Chapter II: WAR (1)

GENERAL REMARKS ON WAR DEVELOPMENT.

In dealing with the story of the beginnings of aviation and the evolution of aircraft up to the war, we have seen that though its growth was infinitesimal compared with that which came with the impetus of war, the air service took definite and practical shape more rapidly than had up to that time any other arm of the Army or Navy in peace.

In 1914 we had reached a point where we possessed a small but mobile and efficient flying force, equipped and trained essentially for reconnaissance. Although experiments had been made, little had been achieved in the use of wireless from aircraft, air photography, bomb dropping, armament or the development of air fighting. As with the Army and Navy, war quickened and expanded all the attributes of air operations in a way which could not have been foreseen before the struggle occurred; and, as it would have been impossible for the Army and Navy to build up their war organization without the foundation of the pre-war service, so it was the splendid quality of the original Royal Flying Corps that made this expansion possible.

Before the war the Royal Flying Corps was considerably smaller than the air services of either France or Germany, and to attain even the strength with which the Military Wing left England the bulk of the trained officers and men, and almost all the machines fit for service, had to be taken. When I started to raise the Corps, in May, 1912, the War Office estimated that its organization, (of a headquarters and seven aeroplane and one airship squadrons) would take at least four years; instead, there had been little more than two. Even at the risk of leaving insufficient personnel and material behind to form and train new squadrons, I recommended that four complete squadrons (including the wireless machines which had to be thrown in to make up the numbers) should be sent overseas to help the British Expeditionary Force in bearing the brunt of the terrific blow that was to come. It was a very serious matter that so little could be left with which to carry on in England, but we considered it essential to dispatch at once to France every available machine and pilot, because both political and military authorities were of opinion that for economic and financial reasons a war with a great European power could not last more than a few months. Another reason was that those of us who had been at the Staff College during the few years before the war, or who had recently served on the General Staff at the War Office, believed that the weight of the German attack would be made through Belgium, where, owing to the enclosed nature of the country, cavalry would be at a disadvantage, and we realized therefore, and urged, the great effect which the air would have from the commencement of operations--a view which was not widely held, especially among senior officers in the Army. We also felt the necessity of using our maximum air strength from the outset, so as to prove its supreme importance as quickly and practically as possible. It required the Retreat from Mons before even G.H.Q. as a whole would accept the fact, though Colonel Macdonogh, the head of the intelligence section, was our firm ally. The iron of confidence, both to used and user, had to be welded with the first great blows on the anvil of war. For these reasons it was vital that every available trained pilot and suitable machine should be employed with the Army, even at the danger of serious initial depletion at Home. The smooth progress of expansion was largely attributable alike to the strength of the pre-war spirit, organization and training,[2] and to the results actual and moral obtained by the first four squadrons during the Retreat and the following weeks of the war under centralized control. The French distributed their "Escadrilles," which were approximately of the size of our "flight," from the beginning, and it is probable that one cause of failure in the German air service during the same period lay in the initial dispersion of units and lack of unified control by the higher command. The British Expeditionary Force having been saved during the Retreat, Paris having been saved at the Marne, the great German army having made a retirement, a lengthy war of position having become obvious, confidence in the air service, both within and without, having been established, the centralized system necessarily adopted up to that time could be relaxed, and we were able to send home officers and men with greatly increased experience to help build up the many new squadrons which would be required to co-operate with the new armies.

[2] On October 17, 1914, Sir J. French wrote: "Such efficiency as the R.F.C. may have shown in the field is, in my opinion, principally due to organization and training."

Gradually, as the numbers in the field permitted, increased duties were undertaken. The Army, though it did not do so at first, yet came to understand the immense importance to itself of air reconnaissance. So much so indeed that our machines and pilots were generally many too few to attempt more than the absolute essentials, and calls were often made upon them which were beyond their strength to meet. An ironic contrast to this was supplied, however, at the evacuation of the Dardanelles, where I was commanding the air service (the R.N.A.S.), and was asked to be careful not to do too much air work. This at a time when through stress and strain and loss we had, I think, a total of five machines left able to take the air!

Observation was, and remains, the prime purpose for which the Royal Flying Corps was formed. 1914 was a year of reconnaissance, but with the advent of trench warfare at the Battle of the Aisne, the first attempts were made to extend its scope by the use of wireless for artillery co-operation, and by air photography, both of which developed rapidly. Headway was also being made with bombing. Then machines carrying out their special duties had to be protected, while it became necessary to prevent hostile machines from effecting similar functions, with the result that 1915 saw the beginnings of systematic air fighting.

In 1915 the easily man[oe]uvrable Fokker, with its machine-gun synchronizing gear for firing through the propeller, gave the Germans a temporary lead, but by the Battle of the Somme this was outclassed and in 1916 our air superiority became marked. The Royal Flying Corps was by that time organized into Brigades and Wings, one Wing operating with each Army for fighting and distant reconnaissance, and one Wing with each Corps for short reconnaissance and such specialized work as artillery co-operation and contact patrols. Both types of machine took part in bombing operations.

There is generally perhaps a tendency, when reviewing the army and air effort in the war, to deal almost entirely with the Western Front and to forget the prodigious work done in many other theatres.

In 1915 the Royal Naval Air Service carried out all air work with the Army and Navy in the Gallipoli campaign and showed how a single air force could effect really important co-operation with both services. In addition to the normal duties of co-operation with the Army and the Fleet, and in spite of the difficulties of transport, supply and workshop arrangements, photographs were taken from the air of the greater part of the Peninsula, and the original inaccurate maps corrected therefrom; frequent bombing raids were carried out against objectives on the Peninsula, the Turkish lines of communications, and even Constantinople itself. In this campaign, too, torpedoes were used for the first time by aircraft and three ships were destroyed in the Dardanelles by this means. The distance from the hub of affairs, a line of supply about 6,000 miles in length, sickness and the climatic and geographical conditions rendered maintenance very difficult. Sand and dust driven in clouds by high winds greatly shortened the working life of engines. The heat during the summer caused the rapid deterioration of machines, while long oversea flights entailed loss from forced landings. There are many aspects of the deepest interest to be brought out when a complete history of the Campaign in Gallipoli comes to be written. It is true that the Allies would have lost all if they had been defeated in the west, and that the call of the Armies for more and more men and munitions for that theatre was insistent; it is equally true, however, that in France there could be nothing but batter and counter-batter, and the only remaining point where strategic principles could be brought to bear was at the Dardanelles. But what is more relevant to the subject of these pages is that when in future years the story of Helles and Anzac and Suvla is weighed, it will, I think, appear that had the necessary air service been built up from the beginning and sustained, the Army and Navy could have forced the Straits and taken Constantinople. I insistently urged the dependence of the naval and military forces upon air assistance and the necessity for carrying out a strong aerial offensive, especially by bombing, for which the local conditions governing the enemy operations on the Peninsula offered exceptional advantages.

From the autumn of 1915 onwards Egypt became the centre of training and expansion for operations in the Middle East and, as the organization developed, a brigade was formed with Wings in Macedonia, Sinai and a training Wing, which by 1918 had become a training brigade, in Egypt. The work of the Wing sent to Sinai in 1916, and expanded in 1917 into a brigade, is well summarized in the following extract from a telegram received from Egypt on October 3rd, 1918:--

"Before operations commenced our mastery of the air was complete and
this was maintained throughout, enabling the cavalry turning
movement to be completely protected and concealed. Enemy retreating
columns were so effectively machine gunned and bombed by offensive
machines that in all three cases the surviving personnel abandoned
their vehicles and consequently upset all plans of retirement. An
enemy column thus abandoned was seven miles in length."

The Wings in Macedonia and Mesopotamia, though they could not beat the record of the Palestine Brigade, gained a marked supremacy over the enemy. Air operations in East Africa were originally carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service with seaplanes, which in 1915 were brought up to the strength of two squadrons and replaced by aeroplanes under the orders of the military forces, their duties being carried out under the difficult conditions of bush warfare. Valuable work was also done by the Royal Flying Corps squadrons which were sent out to operate in the south.

In addition to these major operations, air forces were used in the expeditions on the Indian frontier, against Darfur and in the vicinity of Aden. Five squadrons were sent to Italy after the Italian retreat from the Isonzo and took a prominent part in the final Austrian defeat; a Royal Air Force contingent was sent to Russia to operate from Archangel; and material assistance was given to France and the other Allies, but especially to the United States in the training and equipment of her air forces.

At the beginning of 1918 the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Force were amalgamated and the Royal Air Force came into existence, and during the year achieved a supremacy more complete than that at any time since the Somme.

The following description gives a vivid idea of air activity at the front in 1918:--

"All day long there were 'dog fights' waged at heights up to three
or four miles above the shell-torn battlefields of France, whilst
the low-flying aeroplanes were attacking suitable targets from the
height of a few dozen feet. Passing backwards and forwards went the
reconnaissance machines and the bombers, and along the whole front
observers were sending out by wireless to the artillery the point of
impact of their shells. Such was the picture of the air on any fine
day at the time."

1918, however, saw not only the accumulative effect of the tactical co-operation of aircraft with our armies in the field, but also the formation of the Independent Air Force and the carrying out of the strategic air offensive against centres of war industry in the interior of Germany.

A vast organization was also required at Home to meet the rapid expansion of units in the Field and to supply reinforcements. Thus at the Armistice there were 199 training squadrons, the pupils under instruction including cadets numbered 30,000, and during the war some 22,000 graduated as efficient for active service. At the beginning of the war pilots were sent overseas with only 11 hours' flying experience. This was much too little and there is no doubt that increased training would have ensured fewer casualties. Fortunately, however, the length of training was increased in the latter part of the war and a remarkable advance in training was made possible by the use of an entirely new and extraordinarily efficient system of instruction evolved by Smith-Barry.

The war demonstrated the beginnings of what air power meant, though in November, 1918, it was still in its infancy. Before many years the ability to make war successfully, or even at all, will depend upon air power.

Let us now briefly survey the development of the several duties of aircraft, the evolution of machines and progress in tactics, strategy and the organization of our Air Forces during the war.

I had recognized the great difficulty of mobilizing with the clockwork precision of older units and, in the belief that war was coming, had ordered a provisional mobilization of the Corps some days before it was actually declared. Thanks to this step and to the work done at our Concentration Camp at Netheravon in June, 1914, the greater part of the Royal Flying Corps was enabled to concentrate without hitch at our aerodrome at Dover, and the machines flew via Calais to Amiens on August 13th.

CO-OPERATION WITH THE ARMY.

_Reconnaissance._

In the event of France and England declaring war concurrently against Germany, the strategic plan agreed to by the British and French general staffs before the war had been that the British Expeditionary Force should be moved to the Le Cateau, Maubeuge, Mons, area and take up a line on the left flank of the French Army near Mons. But England had withheld her declaration until three days after the French, and on landing in France the first words I heard said by a Frenchman were: "Oui, l'armee anglaise arrive mais on a manque le premier plan." It was not until after the arrival of G.H.Q. at Amiens on August 14th that, although late, it was decided that the advanced line should be taken up. The Royal Flying Corps moved by air and road to an existing aerodrome outside the antique defences of Maubeuge 12 miles from Mons on the 16th. On the 19th the first reconnaissance was carried out, and the entire country over which the German armies were advancing, as far as Brussels and Louvain, was kept under observation. One of the best reconnaissances ever made was that of August 21st, which discovered the 2nd German Corps moving from Brussels through Ninhove and Grammont.

From Maubeuge we had to retire on the 24th to Le Cateau, on the 25th to St. Quentin, on the 26th to La Fere, on the 28th to Compiegne, on the 30th to Senlis, on the 31st to Juilly, on September 2nd to Serris, on the 3rd to Touquin, on the 4th to Melun, where we were thankful at last to get orders again to advance on the 7th to Touquin, and on the 9th to Coulommiers, reaching Fere-en-Tardennois on the 12th for the Battle of the Aisne.

Of the many recollections of the early days one which will remain longest in my mind is the terrible sadness of the flocks of refugees, of the poor people we left behind. And the glare of villages burning by the hand of the Boche. It was indeed war.

Valuable reconnaissances were made during the whole Retreat from Mons to the Marne in spite of the tremendous difficulties involved by constant movement, transport, and the selection of new landing grounds, but, in the words of Sir John French, "It was the timely warning aircraft gave which chiefly enabled me to make speedy dispositions to avert danger and disaster. There can be no doubt indeed that even then the presence and co-operation of aircraft saved the very frequent use of cavalry patrols and detailed supports." The Royal Flying Corps was an important factor in helping the British Expeditionary Force to escape von Kluck's nearly successful efforts to secure another and a British Sedan.

The reconnaissance resulting in the most valuable information of all, and, I think, during the whole of the war, was that of September 3rd, during the critical operations on the Marne, which formed one of the decisive battles in the world's history, when von Kluck's turning movement to the south-east against the French left was accurately reported and Marshal Joffre was enabled to make his dispositions accordingly. "The precision, exactitude and regularity of the news brought in," he said in a message to the British Commander-in-Chief, "are evidence of the perfect training of pilots and observers." The reports of the German air service, on the other hand, would appear from von Kluck's movements to have been of no assistance to him.

The system adopted from the first was for the pilot or observer, or both, immediately on their return to bring their report to R.F.C. Headquarters, whence the Commander, or his staff officer, accompanied them to G.H.Q., where the map was filled in in accordance with the report. G.H.Q. could then ask questions and obtain any further information which the observer could give, while R.F.C. Headquarters could ascertain what further reports were most urgently required. The form of the reports, which were ready printed, had been most carefully thought out at R.F.C. Headquarters in peace and experimented with at the Concentration Camp.

The maps thus compiled at G.H.Q. from air reconnaissance reports between August 31st and September 3rd were of vital interest, though it was sometimes very difficult to get the information put on the map for prompt consideration. For instance, at Dammartin on the evening of September 1st, when it was thought that German cavalry were within a few miles, G.H.Q. made a very hurried departure, and I was unable to find anyone to whom to give very important reports.

It was at the Battle of the Marne that machines were for the first time allotted to Army Corps for tactical work, while long-distance reconnaissance was carried out by other machines operating from Headquarters. Later on, this system was established as a part of our permanent organization, squadrons being allotted to, and reporting direct to, Corps for tactical reconnaissance, artillery co-operation and contact patrols, and to Armies for longer-distance reconnaissance and fighting.

The last phase of the war of movement was the race for the Channel Ports and it devolved upon aircraft to observe the enemy's movements from his centre and left flank to meet the Allied movement to the coast, to observe the movements of the four newly-formed corps which came into action at Ypres and to maintain liaison with the Belgian and British forces at Antwerp and Ostend. Information was very difficult to obtain and on one occasion I flew from the Aisne to Antwerp, under Sir John French's instructions, in order as far as possible to clear up the general situation when our G.H.Q. was in doubt as to whether Antwerp was completely surrounded or not. It was an interesting piece of work. There was a light drizzle, and the forest of Compiegne had to be flown over at about 200 feet. The B.E. could not make the distance without refilling, and although only a short halt was made at Amiens for the purpose, it was too late to fly direct to Antwerp. Instead, a landing was made in a very sticky field under light plough, which was selected from the air about 4 miles north of Bruges, to which town I rode on a borrowed bicycle. At Bruges there was great consternation and uncertainty as to the position at Antwerp, but the Commander kindly placed a large open car and its very energetic driver at my disposal to try and get through. After many difficulties we managed to find our way into Antwerp by about midnight, and I was received by the Belgian Commander. He explained that though the Germans had broken through the South-Eastern sector and his troops were very hard pressed (and pointing repeatedly to a piece of an 18-inch German shell in the corner of the room, he said, "Mais qu'est-ce qu'on peut faire avec ces choses-la!"), he hoped to be able to hold out for a time. After giving him General French's message and obtaining as much information as possible, I managed to get clear of Antwerp, reaching Bruges again at 3.15 a.m. At 4 a.m. we set out and found a very wet machine in a wetter field and after considerable difficulty and flying through the top of the surrounding hedge, struggled into the upper air on the way back to Headquarters at Fere-en-Tardennois.

During the Battles of the Aisne and of Ypres strategical reconnaissance was carried out by the few machines available at Headquarters. Shephard, the best reconnaissance officer I have ever known, who was killed later, used to fly his B.E.2 without observer over the greater part of Belgium two or three times a week and always brought in a long, closely packed, and extraordinarily valuable report. Tactical reconnaissance to a depth of 15 to 20 miles was done by units attached to Corps.

After the Battle of the Aisne, which was the turning point in the evolution from the war of movement to trench warfare, pure reconnaissance, though still the basis of air work, tended to become a matter of routine, while many new and specialized forms of it--such as air photography and artillery spotting by wireless--were developed.

_Photography._

Though experiments had been made in the problem of photography from the air before the war, principally by Fletcher, Hubbard and Laws, and its value to survey was recognized, it had not become of practical utility. We only took one official camera with us to France on August 13th, 1914, and it was not until September 15th that the first attempt at air photography was made, when five plates were exposed over positions behind the enemy's lines with very imperfect results. Its great value as an aid to observation in trench warfare was, however, very apparent, fresh brains were brought to the task, Moore-Brabazon, Campbell and Dr. Swan, and by the end of the year better success was obtained, though positions even then had to be filled in by the observer with red ink. Experiments at home during 1915 led to a great improvement in lenses, and at the beginning of 1916 air photography was universal. At the Battle of the Somme new enemy positions were photographed as soon as they were seen, and the camera did invaluable work in the reconnaissance of the Hindenburg Line during the German retreat of 1917, and the taking of over a thousand photographs was a daily occurrence. On September 4th, 1917, a record of 1,805 photographs was made.

The development of air photography, very remarkable in itself, is even more so when it is remembered that the improvement in enemy anti-aircraft guns drove our machines to carry out their work at altitudes increasing up to 20,000 and even 22,000 feet, at which heights the negatives had to be as distinct as those taken at 4,000 in the earlier days of the war.

At the beginning of the Dardanelles operations our apparatus consisted of one camera, a printing frame and a dark room lamp. The first photographs were taken by Butler in April, 1915, from a H. Farman machine at necessarily low altitudes. Butler was wounded in June and was succeeded by Thomson, who alone made 900 exposures and sent in 3,600 prints.

In addition to the assistance of air photography to reconnaissance, the war gave it great impetus as the handmaid of survey and mapping. It was, in fact, the only means of mapping or correcting the maps of country held by the enemy, which in certain cases, as at Gallipoli and in Palestine, were very inaccurate.

By the end of the war photographic processes and equipment had reached a high standard of excellence. There are still, however, certain difficulties in regard to the production of accurate maps, which have not been overcome, the most obvious being the necessity of an initial framework of fixed points and of contouring. The subject is considered so important that an "Air Survey Committee," consisting of representatives of the Air Ministry, the Geographical section of the War Office, the Ordnance Survey, the School of Military Engineering and the Artillery Survey School, has recently been formed. In addition, the School of Aeronautics of Cambridge University is studying the question. The Survey of India and the Survey of Egypt are also conducting experiments.

_Wireless._

From the outset, part of the German scheme of tactics was to batter down resistance by means of superior weight of heavy armament, and with the beginning of warfare of fixed position the observation and direction of our artillery fire became as important as distant reconnaissance. Besides its immense value in increasing the effect of the batteries, it had the indirect advantage of more closely binding the ties of mutual understanding between the air and ground troops, a point which fortunately seems to have been misunderstood by the Germans. In September, 1914, the first attempts were made to signal enemy movements from the aeroplanes of a Headquarters Wireless Flight which had been formed for the purpose, and this practice was continued with success throughout the Battle of the Aisne.

In the earliest stages artillery co-operation was also carried out by dropping coloured lights, but from the Battle of Ypres onwards, though for some time very few wireless machines were available, this was effected by wireless or signal lamps. In his dispatch on the Battle of Loos, Sir John French wrote: "The work of observation for the guns from aeroplanes has now become an important factor in artillery fire, and the personnel of the two arms work in closest co-operation."

By the Battle of the Somme artillery co-operation had assumed very large dimensions. For instance, on September 15th, 1916, on the front of the 4th Army alone, seventy hostile batteries were located, twenty-nine being silenced. Counter-battery work was so effective before the offensive which opened on the Ypres front at the end of July, 1917, that the Germans withdrew their guns and the attack was delayed for three days in order that their new positions might be located.

Recognition marks on aeroplanes were at this time, and indeed throughout the war, a matter of great difficulty. It had been suggested before the war that they would not be necessary, but the reverse was found to be the case, as even with the distinctive marks which were adopted our machines were often fired at by British troops, and we should undoubtedly have lost very heavily if we had flown over our own lines with false marks, as was suggested, or none.

_Bombing._

The bombing operations, which reached their climax in the raids on German industrial centres in 1918, arose from very primitive methods used at the beginning of the war. During the retreat from Mons a few hand grenades were carried experimentally in the pockets of pilots and observers, or, in the case of the larger varieties, tied to their bodies, and these were dropped over the side of the machine as opportunity occurred. At the Marne, for instance, small petrol bombs set fire to a transport park and scattered a mixed column of infantry and transport. I think I am right in saying that the first German bombs were dropped on us--unsuccessfully--at Compiegne on August 29th, 1914. It was not, however, until the beginning of 1915 that special bombing raids were started by the Royal Flying Corps, one of the first places to be attacked being the Ghistelles aerodrome in West Flanders.

The most important bombing operations and raids into Germany in the early days of the war were carried out by the Naval Air Service, units of which landed at Ostend on August 27th and operated with the Royal Naval Division from Antwerp. They were subsequently withdrawn to Dunkirk to form the nucleus of an aircraft centre from which excellent work was done in attacking the bases established on or near the Belgian coast from which German submarines and airships conducted their operations.

Just before the Germans entered Antwerp, the first raid was made against a German town, one machine reaching Dusseldorf, when it descended from 6,000 to 400 feet and dropped three bombs on an airship shed.

From the end of 1914 onwards the activities of the Royal Naval Air Service in this theatre of operations continually increased, the chief objectives being the gun emplacements at Middelkerke and Blankenburghe, the submarine bases at Zeebrugge and Bruges, the minefield and dock of Ostend, the airship sheds near Brussels, and the dockyards at Antwerp. The first airship destroyed in the air was attacked over Ghent.

An interesting experiment was the attempt by the R.N.A.S. at the Dardanelles to sink the heavy wire anti-submarine net, which had been stretched on buoys across the Straits at Nagara by the Turks, by means of parachute bombs.

To return to the Royal Flying Corps. During 1915 railway junctions were the principal bombing objectives, and raids were carried out on an ever-increasing scale, formations of fourteen to twenty machines taking part. At the Battle of Neuve Chapelle for instance, the railway junctions at Menin, Courtrai and Douai were attacked. One officer of No. 5 Squadron, carrying one 100 lb. bomb, arrived over Menin at 3,500 feet, descended to 120 feet, and dropped his bomb on the railway line. The first V.C. of the Royal Flying Corps was obtained at the Second Battle of Ypres by Lieutenant W. B. Rhodes-Moorhouse, who in bombing Courtrai came down to three or four hundred feet, under heavy fire, but piloted his machine 35 miles back to Merville at the height of a few hundred feet, and died a few days later from his wounds.

One of the most instructive features of the Battle of Loos in September, 1915, was the definite co-ordination of bombing attacks with army operations. Many types of machines, belonging both to Army and Corps Squadrons, carried bombs in order to destroy dumps, communications, cut off reinforcements, and the like, while at the Somme bombing was carried out by formations of Wings. In October, 1917, 113 tons, and for a period of six days in March, 1918, 95 tons, of explosives were dropped. This illustrates the enormous progress of bombing which was so largely resorted to in the later stages of the war. The hand grenades of 1914 had become bombs weighing three-quarters of a ton: the pilot's pocket a mechanically released rack: and aim, assisted by instruments, was becoming fairly accurate.

Night bombing, necessitated by the fact that by day a large machine heavily laden with bombs was an easy prey to the fighting scout, came into prominence in 1916, increasing in intensity up to the end of the war; and raids into Germany recommenced. Early in 1918 these raids included the bombing of Maintz, Stuttgart, Coblentz, Cologne, and Metz. Machines sometimes dropped their bombs from heights of about 12,000 feet and at other times descended to within 200 feet of their objectives.

_Contact Patrol._

Contact patrol, the name given to the direct co-operation of aircraft with troops on the ground, was first extensively practised at the Battle of the Somme, though experiments in this direction had been made in 1915, messages being dropped at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle at pre-arranged points.

The main objects of contact patrols were to assist the telephone (which was frequently cut by shellfire), to keep the various headquarters informed of the progress of their troops during the attack, so also saving them from the possibility of coming under the fire of their own artillery, to report on enemy positions, to transmit messages from the troops engaged to the headquarters of their units, to attack ground formations, and to co-operate with tanks. A system of red flares on the floor of the trenches was used to mark the disposition of the troops, and aircraft communicated their information by means of signalling lamps, wireless and message-bags.

During the German retreat of 1917 contact patrols attacked enemy foundations from 100 feet and in some cases landed behind the enemy lines to obtain information. The skill of low-flying pilots in taking cover by flying behind woods, houses, etc., became increasingly important. The fact that 62,673 rounds of ammunition were fired from the air against enemy ground targets between November 20th and 26th, 1917, and 163,567 between March 13th and 18th, 1918, indicates the rapid development of this form of aircraft action, the effect of which was frequently more deadly than bombing.

Two of many protagonists of contact patrol were Pretyman and Bishop. On one occasion the latter, in attacking an aerodrome at about 50 feet, riddled the officers' and men's quarters with bullets, put two or three machines on the ground out of action, and three in succession as they got into the air. Another interesting example of contact patrol work occurred in 1917 when a pilot flew his machine at a low altitude over the enemy trenches, and he and his observer attracted the attention of the Germans by firing their machine guns and Verey lights. The Germans were so busy with the aeroplane that they had their backs turned to the front line and our infantry were able to cross no-man's land without any artillery preparation, take prisoners and bomb dug-outs.

An article in the _Cologne Gazette_ showed what the Germans thought of low "strafing."

"The operations" (i.e. of June 7th, 1917), it says, "were prefaced
by innumerable enemy airmen, who, at the beginning of the
preparation for the attack, appeared like a swarm of locusts and
swamped the front. They also work on cunningly calculated methods.
Their habit is to work in three layers--one quite high, one in the
middle, and the third quite low. The English who fly lowest show an
immense insolence; they came down to 200 metres and shot at our
troops with their machine guns, which are specially adapted to this
purpose."

Armour was first employed as a result of Shephard finding at Maubeuge a bullet lodged in the seat of his leather suit. Thin sheets of steel were at once cut out and placed in the wickerwork seats of aeroplanes. This primitive protection developed into the armoured machine mentioned later, which was about to make its appearance at the Armistice.

I may mention here the "special duty" flights, which consisted in establishing secret communication between our Intelligence Branch and agents in the territory occupied by the Germans. Agents, mostly French and Belgian, were carried by aeroplane over the enemy lines and landed there. This work was started in 1914.

_Fighting._

At the beginning of the war it became obvious that it was not only the duty of aircraft to obtain information but also to prevent enemy aircraft crossing our lines. In addition to the reconnaissance machine, and in order to make its work possible, a machine designed purely for fighting was required. In August, 1914, the aeroplane's armament consisted simply of rifle, or carbine, and revolver, but our pilots nevertheless attacked hostile machines whenever the opportunity occurred. The first German machine to fly over us was at Maubeuge on August 22nd, 1914, and, though fighting on an extensive scale did not take place until 1916, as early as August 25th, 1914, there were three encounters in the air in which two enemy machines were driven down. One interesting report of an early fight is that between a B.E. and a German machine on December 20th, 1914.

"A German aeroplane with one passenger and pilot being encountered
over Poperinghe, we followed to Morbecque and then to Armentieres.
The passenger of the B.E. fired 40 rounds from his rifle and the
German passenger replied with some rounds from his revolver. The
B.E. crossed the bows of the German machine to permit the pilot to
use his revolver. The German switched off and dived below the B.E.,
and is believed to have landed somewhere north-west of Lille."

Another instance of the early air combats was when Holt, single-handed, and armed only with a rifle, lashed to a strut of his machine, attacked ten Germans near Dunkirk, causing them to drop their bombs in the field and make off to their own lines.

We managed to bring down a number of German machines, mainly by rifle fire (five had already been brought down by September 7th, 1914), but our great difficulty early in the war was to get the enemy into action, and, although during October and November, 1914, there was a certain amount of fighting, as a rule the German when attacked made for his own lines and the protection of his anti-aircraft guns. This, though offensive carried to the extent of wastefulness of life is equally bad, was a serious mistake in all ways from his point of view, entailing as it did a tendency for the confidence of the troops and the morale of the air service to be undermined from the outset. The error was rectified, but only temporarily, at the Somme.

As the specialized duties of aircraft increased, the Corps machines engaged in them needed protection and it was realized that the best method of protection was the development of the air offensive. This was rendered possible by the adaptation of the machine gun to the aeroplane. Early in 1915 the invention of the "synchronizing gear" enabled a machine gun to fire through the propeller, and by the end of 1915 fighting in the air became the general rule. The first squadron, No. 24, composed purely of fighting machines, took its place on the Western Front in February, 1916, and gradually Wings were attached to Armies solely for fighting and the protection of Corps machines. During the long months of the Battle of the Somme, for instance, when, though the Royal Flying Corps dominated the air, the Germans put up a strenuous opposition, bombing machines were protected by fighting patrols in formation on the far side of the points attacked. The rapidity with which fighting in the air developed is shown by the fact that at the end of 1916 twenty new fighting squadrons were asked for on the Western Front; the establishment was increased to twenty-four machines per squadron, and by the end of the war even night-fighting squadrons were operating with considerable success and, had the war continued, would have proved a very important factor in air warfare.

The development of aerobatics, air fighting, and formation tactics brought many airmen into prominence. For example Albert Ball, who ascribed his successes to keen application to aerial gunnery; J. B. McCudden, the first man to bring four hostile machines down in a day; and Trollope, who later on brought down six. Hawker met his death fighting von Richthofen, who describes the fight in his book _The Red Air Fighter_ as follows:--

"Soon I discovered that I was not fighting a beginner. He had not
the slightest intention to break off the fight.... The gallant
fellow was full of pluck, and when we had got down to 3,000 feet he
merrily waved to me as if to say, 'Well, how do you do?'... The
circles which we made round one another were so narrow that their
diameter was probably not more than 250 or 300 feet.... At that time
his first bullets were flying round me, as up to then neither of us
had been able to do any shooting."

At 300 feet Hawker was compelled to fly in a zig-zag course to avoid bullets from the ground and this enabled Richthofen to dive on his tail from a distance of 150 feet.

This indicates a heavy disadvantage under which our aircraft laboured in all their work on the Western Front. The prevailing westerly wind which, while it assisted the enemy in his homeward flight, made it very difficult for a British machine, perhaps damaged by anti-aircraft fire, to make its way--still under fire--to its base.

I cannot leave the subject of air fighting without giving one or two more examples. One which comes to mind is that of five British machines attacking twenty-five of the enemy. One of ours gliding down with its engine stopped and being attacked by two Germans was saved by another British one attacking and driving off the two enemy. The result of the combat was five German machines destroyed and four driven down out of control, whilst all of ours returned safely. Another example, that of Barker who, whilst destroying an enemy two-seater, was wounded from below by another German machine and fell some distance in a spin. Recovering, he found himself surrounded by fifteen Fokkers, two of which he attacked indecisively but shot down a third in flames. Whilst doing this he was again wounded, again fainted, again fell, again recovered control and again, being attacked by a large formation, shot down an enemy in flames. A bullet now shattered his left elbow and, fainting a third time, he fell several thousand feet, where he was again attacked, and thinking his machine had been set on fire he tried, as he thought in a final effort, to ram a Fokker, but instead drove it down on fire! Barker was by this time without the use of both legs and an arm. Diving to a few thousand feet of the ground he again found his retreat barred by eight of the enemy, but these he was able to shake off after short bursts of fire and he returned a few feet above the ground to our lines.

Though at the beginning our machines were rather better than either the French or German, it was the marked superiority of our pilots which gave us the greatest advantage. We should have been superior even had the machines been exchanged.

CO-OPERATION WITH THE NAVY.

We have seen that the functions of co-operation with the Navy--Coast defence and Fleet assistance--were very complicated, and that at the outbreak of war the splendid pilots and excellent equipment of the R.N.A.S. were not so highly organized and were wanting in cohesion, but that the R.N.A.S. had advanced further than the Royal Flying Corps in specialized technical development. In the earlier part of the war, in addition to its main duties, the R.N.A.S. ventured in many directions, many of them of considerable value to the Army, as, for instance, at Antwerp.

_Coast Defence, Patrol and Convoy Work._

Immediately war broke out a system of coastal patrols was established between the Humber and the Thames Estuary and over the Channel--the latter serving as an escort to the Expeditionary Force crossing to France. Patrols were at first, through limitations of equipment, mainly confined to the Home coast, but, as the war went on and machines improved, they were rapidly extended, especially in connection with the detection and destruction of submarines; reconnaissances were carried out over the enemy's shores, and in 1918 there were forty-three flights of seaplanes, thirty flights of aeroplanes, together with flying boats and airships, operating from, and communicating with, an ever-increasing number of shore stations. Not only was anti-submarine work carried out in the vicinity of the coast, but organized hunts were made for submarines, ships were convoyed on the high seas, shipping routes were protected, and action was taken to bar the passage of submarines through narrow channels. This was effected by an intensive system of combining and interlocking patrols, and by maintaining, in close co-operation with surface craft, a protective barrage across suitable stretches of water, such as the Straits of Dover.

Airships from the beginning, when patrols operated from Kingsnorth during the crossing of the Expeditionary Force to France, proved particularly useful for escort, in addition to patrol work, and twenty-seven small airships, known as the S.S. type, were completed in 1915. In 1916 the Coastal type with a longer range was designed and constructed and new airship bases were established.

_Fleet Assistance, Reconnaissance, Spotting for Ships' Guns._

The successful use of Drachen kite-balloons borne in ships at the Dardanelles led to their extensive development. Up to about May, 1915, when the vessels to which they were attached could stand in close to shore and overlook the enemy's positions from a distance of three or four thousand yards, a large amount of spotting of great value was carried out by these balloons for ships at Gallipoli, but when the Turks brought long-range guns into position, kite-balloon vessels were obliged to lie out beyond 11,000 yards and their services were rendered comparatively slight for this purpose. From 1916, however, they were towed by merchant auxiliaries and light cruisers to spot submarines, observers communicating with the patrol ship by means of telephone. One of the most wonderful sights I have ever seen was from the observer's basket of the kite-balloon let up from S.S. "Manica" in June, 1915. We were spotting for the guns of H.M.S. "Lord Nelson" bombarding Chanak. The sky and sea were a marvellous blue and visibility excellent, the peninsula, where steady firing was going on all the time, lay below us, the Straits, with their ships and boats, the Asiatic shore gradually disappearing in a golden haze, the Gulf of Xeros, the Marmora, and behind one the islands of the AEgean affording a perfect background. No one who was at the Dardanelles, however vivid the horrors and the heat and dust and flies, will forget the beauty of the scene, especially at sunset, and it was seen at its best from the basket of a kite-balloon.

The ever-increasing assistance rendered by aircraft to surface vessels in crippling Germany's submarine campaign is shown by the fact that in 1915 ten submarines were attacked from the air and in 1918 126 were sighted and 93 attacked. Nor was the principle forgotten in countering the submarine menace that offence is the best defence, and among the many duties of R.N.A.S. aircraft, based on Dunkirk from the early days of the war, were anti-submarine patrols along the Belgian coast and the bombing of hostile submarine bases, such as Bruges.

As in the case of the Army Corps observation machines, fighting scouts became necessary for the protection of patrols and to counter the enemy's efforts at raids and sea reconnaissance, and the considerable amount of experiment in air fighting which the R.N.A.S. had made before the war bore useful fruit.

For the immediate protection of the Grand Fleet seaplane and aeroplane bases were established at Scapa Flow and Thurso at the beginning of the war, but, owing to damage from a gale in November, 1914, aircraft operations with the Fleet were carried out from the seaplane carrier "Campania." The problem of using carriers with the Fleet had not been seriously tackled before the war, and though experiments were strenuously carried out, and there were fourteen carrier ships in commission in 1918, and a seaplane carrier operated with the Battle Cruiser Squadron at Jutland, the use of aircraft in this way did not become very efficient. One of the chief difficulties was limitation in size, and consequently in radius of action, of aircraft employed from carriers or the decks of battleships. The total number of aeroplanes and seaplanes allotted to the Grand Fleet in 1918 was 350.

Seaplane carriers occasionally co-operated with fighting ships. For instance in October, 1915, a fast carrier at the Dardanelles accompanied ships detailed for the bombardment of Dedeagatch, and her seaplanes not only co-operated in spotting but also made a valuable reconnaissance of the Bulgarian coast and railway. But as a rule fighting and reconnaissance aircraft had mainly to work from shore bases. To assist in this direction, units were sent overseas to be nearer their sphere of action, as, for instance, the R.N.A.S. squadrons stationed at Dunkirk which, besides general reconnaissance, helped the Navy to keep open the Straits of Dover, carried out bombing raids against German bases and dockyards, such as Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Bruges, and co-operated with monitors in the bombardment of the Belgian coast. The development of a long-range seaplane or flying boat was also taken in hand, though an efficient type was not produced until the last year of the war.

As with the Army, an important part of naval aircraft duties was spotting for gunfire; and likewise single-seater fighters were required for the protection of our own aircraft, for preventing enemy aircraft reconnaissance, for attacking the enemy's fleet and protecting our own. The use of offensive patrols steadily increased during the war.

_Bombing._

I have already referred to bombing and mentioned the attack on Dusseldorf as an instance of the work done. Bombing raids had always been looked on with favour by the R.N.A.S. and were used throughout the war as a means of countering hostile aircraft operations from bases in Belgium. One of the first successful raids was that against the Friedrichshaven Zeppelin works by three Avro machines, which flew 250 miles over enemy country on November 21st, 1914. Another noteworthy example was the attempted raid against Cuxhaven on Christmas Day, 1914, carried out by seaplanes, which were still in an experimental stage, and three carriers escorted by naval units. Powerful machines for bombing purposes were ordered and bombs of greatly increased size and gear for dropping them were designed.

_Torpedo Attack._

The impetus given to bombing helped forward another use of naval aircraft: torpedo attack. This is likely to develop in the future into one of the most important uses of aircraft in naval operations, but during the war it was never given an objective by the German fleet. In May, 1915, two Sunbeam Short machines were embarked in the "Ben-my-Chree" for operations at Gallipoli, and it was in this theatre that for the first time in history ships were sunk by torpedoes released from aircraft. I shall never forget the night when we steamed silently up the narrow Gulf of Xeros and lay waiting to release our seaplanes in the still darkness of the early morning. The machines were lowered noiselessly into the water, and, their engines started, flew across the narrow neck of Bulair under fire from the old Turkish line; then, reaching the northern end of the Dardanelles at dawn, they descended low (one machine actually landed on the water and discharged its torpedo), sank their targets, and returned. In addition to the possibility of submarine attack, the Gulf of Xeros is so narrow that our ship could have been hit by the cross fire of field guns. It was a very fine performance and, although during many years I have spent anxious hours hoping for the distant purr of a safe returning machine, I have never been happier than when after a long wait our seaplanes were again quickly raised on board. The only torpedo machine employed at the Battle of Jutland was a Sunbeam fitted with a 14-inch torpedo, and it was not until just before the Armistice that a squadron of torpedo aircraft was ready for operations with the Grand Fleet.

The Germans also tried to develop the use of torpedo-carrying seaplanes and, as with their submarines, had the advantage over us of a vast number of targets close to hand in our North Sea and Channel shipping, but fortunately the British fighting scouts were able to destroy several of their machines before they had done much damage.

HOME DEFENCE.

At the beginning of the war the R.N.A.S. assumed responsibility for the defence of Great Britain against attacks by hostile aircraft, and a scheme for the defence of London and other large towns was entrusted to an anti-aircraft section of the Admiralty Air Department. Its resources, however, consisting of a few unsuitable and widely scattered aeroplanes, some 1 pdr. pom-poms with searchlights manned by a special corps, were inadequate and it was fortunate that only three small daylight aeroplane raids, mainly for reconnaissance, were made during 1914--the first German machine to visit England dropping a bomb near Dover on December 21st.

_Night Flying and Night Fighting._