Great Britain wants all the machines of this type that it can get, and sees no reason why we cannot do the same thing in protecting our own Atlantic seaboard. I quote from C. G. Grey, editor of The London Aeroplane:
"Curiously enough, these big flying boats originated in America, and, if America is seriously perturbed about the fate of American shipping and American citizens travelling by sea in the vicinity of Europe, it should not be a difficult matter for America to rig up in a very small space of time quite a fleet of seaplane carriers suitable for the handling of these big seaplanes. If each seaplane ship were armed with guns having a range of five to ten miles, and if the gunners were practised in co-operating with airplane spotters, such ships ought to be the very best possible insurance for American lives and goods on the high seas."
I quote from The Associated Press report from Paris on May 14th to show the relative importance of aëroplanes in submarine attacks:
"During the last three months French patrol boats have had twelve engagements with submarines, French hydroaëroplanes have fought them thirteen times, and there have been sixteen engagements between armed merchantmen and submarines."
Henry Woodhouse, one of the most distinguished authorities on aeronautics in the United States, in his standard Textbook on Naval Aeronautics, published by the Century Company, has assembled the following data on submarine and aeroplane combats:
"On May 4, 1915, the German Admiralty reported an engagement between a German dirigible and several British submarines in the North Sea. The submarines fired on the dirigible without success, whereas bombs from the dirigible sank one submarine.
"On May 31, 1915, the German Admiralty announced the sinking of a Russian submarine by bombs dropped by German naval aviators near Gotland.
"On July 1, 1915, the Austrian submarine U-11 was destroyed in the Adriatic by a French aeroplane, which swooped suddenly and dropped three bombs directly on the deck of the submarine. The craft was destroyed and the entire crew of twenty-five were lost.
"On July 27, 1915, a German submarine in the Dardanelles was about to launch a torpedo at a British transport filled with troops and ammunition, when British aviators gave the alarm to the transport, and immediately began dropping bombs at the submarine, which had to submerge and escape hurriedly, without launching its torpedo.
"On August 19, 1915, the Turkish War Office stated that an Allied submarine had been sunk in the Dardanelles by a Turkish aeroplane.