During the battle of the Aisne, the wireless machines were few in number and other methods of signalling were mostly in use. On the 15th of September Captain L. E. O. Charlton fired Very lights over enemy guns previously observed. On the 24th of September 'Lieutenant Allen and two others with aeroplanes indicated targets and observed fire, communication being by flash signals'. Sometimes the pilots returned and landed to report on gun positions. But when once the gunners had profited by the superior accuracy and speed of report by wireless, they were hungry for more machines. On the 23rd of September the commander of the Second Corps telegraphed to General Headquarters: 'I hope that you will be able to spare the wireless aeroplane and receiving set to Third Division again to-morrow. The results were so good yesterday that it seems a pity not to keep it with the Division, which has got accustomed to its uses and is in a position to benefit even more largely by the experience gained.' The answer was that the machine had beendamaged by anti-aircraft fire, but would be ready again shortly. A wireless aeroplane was as popular as an opera-singer, and the headquarters wireless section soon developed into No. 9 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The attitude of the gunners may be well seen in an entry made in the war diary of No. 3 Siege Battery, dated the 23rd of January 1915—'Airman' (Captain Cherry) 'reported for co-operation (lamp only, alas!).'
The photography was a mere beginning. On the 15th of September Lieutenant G. F. Pretyman took five photographs of the enemy positions; these were developed later on the ground, and were the forerunners of that immense photographic map of the western front in thousands of sections, constantly renewed and corrected, which played so great a part in the later stages of the war. Some other experiments had no later history. Steel darts called 'flêchettes', about five inches long and three-eighths of an inch in diameter, were dropped over enemy horse-lines and troops by No. 3 Squadron. A canister holding about 250 of these darts was fixed under the fuselage; by the pulling of a wire the bottom of the tin was opened and the darts were released. To do any harm these darts had to score a direct hit on some living object, so that a whole canister of them was probably a less formidable weapon than a bomb. Even on a battle-field life is sparsely distributed on the ground.
There was hardly any fighting in the air during the battle of the Aisne, and reconnaissance machines were not attacked by other aeroplanes. They were fired at from the ground by anti-aircraft artillery. The anti-aircraft guns got their name of 'Archies' from a light-hearted British pilot, who when he was fired at in the air quoted a popular music-hall refrain—'Archibald, certainly not!' The Germans used kite balloons for observation. In the attempt to drop a bomb on oneof these Lieutenant G. W. Mapplebeck was attacked, on the 22nd of September, by a German Albatross, and was wounded in the leg. He was the first of our pilots to be wounded in the air from an enemy aeroplane—a long list it was to be.
The Royal Flying Corps were few indeed in comparison with the air forces opposed to them, but they were full of zeal and initiative. On the 19th of September they received a valued compliment from the French General Staff, who asked the British Commander-in-Chief to permit them to carry out reconnaissances along the front of the Fifth French Army. This was already being done, but Sir David Henderson promised to take measures to make the reconnaissance more complete.
In the battle of the Aisne the British forces were co-operating with General Maunoury's Sixth French Army on their left. The so-called race for the sea was, in fact, a race for the flank of the opposing army. On the 20th of September De Castelnau's army formed up on the left of Maunoury and at first made some progress, but was pushed back by the reinforced army of General von Bülow, and was held on a line extending from Ribecourt on the Oise to Albert. On the 30th of September General Maud'huy's army came into position on the left of De Castelnau, along a line extending from Albert to Lens, while at the same time cavalry and territorials occupied Lille and Douai on the German right. This army in its turn was opposed by the German Sixth Army sent up from Metz, which pushed the French behind Arras, occupied Lens and Douai, and began to shell Lille. General Maud'huy could do no more than fight to hold his ground till another army should come to his relief on his left. For this purpose the British army was shifted from the Aisne to its natural position in defence of the Channel ports, and came into action along a line extendingnorthwards from La Bassée. The actual line was fixed by a series of fierce engagements culminating in the battles of Ypres, 1914.
The Allied plan was to hold the French and Belgian coast and to take the offensive in the north. With this purpose in view the Seventh Division of the British army and the Third Cavalry Division, both of which came under the command of Sir Henry Rawlinson, were disembarked, from the 6th of October onward, at Zeebrugge and Ostend. But Antwerp was taken by the Germans on the 9th of October, and the first business of this famous force was to cover the Belgian retreat along the coast. The German Fourth Army was being rapidly pushed forward into Belgium; Lille capitulated on the 13th of October; Zeebrugge and Ostend were occupied by the Germans on the 15th. Still the idea of a counter-offensive was not abandoned, and the works and defences of Zeebrugge were left intact in the hope of its speedy recapture. On the night of the 1st of October the British army had begun to move northwards from the Aisne. By the 9th of October the British Second Corps had detrained at Abbeville and received orders to march on Béthune; on the 12th the Third Corps began detraining and concentrating at St.-Omer and Hazebrouck, and subsequently moved up to Bailleul and Armentières. A week later, on the 19th, the First Corps under Sir Douglas Haig detrained at Hazebrouck and moved on Ypres. General Headquarters left Fère-en-Tardenois on the 8th of October and after a five-days' stay at Abbeville established themselves at St.-Omer.
The Royal Flying Corps had moved north with the British Expeditionary Force, from Fère-en-Tardenois by way of Abbeville, to St.-Omer, where they were established by the 12th of October. No. 2 Squadron remained behind for a few days, to carry on with Sir Douglas Haig's corps on the Aisne, but joinedup at St.-Omer on the 17th of October. In addition to the four original squadrons, No. 6 Squadron, newly arrived from England under Major J. H. W. Becke, came under Brigadier-General Henderson's orders on the 16th of October. This squadron had been stationed at South Farnborough as a reserve for the squadrons in the field. When General Rawlinson's force was sent to Ostend, to attempt the relief of Antwerp, Lord Kitchener said, 'I want a squadron to go with it'. He ordered that No. 6 Squadron should be ready in forty-eight hours. The squadron was hastily completed; some pilots and machines were obtained from the Central Flying School; some machines were bought from private firms; equipment, tools, and the like were collected at night; and on the 7th of October the squadron flew to Bruges and began at once to carry out reconnaissances. On the following day they flew to Ostend, and, their transport having arrived, were concentrated on the racecourse. Five days later they retired to Dunkirk, and by the 16th of October were established at Poperinghe, where they came under the orders of headquarters at St.-Omer.
A good deal of reconnaissance was carried on by the squadrons during the northward move of the army. On the 29th of September unusual and heavy movement in a northerly and north-westerly direction had been observed behind the enemy lines on the Aisne. On the 1st of October air reconnaissances showed that the trenches in front of the British First Army Corps were unoccupied or very lightly held, and during the next few days there were many indications that one or two German army corps were being withdrawn to the north. Meantime the enemy took more trouble than usual to interfere with our aircraft, and employed an increased number of anti-aircraft guns. In the north our strategic reconnaissances were notso successful, and the formidable enemy movement against the Ypres line developed undetected. Not many aeroplanes were available at this time for the wider sort of strategic reconnaissance. Nos. 2, 3, and 5 Squadrons had been attached, by an order issued on the 1st of October, to the First, Second, and Third Army Corps respectively, while No. 4 Squadron was detailed for strategical reconnaissance. The General Officers Commanding army corps had learned the value of aeroplanes and demanded their assistance. Much of the country over which they were operating in Northern France and Flanders was flat and enclosed, unsuitable either way for cavalry reconnaissance.
Long-distance work was done chiefly from headquarters. On the 3rd of October, when the situation at Antwerp had become critical, Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes flew direct to Bruges from Fère-en-Tardenois, with a message from Sir John French to the Belgian Chief of Staff at Antwerp. On the following day he returned and reported that the Germans had broken through the south-eastern sector of the outer defences of Antwerp, that the Belgians were awaiting help, and that they might possibly hold out for two or three weeks. In forwarding the report to Lord Kitchener Sir John French adds, 'The relief of Antwerp I regard as my first objective'. This mission was followed by others, and a few days later Sir John French speaks of reports which he is receiving daily by air from General Rawlinson.
Meantime a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service, as shall be told in the next chapter, had been operating for some weeks from Ostend and Dunkirk with French territorial forces. The French territorials were hastily embodied troops taken from civilian life and were not of much use for a fight against odds. When the Seventh Division was landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge during the first week of October, and the improvisedBritish Naval Division arrived at Antwerp, the situation was already out of hand. The British army was small; it had helped to save Paris, and now paid the price in the loss of the Belgian coast. The Seventh Division occupied Ghent, and after covering the retreat of the Belgian army, which halted along the line of the Yser, from Dixmude to Nieuport, fell back by way of Roulers to a position east of Ypres. When the whole British force came into line, it held a front of some thirty-five miles, with Maud'huy's Tenth French Army on its right across the Béthune-Lille road. On its left the line was held, from a point north of Ypres to the sea, by the Belgian army, assisted by four French cavalry divisions under General De Mitry.
The German army had failed to take Paris; all its efforts were now concentrated on the seizure of the Channel ports, and its pressure on the defending line was like the pressure of a great rising head of waters against the gates of a lock. The glory of the defence belongs to the infantry. The men who flew above them could only watch them and help them with eyes. The infantry were often unconscious of this help; they disliked seeing hostile observers above them and often fired on aeroplanes with very little distinction made between friends and foes. On the 26th of October Major G. H. Raleigh, of No. 4 Squadron, reports an artillery reconnaissance as follows: 'Hosking and Crean did a tactical reconnaissance early, but were unable to locate batteries owing to clouds. They went up later and did it. The clouds were low, so it was arranged that they should fly over one of our batteries to observe for ranging. The machine came down in flames and was completely demolished. Pilot and passenger had both been wounded by our own infantry fire when at a height of about a thousand feet with the large Union Jack plainly visible.'
Wing Commander W. D. Beatty tells how, before this time, the disadvantage of the Union Jack marking on the planes was becoming evident. The officer in command of an aviation camp at Paris had pointed out to him that, at a height, only the red cross of the Union Jack was clearly visible, and that it was mistaken by the French for the German marking. A suggestion was made that the British should adopt the French circular marking. The mishap of the 26th of October hastened the adoption of this suggestion, and thereafter the French target was painted on British aeroplanes, with the alteration only of blue for red and red for blue, to preserve national distinctions.
Commanding officers sometimes complained that our machines were little in evidence. The aeroplane observers, operating over enemy territory, reported to their own command, and their reports, forwarded to the proper quarters, took effect in the orders issued by Headquarters, so that crucial improvements were sometimes made in our dispositions, by information obtained from the air, though the infantry had seen no machine in the air above them. The use of machines for more local needs, such as artillery ranging, hastened the recognition of the services rendered by the Flying Corps, and brought it into closer touch with the other arms. Photographic cameras and fittings were still very imperfect, and photography from the air was not much practised, but sketch-maps of enemy trenches and gun-pits, as located by air reconnaissances, were issued by Headquarters during the battle of Ypres. Good work was done in directing the fire of the artillery, and the few wireless machines were much in demand. A telegram sent on the 28th of October from Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien to the Royal Flying Corps headquarters runs: 'Can you send us a second machine, with wireless installation, for use to-morrow? The aeroplane now working withoutwireless with Fifth Division has more to do than it can accomplish owing to observation being required for French artillery as well as our own.' But the wireless machine was required by the First Corps, at the northern end of the line, and a machine without wireless was sent instead.
The deadly and effective method of directing artillery fire on hostile batteries by means of wireless telegraphy played a great part in winning the war, but for the first battle of Ypres the wireless machines were not ready in quantity. The penalty which had to be paid for this unreadiness was heavy. Precious shells, which were all too few, had to be expended for ranging purposes. On the 4th of November Lord Kitchener wired to Sir John French: 'I have been talking to David Henderson about giving more observation to artillery by aeroplanes. As this saves the ranging ammunition, which is worth anything to us, please insist upon it.' Failing wireless, other methods of ranging had to be employed. These methods had been set forth in an official paper issued on the 28th of October. The aeroplane flies at any convenient height and when it is exactly above the target it fires a Very light. The battery range-finders, who have been following its course, then take its range and another observer with the battery takes its angle of elevation. These two observations are sufficient to determine the horizontal distance between the battery and the target. It was sometimes found difficult to take the range of an aeroplane, at a given moment, with an ordinary range-finder, and an alternative method of ranging is suggested. By this method the aeroplane flies at a prearranged height, and, as before, fires a light exactly over the target. But this method also is liable to error, for an aeroplane determines its height by the use of a barometer, and barometers are only approximately accurate for this purpose. So it wassuggested that the two methods should be combined: the aeroplane should endeavour to fly at a fixed height, and the range-finders should, if possible, also make their calculations. These methods cannot attain to the accuracy of wireless, but they were found in practice to give fairly good results. They were not quickly or generally adopted; many battery commanders continued to prefer the reports of their trained ground observers to the indications given from the air. When wireless machines were increased in number, artillery observation from the air came into its own. In a report dated the 5th of February 1915, Brigadier-General Stokes, commander of the 27th Divisional Artillery, lays stress on the enormous advantages of wireless. He says that the 116th Heavy Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery, which had at its disposal an aeroplane equipped with a lamp, had succeeded in registering only three targets in fifteen days, whereas the 130th Howitzer Battery, which had a share in the services of a wireless aeroplane, had registered eight targets in seven days. The disadvantages of the older and cruder method are many; a thin mist which does not prevent the aeroplane from observing the target is enough to prevent signalling to the battery; the lamp is difficult to use on a rough day, and difficult to read against the sun; the aeroplane has to be kept under continual observation by the battery. To get better value out of our artillery, the general concludes, the wireless service must be largely increased.
Reconnaissance from the air was much impeded, during the second half of October, by low clouds and bad weather, but enough was observed to give some forecast of the tremendous attack that was impending. The Germans outnumbered the British three or four times, and threw their whole weight, now against one part, and now against another, of the thin line of infantry fighting in mud and water. Those who wouldjudge the battle will find no escape from the dilemma; either the British defence, maintained for thirty-four days, from the 19th of October to the 21st of November, against an army which esteemed itself the best army in the world, must be given a high and honourable place among the great military achievements of history, or the German army was disgraced by its defeat. But the German army was a good army, and was not disgraced. The Germans themselves respected their enemy, on the ground and in the air. On the 21st of November, at the close of the battle of Ypres, two German second lieutenants of the air corps, called Fribenius and Hahn, were taken prisoner near Neuve-Chapelle, and were examined. They said that the performances of British aeroplanes had caused instructions to be issued that a British aeroplane was to be attacked whenever encountered. British aeroplanes, they said, were easily distinguishable from others, for they always showed fight at once. What prisoners say under examination is not evidence, but this early tribute to the fighting quality of the Royal Flying Corps is repeated in many later testimonies.
The crisis of the battle of Ypres came on the 31st of October, when the line of the First Division was broken and the left flank of the Seventh Division exposed, at Gheluvelt, some six miles east of Ypres. The counter-attack by the First Guards Brigade and the famous bayonet charge of the Second Worcestershire Regiment retook Gheluvelt, and re-established the line. The last act of the long agony came on the 11th of November, when a great attack was delivered all along the line. The place of honour on the Ypres-Menin road was given to two brigades of the Prussian Guard Corps, who had been brought up from Arras for the purpose. The First Division of the British army met this attack at its heaviest point of impact, and by the close of the day the Prussians had gained five hundred yards ofground at the cost of enormous losses. The story of the battle belongs to military history; the loss and profit account can be summarized in two facts. The First Brigade, which met the Prussian spearhead, was taken back into reserve on the following day. It had gone into the battle four thousand five hundred strong; on the 12th of November there remained, of the First Scots Guards, one officer and sixty-nine men; of the Black Watch, one officer and a hundred and nine men; of the Cameron Highlanders, three officers and a hundred and forty men; of the First Coldstream Guards, no officers and a hundred and fifty men. This is not a list of the surrendered remnant of an army: it is a list of some of the victors of Ypres. The other fact is no less significant; after a week of fighting the German attack fainted and died, and when the next great assault upon the Ypres salient was delivered, in April 1915, it was led not by the Prussian Guard but by clouds of poison-gas.
No extraordinary or signal services were rendered by the Flying Corps during the crises of the battle. The weather was bad, and on some days flying was impossible. Yet by every flight knowledge was increased. When the British troops arrived in Flanders and were sent at once into the battle, the country in front of them was unknown. The dispositions of the enemy forces were not even guessed at. Then by the aid of the Flying Corps the enemy's batteries were mapped out, his trench lines observed and noted, his railheads and his roads watched for signs of movement. The reports received just before the battle do not, it is true, indicate the whole volume of movement that was coming towards the Ypres area. The newly raised reserve corps which formed part of the German Fourth Army, the transport of which to the western front began on the 10th of October, were not definitely seen from the air until just before the battle. Butobservers' reports did indicate that many troops were moving on the Ypres front, and once battle was joined enemy movements were fully reported on.
When at the end of October the Belgian army mortgaged great tracts of their ground for many years by opening the canal sluices and letting in the sea, the Germans were enabled to divert the Third Reserve Corps southwards. The movements of troops from this area were observed by the Royal Flying Corps, and General Headquarters on the 1st of November issued this summary: 'The coast road from Ostend to Nieuport was reported clear this morning, and there are indications generally of a transference of troops from the north of Dixmude southwards.' Again, when the attack on Ypres had failed and died away, the Germans transferred many troops from the western to the eastern front; these movements also were seen by the Royal Flying Corps, who reported on the 20th of November an abnormal amount of rolling stock at various stations behind the German front. 'The rolling stock formerly parked on the Ostend-Thourout and Ostend-Roulers lines has evidently been broken up', says General Headquarters Intelligence Summary for the 20th of November, 'and distributed to a number of stations along the Lys and in the area immediately north of it, which would be suitable points of entrainment for the forces in that district.... This redistribution of the rolling stock, together with the apparent reduction in motor transport, would seem to point to some important movement away from this immediate theatre being in contemplation.' Air reports for the following day proved that much movement eastwards had already taken place.
Throughout the battle tactical reconnaissances had been maintained to a depth of from fifteen to twenty miles behind the German lines. There were some fewfights in the air, and a little bombing, but observation was still the principal duty of the Royal Flying Corps. They were greatly privileged; at a time when our people at home knew nothing of what the army was doing, they, and they alone, witnessed the battle of Ypres.
They would gladly have done more. Many of them had been infantry officers, and were eager to lend a hand to the infantry in that heroic struggle, but they lacked the means. Not until the summer of 1916 were they able, by organized attacks from the air, to help to determine the fortunes of a battle.
With the close of the battle there came a lull in the fighting. This lull continued throughout the dark and damp of the first winter, and the interest of the war in the air shifts to the preparations which were being pressed forward at home for renewing the war during 1915 on a larger scale and with better material.
One incident which occurred just after the battle of Ypres shall here be narrated; it serves to illustrate how the air work of the Germans may sometimes have been impeded by a certain defect of sympathy in the German officer class. German two-seater machines were commonly piloted by non-commissioned officers, who took their orders from the officer in the observer's seat. On the 22nd of November Lieutenants L. A. Strange and F. G. Small, of No. 5 Squadron, were returning from a reconnaissance, flying at a height of about seven thousand feet. Their machine, an Avro, with an 80 horse-power Gnome engine, carried a Lewis gun, which had been mounted by them, against orders, on rope tackle of their own devising, just above the observer's seat. In the air they met a new German Albatross with a 100 horse-power Mercedes engine. They showed fight at once. Diving from a height of five hundred feet above the German machine, and at right angles to its line of flight, they turned underneathit and flew along with it, a little in front and less than a hundred feet below. From this position, which they maintained while both machines made two complete turns in the air, they were able to empty two drums of ammunition into the German machine. After the second drum the German pilot lost his nerve, and the machine side-slipped away and down, landing behind our lines, close to Neuve-Église. There were twenty bullet-holes in the German machine, but the pilot and observer were both uninjured. The British officers landed close by, to claim their prisoners. The German observer, a commissioned officer, took little notice of them; as soon as his machine landed he jumped out of it, and dragging the partner of his dangers and triumphs out of the pilot's seat, knocked him down, and began to kick him heavily about the body. If ever a collection of incidents shall be made, under the title 'How the War was Lost and Won', to illustrate the causes of things, this little drama will deserve a place in it.
THE ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE IN 1914
When the war broke out the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps had already been separated from the Military Wing, and had become the Royal Naval Air Service. Captain Murray Sueter was Director of the Air Department, and Captain G. M. Paine was Commandant of the Central Flying School. Six officers, all pioneers of the air, held the rank of wing commander, and nineteen held the rank of squadron commander. There were twelve flight commanders, and, with the addition of some few who joined on the 5th and 6th of August, there were ninety-one flight lieutenants, flight sub-lieutenants, and warrant officers. The number of petty officers and men was approximately seven hundred. Some of the officers and men had been appointed for special duties in connexion with gunnery, torpedo work, navigation, wireless telegraphy, and engineering. The duties which fell to the Royal Naval Air Service were naturally more various and more complicated than those which fell to the Royal Flying Corps. The Naval Air Service had to fly seaplanes and airships, as well as aeroplanes. They had made more progress than the Military Wing in fitting wireless telegraphy and in arming aircraft. They had in their possession, when war broke out, thirty-nine aeroplanes and fifty-two seaplanes, of which about half were ready for immediate use. They had also seven airships, of which one, the little Willows airship, may be left out of the reckoning, but of the others, theParseval,Astra-Torres, andBetadid good work in the war. Some of the aeroplanes and mostof the seaplanes were fitted with more powerful engines than any that were used by the Royal Flying Corps. Engines of two hundred horse-power were being installed in Short, Wight, and Sopwith seaplanes, with a view not chiefly to speed but to the carrying of torpedoes. These machines were not successful at first, but experiment was active. Two aeroplanes and one airship had been fitted with machine-guns; petrol incendiary bombs had been tried with success; and gear for the release of bombs was being gradually improved. More important still, wireless telegraphy plants had been set up at the various seaplane stations on the coast, and sixteen seaplanes, operating in connexion with these stations, had been fitted with transmitting apparatus.
These preparations, when they are looked back on across the years of war, may seem tentative and small, but the idea which dominated them is clear enough. Whether war would come soon was doubtful; what was certain was that war, if it did come, would come from the nation which for many long years had boasted of war, preached war, and intended war. The main concern of the Naval Air Service, in co-operation with the navy, was the defence of the East Coast from attack, whether by sea or by air, and the safeguarding of the Channel for the passage of an expeditionary force to the coast of Belgium or France. Other uses for a naval air force were a matter of time and experiment. There was at first no general scheme, prepared in detail, and ready to be put into action, for the offensive employment of naval aircraft, so that the work of the service tended to relapse into defence. Very little had been done to provide for the co-operation of aircraft with the fleet at sea. TheMayflymishap had left us unsupplied with airships of the necessary power and range for naval reconnaissance, nor were the means at handto enable seaplanes to do scouting work for the fleet. In December 1912 a design for a specially constructed seaplane-carrying ship had been submitted by the Air Department after consultation with Messrs. Beardmore of Dalmuir, but when the war came no such ship was in existence. The light cruiser H.M.S.Hermeshad been adapted for seaplane carrying and had operated with the fleet during the naval manœuvres of July 1913, but this was no more than a makeshift. TheHermeswas refitted and re-commissioned in October 1914 to carry three seaplanes, and at the end of that month was sunk by a torpedo from an enemy submarine on her passage from Dunkirk to Dover.
War is a wonderful stimulant; and many things were done at high pressure, in the early days of August, to increase the resources, in men and material, of the Naval Air Service. The reserve was called up; in addition a certain number of officers were entered direct from civilian life, and were put to school, at Upavon or Eastchurch, to learn their new duties. Thousands of young men were eager to enter the service as pilots, but the training accommodation was wholly inadequate. The Bristol School at Brooklands, the Grahame-White School at Hendon, and the Eastbourne Aviation School were pressed into the service; in addition to these the naval air station at Calshot undertook to make seaplane pilots of some of those who had taken their flying certificates elsewhere. As was to be expected, training under these conditions proved difficult. All efficient machines were wanted for the war, so that machines which had been condemned for use on active service were sometimes employed in training new pilots.
If all those who deserve credit and praise for their part in the war in the air were to be mentioned, their names on the Roll of Honour would be thick as the motes that people the sunbeam. Most of themmust be content, and are content, to know that they did their work and served their country. But here and there occurs a name which must not be passed without comment. On the 5th of August 1914 Mr. F. K. McClean, by whose help the first naval air pilots had been trained, joined the Royal Naval Air Service as a flight lieutenant. At the same time he offered to the service his three motor-cars, his motor-boat at Teddington, his yachtZenaida, with two machines, and his private house at Eastchurch, which was converted into a hospital. A nation which commands the allegiance of such citizens need never fear defeat.
The earliest measure of defence undertaken by the Naval Air Service was the institution of a coastal patrol for the whole of the East Coast, from Kinnaird's Head, in Aberdeenshire, to Dungeness, between Dover and Hastings. This was ordered by the Admiralty on the 8th of August. The Royal Flying Corps, or rather, such incomplete squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps as were not yet ordered abroad, undertook the northern and southern extremes of this patrol, that is to say, the northern section between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Forth, from Kinnaird's Head to Fife Ness, and the southern section between the Thames and the coast of Sussex, from the North Foreland to Dungeness. The most vulnerable part of the East Coast, from the Forth to the Thames, or from North Berwick to Clacton, was to be patrolled by the Naval Air Service. But these arrangements were soon altered. Not many days after the outbreak of war the Germans established themselves in Belgium, and it was believed that they would use Belgium as a base for formidable attacks by aircraft on the Thames estuary and London. The forces of the Naval Air Service were therefore concentrated between the Humber and the Thames, from Imminghamto Clacton. The Wash was thought to be the most likely landfall for a German airship raiding London. Regular patrols of the coast were carried out in the early days of the war, to report the movements of all enemy ships and aircraft and to detect enemy submarines. But there was not much to report, and it was weary work waiting for the enemy to begin.
The British Expeditionary Force was ready for service abroad, and it fell to the Naval Air Service to watch over its passage across the Channel. A regular patrol between Westgate, close to the North Foreland, and Ostend was maintained by seaplanes, following one another at intervals of two hours. On the 13th of August a temporary seaplane base was established at Ostend under the command of Flight Lieutenant E. T. R. Chambers, but on the 22nd of August, when the expeditionary force was safely landed and the occupation of Ostend by the Germans seemed imminent, the base was withdrawn, and the men and stores were taken back to England. An airship patrol of the Channel undertaken by airships Nos. 3 and 4 (that is to say, by theAstra-TorresandParseval) began on the 10th of August, and was continued throughout the month. The average time of flight of a seaplane on patrol was about three hours, of an airship about twelve hours, so that the airship, which could slacken its speed and hover, had the advantage in observation. The chart printed on p. 363 illustrates the patrols carried out by the two airships on the 13th of August 1914. Here are copies of their logs for the day:
AIRSHIP PATROL. 13thAUGUST, 1914.
AIRSHIP PATROL. 13thAUGUST, 1914.
It will be seen that theParseval, which could not fly for a whole day without landing for the replenishmentof fuel, plied continually between Dover and Calais, while theAstra-Torres, which was the stronger ship, laid her course far to the east and north-east to search the Channel for the approach of hostile craft.
Once the expeditionary force was safely across the Channel, these routine patrols were discontinued, though both airships and seaplanes continued to make special scouting flights over the North Sea and Channel. The main work of the Royal Naval Air Service continued to be coastguard work. At dawn and at sunset patrols were carried out every possible day, scouting the line of the coast. The group which had its centre at the Isle of Grain was entrusted with the defence of the Thames estuary. They had to report the approach of hostile ships and aircraft, to help our submarines in attack, and to warn friendly craft. They had two sub-stations, at Clacton and Westgate, facing each other across the estuary. The monotony of the life was relieved at times by alarms. In September a seaplane on patrol from Felixstowe sighted a Zeppelin. The news was received with enthusiasm, which was damped a little when it was learned that the pilot was some way out to sea, and that his estimate of his distance from the Zeppelin was sixty miles. On the 17th of November the Admiralty suspected an impending raid by German warships, and ordered that all available aeroplanes and seaplanes should be in the air for the daylight patrol of Thursday, the 19th of November. But even war, as the philosopher remarked, has its seamy side, and the enemy did not appear.
This patrol work was tedious and, when the winter came, even dangerous; a few pilots were lost and some spent hours adrift on wrecked seaplanes. Here is the report of a December experience of Squadron Commander J. W. Seddon, over the North Sea:
'I have the honour to report as follows on the circumstancesof my patrol flight with Leading Mechanic R. L. Hartley in Seaplane No. 829 from Grain on Thursday, 17th inst., which ended with the salvage of this seaplane by the Norwegian SteamshipOrn, who took us with the seaplane to Holland; and also on the circumstances of our detention at the Hook of Holland and subsequent release, and of the detention of the seaplane at Rotterdam.
'I was feeling unwell when I left Grain and consequently was continually ill; Leading Mechanic Hartley also was seasick at first.
'The seaplane commenced to settle on the port main float and about 10.30 the port wing float carried away. Leading Mechanic Hartley moved out of his seat on to the starboard plane.
'The starboard wing float carried away about 11.15 a.m. and the trailing edge of the port lower plane was continually disintegrating.
'About noon, or perhaps 11.30 a.m., the Flushing steamer passed from E. to W., but 7 or 8 miles to the Northward, and did not see our signals.
'From then onwards Hartley was continually moving slightly outwards on the plane to counteract the heel to port, and occasional heavy seas occurring every five or ten minutes accumulated small damages.
'I therefore endeavoured to empty the main tank by overflowing through the gravity tank, but the petrol coming back into my face made me more ill, and after half an hour I could not continue.
'At 2.45 p.m., when I was expecting that a T.B.D. might appear to search for us, we sighted a small steamer to the N. Westward and making more or less towards us (some 6 miles distant). Waiting till she was abeam and only some 2 to 3 miles distant I fired my pistol and also waved. These signals did not appear to be observed at first, but finally she turned towards us about 3.15 p.m. and about 3.30 asked us if we wished to be taken off. This steamer proved to be the s.s.Orn(Captain Rewne). He manœuvred and lowered a boat and took us aboard about 4.15 p.m.
'I asked the Captain if he could consider salving the seaplane, being worth as she was about £2,000, while the engine alone was worth £600 or £700.
'He promised to try and I went away in the boat again to the seaplane.
'I was not able to board the seaplane myself (going overboard while assisting one of the crew to do so), but this man got on board the seaplane successfully and made the necessary lines fast.
'After some difficulty and damage to the seaplane through insufficient reach of the derrick, she was got on board and the wings folded by 6.0 p.m.; theOrnactually proceeding on her course shortly before this. No other vessels were sighted during theseoperations. We were picked up about 11 miles east from the Galloper Lightship.
'The Captain of theOrnsaid he could not put back to England on account of there being no lights, but otherwise would have done so.
'The Captain of theOrndid everything possible for us, supplying us with hot coffee, food, and wine, and myself with dry clothes.
'We arrived in Dutch waters about 3.10 a.m. and anchored off the "Hook".'
After attending to the seaplane and taking all possible steps to secure its release by the Dutch Government, Squadron Commander Seddon was successful in obtaining the release of himself and his companion; on the 20th of December they sailed from Rotterdam for Harwich.
The seaplane patrols had not sufficient range to get into touch with the enemy off his own coasts, as the flying boat patrols almost always did in the later years of the war. Nevertheless, the first six months of coastguard work were of high value. They knit the service together, and produced a large body of skilled and practised pilots who prepared themselves or instructed others for later achievement.
An additional station for seaplane and aeroplane work was established at Scapa Flow to carry out patrols over the fleet. The patrols commenced on the 24th of August 1914 and continued daily in all weathers until the 21st of November, when the machines and hangars were completely wrecked in a gale. On the 27th of August 'Seaplanes Nos. 97 and 156 led the Battle Fleet to sea'. These were both Henri Farman seaplanes. There were also two Short seaplanes and a Sopwith Bat boat. A few more were added in the course of the following weeks, and so zealous and efficient were the mechanics that, with all the wear and tear of the daily patrol, not morethan two machines at the most were ever out of action at one time during the first six weeks. Further bases were established during the autumn of 1914 at Newcastle-on-Tyne and Dover, but the lack of serviceable machines curtailed the activities of these stations.
The real dramatic centre of England's effort in the air was to be found, during these months, not at the coastal stations, but in the training schools and workshops. The progress there made, at first invisible, was so rapid that Captain Sueter was able to say in July 1915 that every machine possessed by the Royal Naval Air Service at the outbreak of the war 'is now regarded as fit only for a museum'.
The problem of providing seaplanes with a floating base so that they might operate with the fleet at sea became urgent at once. On the 11th of August the Admiralty, realizing the great utility of aerial scouting with the fleet, took over three cross-Channel steamers from the South-Eastern and Chatham Railway Company—theEmpress, theEngadine, and theRiviera. TheEmpresswas fitted out to carry machines and stores for the Naval Air Service. TheEngadineand theRivierawere structurally altered at Chatham Dockyard, so that they might serve as seaplane-carriers. Later on, in October 1914, theEmpresswas also converted into a seaplane-carrier, and her work as transport and messenger vessel was taken over by thePrincess Victoria.
The whole business of seaplanes was still in the experimental stage, and during the first twelve months of the war there were many disappointments. It was found that the seaplanes, when they were loaded with bombs, could not get off a sea that would hardly distress a picket boat. Proposals for an aerial raid on Wilhelmshaven and the Kiel canal were put forward by the Admiralty on the 13th of August, but the machinery was too imperfect, and the raid did notcome off. But on Christmas Day, 1914, when the weather was propitious, a successful raid was carried out, as shall be seen, against Cuxhaven. In the meantime much experimental work was done at high pressure, and a heavy responsibility fell on the technical staff of the Naval Air Service, who had to place definite orders, a year ahead, for engines to be developed and manufactured upon a large scale. In 1915 this policy produced the 225 horse-power Wight tractor, which could fly for seven hours at a speed of seventy knots, carrying a fair weight of bombs, and the 225 horse-power Short tractor, which could carry five hundredweight of explosives over a distance of three hundred miles. Both these machines could face broken water better than the earlier types, though it was not until the flying boat was perfected that the difficulties presented by a moderate sea were at last overcome.
It was an acute disappointment to the Naval Air Service that the enemy fleet at Wilhelmshaven and the enemy dockyards at Kiel should be left so long unmolested. The tendency to find some one to blame for lost opportunities is always strong in England. We are a strenuous and moral people, and we ask for a very formidable blend of virtues in our leaders. We are proud of the bull-dog breed and the traditions of our navy, but we demand from the bull-dog all the subtlety of the fox. We came through the war with credit not chiefly by intelligence but by character. Perhaps the two are never perfectly combined in one man. We know what it is to entrust our good name and our safety to men of stalwart and upright character, whose intelligence may in some points be open to criticism. Fortunately, we do not so well know what it is to trust our ultimate welfare to men of quick intelligence whose character is not above suspicion. The Lords of the Admiralty, like the rest of thatgreat service, are good fighting sailors and good patriots.
What are called the principles of war, though they can be simply stated, are not easy to learn, and can never be learned from books alone. They are the principles of human nature; and who ever learned from books how to deal successfully with his fellows? War, which drives human nature to its last resources, is a great engine of education, teaching no lessons which it does not illustrate, and enforcing all its lessons by bitter penalties. One of the notorious principles of war, familiar to all who have read books about war, is that a merely defensive attitude is a losing attitude. This truth is as true of games and boxing, or of traffic and bargaining, as it is of war. Every successful huckster is thoroughly versed in the doctrine of the initiative, which he knows by instinct and experience, not by the reading of learned treatises. A man who knows what he wants and means to get it is at a great advantage in traffic with another man who is thinking only of self-defence. Every successful boxer is an expert in military science; he tries either to weaken his adversary by repeated assaults on the vital organs, or to knock him out by a stunning blow. He does not call these operations by the learned names of strategy and tactics, but he knows all about them. The most that a book can do, for trader or boxer or soldier, is to quicken perception and prepare the mind for the teaching of experience.
The experience of the war from beginning to end taught the old lesson of the supreme value of the offensive. The lesson was quickly learned and put to the proof by our forces on the western front. The Royal Naval Air Service, from the first, sought every opportunity for offensive action. Raids over enemy centres, for the reasons which have been given, were impossible to carry out except in the bestof weather. Offensive action in collaboration with ships of war was impeded by the imperfect structure of the seaplanes and the imperfect arrangements for conveying them to the scene of action. Meantime the public, impressed by the dangers to be feared from the Zeppelin, called chiefly for defence. It has never been easy to instruct even the members of the other services concerning the right use of aircraft in war. When once they were reconciled to our aeroplanes they liked to see them in the air above them, which is the place of all places where our aeroplanes are least useful. It is greatly to the credit of those officers who commanded the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service that they divined the right doctrine, and practised it, and established it in use, thereby securing for the air force the liberty to use its power to the best advantage.
The best and most highly trained of the naval air units was the first to be sent abroad. This was the Eastchurch squadron, under Wing Commander Samson. Just after the outbreak of war it had been sent to Skegness, to carry out patrol duties. On the 25th of August its commander was summoned to London by the Director of the Air Department, and was ordered to take his squadron on the following morning to Ostend, which had been chosen to serve as an advanced base for reconnaissance. They were to co-operate with a force of marines. Air Commodore Samson, in the reminiscences which he has kindly contributed for the purpose of this history, speaks with enthusiasm of the men and officers under his command.
'Never once', he says, 'were we let down by our men, and both in France and the Dardanelles they worked like slaves without a single complaint. It is an absolute fact that during these periods I never had to deal with a single disciplinary offence. They were the very pick of the Royal Naval Air Service.'
The pilots, after receiving their orders, were kept waiting for a day at Eastchurch, to give time for the landing of the Marine Brigade. 'This depressed everybody,' says Air Commodore Samson, 'as we were all suffering from the fear of the war being over before we could get a chance to take part in it.' The fear proved groundless.
On the 27th of August there flew over:
An airship (No. 3) was flown across by Wing Commander N. F. Usborne, with him Flight Lieutenant W. C. Hicks and Flight Lieutenant E. H. Sparling. Squadron Commander R. H. Clark Hall, Captain Barnby of the Royal Marines, and four junior officers of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve were attached for special duties. The motor-cars, lorries, and stores were embarked at Sheerness on board H.M.S.Empressand s.s.Rawcliffe. The machines that were flown over were a various assemblage—three B.E. biplanes, two Sopwith biplanes, two Blériot monoplanes, one Henri Farman biplane, one Bristol biplane, and a converted Short seaplane fitted with a land undercarriage in place of the floats. Warrant Officer J. G. Brownridge, R.N., was in charge of the repair and upkeep of the aeroplanes. In these early days there were no distinguishing marks on aeroplanes; it was arranged that every machine should fly a Union Jack lashed to one of its struts, but this was not done.