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. Empress and 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.
PREPARED IN THE HISTORICAL SECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE.
COMMANDER SAMSON'S OPERATIONS IN BELGIUM.
The whole force arrived in safety, with only one or two minor mishaps. Wing Commander Samson was fired at by rifles as he was coming down, and after landing was stalked by a couple of British marines, who had come to Belgium to shoot Germans and were aching to get to work.
The force remained at Ostend for three days only. There was no artillery except the guns of the ships lying off the port, and the Marine Brigade had only about half a dozen machine-guns. The defence of Ostend against a German attack in force would have been more than difficult. The aeroplanes carried out reconnaissance flights daily over the area between Bruges, Ghent, and Ypres, and, on the suggestion of General Aston, who commanded the Marine Brigade, Wing Commander Samson made a motor-car reconnaissance as far as Thourout and Bruges, in two cars, one of them fitted with a Maxim gun. 'At Bruges', says Air Commodore Samson, 'we were received with great enthusiasm, the streets being crowded with people. The popular delusion, which we did not contradict, was that we were the advance party of a large British army. The Civil Guard hastily donned their uniform on our arrival, and turned out briskly, with weapons and valour. They used, we found out later, to be quick-change artists, from uniform to plain clothes, and vice versa, according to the circumstances. Having gained some information in the town, we returned to Ostend. The whole party enjoyed themselves immensely, although some of the more bloodthirsty members were disappointed at not getting a fight. This trip made us consider the question of motor-car operations, and ideas were discussed for armouring the cars.'
On the 30th of August orders came that the Marine Brigade and the aeroplane squadron should return at once to England. It was a depressed party that loaded up the stores and transport on board H.M.S. Empress and the attendant collier. The aeroplanes flew by way of Dunkirk, where there was a slight haze and they landed. Lord Edward Grosvenor made a faulty landing, and crashed his Blériot beyond all hopes of repair. This accident, which would have been treated as insignificant if it had occurred on the way out, proved important enough to delay the aeroplanes for three days at Dunkirk. During this time General Bidon, who commanded the French troops at Dunkirk, and Mr. Sarel, the British vice-consul, made urgent representations to the British Foreign Office, pleading that the squadron should be permitted, for military and diplomatic reasons, to co-operate with the French. Meantime, two of the aeroplanes carried out a reconnaissance towards Lille and Douai. On the 1st of September a telegram came from the Admiralty ordering that the squadron should remain at Dunkirk, to operate against Zeppelins and enemy aeroplanes, and to carry out reconnaissances as required by the French general. The policy that was now adopted was subsequently explained at greater length in an Admiralty telegram to the French Ministry of Marine:
'The Admiralty considers it extremely important to deny the use of territory within a hundred miles of Dunkirk to German Zeppelins, and to attack by aeroplanes all airships found replenishing there. With your permission the Admiralty wish to take all necessary measures to maintain aerial command of this region. The Admiralty proposes therefore to place thirty or forty naval aeroplanes at Dunkirk or other convenient coast points. In order that these may have a good radius of action they must be able to establish temporary bases forty to fifty miles inland. The Admiralty desires to reinforce officer commanding aeroplanes with fifty to sixty armed motor-cars and two hundred to three hundred men. This small force will operate in conformity with the wishes of the French military authorities, but we hope it may be accorded a free initiative. The immunity of Portsmouth, Chatham, and London from dangerous aerial attack is clearly involved.'
So this little naval force began at once to operate from Dunkirk, carrying out reconnaissances by aeroplane, and using motor-cars for raids on the flank of the German communications. It gave assistance to the French and put heart into the much-tried civil population of Belgium. Most of the work at first was done with motor-cars, for the aeroplanes were few in number.
On the 4th of September Wing Commander Samson, having started out with two cars, one of them fitted with a Maxim gun, heard at Cassel by telephone that six German officers in a motor-car had just passed through Bailleul on their way to Cassel. The steep hill down from Cassel to the plain beneath offered him an excellent point of vantage to lie in wait for them, but he was unwilling to take it, for a fight close to the town would have given the Germans an excuse for pretending that they had been attacked by civilians, and for shooting some of the inhabitants. So he went out to meet them, and engaged them at a range of five hundred yards on the Cassel-Bailleul road. Two of the Germans were wounded, and their car made off to Bailleul. Wing Commander Samson lay in wait for them for almost two hours, in the hope that they would return reinforced to continue the engagement. During this time an old French captain of gendarmes, about sixty-five years of age, with a long-barrelled pistol, arrived in a limousine, accompanied by his wife. He had raised a little army of ten gendarmes, who came up soon after, armed with carbines. Madame and the limousine then retired from the battle-field, while the gallant captain disposed his army behind the hedge to await the return of the enemy. But the enemy did not return; a message from the Bailleul post office told how they had halted only three minutes in Bailleul, and how they and all the other German military cars in Bailleul had gone back post-haste to Lille, leaving behind them a quantity of wine which they had collected from the residents. 'We had a tremendous reception', says Air Commodore Samson, 'from the inhabitants of Cassel, who had enjoyed a splendid view of our little engagement from their commanding position on the hill-top. I was pleased that they had seen Germans running away, as it would remove from their minds that 1870 feeling which there is little doubt the Germans still produced in the minds of civilian Frenchmen. This fight gave us a prestige in the villages greater than its result called for. Probably the six German officers reported that they had run up against tremendous odds.'