Throughout the battle tactical reconnaissances had been maintained to a depth of from fifteen to twenty miles behind the German lines. There were some few fights 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 underneath it 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.

CHAPTER VII

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, the Parseval, Astra-Torres, and Beta did good work in the war. Some of the aeroplanes and most of 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. The Mayfly mishap had left us unsupplied with airships of the necessary power and range for naval reconnaissance, nor were the means at hand to 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. Hermes had 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. The Hermes was 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 them must 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 yacht Zenaida, 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.