came under the orders of
headquarters at St.-Omer.

A good deal of reconnaissance was carried on by the squadrons during the
northward move of the army. On the 29th of September unusual and heavy
movement in a northerly and north-westerly direction had been observed
behind the enemy lines on the Aisne. On the 1st of October air
reconnaissances showed that the trenches in front of the British First
Army Corps were unoccupied or very lightly held, and during the next few
days there were many indications that one or two German army corps were
being withdrawn to the north. Meantime the enemy took more trouble than
usual to interfere with our aircraft, and employed an increased number
of anti-aircraft guns. In the north our strategic reconnaissances were
not so successful, and the formidable enemy movement against the Ypres
line developed undetected. Not many aeroplanes were available at this
time for the wider sort of strategic reconnaissance. Nos. 2, 3, and 5
Squadrons had been attached, by an order issued on the 1st of October,
to the First, Second, and Third Army Corps respectively, while No. 4
Squadron was detailed for strategical reconnaissance. The General
Officers Commanding army corps had learned the value of aeroplanes and
demanded their assistance. Much of the country over which they were
operating in Northern France and Flanders was flat and enclosed,
unsuitable either way for cavalry reconnaissance.

Long-distance work was done chiefly from headquarters. On the 3rd of
October, when the situation at Antwerp had become critical,
Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes flew direct to Bruges from
Fère-en-Tardenois, with a message from Sir John French to the Belgian
Chief of Staff at Antwerp. On the following day he returned and reported
that the Germans had broken through the south-eastern sector of the
outer defences of Antwerp, that the Belgians were awaiting help, and
that they might possibly hold out for two or three weeks. In forwarding
the report to Lord Kitchener Sir John French adds, 'The relief of
Antwerp I regard as my first objective'. This mission was followed by
others, and a few days later Sir John French speaks of reports which he
is receiving daily by air from General Rawlinson.

Meantime a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service, as shall be told in
the next chapter, had been operating for some weeks from Ostend and
Dunkirk with French territorial forces. The French territorials were
hastily embodied troops taken from civilian life and were not of much
use for a fight against odds. When the Seventh Division was landed at
Ostend and Zeebrugge during the first week of October, and the
improvised British Naval Division arrived at Antwerp, the situation was
already out of hand. The British army was small; it had helped to save
Paris, and now paid the price in the loss of the Belgian coast. The
Seventh Division occupied Ghent, and after covering the retreat of the
Belgian army, which halted along the line of the Yser, from Dixmude to
Nieuport, fell back by way of Roulers to a position east of Ypres. When
the whole British force came into line, it held a front of some
thirty-five miles, with Maud'huy's Tenth French Army on its right across
the Béthune-Lille road. On its left the line was held, from a point
north of Ypres to the sea, by the Belgian army, assisted by four French
cavalry divisions under General De Mitry.

The German army had failed to take Paris; all its efforts were now
concentrated on the seizure of the Channel ports, and its pressure on
the defending line was like the pressure of a great rising head of
waters against the gates of a lock. The glory of the defence belongs to
the infantry. The men who flew above them could only watch them and help
them with eyes. The infantry were often unconscious of this help; they
disliked seeing hostile observers above them and often fired on
aeroplanes with very little distinction made between friends and foes.
On the 26th of October Major G. H. Raleigh, of No. 4 Squadron, reports
an artillery reconnaissance as follows: 'Hosking and Crean did a
tactical reconnaissance early, but were unable to locate batteries owing
to clouds. They went up later and did it. The clouds were low, so it was
arranged that they should fly over one of our batteries to observe for
ranging. The machine came down in flames and was completely demolished.
Pilot and passenger had both been wounded by our own infantry fire when
at a height of about a thousand feet with the large Union Jack plainly
visible.'

Wing Commander W. D. Beatty tells how, before this time, the
disadvantage of the Union Jack marking on the planes was becoming
evident. The officer in command of an aviation camp at Paris had pointed
out to him that, at a height, only the red cross of the Union Jack was
clearly visible, and that it was mistaken by the French for the German
marking. A suggestion was made that the British should adopt the French
circular marking. The mishap of the 26th of October hastened the
adoption of this suggestion, and thereafter the French target was
painted on British aeroplanes, with the alteration only of blue for red
and red for blue, to preserve national distinctions.

Commanding officers sometimes complained that our machines were little
in evidence. The aeroplane observers, operating over enemy territory,
reported to their own command, and their reports, forwarded to the
proper quarters, took effect in the orders issued by Headquarters, so
that crucial improvements were sometimes made in our dispositions, by
information obtained from the air, though the infantry had seen no
machine in the air above them. The use of machines for more local needs,
such as artillery ranging, hastened the recognition of the services
rendered by the Flying Corps, and brought it into closer touch with the
other arms. Photographic cameras and fittings were still very imperfect,
and photography from the air was not much practised, but sketch-maps of
enemy trenches and gun-pits, as located by air reconnaissances, were
issued by Headquarters during the battle of Ypres. Good work was done in
directing the fire of the artillery, and the few wireless machines were
much in demand. A telegram sent on the 28th of October from Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien to the Royal Flying Corps headquarters runs: 'Can you send
us a second machine, with wireless installation, for use to-morrow? The
aeroplane now working without wireless with Fifth Division has more to
do than it can accomplish owing to observation being required for French
artillery as well as our own.' But the wireless machine was required by
the First Corps, at the northern end of the line, and a machine without
wireless was sent instead.

The deadly and effective method of directing artillery fire on hostile
batteries by means of wireless telegraphy played a great part in winning
the war, but for the first battle of Ypres the wireless machines were
not ready in quantity. The penalty which had to be paid for this
unreadiness was heavy. Precious shells, which were all too few, had to
be expended for ranging purposes. On the 4th of November Lord Kitchener
wired to Sir John French: 'I have been talking to David Henderson about
giving more observation to artillery by aeroplanes. As this saves the
ranging ammunition, which is worth anything to us, please insist upon
it.' Failing wireless, other methods of ranging had to be employed.
These methods had been set forth in an official paper issued on the 28th
of October. The aeroplane flies at any convenient height and when it is
exactly above the target it fires a Very light. The battery
range-finders, who have been following its course, then take its range
and another observer with the battery takes its angle of elevation.
These two observations are sufficient to determine the horizontal
distance between the battery and the target. It was sometimes found
difficult to take the range of an aeroplane, at a given moment, with an
ordinary range-finder, and an alternative method of ranging is
suggested. By this method the aeroplane flies at a prearranged height,
and, as before, fires a light exactly over the target. But this method
also is liable to error, for an aeroplane determines its height by the
use of a barometer, and barometers are only approximately accurate for
this purpose. So it was suggested that the two methods should be
combined: the aeroplane should endeavour to fly at a fixed height, and
the range-finders should, if possible, also make their calculations.
These methods cannot attain to the accuracy of wireless, but they were
found in practice to give fairly good results. They were not quickly or
generally adopted; many battery commanders continued to prefer the
reports of their trained ground observers to the indications given from
the air. When wireless machines were increased in number, artillery
observation from the air came into its own. In a report dated the 5th of
February 1915, Brigadier-General Stokes, commander of the 27th
Divisional Artillery, lays stress on the enormous advantages of
wireless. He says that the 116th Heavy Battery of the Royal Garrison
Artillery, which had at its disposal an aeroplane equipped with a lamp,
had succeeded in registering only three targets in fifteen days, whereas
the 130th Howitzer Battery, which had a share in the services of a
wireless aeroplane, had registered eight targets in seven days. The
disadvantages of the older and cruder method are many; a thin mist which
does not prevent the aeroplane from observing the target is enough to
prevent signalling to the battery; the lamp is difficult to use on a
rough day, and difficult to read against the sun; the aeroplane has to
be kept under continual observation by the battery. To get better value
out of our artillery, the general concludes, the wireless service must
be largely increased.

Reconnaissance from the air was much impeded, during the second half of
October, by low clouds and bad weather, but enough was observed to give
some forecast of the tremendous attack that was impending. The Germans
outnumbered the British three or four times, and threw their whole
weight, now against one part, and now against another, of the thin line
of infantry fighting in mud and water. Those who would judge the battle
will find no escape from the dilemma; either the British defence,
maintained for thirty-four days, from the 19th of October to the 21st of
November, against an army which esteemed itself the best army in the
world, must be given a high and honourable place among the great
military achievements of history, or the German army was disgraced by
its defeat. But the German army was a good army, and was not disgraced.
The Germans themselves respected their enemy, on the ground and in the
air. On the 21st of November, at the close of the battle of Ypres, two
German second lieutenants of the air corps, called Fribenius and Hahn,
were taken prisoner near Neuve-Chapelle, and were examined. They said
that the performances of British aeroplanes had caused instructions to
be issued that a British aeroplane was to be attacked whenever
encountered. British aeroplanes, they said, were easily distinguishable
from others, for they always showed fight at once. What prisoners say
under examination is not evidence, but this early tribute to the
fighting quality of the Royal Flying Corps is repeated in many later
testimonies.

The crisis of the battle of Ypres came on the 31st of October, when the
line of the First Division was broken and the left flank of the Seventh
Division exposed, at Gheluvelt, some six miles east of Ypres. The
counter-attack by the First Guards Brigade and the famous bayonet charge
of the Second Worcestershire Regiment retook Gheluvelt, and
re-established the line. The last act of the long agony came on the 11th
of November, when a great attack was delivered all along the line. The
place of honour on the Ypres-Menin road was given to two brigades of the
Prussian Guard Corps, who had been brought up from Arras for the
purpose. The First Division of the British army met this attack at its
heaviest point of impact, and by the close of the day the Prussians had
gained five hundred yards of ground at the cost of enormous losses. The
story of the battle belongs to military history; the loss and profit
account can be summarized in two facts. The First Brigade, which met the
Prussian spearhead, was taken back into reserve on the following day. It
had gone into the battle four thousand five hundred strong; on the 12th
of November there remained, of the First Scots Guards, one officer and
sixty-nine men; of the Black Watch, one officer and a hundred and nine
men; of the Cameron Highlanders, three officers and a hundred and forty
men; of the First Coldstream Guards, no officers and a hundred and fifty
men. This is not a list of the surrendered remnant of an army: it is a
list of some of the victors of Ypres. The other fact is no less
significant; after a week of fighting the German attack fainted and
died, and when the next great assault upon the Ypres salient was
delivered, in April 1915, it was led not by the Prussian Guard but by
clouds of poison-gas.

No extraordinary or signal services were rendered by the Flying Corps
during the crises of the battle. The weather was bad, and on some days
flying was impossible. Yet by every flight knowledge was increased. When
the British troops arrived in Flanders and were sent at once into the
battle, the country in front of them was unknown. The dispositions of
the enemy forces were not even guessed at. Then by the aid of the Flying
Corps the enemy's batteries were mapped out, his trench lines observed
and noted, his railheads and his roads watched for signs of movement.
The reports received just before the battle do not, it is true, indicate
the whole volume of movement that was coming towards the Ypres area. The
newly raised reserve corps which formed part of the German Fourth Army,
the transport of which to the western front began on the 10th of
October, were not definitely seen from the air until just before the
battle. But observers' reports did indicate that many troops were
moving on the Ypres front, and once battle was joined enemy movements
were fully reported on.

When at the end of October the Belgian army mortgaged great tracts of
their ground for many years by opening the canal sluices and letting in
the sea, the Germans were enabled to divert the Third Reserve Corps
southwards. The movements of troops from this area were observed by the
Royal Flying Corps, and General Headquarters on the 1st of November
issued this summary: 'The coast road from Ostend to Nieuport was
reported clear this morning, and there are indications generally of a
transference of troops from the north of Dixmude southwards.' Again,
when the attack on Ypres had failed and died away, the Germans
transferred many troops from the western to the eastern front; these
movements also were seen by the Royal Flying Corps, who reported on the
20th of November an abnormal amount of rolling stock at various stations
behind the German front. 'The rolling stock formerly parked on the
Ostend-Thourout and Ostend-Roulers lines has evidently been broken up',
says General Headquarters Intelligence Summary for the 20th of November,
'and distributed to a number of stations along the Lys and in the area
immediately north of it, which would be suitable points of entrainment
for the forces in that district.... This redistribution of the rolling
stock, together with the apparent reduction in motor transport, would
seem to point to some important movement away from this immediate
theatre being in contemplation.' Air reports for the following day
proved that much movement eastwards had already taken place.

Throughout the battle tactical reconnaissances had been maintained to a
depth of from fifteen to twenty miles behind the German lines. There
were some few fights in the air, and a little bombing, but observation
was still the principal duty of the Royal Flying Corps. They were
greatly privileged; at a time when our people at home knew nothing of
what the army was doing, they, and they alone, witnessed the battle of
Ypres.

They would gladly have done more. Many of them had been infantry
officers, and were eager to lend a hand to the infantry in that heroic
struggle, but they lacked the means. Not until the summer of 1916 were
they able, by organized attacks from the air, to help to determine the
fortunes of a battle.

With the close of the battle there came a lull in the fighting. This
lull continued throughout the dark and damp of the first winter, and the
interest of the war in the air shifts to the preparations which were
being pressed forward at home for renewing the war during 1915 on a
larger scale and with better material.

One incident which occurred just after the battle of Ypres shall here be
narrated; it serves to illustrate how the air work of the Germans may
sometimes have been impeded by a certain defect of sympathy in the
German officer class. German two-seater machines were commonly piloted
by non-commissioned officers, who took their orders from the officer in
the observer's seat. On the 22nd of November Lieutenants L. A. Strange
and F. G. Small, of No. 5 Squadron, were returning from a
reconnaissance, flying at a height of about seven thousand feet. Their
machine, an Avro, with an 80 horse-power Gnome engine, carried a Lewis
gun, which had been mounted by them, against orders, on rope tackle of
their own devising, just above the observer's seat. In the air they met
a new German Albatross with a 100 horse-power Mercedes engine. They
showed fight at once. Diving from a height of five hundred feet above
the German machine, and at right angles to its line of flight, they
turned underneath it and flew along with it, a little in front and less
than a hundred feet below. From this position, which they maintained
while both machines made two complete turns in the air, they were able
to empty two drums of ammunition into the German machine. After the
second drum the German pilot lost his nerve, and the machine
side-slipped away and down, landing behind our lines, close to
Neuve-Église. There were twenty bullet-holes in the German machine, but
the pilot and observer were both uninjured. The British officers landed
close by, to claim their prisoners. The German observer, a commissioned
officer, took little notice of them; as soon as his machine landed he
jumped out of it, and dragging the partner of his dangers and triumphs
out of the pilot's seat, knocked him down, and began to kick him heavily
about the body. If ever a collection of incidents shall be made, under
the title 'How the War was Lost and Won', to illustrate the causes of
things, this little drama will deserve a place in it.




CHAPTER VII

THE ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE IN 1914


When the war broke out the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps had
already been separated from the Military Wing, and had become the Royal
Naval Air Service. Captain Murray Sueter was Director of the Air
Department, and Captain G. M. Paine was Commandant of the Central Flying
School. Six officers, all pioneers of the air, held the rank of wing
commander, and nineteen held the rank of squadron commander. There were
twelve flight commanders, and, with the addition of some few who joined
on the 5th and 6th of August, there were ninety-one flight lieutenants,
flight sub-lieutenants, and warrant officers. The number of petty
officers and men was approximately seven hundred. Some of the officers
and men had been appointed for special duties in connexion with gunnery,
torpedo work, navigation, wireless telegraphy, and engineering. The
duties which fell to the Royal Naval Air Service were naturally more
various and more complicated than those which fell to the Royal Flying
Corps. The Naval Air Service had to fly seaplanes and airships, as well
as aeroplanes. They had made more progress than the Military Wing in
fitting wireless telegraphy and in arming aircraft. They had in their
possession, when war broke out, thirty-nine aeroplanes and fifty-two
seaplanes, of which about half were ready for immediate use. They had
also seven airships, of which one, the little Willows airship, may be
left out of the reckoning, but of the others, the _Parseval_,
_Astra-Torres_, and _Beta_ did good work in the war. Some of the
aeroplanes and most of the seaplanes were fitted with more powerful
engines than any that were used by the Royal Flying Corps. Engines of
two hundred horse-power were being installed in Short, Wight, and
Sopwith seaplanes, with a view not chiefly to speed but to the carrying
of torpedoes. These machines were not successful at first, but
experiment was active. Two aeroplanes and one airship had been fitted
with machine-guns; petrol incendiary bombs had been tried with success;
and gear for the release of bombs was being gradually improved. More
important still, wireless telegraphy plants had been set up at the
various seaplane stations on the coast, and sixteen seaplanes, operating
in connexion with these stations, had been fitted with transmitting
apparatus.

These preparations, when they are looked back on across the years of
war, may seem tentative and small, but the idea which dominated them is
clear enough. Whether war would come soon was doubtful; what was certain
was that war, if it did come, would come from the nation which for many
long years had boasted of war, preached war, and intended war. The main
concern of the Naval Air Service, in co-operation with the navy, was the
defence of the East Coast from attack, whether by sea or by air, and the
safeguarding of the Channel for the passage of an expeditionary force to
the coast of Belgium or France. Other uses for a naval air force were a
matter of time and experiment. There was at first no general scheme,
prepared in detail, and ready to be put into action, for the offensive
employment of naval aircraft, so that the work of the service tended to
relapse into defence. Very little had been done to provide for the
co-operation of aircraft with the fleet at sea. The _Mayfly_ mishap had
left us unsupplied with airships of the necessary power and range for
naval reconnaissance, nor were the means at hand to enable seaplanes to
do scouting work for the fleet. In December 1912 a design for a
specially constructed seaplane-carrying ship had been submitted by the
Air Department after consultation with Messrs. Beardmore of Dalmuir, but
when the war came no such ship was in existence. The light cruiser
H.M.S. _Hermes_ had been adapted for seaplane carrying and had operated
with the fleet during the naval manoeuvres of July 1913, but this was no
more than a makeshift. The _Hermes_ was refitted and re-commissioned in
October 1914 to carry three seaplanes, and at the end of that month was
sunk by a torpedo from an enemy submarine on her passage from Dunkirk to
Dover.

War is a wonderful stimulant; and many things were done at high
pressure, in the early days of August, to increase the resources, in men
and material, of the Naval Air Service. The reserve was called up; in
addition a certain number of officers were entered direct from civilian
life, and were put to school, at Upavon or Eastchurch, to learn their
new duties. Thousands of young men were eager to enter the service as
pilots, but the training accommodation was wholly inadequate. The
Bristol School at Brooklands, the Grahame-White School at Hendon, and
the Eastbourne Aviation School were pressed into the service; in
addition to these the naval air station at Calshot undertook to make
seaplane pilots of some of those who had taken their flying certificates
elsewhere. As was to be expected, training under these conditions proved
difficult. All efficient machines were wanted for the war, so that
machines which had been condemned for use on active service were
sometimes employed in training new pilots.

If all those who deserve credit and praise for their part in the war in
the air were to be mentioned, their names on the Roll of Honour would be
thick as the motes that people the sunbeam. Most of them must be
content, and are content, to know that they did their work and served
their country. But here and there occurs a name which must not be passed
without comment. On the 5th of August 1914 Mr. F. K. McClean, by whose
help the first naval air pilots had been trained, joined the Royal Naval
Air Service as a flight lieutenant. At the same time he offered to the
service his three motor-cars, his motor-boat at Teddington, his yacht
_Zenaida_, with two machines, and his private house at Eastchurch, which
was converted into a hospital. A nation which commands the allegiance of
such citizens need never fear defeat.

The earliest measure of defence undertaken by the Naval Air Service was
the institution of a coastal patrol for the whole of the East Coast,
from Kinnaird's Head, in Aberdeenshire, to Dungeness, between Dover and
Hastings. This was ordered by the Admiralty on the 8th of August. The
Royal Flying Corps, or rather, such incomplete squadrons of the Royal
Flying Corps as were not yet ordered abroad, undertook the northern and
southern extremes of this patrol, that is to say, the northern section
between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Forth, from Kinnaird's Head to
Fife Ness, and the southern section between the Thames and the coast of
Sussex, from the North Foreland to Dungeness. The most vulnerable part
of the East Coast, from the Forth to the Thames, or from North Berwick
to Clacton, was to be patrolled by the Naval Air Service. But these
arrangements were soon altered. Not many days after the outbreak of war
the Germans established themselves in Belgium, and it was believed that
they would use Belgium as a base for formidable attacks by aircraft on
the Thames estuary and London. The forces of the Naval Air Service were
therefore concentrated between the Humber and the Thames, from Immingham
to Clacton. The Wash was thought to be the most likely landfall for a
German airship raiding London. Regular patrols of the coast were carried
out in the early days of the war, to report the movements of all enemy
ships and aircraft and to detect enemy submarines. But there was not
much to report, and it was weary work waiting for the enemy to begin.

The British Expeditionary Force was ready for service abroad, and it
fell to the Naval Air Service to watch over its passage across the
Channel. A regular patrol between Westgate, close to the North Foreland,
and Ostend was maintained by seaplanes, following one another at
intervals of two hours. On the 13th of August a temporary seaplane base
was established at Ostend under the command of Flight Lieutenant E. T.
R. Chambers, but on the 22nd of August, when the expeditionary force was
safely landed and the occupation of Ostend by the Germans seemed
imminent, the base was withdrawn, and the men and stores were taken back
to England. An airship patrol of the Channel undertaken by airships Nos.
3 and 4 (that is to say, by the _Astra-Torres_ and _Parseval_) began on
the 10th of August, and was continued throughout the month. The average
time of flight of a seaplane on patrol was about three hours, of an
airship about twelve hours, so that the airship, which could slacken its
speed and hover, had the advantage in observation. The chart printed on
p. 363 illustrates the patrols carried out by the two airships on the
13th of August 1914. Here are copies of their logs for the day:

  '_Log of No. 3 Airship, 13th August 1914._

  7.10 a.m. Rose.
  7.37      Passed Sittingbourne.
  7.45      Passed Teynham Station.
  7.50      Passed Faversham.
  8.20      Passed Canterbury.
  9.0       Passed Coastguard Station.
  9.49      Sighted No. 4 Airship.
  10.41     Sighted seaplane on starboard quarter.
  5.50 p.m. Altered course for Coastguard Station.
  6.25      Coastguard Station.
  6.54      Faversham.
  7.4       Sittingbourne.
  7.34      Landed.


'_Log of No. 4 Airship, 13th August 1914._

  7.40 a.m.  Left Kingsnorth.
  9.28       Passed Coastguard Station, shaped course
             for Calais.
  10.35      Shaped course for Dover.
  11.25      Shaped course for Calais.
  11.35[5]     Broke one blade of port propeller, rendering
             it necessary to change two for new
             blades.
  12.55 p.m. Proceeded to Calais.
  1.40       Shaped course for Dover.
  2.12       Course as requisite to arrive at Calais.
  2.52         "    "     "      "    "    "  Dover.
  3.20         "    "     "      "    "    "  Calais.
  4.00         "    "     "      "    "    "  Dover.
  4.45         "    "     "      "    "    "  Calais.
  5.45         "    "     "      "    "    "  Deal.
  7.30       Arrived at Kingsnorth.
  7.53       Landed.

    [Footnote 5: 'Off Dover at 11.35 a.m. one blade of the port
    propeller burst and flew off, narrowly missing damaging the rigging
    near the envelope. We were able to fit two new blades while under
    way and continue the patrol. This took one hour and twenty
    minutes.']

[Illustration: Airship Patrol. 13th August, 1914.]

It will be seen that the _Parseval_, which could not fly for a whole day
without landing for the replenishment of fuel, plied continually
between Dover and Calais, while the _Astra-Torres_, which was the
stronger ship, laid her course far to the east and north-east to search
the Channel for the approach of hostile craft.

Once the expeditionary force was safely across the Channel, these
routine patrols were discontinued, though both airships and seaplanes
continued to make special scouting flights over the North Sea and
Channel. The main work of the Royal Naval Air Service continued to be
coastguard work. At dawn and at sunset patrols were carried out every
possible day, scouting the line of the coast. The group which had its
centre at the Isle of Grain was entrusted with the defence of the Thames
estuary. They had to report the approach of hostile ships and aircraft,
to help our submarines in attack, and to warn friendly craft. They had
two sub-stations, at Clacton and Westgate, facing each other across the
estuary. The monotony of the life was relieved at times by alarms. In
September a seaplane on patrol from Felixstowe sighted a Zeppelin. The
news was received with enthusiasm, which was damped a little when it was
learned that the pilot was some way out to sea, and that his estimate of
his distance from the Zeppelin was sixty miles. On the 17th of November
the Admiralty suspected an impending raid by German warships, and
ordered that all available aeroplanes and seaplanes should be in the air
for the daylight patrol of Thursday, the 19th of November. But even war,
as the philosopher remarked, has its seamy side, and the enemy did not
appear.

This patrol work was tedious and, when the winter came, even dangerous;
a few pilots were lost and some spent hours adrift on wrecked seaplanes.
Here is the report of a December experience of Squadron Commander J. W.
Seddon, over the North Sea:

'I have the honour to report as follows on the circumstances of my
patrol flight with Leading Mechanic R. L. Hartley in Seaplane No. 829
from Grain on Thursday, 17th inst., which ended with the salvage of this
seaplane by the Norwegian Steamship _Orn_, who took us with the seaplane
to Holland; and also on the circumstances of our detention at the Hook
of Holland and subsequent release, and of the detention of the seaplane
at Rotterdam.

  '1. _Diary of Events._

  8.10 a.m.      Left Grain. Wind Wly, moderate.

  9.0 a.m.       Passed over Galloper, continued eastwards
                 to investigate steamer proceeding eastwards
                 at high speed.

  9.10 a.m.      Steamer proved to be s.s. _Fulmar_ of Liverpool.
                 Turned back for Galloper. Wind
                 strong Wly.

  9.35 a.m.      Motor failed suddenly and completely.
                 Landed, nothing in sight. Sea moderately
                 bad. Failure due to breakage of
                 ignition ring, and though several attempts
                 were made and engine started on
                 each occasion, a lasting repair could not
                 be made. As I was not carrying an
                 anchor seaplane commenced to drift at
                 about 2 knots through the water E. by
                 N. (compass).

'I was feeling unwell when I left Grain and consequently was continually
ill; Leading Mechanic Hartley also was seasick at first.

'The seaplane commenced to settle on the port main float and about 10.30
the port wing float carried away. Leading Mechanic Hartley moved out of
his seat on to the starboard plane.

'The starboard wing float carried away about 11.15 a.m. and the trailing
edge of the port lower plane was continually disintegrating.

'About noon, or perhaps 11.30 a.m., the Flushing steamer passed from E.
to W., but 7 or 8 miles to the Northward, and did not see our signals.

'From then onwards Hartley was continually moving slightly outwards on
the plane to counteract the heel to port, and occasional heavy seas
occurring every five or ten minutes accumulated small damages.

'I therefore endeavoured to empty the main tank by overflowing through
the gravity tank, but the petrol coming back into my face made me more
ill, and after half an hour I could not continue.

'At 2.45 p.m., when I was expecting that a T.B.D. might appear to search
for us, we sighted a small steamer to the N. Westward and making more or
less towards us (some 6 miles distant). Waiting till she was abeam and
only some 2 to 3 miles distant I fired my pistol and also waved. These
signals did not appear to be observed at first, but finally she turned
towards us about 3.15 p.m. and about 3.30 asked us if we wished to be
taken off. This steamer proved to be the s.s. _Orn_ (Captain Rewne). He
manoeuvred and lowered a boat and took us aboard about 4.15 p.m.

'I asked the Captain if he could consider salving the seaplane, being
worth as she was about £2,000, while the engine alone was worth £600 or
£700.

'He promised to try and I went away in the boat again to the seaplane.

'I was not able to board the seaplane myself (going overboard while
assisting one of the crew to do so), but this man got on board the
seaplane successfully and made the necessary lines fast.

'After some difficulty and damage to the seaplane through insufficient
reach of the derrick, she was got on board and the wings folded by 6.0
p.m.; the _Orn_ actually proceeding on her course shortly before this.
No other vessels were sighted during these operations. We were picked
up about 11 miles east from the Galloper Lightship.

'The Captain of the _Orn_ said he could not put back to England on
account of there being no lights, but otherwise would have done so.

'The Captain of the _Orn_ did everything possible for us, supplying us
with hot coffee, food, and wine, and myself with dry clothes.

'We arrived in Dutch waters about 3.10 a.m. and anchored off the
"Hook".'

After attending to the seaplane and taking all possible steps to secure
its release by the Dutch Government, Squadron Commander Seddon was
successful in obtaining the release of himself and his companion; on the
20th of December they sailed from Rotterdam for Harwich.

The seaplane patrols had not sufficient range to get into touch with the
enemy off his own coasts, as the flying boat patrols almost always did
in the later years of the war. Nevertheless, the first six months of
coastguard work were of high value. They knit the service together, and
produced a large body of skilled and practised pilots who prepared
themselves or instructed others for later achievement.

An additional station for seaplane and aeroplane work was established at
Scapa Flow to carry out patrols over the fleet. The patrols commenced on
the 24th of August 1914 and continued daily in all weathers until the
21st of November, when the machines and hangars were completely wrecked
in a gale. On the 27th of August 'Seaplanes Nos. 97 and 156 led the
Battle Fleet to sea'. These were both Henri Farman seaplanes. There were
also two Short seaplanes and a Sopwith Bat boat. A few more were added
in the course of the following weeks, and so zealous and efficient were
the mechanics that, with all the wear and tear of the daily patrol, not
more than two machines at the most were ever out of action at one time
during the first six weeks. Further bases were established during the
autumn of 1914 at Newcastle-on-Tyne and Dover, but the lack of
serviceable machines curtailed the activities of these stations.

The real dramatic centre of England's effort in the air was to be found,
during these months, not at the coastal stations, but in the training
schools and workshops. The progress there made, at first invisible, was
so rapid that Captain Sueter was able to say in July 1915 that every
machine possessed by the Royal Naval Air Service at the outbreak of the
war 'is now regarded as fit only for a museum'.

The problem of providing seaplanes with a floating base so that they
might operate with the fleet at sea became urgent at once. On the 11th
of August the Admiralty, realizing the great utility of aerial scouting
with the fleet, took over three cross-Channel steamers from the
South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company--the _Empress_, the
_Engadine_, and the _Riviera_. The _Empress_ was fitted out to carry
machines and stores for the Naval Air Service. The _Engadine_ and the
_Riviera_ were structurally altered at Chatham Dockyard, so that they
might serve as seaplane-carriers. Later on, in October 1914, the
_Empress_ was also converted into a seaplane-carrier, and her work as
transport and messenger vessel was taken over by the _Princess
Victoria_.

The whole business of seaplanes was still in the experimental stage, and
during the first twelve months of the war there were many
disappointments. It was found that the seaplanes, when they were loaded
with bombs, could not get off a sea that would hardly distress a picket
boat. Proposals for an aerial raid on Wilhelmshaven and the Kiel canal
were put forward by the Admiralty on the 13th of August, but the
machinery was too imperfect, and the raid did not come off. But on
Christmas Day, 1914, when the weather was propitious, a successful raid
was carried out, as shall be seen, against Cuxhaven. In the meantime
much experimental work was done at high pressure, and a heavy
responsibility fell on the technical staff of the Naval Air Service, who
had to place definite orders, a year ahead, for engines to be developed
and manufactured upon a large scale. In 1915 this policy produced the
225 horse-power Wight tractor, which could fly for seven hours at a
speed of seventy knots, carrying a fair weight of bombs, and the 225
horse-power Short tractor, which could carry five hundredweight of
explosives over a distance of three hundred miles. Both these machines
could face broken water better than the earlier types, though it was not
until the flying boat was perfected that the difficulties presented by a
moderate sea were at last overcome.

It was an acute disappointment to the Naval Air Service that the enemy
fleet at Wilhelmshaven and the enemy dockyards at Kiel should be left so
long unmolested. The tendency to find some one to blame for lost
opportunities is always strong in England. We are a strenuous and moral
people, and we ask for a very formidable blend of virtues in our
leaders. We are proud of the bull-dog breed and the traditions of our
navy, but we demand from the bull-dog all the subtlety of the fox. We
came through the war with credit not chiefly by intelligence but by
character. Perhaps the two are never perfectly combined in one man. We
know what it is to entrust our good name and our safety to men of
stalwart and upright character, whose intelligence may in some points be
open to criticism. Fortunately, we do not so well know what it is to
trust our ultimate welfare to men of quick intelligence whose character
is not above suspicion. The Lords of the Admiralty, like the rest of
that great service, are good fighting sailors and good patriots.

What are called the principles of war, though they can be simply stated,
are not easy to learn, and can never be learned from books alone. They
are the principles of human nature; and who ever learned from books how
to deal successfully with his fellows? War, which drives human nature to
its last resources, is a great engine of education, teaching no lessons
which it does not illustrate, and enforcing all its lessons by bitter
penalties. One of the notorious principles of war, familiar to all who
have read books about war, is that a merely defensive attitude is a
losing attitude. This truth is as true of games and boxing, or of
traffic and bargaining, as it is of war. Every successful huckster is
thoroughly versed in the doctrine of the initiative, which he knows by
instinct and experience, not by the reading of learned treatises. A man
who knows what he wants and means to get it is at a great advantage in
traffic with another man who is thinking only of self-defence. Every
successful boxer is an expert in military science; he tries either to
weaken his adversary by repeated assaults on the vital organs, or to
knock him out by a stunning blow. He does not call these operations by
the learned names of strategy and tactics, but he knows all about them.
The most that a book can do, for trader or boxer or soldier, is to
quicken perception and prepare the mind for the teaching of experience.

The experience of the war from beginning to end taught the old lesson of
the supreme value of the offensive. The lesson was quickly learned and
put to the proof by our forces on the western front. The Royal Naval Air
Service, from the first, sought every opportunity for offensive action.
Raids over enemy centres, for the reasons which have been given, were
impossible to carry out except in the best of weather. Offensive action
in collaboration with ships of war was impeded by the imperfect
structure of the seaplanes and the imperfect arrangements for conveying
them to the scene of action. Meantime the public, impressed by the
dangers to be feared from the Zeppelin, called chiefly for defence. It
has never been easy to instruct even the members of the other services
concerning the right use of aircraft in war. When once they were
reconciled to our aeroplanes they liked to see them in the air above
them, which is the place of all places where our aeroplanes are least
useful. It is greatly to the credit of those officers who commanded the
Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service that they divined the
right doctrine, and practised it, and established it in use, thereby
securing for the air force the liberty to use its power to the best
advantage.

The best and most highly trained of the naval air units was the first to
be sent abroad. This was the Eastchurch squadron, under Wing Commander
Samson. Just after the outbreak of war it had been sent to Skegness, to
carry out patrol duties. On the 25th of August its commander was
summoned to London by the Director of the Air Department, and was
ordered to take his squadron on the following morning to Ostend, which
had been chosen to serve as an advanced base for reconnaissance. They
were to co-operate with a force of marines. Air Commodore Samson, in the
reminiscences which he has kindly contributed for the purpose of this
history, speaks with enthusiasm of the men and officers under his
command.

'Never once', he says, 'were we let down by our men, and both in France
and the Dardanelles they worked like slaves without a single complaint.
It is an absolute fact that during these periods I never had to deal
with a single disciplinary offence. They were the very pick of the Royal
Naval Air Service.'

The pilots, after receiving their orders, were kept waiting for a day at
Eastchurch, to give time for the landing of the Marine Brigade. 'This
depressed everybody,' says Air Commodore Samson, 'as we were all
suffering from the fear of the war being over before we could get a
chance to take part in it.' The fear proved groundless.

On the 27th of August there flew over:

  Wing Commander C. R. Samson.
  Flight Lieutenant S. V. Sippe.
  Flight Lieutenant E. Osmond.
  Squadron Commander R. B. Davies.
  Flight Lieutenant C. F. Beevor.
  Squadron Commander E. F. Briggs.
  Flight Lieutenant I. H. W. S. Dalrymple-Clarke.
  Squadron Commander I. T. Courtney.
  Flight Lieutenant H. A. Littleton.
  Flight Lieutenant Lord Edward Grosvenor.

An airship (No. 3) was flown across by Wing Commander N. F. Usborne,
with him Flight Lieutenant W. C. Hicks and Flight Lieutenant E. H.
Sparling. Squadron Commander R. H. Clark Hall, Captain Barnby of the
Royal Marines, and four junior officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer
Reserve were attached for special duties. The motor-cars, lorries, and
stores were embarked at Sheerness on board H.M.S. _Empress_ and s.s.
_Rawcliffe_. The machines that were flown over were a various
assemblage--three B.E. biplanes, two Sopwith biplanes, two Blériot
monoplanes, one Henri Farman biplane, one Bristol biplane, and a
converted Short seaplane fitted with a land undercarriage in place of
the floats. Warrant Officer J. G. Brownridge, R.N., was in charge of the
repair and upkeep of the aeroplanes. In these early days there were no
distinguishing marks on aeroplanes; it was arranged that every machine
should fly a Union Jack lashed to one of its struts, but this was not
done.

[Illustration: Prepared in the Historical Section of the Committee of
Imperial Defence.

Commander Samson's Operations in Belgium.]

The whole force arrived in safety, with only one or two minor mishaps.
Wing Commander Samson was fired at by rifles as he was coming down, and
after landing was stalked by a couple of British marines, who had come
to Belgium to shoot Germans and were aching to get to work.

The force remained at Ostend for three days only. There was no artillery
except the guns of the ships lying off the port, and the Marine Brigade
had only about half a dozen machine-guns. The defence of Ostend against
a German attack in force would have been more than difficult. The
aeroplanes carried out reconnaissance flights daily over the area
between Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, and, on the suggestion of General
Aston, who commanded the Marine Brigade, Wing Commander Samson made a
motor-car reconnaissance as far as Thourout and Bruges, in two cars, one
of them fitted with a Maxim gun. 'At Bruges', says Air Commodore Samson,
'we were received with great enthusiasm, the streets being crowded with
people. The popular delusion, which we did not contradict, was that we
were the advance party of a large British army. The Civil Guard hastily
donned their uniform on our arrival, and turned out briskly, with
weapons and valour. They used, we found out later, to be quick-change
artists, from uniform to plain clothes, and vice versa, according to the
circumstances. Having gained some information in the town, we returned
to Ostend. The whole party enjoyed themselves immensely, although some
of the more bloodthirsty members were disappointed at not getting a
fight. This trip made us consider the question of motor-car operations,
and ideas were discussed for armouring the cars.'

On the 30th of August orders came that the Marine Brigade and the
aeroplane squadron should return at once to England. It was a depressed
party that loaded up the stores and transport on board H.M.S. _Empress_
and the attendant collier. The aeroplanes flew by way of Dunkirk, where
there was a slight haze and they landed. Lord Edward Grosvenor made a
faulty landing, and crashed his Blériot beyond all hopes of repair. This
accident, which would have been treated as insignificant if it had
occurred on the way out, proved important enough to delay the aeroplanes
for three days at Dunkirk. During this time General Bidon, who commanded
the French troops at Dunkirk, and Mr. Sarel, the British vice-consul,
made urgent representations to the British Foreign Office, pleading that
the squadron should be permitted, for military and diplomatic reasons,
to co-operate with the French. Meantime, two of the aeroplanes carried
out a reconnaissance towards Lille and Douai. On the 1st of September a
telegram came from the Admiralty ordering that the squadron should
remain at Dunkirk, to operate against Zeppelins and enemy aeroplanes,
and to carry out reconnaissances as required by the French general. The
policy that was now adopted was subsequently explained at greater length
in an Admiralty telegram to the French Ministry of Marine:

'The Admiralty considers it extremely important to deny the use of
territory within a hundred miles of Dunkirk to German Zeppelins, and to
attack by aeroplanes all airships found replenishing there. With your
permission the Admiralty wish to take all necessary measures to maintain
aerial command of this region. The Admiralty proposes therefore to place
thirty or forty naval aeroplanes at Dunkirk or other convenient coast
points. In order that these may have a good radius of action they must
be able to establish temporary bases forty to fifty miles inland. The
Admiralty desires to reinforce officer commanding aeroplanes with fifty
to sixty armed motor-cars and two hundred to three hundred men. This
small force will operate in conformity with the wishes of the French
military authorities, but we hope it may be accorded a free initiative.
The immunity of Portsmouth, Chatham, and London from dangerous aerial
attack is clearly involved.'

So this little naval force began at once to operate from Dunkirk,
carrying out reconnaissances by aeroplane, and using motor-cars for
raids on the flank of the German communications. It gave assistance to
the French and put heart into the much-tried civil population of
Belgium. Most of the work at first was done with motor-cars, for the
aeroplanes were few in number.

On the 4th of September Wing Commander Samson, having started out with
two cars, one of them fitted with a Maxim gun, heard at Cassel by
telephone that six German officers in a motor-car had just passed
through Bailleul on their way to Cassel. The steep hill down from Cassel
to the plain beneath offered him an excellent point of vantage to lie in
wait for them, but he was unwilling to take it, for a fight close to the
town would have given the Germans an excuse for pretending that they had
been attacked by civilians, and for shooting some of the inhabitants. So
he went out to meet them, and engaged them at a range of five hundred
yards on the Cassel-Bailleul road. Two of the Germans were wounded, and
their car made off to Bailleul. Wing Commander Samson lay in wait for
them for almost two hours, in the hope that they would return reinforced
to continue the engagement. During this time an old French captain of
gendarmes, about sixty-five years of age, with a long-barrelled pistol,
arrived in a limousine, accompanied by his wife. He had raised a little
army of ten gendarmes, who came up soon after, armed with carbines.
Madame and the limousine then retired from the battle-field, while the
gallant captain disposed his army behind the hedge to await the return
of the enemy. But the enemy did not return; a message from the Bailleul
post office told how they had halted only three minutes in Bailleul, and
how they and all the other German military cars in Bailleul had gone
back post-haste to Lille, leaving behind them a quantity of wine which
they had collected from the residents. 'We had a tremendous reception',
says Air Commodore Samson, 'from the inhabitants of Cassel, who had
enjoyed a splendid view of our little engagement from their commanding
position on the hill-top. I was pleased that they had seen Germans
running away, as it would remove from their minds that 1870 feeling
which there is little doubt the Germans still produced in the minds of
civilian Frenchmen. This fight gave us a prestige in the villages
greater than its result called for. Probably the six German officers
reported that they had run up against tremendous odds.'

In the course of the next few weeks there were many such adventures. On
the 5th of September, the eve of the battle of the Marne, General Bidon
reported that the Germans, who had occupied Lille in force, were about
to leave, and that he intended to send some infantry, supported by a
squadron of cavalry at Bailleul, to capture the transport wagons which
were likely to be left behind. He asked for some motor-cars to escort
the infantry back from Lille. Wing Commander Samson, having borrowed
from the French two machine-guns (he had only one of his own) and four
French artillerymen, started off early on the morning of the 6th of
September, with four motor-cars (three of them armed with machine-guns),
six officers, ten of his own men, and the four Frenchmen. An aeroplane,
flown by Flight Lieutenant Dalrymple-Clarke, was detailed to escort
them, with instructions to fly well ahead and to come down low and fire
a Very light if any of the enemy were sighted. In the outskirts of Lille
the party learned that the Germans, two thousand infantry and eighty
cavalry, had left Lille that morning, so they went on into the big
square where the Prefecture stands. The square was packed with people.
The rest shall be told in Air Commodore Samson's own words:

'We got through the crowd, and took the cars into the courtyard, lining
them up abreast facing the square. The gendarmes at my request kept the
roadway in front of the building clear of the populace, so that we were
afforded a clear exit in case we had a fight, although I did not much
look forward to one with this seething crowd of civilians in the way.
Practically the whole of Lille appeared to be here; they were most
enthusiastic, cheering, singing, and shouting out, _Vive l'Angleterre!_
I did everything I could to impress the people with our discipline and
military behaviour, placing four of my men as sentries in a line behind
the railings, and one man standing by each machine-gun. Our sentries
stood like Guardsmen, and even when beautiful French girls came on the
scene, and sponged their faces and brushed the dust off their clothes,
they stood like lumps of granite. Leaving Davies in charge of the party,
I went inside to see the Prefect. He was pleased to see us, and said
that our arrival had reassured the town to a most extraordinary extent,
demonstrating to the people that they were not entirely at the mercy of
the enemy. He then told me of the brutal treatment he had received at
the hands of the Germans, showing the marks made on his throat by the
fingers of a German lieutenant who had nearly throttled him. They had
gone so far as to lead him out to hang him from a balcony, and he said
he had only been saved from this terrible fate by the coolness of his
secretary, who told the German that the Prefect du Nord was one of the
chief officials in France, and that his murder was a serious matter, not
lightly to be undertaken. The Prefect gave me the German officer's name,
and said, "If ever you come across him, do not let him go". I promised I
would not. The Prefect then went on to say that the Germans had been
quite worried over the fight at Cassel, and they had got the idea into
their heads that there was a large force of English round about Cassel.
Two German officers had been wounded in the fight, one seriously and the
other only slightly. There were, he said, about fifty French and some
few English wounded in the town; they had been left there by the
Germans, and if I signed a proclamation to say I had taken the town they
could be evacuated to Dunkirk, otherwise the town would be held
responsible. I therefore made out and signed the following Proclamation:

_To the Authorities of the City of Lille._

I have this day occupied Lille with an armed English and French Force.

                                        'C. R. Samson,
                                           'Commander, R.N.
                                     Officer in Command of English
                                         Force at Dunkirk.

I added the latter sentence in order to impress upon the Germans that
there was a large force at Dunkirk. This proclamation the Prefect
ordered to be immediately printed and posted all over the town. I
remained at the Hôtel de Ville until late in the afternoon, and as by
then it was found out that the Germans had not left any transports
behind, and that there was no chance of any French troops being sent to
Lille, I reluctantly decided that I ought to return to Dunkirk. We had
an ovation on our return journey through the streets, and our cars were
full of flowers, chocolate, cigarettes, &c.; the dense crowds cheered
themselves hoarse, and one felt rather as I imagined a Roman General
used to feel on being given a Triumph. The only mishap was when an
excitable individual threw a bottle of beer at me which smashed the
screen and gave me a severe blow on the jaw; I fancy he must have had
German sympathies.

'On our return to Dunkirk the French General, Bidon, was most
complimentary concerning our expedition, which he considered had been of
great value.'

The fight at Cassel had inspired the people of the district with a
plenary belief in the powers of the little English force. A few days
later, while Commander Samson was on a reconnaissance near Armentières,
he was stopped by an excited civilian in a motor-car who offered to
conduct him to a place where he might kill some Germans. The Germans, it
appeared, were from two to three thousand in number, with two batteries
of artillery, and were going from Lille to Douai. 'Personally', says Air
Commodore Samson, 'I thought about two thousand Germans rather a tough
proposition for four Englishmen and one unreliable old Maxim, and I
regretted that we could not carry out the slaughter he desired. He was
very crest-fallen, and said, "But I will come too".'

The motor-car work was daily gaining in importance; what was needed was
a stronger force and armoured cars. Two of the cars were fitted with
improvised armour made of boiler-plate at the _Forges et Chantiers de
France_, the big shipbuilding firm of Dunkirk, and application was made
to the home authorities for a larger force of marines and specially
designed armoured cars. The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston
Churchill) and the Director of the Air Department (Captain Murray
Sueter) were quick to support any enterprise that showed life and
promise; on the 8th of September there arrived a reinforcement of 250
marines under Major Armstrong, most of them reservists and pensioners,
but stout men when it came to a fight. Further, Wing Commander Samson
got into touch with Captain Goldsmith, of the General Headquarters
Intelligence Department, and, by his efforts, was put in control of the
gendarmes in the villages of the zone where he was operating. The
aeroplanes daily watched the movements of German troops along the roads,
and the motor-cars, assisted sometimes by the infantry, carried out
sweeps and drives, to surround parties of German horsemen or cyclists.
There were some fights. On the 13th of September there was a brush with
some German cavalry patrols, on the Albert road, just outside the town
of Doullens. 'We got out of the cars', says Air Commodore Samson, 'and
opened fire with rifles at about five hundred yards range. We hit five
of them. Three were killed, and one was picked up severely wounded. We
took him to a hospital in Doullens, where he died without recovering
consciousness. It rather made me feel a brute seeing this poor fellow
dying, and War seemed a beastly business. He was a rather half-starved
looking fellow, and looked as if he had been on short rations for a long
time. It was rather a repugnant job searching him whilst he was passing
away from this life, but it had to be done. Goldsmith, who could read
German, found from his papers that he belonged to the First Squadron of
the 26th Dragoons, Wurtemberg. He had a little child's atlas with which
to find his way about the country, and the map of France was about three
inches square, with only the names of half a dozen towns on it.'

The Naval Air Service now looked about for an advanced inland base, with
an aerodrome, for their aeroplane and motor-car reconnaissances. They
found one at the village of Morbecque, about three miles south of
Hazebrouck, and just north of the forest of Nieppe. There, on the 19th
of September, they established the headquarters of the unit. Most of the
officers and men were housed in an old château by the favour of Madame
la Baronne de la Grange, who had shown a fine example to her villagers
by remaining on duty, and had so impressed the Germans that they left
the village untouched. Two aeroplanes and six armoured cars and lorries
were the equipment of headquarters, and what in the navy is called the
lower deck personnel numbered 187 marines and 31 naval ratings. Most of
the work continued to be done by the motor-cars. Some of the lorries
were armoured with boiler-plate by the shipbuilding firm at Dunkirk, and
new armoured cars began to arrive in driblets from England. A cyclist
force was raised from the marines, and a number of French boys who knew
the country well were embodied in a boy scout unit. The main idea of
these preparations was to organize attacks on the German lines of
communication in the zone of country between Lille and Valenciennes. The
troops for this purpose were to consist of a brigade of French
territorial infantry with a squadron of Algerian cavalry, popularly
known as 'Goumiers', and a battery of the famous 'Soixante-quinze' field
guns. The Royal Naval Air Service were to operate, with as big a force
of armoured cars as possible, under the French general in command. On
the 22nd of September the French troops occupied Douai. The cars made a
reconnaissance to Aniche, between Douai and Valenciennes, and there had
a sharp engagement in the streets with German cavalry. Two days later
they had a stiff fight at Orchies, where a French territorial regiment,
detached to guard the route between Lille and Douai, was being heavily
attacked by two German battalions. The cars helped to extricate the
French troops and covered their retirement to Douai. But the German
forces in this northern territory were being reinforced strongly, and
reconnaissance by road became difficult. When Wing Commander Samson, on
the day after the fight at Aniche, was required to make a reconnaissance
to Cantin, a village three or four miles to the south of Douai along the
Cambrai road, he started off in a Talbot touring car with Sub-Lieutenant
Lord Annesley and Lieutenant F. R. Samson. They had two rifles, ten
rounds of ammunition, and three automatic pistols. 'It appeared
perfectly evident', he says, 'that between us and Cantin there were not
only the German guns, but plenty of German infantry. I must confess that
the three of us did not at all relish the idea of ambling into the whole
German Army and the local von Kluck in a touring car, but the job had to
be carried out to keep up our good name and the reputation of the
R.N.A.S.'

The Germans were in force, as he expected, and after a brisk engagement
he returned to Douai. The Douai operations, which were to have been an
attack on the German lines of communication, now became a defence of
Douai against the Germans. By the 29th of September Douai was virtually
in a state of siege, and it became a question whether the French troops
could be extricated. On the afternoon of the 1st of October the end
came. By that time the Germans had got into the town and were firing at
the Hôtel de Ville from the housetops. 'A shouting mob of cyclists and
infantry', says Air Commodore Samson, 'rushed into the courtyard of the
Hôtel de Ville, yelling out that we were surrounded, and the Germans had
taken the Pont d'Esquerchin. I went to General Plantey and said that
the only thing to do was to recapture the bridge and drive the Germans
away from that sector. He agreed, and said that if I would lead the way
with my cars he would follow with what of the troops he could get to
fight. There was no doubt that if we did not do something a wholesale
surrender was certain. I strongly objected to being mixed up in that. I
felt certain that if we could only start a fight the morale would
improve and that we would have every chance of extricating the whole
force from its predicament. I led out our cars therefore from the Hôtel
de Ville, and forcing our way through crowds of infantry and civilians
we reached a corner where I found about four hundred Infantry. I
implored, and swore, and ordered them to follow us against the enemy,
but only one came, jumping on to the step of the last car. From this
corner a straight street four hundred yards long led to a bridge over
the canal, which bridge was held by the Germans. As we went along this
road I certainly thought that here was the end of our little party, and
I felt very guilty at bringing Armstrong, Coode, and the other fine
fellows to death for no purpose except to keep up the Pride of the
Service. The fact that the infantry would not come on after us made us
very fierce, and I am certain, speaking for myself, that this feeling of
anger made us far braver than we had felt at first. I took the cars to
the head of the bridge and then halted them, and we opened fire along
the roadways which ran on both sides of the canal and along the road
ahead of us. I ordered the marines out of the cars on to the roadway,
and told them to keep up a hot fire on the Germans who were on the
opposite bank. Going myself with one marine on to the bridge I saw some
Huns on board two barges which were alongside the far bank, and emptied
my magazine at them. I can remember to this day the sound one of their
bullets made as it hit the girder alongside my face. We were so excited
that I am afraid our fire was very wild, but it made up for lack of
accuracy by its volume, our three machine-guns firing like mad. We kept
up this game for about five minutes, when I saw the Germans clearing off
in all directions. I ordered, "Cease fire", and ordered all on board the
cars. I then led the cars at full speed along the main Henin-Lietard
road, intending to get to the position we had held in the morning, as
from there we could cover the retreat of the French and command the
approaches to the Pont d'Esquerchin.... I knew that in front of us there
was a double trench across the road, and which entailed cars stopping
and reversing to get through in the gap left between the two trenches.
Just short of this obstacle was a side road leading to Beaumont. I
determined, if we met the enemy at the trench, to hold the corner at the
side road as long as we could, hoping that the Infantry would follow on.
This side road would be the line of approach of the cavalry division
reported close to Beaumont. On arriving at the corner we encountered a
very heavy fire coming from the trench and the high ground close to it.
It would have been useless to have attempted to go on against that
volume of fire, so we stopped at the corner, where we got some shelter
from a cottage, and opened fire with the machine-guns from the two
armoured cars, whilst the rest of us lay down on the road and kept up a
hot fire with rifles.

'We held out at the corner for nearly fifteen minutes until the Germans
opened fire with field guns from Le Polygone; the situation then got too
hot, as shrapnel was bursting all round us, and the cottage was quickly
demolished by high explosives. I therefore gave the order to retire, and
we jumped on board the cars and went along the Cuincy-Esquerchin road.
After we had put a mile between us and the corner I halted to see how we
had fared. Our casualties now consisted of eight men wounded. All the
cars had many bullet-marks, but no serious damage had been done to them,
except one of the armoured cars had a bullet through its radiator,
causing it to lose practically all its water. We only had about 200
rounds of ammunition left, and were running pretty short of petrol,
otherwise all was well with us.... I considered that we had done
everything we could to open a line of retreat for the infantry, and that
we had held out at the corner as long as was possible. As it happened we
had cleared the way for the French, as the general got 2,500 infantry
out of the town across the Pont d'Esquerchin and keeping close to the
canal bank he had got them well clear of the Huns without firing a shot,
whilst we were fighting them at the corner. I am afraid that a good
number remained in the town and were captured. General Plantey was kind
enough to write to say that if it had not been for the English cars who
had opened the door he could not have extricated his force.

'Just short of Beaumont I came across the cavalry division. I went up to
the General, who was a fine martial figure surrounded by an escort of
Cuirassiers with steel breast-plates. After I had told him what had
happened, I said that there was every probability of the Douai Force
having surrendered, but there was a chance of them having got out whilst
we were holding the cross-roads. He was complimentary about our
performance and said we had done all we could. He recommended that I
should return to Morbecque and report to General Aston. He said that he
was not pushing on any farther, but was going to retire to Beaumont. I
therefore went through Beaumont to Béthune and back to Morbecque, where
we were received as if we had risen from the dead. Briggs told me that
they had fully expected never to see us again. I went to bed after
telephoning to General Paris, who had relieved General Aston in command
of the Marines. General Paris sent the following report to the
Admiralty: "Commander Samson and all ranks appear to have behaved very
gallantly in difficult circumstances, and I consider his action was
perfectly correct."'

These motor-car operations were no part of the war in the air. But they
were carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service, and they illustrate the
immense diversity of business which was undertaken by that service
during the course of the war. Off the coast of Cornwall or over the
rivers of West Africa, in raids on German cities or in expeditions to
assist beleaguered Allies, the Naval Air Service were incessantly active
on the fringe of things. They were sailors and adventurers by tradition;
they adapted themselves to circumstance, and made the best of what they
found. Their courage put new heart into desperate men, and their
humanity (the greatest tradition of the British navy) added lustre to
their courage. The half-witted pedantry of the German doctrine and
practice of war, which uses brutality as a protective mask for
cowardice, was far from them. It was against that doctrine and practice,
as against an alien enemy, that they fought; and only those who have
been guilty of inhuman practices have ever had cause to complain of
their cruelty.

Beyond the usual reconnaissances not very much work was done in the air
from headquarters. The available aeroplanes were few, and there were
many calls on them. Nominally the Dunkirk force was to consist of three
squadrons of twelve machines each, but in these early days two or three
machines were, often the most that a squadron could muster. On the 3rd
of September Squadron Commander E. L. Gerrard arrived at Ostend with
three additional machines intended to operate from Antwerp against
airship sheds in Germany. These machines remained at Ostend, pegged down
under the lee of the sand dunes, while Squadron Commander Gerrard went
by road to Antwerp to find an aerodrome and to arrange for the proposed
raid. On the 12th of September a violent squall came up from the west
and caught the machines, uprooting or breaking the stakes to which they
were secured. The machines turned cartwheels along the sands and were
totally wrecked. The party returned to Dunkirk to refit, and as the
attack on the Zeppelin sheds in Germany was reckoned to be of the first
importance, Wing Commander Samson, who was ordered to take charge of the
flight, had to give up three of the best machines he had.

It was believed at that time that Antwerp would not fall. When the
British army was moved north from the Aisne to Ypres, the original idea
of the Allied strategy was resuscitated. That idea had been to take the
offensive in Belgium and to repel the German advance or to make a flank
attack on it. But the German blow had been too heavy and too quick for
this plan to develop, and in the effort to save Paris the British army
had been driven far southwards into France. Paris was saved at the
Marne, and now that the Germans had entrenched themselves in a corner of
France it was hoped that an attack upon their communications would
compel them to retreat. Again the Germans were beforehand. When things
came to a standstill on the Aisne, they concentrated a large force in
Belgium to make a push for the Channel ports. The British naval
division, arriving at Antwerp on the 5th of October, could do no more
than delay the fall of Antwerp by a few days. The Seventh Division of
the British army, under Sir Henry Rawlinson, which was disembarked at
Ostend and Zeebrugge on the 6th of October, found that its task was not
an assault on the German flank but the defence of the Channel ports from
a furious German assault.

Nevertheless, the Naval Air Service carried on. Two attacks were made on
the airship sheds at Düsseldorf and Cologne. The earlier of these was
made on the 22nd of September by four aeroplanes, two for each place.
There was a thick mist extending from the river Roer to some miles east
of the Rhine, and only Flight Lieutenant Collet succeeded in finding his
objective. He glided down at Düsseldorf from a height of 6,000 feet, the
last 1,500 feet through the mist, and came in sight of the shed when he
was a quarter of a mile from it at a height of 400 feet. One of his
bombs fell short; the others probably hit the shed, but failed to
explode. Germans ran in all directions. All four machines were back in
Antwerp by one o'clock in the afternoon.

The second and more successful attack was made on the 8th of October,
during the evacuation of Antwerp. Antwerp was being bombarded, the
panic-stricken retreat of the population had begun, but the Naval Air
Service stuck to its aerodrome, and carried out the first notable
air-raid of the war. On the 7th of October the machines at Antwerp had
been taken out of their shed and planted in the middle of the aerodrome,
to avoid damage by splinters if the shed should be hit by a shell. On
the forenoon of the 8th the weather was misty, so Squadron Commander
Spenser Grey and Flight Lieutenant Marix spent the time in tuning up
their Sopwith Tabloid machines. In the afternoon there was no
improvement in the weather, but if an attack was to be made from Antwerp
it was important to start, for the Germans were about to enter the
city. Flight Lieutenant Marix, starting at 1.30 p.m., flew to
Düsseldorf, dived at the shed, and let go his bombs at a height of 600
feet. The destruction was complete. The roof fell in within thirty
seconds and flames rose to a height of 500 feet, showing that an
inflated Zeppelin must have been inside. The aeroplane was damaged by a
heavy rifle- and shell-fire, but Lieutenant Marix managed to get back to
within twenty miles of Antwerp, and to return to the city by the aid of
a bicycle which he borrowed from a peasant. Squadron Commander Spenser
Grey, starting at 1.20 p.m., flew to Cologne, where he found a thick
mist and failed to locate the airship sheds. He dropped his bombs on the
main railway station in the middle of the town, and got back to Antwerp
at 4.45 p.m. At six o'clock the general evacuation of Antwerp was
ordered, and the officers of the Naval Air Service succeeded in reaching
Ostend by noon on the following day. The transport and stores had
preceded them. Since the 3rd of October Wing Commander Samson's force
had been employed in assisting the naval division at Antwerp. Some
seventy motor omnibuses, taken off the streets of the cities of England,
and driven by their civilian drivers, who made up in cheerfulness and
skill for what they lacked in military science, had been employed to
carry the stores of the naval division, and were escorted by the
armoured cars. Their stay in Antwerp was brief. Where once the Germans
had succeeded in bringing their big guns within range the end was
certain. 'I used to find the streets of Antwerp', says Air Commodore
Samson, 'a most depressing sight, thronged as they were with Belgians;
beautifully dressed ladies were apparently carrying on their usual life,
shopping and promenading as if the siege was a minor affair.' The people
of a great commercial city are slow to realize the facts of war. When
the realization comes it comes with panic swiftness. The crowd of
refugees which hurried by all roads out of Antwerp during the night of
the 9th of October bound for anywhere, and fleeing from the destroyers
of Louvain, was one of the most disheartening spectacles of the war.
There were some bright spots in the prevailing darkness. One of these
was General Sir Henry Rawlinson, of the Seventh Division, who took over
the command at Ostend. 'I came into contact continuously with him for
the next month,' says Air Commodore Samson, 'and I never saw him
down-hearted once, even in the worst periods at Ypres. I never left his
presence without feeling that we were bound to win: he was worth an Army
Corps by himself.' The English nurses, who had two omnibus loads of
wounded, are another luminous memory of that awful night. 'They were a
splendid advertisement for the English race; absolutely unperturbed,
calm and competent, amidst the surrounding mob of panic-stricken people.
They impressed me more than I can say. Their one job was to get their
wounded charges safe to Ostend, and that they would do it was evident to
the most casual observer.'

The evacuation of Antwerp put an end to all plans for a British
offensive in Belgium. Ostend was crowded with refugees, and the streets
were full of distressing scenes. The harbour railway station was a
seething mass of humanity attempting to get on board the few steamers
that went to England. The British forces, and with them the Royal Naval
Air Service, retreated by stages. Aerodromes were occupied successively
at Thourout, Ypres, and, on the 15th of October, Poperinghe. On this
same date Zeebrugge and Ostend fell into the hands of the Germans.
'During the last three weeks', says Air Commodore Samson, 'we had been
always on the go, without a home, without any idea where we were going
to next, without food sometimes, without adequate transport, and yet we
had kept going because all ranks had pulled their pound and a bit over.'

Thus ended the Belgian adventure of the Naval Air Service. It had been
good while it lasted. If a force of five thousand skilled and fit men,
with armoured cars and aeroplanes, had been available for these
operations, the German communications might have been seriously
disordered. Some critics condemn all such adventures as 'side-shows'.
They may be right; but it is always to be remembered that the national
character is seen at its best in solitary adventures of this kind, and
that the British Empire, from the first, was built up by
side-shows--many of them unauthorized by the Government. The experience
of this war, and of former wars, proves only that these enterprises lose
a great part of their value if they are timidly designed or
half-heartedly executed. To condemn them out and out is to prefer the
German plan of empire, which depends wholly on central initiative and
central control, to the sporadic energy of the British Empire, which can
never be killed by a blow aimed at the centre, for its life is in every
part. Military theory, based as it is chiefly on the great campaigns of
continental conquerors, has so impressed some of its British students
that they forget their own nature, renounce their pride, and cheapen
their dearest possessions.

The overseas work of the Naval Air Service during the closing months of
1914, from the battle of Ypres onwards, can be briefly stated. It
consisted of help given to the British army, reconnaissances and attacks
carried out along the occupied coast of Belgium, and two great
air-raids.

During the battle of Ypres one naval aeroplane was working for the First
Army Corps. Reconnaissances were carried out daily by the few available
machines. Squadron Commander Davies on three occasions attacked German
machines in the air; they escaped by planing down to behind their own
lines. Flight Lieutenant Collet, whose aeroplane had been wrecked, flew
as observer to Squadron Commander Davies, and reported the positions of
six new German batteries. Flight Lieutenant Pierse, in an old
inefficient machine which climbed badly, made many flights along the
coast, and was wounded by shrapnel in the air over Antwerp.

Meantime, on the 31st of October, a seaplane base was established at
Dunkirk in the works of the shipbuilding company, which occupied a part
of the harbour. Under Squadron Commander J. W. Seddon the seaplanes did
some good work; they located enemy guns, dropped heavy bombs on Bruges
railway station, co-operated with the ships' guns in the bombardment of
the coast, kept a look-out for German submarines, and reported on the
enemy defences.

This base at Dunkirk remained an active centre for our seaplane and
aeroplane work throughout the war, and did much to defeat the German
plans. The possession of the coast of Flanders had a twofold value for
the Germans; it served to safeguard the right flank of their invading
army and it provided them with a base both for their submarine campaign
and for occasional attacks on the naval forces which held the Dover
Straits. There can be no doubt that it was part of their plan to take
permanent possession of the Belgian coast. It is not easy to understand
why, before the war, when Zeebrugge and Ostend were made into fortified
harbours, a clause was inserted in the contractors' orders that the mole
at Zeebrugge should be fit to carry hundred-ton guns and to withstand
heavy gun recoil; also, that the Zeebrugge and Ostend locks and basins
should be capable of accommodating a flotilla of torpedo-boats. These
things were not done in the interests of England, nor had the Belgian
Government any reason to fear naval aggression from the west. The plans
which had this beginning were developed and completed during the first
two years of the German occupation. Bruges, which was joined by canals
both to Zeebrugge and Ostend, became the naval headquarters of the
German forces, the base for submarines and torpedo-craft, and the centre
for construction and repair. Everything was organized on a solid basis,
as if to endure; yet at some time during the third year of the war the
enemy must have begun to feel doubtful whether he could keep his hold on
the Belgian coast. About thirty miles along the coast from Ostend, and
forty or more miles from Zeebrugge, lay the port of Dunkirk, occupied in
strength by the navies of France and Great Britain, and by the Royal
Naval Air Service. Dunkirk was a thorn in the side of the Germans. The
docks and harbours at Bruges, Zeebrugge, and Ostend were incessantly
bombed from the air. Ships and works were seriously damaged, but the
effect on the morale of the German forces was even more considerable.
Repeated alarms, which sent all hands to take shelter in dug-outs,
interfered with the work of every day. In the main basin at Bruges, and
alongside the Zeebrugge mole, shelters, jutting out over the water, were
provided for submarines and destroyers. The respect felt by the Germans
for the menace of Dunkirk is perhaps best witnessed by the fierce
nightly attacks from the air which they made on the town during the
later period of the war. Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, who commanded the
Dover Patrol from April 1915 Until the end of 1917, speaks of these as
'the martyrdom of Dunkirk'. A great many of the houses in the town were
levelled with the ground. Yet the inhabitants, knowing that they were
maintaining a force which gave as good as it got, went about their
daily business cheerful and unperturbed. They were rewarded in the end.
When, after the armistice, the last German submarine came through the
lock-gates at Zeebrugge, with her crew fallen in on the fore
superstructure, her captain called for three cheers,--'As that's the
last you'll see of Flanders.' The cheers were given very heartily--an
involuntary tribute to the four years' work of the naval services at
Dunkirk.

All these things were yet to come when the third of the naval aeroplane
raids into enemy territory was made on the 21st of November 1914. This,
the successful attack on the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen, Lake
Constance, was planned and executed to perfection. Lieutenant Pemberton
Billing, of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, left England on the 21st
of October under Admiralty instructions. He arrived at Belfort on the
24th and, by the courtesy of the French general in command, obtained
permission to use the aerodrome within the fortifications and its large
dirigible shed as the starting-point for a raid. German spies were
believed to be at work in Belfort, so arrangements were made for the
machines to be brought into the place by road transport at night, and
for their pilots to be boarded and lodged, during the whole of their
stay, in the dirigible shed. Having completed these preliminaries,
Lieutenant Billing carried out discreet inquiries which enabled him to
draw up a chart of the proposed route, a complete plan of the Zeppelin
factory, and a draft of instructions for the proposed raid.

Meantime the French had themselves been meditating a raid on
Friedrichshafen, and the Governor of Belfort had received some valuable
reports on the factory and the prevailing weather conditions. After some
discussion it was decided that as Zeppelins were intended to assist in
the destruction of the British fleet, the Royal Naval Air Service
should be privileged to pay the first visit, but that this privilege
should lapse if the visit were not paid within thirty days.

In the season of late autumn, when the barometer is high and the air
calm, the whole of the Swiss plateau and the Rhine valley bordering it
is often plunged in a thick mist which reaches to a height of about
3,000 feet. Above this sea of mist the air is clear and the flight of an
aeroplane safe and easy. The course chosen from Belfort to Lake
Constance, a distance of about 125 miles, was bent, like an elbow at an
obtuse angle, round the northern border of Switzerland, so that Swiss
neutrality should not be violated. It lay over country much of which is
wooded and sparsely inhabited--first from Belfort to Mülhausen, thence
over the Black Forest and some groups of wooded peaks to a point north
of Schaffhausen. Here the prescribed course was to bend southwards,
between the two arms of Lake Constance which stretch to the north-west,
and when once the lake was reached the objective would be full in view.

On the 28th of October Lieutenant Pemberton Billing returned to England
to collect men and machines. A squadron of four Avros, with 80
horse-power Gnome engines, had already been formed at Manchester under
Squadron Commander P. Shepherd. The four pilots were:

  Squadron Commander E. F. Briggs.
  Flight Commander J. T. Babington.
  Flight Lieutenant S. V. Sippe.
  Flight Sub-Lieutenant R. P. Cannon.

[Illustration: Friedrichshafen Raid.]

There were eleven air mechanics. The machines and stores were shipped at
Southampton for Le Havre and arrived in Belfort by night on the 13th of
November. When he reached Belfort, Squadron Commander Shepherd fell ill;
moreover, the weather was bad, with a falling barometer and a strong
easterly wind. At last, on Saturday, the 21st of November, conditions
improved and the raid took place. At half-past nine in the morning the
four machines were lined up on the western side of the aerodrome to
undergo engine tests and bomb-release tests. They were then dispatched,
at intervals of five minutes, Squadron Commander Briggs, on machine 873,
being followed by Flight Commander Babington on machine 875, and Flight
Lieutenant Sippe on machine 874. Sub-Lieutenant Cannon's machine failed
to rise and broke its tail skid. The other three reached Friedrichshafen
about noon, almost together, and wrought havoc on the Zeppelin works.
Squadron Commander Briggs was brought down by machine-gun fire, which
riddled his petrol tank. The other two returned in safety.

Two accounts of this raid shall be quoted, one from the air, the other
from the ground. Here is Flight Lieutenant Sippe's log:

  Attack on Friedrichshafen, 21st November 1914.

  '9.55 a.m.   Left Belfort. Shaped course for Basle,
               following Nos. 873 and 875.

  10.25 a.m.   Arrived Basle, passed to north, observed
               No. 873 going away to south, overtook
               No. 875. No. 873 several miles to starboard.
               Followed Rhine at height of
               about 5,000 feet, keeping to north.

  11 a.m.      Above clouds in Rhine Valley. No. 873
               passed across and took up position ahead
               and about a mile to port. Continued
               to Schaffhausen, when suddenly lost
               sight of 873. No. 875 about two miles
               astern and about same height.

  11.30 a.m.   Arrived extreme end of lake and came
               down to within 10 feet of water. Continued
               at this height over lake, passing
               Constance at a very low altitude, as
               considered less likelihood of being seen.
               Crossed lake and hugged north shore
               until five miles from objective. Started
               climb and reached 1,200 feet. Observed
               twelve or fourteen shrapnels
               bursting slightly north of Friedrichshafen.
               Presumed these were directed
               against No. 873.

  11.55 a.m.   When half a mile from sheds put machine
               into dive, and came down to 700 feet.
               Observed men lined up to right of shed,
               number estimated 300-500. Dropped
               one bomb in enclosure to put gunners
               off aim, and, when in correct position,
               two into works and shed. The fourth
               bomb failed to release. During this
               time very heavy fire, mitrailleuse and
               rifle, was being kept up, and shells were
               being very rapidly fired. Dived and
               flew north until out of range of guns,
               then turned back to waterside shed to
               try and release fourth bomb. Bomb
               would not release; was fired on by two
               machine guns (probably mitrailleuse),
               dived down to surface of lake and made
               good my escape.

  1.50 p.m.    Arrived Belfort.'

The other account was given by a Swiss engineer who saw the raid from an
hotel near the Zeppelin sheds. He counted nine bombs which fell in an
area of 700 square yards round the works and sheds, and he said the
earth and débris were thrown up to a height of 25 feet. Each machine had
four twenty-pound bombs; one of Flight Lieutenant Sippe's bombs, as has
been seen, failed to release. That leaves two bombs of the twelve to be
accounted for; these fell on the sheds themselves, one greatly damaging
a Zeppelin, the other destroying the gas-works, which exploded and sent
up gigantic flames in the sky. The bombs made the town tremble; the
military officers lost their heads and gave contradictory orders to the
troops. The mitrailleuse section, however, kept cool, and fired from 200
to 250 shots before Squadron Commander Briggs was brought down. The
three British biplanes crossed, recrossed, and circled at such a speed
over Friedrichshafen that many onlookers thought there were six of them.
Squadron Commander Briggs was attacked and injured after landing; when
captured by the military he was nearly fainting, and was transported to
the large Weingarten hospital at Friedrichshafen, where he was tended
with every care. In fact the local officers regarded him with
admiration, much as the British public regarded Captain von Müller of
the _Emden_.

The damage done was severe, and now that the horse was stolen the German
authorities took every care to lock the stable door. A great network
construction was built above the sheds. The Bavarian regiments and the
night sentinels were doubled; the number of mitrailleuses and
anti-aircraft guns was much increased. Five powerful searchlights were
installed on the hills around the town and were kept at work all night.
Two additional gun-boats were stationed in front of the floating shed.
At eight o'clock every evening all the lights of the town were put out.
Every civilian was compelled to carry a passport, and no foreigners were
allowed to approach. The Zeppelin sheds were not attacked again, but all
the men and all the material required for these additional defences were
kept out of the war by the four hours' adventure of three British
pilots. So true it is that the best defence is attack.

The pilots deserve all praise for their admirable navigation, and the
machines must not be forgotten. There have since been many longer and
greater raids, but this flight of 250 miles, into gunfire, across enemy
country, in the frail little Avro with its humble horse-power, can
compare as an achievement with the best of them, and some part of the
credit must be spared for those who planned it and for those who tended
and prepared the machines. The men on the ground, or in the engine-room,
or in the racing stable, who have no part in the excitement and renown
of action, are the invisible creators of victory.

Shortly after the raid the Swiss Government complained that the British
aviators had flown over Swiss territory, and had thereby violated Swiss
neutrality. Flight Lieutenant Sippe's log, which has been quoted above,
certainly gives some ground for this contention. The British Foreign
Office, in their reply, said that instructions had been given to the
British aviators not to fly over Swiss territory, that it was not their
intention to do so, and that it had been the belief of the Foreign
Office that they had not done so. The British Government assured the
Swiss Government that if Swiss neutrality had been violated it had been
by inadvertence, and expressed their great regret that any British
aeroplanes should have flown over any part of Swiss territory. At the
same time the British Government were careful to point out that the
International Congress of 1910 had failed to come to any agreement as to
the recognition of territory in the air, and that Great Britain's desire
to respect the wishes of the Swiss Government should not be taken as an
admission 'that Great Britain is necessarily bound in all cases to
respect a doctrine which, however it may be viewed by herself, is not
accepted and may not be acted upon by other Powers'. This point of law
has since been settled. The International Air Convention of 1921, which
has been signed by the Allied Powers, sets forth in its first article
'that every Power has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the air
space above its territory'.

The fourth raid into enemy territory, this time by seaplanes, was
carried out on Christmas Day of 1914. How deeply the threat of the
Zeppelins had impressed the public imagination and the minds of those
who were responsible for the Royal Naval Air Service may be seen by
this--that all four naval raids were directed against Zeppelin sheds.
This fourth raid, though it did not succeed in destroying any German
airship, achieved some useful observation, and had the incidental
advantage that it brought the navy into conflict with Zeppelins, and
diminished the portentous respect in which they had been held. Two naval
officers, famous by their achievements in the war--Commodore R. J. B.
Keyes and Commodore R. Y. Tyrwhitt--were in command of the supporting
force. Two light cruisers, with eight destroyers of the Third Flotilla,
sailed from Harwich for the Bight of Heligoland at 5.0 a.m. on Thursday,
the 24th of December, escorting the three seaplane-carriers, each with
three seaplanes aboard. The air was clear and the sea calm, but it was
bitterly cold. The _Arethusa_, preceded by a screen of four destroyers,
led the way; she was followed, at intervals of one and a half cables, or
300 yards, by the _Engadine_ and _Riviera_. A mile behind, with a
similar screen of four destroyers, came the _Undaunted_, followed by the
_Empress_. Two destroyers and ten submarines, under the command of
Commodore Keyes, co-operated with this force, to fend off the attacks of
hostile ships and to pick up the aviators on their return. The purpose
of the raid was to destroy the airship sheds at Cuxhaven, but the
Admiralty were eager to get such information as might be obtainable
without detriment to this purpose, and the seaplanes were instructed to
report, if possible, on the numbers and classes of ships inside the
basin at Wilhelmshaven, or anchored in the Schillig Roads (that is, the
estuary of Wilhelmshaven), or in the mouth of the Elbe. The little fleet
made straight for the Bight and reached a position some twelve miles
north of Heligoland by 6.0 a.m. on Christmas morning. No time was lost
in getting the machines out; seven of the nine got away soon after 7.0
a.m., the other two could not get off the water, and were hoisted in
again. Then the supporting force cruised for some hours off Heligoland
to await the return of the machines. At a very early hour in the morning
it had become evident from the agitated condition of the German wireless
that the presence of the squadron had been discovered, but they were not
attacked by enemy ships of war. A ship was seen approaching from between
Heligoland and the mainland, but she turned back before she could be
identified. At 7.35 a.m. a Zeppelin was seen about ten miles distant,
coming from the direction of Heligoland, and at 7.55 a hostile seaplane
from the same direction. The seaplane attacked the squadron and dropped
four bombs, which were not bad shots, but failed to hit. The squadron
replied with anti-aircraft guns, maxims, and rifles. When the Zeppelin
was within 11,000 yards, fire was opened on her with 6-inch guns and
shrapnel shell at extreme elevation. The _Undaunted_ burst several
shells fairly close to her; she retreated to Heligoland and was not seen
again. Soon after ten o'clock three of the British raiding seaplanes,
having returned from the raid, were sighted and recovered, but the
cruisers continued to await the return of the remaining four. A second
Zeppelin and several hostile seaplanes now approached from the
southward; all dropped bombs without success. The British seaplanes, it
was known, carried fuel sufficient only for a three-hours' flight; when
they had been gone for four and a half hours it was evident that they
were not likely to be in the air, so the cruiser and destroyer squadron,
after searching the waters of the Frisian coast, reluctantly shaped its
course for home. Commodore Tyrwhitt, in his report of the encounter with
the German aircraft, remarks that both Zeppelins practised the same
method of attack, namely, to get behind the line of ships and to drop
their bombs on the fore and aft line. Their speed was great, but they
seemed to suffer from one disability which made them clumsy to handle.
'It was repeatedly noted', he says, 'that the Zeppelins, when altering
course, invariably "wore", and did not appear to be able to turn head to
wind. This made them ridiculously easy to avoid in spite of their speed,
which was surprising.' That is to say, the Zeppelins did not tack.
Perhaps it was their policy to maintain rapid movement, so as not to
present a stationary target. To alter their course in the eye of the
wind they fell off from the wind and, after presenting their stern to
it, came up on the other side. 'The seaplane attacks', the commodore
adds, 'were of a much more active nature, but they do not appear to have
discovered the art of hitting.' German seaplanes, when they approached
end on, were very like British seaplanes, so the order was given to wait
for a bomb to be dropped before opening fire. This order caused
'considerable merriment' among the ships' companies. 'I am quite
convinced', says Commodore Tyrwhitt, 'that, given ordinary sea-room, our
ships have nothing to fear from seaplanes and Zeppelins.'

For eight hours, in perfect weather, the British squadron occupied
German waters just off the principal German naval ports. The Germans
knew the composition of the British force, and as visibility was
extraordinarily good they must have known also that there were no
supports; but their navy made no attempt to interfere with the British
ships.

Three of the four missing pilots returned, and were picked up by
submarine E 11, close to Norderney Gat. They were there attacked by a
hostile airship; the submarine, as soon as it had taken the pilots on
board, was forced to dive, and the machines were abandoned. The missing
pilot, Flight Commander F. E. T. Hewlett, had engine failure, and came
down on the sea near a Dutch trawler; he was picked up and detained for
a time in Holland. The Cuxhaven sheds were not located, but the German
naval ports were pretty thoroughly surveyed, and a good deal of damage
was done by bomb-dropping. Seaplane No. 136, piloted by Flight Commander
C. F. Kilner, with Lieutenant Erskine Childers as observer, flew over
the Schillig Roads, and reported, lying at anchor there, seven
battleships of the _Deutschland_ and _Braunschweig_ classes, three
battle cruisers, apparently the _Seydlitz_, _Moltke_, and _Von der
Tann_, one four-funnelled cruiser, probably the _Roon_, two old light
cruisers of the _Frauenlob_ and _Bremen_ classes, ten destroyers, one
large two-funnelled merchantman or liner, and three ships which appeared
to be colliers. Anti-aircraft guns, firing shrapnel, were used against
the seaplane and very nearly scored a direct hit. On issuing from the
Roads the officers in the seaplane saw a large number of ships in the
northern part of the fairway of the Weser, and two destroyers east of
Wangeroog. As a result of this reconnaissance a part of the German fleet
was moved from Cuxhaven to various places farther up the Kiel canal.

The day before the Cuxhaven raid the Germans made their first raid over
England, and dropped their first bomb on English soil. The air raids
over England during the war were many and serious; they were an
important and characteristic part of the German plan of campaign, and
their story must be told separately. They began with a curious timid
little adventure. On the 21st of December a German aeroplane made its
appearance above Dover; it dropped a bomb which was aimed, no doubt, at
some part of the harbour, but fell harmlessly in the sea. The aeroplane
then went home. Three days later, on the 24th, a single aeroplane again
dropped a bomb, this time on English soil near Dover. This was the
prelude to a formidable series of air raids, which, however, were not
made in strength till well on in the following year.

The close of the year 1914, and of the first five months of the war, saw
the German assault on the European commonwealth held, though not
vanquished. If the German plans had succeeded, the war would have been
over before the coming of the new year. The failure of these plans was
inevitably a longer business. The best-informed judges, from Lord
Kitchener downwards, recognized that this was not a war which could be
ended at a blow. A great nation does not so readily give up the dreams
on which it has been fed for the better part of a hundred years. The
German people had been educated for the war, taught to regard the war as
their brightest hope, to concentrate their imagination on what it might
do for them, and to devote their energies to carrying it through. The
movement of so great a mass of opinion and zeal, when once it has begun,
is not soon reversed. Germany settled down to the business of winning
the war. The Germans had had some partial successes, in the destruction
of a Russian army at Tannenberg, and of a British squadron at Coronel.
They began to realize the immensity of their task, but they still
believed that they could perform it, and that if they could not beat
down the opposing forces, they could wear them down.

Month by month, as the war continued, it spread, and involved nation
after nation. In the first summer Japan came in, and in the first
autumn, Turkey. As the number of Germany's enemies increased, so did the
tale of Great Britain's responsibilities. British troops, during the
course of the war, fought upon every front, against every one of the
Powers allied to Germany; British help in men, or money or material, was
given to every one of Germany's enemies. Already in August 1914 British
naval and military forces were operating in Togoland, in the Cameroons,
and at Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa. By November Basra, in the
Persian Gulf, was occupied, and the Mesopotamian campaign had begun. In
addition to all these new burdens, the anxieties of administration in
many countries, and especially in Egypt, which owed allegiance to the
Sultan, were increased tenfold by the war. Those who had pleased
themselves with the fancy that Great Britain is an island were rudely
undeceived.

Aircraft had proved their utility, or rather their necessity, in the
campaign on the western front; they were not less needed in all these
distant theatres. In uncivilized or thinly peopled countries a single
squadron of aeroplanes may save the work of whole battalions of
infantry. The great problem of the first year of the war was a problem
of manufacture and training, the problem, indeed, of the creation of
values. With the instruments that we had at the outbreak of war we had
done all that we could, and more than all that we had promised; but what
we had achieved, at the best, was something very like a deadlock. The
war, if it was to be won, could only be won in the workshop and the
training-school. These places are not much in the public eye; but it was
in these places that the nation prepared itself for the decisive
struggle. The New Army, and an air force that ultimately numbered not
hundreds but tens of thousands, emerged from the discipline of
preparation. The process took time; months and even years passed before
its results were apparent. But some account of it must be given at this
point in the story if the events of the later years of the war in the
air are to be made intelligible or credible.

The greatest creation of all, the temper of the new force, was not so
much a creation as a discovery. Good machines and trained men, however
great their number, are not enough to win a war. War is a social affair,
and wars are won by well-knit societies. The community of habits and
ideas which unites civilized mankind is too loose a bond for this
purpose; it has too much in it of mere love of comfort and ease and
diversion. Patriotism will go farther, but for the making of a
first-class fighting force patriotism is not enough. A narrower and
tighter loyalty and a closer companionship are needed, as every regiment
knows, before men will cheerfully go to meet the ultimate realities of
war. They must live together and work together and think together. Their
society must be governed by a high and exacting code, imposed by
consent, as the creed of all. The creation, or the tended growth, of
such a society, that is to say, of the new air force, was one of the
miracles of the war. The recruits of the air were young, some of them no
more than boys. Their training lasted only a few months. They put their
home life behind them, or kept it only as a fortifying memory, and threw
themselves with fervour and abandon into the work to be done. Pride in
their squadron became a part of their religion. The demands made upon
them, which, it might reasonably have been believed, were greater than
human nature can endure, were taken by them as a matter of course; they
fulfilled them, and went beyond. They were not a melancholy company;
they had something of the lightness of the element in which they moved.
Indeed, it would be difficult to find, in the world's history, any body
of fighters who, for sheer gaiety and zest, could hold a candle to them.
They have opened up a new vista for their country and for mankind. Their
story, if it could ever be fully and truly written, is the Epic of
Youth.




CHAPTER VIII

THE EXPANSION OF THE AIR FORCE


When the war broke out, the Royal Flying Corps, as has been told, took
the field with all its available forces. The four squadrons which were
ready for service went abroad at once. In their desire to rise to their
great opportunity the officers appointed to command in France made
something like a clean sweep, taking abroad with them almost all the
efficient pilots, and almost all the serviceable machines. There were at
Farnborough at that time a small group of officers belonging to the
newly formed Indian Flying Corps, and another small group training as a
nucleus for a South African Aviation Corps. All these were swept into
the net. Captains H. L. Reilly and D. Le G. Pitcher, of the Indian
Flying Corps, were at once made flying officers of No. 4 Squadron; three
others, that is to say, Captain S. D. Massy (an early pioneer, who had
flown with the Air Battalion during 1911, and was commandant of the
Indian Central Flying School at Sitapur), Captain C. G. Hoare, and
Lieutenant C. L. N. Newall, were posted to squadrons forming at home.
Three officers of the South African Aviation Corps, namely, Lieutenants
K. R. Van der Spuy, E. C. Emmett, and G. S. Creed, were at once
incorporated in Nos. 2, 3, and 5 Squadrons respectively. Two others,
Captain G. P. Wallace and Lieutenant B. H. Turner, joined No. 4 Squadron
in the field early in September. Later on, both groups of officers were
used for operations in distant theatres. When in November 1914 the Turks
were preparing to attack the Suez canal, a flight, consisting of Captain
Massy, Captain Reilly, and Lieutenant S. P. Cockerell, with three
Maurice Farman machines, left England to give to the forces in Egypt the
indispensable aerial support. This small flight was the beginning of the
Middle East Brigade, which, under the command of Major-General W. G. H.
Salmond, played so great a part in the campaigns of Mesopotamia and
Palestine. Again, when in November 1914 the Union Government of South
Africa undertook to invade German South-West Africa, the officers of the
South African Aviation Corps were recalled from their squadrons in
France to provide the needed air force. When that campaign was ended,
these officers returned to England to form No. 26 Squadron of the Royal
Flying Corps, which was immediately dispatched to East Africa, and
co-operated with the forces under the command of General Smuts.

This rapid summary may serve to show how Farnborough, at the outbreak of
war, was a generating centre for the air forces of the British Empire,
and how, until the Germans were held in France, all other purposes had
to be postponed.

Official returns show that with the four squadrons there went to France
105 officers, 755 other ranks, 63 aeroplanes, and 95 mechanical
transport vehicles. At home there remained 41 officers, 116 aeroplanes,
and 23 mechanical transport vehicles. But these latter figures are
misleading. All the experienced officers at home were fully employed on
necessary work, and the hundred and sixteen aeroplanes were impressive
only by their number. About twenty of them, more or less old-fashioned,
were in use at the Central Flying School for purposes of training; the
rest were worn out or broken, and were fit only for the scrap-heap. By
the time that the war was a month old, the efficiency of the machines
which had gone abroad was threatened by the progress of events at the
front. The B.E. 2, which was generally reckoned the best of these
machines, had been designed for the purposes of reconnaissance; it had a
fair degree of stability, and gave the observer a clear view around him
and beneath him. So long as it was not interfered with in the air it was
an admirable machine for the reconnoitring of enemy dispositions and
movements. But the process of interference had begun. During the months
of October and November fighting in the air became fairly frequent. This
fighting had been foreseen, but only as a speculative possibility.
Major-General Seely, speaking on the Air Estimates for 1919-20, told the
House of Commons that he had witnessed the first air combat in France,
one of those referred to in Sir John French's first dispatch, and that
Sir David Henderson had said to him: 'This is the beginning of a fight
which will ultimately end in great battles in the air, in which
hundreds, and possibly thousands, of men may be engaged at heights
varying from 10,000 to 20,000 feet.'

A call for fighting machines soon followed these early combats. On the
4th of September 1914 General Henderson wired home: 'There are no
aeroplanes with the Royal Flying Corps really suitable for carrying
machine-guns; grenades and bombs are therefore at present most suitable.
If suitable aeroplanes are available, machines-guns are better
undoubtedly. Request you to endeavour to supply efficient fighting
machines as soon as possible.' A day or two earlier a request had been
sent home for nine aeroplanes to replace losses, and for a complete new
set of reserve aeroplanes for the Aircraft Park.

War is the only adequate training for war, and it was the necessities of
the war which revealed the needs of the Flying Corps, and gradually, by
hard-won experience, determined the best types of aeroplane and the best
kinds of armament. The enemy, driving with all his might for speedy
victory, allowed no holiday for research and manufacture. What hope was
there that the handful of officers in charge of the few centres of
military aeronautics in England would be able to meet the growing needs
of the campaign in France? The outbreak of war found this country
practically without an aeroplane engine industry. The few British firms
who understood anything about aeroplane manufacture had in time of peace
received only small experimental orders, and so were not organized for
rapid production. The situation might well be called desperate. How
could trained pilots, and machines fit to hold their own in the air, be
produced in sufficient numbers to secure for us not the mastery of the
air--that was too distant a goal--but the power to keep the air, and to
give much-needed assistance to the British army in France?

No one knows what he can do until he tries. If the situation was
desperate, it was also familiar. The English temper is at its best in
desperate situations. The little old army held the pass in France and
Flanders against enormous odds, and so procured time for the building up
of the New Army, the instrument of victory. The Royal Flying Corps, a
small body of highly trained men, kept the air in France, alongside of
the splendid French air service, while a new and greater air force was
brought to birth at home. The creation of this new force was of a piece
with that wonder of the war--the creation of the New Army. In some ways
it was the most difficult part of that great achievement. The new
infantry battalions were made largely by the imitation of a magnificent
model and the repetition of methods proved by many past successes. The
men who brought the Flying Corps to an unexpected strength had to
explore untried ways; the problems presented to them were complicated
and novel; they had no safe models to copy, and no ancient tradition to
follow. They had to cope patiently and resolutely with the most recent
of sciences, and, more than that, they had to procure and train a body
of men who should transform the timid and gradual science into a
confident and rapid art. The engine is the heart of an aeroplane, but
the pilot is its soul. They succeeded so well that at the opening of the
battles of the Somme, on the 1st of July 1916, the Royal Flying Corps
held the mastery of the air, that is to say, they held a predominant
position in the air, and were able to impose their will upon the enemy.
At the date of the armistice, the 11th of November 1918, the united
Royal Air Force was incomparably the strongest air force in the world.
Most of the pilots and observers who were flying at that time are now
scattered in civil employ, but they will never forget the pride of their
old allegiance nor the perils and raptures of their old life in the air.

It is the business of this history to tell of their doings. But before
recording the appearance at the front of squadron after squadron, it is
essential to tell something of the making of these squadrons. The whole
elaborate system which was the basis of the Royal Air Force, the
production of machines and armament and the training of men, was devised
and put in action during the first year of the war. It was elastic in
character, and was capable of great expansion, but its main outlines
were never changed, even when the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval
Air Service, after a divorce of four years, were reunited in 1918.
Englishmen are much in the habit of decrying their own achievements.
This they do, not from modesty, but from a kind of inverted pride. Even
a fair measure of success seems to them a little thing when it is
compared with their own estimate of their abilities. Before the war the
German power of organization was tediously praised in England, and our
own incapacity for organization was tediously censured. There is truth
in the contrast; the Germans love organization and pattern in human
society, both for their own sake and for the rest and support that they
give to the individual. The British hate elaborate organization, and are
willing to accept it only when it is seen to be necessary for achieving
a highly desired end. With the Germans, the individual is the servant of
the society; with us, the society is the servant of the individual, and
is judged by its success, not only in promoting his material welfare,
but in enhancing his opportunities and giving free play to his
character. We do not readily organize ourselves except under the spur of
immediate necessity. But those of us who are honest and frank will never
again say that we cannot organize ourselves. The making of our air force
was a masterpiece of organization. The men who achieved it have earned a
place in the memory of their country.

When military aviation had outgrown its early pupilage to the Royal
Engineers it came under the immediate control of the War Office. It was
dealt with at first by the small committee, under Brigadier-General
Henderson, which had prepared the plans for the formation of the Flying
Corps, and which was continued in being after the Flying Corps was
formed. In November 1912 Captain E. L. Ellington, of the Royal
Artillery, succeeded Major MacInnes as secretary to this committee; in
June 1913 the committee was dissolved, and its work was taken over by a
newly formed section of the Military Training Directorate, with Captain
Ellington in charge. A little later, on the 1st of September 1913, a
Military Aeronautics Directorate was established in the War Office, and
at once took charge of the military air service. It was independent of
the four great departments of the War Office, and the Director-General
of Military Aeronautics dealt in person with the Secretary of State for
War. There were three sections or branches (officially called
subdivisions) of the directorate. The first of these was responsible for
general policy, administration, and training. The second was responsible
for equipment--the provision and inspection of material. The third had
charge of contracts. It was a new departure to place a contracts branch
under the control of a military director-general, but aviation is a
highly technical business, and the arranging of contracts for aircraft
and air engines could not be profitably separated from the other aspects
of the work. In immediate touch with the directorate, and completing the
original organization of military aeronautics, there were the Central
Flying School at Upavon, the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps
with its eight authorized squadrons, the Royal Aircraft Factory, and the
Aeronautical Inspection Department.

In July 1914 Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson was Director-General
of Military Aeronautics; Captain Godfrey Paine, R.N., was Commandant of
the Central Flying School; and Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes was the
Officer Commanding the Military Wing. When the war broke out Sir David
Henderson was appointed to command the Royal Flying Corps in the field,
with Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes as his Chief of Staff.

Thus, at a time when rapid development was essential if we were to hold
the air, the two most important officers, who had nursed the Flying
Corps from its infancy, were called away to more urgent service. General
Henderson still held his directorship of military aviation. If he
thought the war likely to be short, he was not alone in that belief.
Major Burke's squadron, when they left their quarters at Montrose,
fastened up the doors of their rooms with sealing-wax and tape, and
affixed written instructions that nothing was to be disturbed during
their absence. Meantime, the duties of the directorate and of the home
command of the Flying Corps had to be carried on, at high pressure, in
the face of enormous difficulties. The practical work of the directorate
was undertaken by the little group of staff officers who were familiar
with it, and especially by Major W. S. Brancker, who, on the outbreak of
war, was appointed an Assistant Director of Military Aeronautics, and
soon after became Deputy Director. The command of the Military Wing at
Farnborough was given to Major Hugh Montague Trenchard, and the Royal
Flying Corps had found its destined Chief.

'We should be modest for a modest man,' Charles Lamb somewhere remarks,
'as he is for himself.' But this is no personal question. What is said
of General Trenchard is said of the Flying Corps. The power which Nature
made his own, and which attends him like his shadow, is the power given
him by his singleness of purpose and his faith in the men whom he
commands. He has never called on them to do anything that he would not
do himself, if he were not very unfortunately condemned, as he once told
the pilots of a squadron, to go about in a Rolls-Royce car and to sit in
a comfortable chair. He has never thought any deed of sacrifice and
devotion too great for their powers. His faith in them was justified.
Speaking, in 1918, to a squadron of the Independent Force, newly brought
to the neighbourhood of Nancy for the bombing of the munition factories
of Germany, he reminded them that if sending them all at once across the
lines, never to return, would shorten the war by a week, it would be his
duty to send them. The pilots listened to him with pride. He had their
confidence, as they had his. 'Don't cramp the pilots into never
talking,' is one of his advices to commanders, and the system whereby
the pilots and observers, returning dazed and exhausted from a raid or a
fight in the air, were brought to the office of the aerodrome and
encouraged by sympathetic questions to tell what they had seen and done,
was a system which grew up at once under his command. His intuitive
understanding of the men who served under him, his quickness in learning
the lessons of experience, and his resourcefulness and daring in
immediately applying these lessons for the bettering of the Flying
Corps, have been worth many brigades to his country. His name will occur
often in this record, but here, at his first entry, he must be
introduced to the reader.

He was born in 1873, the son of Captain Montague Trenchard, of the
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He was educated privately, and
after several failures in examination entered the army by way of the
militia, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal
Scots Fusiliers. After some years in India he served in the South
African War, at first with the Imperial Yeomanry Bushman Corps, and
later with the Canadian Scouts. During the operations west of Pretoria,
in the autumn of 1900, he was dangerously wounded, but served again,
during the concluding years of the war, with the mounted infantry in the
Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony. There followed
a period of distinguished service in Nigeria, and then he was at home
for a time. In February 1912, three months before the Royal Flying Corps
came into being, he applied for employment with the mounted branch of
the Colonial Defence Forces, in Australia, or New Zealand, or South
Africa. In May he applied for employment with the Macedonian
Gendarmerie. These applications were noted for consideration at the War
Office; in the meantime his mind turned to the newly-formed Flying
Corps. Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith tells the story of how he learned to fly.

'Major Trenchard (as he was then) arrived at my School at Brooklands
one morning in August 1912. He told me that the War Office had given him
ten days in which to learn to fly and pass his tests for an aviator's
certificate, adding that if he could not pass by that date he would be
over age. It was no easy performance to undertake, but Major Trenchard
tackled it with a wonderful spirit. He was out at dawn every morning,
and only too keen to do anything to expedite tuition. He passed in about
one week from first going into the air as a passenger. He was a model
pupil from whom many younger men should have taken a lead.'

On the 13th of August 1912 he took his certificate, flying a Farman
machine. Then he went to the Central Flying School, where he took the
necessary courses and passed the necessary examination. On the 1st of
October he was appointed instructor on the staff of the school. These
were arduous times; an efficient British air force was yet to make, and
the political horizon was even more threatening than it was a year
later. He continued at this work till the 23rd of September 1913, when
he was appointed assistant commandant to Captain Godfrey Paine, a post
which he held up to the outbreak of war. By that time a very large
proportion of the officers of the Flying Corps had passed through his
hands. His policy was the policy of Thorough. He played his part in
producing the efficiency of the original Flying Corps.

On the 7th of August 1914 he was appointed Officer Commanding the Royal
Flying Corps (Military Wing), with the temporary rank of
lieutenant-colonel. The headquarters, the aircraft park, and the four
squadrons left for France at once. Mr. G. B. Cockburn at that time was
at Farnborough, where, from April onwards, he had held an appointment in
the Aeronautical Inspection Department. He has kindly contributed a
note:

'The squadrons hurried off to the front,' he says, and in a short time
there remained practically nothing in the way of machines or pilots in
the country. Colonel Trenchard took charge to create something out of
nothing. His presence at Farnborough had a most enlivening effect on
every one who came in touch with him, and as I had to pass through to
him all the machines issued in those days, it was my good fortune to
have very close observation of those methods which have led to his great
success.'

In his attempt to create something out of nothing he had the
whole-hearted support and help of the small but admirably efficient
aeronautical department of the War Office, directed for the time by
Colonel Brancker. One great strength of military aviation in its early
days was that it attracted into its service, by natural magnetism, men
of an adventurous disposition. The dangers of the Flying Corps, rather
than the good pay that it offered, brought to it recruits strong in all
the virtues of the pioneer. No one who covets a life of routine, with
defined duties and limited liabilities, ever yet took up with aviation
as a profession. The men who explored and took possession of the air in
the twentieth century are the inheritors of the men who explored and
took possession of America in the sixteenth century. It is one of our
chief title-deeds as a nation that adventurers are very numerous among
us. We were not the first to show the way, in either case, but because
we are a breeding-ground of adventurers we are richer than other nations
in the required type of character, and we soon outgo them. When the war
came there was a long list of officers and men who were seeking
admission to the Flying Corps--the best of them as good as could be
found in the world. The very staff of the directorate at the War Office
had the same quality. They were men of spirit and initiative, not
easily to be bound by red tape. A short account of Colonel Brancker, who
was Colonel Trenchard's main support, will illustrate this special good
fortune of the Flying Corps.

Major-General Sir William Sefton Brancker, as he now is, began his
soldiering in the Royal Artillery. He saw much active service in the
South African War, and thereafter was chosen for staff service in India.
His opportunity came in the winter of 1910. In that year the British and
Colonial Aeroplane Company, in order to demonstrate the new art to the
General Staff in India, sent out to Calcutta an expedition consisting of
a manager, the French pilot Monsieur H. Jullerot, two British mechanics,
and three Bristol box-kites fitted with 50 horse-power Gnome engines.
Captain Brancker, as Quartermaster-General of the Presidency Brigade,
was responsible for the disembarkation of the party. What he had already
heard of flying had excited his keen interest; he attached himself
firmly to the expedition, and was permitted to fly, unofficially, in the
character of observer. The first aeroplane was erected on the Calcutta
racecourse, and flew in the presence of a huge crowd of spectators.

There were cavalry manoeuvres that year in the Deccan, and General
Rimington, who was organizing them, set aside a part of his manoeuvre
grant to enable Captain Brancker to bring an aeroplane and take part in
them. The aeroplane arrived at Aurangabad early in January 1911, and was
hastily erected under a tree by the two mechanics, assisted by six
willing and jocular privates of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was ready
forty-eight hours after detrainment, just in the nick of time. The first
flight was made by M. Jullerot and Captain Brancker, the day before the
manoeuvres began, in the presence of twelve generals, one of whom was
Sir Douglas Haig, at that time Chief of the Staff in India, and a
numerous company of staff officers. Next morning the aeroplane was
attached to the northern force at Aurangabad, whose task was to drive
back the rearguard of a southern force retreating towards Jalna. Captain
Brancker and M. Jullerot made a flight of about twenty-seven miles at a
height of 1,100 feet, and the hostile rearguard was accurately located.
A full report was in the hands of the commander of the northern force in
less than an hour and a half from the time of his demand for
information.

Subsequent flights were less successful; indeed, the next morning the
aeroplane crashed from a height of a hundred feet; the two aviators
escaped with a few scratches, but the machine was reduced to matchwood.
Nevertheless, the first thorough performance by a military aeroplane of
a really practical military mission deeply impressed General Sir O'Moore
Creagh, the then Commander-in-Chief, and, had it not been for lack of
money, he would have started a flying organization in India a year
before the Flying Corps in England came into being.

Not long after his return to England, Major Brancker was employed at the
War Office under General Henderson. As soon as the opportunity presented
itself, he learned to fly. He took the short course at the Central
Flying School and was appointed to the Royal Flying Corps Reserve. In
October 1913 he succeeded Captain Ellington on the staff of the Military
Aeronautics Directorate. He continued to fly. The first really stable
aeroplane, the B.E. 2c, was produced in June 1914; and Major Brancker,
who describes himself as 'a very moderate pilot', flew the first of the
type from Farnborough to Upavon, without the use of his hands except to
throttle back the engine before alighting; during the flight he wrote a
full reconnaissance report.

These then, Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard and Lieutenant-Colonel
Brancker, were the two officers on whom fell the chief burden of
responsibility at home for the maintenance and increase of the Flying
Corps. Others gave invaluable help; but these were the prime movers. The
maintenance of the squadrons in the field, that is, the replacing of
wastage in pilots and machines, was all that was originally expected of
them by the command of the Royal Flying Corps in France. When, just
after the outbreak of war, Lord Kitchener took control of the War
Office, the creation of new squadrons at once became a question of the
first importance. Lord Kitchener has many titles to the gratitude of his
country, none of them stronger than this, that he recognized the
immensity of the war. The day after the four squadrons took their
departure for France he sent for Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker in the War
Office, explained to him his policy for the creation of the New Army,
and told him that a large number of new squadrons would be required to
equip that army.

The position was serious. Farnborough was now the only station occupied
by the Royal Flying Corps; it had an assemblage of half-trained and
inefficient pilots, and a collection of inferior aeroplanes, discarded
as useless by the squadrons which had gone overseas. The Central Flying
School itself had been heavily depleted. There was a grave shortage of
mechanics. But the officers in charge were not to be disheartened; and
they had one advantage, without which the most complete material
preparation would have been of no avail--they had the nation behind
them. The invasion of Belgium by German troops during the first few
weeks of war, and the ordered cruelties inflicted by those troops on a
helpless population, set England on fire; never since the old war with
Spain had the fervour of national indignation reached so white a heat.
Except the unfit and the eccentric, it might almost be said, there were
no civilians left; the nation made the war its own, and miracles of
recruiting and training became the order of every day.

The Directorate of Military Aeronautics took the bull by the horns;
without Treasury sanction, on their own initiative, they began to enlist
civilian mechanics at the rates authorized for the Army Service Corps,
up to 10_s._ a day. In a very few days they had got together eleven
hundred good men, trained mechanics, who eventually became the main
support of the squadrons which were created during the next two years.
They also enlisted some civilian pilots. It was their intention to grade
these pilots as non-commissioned officers, but the Admiralty meantime
decided to give commissions to all pilots recruited from the civil
population, which decision forced the hand of the military. Thus, in the
first few days of the war, the question of the rank of pilots was
settled at a blow, and it was not until much later in the war that
non-commissioned officers were again employed as pilots.

A definite scheme for the steady recruitment of expert mechanics, so
many a month, at peace rates of pay, was then laid down by the
directorate. Naturally, at the beginning, large numbers could not be
absorbed, and as there was no system of control to allot recruits to the
work for which they were specially suited, very many of the best
mechanics in the country, inspired by patriotism, enlisted in the ranks
of the infantry, and were lost to the technical service for ever. These
men would have been of inestimable value for the expansion of the Flying
Corps, but no system of classification existed, to meet the needs of a
nation in arms. The New Army engulfed men of all professions and all
crafts; never, perhaps, in the world's history was there an army richer
in diversity of skill. If special services were required from a
bacteriologist, or a conjurer, an appeal to the rank and file of the
New Army was seldom made in vain. Trained mechanics were glad to forgo
all the advantages of their training, and, in their country's cause, to
handle a rifle and a bayonet.

The procuring of a sufficient number of expert men for the sheds was
only one part of the business of the directorate. They had also to
procure and train a large number of pilots, and to arrange for the
supply of a very large number of aeroplanes and engines. Until the
machine is there, to be tended and flown, there is nothing for pilot or
mechanic to do, so the question of the machines naturally came first. As
soon as the four squadrons of the expeditionary force had left England,
Colonel Brancker conferred with Captain Sueter, the Director of the Air
Department in the Admiralty. It was agreed between them provisionally
that all aeroplanes available in the British Isles should at once be
allotted to the War Office, and all seaplanes to the Admiralty. It was
further agreed that all engines of 100 horse-power and less, together
with the 120 horse-power Beardmore engine, should be allotted to the War
Office, and that engines of higher horse-power, together with a certain
number, for training purposes, of lower-powered engines, should be
allotted to the Admiralty. Both services recognized the urgent need for
a water-cooled engine of high power, and the two directors combined to
persuade Messrs. Rolls-Royce to produce a 250 horse-power water-cooled
engine. The experts of the Royal Aircraft Factory gave all possible
help; they lent the drawings prepared for the high-powered engine
designed by the factory, and so became sponsors for the famous
Rolls-Royce engines of the later days of the war. The output of the
Rolls-Royce works, in accordance with the agreement, was placed at the
disposal of the Admiralty.

This immediate co-operation between the two great services did the work
of the old Air Committee, which had quietly faded away. The War
Committee could not take its place; it was a large body of Ministers,
too numerous to agree on special decisions, and not expert enough to
deal with the complicated problems of aviation. The understanding
between the two services seemed to augur well for the future.

The available contractors and types of engine having been allotted, it
became necessary to decide what orders should be placed. In this matter
the initiative rested with the directorate. Very little experience was
available as a guide to what the expeditionary force might require in
the future. Every order placed was practically a gamble, and every new
type of aircraft and engine gave the staff twofold cause for anxiety.
Would the new machine prove reliable when the trade produced it, and, if
it proved reliable, would it then fulfil the rapidly changing
requirements of the war? The quickest way to produce aeroplanes in
quantity would have been to choose a few of the best types, and to
standardize these for production in bulk at all the available factories.
To do this would have been a fatal mistake. The art of military aviation
was changing and growing rapidly; any hard and fast system would have
proved a huge barrier to progress, making it impossible to take
advantage of the lessons taught every week by experience in the field.
At a later stage of the war the Germans standardized their excellent
Mercedes engine. This gave them an immediate advantage, but, as
knowledge increased and construction improved, what had been an
advantage became a brake upon their progress.

Even the lessons of experience were not always easy to read. An
aeroplane and its engine are judged by the pilot who uses them. Every
one who knows the Royal Flying Corps knows how sensitive to rumour and
how contagious opinion is among pilots. This is only natural; a pilot
trusts his life to his machine, and his machine, if he is to fly and
fight confidently, must be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. To
distrust the machine is to suffer a kind of paralysis in the air. The
breath of unfavourable rumour easily takes away the character of a
machine, and makes it, in effect, valueless. A pilot has one life, and
has to take many risks; this is the only risk that he will not take
gladly. It follows that the opinion of pilots concerning their machines
is peculiarly liable to error. They talk to one another, and an ill
report spreads like wildfire. When the Sopwith Tabloid was first
produced, it was unfavourably reported on by those who flew it, and at
once fell into disrepute throughout the squadrons. The fact is that the
pilots of that time were not good enough for the machine; if they had
stuck to it, and learnt its ways, they would soon have sworn by it as,
later on in the war, they swore by the Sopwith Camel. A similar ill
repute attached itself, like an invisible label, to the De Havilland
machine called the D.H. 2. This machine, when it made its first
appearance at the front, was nicknamed 'The Spinning Incinerator'. Like
many other machines which are quick to respond to control, the D.H. 2
very easily fell into a spin, and in one accident of this kind it had
caught fire. In February 1916, when the Fokker menace was at its height,
No. 24 Squadron--the first British squadron of single-seater fighting
scouts--arrived in France. It was equipped with D.H. 2's, and the pilots
of the Fokkers had no reason to think the D.H. 2 an inferior machine.
The historian of No. 24 Squadron says:

'A certain amount of trouble was caused at first through the ease with
which these machines used to "spin"--a manoeuvre not at that time
understood--and several casualties resulted. Lieutenant Cowan did much
to inspire confidence by the facility with which he handled his machine.
He was the first pilot really to "stunt" this machine, and gradually the
squadron gained complete assurance.'

Nerves are tense in war, and a mishap at the front usually led to an
immediate demand for new material or a new policy from those at home who
supplied the expeditionary force. Major-General Sir Sefton Brancker, in
his notes on the early part of the war, mentions three of these quick
demands. When the aeroplane piloted by Lieutenant Waterfall was brought
down by infantry fire in Belgium, this first mishap of the kind led to
an immediate demand for armoured aeroplanes. The demand was not
fulfilled until 1918, and then only in a special type of machine,
designed for low flying. Again, the alarm of the 1st of September 1914,
when the machines of the Flying Corps, being unable to fly by night, ran
the risk of capture by German cavalry, led to a demand for folding
aeroplanes suitable for towing along the road. This demand was never
met. Lastly, the rapid movement of the retreat caused a report to be
sent home that the canvas sheds on wooden frameworks, called Bessoneaux
hangars, were useless. With the coming of trench warfare more stable
conditions prevailed, and Bessoneaux hangars housed the Royal Flying
Corps in great comfort throughout the war.

Incidents like these serve to show how great was the responsibility
which rested on the home command. Fortunately, the home command were
cool and far-sighted. Colonel Trenchard was the last man in the world to
subordinate life to mechanism; and Colonel Brancker knew how to fly
without fidgeting with the controls.

The resources to hand were not many. A certain small number of
aeroplanes, in July 1914, were actually on order, and were being
manufactured in slow and uncertain fashion. These belonged to several
types. The earlier variants of the B.E. 2 machine were of Government
design. Of proprietary designs, on order or in process of delivery, the
most important at that time were the British Sopwith and Avro machines,
and the French Maurice Farmans, Henri Farmans, and Blériots, which were
erected in England from parts supplied by France. Certain new types--the
F.E. 2 (a pusher biplane), the R.E. 5 (a tractor two-seater bombing
machine), the S.E. 2 (a single-seater tractor scout), the Vickers
fighter, the Bristol scout, and several others--were hardly past the
experimental stage. Some were in process of design; others were
represented by a few experimental machines. In the matter of engines,
the factory was engaged in designing its own, and a few British
proprietary designs had been tried, but without sufficient success to
warrant an order. In fact, the Royal Flying Corps had to depend entirely
on French engines, that is to say, on the 70 horse-power Renault and the
80 horse-power Gnome. Large purchases of these engines were made during
the week before the declaration of war; indeed, the whole of the funds
available were spent twice over in anticipation of further credits.

When the war came, Avros, Farmans, and Blériots were ordered to the full
capacity of the factories that produced them. Vickers fighters were also
ordered in numbers, though the latest model of the machine was untried,
and though there was no certainty that the necessary 100 horse-power
Monosoupape-Gnome engine could be obtained, or that when obtained it
would run reliably. On the advice of the superintendent of the Royal
Aircraft Factory it was decided to choose B.E. 2c for production in bulk
rather than the earlier variants of the same type. This involved some
little delay, for the drawings were not complete, but the superiority of
the machine in construction, performance, and stability was judged to
be worth the delay. Some firms which had never before touched aviation
took large orders for this machine; the earliest to lend their services
were the Daimler Company and Weir Brothers of Glasgow. For fighting
purposes the F.E. 2, a two-seater pusher, which gave a clear field of
fire forward, was chosen, and the drawings were pushed on at top speed.
Smaller orders were placed among private firms for untried types of
single-seater fighters, especially the Bristol scout and the Martinsyde
scout. Messrs. Armstrong Whitworth, on receiving orders for B.E. 2 c's,
undertook to produce an equally efficient and more easily manufactured
aeroplane, and received permission to do so. Thus, before any definite
policy could be laid down, and while experience gained in the field was
still very small, the production of a large number of aircraft and air
engines had been set on foot in England. Until the orders placed should
begin to bear fruit, the Farman pusher machines, which could mount a
machine-gun with a clear field of fire in front, were the only suitable
fighting machines.

The enlisting and training of pilots, in numbers sufficient for the
creation of new squadrons when the wastage in the field had been made
good, was a matter of pressing concern. The only expert military pilots
available as instructors were those employed at the Central Flying
School. These were reinforced, first by certain civilian pilots who at
once offered their services, and then, about the end of September, by
the return from France of Major Longcroft and some other military pilots
who in response to urgent requests were spared from the expeditionary
force. A reserve aeroplane squadron was at once formed at Farnborough,
and a large training scheme was initiated. The aerodromes at Netheravon,
Gosport, Montrose, and Dover (this last still in process of making) were
empty. Montrose, being far from London and from France, was handed over
to the army; the others were made into training stations. Brooklands and
Hounslow were taken over, and, during September, Shoreham and Joyce
Green. New aerodromes were established at Norwich, Castle Bromwich,
Beaulieu, Catterick, and Northolt. Each of these, it was decided, should
be occupied by a reserve squadron, which, besides the regular work of
training pilots, should prepare to throw off an active service squadron.
The policy of distributing the new training stations all over England
was decided on for several reasons. The congestion and delay inevitable
at a few crowded centres would be avoided. The complete arrest of
training by bad weather in one place would be insured against. The
scattered aerodromes would be useful halting-places for new machines
delivered by air; and, not least important, the New Army, training in
various parts of England, would see something of aviation and would gain
some knowledge of its uses. The chief disadvantage of the system was
temporary; the available talent in instructors was scattered, so that a
larger number of instructors was required.

In all these arrangements Lord Kitchener took a keen and detailed
interest. He saw Colonel Brancker almost every day. He insisted on the
creation of new units as a matter of the first importance. He
investigated the possibilities of long-range bombing offensives against
Germany, and continually urged the development of aircraft with a fuel
endurance and a carrying capacity sufficient for a raid upon Essen. For
this purpose he knew that trained and disciplined flights would be
required, and he gave orders that formation flying was to be taught and
practised at once. He did not fully understand the crippling effect of
the shortage of pilots and the inefficiency of the available aircraft.
Soon after the outbreak of war he said to Colonel Trenchard:

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough I want to see machines
flying in formation.'

'But that is impossible,' said Colonel Trenchard. 'The machines are all
of different types and different performances; we cannot fly in
formation.'

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough I want to see machines
flying in formation.'

'But, Sir, it cannot be done.'

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough, you will have four machines
paraded for me, to fly in formation.'

Lord Kitchener's foresight was unerring, and his will was strong, but
the facts were too stubborn even for him. It proved impossible to fly
our machines in formation until about a year later. The first formation
flying seen over England during the war occurred on the 23rd of February
1915, when H.M.S. _Hearty_ reported seven German aeroplanes flying very
high over the Maplin Lightship, just off the coast of Essex.

The value of Lord Kitchener's support was immense. In the early months
of 1915 an order of battle for the New Army was produced, showing its
organization in corps and divisions. Colonel Brancker, when he saw this
order, reckoned that at the rate of one artillery reconnaissance
squadron for each division, and two or three fighting and reconnaissance
squadrons for each corps, at least fifty service squadrons would be
required. This, while the system of training was not yet in full working
order, and while the output of engines and aeroplanes was still so
small, seemed a very ambitious programme. But the squadrons were needed,
so a minute to that effect was circulated among the departments
concerned, who promptly added to it their remarks and comments, all
critical and sceptical. At last the paper reached the Secretary of State
for War, who, without an hour's delay, sent it straight back by hand to
the Deputy Director of Military Aeronautics, bearing an inscription
scribbled at the foot--'Double this. K.' These two words, initialled,
swept away all conservative and financial obstruction; from that time
forward the main difficulty was to prevent the development of the
squadrons from running so far ahead of the output of material as to
weaken the whole structure. The hundred squadrons took a long time to
make; but before the war ended a still more generous programme, with
provision for more than two hundred squadrons in the field, was in
process of fulfilment.

No account can be given here of all the difficulties, problems, and
mishaps which had to be faced, not only at Farnborough or in the War
Office, but at the stations all over the country, in the building up of
the squadrons. The building went on, and those who did their work on
it--the civilian and mechanic volunteers, the novices who learned their
business only to teach it again to others, the men of special knowledge,
trained engineers, experts in wireless telegraphy, photography, and
gunnery, who by their work on the ground contributed to the efficiency
of the work to be done in the air--have a living monument in the
existence of the Royal Air Force. The material which lay ready to their
hands was little in quantity, but some of it was very good, and served
well to set a standard. British aviation was a small and late
development compared with the achievement of the French; but the skill
and science of the Royal Aircraft Factory, and of the best of the
private firms, had already given it a name for safety, quality, and
performance, and the zeal and character of its new recruits assured its
continued increase and multiplied its merits. What was needed now was a
plan for the building. Bricks and mortar, however good, and labour,
however willing, are of no effect until they are disposed by the skill
of the architect. It was the happiness of the Royal Flying Corps that
that skill was not lacking. Those who designed the work to be executed
in human material were worthy of their opportunity. It is not always so.
There were many military misadventures in our history which give point
to the criticism of the famous French cook, who, when he saw the beef
and chickens of England, wept to think of the uses to which that
magnificent material would be put by the resolute monotony of British
cooking.

Long before the new squadrons were ready a plan had been made for using
them, and controlling them, to the best advantage. The command of the
Flying Corps were very quick to learn and apply the lessons of
experience. These lessons, though not very many, were very important. By
the end of October 1914, all the squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps in
the field were settled down in the area of the British army, which held
a line running from Givenchy to Zonnebeke. The duties of the Flying
Corps had thus become local in character, so that knowledge of the
particular piece of country over which they did their work now became
very important for pilots and observers. To enable the several army
corps and divisions to obtain full value from the services of the Flying
Corps it was necessary that the squadrons should be put into touch
directly with the corps commanders. A central command cannot judge the
necessities of the case as those on the spot can judge it; and much time
is lost in sending messages to and fro. Corps commanders were already
calling for squadrons to be put at their disposal for observation and
photography. A scheme was worked out whereby squadrons were arranged in
groups of from two to four squadrons, each group being called a wing.
The scheme was accepted by the command of the expeditionary force, and
came into operation in November 1914. Already the new arrangement had
been anticipated in practice. During the battles of Ypres in 1914, it
had been found necessary to detach squadrons, instead of flights, to
co-operate with the several army corps; and these squadrons, instead of
returning at night to the central landing-place at the Flying Corps
headquarters, as they did during the battles of the Marne and the Aisne,
remained permanently with the army corps which they were helping. The
new scheme regularized and extended this practice.

The creation of wings involved some transfers and promotions. The First
Wing, intended to operate with the Indian Corps and the Fourth Army
Corps, consisted of Squadrons Nos. 2 and 3; the command was given to
Lieutenant-Colonel H. M. Trenchard, who came to St.-Omer on the 18th of
November. The Second Wing, intended to operate with the Second and Third
Army Corps, consisted of Squadrons Nos. 5 and 6, and was commanded by
Lieutenant-Colonel C. J. Burke.

No. 4 Squadron and the wireless unit (afterwards No. 9 Squadron) were
kept under the direct control of the Royal Flying Corps headquarters.
Shortly before the battle of Neuve-Chapelle the Third Wing was formed
under Lieutenant-Colonel H. R. M. Brooke-Popham, and No. 9 Squadron was
dispersed amongst the other squadrons. What had been the Military Wing
at Farnborough was now decentralized into two separate commands--the
Administrative Wing and the Fourth Wing--each controlled directly by the
War Office. The Administrative Wing, with headquarters at Farnborough,
consisting of Nos. 1 and 2 Reserve Aeroplane Squadrons, the Depot, the
Aircraft Park, and the Record Office, was placed under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel E. B. Ashmore, who was transferred from the staff of
the General Officer Commanding the Home Forces. The Fourth Wing, with
headquarters at Netheravon, was placed under the command of
Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. A. Higgins, who had commanded No. 5 Squadron in
France, and had been wounded, on the 30th of October, in the air above
Bailleul. This wing consisted of Nos. 1 and 7 Squadrons, preparing for
service in France.

The institution of wings was a great step in advance, and made it easy
to provide for later additions to the strength of the Flying Corps. When
the newly-formed squadrons began to appear in number, they were formed
into wings, and the wings themselves, in the winter of 1915-16, were
combined in pairs to form brigades. The brigade became a self-sufficient
unit, to work with an army; it was commanded by a brigadier-general, and
comprised, besides the two aeroplane wings, a third wing for kite
balloons, an aircraft park, and everything necessary for a complete
aerial force. Further, when fighting in the air became all-important,
whole wings were made up of fighting squadrons, and these wings were
symmetrically paired with other wings made up of squadrons designed for
artillery co-operation, close reconnaissance, and photography. The wing
which carried out long reconnaissances and offensive patrols, bombing
the enemy, attacking him in the air, and, in effect, protecting the
machines which did their observation work above the lines, was called
the army wing, and worked for army headquarters. The wing which observed
and photographed for the corps command, reporting on the character of
the enemy defences, the movement of troops, and, above all, the effects
of our artillery fire, was called the corps wing, and worked for corps
headquarters.

This powerful organization of the later years of the war was achieved by
a natural and easy expansion of the system of wings. In the early days
of the war machines of various types were included in one squadron; then
uniform squadrons of various types were included in one wing; at last,
wings of various types were included in one brigade. The Flying Corps
grew and increased in close correspondence with the army to which it
lent essential aid. The institution of wings was a formal recognition of
the necessity of its services. This recognition had taken some little
time to achieve. Military aviation was a wholly new thing, quite
unfamiliar to many an old soldier. There was a certain shyness at first
between the army and the Flying Corps. The command of the army did not
always ask for help from the air, and the command of the Flying Corps
did not always offer it. When the squadrons got into touch with the
corps commands, and did work for the artillery and the infantry, their
value was proved beyond a doubt.

The commanding officer of a wing was given the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. To assist him he had an adjutant and an equipment
officer. The introduction of equipment officers into the Royal Flying
Corps involved a new departure. Up to this time the rule had been that
all officers in the Flying Corps, whether employed on the ground or in
the air, must learn to fly. But to apply this rule, in time of war, to
officers whose duties would never take them off the ground, and who
would have to learn at schools already more than fully occupied with
training pilots, seemed a waste of energy. There were, for instance,
many trained engineers, in civil life, who were eminently capable of
supervising the mechanical equipment, but who did not want to learn to
fly, and could be made into indifferent pilots only at a great expense
of time and labour, and at not a little risk. At first the equipment
officer was concerned only with stores, but soon the same grading was
given to specialist officers concerned with wireless telegraphy,
photography, or machine-guns. At a later time in the war some senior
officers, skilled in the handling of men, learned to fly, and were at
once given the command of squadrons. A man with a talent for command,
who can teach and maintain discipline, encourage his subordinates, and
organize the work to be done, will have a good squadron, and is free
from those insidious temptations which so easily beset commanding
officers who have earned distinction as pilots. Yet the instinct of the
Royal Air Force is strong--that a commanding officer should know the
air, if he is to control aircraft. The right solution, no doubt, is that
he should be able to fly well, and should be careful not to fly too
much. A born commander who cannot fly is likely to have a better
squadron than a born flyer who cannot command.

Technical matters, that is to say, all matters of design and equipment,
were controlled by the War Office. This cast a great responsibility on
the War Office, and might have worked unhappily, if the authorities at
home had concentrated their attention on mechanical improvements without
sufficient regard to the men who had to use them. But the two officers
who, in the beginning, were chiefly responsible for development at home
subsequently held commands in the field, so that theory was not divorced
from practice. Colonel Trenchard was the first officer in the Royal
Flying Corps to command a wing, and Colonel Brancker, at a later time,
from August to December, 1915, was given the command of the Third Wing
in France.

The whole development and expansion of the Royal Flying Corps in France
was carried on while the conditions were altering every month, at high
pressure, in rivalry with the Germans. It was a race to obtain machines
of the greatest possible speed consistent with reliability. But no
machine is reliable when it is first turned out. Only experience can
prove a mechanism, discover its faults, and teach the right method of
handling it. This experience had to be gained in war. The conditions of
success were never at a stay. As soon as a machine was tried and proved,
and the faults of its engine corrected, so that it became comparatively
reliable, a faster German machine appeared. This had a depressing effect
on the pilot, who, though he had been well satisfied with his own
machine, could find no words too bad for it when a German machine left
him standing in the air. After a time a new British machine would
appear, and in its turn would outgo the German. In the meantime the
important thing was to maintain the spirit of the pilot. It was the
wisdom of General Trenchard to know that our success depended upon this.
In his own words, he sacrificed everything to morale. To think only of
dangers and drawbacks, to make much of the points in which the Germans
had attained a fleeting superiority, to lay stress on the imperfections
of our own equipment--all this, he knew, was to invite defeat. Just
before the battles of the Somme, in 1916, a lively agitation of these
matters was carried on by the newspaper press in England. Major Maurice
Baring, in his published diary, has recorded that the results of this
agitation were--not the hastening of one bolt, turnbuckle, or split-pin
(for the factories were fully at work), but a real danger of the spread
of alarm and despondency among the younger members of the Flying Corps
in France. More than any other man, General Trenchard averted this
danger. He put confidence into the pilots. He knew that if their hearts
were not light they would do worse than die; and he fostered in them, by
sympathy, the feelings which make for life and are life. Inferiority in
engines and machines could be remedied in time, inferiority in
resolution and confidence would have been irremediable.

Among the points which were early brought home by the experience of the
war to those who had control of the production of machines, one or two
deserve special mention. The absolute necessity for an efficient
fighting aeroplane was realized, it has been seen, within a month. The
enormous value of artillery observation and the immense superiority of
wireless telegraphy over all earlier and more rudimentary kinds of
signalling were soon demonstrated, and the call for machines fitted with
wireless became insistent. Some of the pilots and some of the equipment
of the wireless section which existed before mobilization had been used
to bring the squadrons of the expeditionary force up to war strength.
The section, though much emaciated, was not allowed to lapse; it was
attached to No. 4 Squadron, and went out with it to France. The pilots
of this section, Lieutenants Lewis, James, and Winfield Smith, worked
with the squadron, but spent most of their time in making ready the
wireless telegraphy equipment which, when once the retreat was ended and
ground stations were established on a fixed front, came into effective
use. Again, the very rapid development of an efficient German
anti-aircraft service, and the equally rapid improvement in range and
accuracy of anti-aircraft guns, changed the conditions of
reconnaissance. In the almost pastoral simplicity of the first days of
the war, four thousand feet was held to be a sufficient height for
immunity from the effect of fire from the ground. Before long four times
that height gave no such immunity. Machines, therefore, had to be built
to climb quickly, and had to be given a higher 'ceiling', as it is
called; that is, they had to be able to maintain level flight in a more
rarefied medium. But observation with the human eye from a height of
several miles is almost useless for the detective work of military
reconnaissance. So it came about that the improvement of the enemy's
anti-aircraft artillery gave a direct impulse to the improvement of our
aerial photography. A photograph, taken in a good light and enlarged,
reveals many things invisible to the naked eye; a series of photographs
reveals those changes in the appearance of the earth's surface which
result from the digging of new trenches or gun-positions and the making
of new ammunition-dumps.

Improvements in mechanical science, to be of any use in war, depend on
the skill and practice of those who use them. General Trenchard never
forgot this. He thought first of the pilot, and then of the gadgets.
'The good gun-mounting', he once said, 'is the mounting that the pilot
can work.' This was a thing essential to remember at a time when the
pilot got the best part of his training in the war itself. If he could
not work the gun-mounting, the gun-mounting would probably survive him.
To study the tastes and preferences of pilots, even when these tastes
were prejudices, was the only way to efficiency. At the beginning of
1916 General Trenchard made it a rule to supply one experimental
machine, without standardized mountings, to every squadron of the Royal
Flying Corps, so that the pilots might put their own ideas to the test
of practice. They had had but little opportunity to test their own ideas
in the course of their training at the Central Flying School or the
other training stations. The great practical School of Research for
pilots was the war.

During the first winter of the war, the training given at the Central
Flying School and the other training stations was still very elementary
in character. The main part of the pupil's business was to learn to fly
with safety, and when he could do this he was passed out to the
squadrons. Such a training would have been terribly inadequate a year or
two later, when no one could hope to fly long without fighting. At the
training station in Shawbury, during the winter of 1917-18, Lieutenant
W. L. S. Keith-Jopp, who, after losing a hand in the war, continued to
be a capable pilot, was in the habit of teaching his pupils all the
acrobatics of the air, and would urge them on with the motto--'Stunt, or
die.' Those who could not or would not learn to side-slip, to loop, to
imitate a fall out of control, and to perform a dozen other gymnastic
feats in the air had little prospect of a long flying career in France.
But the first winter of the war was innocent of all these fighting
manoeuvres. Group Captain J. G. Hearson, who made acquaintance with the
Central Flying School at that time, has kindly contributed some notes on
the system then in vogue. The Central Flying School, he says, was the
Mecca of all who wished to learn to fly. For serviceable machines,
competent instructors, and the material and knowledge necessary to turn
out a finished pilot, it was believed to be better than any other
training centre. Some of the instructors had seen active service in
France, and all were veterans in aviation. Of the pupils a certain
number were regular officers, army or navy, but the majority were
civilians of promise. The ambition of all was the same, to get into the
air as quickly as possible, and to qualify for the coveted wings, which,
once obtained, assured their wearer of immediate service, either in
France, or with a naval unit. There were lectures on engines,
aeroplanes, wireless telegraphy, meteorology, tactics, and organization.
Flying was taught in four flights of service machines, two of them being
made up of various types of the B.E. machines, while the other two
consisted of Henri Farmans and Avros. The pupil was first taken up as a
passenger, and the method of using the controls was demonstrated to
him. He was then allowed to attempt flight for himself, either on a
machine fitted with dual controls, or with the watchful instructor on
the pounce to save him from dangerous mistakes. If he prospered well,
the great day soon came, which, however carefully it may have been
prepared for, is always a thrilling experience and a searching test of
self-reliance, the day of the first solo flight, sometimes ending in a
too violent or too timid landing--that is, in a crash or a pancake. The
training was almost wholly directed to producing airworthiness in the
pupil. The various activities which had developed at the front, such as
artillery observation, fighting, and bombing, had no counterpart as yet
in the training establishment. Most of the pupils were eager to fly and
to get to France; they endured workshop instruction as a necessary evil.
Most of the instructors were unable to answer the questions of a pupil
interested in the science of aviation. They knew, and taught, that when
a machine is steeply banked the rudder and the elevator appear to
exchange functions, so that the rudder directs the machine up or down
and the elevator turns it to this side or that, but they could not
always explain the reason of this mystery. Nor could they explain why in
a fog or cloud the compass of an aeroplane is suddenly possessed of a
devil, and begins to spin around. But although they were not all well
versed in technical knowledge and theory, they were all fit to teach the
most important lesson--the lesson of confidence, resource, and
initiative.

There was no special school for the systematic training of observers
until the spring of 1918, when the school of aeronautics at Bath was
formed with that purpose in view. During the greater part of the war the
instruction given to observers in the schools at home was occasional and
desultory. From 1916 onwards a certain number were sent to Brooklands
to learn wireless telegraphy, and a certain number to the machine gun
school at Hythe to learn aerial gunnery. This school had been formed at
Dover in September 1915, and two months later had been moved to Hythe,
where firing from the air could be more freely and safely practised. In
the earlier part of the war the observer's duties were usually
undertaken by officers or non-commissioned officers who volunteered for
the business. When they joined the Flying Corps they already had some
considerable acquaintance with the things to be observed--the
disposition and appearance of the mobile forces and earthworks of a
modern army--but their experience of observation from the air had to be
gained over the enemy lines. It has always been the tendency of our air
forces to make more of the pilot than of the observer. When battles in
the air became frequent, this tendency was strengthened. The pilot is
the captain of the craft. If he is killed, the craft cannot keep the
air. But if more depends on the pilot, it is equally true to say that a
higher degree of cold-drawn courage is demanded from the observer. He
suffers with the pilot for all the pilot's mistakes. For hours together
he has nothing to do but to sit still and keep his eyes open. He has not
the relief that activity and the sense of control give to strained
nerves. He is often an older man than the pilot, and better able to
recognize danger. There is no more splendid record of service in the war
than the record of the best observers. The two embroidered wings of the
pilot's badge are the mark of a gallant profession, and are worn by
novices and veterans alike; the single wing of the observer's badge was
the mark of service done over the fire of enemy guns.

It has already been told how a large scheme for the expansion of the
Royal Flying Corps was set on foot at home by Lord Kitchener, Colonel
Trenchard, and Colonel Brancker. In November 1914 Colonel Trenchard was
given the command of the First Wing. In August 1915 he succeeded General
Henderson in the command of the Royal Flying Corps in France. General
Henderson had held this command during the whole of the first year of
the war. Under his guidance the new, small, tentative air force, which
he had done so much to create and foster, took its part in a great
European war, and rapidly gained recognition for itself from the other
branches of the service. When he relinquished his command in the field,
General Henderson continued until October 1917 to be General Officer
Commanding the Royal Flying Corps, and Director-General of Military
Aeronautics. Soon after that, when the Air Ministry was formed, he was
given a seat on the Air Council, which he resigned in March 1918. At the
close of the war he took over the control of the International Red Cross
organization at Geneva, where he did good work until his death in August
1921. He was a white man, a good friend, and an honourable enemy,
high-spirited and sensitive--too sensitive to be happy among those
compromises and makeshifts which are usual in the world of politics. The
first chief of the Royal Flying Corps was a loyal and simple soldier.

Men take their turn and pass, but their work lives after them. The story
of the Royal Flying Corps during the war is a continuous story of
growth. Better, faster, and more numerous machines; more powerful, more
trustworthy, and more numerous engines; better trained, more skilful,
and more numerous pilots--the increase went on, when once the initial
difficulties were vanquished, by leaps and bounds. The growth in power
and bulk is striking enough, but the vitality of the new force is even
better seen in the growing diversity of its purposes and of the tasks
which it was called on to perform. Reconnaissance, or observation, can
never be superseded; knowledge comes before power; and the air is first
of all a place to see from. It is also a place to strike from, but,
speaking historically, offensive action in the air, on any large scale,
began, as had been anticipated, in the effort of the conflicting forces
to deprive each other of the opportunity and means of vision. As the
British expeditionary force grew, more squadrons of reconnaissance
machines were required to serve the armies, their principal duties being
to observe for the artillery and to photograph enemy positions. While
they could perform these duties, they were content, but before very long
they could not perform them. The change in the situation is well
summarized in a letter written on the 31st of July 1915 by Colonel
Brooke-Popham to Colonel Ashmore, who commanded the Administrative Wing
in England. 'The German aeroplanes', says Colonel Brooke-Popham, 'are
becoming far more active, and are making a regular habit of attacking
our machines when on reconnaissance, and we are having to fight for all
our information. We are now having fights by pairs of machines, as well
as individual duels. It will probably be necessary to send machines by
pairs or even by flights on all reconnaissances. The General Officer
Commanding, therefore, wants you to practise flying by pairs of machines
in keeping station. Simple manoeuvres might also be carried out.' That
this forecast was correct is shown by a letter sent in March 1916 from
General Headquarters to the War Office. 'Under existing conditions,' the
letter runs, 'it is essential to provide protection in the form of
patrols for machines employed on artillery work. Information can no
longer be obtained by despatching single machines on reconnaissance
duties. The information has now to be fought for, and it is necessary
for reconnaissances to consist of at least five machines flying in
formation.'

Fighting in the air had by 1916 become a regular incident of
reconnaissance work. But when once fighting machines were produced, it
was obvious that their use would not be restricted to attacks on enemy
aircraft. Bombing raids on enemy positions became a regular duty of the
Flying Corps. A machine built to take a heavy load of bombs is clumsy
and slow in manoeuvre, not well able to repel the attack of light
fighting scouts. To borrow a phrase from the pilots, it is cold meat in
the air. Hence bombing raids were carried out chiefly at night, and
night flying, on machines designed for the purpose, became another
special duty of the Flying Corps. These raids were what may be called
short-distance raids, aimed at the aerodromes, munition stores, and
communications of the German forces on the western front. They were
followed, later, by long-distance raids, carried out by the Independent
Air Force of 1918 against those centres in Germany which were sources of
supply for the German army. In his dispatch of January 1919, on the work
of the Independent Air Force, General Trenchard reviews and summarizes
what had been his policy from the beginning. It was necessary, he says,
to equip the British expeditionary force on the western front with
sufficient aircraft to hold and beat the German aerial forces on the
western front; the bombing of Germany was a luxury till this had been
accomplished, but once this had been accomplished, it became a
necessity.

A good general idea of the growth of the Flying Corps can be obtained
from a study of the programmes put up in 1915 to Sir John French, and in
later years to Sir Douglas Haig, by the command of the Flying Corps in
the field. These programmes are consistent and progressive; they look
ahead, and attempt to provide the Flying Corps, in good time, with the
means of meeting the demands certain to be made on it. On the 21st of
August 1915, some two or three days after he had taken over the command
in the field, Colonel Trenchard wrote to the Chief of the General Staff
at General Headquarters. In this letter he speaks of the number of
hostile aeroplanes seen on the Second Army front, and asks for another
squadron to be sent out from home by the middle of September. 'I think a
guide for the future', he says, 'should be at least one squadron to each
corps, one squadron to each army headquarters, and one for General
Headquarters.' The corps squadrons were needed for artillery work and
photography; the others to carry out reconnaissances for the three
armies and for General Headquarters. On this basis he asks for three
more squadrons as soon as possible. 'In addition I would ask that a
squadron per army be sent out when formed, for special work such as bomb
raids.' His plea for a good supply of anti-aircraft guns illustrates a
difference which persisted throughout the war between British and German
usages. The British corps machines were incessantly at work over the
enemy. The German corps machines were more prudent. Their constant
practice was to carry out their observation of artillery fire and their
photographic work obliquely, from a position in the air low down over
their own lines, so that they were protected by their own guns, and
could be attacked from the air only at very great risk. But the German
anti-aircraft guns had already succeeded in hitting some of our
aeroplanes when they were flying more than three miles inside our own
lines, at a height of six thousand feet. If we had guns as good as this,
says Colonel Trenchard, and in sufficient number, we could attack the
German machines and could protect our own machines when they are at
work above the enemy lines. Hostile aeroplanes are easier to see from
the ground than from the air, and the bursts of our anti-aircraft shell
would serve to show our aircraft the whereabouts of enemy machines.

At this time there were three British armies on the western front. When
news came in September that a Fourth Army was about to be formed,
General Trenchard at once asked for a fourth wing, to consist of
headquarters and three squadrons.

These demands were all fulfilled as soon as the uncertainty of
deliveries permitted. In March 1916, some three and a half months before
the beginning of the battles of the Somme, General Trenchard took
another step forward. The work to be done by the Royal Flying Corps had
outgrown its strength. Each of the British armies on the front had
allotted to it at this time one brigade of the Royal Flying Corps,
consisting of two aeroplane wings, namely, a corps wing and an army
wing, and two kite balloon sections. But in practice it had been found
necessary to use the squadrons of the corps wing to help the army wing
in patrol work, army reconnaissance, and bombing, so that corps
commanders were often deprived of the essential services of the Flying
Corps in artillery work and photography. General Trenchard's proposals,
accepted and forwarded by the Chief of the General Staff, were based on
the assumption that thirty-two squadrons would be in France by the
middle of April. Sixteen of these, it was recommended, should be
allotted, one to every corps of the four armies, for corps work; twelve
to the four armies, at the rate of three squadrons to each army, for
army work; and four squadrons to General Headquarters.

Ever since the formation of the Royal Flying Corps a squadron had
consisted of twelve machines, that is, three flights of four machines
each. It was now recommended and agreed that this number should be
raised to eighteen, that is, three flights of six machines each, and
that the establishment of pilots should be raised from twelve to twenty
for each squadron. It was further agreed that the raising of all
squadrons to the higher establishment should take precedence over the
formation of new squadrons.

On the 15th of June 1916, a fortnight before the battles of the Somme
opened, the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, wrote to the War
Office, submitting further proposals for the expansion of the Royal
Flying Corps. By the spring of 1917, he says, the British army in France
will consist of five armies of four corps each. For these a total of
fifty-six squadrons will be required, each squadron to consist of
eighteen machines. 'I fully realize', he says, 'that my demand for this
large number of squadrons involves the provision of a very large number
of pilots and observers. The importance of this service, however, is so
great that I consider it essential that the necessary personnel should
be found even at the expense of a reduction in other directions.' The
increased establishment of the squadrons will involve, he adds, a
corresponding increase in the parks and depots; and in addition to all
this, a total of sixty kite-balloon sections will eventually be
required. This programme of requirements, he concludes, does not allow
for long-distance bombing raids on a large scale. An addition of ten
more squadrons is recommended for this purpose. Such raids are good and
useful if the time and place are carefully chosen in connexion with the
needs of the campaign. Otherwise they may do harm; and they are always
attended by considerable risk of losses.

During the three months of the battles of the Somme the Royal Flying
Corps maintained a clear measure of superiority over the enemy in the
air. At the close of those battles, on the 30th of September 1916, Sir
Douglas Haig informed the War Office that the enemy had been making
extraordinary efforts to increase the number and develop the speed and
power of his fighting machines, and within the last few days had brought
into action a considerable number of fighting aeroplanes which were
faster, handier, and capable of attaining a greater height than any of
the British machines, with the exception of three squadrons composed of
Nieuports, F.E.'s, and Sopwiths. To meet this situation he asked for
more and better fighting aeroplanes, and promised a further statement,
to be based on the estimate of the General Officer Commanding the Royal
Flying Corps. Fighting in the air continued to increase, and on the 16th
of November Sir Douglas Haig asked for twenty additional fighting
squadrons. 'Aerial battles on a large scale', he says, 'have practically
superseded individual combats, with the result that, in order to get
information and to allow artillery machines to carry on their work, it
is becoming more and more necessary for the fighting squadrons to be in
strength in the air the whole day.'

The new types of machine asked for did not arrive until the spring of
the following year, and they could not be used to advantage on their
arrival, for the pilots had first to learn to handle them. Accordingly,
as early as April 1917, General Trenchard wrote to the Director-General
of Military Aeronautics, outlining the requirements of the Royal Flying
Corps for the winter of 1917 and the spring of 1918. 'I anticipate', he
says, 'that the Germans will produce a machine as much better than their
present Albatross scout as the Albatross scout is better than the
Fokker.' The great need was still single-seater fighters, and he urges
that all available energy should be concentrated on these.

These programmes have been quoted, not so much to show how fighting in
the air became, in 1916, the most important activity of the Royal Flying
Corps, as to illustrate the initiative and foresight of the command.
Experience at the front of our own successes and failures, and of the
successes and failures of the Germans, suggested the needs of the
future; the provision to be made, so that we might be able to meet those
needs, was thought out beforehand, and was carefully and completely
stated for the information of the authorities at home. Disappointment
was inevitable; there were hitches and delays in design and manufacture;
conditions changed and machines improved at such a rate that a programme
became an antique almost before it could be completely fulfilled. The
growing pains of the Royal Flying Corps were severe, for the growth was
fast; but it grew under quick supervision, and was shaped by the lessons
of the war. The Flying Corps would take no denial; when the carrying out
of a programme was long delayed, they looked yet farther ahead, and
planned a still larger establishment. On the 20th of November 1917 Sir
Douglas Haig wrote to the Secretary of the War Office. In this letter he
points out that when the programme submitted in 1916 shall be completed,
some eighteen months to two years will have elapsed from the date when
it was first accepted. 'I consider it expedient, therefore, even at the
risk of dislocating existing arrangements, to submit a further programme
to cover the requirements of the British armies in France up to the
summer of 1919, in so far as these can be foreseen at present.'

The approved establishment of the Royal Flying Corps in France, at the
time when Sir Douglas Haig wrote, was eighty-six squadrons, ten of which
were long-distance bombing squadrons. His new demand was for a hundred
and seventy-nine squadrons, that is to say, a hundred and thirteen for
the British armies in France and Italy, and sixty-six long-distance
bombing squadrons for use against Germany. Further, he asks that the
establishment of the fighting squadrons shall be raised to twenty-four
machines. Formation tactics have developed; a squadron commonly goes
into a fight with three flights of six machines each, working in
echelon; to maintain this strength when some machines are temporarily
out of action the squadron must number twenty-four machines.

The Army Council approved of all these demands, and suggested further
additions, so that the programme, when it left their hands, provided for
a total of two hundred and forty squadrons, all told. The coming of the
armistice interrupted the fulfilment of these large plans, and saved the
world from a carnival of destruction.

The expansion of the air force was a long process. The large plans which
were made within a few days of the outbreak of war took years to
achieve. In the early part of the war the first duty of those who were
in charge at home was to supply needed reinforcements, both pilots and
machines, to the original squadrons in the field. This was a small
matter in comparison with the efforts of later years, but it was very
difficult. Pilots were hard to come by at short notice. The first demand
from France for reinforcements was telegraphed from Amiens on the 18th
of August 1914, and asked that Captain H. C. Jackson of the Bedfordshire
Regiment and Captain E. W. Furse of the Royal Artillery should be sent
to France to replace casualties. These were Staff College students who
were nominated for attachment to the Royal Flying Corps on mobilization.
A few days later, on the 22nd of August, a request came for any spare
aeroplanes and for pilots to fly them over. Five machines were scraped
together, which were all that were available, namely, an R.E. 1, a B.E.
8, two B.E. 2's, and a Blériot. Five pilots were found to fly them,
including Second-Lieutenant C. Gordon Bell and Second-Lieutenant B. C.
Hucks. On the 9th of September, in response to a request for fighting
machines, 'C' Flight of No. 4 Squadron, consisting of Maurice Farman
Shorthorn aeroplanes fitted with machine-guns, was sent to France. These
machines took part in many aerial combats, but without much success, for
they were slower than the enemy machines, and their guns very often
jammed at critical moments. In the telegram offering these machines the
following sentences occur: 'Lord Kitchener wishes to give you all
replacements possible, but at the same time wishes to continue
organizing squadrons at home for use with reinforcements (that is to
say, with the divisions of the New Army). Please say if you like flights
of R.E. 5's and Maurice Farmans, but if they go other pilots must be
sent home to keep things going here.'

If only instructors could be obtained, pilots could be turned out more
rapidly than machines. Moreover, pilots, unlike machines, could not be
obtained from foreign nations. In the event a small but steady stream of
qualified pilots came from the Central Flying School and the
supplementary training stations for the reinforcement of the original
squadrons.

For the supply of machines during the earlier period of our preparation
we were chiefly dependent on the French. They were ready, and we were
not. Their magnificent aviation held the air while we prepared ourselves
for our task. They had many factories in good working order, so that
they were able to supply us with machines and spare parts in large
numbers. During the last four months of 1914, from the end of August to
the end of December, the Royal Flying Corps received twenty-four
machines from home, fitted with French engines, and twenty-six from
France. These last were chiefly Blériots and Henri Farmans. In October
General Henderson posted Captain James Valentine of the Royal Flying
Corps to Paris, to organize a department for the supply of machines,
engines, spares and stores, and to report on the performances of all new
machines. In December the Admiralty followed suit and posted Lieutenant
Farnol Thurstan to Paris to fulfil similar duties on behalf of the Royal
Naval Air Service. The French Government were courteous and willing, but
a certain amount of bargaining was inevitable, for if we wanted their
aircraft, they wanted our raw material, especially steel, and our Lewis
guns. The arrangements were entrusted to a series of conferences, and
subsequently to a joint commission. In spite of difficulties the supply
went forward. It was not until 1916 that we began to be independent of
the French factories. In the four months August to November 1915 the
total value of the orders which were placed in France for aeroplanes,
engines, spare parts, and other accessories, was not much short of
twelve million francs. It was this help from our Allies that enabled us
to make progress during the first year of the war. By the 31st of May
1915 five hundred and thirty aeroplanes had been taken into the service
and about three hundred had been struck off as lost or worn out. On the
same date orders for two thousand two hundred and sixty aeroplanes were
in progress.

The story of the expansion of the Royal Flying Corps for military uses
is simple and clear, as its main purpose was simple and clear. Its
business was to furnish the army with eyes, to observe all enemy
operations, and especially the operations of enemy artillery. Its later
uses grew out of this, as the branches grow out of the stem of a tree.
From the aerodromes which were ranged all along the British front in
France our machines crossed the lines every day, to give help to the
General Staff, to give help to the gunners and the infantry, to carry
destruction to the enemy. The Flying Corps tried to keep pace with the
growth of the army which needed its help. Its own growth was continuous;
the problems which presented themselves to those who superintended that
growth were problems of supply, adjustment, and efficiency. The need was
certain; the only question was how the need might be best and quickest
supplied. A good aeroplane, flown by a skilled pilot, could always find
work of the first importance waiting for it on the western front.

The story of the development and expansion of the Royal Naval Air
Service is a different kind of story. As the first business of the Royal
Flying Corps was to help the army, so the first business of the Royal
Naval Air Service was to help the navy. But this business of helping the
navy was a much more difficult and complicated business than the other.
To help the army from fixed aerodromes behind the line of battle was a
dangerous and gallant affair, but it was not difficult. In the ease of
its solution the military problem was child's play compared with the
naval problem. How was the navy to be helped? As early as 1912 a policy
for the employment of the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was laid
before the Board of Admiralty by Captain Murray Sueter. In this
statement the duties of naval aircraft were laid down; the two first to
be mentioned were: '(1) Distance reconnaissance work with the fleet at
sea. (2) Reconnaissance work off the enemy coast, working from detached
cruisers or special aeroplane ships.' The policy is clear and sound; but
a world of ingenuity and toil was involved in those two short
phrases--'with the fleet at sea', and 'working from detached cruisers'.
Aircraft must work from a base; when they had to work with the army on
land all that was needed was to set up some huts in certain meadows in
France. For aerial work with the fleet at sea the necessary preparations
were much more expensive and elaborate. Sea-going vessels had to be
constructed or adapted to carry seaplanes or aeroplanes and to serve as
a floating and travelling aerodrome. The seaplane itself, in the early
days of the war, was very far from perfect efficiency. It could not rise
from a troubled sea, nor alight on it, without disaster. Accidents to
seaplanes were so numerous, in these early days, that senior naval
officers were prejudiced against the seaplane, and, for the most part,
had no great faith in the value of the help that was offered by the
Royal Naval Air Service.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet well knew the value to the
fleet of aerial observation, but the means were not to hand. The airship
experiment had broken down. Such airships as were available in the early
part of the war had not the necessary power and range. To build a vessel
which should be able to carry seaplanes or aeroplanes for work with the
fleet was not a simple matter. Such a vessel would be an encumbrance
unless it could keep station with the Grand Fleet or with the Battle
Cruiser Squadron, that is, unless it could steam up to thirty knots for
a period of many hours together. Further, a stationary ship at sea is
exposed to attack by submarines, so that it was desirable, if not
necessary, that the flying machines should be able to take the air and
return to their base without stopping the ship. This consideration led,
at a later period of the war, to the use by the navy of aeroplanes flown
from specially constructed decks. But this was a matter of time and
experiment. As early as December 1911 Commander Samson had succeeded in
flying off the deck of H.M.S. _Africa_, and when the war broke out the
_Hermes_, which had formerly served as headquarters for the Royal Naval
Air Service, was fitted with a launching-deck for aeroplanes. The
_Hermes_ was sunk in the third month of the war; thereafter the _Ark
Royal_, the _Campania_, the _Vindex_, the _Manxman_, the _Furious_, the
_Pegasus_, and the _Nairana_ were each of them successively fitted with
a launching-deck. But launching proved easier than alighting. It may
seem to be a simple thing for an aeroplane to overtake a ship that is
being driven into the wind, and to alight quietly on its afterdeck. But
immediately behind such a ship there is always a strong up-current of
air. This up-current--the bump that the albatross sits on--is what makes
the difficulty and danger of the attempt. An aeroplane which resists it
by diving through it will almost certainly crash on the deck beyond. The
business of landing an aeroplane on the ship from which it had been
launched was not accomplished until the 2nd of August 1917, when Flight
Commander E. H. Dunning succeeded, at Scapa Flow, in landing a Sopwith
Pup on the forecastle deck of the _Furious_, while she was under way.
Five days later, when he was repeating this performance, his machine
rolled over into the sea, and he was drowned. His work was not lost; the
_Furious_ was fitted thereafter with a special landing-deck aft, and it
was by naval aeroplanes flown from the deck of the _Furious_ that one of
the large Zeppelin sheds at Tondern was destroyed on the 19th of July
1918.

The next ships in the succession were the _Vindictive_, the _Argus_
(which was the first ship to be fitted with a flush deck), the _Eagle_,
and the new _Hermes_, which last two ships were unfinished at the time
of the armistice.

In this matter of aerial work for the navy the whole period of the war
was a period of experiment rather than achievement. The conditions of
experiment were hard enough, when all the shipyards and factories of the
country were working at full pressure in the effort to make good our
heavy losses in merchant shipping. Yet experiment continued, and
progress was made. Three new forms of aircraft deserve special mention.
The kite balloon, the small improvised airship called the submarine
scout, and last, though not least, the flying boat, were all invented or
brought into use by the Naval Air Service during the course of the war.

For stationary aerial observation the means employed in England, before
the war, were the captive spherical balloon and the man-lifting kite.
Many successful experiments with the man-lifting kite, or groups of
kites, had been carried out, especially by Major B. F. S. Baden-Powell,
during the closing years of the nineteenth century. But both the balloon
and the kite had serious faults. The kite cannot be efficiently operated
in a wind of less than twenty miles an hour, and the spherical balloon
cannot be operated in a wind of more than twenty miles an hour. The
balloon except in the lightest of breezes, and the kite at all times,
give a very unsteady platform for observation, so that field-glasses are
difficult to use. The merits of both kite and balloon were combined and
the faults of both were remedied in the kite balloon. The attachment of
a kite to the upper hemisphere of an ordinary spherical balloon, on the
cable side, to prevent the balloon from rotating in a wind, had been
proposed by a private inventor as early as 1885, but nothing came of it.
The kite balloon which was used in the war was invented in 1894 by Major
von Parseval, the German airship designer, and Captain von Sigsfeld.
This balloon is sausage shaped; the cable is attached to the forward
portion; the rear end carries an air-rudder, and is weighted down by the
car, or basket. Extending outwards at right angles on both sides of the
rear portion of the balloon is a wind-sail which does the office of a
kite and assists in preventing the rudder end of the balloon from being
too much depressed by the weight of the car. The balloon is divided into
two segments; the forward segment is filled with gas, the rear segment
is kept full of air through a circular entrance attached, facing the
wind, to the under surface of the balloon. But the steadying of the
balloon is mainly achieved by the air-rudder, which is another inflated
sausage, curved round the under side of the rear end of the balloon, and
automatically filled with air through a valve at its forward end. The
kite balloon is the ugliest thing that man has ever seen when he looks
up at the sky, but it serves its purpose.

Before the war, kite balloons, often called 'Drachen' balloons, had been
a German secret. The French and Belgians had obtained drawings of them,
and at the outbreak of war had some few ready for use. Moreover, the
French were at work on their 'Cacquot' balloon, an improvement on the
'Drachen' in that it made use of a new and more convenient stabilizing
device. Where the 'Drachen' had used a long and clumsy string of
parachute streamers attached to the tail, the 'Cacquot' achieved the
same result by means of stabilizing fins attached to the balloon itself.

In October 1914 Wing Commander Maitland was sent to Belgium in command
of a captive balloon detachment, to carry out aerial spotting for the
guns of monitors working off the coast between Nieuport and Coxyde. His
two balloons, which were spherical, proved to be useless in a strong
wind. In January 1915 he made acquaintance with a 'Drachen' balloon
which the Belgians were using in the neighbourhood of Alveringheim. He
was allowed to inspect this balloon and to take measurements and
photographs. In January and February he sent home reasoned reports to
the Air Department of the Admiralty, urging that kite-balloon sections
should be formed in the British air service. He also sent Flight
Commander J. D. Mackworth to Chalais-Meudon, the French kite-balloon
centre, and in the second and fuller of his reports he embodied the
technical information which had been gathered from the French.

These reports were acted on at once. Wing Commander Maitland was
recalled from Belgium, and a centre was established at Roehampton, to
train kite-balloon sections for active service. In March 1915 two kite
balloons, an old type of winch, and a length of cable were received from
the French, who also lent competent instructors and a generous supply of
accessories.

Just at this time General Birdwood, who had been sent by Lord Kitchener
to the Dardanelles to report on the possibilities of a landing, and
Admiral de Robeck, who was in command of the naval forces there,
telegraphed to the War Office and the Admiralty that a man-lifting kite
or a captive balloon would be of great use to the navy for spotting
long-range fire and detecting concealed batteries. The Admiralty at once
appropriated a tramp steamer, S.S. _Manica_, which was lying at
Manchester, fitted her with a rough and ready apparatus, and on the 27th
of March dispatched her with a kite-balloon section under Flight
Commander J. D. Mackworth to the Dardanelles. This was the first kite
balloon used by us in the war, and, it is believed, the first
kite-balloon ship fitted out by any navy. The observation work done from
the _Manica_ was good and useful, especially during the earlier phase of
the operations, and the difficulties encountered suggested many
improvements in the balloon and in the ship. Orders were given for six
balloon ships to be fitted out.

Admiral Beatty, in August 1915, recommended that the work of aerial
observation for the fleet should be done by kite balloons, towed by
vessels accompanying the Battle Cruiser Squadron, and some trials were
made which demonstrated the value of this suggestion. But here again
very elaborate experiments were necessary before authorizing any large
programme of construction, and in the meantime production on a
considerable scale had become difficult, for the kite balloon, which was
first manufactured in this country to the order of the navy, was already
in great demand by the army for use on the western front. As early as
April 1915 the Army Council had asked the Admiralty to supply kite
balloons for aerial observation with the expeditionary force in France,
and by August of that year five kite-balloon sections had gone overseas
and were doing invaluable work on the western front. At this point the
kite-balloon sections working with the army were taken over by the War
Office, but the Admiralty continued to provide the necessary material
and equipment. Great Britain was involved in the greatest land war she
had ever known, and the navy, with all the wealth of its inventive
resources, stood by to help the army.

The two other forms of aircraft which were invented or adapted by the
navy for the needs of the war, that is to say, the submarine scout
airship and the flying boat, must here be mentioned and their origin
described; but their great achievement belongs to the later period of
the war, when the defeat of the German submarine campaign had become a
matter of life or death for the British Commonwealth.

The small airship called the 'S.S.', or Submarine Scout, was an
invention of the first year of the war. On the 28th of February 1915
Admiral Fisher sent for Commander E. A. D. Masterman and Wing Commander
N. F. Usborne, and told them that he wanted some small, fairly fast
airships to operate against the German submarines, and that he wanted
them at once. There was no time for experiment or the elaboration of new
designs; speed in production was essential, and speed could not be
attained except by the adaptation of existing types and the use of
standard parts. The navy is seen at its best when it has to rise to an
unforeseen occasion; within three weeks the first of the now famous
S.S.'s was ready for service. For the design of this airship it is as
difficult to apportion credit among the small band of naval officers who
had a hand in it as it is to divide the praise for the first flying
machine between the brotherhood of the Wrights. The idea seems to have
been struck out during a conversation in the mess at Farnborough at
which there were present the late Wing Commander N. F. Usborne, Flight
Lieutenant T. R. Cave-Browne-Cave, and Mr. F. M. Green of the Royal
Aircraft Factory. In the result the body, or fuselage, of a B.E. 2c
aeroplane was slung on to the envelope of a Willows airship, and the job
was done. The success of this airship was as great as its design was
simple. It fairly fulfilled the main requirements--to remain aloft for
eight hours in all ordinary kinds of weather, with a speed of from forty
to fifty miles an hour, and carrying a load which should include a
wireless telegraphy installation for the purposes of report and a
hundred and sixty pounds' weight of bombs for more immediate use. The
first twenty-five of these ships to be produced were fitted with the 70
horse-power Renault engine. Variations and improvements of the design
followed in steady succession, providing greater endurance, and more
comfortable cars for the crew. One of these variants, the C. 1 or
coastal type, used an Astra-Torres envelope and a car made from two Avro
fuselages with the tails cut off; a later and larger design, the N.S. 1,
or North Sea type, in use at the end of the war, had an endurance, on
occasion, of from two to three days.

Airship work against submarines, an authority on the subject has
remarked, partakes of the nature of research work. An airship is
comparatively slow in manoeuvring, and is an instrument of knowledge
rather than of power. For swift assault on submarines, once they are
located, the seaplane is better; but the seaplane was not seaworthy. The
need for some kind of aircraft which should be able to search the North
Sea far and wide for submarines, and, having found them, should be able
to destroy them without calling for the assistance of surface craft, was
met by the development of the flying boat. There was a flying boat in
use by the navy before the war--the small pusher Sopwith Bat boat. It
had a stepped hull, like a racing motor-boat, about twenty feet long and
four feet in the beam. This was the only flying boat used by the Naval
Air Service when the war began; when it ended they were flying the
_Felixstowe Fury_, a giant boat triplane which, with its load, weighed
fifteen tons, was driven by five 360 horse-power engines, and carried
four guns in addition to a supply of heavy bombs. The development of
this type of aircraft for the purposes of the war must be credited
chiefly to the late Lieutenant-Colonel John Cyril Porte, who had been an
officer of the Royal Navy and a pioneer of aviation. As early as 1909,
when he was a naval lieutenant, he had experimented with a glider on
Portsdown Hill, near Portsmouth. Two years later he was invalided out of
the service, and devoted his enforced leisure to aviation. He learned to
fly at Rheims, on a Deperdussin monoplane, and in 1912 was appointed
technical director and designer of the British Deperdussin Company. The
first British-built monoplane of this type, with a 100 horse-power
Anzani engine, was of his design, and was flown by him at the Military
Aeroplane Trials on Salisbury Plain in 1912. After the trials he flew to
Hendon, a distance of eighty-two miles, in one hour and five minutes.
During the following summer he spent some time experimenting with a
waterplane at Osea Island in Essex. When the British Deperdussin Company
was broken up he went to America, and joined Mr. Glenn Curtiss at
Hammondsport, New York, in the task of designing a flying boat to cross
the Atlantic. Then the war came; on the day it was declared he sailed
for England, re-entered the navy, and was at once made a squadron
commander of the Royal Naval Air Service. For a time he was in command
of the newly-formed naval air station at Hendon, where he trained pilots
for the service; then, in September 1915, he was given the command of
the Felixstowe Naval Air Station. This was his opportunity, and he did
not let it slip. The Curtiss flying boats which were procured from
America were of inferior workmanship and had many faults. He patiently
went to work to improve and perfect them. 'There would probably not have
been any big British flying boats', says one who worked with him, 'but
for the vision, persistence, and energy, in the face of disbelief and
discouragement, of Colonel J. C. Porte, C.M.G., who designed and built
at Felixstowe Air Station the experimental machine of each type of
British flying boat successfully used in the service. His boats were
very large, the types used in the war weighing from four and a half to
six and a half tons, and carried sufficient petrol for work far out from
land, and big enough bombs to damage or destroy a submarine otherwise
than by a direct hit.... The boats were very seaworthy, and no lives
were lost in operations from England owing to unseaworthiness.'

The technical problems to be faced were very difficult; and powerful
flying boats were not in action till the spring of 1917. But this was
in the nick of time to meet the great German submarine effort. During
the following year--the crucial year of the naval war--forty flying
boats were put into commission; they sighted in all sixty-eight enemy
submarines, and they bombed forty-four, some of which it was
subsequently proved that they had sunk.

Through all his strenuous work for the navy, Colonel Porte had to do
battle with ill health; he retired in 1919, and in October of that year
died suddenly at Brighton, in the thirty-sixth year of his age. The
shortest possible list of those who saved the country in its hour of
need would have to include his name.

Another purely naval use of aircraft, on which, during the war, much
effort was spent, was their use for the carrying and launching of
torpedoes. The torpedo has long been one of the chief weapons of naval
warfare; it is commonly carried by surface or submarine craft to the
place where it can be launched against the enemy. If it could be carried
and launched by rapid aircraft, its value would be enormously increased,
and the torpedo-carrying aeroplane or seaplane would outrival the
submarine as a weapon of offence against enemy shipping. This was very
early recognized by those who were concerned in developing naval
aircraft. The first experiments are said to have been made in 1911 by an
Italian, Captain Guidoni, who made use of a Farman machine, and released
from it a torpedo weighing 352 pounds. In the same year the little group
of naval officers who were superintending the construction of the
_Mayfly_ at Barrow-in-Furness had many discussions on the subject. One
of them, Lieutenant Hyde-Thomson, subsequently drafted a paper on
torpedo aircraft, with some rough sketches; in 1913 a design was got out
at the Admiralty, and in the same year Mr. Sopwith constructed two
sample machines. From this time onward the hope of using the torpedo,
launched from the air, against ships which are sheltered and protected
from naval attack, was never long absent from the minds of those who
directed the activities of the Royal Naval Air Service. It was this
hope, more than anything else, which inspired the production of larger
seaplanes and higher powered engines. At the naval review of July 1914,
a Short seaplane of 160 horse-power had been fitted, in a temporary
fashion, to carry a 14-inch torpedo weighing 810 pounds. With the same
end in view, after the war broke out, the principal manufacturers of
motor-cars were encouraged to develop air engines of high power,
especially the Sunbeam engine of 225 horse-power, and the Rolls-Royce
engine, which played so distinguished a part in the war. When H.M.S.
_Engadine_ was fitted out as a carrier in the first month of the war, it
was expressly stated by the Admiralty that her business was to carry
torpedo seaplanes to the scene of action. Later on, at Gallipoli,
seaplanes shipped in the _Ben my Chree_ succeeded in flying across the
Isthmus of Bulair and in torpedoing a merchant ship on the shore of the
Sea of Marmara, an ammunition ship at Ak Bashi Liman, and a steam tug in
the Straits.

All this seemed full of promise. The modern torpedo is a very efficient
weapon, and the problem of designing an aeroplane or seaplane to carry
it was a problem requiring adaptation rather than new invention. Yet the
development of torpedo aircraft during the war was, in the words of an
official memorandum, 'astonishingly slow'. After the Gallipoli exploits
nothing of importance in this kind was achieved during the years that
followed, until the very end of the war.

The causes of this disappointment were many. In the first place the
seaplane, which seems almost as if it had been designed to carry a
torpedo suspended between its floats, was itself a disappointment. It
proved to be a fair-weather craft. Seaplanes were used, early in the
war, to carry out reconnaissances in the neighbourhood of the Ems river;
of those launched for this work more than half had their floats broken
up, and sank before they could rise from the water. Moreover, in
addition to this main objection, there were other obstacles to the
development of torpedo-carrying aircraft. The chief of these were what
are officially described as 'operational difficulties'. On the high
seas, it must be remembered, and in other easily accessible waters,
there were no enemy ships to be attacked. To use torpedoes against
warships in their harbours or sheltered waters, specially designed
aircraft must first make long and difficult flights. In the meantime,
while the war was young, there was a distressing shortage of aircraft
for other and more immediate purposes nearer home. The ships assigned as
carriers for aircraft had to be employed at times in mine-seeking and
other necessary operations. The machines themselves were much in demand
for the purposes of reconnaissance. Experiment continued at Calshot;
practice attacks were carried out with machines from Felixstowe, and
convinced the naval authorities of the value of torpedo aircraft; a
successful torpedo aeroplane, called the _Cuckoo_, was designed in 1916
by Messrs. Sopwith, and was produced in the following year by Messrs.
Blackburn; finally, in 1917, the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet
asked for two hundred torpedo aeroplanes to be provided for the fleet at
the earliest possible date. The bulk of these machines had to be made by
inexperienced firms, so that the first squadron of torpedo aeroplanes
for the fleet was not completed till October 1918, when it embarked in
H.M.S. _Argus_. There had been earlier schemes for a torpedo seaplane
school at Felixstowe and at Scapa in the Orkneys; but now, in the
summer of 1918, a torpedo aeroplane school was established at East
Fortune, and the 1918 programme arranged also for another torpedo
aeroplane school and a torpedo aeroplane experimental squadron, both at
Gosport.

In any future war there can be no doubt that torpedo aircraft will prove
to be a weapon of enormous power. As Lieutenant Hyde-Thomson remarks in
a paper which he prepared in 1915, they will be a menace to the largest
battleship afloat. They have double the speed of a destroyer, and a
large measure of that suddenness of attack which is the virtue of a
submarine and the dread of its victims. The technical difficulties
connected with the release and aiming of the torpedo have been met and
conquered, so that these craft, though they played no considerable part
in the war, were brought by the pressure of war, which quickens all
things, to the stage of practical efficiency.

Some minor causes of the delay in the development of torpedo aircraft
may perhaps be found. Those who pinned their faith to the Dreadnought as
the mainstay of naval power were not likely to be eager to improve a
weapon which, more than any other, seemed likely to make the Dreadnought
belie its name. Moreover, the burden of a torpedo was never very popular
with pilots. A torpedo can be used only against its preordained target;
it gives no protection to the aircraft that carries it, and its great
weight makes the machine slower in manoeuvre and more vulnerable. This
objection was well stated by a German pilot who was taken prisoner in
June 1917. The Germans, in the early part of that year, formed at
Zeebrugge a flight of torpedo seaplanes, which had this advantage over
our torpedo aircraft, that suitable targets were not lacking. These
seaplanes sank three of our merchant ships in the vicinity of Margate
and the Downs. Two of the seaplanes were shot down on the morning of
the 11th of June 1917 by the armed yacht _Diana_. In the report of the
examination of the German pilots it is told that both the prisoners
seemed to deprecate this mode of flying, and to glory chiefly in their
own single-seaters, which were smaller, swifter, and without
encumbrance. 'Once you are given a two-seater,' said one of them, 'the
authorities start loading you up with cameras, machine-guns, bombs, and
wireless, and now, to crown all, they actually hang a torpedo on your
machine!'

The new types of naval aircraft which were invented or developed during
the course of the war have now been briefly described. When a critical
account shall hereafter be rendered of the doings of the years 1914 to
1918, regarded as an incident in the ever-lengthening history of human
warfare upon earth, these new departures in the use of naval aircraft
will probably be recognized as the chief contribution to sea-power made
by the late war. Their importance is enormous, but their place in the
actual history of the earlier years of the war is comparatively small.
The weapons of the Royal Naval Air Service, so far as purely naval uses
were concerned, were in a rudimentary state at the outbreak of war. A
fighting service, suddenly engaged in a great war, must use the weapons
it has; it cannot spend more than a margin of its time and thought on
problematic improvements. The Naval Air Service, when the war began, had
good machines and good pilots. The army had endeavoured, before the war,
to establish, on behalf of the nation, a centralized control of
aeronautical manufacture, and the benefits of that policy, when the war
came, have already been described. The navy, following its traditional
plan, and working on freer lines, had done all it could to encourage
private effort, and so had greatly stimulated aeronautical invention and
progress. There was nothing inconsistent in the two policies; they were
stronger together than either could have been alone. When the great
effort was called for, the only thing that could be done at once was to
multiply the best existing types of machine, and to attempt, with the
means available, to perform such tasks as might present themselves.

Before the war the principal firms employed by the Admiralty in the
manufacture of flying machines were: for seaplanes, Messrs. Short
Brothers at Eastchurch, Messrs. Sopwith at Kingston-on-Thames, and
Messrs. J. Samuel White & Co. at Cowes, who had produced the Wight
seaplane; for aeroplanes, Messrs. Short and Messrs. Sopwith as before,
the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company at Bristol, and Messrs. A. V.
Roe & Co. at Manchester. Orders as large as they could handle were
placed with all these firms on the outbreak of war. Further, a very
large order for B.E. 2c machines was placed with various firms, who were
to construct them by the aid of Government plans and specifications; and
Messrs. Vickers received orders for their gun-carrying two-seater pusher
aeroplane known as the Vickers fighter.

The navy naturally paid more attention than the army to fighting in the
air. They were committed to the defence of the coast and the beating off
of hostile air-raids. In France, where the guns were going all day, the
first need was for reconnaissance machines; the navy, who were farther
from the enemy, had set their hearts on machines that should do more
than observe--machines that could fly far and hit hard. They diligently
fostered the efforts of the leading motor-car companies, especially the
Sunbeam and Rolls-Royce, and so were instrumental in the production of
very efficient engines of high horse-power. In the second year of the
war the Admiralty proposed a competition among aeroplane-makers for a
large bombing machine and a fast fighting aeroplane. In the result the
Short machine for bombing, fitted with a 250 horse-power Rolls-Royce
engine, was produced. Later on, the single-seater Sopwith Pup and the
two-seater Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter set the fashion in fighting machines,
and did good work with the army at the battles of the Somme. The fact is
that in the early part of the war the best of the existing types of
aeroplane were more useful, as things stood, to the army than to the
navy, and when this was recognized a great part of the work of the Royal
Naval Air Service took the form of help given to the British army.

When in August 1915 Mr. Maurice Baring was sent to Rome on business
connected with aircraft, he records how he had speech with General
Morris, who was in charge of Italian aviation. 'What I am going to say
to you', said General Morris, 'will be absolutely unintelligible and
unthinkable to you as Englishmen, but I regret to say that here, in
Italy, it is a fact that there exists a certain want of harmony--a
certain occasional, shall I say, friction?--between the military and
naval branches of our flying service.' Mr. Baring was amused by this
speech, but he kept a grave countenance, and murmured, 'Impossible'.

Both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were eager
to serve their country. Their rivalry was creditable to them. When they
were called on to co-operate, their relations were friendly and helpful.
But the pressing need for more and more aeroplanes on the western front
dominated the situation. The Admiralty were many times asked by the
military authorities to hand over to the Royal Flying Corps large
numbers of machines and engines which were on order for the Royal Naval
Air Service. To the best of their ability they fulfilled these requests,
but the zealous members of a patriotic service would be more or less
than human if they felt no regret on being deprived of the control of
their own material.

When the Royal Flying Corps was formed, in the spring of 1912, it was
intended that either wing should be available to help the other. But
before the war broke out the two had almost ceased to co-operate. The
methods and subjects of instruction were distinct. The discipline and
training of the one wing were wholly military, of the other wholly
naval; and this severance had been officially recognized, just before
the war, by the transformation of the Naval Wing into the Royal Naval
Air Service. In truth, while reconnaissance continued to be, what it was
at the beginning of the war, almost the sole duty of aircraft, effective
co-operation between the two services was difficult or impossible. Most
of the naval air pilots knew little of the business of military
reconnaissance; nor could the military observer be expected to recognize
and identify enemy shipping.

The demand for squadrons to assist the land campaign seemed likely to be
greater than the supply, and on the 24th of August 1914 the Government
had approved the formation of two Royal Naval Air Service squadrons, to
be trained for military duties. The Admiralty took action at once, and
these two squadrons were formed, one at Fort Grange, the other at
Eastchurch, during the early days of October. They were only a few days
old when news came that the army chiefs did not approve of the plan.
Writing on the 17th of October 1914 Sir John French said that the
efficiency of the Flying Corps for military purposes was principally due
to its organization and training. 'It is therefore', he added, 'most
desirable that any reinforcements should be organized, trained, and
equipped in exactly the same manner as the squadrons now in the field.
Owing to the complete divergence between methods and equipment of the
naval and military air services, I do not consider that units of the
Royal Naval Air Service would be suitable as reinforcements to this
force.' Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker, in a minute on this letter, dated
the 22nd of October, suggested that the army should undertake all aerial
work with the expeditionary force abroad and with the mobile forces at
home, while the navy should undertake the aerial work for all fixed
defences at home. A few weeks later the Army Council, replying to the
offer of the Admiralty, suggested that the best way for the Admiralty to
help would be by handing over to the War Office the aeroplanes which
were being provided to the order of the Admiralty, so that the
additional military squadron might be the earlier completed. Lastly, on
the 2nd of December, Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker addressed an urgent
appeal to the Air Department of the Admiralty. The squadrons with the
British forces in the field, he said, were very seriously short of
aeroplanes. There was also a shortage of flying officers, especially for
the training of pilots at home. He suggested that the entire output of
the Avro factory, and all the Vickers fighters, should be placed at the
disposal of the War Office; that four Maurice Farmans under construction
in Paris for the Admiralty should be delivered direct to the
headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps in France; and that any number up
to twenty good pilots, and the same number of wireless operators, should
be lent by the Admiralty to the War Office. The Admiralty replied at
once that they were willing to hand over to the Army Council twelve
Vickers fighters and six Maurice Farman machines, and that they were
preparing a squadron of eight Avro machines and four Sopwith scouts
under Squadron Commander Longmore, to proceed overseas about the middle
of January, and to work under the orders of the officer commanding the
Military Wing. On the 1st of January 1915 the War Office, after
consulting Sir David Henderson, refused this offer of a naval squadron.
'It has been decided', wrote Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker, 'to send no
further new aeroplane squadrons to join the Expeditionary Force until
the winter is over; the bad weather renders aerial reconnaissance
difficult, and we find that owing to the impossibility of protecting the
machine from deterioration it will be better to keep our new units at
home until conditions improve.' In the event about a hundred machines,
and as many more American Curtiss machines, built and building, were
turned over by the Admiralty to the War Office during the first year of
the war, but no further suggestion for the use of naval squadrons on the
western front was made until March 1916; and it was not until October of
that year that the first complete naval squadron got to work as a
self-contained unit under military command.

Service men will understand better than civilians the difficulties of a
mixed service. Each of the great services has always been willing to
help the other so long as it is allowed to preserve its own traditions
intact. Their quarrels are lovers' quarrels, springing from a jealous
maintenance of separate individualities. Moreover, the war, during its
early course, was regarded by most civilians and most service men as
likely to be a short war. The attention of soldiers late in 1914 was
concentrated on the decision that was expected in the following spring.
Lord Kitchener's famous prediction of a three years' war was regarded as
a wise insurance against foolish over-confidence, but was not believed.
The officers responsible for the Flying Corps in France were concerned
chiefly for the maintenance of that admirable little force in full
efficiency. They suffered continually from a shortage of aeroplanes, and
although their casualties had been far lighter than any one had
anticipated, they had every reason to fear a shortage of flying
officers. Their first demand was not for new squadrons, but for a
reserve of pilots and machines, to keep the existing squadrons in
working trim. It was only by degrees that the portentous dimensions of
the war began to be perceived--a war which, just before it ended, was
employing ninety-nine squadrons of British aeroplanes on the western
front alone.

The discovery, or rather the practical development, of new uses for
aircraft in war quickened the demand for additional squadrons and made
it easier for the two branches of the air service to co-operate. As the
war progressed aerial fighting and bomb-dropping became more and more
important. These were new arts, and required no special naval or
military training; they belonged to the air. When the Fokker fighting
monoplane appeared in strength on the western front in the early months
of 1916, the losses of the Royal Flying Corps in reconnaissance and
artillery observation became very heavy. It was then that the Admiralty
were again appealed to for help, and four Nieuport scouts, with pilots
and mechanics, were dispatched from Eastchurch, arriving at the
aerodrome of No. 6 Squadron, at Abeele, between Cassel and Poperinghe,
on the 29th of March 1916. Before this time the pilots of the Royal
Flying Corps in the Ypres salient had had only the barest acquaintance
with the pilots of the Naval Air Service at Dunkirk. Some of the earlier
Flying Corps pilots had met those of the other service at the Central
Flying School; some of the later pilots had had occasion to land at
Dunkirk and had been filled with admiration and envy when they were
shown the machines and equipment belonging to the Naval Air Service.
Sometimes a naval pilot, flying a little south of his usual beat, would
come across a military pilot in the air, and the two would make some
token of recognition. But the four naval Nieuport scouts of March 1916
sent to the salient to help to meet the attacks of German fighting
scouts were the first naval detachment to co-operate with the Royal
Flying Corps in the field under military command. The experiment, though
it lasted only for eighteen days, was a success. The naval officers and
ratings were treated royally, as guests, and there was complete harmony
between the two services. The little Nieuport scouts brought reassurance
to the lonely artillery pilots on the front, and had a happy effect on
the German fighting pilots, who were led to suspect the presence of a
whole new squadron of Nieuports. On the 16th of April No. 29 Fighting
Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, which had been delayed by accidents,
arrived at Abeele, and the naval machines returned to Dunkirk.

This experiment showed the way and encouraged fuller measures. During
the battles of the Somme, which began on the 1st of July 1916, the Royal
Flying Corps maintained a resolute and continuous offensive over the
enemy lines. They suffered very heavy casualties, at a time when
training and construction at home, which were in process of development,
were unable to make good all the losses. Then the Admiralty, on the
urgent appeal of the Army Council, agreed to detach from the Dunkirk
command a complete squadron of eighteen fighting aeroplanes, under
Squadron Commander G. M. Bromet, for temporary duty with the army. The
squadron consisted of six two-seater Sopwiths, six single-seater
Sopwiths, and six Nieuport scouts. They arrived at Vert Galand
aerodrome, which is situated eleven miles north of Amiens on the
Amiens-Doullens road, on the 16th of October 1916. After three weeks
spent in machine-gun practice and flights to learn the country, the
first full day's work was done on the 9th of November. There were many
combats, and three enemy machines were driven down in a damaged
condition. This squadron continued to operate with the army in France.

By the beginning of 1917 there were in France, working wholly with the
army, thirty-eight Royal Flying Corps squadrons; that is to say,
nineteen artillery squadrons and nineteen fighting squadrons; and the
one fighting squadron belonging to the Royal Naval Air Service. It was
anticipated that the Germans, who had appointed a single officer,
General von Hoeppner, to take charge of all their military aircraft, and
had produced several improved types of machine, would make a great
effort in the spring of 1917 to recapture the air. To meet this effort
more fighting squadrons were needed. The machinery at home for the
reinforcement of the Royal Flying Corps was working at high pressure,
and could not at once supply the need. So an appeal was once more
addressed to the Admiralty, who agreed to provide four more fighting
squadrons to be used on the western front. These squadrons made a
punctual appearance, and during the earlier half of 1917 did magnificent
work in helping to maintain the British supremacy in the air. Naval
Squadron No. 3, for instance, under Squadron Commander R. H. Mulock, was
at work on the western front from the beginning of February to the
middle of June. During this time it accounted for eighty enemy aircraft
with a loss of only nine machines missing, and provided highly respected
escorts for photographic reconnaissances and bomb raids. From July 1917
onwards the naval squadrons, having bridged the gap, were gradually
replaced by squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps, and were returned to
Dunkirk.

The loan of these squadrons naturally diminished the force available for
aerial operations under naval control, but the spirit in which the help
was given is well expressed in a letter of Wing Captain C. L. Lambe,
who was in command of the naval air forces at Dover and Dunkirk.
Writing in August 1917 he points out the serious effects on the force
under his command of the wastage of pilots, but concludes: 'I would
remark however that the loan of these squadrons to the Royal Flying
Corps must have been of the greatest value to the Empire, since the
official record issued by the Royal Flying Corps states that up to
August 3rd, 1917, a hundred and twenty-one enemy machines have been
destroyed by naval squadrons, and two hundred and forty have been driven
down out of control.'

When help was needed by the army, it was generously given by the navy,
but the difficulties which inevitably present themselves when the
attempt is made to secure the smooth and efficient collaboration of two
separate forces cannot be solved by generous feeling. Most men are
willing to help their country, but a country's revenue cannot be raised
by free gift. Without justice and certainty there can be no efficiency,
and for justice and certainty law and regulation are required. The chief
administrative problem of the war in the air had its origin in the need
for a large measure of co-operation between the military and naval air
forces. The repeated attempts to solve this problem, the problem of
unity of control, by the establishment of successive Air Boards, and the
achieved solution of it by the amalgamation in 1918 of the two services
under the control of an Air Ministry--these events took almost as long
as the war to happen; indeed the story of them might truly be called the
Constitutional History of the War in the Air. That story cannot be told
here; it shall be told at a later point, in connexion with the
foundation of the Royal Air Force. The method of government of the Royal
Flying Corps has already been described; all that can fitly be attempted
here is a brief account of the government of the Royal Naval Air
Service, and the earlier vicissitudes of that government.

The union of the two wings of the Royal Flying Corps, that is to say, of
the original Naval and Military Wings, was a one-sided and imperfect
union, because the Royal Flying Corps, in its inception, was under the
control of the War Office. The naval officers who joined the Naval Wing
remained under the control of the Admiralty, and before the war the
Admiralty had established an Air Department, with Captain Murray Sueter
as its Director, to be responsible for the development of naval
aeronautics. But the Director was less happily situated than his
military counterpart, the Director-General of Military Aeronautics at
the War Office, who, it will be remembered, dealt at first hand with the
Secretary of State for War. The Naval Director of the Air Department had
less power and less independence. From the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys,
throughout the eighteenth century, and down to the year 1832, the navy
had been administered by the office of the Lord High Admiral, assisted
by a Navy Board, which was composed, for the most part, of civilian
members of Parliament. In 1832 the Navy Board was abolished, and the
modern Board of Admiralty was created to control the navy. The business
of this Board was divided up among its various members. Finance fell to
the Parliamentary Secretary; works, buildings, contracts, and dockyard
business were the portion of the Civil Lords; while all kinds of service
business, that is to say, preparation for war, distribution of the
fleet, training, equipment, and the like, were assigned to one or other
of the Sea Lords. When the Air Department was formed to take charge of
the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, its Director was not only
generally responsible to the Board of Admiralty, he was responsible to
each of the Sea Lords in matters connected with that Sea Lord's
department. This divided responsibility, which, by old custom, works
well enough in a body with established traditions, like the navy, was
not a good scheme for controlling the unprecedented duties, or for
encouraging the unexampled activities, of an air force.

When the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was first established, in
1912, H.M.S. _Hermes_, under the command of Captain G. W. Vivian, was
commissioned as its headquarters. During the following year naval air
stations came into being at the Isle of Grain, at Calshot, Felixstowe,
Yarmouth, and Cromarty, and in December 1913 the duties of the captain
of the _Hermes_ were taken over by Captain F. R. Scarlett, who was given
the newly created post of Inspecting Captain of Aircraft, with
headquarters at the Central Air Office, Sheerness. At the time of the
outbreak of war the Royal Naval Air Service was administered by the
Admiralty, and consisted of the Air Department at Whitehall, the Central
Air Office at Sheerness, the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch,
the various naval air stations, and such aircraft as were available for
naval purposes. The Sheerness office was under the Nore command, and the
Inspecting Captain of Aircraft, who took his instructions from the
Director of the Air Department, was also responsible to the
Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleets in all matters relating to
aircraft operations with the main fleet.

The coming of the war soon multiplied air stations as well as aircraft;
inland stations were established at Hendon, Chingford, Wormwood Scrubbs,
and Roehampton; squadrons were dispatched abroad, and seaplane ships
were commissioned; so that efficient control by the Nore command was no
longer possible. In February 1915 the Admiralty decided that the whole
of the Royal Naval Air Service should be forthwith placed under the
orders of the Director of the Air Department, who was to be solely
responsible to the Board of Admiralty. The Central Air Office was
abolished, and Captain Scarlett was appointed to the staff of the Air
Department to carry out inspection duties.

When this decision took effect in Admiralty Weekly Orders, certain
points of difficulty were at once raised by the Commander-in-Chief of
the Nore. 'Is the personnel of the air stations', he asked, 'to be
subject to local Port Orders? I can hardly imagine that their Lordships
intend otherwise. There are 77 officers and 530 men, including 94 naval
ratings, in the three air establishments at present in my command
(Eastchurch, Grain, and Kingsnorth), and it is understood that these
numbers will shortly be increased by the personnel of three additional
air stations (Clacton, Westgate, and Maidstone).' Further, he asked
whether the Commander-in-Chief was to remain the controlling authority
with regard to punishments; and he added, 'I strongly urge the
re-establishment of some Central Air Authority in the port under my
command with whom I can deal on defence and other important matters
without reference to the individual air stations, which may often be
commanded by officers of small naval experience to whom the naval aspect
of the situation may not especially appeal.'

It was felt in the air service that owing to the technical nature of the
work the question of punishments should not be relegated to any one
outside the air service. The Commander-in-Chief of the Nore had invoked
the King's Regulations, so the question was referred to the naval law
branch of the Admiralty, which, in April 1915, replied that 'the
discipline of the air service is governed entirely by the King's
Regulations, which provide that the powers conferred upon commanding
officers by the Naval Discipline Act shall be subject to the approval of
a Flag officer whose flag is flying or the Senior Naval Officer.... As a
matter of fact the Director of the Air Department has no disciplinary
power under the Naval Discipline Act, and the reference of warrants to
him would neither be in accordance with the King's Regulations nor the
Naval Discipline Act.'

This verdict threw the organization of the Royal Naval Air Service once
more into the melting-pot. The question of discipline was at the root of
the whole matter. The navy were not willing to hand over the control of
discipline to a body which, though it was called the Royal Naval Air
Service, was much looser in discipline than the Royal Navy. The causes
of this comparative laxity are easily intelligible. When the war came,
the need for new pilots was pressing; the training accommodation at the
Central Flying School and at Eastchurch was wholly inadequate; so the
Admiralty had at once made arrangements for entering officers direct
from civilian life, and for training them at civilian schools of
aviation, such as the schools at Brooklands, Hendon, and Eastbourne. The
important thing at the outbreak of war was to get officers who could fly
a machine, and to get them quickly. Of professional training in naval
knowledge and naval discipline there was perforce little. The spirit of
adventure brought many youths at a very early age into the Naval Air
Service; some of them were entered as commissioned officers, and were
paid fourteen shillings a day at an age at which the regular sea service
officer was being paid one shilling and ninepence a day, less threepence
for the naval instructor. It is not to be wondered at that the high
spirits of some of these untrained youths, and their festive behaviour,
exposed them to the criticism of older officers who cared for the high
traditions of the navy. The expansion of the Naval Air Service was too
rapid to admit of that slow maturing process which makes a good sailor.
When, at the end of May 1915, Mr. Winston Churchill vacated his
appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty, he remarked on the rapid
expansion of the service during his period of office. 'At the beginning
of hostilities', he says, 'there were under a hundred officers and six
hundred men. Most of these were transferred from the Navy proper, a
small percentage only being civilians. At present there are over fifteen
hundred officers and eleven thousand men.... We had at the beginning of
the war a total of sixty-four aeroplanes and seaplanes. This of course
represents a very minute proportion of our present numbers, of which all
that I can publicly say is that they total more than one thousand.'

During the first winter of the war a short course in gunnery was
arranged for young officers at the naval gunnery school at Whale Island,
Portsmouth, where they were instructed also in drill, discipline, and
the handling of men. This was a beginning, but it was not enough. The
pioneers of the Naval Air Service had had an uphill task; they had
worked untiringly in the cause of naval aeronautics, to achieve progress
in the new art, and to get recognition for it from the Sea Lords. The
recognition, when it came at last, was overwhelming. The navy claimed
the Royal Naval Air Service as its own, and absorbed it into itself. The
immediate motive for this was disciplinary, but the thing was a
compliment, none the less, to the work of the air service. In the summer
of 1915 the German submarine menace in the Channel became serious, and
the officer in command of the Dover Patrol, who was responsible for the
Straits, knew that for the work to be done from his bases at Dover and
Dunkirk aircraft were essential.

In July the whole question was brought before the Board of Admiralty,
and regulations for the reorganization of the Royal Naval Air Service
were approved, to take effect on the 1st of August. These regulations
are explicit and clear. 'The Royal Naval Air Service' (so they begin)
'is to be regarded in all respects as an integral part of the Royal
Navy, and in future the various air stations will be under the general
orders of the Commander-in-Chief or Senior Naval Officers in whose
district they are situated.

'The Commander-in-Chief or Senior Naval Officer will visit the stations
within his command or district from time to time, or depute a suitable
officer to visit them on his behalf, to ensure that the discipline of
the station is maintained.... Copies of reports on operations are to be
forwarded direct to the Admiralty. It will be the duty of the Director
of the Air Department to visit the various air stations from time to
time ... with a view to ensuring that the technical training of the
personnel is being carried out as laid down by their Lordships, and that
the station is efficiently organized and equipped in respect to works
and materiel.'

These are the main provisions of the new orders. The grouping of the air
stations (which by this time were more than fifty in number) under the
various commands was given in detail. The detachments stationed at
Dunkirk and elsewhere in France and Belgium were put, for disciplinary
purposes, under the orders of the Rear-Admiral, Dover. The inland
stations at Hendon, Chingford, Wormwood Scrubbs, and Roehampton were put
immediately under the Admiralty. Sweeping changes followed in
appointments. The post of Director of the Air Department was abolished,
and Commodore Murray Sueter was placed in charge of the construction
section of the remodelled department. An officer of flag rank,
Rear-Admiral C. L. Vaughan-Lee, was given the newly created post of
Director of Air Services. A senior Naval Air Service officer, Wing
Commander C. L. Lambe, R.N., who had been captain of the _Hermes_, was
appointed to command the air patrols at Dover and Dunkirk, under the
orders of Vice-Admiral R. H. Bacon. Other changes which followed were so
numerous that in effect a new service was formed. When the Air
Department was reorganized in the spring of 1916, it was divided into
two sections--Administration and Construction. Each of these sections
included a considerable diversity of business, which was classified, and
placed under the separate control of eight responsible officers. Of
these eight only two--Squadron Commander Clark Hall, who was responsible
for aeroplane and seaplane design, and Squadron Commander W. Briggs, who
was responsible for engines--were officers of the original Royal Naval
Air Service. Most of the newly appointed administrative officers had no
previous knowledge of aircraft or aircraft operations; what they were
chosen for was their power of organization, their strict sense of
discipline, their untiring energy, and their pride in the ancient
service to which they belonged. The senior naval officer who was
inexperienced in the air was promoted over the heads of the pioneers of
naval aviation who were junior in the navy.

There is no unmixed good on earth. The debate between discipline and
progress can never be settled dogmatically one way or the other. Those
who have to lead men into battle are agreed that without discipline
progress is useless. A crowd of undrilled men of science could not stand
the push of a platoon of common soldiers. On the other hand, it is
all-important that the higher command in war shall be susceptible to
science, and it has been maintained, not without evidence, that the life
of discipline and loyalty which procures promotion in a public service
does not usually increase susceptibility to science.

The immediate practical advantages which were aimed at by the
reorganizers of the Naval Air Service were attained. In place of the old
scattered training stations a central training depot was set up at
Cranwell in Lincolnshire, and a complete system for the instruction and
graduation of pupils was instituted. A designs department was set up at
Whitehall; the airship service was taken in hand and developed for
anti-submarine patrol work. What may be called the most important unit
of the Royal Naval Air Service was created by the amalgamation under
Wing Commander Lambe of the squadrons which had their bases at Dunkirk
and Dover. This unit, later in the war, became the famous Fifth Group,
under the same command. The arrangements made at the time of change
continued in force up to the time of the union of the military and naval
air services, and progress was continuous. In January 1916 the Admiralty
approved that the overseas establishment of the Royal Naval Air Service
should have three wings, each wing to have two squadrons, and each
squadron two flights, with six machines to a flight. One of these wings
was based at Dunkirk; for the others two new aerodromes were
established, in the spring of 1916, at Coudekerque and Petite Synthe,
and were occupied, the first by No. 5 Wing, under Squadron Commander
Spenser Grey, the other by No. 4 Wing, under Wing Commander C. L.
Courtney, R.N. No. 5 Wing was specially trained for the work of
long-distance bombing.

From the very beginning the Naval Air Service had set their heart on the
fitting out of big bombing raids against distant German centres--Essen,
or Berlin. It was a grief to them, when the war ended, that Berlin had
suffered no damage from the air. The success of their early raids on
Düsseldorf and Friedrichshafen naturally strengthened their desire to
carry out more destructive raids over more important centres. In this
way, they believed, they could best help the army. This idea inspired
some of the documents drawn up by Mr. Winston Churchill while he was
First Lord of the Admiralty. When in February 1916 Rear-Admiral
Vaughan-Lee submitted to the Admiralty his scheme for the employment of
the reorganized Royal Naval Air Service the same idea dominated his
advices. 'I consider', his report concludes, 'that we should develop
long-distance offensive work as much as possible.' The preference shown
by the navy, in their orders from the makers, for powerful bomb-carrying
machines tells the same story. When the navy set about carrying out this
policy by the formation of a special force, called No. 3 Wing, at
Luxeuil, for the express purpose of making long-distance raids over
German munition centres, the army, which was preparing its great effort
on the Somme front, and which needed more and yet more machines for the
immediate purposes of the campaign, protested against the use of British
aircraft for what seemed to them a luxury in comparison with their own
dire needs. So the Luxeuil Wing was, for the time, broken up; but the
idea took shape again later when the Independent Force came into being.

The sound doctrine on this matter is laid down in General Trenchard's
reports, which shall be given hereafter. Yet it may be admitted, without
prejudice to that doctrine, that if bombing raids had been possible over
Essen and Berlin their effect would have been very great. The Germans
spent not a little effort on their raids over London, and hoped for the
weakening or shattering of the British war temper as a consequence of
those raids. Their belief in frightfulness was a belief in fright. They
judged others by themselves. No people on earth, it may readily be
admitted, can maintain the efficiency of its war activities under the
regular intensive bombing of its centres of population; but the Germans,
during the greater part of the war, knew nothing of this fierce trial,
and their trust in their army would have been terribly weakened if that
army had proved to be no sure shield for the quiet and security of civil
life.

Such differences as arose between the British naval and military
authorities concerning the use of aircraft in the war were, for the
reasons that have been given, not easily avoidable. They were ultimately
composed by the union of the military and naval air forces under a
single control, and the emergence of a new air force.

Wars have for many centuries been conducted on land and on sea. A third
and larger theatre has now been found for them. The air flows over both
land and sea; more than either land or sea it is the place of vision,
and of speed and freedom of movement. What we of this generation are
witnessing is a process whereby the air shall come into its own. It will
become the great highway for the traffic of peace; and in war, which
cannot be abolished while man has interests that are dearer to him than
his own comfort and safety, the forces of the air will be, not a
late-found timid auxiliary to the forces of the land and of the sea, but
their overseer and their director.


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