The Royal Naval Air Service
"The human bird shall take his first flight, filling the world with amazement, all writings with his fame, and bringing eternal glory to the nest whence he sprang."
Leonardo da Vinci.
"The feathered race on pinions skim the air,
Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear;
Ah! who hath seen the mailèd lobster rise,
Clap her broad wings, and claim the equal skies?"
Poem in The Anti-Jacobin.
"The French are all coming, for so they declare;
Of their floats and balloons all the papers advise us;
They're to swim through the ocean and ride on the air,
On some foggy evening to land and surprise us."
The Invasion. Dibdin.
We have had a good many surprises during the Great War, and so also have the enemy; but the fine record of the British air service is not the least of them. It is not that we had not every confidence in the pluck and resourcefulness of our gallant British flying-men, but, if we may trust available sources of information, we began the war miles behind our French friends and our German foes, both in numbers and organization.
Of course no exact figures can be quoted, but, according to an authority on aeronautic matters,[102] Germany alone was in possession of a thoroughly organized and equipped fleet of 1300 aeroplanes. According to the same authority, Austria had about 100, France 800, and Russia 300, while we ourselves are credited with 100 machines belonging to the military wing of the air service, besides those in the naval wing, whose number is not forthcoming, but which, I think, may fairly be put down at well below a hundred. Neither we nor our allies had more than three or four air-ships or dirigible balloons, while Germany had a fleet of nearly twenty, most being of the famous Zeppelin type, from which very great things were expected. The naval and military authorities in this country either did not or would not believe in these "gas-bags", and, so far, events seem to have proved that they were correct in their views.
In every estimate of the strength of navies we must not only make comparisons of material, but of personnel. "The man behind the gun" is a factor of the highest importance, and it is here that we "came in", handicapped as we were in other respects. I do not think that I can do better than again quote the same authority on this point. As regards the enemy, his estimate of the German air personnel is that its pilots were "mediocre, with a few brilliant exceptions". The Austrians were "brave and skilful pilots badly organized". As to our allies, he considers the French to have had "a very uneven air service". "Many magnificent fliers, many very bad"; while the Russians possessed "numerous skilful and daring aviators, but not very well equipped". We must not overlook the little Belgian squadron of five-and-twenty aeroplanes, which he assesses as "good", both in men and machines. We may, without vanity, accept his estimate of our own aerial establishment as "a small but highly efficient flying corps", since its efficiency has been proved over and over again.
The "Royal Flying Corps" only dates from a few years ago, and we are principally indebted to Major-General—then Lieutenant-Colonel—Sir David Henderson, K.C.B., D.S.O., for its formation. He had no easy job before him when he took the matter in hand, since neither Admiralty nor War Office appeared to be in any hurry to attain a commanding position in the novel arm, in spite of the great efforts being made by France, and more especially by Germany. However, nothing daunted, he made the very best possible of the small beginnings he was able to deal with, and we are now reaping the harvest he sowed. For a time naval and military officers and men worked together, but gradually, as numbers increased, drew rather more apart, and the naval wing had its own flying-schools at Eastchurch, near Sheerness, and at Upavon, near Salisbury, its central air office at Sheerness, an establishment at Hendon, and nine or ten air stations on the coast.
At the beginning of the war, confident in their numbers and organization, the German aviators showed considerable boldness, and their skilfulness in picking out our guns and positions, and signalling them by flares, strips of glittering tinsel, circling movements, and other devices to their gunners, rendered the fire of their artillery—which at first greatly outnumbered that of the Allies—very deadly indeed. Our own airmen were by no means such adepts at this particular work to begin with, but, few as they were, they soon proved themselves the better men. They worked on the old principle that so often brought us victory afloat in Nelsonian days. "Directly you see an enemy go for him." This system of fighting enabled Sir John French to report, quite early in the campaign, that "The British Flying Corps has succeeded in establishing an individual ascendancy which is as serviceable to us as it is damaging to the enemy. . . . Something in the direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained." The fact was that the very qualities of preciseness, method, painstaking, and avoidance of risk which make the German so formidable in some respects do not fit in where such warfare is concerned.