"The operations" (i.e. of June 7th, 1917), it says, "were prefaced by innumerable enemy airmen, who, at the beginning of the preparation for the attack, appeared like a swarm of locusts and swamped the front. They also work on cunningly calculated methods. Their habit is to work in three layers—one quite high, one in the middle, and the third quite low. The English who fly lowest show an immense insolence; they came down to 200 metres and shot at our troops with their machine guns, which are specially adapted to this purpose."

Armour was first employed as a result of Shephard finding at Maubeuge a bullet lodged in the seat of his leather suit. Thin sheets of steel were at once cut out and placed in the wickerwork seats of aeroplanes. This primitive protection developed into the armoured machine mentioned later, which was about to make its appearance at the Armistice.

I may mention here the "special duty" flights, which consisted in establishing secret communication between our Intelligence Branch and agents in the territory occupied by the Germans. Agents, mostly French and Belgian, were carried by aeroplane over the enemy lines and landed there. This work was started in 1914.

Fighting.

At the beginning of the war it became obvious that it was not only the duty of aircraft to obtain information but also to prevent enemy aircraft crossing our lines. In addition to the reconnaissance machine, and in order to make its work possible, a machine designed purely for fighting was required. In August, 1914, the aeroplane's armament consisted simply of rifle, or carbine, and revolver, but our pilots nevertheless attacked hostile machines whenever the opportunity occurred. The first German machine to fly over us was at Maubeuge on August 22nd, 1914, and, though fighting on an extensive scale did not take place until 1916, as early as August 25th, 1914, there were three encounters in the air in which two enemy machines were driven down. One interesting report of an early fight is that between a B.E. and a German machine on December 20th, 1914.

"A German aeroplane with one passenger and pilot being encountered over Poperinghe, we followed to Morbecque and then to Armentières. The passenger of the B.E. fired 40 rounds from his rifle and the German passenger replied with some rounds from his revolver. The B.E. crossed the bows of the German machine to permit the pilot to use his revolver. The German switched off and dived below the B.E., and is believed to have landed somewhere north-west of Lille."

Another instance of the early air combats was when Holt, single-handed, and armed only with a rifle, lashed to a strut of his machine, attacked ten Germans near Dunkirk, causing them to drop their bombs in the field and make off to their own lines.

We managed to bring down a number of German machines, mainly by rifle fire (five had already been brought down by September 7th, 1914), but our great difficulty early in the war was to get the enemy into action, and, although during October and November, 1914, there was a certain amount of fighting, as a rule the German when attacked made for his own lines and the protection of his anti-aircraft guns. This, though offensive carried to the extent of wastefulness of life is equally bad, was a serious mistake in all ways from his point of view, entailing as it did a tendency for the confidence of the troops and the morale of the air service to be undermined from the outset. The error was rectified, but only temporarily, at the Somme.

As the specialized duties of aircraft increased, the Corps machines engaged in them needed protection and it was realized that the best method of protection was the development of the air offensive. This was rendered possible by the adaptation of the machine gun to the aeroplane. Early in 1915 the invention of the "synchronizing gear" enabled a machine gun to fire through the propeller, and by the end of 1915 fighting in the air became the general rule. The first squadron, No. 24, composed purely of fighting machines, took its place on the Western Front in February, 1916, and gradually Wings were attached to Armies solely for fighting and the protection of Corps machines. During the long months of the Battle of the Somme, for instance, when, though the Royal Flying Corps dominated the air, the Germans put up a strenuous opposition, bombing machines were protected by fighting patrols in formation on the far side of the points attacked. The rapidity with which fighting in the air developed is shown by the fact that at the end of 1916 twenty new fighting squadrons were asked for on the Western Front; the establishment was increased to twenty-four machines per squadron, and by the end of the war even night-fighting squadrons were operating with considerable success and, had the war continued, would have proved a very important factor in air warfare.

The development of aerobatics, air fighting, and formation tactics brought many airmen into prominence. For example Albert Ball, who ascribed his successes to keen application to aerial gunnery; J. B. McCudden, the first man to bring four hostile machines down in a day; and Trollope, who later on brought down six. Hawker met his death fighting von Richthofen, who describes the fight in his book The Red Air Fighter as follows:—