CHAPTER V

THE ROYAL FLYING CORPS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett of the Grenadier Guards became adjutant of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps he made a vow that the corps should combine the smartness of the Guards with the efficiency of the Sappers. In spite of difficulties and disasters, the corps went far, in the first two years of its existence, towards attaining that ideal. In the summer of 1912 the Central Flying School at Upavon got to work, and thenceforward supplied a steady stream of trained reinforcements for the corps. There was inevitable delay at first; but as soon as some of the new wooden buildings were nearing completion they were taken over, and on the 19th of June the school was opened. The plan was that there should be three courses every year, each of them lasting three months and passing on its graduates for further training either with the military squadrons or at the naval school. The first course began on the 17th of August 1912, and was not completed until the end of December, but the subsequent courses were punctually completed in the time prescribed. The delay in the first course was due chiefly to a shortage of machines. The use of monoplanes was forbidden, and the nineteen pupils who presented themselves in August had to be instructed on the only four available biplanes, which were soon damaged by the maiden efforts of the learners. For a short time the pupils were sent on leave, and the school was closed; then new machines and new recruits began to arrive, and the work of education went forward. Besides the main business of flying, the pupils were instructed and examined in map-reading and signalling, the management of the internal-combustion engine, and the theoretical aspects of the art of reconnaissance. Of a total of thirty-four pupils who were examined at the end of the course, only two failed to pass. During the next year and a half, up to the very eve of the war, the work of the school went on steadily, with improving material and increasing efficiency. There were three fatal accidents: on the 3rd of October 1913 Major G. C. Merrick was killed on a Short biplane; on the 10th of March 1914 Captain C. P. Downer, on a B.E. biplane; and on the 19th of March 1914 Lieutenant H. F. Treeby, on a Maurice Farman biplane. On an average about thirty officers passed out from the school, into one branch or another of the service, at the end of each course. Most of these were army officers, but there was also a fair number of naval officers, marine officers, and naval volunteer and civilian reservists. The school was run on army lines, so that a good deal of adjustment and tact were called for in dealing with the navy pupils, who were accustomed to a more generous scale of allowances and a different system of discipline. But the resolve to make a success of the new air force prevailed over lesser difficulties, and harmony was maintained.

The steady flow of recruits from Upavon soon enabled the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps to form new squadrons. These squadrons all started in the same fashion; they hived off, so to say, from the earlier squadrons. As early as September 1912, a part of Major Burke's squadron, stationed at Farnborough, was detached, and became the basis of No. 4 Squadron, commanded by Major G. H. Raleigh, of the Essex Regiment, who had joined the Air Battalion just before the birth of the Royal Flying Corps. In August 1913 a single flight of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron became the basis of No. 5 Squadron, under Major J. F. A. Higgins. In January 1914 No. 6 Squadron, under Captain J. H. W. Becke, of the Notts. and Derby Regiment, and in May 1914 No. 7 Squadron, which was commanded later by Major J. M. Salmond, began to be formed at Farnborough.

The history of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps before the war may be best illustrated by a more detailed account of the doings of the two earliest squadrons, commanded by Major Brooke-Popham and Major Burke. These showed the way to the others. There was no generally recognized orthodox method of training flying men for the purposes of war. Most of the work of the early squadrons was, in the strictest sense of the word, experimental. There was at first a vague idea, expressed in the Army Estimates of 1912, that the Royal Aircraft Factory was responsible for experiments, and that the squadrons had only to apply methods and use machinery already tested and approved by others. But it was soon found that the problems of the air could not be effectively anticipated in the laboratory. They were many of them soldiers' problems. The man who is to meet the enemy in the air, and to be shot at, has a quick imagination in dealing with such matters as the protective colouring of aircraft, their defences against enemy bullets, or the designing of them so as to give a good field of fire to any weapon that they carry; and he takes a lively personal interest in such questions as stability, speed, rate of climbing, and ease in handling. The ultimate appeal on the various devices, for the use by aircraft of musketry, gunnery, photography, wireless telegraphy, bomb-dropping, and signalling, must in the long run be made to the pilot. If he is prejudiced, and sometimes prefers a known evil to an unknown good, his hourly experiences and dangers are a wonderful solvent of that prejudice. It is not in the laboratory that the Derby is won, or the manoeuvres and tactics of the air worked out.

Major Brooke-Popham's squadron on Salisbury Plain was the first to get to work. In its origin, as has been told, it was the old aeroplane company of the Air Battalion, so that it was free from some of the difficulties which attend the creation of a new unit. It had at its disposal about ten machines of various types, and, for transport, one Mercedes car belonging to Captain Eustace Loraine and another belonging to the Government. Besides instructional flights and practice in reconnaissance, which were of course a regular part of the business of the squadron, it devoted its attention at once to co-operation with other arms, and especially to the observation of artillery fire. It was fortunate in getting the whole-hearted support of Colonel the Hon. F. Bingham, who was at that time commandant of the school at Shoeburyness, and chief instructor of the artillery practice camp at Larkhill. The great difficulty was to devise a sufficient method of signalling to the guns. Wireless telegraphy, which was destined to provide the solution of this problem, was then at an early stage of its development, and the apparatus was too cumbrous and heavy to be carried on the machines. Experiments were made with flags, with written messages carried back and dropped to the gunners, and finally with coloured Very lights. Progress was slow. Only a small amount of ammunition was allowed to the gunners. On windy days flying was far from safe; on calm days there was sometimes fog, or, if the weather was hot, the air became dangerously bumpy. Nevertheless the squadron flew in strong winds, and took every opportunity of demonstrating to the troops on the plain that it was worth their while to cultivate relations with the new arm. Towards the end of May there was a big field day, and though the wind was almost a gale, four machines went up, flown by Major Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox, Captain Hamilton, and by Major Burke, who had come over from Farnborough on purpose. The important thing at this time, and for long after, was to show the infantry what aeroplanes could do for them. At a later time, during the war, it became necessary to teach the infantry what aeroplanes could not do for them--that they could not, for instance, supply them with a complete defence against enemy aircraft.

At the beginning of August 1912 Military Aeroplane Trials took place on Salisbury Plain. These trials were competitions, arranged by the War Office, to determine the type of aeroplane best suited to the requirements of the army. One competition, with a first prize of L4,000, was open to the world; the other, with a first prize of L1,000, was limited to aeroplanes manufactured wholly, except for the engines, in the United Kingdom. The judges were Brigadier-General Henderson, Captain Godfrey Paine, Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, and Major Sykes. The tests imposed and the award of the prizes showed clearly enough that what the military authorities were seeking was a strong, fairly fast machine, a good climber, able to take off and alight on uneven ground and to pull up within a short distance after alighting. Further, a high value was attached to range of speed, that is, to the power of flying both fast and slow, and to a free and open view from the seat of the observer. Both the first prizes were won by Mr. Cody on his own biplane, which was of the 'canard', or tail-first type, and was fitted with an Austro-Daimler engine of a hundred and twenty horse-power. The winning machine did not in the end prove to be suitable for army purposes, and only a few were ordered, but the trials gave timely and needed encouragement to the aeroplane industry. The army machines and the army pilots were, of course, not eligible for these competitions, but the factory machine B.E. 2 made a great impression on those who saw it fly. It was in this machine that Mr. G. de Havilland, with Major Sykes as passenger, created a British record by rising to a height of 9,500 feet in one hour and twenty minutes. A few years later, when the war had quickened invention, a good two-seater machine could rise to that height in less than ten minutes. The only engine of British manufacture which completed all the trials was a sixty horse-power Green engine, fitted in an Avro machine.

Certainly the British public did not know what was being done for them, against the real day of trial, by the handful of officers who foresaw that that day would soon come, and who strove unceasingly to be prepared for it. About two hundred members of Parliament came down to Salisbury Plain on the 8th of August to witness the competition of the aeroplanes in the Military Trials. The wind was judged to be too tempestuous for flying, and the flights were limited to a few short circuits round the aerodrome in the afternoon. On the morning of that same day a brigade of territorials, training at Wareham, asked for a couple of military machines to co-operate with them. Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant G. T. Porter started off in an Avro, and, a little later, Captain Hamilton followed in his Deperdussin. The wind was so strong that Captain Hamilton could make no headway, and was obliged to turn back. Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant Porter battled their way to Wareham, but could not get farther to co-operate with the troops, and flew back to the plain in the afternoon. On their arrival there they found that the wind had abated a little, and that flying had just begun in the trials. The next day the newspapers published long accounts of the exhibition flying over the aerodrome, with a single line at the end recording that 'military airmen also flew'.

In the early days of September No. 3 Squadron co-operated in the cavalry divisional training, but without much success. The weather was bad, and the cavalry, being preoccupied with their own work, had not much attention to spare for the aeroplanes. In France, a year earlier, aeroplanes had been systematically practised with cavalry, sometimes to direct a forced march, sometimes to detect dummy field works, prepared to deceive the cavalry and to lead them into a trap.

But if their co-operation with the cavalry was imperfect and disappointing, the work done by aeroplanes a few days later, during the army manoeuvres, was a complete vindication of the Flying Corps. There were two divisions on each side; the attacking force, under Sir Douglas Haig, advanced from the east; the defending force was commanded by General Grierson. The services rendered to the defence by the airship _Gamma_ have already been described. The fatal accidents of the summer and the consequent prohibition of monoplanes diminished the available force of aeroplanes, but a squadron of seven was allotted to each side. Major Burke's squadron, with its headquarters at Thetford, operated with the attacking force; Major Brooke-Popham was with the defence at Cambridge. Operations started at six o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 16th of September. At a conference on Sunday afternoon, General Briggs, who commanded the cavalry on the side of the defence, told General Grierson that the forces were far apart, and he could not hope to bring in any definite information till Tuesday. General Grierson was then reminded by his chief staff officer that he had some aeroplanes. 'Do you think the aeroplanes could do anything?' he asked of Major Brooke-Popham, and on hearing that they could, ordered them to get out, 'and if you see anything, let us know.' Monday morning was fine and clear; the aeroplanes started at six o'clock; soon after nine o'clock they supplied General Grierson with complete, accurate, and detailed information concerning the disposition of all the enemy troops. During the rest of the manoeuvres he based his plans on information from the air. On his left flank there were only two roads by which the enemy could advance; he left this flank entirely unguarded, keeping one aeroplane in continual observation above the two roads, and so was able to concentrate the whole of his forces at the decisive point. In the course of a few days the aeroplanes rose into such esteem that they were asked to verify information which had been brought in by the cavalry.

Air Commodore C. A. H. Longcroft, who flew in Major Burke's squadron on the attacking side, has kindly set down some of his memories of this time. The work of the Flying Corps, he says, was impeded by the enormous crowds which used to collect round the hangars. But the weather was good, and it was soon found that no considerable body of troops could move without being seen from the air. To avoid observation the troops moved on either side of the road, under the hedges. They even practised a primitive sort of camouflage, covering wagons and guns with branches of trees, which, while they were on the road, made them more conspicuous than ever. This first experience of moving warfare taught many lessons. The difficulty of communication between pilot and observer when the voice is drowned in the noise of the engine was met by devising a code of signals, and many of these signals continued in use throughout the war, after speaking-tubes had been fitted to machines. The selection of landing grounds when moving camp, the methods of parking aeroplanes in the open, and the means of providing a regular supply of fuel, were all studied and improved.

In another way these manoeuvres, which were witnessed by General Foch, were a date in the progress of army aviation. No weapon, however good, can be of much use in the hands of those who have not learned to trust it. The progress of the aeroplane was so rapid that the education of commanding officers in its use became a thing of the first importance. Some of them, even when war broke out, had had but few opportunities of testing the powers of aeroplanes.

After the manoeuvres No. 3 Squadron returned to Larkhill, to do battle all the winter with the old difficulties. The officers were accommodated at an inn called the 'Bustard', about two and a half miles to the west of the Larkhill sheds; the men were at Bulford camp, three miles to the east of the sheds. After a time the men were shifted to the cavalry school at Netheravon, which, though it was a little farther off, gave better quarters. Meantime a new aerodrome was being made, with sheds complete, at Netheravon, for the use of the squadron. The winter was passed in the old exercise of co-operation with the artillery and in new experiments. At Easter a 'fly past' of aeroplanes took place at a review of a territorial brigade on Perham Down. General Smith-Dorrien, who reviewed the troops, took the salute from the aeroplanes. There was a cross-wind, so that the symmetry of the spectacle was a little marred by the crab-like motion of the aeroplanes, which had to keep their noses some points into the wind to allow for drift.

Several officers joined during the winter, and the squadron began to be better supplied with machines. For the manoeuvres of 1913 it was made up to war strength both in aeroplanes and transport. These manoeuvres, however, did not give much opportunity to aeroplanes; the idea was that four divisions, and with them No. 3 Squadron, should operate against a skeleton army. The squadron had next to nothing to observe; the other side had plenty to observe, but could not get full value out of their skeleton force. The tactics of the air had hardly reached the point at which a theoretic trial of this kind might have been of value. Yet a good deal was learnt by the Flying Corps from these manoeuvres. Major Brooke-Popham drew up a very full report on them, and in the following winter Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, under the title 'What I learnt on Manoeuvres, 1913', brought together the information he had obtained as adjutant from the talk and written statements of those who took part in them. Both reports show a relentless attention to detail, and an unfailing imagination for the realities of war. The squadron had twelve machines at work during the manoeuvres. Of these one was wrecked. Two had to be brought home by road, one for lack of spare parts, the other because it had been taken over with a damaged engine--both avoidable accidents. The one wrecked machine, Major Brooke-Popham remarks, does not represent the loss that would have occurred on a campaign. Four machines had to land, and would have been captured in war. That is to say, the loss amounted, to five machines in four days, or one-tenth of the force every day.

One of the lessons learnt at the manoeuvres was that accurate observations could be made from a height of at least six thousand feet. This was one of those many things which, having been habitually ridiculed by theorists, are at once established by those who make the experiment. So high flying came into fashion, and brought with it a new set of problems concerning the effect of atmospheric height on the human body and on the aeroplane engine.

The total mileage covered by the machines on divisional and army manoeuvres was 4,545 miles on reconnaissance and 3,310 miles on other flights. Among the many suggestions made by Major Brooke-Popham for improving the efficiency of the corps, some of the most important have been vindicated by the subsequent experience of the war. It is necessary, he says, that the Flying Corps should be taken seriously by commanders and their staffs. The work of the flying officers involves strain and danger; it is not enough that they should be praised for skill and daring; they must feel that their information is wanted, that an accurate report will be used, and that failure to obtain information from the air will be treated as worthy of censure. If a squadron commander finds that no one cares for the information he brings, he will keep his machines on the ground in rough weather. On divisional manoeuvres the Flying Corps were not always made to feel that they were wanted.

No great stress, perhaps, should be laid on this complaint; it belongs to the early days of military flying, and its date is past. A new invention is often slow in gaining recognition. When its utility is as great as the utility of flying a little experience soon converts objectors. What was important was that the experience should be gained before the war. Observers in the early months of the war sometimes found it difficult to convince the military command that their reports were true.

The value of information, says Major Brooke-Popham, depends also upon the rapidity with which it is handed in to the proper quarters. 'More than once movements of a hostile cavalry brigade were seen within a few miles of our own troops. The information was not of great value to the Commander-in-Chief, but was of great importance to the advanced guard or cavalry commander, yet by the time it had got out to him from headquarters probably two hours or more had elapsed.' This delay was sometimes avoided on manoeuvres by dropping messages from the air, but the whole large question of the relations of the Flying Corps to the various army commands and the organization of the machinery of report was left until the pressure of war compelled an answer. Then, during the first winter of the war, when the growth of the Flying Corps allowed of more complex arrangements, the machinery was decentralized, and subordinate commanders were furnished directly with the information most needed by them.

Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett's essay well illustrates his keenness and foresight in preparing the corps for their ordeal of 1914. He was a great disciplinarian, he knew every officer and man individually, he was universally liked, and he did more perhaps than any one else to hold the corps together and to train it in an efficient routine. He knew--no one better--that the corps, though it did its work in the air, had to live on the ground, and that its efficiency depended on a hundred important details. Here are some of his suggestions:

Landing-grounds should be chosen, if possible, from the air, to avoid the employment of numerous parties of officers touring the country in cars. The drivers of lorries and cars should be trained in map-reading. Semaphore signalling should be taught to all ranks, to save the employment of messengers. There should be oil lorries for the distribution of petrol, and leather tool-bags to be carried on motor-bicycles to the scene of an engine break-down. Acetylene and petrol are better illuminants than paraffin for working on machines by night. Experiments should be made in towing aeroplanes, swinging freely on their own wheels, behind a motor-lorry; they are often damaged when they are carried on lorries. Recruits for the motor transport should be taught system in packing and unloading, and should be trained in march discipline. All recruits should be drilled in the routine of pitching and striking camp. All ranks should know something of field cookery. The main lessons of the manoeuvres, the writer says, are first, that subsidiary training in the business of soldiering is of enormous importance; and, second, that responsibility must be regularly distributed, and duties allotted, so that when the strain of war comes, the whole burden shall not crush the few devoted officers who have been eager to shoulder it in time of peace. The work of the pilots and mechanics of the British air service, he remarks in conclusion, is second to none; if only this work can be fitted into a solid framework of systematic administration and sound military discipline, the British Flying Corps will lead the world.

These are not the matters that a lover of romance looks for in a history of the war in the air. But they are the essentials of success; without them the brilliancy of individual courage is of no avail. War is a tedious kind of scholarship. When Sir Henry Savile was Provost of Eton in the reign of Elizabeth, and a young scholar was recommended to him for a good wit, 'Out upon him,' he would say, 'I'll have nothing to do with him; give me the plodding student. If I would look for wits, I would go to Newgate; there be the wits.' It was by the energy and forethought of the plodding student that the Flying Corps, when it took the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide.

The work of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron, during these years of preparation, included a great diversity of experiment. With the progress of flight it began to be realized that fighting in the air was, sooner or later, inevitable, and in the winter of 1913 a series of experiments was carried out at Hythe, by a single flight of No. 3 Squadron, under Captain P. L. W. Herbert, to determine the most suitable kind of machine-gun for use in aeroplanes. A large number of types were tested, and the Lewis gun was at last chosen, with the proviso that it should go through a series of tests on the ground. These took a long time, and it was not till September 1914 that the first machines fitted with Lewis guns reached the Flying Corps in France.

From the beginning of 1914 onwards, No. 3 Squadron also began a whole series of experiments in photography; Government funds were scanty, and the officers bought their own cameras. There was no skilled photographer among them, but they set themselves to learn. They devised the type of camera which was used in the air service until 1915, when Messrs. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon and C. D. M. Campbell brought out their first camera. They would develop negatives in the air, and, after a reconnaissance would land with the negatives ready to print. In one day, at a height of five thousand feet and over, they took a complete series of photographs of the defences of the Isle of Wight and the Solent.

From time to time there were a good many adventures by members of the squadron outside the daily routine. The first night flight made by any officer of the Military Wing was made on the 16th of April, 1913, by Lieutenant Cholmondeley, who flew a Maurice Farman machine by moonlight from the camp at Larkhill to the Central Flying School at Upavon, and back again. Later in the year Commander Samson, of the Naval Wing, successfully practised night flying, without any lights on the machine or the aerodrome; but as a regular business night flying was not taken in hand by the squadrons until well on in the war. During the month of July 1913 Lieutenants R. Cholmondeley and G. I. Carmichael became evangelists for the Flying Corps; they went on a recruiting tour to Colchester, and gave free passenger trips to all likely converts among the officers of the garrison there. Long before this, in 1912, the squadron had begun to train non-commissioned officers to fly. The first of these to get his certificate was Sergeant F. Ridd. He had originally been a bricklayer, but after joining the Air Battalion had developed an extraordinary talent for rigging, and became an all-round accomplished airman. Others who were taught to fly soon after were W. T. J. McCudden, the eldest of the four brothers of that name, and W. V. Strugnell, who, later on, became a flight commander in France. The most famous of the McCuddens, James Byford McCudden, V.C., who brought down over fifty enemy aeroplanes, joined the squadron as a mechanic in 1913, and became a pilot in the second year of the war. In his book, _Five Years with the Royal Flying Corps_ (1918), he says, 'I often look back and think what a splendid Squadron No. 3 was. We had a magnificent set of officers, and the N.C.O.'s and men were as one family.'

The other of the two pioneer aeroplane squadrons was formed at Farnborough in May 1912, and was put under the command of Major Charles James Burke, of the Royal Irish Regiment. Major Burke rendered enormous service to the cause of military flying. He took it up because he fully realized the importance of the part it was destined to play in war. He had served in the ranks in the South African War, and at the close of the war was commissioned in the Royal Irish Regiment, becoming captain in September 1909. In 1910 he learned in France to fly a Farman biplane, and obtained the aviation certificate of the French Aero Club. Thereafter he was employed at the balloon school, and in 1911 was attached to the newly-formed Air Battalion. He was something of a missionary, and in that same year contributed two papers to the Royal United Service Institution, one on _Aeroplanes of To-day and their Use in War_, the other on _The Airship as an aid to the solution of existing strategical problems_. On the formation of the Royal Flying Corps he was given command of No. 2 Squadron, which, after a time at Farnborough, was stationed as a complete unit at Montrose on the east coast of Scotland. He brought his squadron to a high state of efficiency, and on the outbreak of war flew with it to France. There he did good service, till he was invalided home in the summer of 1915 and became temporary commandant of the Central Flying School. In 1916 he was again in France. The war was taking a huge toll, and he rejoined his old regiment, which was in straits for officers. In the previous year Major Barrington-Kennett, under the same pressure, had returned to duty with the Grenadier Guards, and had been killed in action near Festubert. Colonel Burke rejoined the Royal Irish Regiment in the summer of 1916, and was killed on the 9th of April 1917, on the first day of the Arras offensive.

He impressed those who knew him by his character. He was not a good pilot, and was almost famous for his crashes. He was not a popular officer. He was not what would be called a clever man. But he was single-minded, and utterly brave and determined, careless alike of danger and of ridicule. There is often granted to singleness of purpose a kind of second sight which is denied to mere intelligence. Major Burke (to give him his earlier title) knew many things about military aviation and the handling of a squadron which it was left for the war to prove, and which, even with the experience of war to teach them, some commanding officers were slow to learn. A paper of 'Maxims' which he jotted down as early as 1912 contains many wise and practical remarks. Some of them are of general application, as, for instance, these:

_When things are going well, the man in charge can give play to his fears._

_Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems._

_If you know what you want, you can do your part, and get others to do theirs. Most people don't know what they want._

But by far the greater number of them deal with aviation and its problems. Here are some worthy of remembrance:

_Time in the air is needed to make a pilot._

_In training pilots, no machine should go out without knowing what it is to do, do that and that alone, then land._

_No young pilot should be allowed out in 'bumps' until he has done fifteen hours' piloting._

_An aeroplane will live in any wind and a lifeboat in any sea, but they both want good and experienced men at the tiller._

_When on the ground every one overrates his capacity for air work._

_A squadron commander should want a good squadron, and not to be able to break records._

_Waiting about on an aerodrome has spoilt more pilots than everything else put together._

This last truth will come home to all pilots who have flown on the war front. To have discovered it shows an instinct for command. Flying is a nervous business; there is no wear and tear harder on a war pilot than to be kept in attendance on an aerodrome, with the nerves at a high degree of tension, and perhaps to be dismissed in the end. A skilful and imaginative commander will use all possible devices to avoid or diminish these periods of strain.

Any account of Major Burke would be incomplete if it contained no mention of his famous machine, the first B.E. This machine was familiarly known to the officers of the early Flying Corps, most of whom--Sykes, Brancker, Brooke-Popham, Raleigh, Carden, Ashmore, Longcroft, and many others--had occasionally flown it. It was an experimental two-seater tractor biplane, designed as early as 1911 at the factory. At that time no funds were available for constructing aeroplanes of factory design. This difficulty was overcome by an expedient well known to all students of law. There was no money for construction, but there was money for repairs and overhaul. The first B.E. was created by the drastic repair and reconstruction of another machine. A Voisin pusher with a sixty horse-power Wolseley engine had been presented to the army by the Duke of Westminster, and was sent to the factory for repair. When it emerged, like the phoenix, from the process of reconstruction, only the engine remained to testify to its previous existence, and even that was replaced, a little later, by a sixty horse-power Renault engine. It was now the B.E. tractor, and in March 1912, some two months before the formation of the Royal Flying Corps, it was handed over to the Air Battalion, and was assigned to Captain Burke. It had a long and adventurous career, and was often flown at Farnborough for the testing of experimental devices. When at last it was wrecked, beyond hope of repair, in January 1915, it had seen almost three years of service, and had perhaps known more crashes than any aeroplane before or since. It was frequently returned to the factory for the replacement of the undercarriage and for other repairs. The first machine of its type, it outlived generations of its successors, and before it yielded to fate had become the revered grandfather of the whole brood of factory aeroplanes.

Many of the records of the early work of No. 2 Squadron, commanded by Major Burke, are missing. This was the first squadron sent out from Farnborough to occupy a new station, and to carry on its work as an independent unit. It may safely be presumed that a great part of the time spent at Farnborough was devoted to organization, and to preparation for the new venture. The shortage of machines was the main obstacle to early training. In May 1912 Captain G. H. Raleigh and Lieutenants C. A. H. Longcroft and C. T. Carfrae were sent for a month to Douai in France, to pick up what knowledge they could at the workshop where Breguet machines were being constructed for the Flying Corps. They then returned to Farnborough, where they began to practise cross-country flying. Much initial training was necessary before the squadron could be fitted for independence. In January 1913 it began to move north, by air and road and rail; by the end of February it was installed in its new quarters at Montrose. Five of the officers flew all the way: Captain J. H. W. Becke and Lieutenant Longcroft on B.E. machines, Captains G. W. P. Dawes and P. L. W. Herbert, Lieutenant F. F. Waldron on Maurice Farmans. The first stage of the flight was to Towcester on the 17th of February. One machine, piloted by Captain Becke, arrived at its destination that night. The others were stranded by engine failure, loss of direction, and the like. Lieutenant Longcroft had a forced landing at Littlemore, near Oxford, and spent the night in the Littlemore lunatic asylum. By the 20th all five machines had reached Towcester, and started on their next stages--to Newark and York. At Knavesmire racecourse, near York, part of a morning was spent in writing autographs for boys, some of whom, perhaps, may have become pilots in the later years of the war. On the 22nd the squadron moved off for Newcastle. It was a day of fog and haze; only two of the pilots found the landing-ground at Gosforth Park that night, and these two had to land many times to get their bearings. The directions given them would have been helpful to foot-travellers; but turnings in the road and well-known public-houses are not easy to recognize from the air. On the 25th the squadron moved to Edinburgh, and on the following morning to Montrose. At both places they were tumultuously received and liberally entertained. The mechanics in charge of the machines and transport did their business so well, often working at night, in the rain, with no sort of shelter, that both the transport lorries and the machines arrived at Montrose in perfect order.

At their new quarters training in flight and reconnaissance was strenuously carried on, and the squadron flew on an average about a thousand miles a week. Many non-commissioned officers and warrant officers were instructed in aviation. Some thirty miles south of Montrose, across the Firth of Tay, there is a three miles stretch of level sand at St. Andrews, and this was used for instruction in aviation--not without trouble and difficulty from the irresponsible and wandering habits of spectators. The more skilled of the pilots gained much experience in long-distance flying. All deliveries of new machines were made by air. Inspecting officers and other visitors to the camp were commonly met at Edinburgh in the morning, were then flown to Montrose to spend the day, and back again to Edinburgh in time to catch the night mail for the south.

In August 1913 Captain Longcroft, with Lieutenant-Colonel Sykes as passenger, flew from Farnborough to Montrose in one day, landing only once on the way, at Alnmouth. The machine was a B.E. fitted with a special auxiliary tank under the passenger's seat, and the time in the air for the whole journey was seven hours and forty minutes. In September 1913 six machines of the squadron took part in the Irish Command manoeuvres. The outward and homeward journeys by air, of about four hundred miles each way in distance, including the crossing of the Irish Sea, were the severest part of the test. The manoeuvre area was bad for aviation owing to the scarcity of good landing-grounds and the prevalence of mist and rain. Moreover, the opposing armies were separated by too small a distance to give full scope to the aeroplanes. The principal battle took place in a mountain defile. Each of the machines flew on an average about two thousand miles, that is to say, about a thousand miles in reconnaissance, and about a thousand in the journey to and fro. There was no case of engine failure, and no one landed in hostile territory. A statistical account of the work of the squadron from May 1913 to June 1914 shows that, during that time, of eighteen machines in constant use and subject to great exposure only three were wrecked. This fact speaks volumes for the efficiency of the squadron. They flew in all weathers, sometimes even when the wind was faster than the machines. More than once 'tortoise races' on Maurice Farmans were organized; the winner of these races was the machine that was blown back fastest over a given course.

The longest flight of all was made by Captain Longcroft in November 1913. In the front seat of a B.E. machine First-Class Air Mechanic H. C. S. Bullock fitted a petrol tank of his own design, estimated to give at least eight hours' fuel for the seventy horse-power Renault engine. On the 22nd of November Captain Longcroft started on this machine, and flew from Montrose to Portsmouth and back again to Farnborough in seven hours twenty minutes, without once landing.

Major Burke has left a diary for 1914; some of the entries in it go far to explain the causes of the efficiency of the squadron. No detail was too small for his attention; the discipline that he taught was the discipline of war. 'In practice,' he says, 'a man cannot always be on the job that will be given him on active service, but he should be trained with that in view, and every other employment must be regarded as temporary and a side issue. Further, though barracks must be kept spotlessly clean, this work must be done by the minimum number of men, in order to swell the numbers of those available for technical work and instruction.'

The importance of the main issue was ever present to his mind. In another entry he records how he reproved a young lieutenant, telling him that 'he must take his work seriously and make himself older in character'. Map-reading, signalling, propeller-swinging, car-starting, military training, technical training, the safety of the public, the prompt payment of small tradesmen ('which defeats accusation of Army unbusinesslike methods'); these and a hundred other cares are the matter of the diary. That they were all subordinate to the main issue appears in the orders which he gave to some of the pilots of No. 6 Squadron, at Dover, in the summer of 1914. Any pilot who met a Zeppelin, and failed to bring it down by firing at it, would be expected, he said, to take other measures, that is to say, to charge it. Not a few of the early war pilots were prepared to carry out these instructions.

The work done by the other early squadrons was similar in kind. No. 4 Squadron was formed at Farnborough in the autumn of 1912 under Major G. H. Raleigh, of the Essex Regiment, who had served with distinction in the South African War. After completing its establishment it moved to Netheravon, where it carried on practice in reconnaissance, co-operation with artillery, cross-country flying, night flying, and all the business of an active unit. The record of miles flown during 1913 by No. 4 Squadron hardly falls short of the record of the two senior squadrons; all three flew more than fifty thousand miles. When No. 5 Squadron was formed under Major Higgins a part of it was stationed for a time at Dover, and the squadron moved to new quarters at Fort Grange, Gosport, on the 6th of July, 1914, a month before the war. No. 6 Squadron was nearly complete when the war came, but No. 7 Squadron was very much under strength. Thus in August of that year four aeroplane squadrons were ready for war, another was almost ready, and another was no more than a nucleus. The rest of the magnificent array which served the country on the battle fronts was yet to make.

The month of June in 1914 was given up to a Concentration Camp at Netheravon. The idea of bringing the squadrons together in this camp seems to have originated with Colonel Sykes, whose arrangements were admirable in their detailed forethought and completeness. The mornings were devoted to trials and experiments, the afternoons to lectures and discussion on those innumerable problems which confront an air force. Tactical exercises, the reconnaissance of stated areas in the search for

## parties of men or lorries, photography, handling balloons, practice in

changing landing-grounds, and the like, were followed by discussions of the day's work. Lieutenant D. S. Lewis and Lieutenant B. T. James took every possible opportunity, during the discussions, to urge the development of wireless telegraphy. In the speed and climbing tests the greatest success was achieved by a B.E. machine fitted with a seventy horse-power Renault engine. Much attention was paid to reconnaissance and to co-operation with other arms. There was a natural rivalry among the squadrons. Major Burke's squadron was reputed to have the best pilots, while the Netheravon squadrons had had more training in co-operation with other arms, and in the diverse uses of aeroplanes in war. But the unknown dangers which all had to share were a strong bond, and the spirit of comradeship prevailed. The officers and men of the Royal Flying Corps were makers, not inheritors, of that tradition of unity and gallantry which is the soul of a regiment, and which carries it with unbroken spirit through the trials and losses of war.

The single use in war for which the machines of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps were designed and the men trained was (let it be repeated) reconnaissance. There had been many experiments in other uses, but though these had already reached the stage of practical application, it was the stress of the war which first compelled their adoption on a wide scale. The Military Wing was small--much smaller than the military air forces of the French or the Germans--it was designed to operate with an expeditionary force and to furnish that force with eyes. Its later developments, which added the work of hands to the work of eyes, were imposed on it by the necessities of war. Even artillery observation, which is the work of eyes, was at first no regular part of its duty. When the Germans were driven back from the Marne, and the long line of the battle front was defined and fixed, the business of helping the artillery became a matter of the first importance.

Many of the functions brilliantly performed during the course of the war by aeroplanes had been claimed, during the early days of aviation, as the proper province of the airship. A wireless installation for receiving and sending messages was too heavy for an aeroplane; it must be carried by an airship. No sufficient weight of bombs could be carried by an aeroplane; the airship was the predestined bombing machine. Machine-guns were difficult to work from an aeroplane; they were the natural weapon of the airship. Photography was a hope worthy of experiment, but even photography was thought to be best suited to the airship, and internal accommodation for a camera was not asked for or provided in an aeroplane. At the back of all this lay the strongest argument of all: the value of reconnaissance to the army was so great, and our military aeroplanes were so few, that it was impossible to spare any of them for less essential work. As the Flying Corps grew in numbers and skill it found breathing space to look around and to claim the duties that had been judged to be outside its scope.

As a nation we distrust theory. We learn very quickly from experience, and are almost obstinately unwilling to learn in any other way. Experience is a costly school, but it teaches nothing false. A nation which attends experience could never be hurried into disaster, as the Germans were hurried by a debauch of political and military theory, subtly appealing to the national vanity. To insure themselves against so foolish a fate the British are willing to pay a heavy price. They have an instinctive dislike, which often seems to be unreasonable in its strength, for all that is novel and showy. They are ready enough to take pleasure in a spectacle, but they are prejudiced against taking the theatre as a guide for life. This is well seen in the disfavour with which the practical military authorities regarded the more spectacular developments of aviation, which yet, in the event, were found to have practical uses. Looping the loop, and other kinds of what are now called 'aerobatics', were habitually disparaged as idle spectacles. Yet the 'Immelmann turn', so called, whereby a machine, after performing half a loop, falls rapidly away on one wing, was a manoeuvre which, when first used by the enemy, proved fatal to many of our pilots. The spin, at the outbreak of the war, was regarded as a fault in an aeroplane, due chiefly to bad construction; later on Dr. F. A. Lindemann, by his researches and courageous experiments at the Royal Aircraft Factory, proved that any aeroplane can spin, and that any pilot who understands the spin can get out of it if there is height to spare. During the war the spin was freely used by pilots to break off a fight, to simulate defeat, or to descend in a vertical path. Similarly, little stress was laid, at the beginning, on speed, for speed was not helpful to reconnaissance, or on climb and height, for it was believed that at three thousand feet from the ground a machine would be practically immune from gunfire, and that reconnaissance, to be effective, must be carried on below the level of the clouds. These misconceptions were soon to be corrected by experience. Another, more costly in its consequences, was that a machine-gun, when carried in an aeroplane, must have a large arc, or cone, of fire, so that the gun might be fired in any direction, up, down, or across. To secure this end guns had to be carried in the front of a pusher machine, which is slower and more clumsy than a tractor. But the difficulty of accurate firing from a flying platform at an object moving with unknown speed on an undetermined course was found to be very great. The problem was much simplified by the introduction of devices for firing a fixed machine-gun through the tractor screw, so that the pilot could aim his gun by aiming his aeroplane, or gun-platform, which responds delicately and quickly to his control.

When the war began we were not inferior in aerodynamical knowledge to the Germans or even to the French. Speaking at the Aeronautical Society in February 1914, Brigadier-General Henderson said, 'If any one wants to know which country has the fastest aeroplane in the world--it is Great Britain'. This was the S.E. 4, a forerunner of the more famous S.E. 5. If more powerful engines had been installed in the British machines of 1914, they would have given us a speed that the enemy could not touch. But we were preoccupied with the needs of reconnaissance, and we cared little about speed. In the early part of the war we hampered our aeroplanes with fitments, cameras, and instruments, which were attached as protuberances to the streamlined body of the aeroplane and made speed impossible. In the Flying Corps itself an aeroplane thus fitted was commonly called a Christmas tree. We thought too little of power in the engine, a mistake not quickly remedied, seeing that the time which must elapse between the ordering of an engine and its production in quantity is, even under pressure, a period of about twelve months. The engines available at the outbreak of the war for British military aircraft were the seventy horse-power Renault and the eighty horse-power Gnome. In Germany airship engines of two hundred horse-power and more, easily modified for use in aeroplanes, were available in quantity some time before the war. For military machines we were satisfied with smaller engines, which worked well, and enabled our aeroplanes to accomplish all that at that time seemed likely to be asked of them. If we were wrong we were content to wait for experience to correct us.

The problems presented to the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps were widely different from those which engrossed the attention of the soldiers. The difference, to put it briefly, was the difference between defence and attack. The British army does not fight at home, and this privilege it enjoys by virtue of the constant vigilance of the British navy. The ultimate business of the British navy, though it visits all the seas of the world, is home defence. Yet that defence cannot be effectively carried out at home, and when we are at war our frontiers are the enemy coasts and our best defence is attack. This old established doctrine of naval warfare is the orthodox doctrine also of aerial warfare. A mobile force confined to one place by losing its mobility loses most of its virtue. The fencer who does nothing but parry can never win a bout, and in the end will fail to parry. The recognition of this doctrine in relation to aerial warfare was gradual. When the Royal Flying Corps was established and the question of the defence of our coasts by aircraft first came under discussion, our available airships, aeroplanes, and seaplanes, though their development had been amazingly rapid, were weapons without much power of offence. The main thing was to give them a chance of proving and increasing their utility. In October 1912 the Admiralty decided to establish a chain of seaplane and airship stations on the east coast of Great Britain. The earliest of these stations, after Eastchurch, was the seaplane station of the Isle of Grain, commissioned in December 1912, with Lieutenant J. W. Seddon as officer in command. This was followed, in the first half of 1913, by the establishment of similar stations at Calshot, Felixstowe, Yarmouth, and Cromarty. H.M.S. _Hermes_, in succession to H.M.S. _Actaeon_, was commissioned on the 7th of May 1913 as headquarters of the Naval Wing, and her commanding officer, Captain G. W. Vivian, R.N., was given charge of all coastal air stations. For airships a station at Hoo on the Medway was established with two double sheds of the largest size; it was called Kingsnorth, and was completed in April 1914, by which time all military airships had been handed over to the Admiralty. All the seaplane stations were in a sense offshoots of Eastchurch, which continued to be the principal naval flying school. Except for some valuable experimental work, not very much was done before the war at the seaplane coast stations. The supply of machines was small, and when the bare needs of Eastchurch and Grain had been met, not enough remained for the outfit of the other stations. Nevertheless the zeal of the naval pilots, encouraged and supported by the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Winston Churchill) and by the Director of the Air Department (Captain Murray Sueter), wrought good progress in a short time. The first successful seaplane was produced at Eastchurch, as has been told, in March 1912. Just before the war, the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps had in its possession fifty-two seaplanes, of which twenty-six were in flying condition, and further, had forty-six seaplanes on order. Those who know how difficult it is to get new things done will easily recognize that this measure of progress, though perhaps not very impressive numerically, could never have been achieved save by indomitable perseverance and effort. Sailors are accustomed to work hard and cheerfully under adverse conditions.

In the naval manoeuvres of July 1913 the _Hermes_, carrying two seaplanes, which were flown from its launching platform, operated with the fleet. Four seaplanes and one aeroplane from Yarmouth, three seaplanes from Leven, and three from Cromarty, also bore a part. The weather was not good, and the manoeuvres proved that the smaller type of seaplane was useless for work in the North Sea. Any attempt to get these machines off the water in a North Sea 'lop' infallibly led to their destruction. Further, it was found necessary for the safety of pilots that every machine should be fitted with wireless telegraphy. A machine fitted with folding wings was flown from the _Hermes_ by Commander Samson, and was found to be the best and most manageable type.

In a minute dated the 26th of October 1913 the First Lord of the Admiralty sketches a policy and a programme for the ensuing years. Aeroplanes and seaplanes, he remarks, are needed by the navy for oversea work and for home work. He recommends three new types of machine: first, an oversea fighting seaplane, to operate from a ship as base; next, a scouting seaplane, to work with the fleet at sea; and last, a home-service fighting aeroplane, to repel enemy aircraft when they attack the vulnerable points of our island, and to carry out patrol duties along the coast. The events of the war have given historic interest to all forecasts prepared before the war. Mr. Churchill's minute is naturally much concerned with the Zeppelin, which should be attacked, he says, by an aeroplane descending on it obliquely from above, and discharging a series of small bombs or fireballs, at rapid intervals, so that a string of them, more than a hundred yards in length, would be drawn like a whiplash across the gas-bag. This is a near anticipation of the method by which Flight Sub-Lieutenant R. A. J. Warneford brought down a Zeppelin in flames between Ghent and Brussels on the 7th of June 1915. The immense improvements in construction which were wrought by the war may be measured by Mr. Churchill's specifications for the rate of climb of the two-seater aeroplanes and seaplanes--namely, three thousand feet in twenty minutes. When he drafted his scheme that was a good rate of climb; before the war ended there were machines on the flying fronts which could climb three thousand feet in two minutes.

Under the direction of the Air Department much attention was paid by pilots in the Naval Air Service to experimental work and the diverse uses of aeroplanes. So early as January 1912 Lieutenant H. A. Williamson, R.N., a submarine officer who had gained the Royal Aero Club certificate, submitted to the Admiralty a paper which anticipated some later successes. He advocated the use of aeroplanes operating from a parent ship for the detection of submarines, and showed how bombs exploding twenty feet below the surface might be used to destroy these craft. The practical introduction of depth charges was delayed for years by the difficulty of devising the delicate and accurate mechanism which uses the pressure of the water to explode the bomb at a given depth. But before the war ended the detection of submarines from the air and the use by surface craft of depth charges for destroying them had been brought to such a degree of efficiency that the submarine menace was countered and held. The submarine learned to fear aircraft as the birds of the thicket fear the hawk. It would be tedious to attempt to describe the long series of experiments by which this result was at last attained. The earliest attempts to detect submarines from the air were made with seaplanes at Harwich in June 1912, and at Rosyth in September of the same year. The shallow tidal waters were found to be very opaque, but in clear weather a periscope could be seen from a considerable distance, and in misty weather the seaplane, when it sighted a submarine in diving trim on the surface, could swoop down and drop a bomb before the submarine could dive.

Progress in bomb-dropping was not less. Nothing is easier than to drop a detonating bomb, with good intentions, over the side of an aeroplane; the difficulty of hitting the mark lay in determining the flight of the bomb and in devising an efficient dropping gear. To drop a weight from a rapidly moving aeroplane so that it shall hit a particular spot on the surface of the earth is not an easy affair; the pace and direction of the machine, its height from the ground, the shape and air resistance of the bomb, must all be accurately known. They cannot be calculated in the air; success in bomb-dropping depends on the designing of a gear for dropping and sighting which shall perform these calculations automatically. Very early in the history of aviation dummy bombs had been dropped, for spectacular purposes, at targets marked on the ground. The designing of an efficient dropping gear and the study of the flight of bombs were taken up by the Air Department of the Admiralty from the very first. Under their direction a very valuable series of experiments was carried out at Eastchurch, at first by Commander Samson, and later by Lieutenant R. H. Clark Hall, a naval gunnery lieutenant, who had learnt to fly, and was appointed in March 1913 for armament duties with the Royal Naval Air Service.

The whole subject was new. No one could tell exactly how the flight of an aeroplane would be affected when the weight of the machine should be suddenly lightened by the release of a large bomb; no one could be sure that a powerful explosion on the surface of the sea would not affect the machine flying at a moderate height above it. In 1912 a dummy hundred-pound bomb was dropped from a Short pusher biplane flown by Commander Samson, who was surprised and pleased to find that the effect on the flight of the machine was hardly noticeable. In December 1913 experiments were carried out to determine the lowest height at which bombs could be safely dropped from an aeroplane. No heavy bombs were available, but floating charges of various weights, from 2-1/4 pounds to 40 pounds, were fired electrically from a destroyer, while Maurice Farman seaplanes flew at various heights directly above the explosion. Again the effect upon the machines was less than had been anticipated. The general conclusion was that an aeroplane flying at a height of 350 feet or more could drop a hundred-pound bomb, containing forty pounds of high explosive, without danger from the air disturbance caused by the explosion.

A good war machine aims at combining the safety of the operator with a high degree of danger to the victim. The second of these requirements was the more difficult of fulfilment, and was the subject of many experiments. Until the war took the measure of their powers, the German Zeppelins preoccupied attention, and were regarded as the most important targets for aerial attack. The towing of an explosive grapnel, which, suspended from an aeroplane, should make contact with the side of an airship, was the subject of experiments at Eastchurch. This idea, though nothing occurred to prove it impracticable, was soon abandoned in favour of simpler methods--the dropping, for instance, of a series of light bombs with sensitive fuses, or the firing of Hales grenades from an ordinary service rifle. To make these effective, it was essential that they should detonate on contact with ordinary balloon fabric, and preliminary experiments were carried out at the Cotton Powder Company's works at Faversham in October 1913.

When two sheets of fabric, stitched on frames to represent the two skins of a rigid airship, were hit by a grenade of the naval type with a four-ounce charge, it was found that the front sheet was blown to shreds and the rear sheet had a hole about half a foot in diameter blown in it. Later experiments at Farnborough against balloons filled with hydrogen, and made to resemble as nearly as possible a section of a rigid airship, were completely successful. Firing at floating targets, and at small target balloons released from the aeroplanes, was practised at Eastchurch. It was found that, with no burst or splash to indicate where the shot hit, this practice was unprofitable. The effective use of small-bore fire-arms against aircraft was made possible by two inventions, produced under the stress of the war itself, that is to say, of the tracer bullet, which leaves behind it in the air a visible track of its flight, and of the incendiary bullet, which sets fire to anything inflammable that it hits.

At the outbreak of war the only effective weapon for attacking the Zeppelin from the air was the Hales grenade. Of two hundred of these which had been manufactured for the use of the Naval Wing many had been used in experiment; the remainder were hastily distributed by Lieutenant Clark Hall among the seaplane stations on the East Coast.

The Naval Air Service experimented also with the mounting of machine-guns on aeroplanes. On this matter Lieutenant Clark Hall, early in 1914, reported as follows:

'Machine-gun aeroplanes are (or will be) required to drive off enemy machines approaching our ports with the intention of obtaining information or attacking with bombs our magazines, oil tanks, or dockyards.... I do not think the present state of foreign seaplanes for attack or scouting over our home ports is such as to make the question extremely urgent, but I would strongly advocate having by the end of 1914 at each of our home ports and important bases at least two aeroplanes mounting machine-guns for the sole purpose of beating off or destroying attacking or scouting enemy aeroplanes.'

From what has been said it is evident that the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps paid more attention than was paid by the Military Wing to the use of the aeroplane as a fighting machine. This difference naturally followed from the diverse tasks to be performed by the two branches of the air service. The Military Wing, small as it was, knew that it would be entrusted with the immense task of scouting for the expeditionary force, and that its business would be rather to avoid than to seek battle in the air. The Naval Wing, being entrusted first of all with the defence of the coast, aimed at doing something more than observing the movements of an attacking enemy. Thus in bomb-dropping and in machine-gunnery the Naval Wing was more advanced than the Military Wing. Both wings were active and alive with experiment, so that after a while experimental work which had originally been assigned to the factory and the Central Flying School was transferred to the Wing Headquarters. During the year 1913 wireless experiments were discontinued at the Central Flying School, and were concentrated at the Military Wing. There was a valuable measure of co-operation between the two wings. This co-operation was conspicuous, as has been seen, in wireless telegraphy, which was first applied to aircraft at Farnborough. The lighter-than-air craft, which belonged first to the army and then to the navy, were a valuable link between the two wings. Each wing was ready to learn from the other. In January 1914, by permission of the Admiralty, officers of the Military Wing witnessed the experiments made by the Naval Wing with bomb-dropping gear. If the Naval Wing in some respects made more material progress, it should be remembered that they received more material support. They were encouraged by the indefatigable Director of the Air Department, and received from the Admiralty larger grants of money than came to the Military Wing. No doubt a certain spirit of rivalry made itself felt. Service loyalty is a strong passion, and the main tendency, before the war, was for the two branches of the air service to drift apart, and to attach themselves closely, the one to the army, the other to the navy.

At the end of 1913 H.M.S. _Hermes_ was paid off, and the headquarters of the Naval Wing was transferred to the Central Air Office, Sheerness. All ranks and ratings hitherto borne on the books of the _Hermes_ were transferred to the books of this newly created office, and Captain F. R. Scarlett, R.N., late second in command of the _Hermes_, was placed in charge, with the title of Inspecting Captain of Aircraft. He was responsible to the Director of the Air Department, and, in regard to aircraft carried on ships afloat, or operating with the fleet, was also directly responsible to the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleets. In some respects the progress made by the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps during 1913 had been continuous and satisfactory. Training had been carried on regularly at the Central Flying School, at Eastchurch, and, for airship work, at Farnborough. By the end of the year there were about a hundred trained pilots. Stations for guarding the coast had been established in five places other than Eastchurch, and arrangements were in hand for doubling this number. The record of miles flown during the year by naval aeroplanes and seaplanes was no less than 131,081 miles. Wireless telegraphy had made a great advance; transmitting sets were in course of being fitted to all seaplanes, and the reception of messages in aeroplanes had been experimentally obtained. Systematic bomb-dropping had been practised with growing accuracy and success. A system for transmitting meteorological charts from the Admiralty, so that air stations and aircraft in the air should receive frequent statements of the weather conditions, had been brought into working order.

On the other hand, all these advances were experimental in character, and no attempt had been made to equip the force completely for the needs of war. In this matter there is perhaps something to be said on both sides. Where munitions are improving every year, too soon is almost as bad as too late. In fact, at the beginning of the war the Naval Air Service had only two aeroplanes and one airship fitted with machine-guns. Of the aeroplanes, one carried a Maxim gun, another a Lewis gun, loaned to the Admiralty by Colonel Lucas, C.B., of Hobland Hall, Yarmouth. No. 3 Airship (the _Astra-Torres_) was fitted with a Hotchkiss gun. The offensive weapon carried by other machines was a rifle. The various air stations were not liberally supplied with munitions of war. The Isle of Grain had four Hales hand-grenades. Hendon (the station for the defence of London) and Felixstowe had twelve each. The other stations were supplied in a like proportion, except Eastchurch, which had a hundred and fifty hand-grenades, forty-two rifle grenades, twenty-six twenty-pound bombs, and a Maxim gun. When the war broke out, a number of six-inch shells were fitted with tail vanes and converted into bombs.

On the 1st of July 1914 the separate existence of the naval air force was officially recognized. The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps became the Royal Naval Air Service, with a constitution of its own. The naval flying school at Eastchurch and the naval air stations on the coast, together with all aircraft employed for naval purposes, were grouped under the administration of the Air Department of the Admiralty and the Central Air Office. So, for a time, the national air force was broken in two. The army and the navy had been willing enough to co-operate, but the habits of life and thought of a soldier and a sailor are incurably different. Moreover, the tasks of the two wings, as has been said, were distinct, and neither wing was very well able to appreciate the business of the other. The Naval Wing had not the transport or equipment to operate at a distance from the sea, and, on the other hand, was inclined to insist that all military aeroplanes, when used for coast defence, should be placed under naval command. The Military Wing was preoccupied with continental geography and with strategical problems. The two attitudes and two methods lent a certain richness and diversity to our air operations in the war. When Commander Samson established himself at Dunkirk during the first year of the war, his variegated activities bore very little resemblance to the operations of the military squadrons on the battle-front.

The review of the fleet by the King, at Spithead, from the 18th to the 22nd of July 1914, gave to the Royal Naval Air Service an opportunity to demonstrate its use in connexion with naval operations. Most of the available naval aircraft were concentrated at Portsmouth, Weymouth, and Calshot to take part in the review. On the 20th of July an organized flight of seventeen seaplanes, and two flights of aeroplanes in formation headed by Commander Samson, manoeuvred over the fleet. This formation flying had been practised at Eastchurch before the review. Three airships from Farnborough and one from Kingsnorth also took part in the demonstration. Within a few weeks all were to take part in the operations of war. The aeroplanes and seaplanes flew low over the fleet. Some naval officers, who had previously seen little of aircraft, expressed the opinion that the planes flew low because they could not fly high, and that their performance was an acrobatic exhibition, useless for the purposes of war. These and other doubters were soon converted by the war.

When the review was over, the seaplanes and airships returned to their several bases. The flights of aeroplanes, under Commander Samson, went on tour, first to Dorchester, where they stayed four or five days, and thence to the Central Flying School. They had been there only a few hours when they received urgent orders to return to Eastchurch, where they arrived on the 27th of July. On the same day seaplanes from other stations were assembled at Grain Island, Felixstowe, and Yarmouth, to be ready to patrol the coast in the event of war. These precautionary orders, and the orders given by the Admiralty on the previous day, arresting the dispersal of the British fleet, were among the first orders of the war. On the 29th of July instructions were issued to the Naval Air Service that the duties of scouting and patrol were to be secondary to the protection of the country against hostile aircraft. All machines were to be kept tuned up and ready for action. On the 30th of July the Army Council agreed to send No. 4 Squadron of aeroplanes to reinforce the naval machines at Eastchurch. Eastchurch, during the months before the war, had been active in rehearsal; fighting in the air had been practised, and trial raids, over Chatham and the neighbouring magazines, had been carried out, two aeroplanes attacking and six or eight forming a defensive screen. Work of this kind had knit together the Eastchurch unit and had fitted it for active service abroad. In the meantime, at the outbreak of the war, attacks by German aircraft were expected on points of military and naval importance.

Germany was known to possess eleven rigid airships, and was believed to have others under construction. Our most authoritative knowledge of the state of German aviation was derived from a series of competitions held in Germany from the 17th to the 25th of May 1914, and called 'The Prince Henry Circuit'. These were witnessed by Captain W. Henderson, R.N., as naval attache, and by Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. A. Russell, as military attache. The witnesses pay tribute to the skill and dash of the German flying officers and to the spirit of the flying battalions. The officers they found to be fine-drawn, lean, determined-looking youngsters, unlike the well-known heavy Teutonic type. Owing partly to the monotony of German regimental life there was great competition, they were told, to enter the flying service, eight hundred candidates having presented themselves for forty vacancies. In 'The Prince Henry Circuit', a cross-country flight of more than a thousand miles, to be completed in six days, twenty-six aeroplanes started. The weather was stormy, and there were many accidents; one pilot and three observers were killed. These were regarded as having lost their lives in action, and there was no interruption of the programme. Among the best of the many machines that competed were the military L.V.G. (or Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft) biplane, which won the chief prizes, the A.E.G. (or Allgemeine Elektrizitaets-Gesellschaft) biplane, the Albatross, and the Aviatik. On the whole, said our witnesses, the Germans had not progressed fast or far in aviation. They were still learning to fly; they were seeking for the best type of machine; and had given no serious attention, as yet, to the question of battle in the air. The test that was to compare the British and German air forces was now at hand.

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