Chapter VIII: The Expansion of the Air Force (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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