The War in the Air; Vol. 1 / The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force

by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

The French, then, were ahead of us, and were showing us the way. Of German preparations less was known, and estimates of the German air force, even when made by experts, were largely guesswork. The Zeppelin airships enjoyed a world-wide fame, and there is good reason to think that the German Government practised a certain measure of frankness with regard to their airship establishment in order the more effectively to shroud the very resolute effort they were making to overtake the French in the production of aeroplanes. If ever they thought that the airship alone would do their business, that dream soon passed away. A good deal of valuable information concerning the German air force was obtained in the summer of 1912, just after the formation of the Royal Flying Corps. In June of that year the Technical Sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence (a body whose cumbrous name does no justice to its swift decisions) dispatched two of its members, Captain Sueter and Mr. O'Gorman, to France, Austria, and Germany, to report, primarily, on the whole airship question. In Germany these delegates took occasion to visit five aeroplane factories—the Rumpler, Etrich, Albatross, Harland, and Fokker, besides inspecting various flying grounds and wireless stations. Their report is full of interest. 'No year passes', they remark, 'in which orders equal to our total equipment are not placed by Germany, France, and Italy.' In Germany they found there were thirty airships available, and a large Government factory for rigids 'only thinly pretending to be a private speculation'. They append a list of no fewer than twenty-eight military flying grounds at which there were flying camps. They were deeply impressed by the evidence of large expenditure, direct and indirect, on aerial preparation, and the systematic manner of that expenditure. 'The position of Germany', they say, 'appeared to us to be widely different from what it is described in the English press ... and far more active.' During their trip in the Zeppelin airship Viktoria Luise they were struck with the fervour of popular enthusiasm. 'On passing over villages, isolated farms, &c., everybody turned out and cheered and waved.' This popular enthusiasm was further demonstrated by the substantial evidence of large subscriptions from municipal bodies and private persons. Everywhere they found reason to suspect a certain amount of concealed Government support and subsidy underlying ostensibly private ventures.

This report was presented in July 1912. The technical sub-committee, at a later date, drew some further lessons from it. 'The report', they say, 'shows that German airships have, by repeated voyages, proved their ability to reconnoitre the whole of the German coastline on the North Sea. In any future war with Germany, except in foggy or stormy weather, it is probable that no British war vessels or torpedo craft will be able to approach within many miles of the German coast without their presence being discovered and reported to the enemy. Unless we had obtained command of the air, any idea that our torpedo craft could seek shelter among the Frisian Islands and remain there undetected must be abandoned.... The report also shows that German airships have covered a distance equal to the distance from Germany to the British coast without replenishing fuel.... In favourable weather the German airships can already be employed for reconnaissance over vast areas of the North Sea, and one airship, owing to the extended view from high altitudes under favourable weather conditions, is able to accomplish the work of a large number of scouting cruisers. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of this advantage to Germany. By a systematic and regular patrol of the approaches to the coast, it will be possible in fair weather for German airships to discover the approach of an enemy and to give timely warning of attack, and if the approaches are reported free from the enemy the defenders of the ports and the crews of ships in these ports will be relieved for many hours from the intense and harassing strain caused by uncertainty as to the probability of attack.' Further, the sub-committee point out that the great continental airships, which can easily carry thirty persons, can certainly carry a sufficient weight of bombs to destroy torpedo-craft, dock gates, power stations, magazines, and the like; and that they are far less dependent on favourable weather than is generally supposed. 'In short, every one of the strategical and tactical advantages which the Committee of Imperial Defence anticipated in 1909 when recommending the construction of a rigid airship for the Navy, has been, or is in a fair way of being, realized by the German airships. These results have only been attained by perseverance under the most discouraging conditions of disaster and loss.'

The total air force possessed by Great Britain, to set over against these great foreign organizations, consisted of two small army airships, named Beta and Gamma, and a very small number of aeroplanes.

The report of Captain Sueter and Mr. O'Gorman put the whole matter in a new light, and showed the need for action. In regard to aeroplanes, this action had already been taken. In the winter of 1911-12 the sub-committee had recommended the formation of a corps of aviators; and this recommendation, as shall be told in the next chapter, had been promptly carried into effect. As for airships, which chiefly concerned the navy, the question was now not whether the Admiralty were willing to take up experimental work with a newfangled invention, but whether they could afford to neglect a weapon of certain value, which might prove to be a determining factor in war. Airships of the largest size and power must be provided, said the sub-committee, in the near future. But to build these airships at once, they were agreed, would be to court disaster. A large airship is of little use to men who have had no training in the handling and navigation of airships. Such experience as was available was to be found at the Royal Aircraft Factory, which had produced and flown airships for military purposes. The Admiralty responded at once; in September 1912 the naval airship section, which had been disbanded earlier in the year, was reconstituted, and Commander E. A. D. Masterman, Lieutenants N. F. Usborne, F. L. M. Boothby, and H. L. Woodcock, and a small number of ratings were attached to the airship squadron of the Military Wing at Farnborough, to gain experience of work with airships. The airships themselves were to be supplied from various sources. The factory was to build a new airship of the Gamma type. A small Willows airship, which happened to be on the market, though it had no military value, was held to be worth its cost for training purposes. The sub-committee also recommended the purchase of two foreign airships. Here there were difficulties. The best airships of Germany were the rigid Zeppelin and the semi-rigid Parseval. The Zeppelin Company was forbidden by the German Government to sell its ships to foreigners; but negotiations for the purchase of a Parseval airship were successful. An Astra-Torres non-rigid airship of about 400,000 cubic feet of capacity was acquired from France in the course of the year 1913. In July of the same year Mr. Winston Churchill, the then First Lord of the Admiralty, who regularly gave his strong support to naval aeronautics, approved of the construction of two rigid airships and six non-rigid airships. Treasury sanction was obtained for this programme. The rigid airships were to be built by Messrs. Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness. Of the six non-rigids, three were to be of the Parseval type, and three of the Forlanini type. One of the Parsevals was to be built in Germany, and two by Messrs. Vickers, who had succeeded in obtaining a licence for the construction of this type of ship; one of the Forlaninis was to be built in Italy, and two by Messrs. Armstrong Whitworth. When the war broke out, the Parseval airship completing in Germany was confiscated by the German Government; and the Forlanini airship, under process of construction in Italy, was retained by the Italian Government. The building of one of the rigid airships had just begun, and work on it was for a time abandoned. It is necessary thus to anticipate later events, in order to show how it came about that no airships of the larger type, suitable for distant reconnaissance with the fleet, were in the service of Great Britain during the war.

The building and manœuvring of airships is not a pastime within the reach of a private purse. The British Government had taken advantage of the enterprise and rivalry of private makers of aeroplanes, whom it wisely permitted to run the risks and show the way. No such policy was possible in the manufacture of airships, which is essentially a Government business. There was therefore, it is perhaps not fanciful to say, something agreeable to the German temper, and disagreeable to the English temper, in the airship as a weapon of war. The Germans put an absolute trust in their Government. Yet, after all, it is the spirit of a people that matters; the most magnificent and exclusive of Government organizations will fail through weakness if it is not ultimately based on the voluntary efforts and ingrained habits of the people who stand behind the Government and support it. The German navy was a powerful and splendid growth, fostered by the Government. But it was a forced growth, and the failure of the German operations at sea, regarded broadly, must be credited not to the British navy, but to the whole body of British seamen, naval and civilian. The British navy was at its appointed stations; the temper of a seafaring people, self-reliant, resourceful, and indomitable, was everywhere, and shone like a phosphorescence over thousands of unregarded acts of sacrifice.

The private enterprises of officers and men in the navy are limited by the conditions of the service, but such opportunities as could be found or made were not neglected. While the Mayfly was building at Barrow-in-Furness Commander Oliver Swann purchased an Avro aeroplane and with the help of subscriptions from other officers and officers' wives made many experiments with a view to adapting it for work over the water. He tried different types of floats on the machine, and at last, on the 18th of November 1911, he succeeded in getting off the water for a very short flight. He was the first in England to achieve this feat, and from that time forward the development of seaplanes progressed rapidly. A full account of these experiments was sent by Captain Sueter to Lord Rayleigh's Advisory Committee, and thereafter a valuable series of researches was conducted at the National Physical Laboratory by Mr. G. S. Baker and others. One result of these researches was the development of a boat-shaped type of float, with flared bows, in addition to the toboggan shape.

Experiment was active also at Eastchurch. During the summer of 1911 the four naval officers whom Mr. Cockburn had taught to fly continued to make practice flights on the two machines supplied by Mr. McClean. In October Lieutenant Samson succeeded in persuading the Admiralty to buy the two aeroplanes and to send to Eastchurch twelve naval ratings, as the basis of a naval flying school. The experiments of this little band of pioneers were all directed to adapting the aeroplane to naval work. Lieutenant Longmore and Mr. Oswald Short designed and tested airbags, by the aid of which a machine successfully alighted on the water. Lieutenant Samson designed and got leave to build in Chatham Dockyard a platform with a double trackway for starting aeroplanes from the decks of ships. The idea at this time was that the machine should start from the ship and by the aid of the airbags should alight on the water under the lee of the ship, whence it could be lifted on board. The platform was erected on board H.M.S. Africa, and Lieutenant Samson made a successful flight from it in December 1911. Thereafter, with the help of Mr. Horace Short, he worked out a design for a seaplane; the machine was completed in March 1912 and its first flight was made at Portland. On this seaplane Lieutenant Samson flew, first and last, for about a hundred and fifty hours, without breaking a strut or a float, which is a signal testimony to the merits of both the design and the construction. The Royal Aircraft Factory, working for the Air Department of the Admiralty, also produced a seaplane, which was successfully tested on Fleet Pond. Meantime the first flying boat had been designed by Mr. Sopwith, so that all the material requisite for naval aviation was rapidly making its appearance. If the number of aviators was still very small, that was due to lack of opportunity, not to lack of zeal among naval officers. When the original four were taught to fly their names were selected from a list of about two hundred, all of whom had volunteered for the new service.

Scattered incidents and experiments, like those narrated above, are what make up the history of the beginnings of the national air force. In such a story no closely-knit dramatic sequence is possible. The history of the growth of an oak tree from an acorn may perhaps be told in dramatic form, but who can tell the history of the obscure workings of yeast, or of the growth of a field of grass? The earliest aviators were self-willed and diverse. As Captain Bertram Dickson remarked, when he was questioned concerning their enrolment for the national service, 'One man is a rich man; another man is an artist, or he is an actor; another man is a mechanic. They are funny fellows. You will get a certain number if you pay them well, because they are out for making money; you will get others who will do it for sport, and others who will do it for the advertisement.' The problem for the Government and for those who advised the Government was how to make a united body out of these odds and ends; how to reduce these talented, excitable, artistic, highly individual elements to the discipline and purpose of a great service. Two admirable instructors were at hand—the army and the navy. The thing had to be done quickly, and most of those soldiers and sailors who realized the importance of the problem were agreed in thinking that the only right way was to get the army and the navy each of them to develop its air service. Some others, looking at the thing in a broader light, held that the air should have its own service. The laws and habits of the land, they argued, are not the laws and habits of the sea; surely the air differs from both of them as much as they differ from each other. But this opinion could not be acted on at short notice. A great service cannot be built up from the beginning in one year, or even in the lifetime of one generation of men. Time is needed; and time was what was lacking. The only resource for immediate purposes was to engage the sympathies of the army and the navy, who are always willing to co-operate, though never to coalesce, and let each of them build, up its own air service after its own fashion. A certain formal unity, which might by degrees become a real unity, could be given to the two air services by the magic of a uniform and a name.

Meantime, what of the Air Battalion, which was formed in the spring of 1911, and continued in being until it was annulled and superseded by the formation of the Royal Flying Corps in the spring of 1912? The Air Battalion numbered among its officers men distinguished for their achievement, but it was born out of due time. These years, 1911 and 1912, were years of divided counsels and uncertain policy. Rumours and reports of the passenger-carrying flights of the Zeppelin, which by this time had outlived its early misfortunes, and of the formidable development of the French military aeroplane, distracted opinion and paralysed effort. The old debate between heavier than air and lighter than air was reopened. England could not hope to overtake Germany in the construction of airships; could she hope to match France in the production of aeroplanes? And if she could, was there not a chance, after all, that the future, even for military purposes, lay with the airship? The very composition of the Air Battalion reflected these uncertainties. Its headquarters were at Farnborough; the flying camp for aeroplanes was at Larkhill. Sir Alexander Bannerman, who was in command, was a balloon expert, with a distinguished record in the South African and Russo-Japanese wars. At a later date, in April 1912, he qualified as an aviator on a Bristol biplane at Brooklands. His adjutant, Captain P. W. L. Broke-Smith, had been an instructor at the balloon school, and was a skilled military airship pilot. Of the officers attached, Captain J. D. B. Fulton, of the Royal Field Artillery, and Captain C. J. Burke, of the Royal Irish Regiment, have inscribed their names on the history of aviation; Captain A. D. Carden, of the Royal Engineers, and Captain E. M. Maitland, of the Essex Regiment, were apostles of the airship. Captain Carden was an expert in meteorology, and Captain Maitland's name will long be remembered in connexion with the first airship flight across the Atlantic, achieved by the R 34, piloted by Major G. H. Scott, in July 1919. The gradual rise in esteem of aviation is witnessed by the fact that during the last days of the Air Battalion's short career not only Sir Alexander Bannerman but also Captain Broke-Smith and Captain Carden were engaged in qualifying for the aviation certificate of the Royal Aero Club. There is, of course, no inconsistency in the union of the two methods; the Air Battalion took all aeronautics for its province; there need be no falling out between the aeroplane pilot and the airship pilot so long as each recognizes and believes in the other. What most delayed progress was that the higher authorities did not know what to encourage. The most valuable work done for the national air force in the winter of 1911-12 was done in committee at Whitehall, where the whole matter was conscientiously investigated, and the scheme of the Royal Flying Corps was prepared. Meantime the Air Battalion, in view of its probable speedy extinction, received very little support. The number of aeroplanes supplied to the flying camp at Larkhill was almost ludicrously small, and a large proportion of the time spent in training was devoted to theory and observation work.

The difficulties of the position appear in a memorandum sent by the commandant on the 25th of August 1911 to the chief engineer at Aldershot. This memorandum discusses the employment of the battalion during the coming winter, and recommends that No. 2 Company (that is, the aeroplane company) be recalled to Farnborough for a time, 'in order that the men may live in barracks, do a little drill, and be generally smartened up'. But as some new machines will need trying during the winter, a detachment of the company, it is suggested, should be kept on Salisbury Plain, and its members changed from time to time, so as to prevent the discipline of the company from becoming too lax. Further it is urged that extra leave for a period of two months should be granted to officers, so that they may go abroad and see what is being done in foreign countries. In discussing the question of special pay for officers the commandant remarks that there is a tendency to devote attention solely to aeroplanes. 'At present there are, I believe, forty applicants for vacancies with the aeroplanes, and as far as I know none for work with the dirigibles.' If the rates of pay were made less for dirigibles than for aeroplanes, as is done in foreign countries, this difficulty, he says, would be accentuated.