Chapter VIII: The Expansion of the Air Force (1)

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 Bleriots, 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 Bleriots 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.