The discovery, or rather the practical development, of new uses for aircraft in war quickened the demand for additional squadrons and made it easier for the two branches of the air service to co-operate. As the war progressed aerial fighting and bomb-dropping became more and more important. These were new arts, and required no special naval or military training; they belonged to the air. When the Fokker fighting monoplane appeared in strength on the western front in the early months of 1916, the losses of the Royal Flying Corps in reconnaissance and artillery observation became very heavy. It was then that the Admiralty were again appealed to for help, and four Nieuport scouts, with pilots and mechanics, were dispatched from Eastchurch, arriving at the aerodrome of No. 6 Squadron, at Abeele, between Cassel and Poperinghe, on the 29th of March 1916. Before this time the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps in the Ypres salient had had only the barest acquaintance with the pilots of the Naval Air Service at Dunkirk. Some of the earlier Flying Corps pilots had met those of the other service at the Central Flying School; some of the later pilots had had occasion to land at Dunkirk and had been filled with admiration and envy when they were shown the machines and equipment belonging to the Naval Air Service. Sometimes a naval pilot, flying a little south of his usual beat, would come across a military pilot in the air, and the two would make some token of recognition. But the four naval Nieuport scouts of March 1916 sent to the salient to help to meet the attacks of German fighting scouts were the first naval detachment to co-operate with the Royal Flying Corps in the field under military command. The experiment, though it lasted only for eighteen days, was a success. The naval officers and ratings were treated royally, as guests, and there was complete harmony between the two services. The little Nieuport scouts brought reassurance to the lonely artillery pilots on the front, and had a happy effect on the German fighting pilots, who were led to suspect the presence of a whole new squadron of Nieuports. On the 16th of April No. 29 Fighting Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, which had been delayed by accidents, arrived at Abeele, and the naval machines returned to Dunkirk.
This experiment showed the way and encouraged fuller measures. During the battles of the Somme, which began on the 1st of July 1916, the Royal Flying Corps maintained a resolute and continuous offensive over the enemy lines. They suffered very heavy casualties, at a time when training and construction at home, which were in process of development, were unable to make good all the losses. Then the Admiralty, on the urgent appeal of the Army Council, agreed to detach from the Dunkirk command a complete squadron of eighteen fighting aeroplanes, under Squadron Commander G. M. Bromet, for temporary duty with the army. The squadron consisted of six two-seater Sopwiths, six single-seater Sopwiths, and six Nieuport scouts. They arrived at Vert Galand aerodrome, which is situated eleven miles north of Amiens on the Amiens-Doullens road, on the 16th of October 1916. After three weeks spent in machine-gun practice and flights to learn the country, the first full day's work was done on the 9th of November. There were many combats, and three enemy machines were driven down in a damaged condition. This squadron continued to operate with the army in France.
By the beginning of 1917 there were in France, working wholly with the army, thirty-eight Royal Flying Corps squadrons; that is to say, nineteen artillery squadrons and nineteen fighting squadrons; and the one fighting squadron belonging to the Royal Naval Air Service. It was anticipated that the Germans, who had appointed a single officer, General von Hoeppner, to take charge of all their military aircraft, and had produced several improved types of machine, would make a great effort in the spring of 1917 to recapture the air. To meet this effort more fighting squadrons were needed. The machinery at home for the reinforcement of the Royal Flying Corps was working at high pressure, and could not at once supply the need. So an appeal was once more addressed to the Admiralty, who agreed to provide four more fighting squadrons to be used on the western front. These squadrons made a punctual appearance, and during the earlier half of 1917 did magnificent work in helping to maintain the British supremacy in the air. Naval Squadron No. 3, for instance, under Squadron Commander R. H. Mulock, was at work on the western front from the beginning of February to the middle of June. During this time it accounted for eighty enemy aircraft with a loss of only nine machines missing, and provided highly respected escorts for photographic reconnaissances and bomb raids. From July 1917 onwards the naval squadrons, having bridged the gap, were gradually replaced by squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps, and were returned to Dunkirk.
The loan of these squadrons naturally diminished the force available for aerial operations under naval control, but the spirit in which the help was given is well expressed in a letter of Wing Captain C. L. Lambe, who was in command of the naval air forces at Dover and Dunkirk. Writing in August 1917 he points out the serious effects on the force under his command of the wastage of pilots, but concludes: 'I would remark however that the loan of these squadrons to the Royal Flying Corps must have been of the greatest value to the Empire, since the official record issued by the Royal Flying Corps states that up to August 3rd, 1917, a hundred and twenty-one enemy machines have been destroyed by naval squadrons, and two hundred and forty have been driven down out of control.'
When help was needed by the army, it was generously given by the navy, but the difficulties which inevitably present themselves when the attempt is made to secure the smooth and efficient collaboration of two separate forces cannot be solved by generous feeling. Most men are willing to help their country, but a country's revenue cannot be raised by free gift. Without justice and certainty there can be no efficiency, and for justice and certainty law and regulation are required. The chief administrative problem of the war in the air had its origin in the need for a large measure of co-operation between the military and naval air forces. The repeated attempts to solve this problem, the problem of unity of control, by the establishment of successive Air Boards, and the achieved solution of it by the amalgamation in 1918 of the two services under the control of an Air Ministry—these events took almost as long as the war to happen; indeed the story of them might truly be called the Constitutional History of the War in the Air. That story cannot be told here; it shall be told at a later point, in connexion with the foundation of the Royal Air Force. The method of government of the Royal Flying Corps has already been described; all that can fitly be attempted here is a brief account of the government of the Royal Naval Air Service, and the earlier vicissitudes of that government.
The union of the two wings of the Royal Flying Corps, that is to say, of the original Naval and Military Wings, was a one-sided and imperfect union, because the Royal Flying Corps, in its inception, was under the control of the War Office. The naval officers who joined the Naval Wing remained under the control of the Admiralty, and before the war the Admiralty had established an Air Department, with Captain Murray Sueter as its Director, to be responsible for the development of naval aeronautics. But the Director was less happily situated than his military counterpart, the Director-General of Military Aeronautics at the War Office, who, it will be remembered, dealt at first hand with the Secretary of State for War. The Naval Director of the Air Department had less power and less independence. From the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys, throughout the eighteenth century, and down to the year 1832, the navy had been administered by the office of the Lord High Admiral, assisted by a Navy Board, which was composed, for the most part, of civilian members of Parliament. In 1832 the Navy Board was abolished, and the modern Board of Admiralty was created to control the navy. The business of this Board was divided up among its various members. Finance fell to the Parliamentary Secretary; works, buildings, contracts, and dockyard business were the portion of the Civil Lords; while all kinds of service business, that is to say, preparation for war, distribution of the fleet, training, equipment, and the like, were assigned to one or other of the Sea Lords. When the Air Department was formed to take charge of the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, its Director was not only generally responsible to the Board of Admiralty, he was responsible to each of the Sea Lords in matters connected with that Sea Lord's department. This divided responsibility, which, by old custom, works well enough in a body with established traditions, like the navy, was not a good scheme for controlling the unprecedented duties, or for encouraging the unexampled activities, of an air force.
When the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was first established, in 1912, H.M.S. Hermes, under the command of Captain G. W. Vivian, was commissioned as its headquarters. During the following year naval air stations came into being at the Isle of Grain, at Calshot, Felixstowe, Yarmouth, and Cromarty, and in December 1913 the duties of the captain of the Hermes were taken over by Captain F. R. Scarlett, who was given the newly created post of Inspecting Captain of Aircraft, with headquarters at the Central Air Office, Sheerness. At the time of the outbreak of war the Royal Naval Air Service was administered by the Admiralty, and consisted of the Air Department at Whitehall, the Central Air Office at Sheerness, the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch, the various naval air stations, and such aircraft as were available for naval purposes. The Sheerness office was under the Nore command, and the Inspecting Captain of Aircraft, who took his instructions from the Director of the Air Department, was also responsible to the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleets in all matters relating to aircraft operations with the main fleet.
The coming of the war soon multiplied air stations as well as aircraft; inland stations were established at Hendon, Chingford, Wormwood Scrubbs, and Roehampton; squadrons were dispatched abroad, and seaplane ships were commissioned; so that efficient control by the Nore command was no longer possible. In February 1915 the Admiralty decided that the whole of the Royal Naval Air Service should be forthwith placed under the orders of the Director of the Air Department, who was to be solely responsible to the Board of Admiralty. The Central Air Office was abolished, and Captain Scarlett was appointed to the staff of the Air Department to carry out inspection duties.
When this decision took effect in Admiralty Weekly Orders, certain points of difficulty were at once raised by the Commander-in-Chief of the Nore. 'Is the personnel of the air stations', he asked, 'to be subject to local Port Orders? I can hardly imagine that their Lordships intend otherwise. There are 77 officers and 530 men, including 94 naval ratings, in the three air establishments at present in my command (Eastchurch, Grain, and Kingsnorth), and it is understood that these numbers will shortly be increased by the personnel of three additional air stations (Clacton, Westgate, and Maidstone).' Further, he asked whether the Commander-in-Chief was to remain the controlling authority with regard to punishments; and he added, 'I strongly urge the re-establishment of some Central Air Authority in the port under my command with whom I can deal on defence and other important matters without reference to the individual air stations, which may often be commanded by officers of small naval experience to whom the naval aspect of the situation may not especially appeal.'
It was felt in the air service that owing to the technical nature of the work the question of punishments should not be relegated to any one outside the air service. The Commander-in-Chief of the Nore had invoked the King's Regulations, so the question was referred to the naval law branch of the Admiralty, which, in April 1915, replied that 'the discipline of the air service is governed entirely by the King's Regulations, which provide that the powers conferred upon commanding officers by the Naval Discipline Act shall be subject to the approval of a Flag officer whose flag is flying or the Senior Naval Officer.... As a matter of fact the Director of the Air Department has no disciplinary power under the Naval Discipline Act, and the reference of warrants to him would neither be in accordance with the King's Regulations nor the Naval Discipline Act.'