Aviation in Peace and War Part 2

The problem as to how far aircraft would reduce the value of cavalry was widely discussed before the war. It was seen that by day aircraft could obtain quicker and more accurate information, but that cavalry retained their power of night reconnaissance, of mobile offensive action and of pinning the enemy to his ground by fighting. This was found to be so during the retreat, when, in addition to the direct value of aircraft for long-distance reconnaissance, an indirect a.s.set of great importance lay in the release of the cavalry for battle action in a.s.sistance of the infantry. The question has become more acute since the offensive action of aircraft against ground targets has developed, but although we must never forget the splendid work of the mounted arm during the Retreat from Mons, and in March, 1918, factors have arisen tending to make the use of cavalry a problem of extreme difficulty in European wars, and it is possible that, in addition to their reconnaissance functions, aircraft will supersede the shock tactics and delaying action of cavalry, though this may be modified if, the sabre being a thing of the past, cavalry are converted into mounted machine gunners.

Air tactics and training were, therefore, chiefly studied from the point of view of reconnaissance. In addition to the possibility of being shot at by other aircraft, an important consideration was vulnerability from the ground. Before the war reconnaissances were carried out at heights varying from 2,000 to 6,000 feet, but it was generally considered that the aeroplane was safe from fire from the ground at heights above 3,000 feet.

Serious difficulties affecting the mobility of aircraft were the means of providing a regular supply of fuel and the selection of landing grounds when moving camp, which had to be close enough behind the front line as not to entail waste of time in flying out and back over friendly territory. This was later brought home to us in a very acute form during the Retreat from Mons.

As machines improved, increasing attention was paid to bettering their power of reconnaissance by air photography, their value in co-operation with artillery by wireless equipment, their offensive action by bomb dropping and their offence and defence by armament.

The value of a correct initiative and the aeroplane's role as an offensive weapon were fully appreciated and brought out in the Training Manual of the Royal Flying Corps which we compiled at Farnborough, and which was published early in 1914 by the War Office. It says:--

"It is probable that one phase of the struggle for the command of the air will resolve itself into a series of combats between individual aeroplanes, or pairs of aeroplanes. If the pilots of one side can succeed in obtaining victory in a succession of such combats, they will establish a moral ascendancy over the surviving pilots of the enemy, and be left free to carry out their duties of reconnaissance. The actual tactics must depend on the types of the aeroplanes engaged, the object of the pilot being to obtain for his pa.s.senger the free use of his own weapon while denying to the enemy the use of his. To disable the pilot of the opposing aeroplane will be the first object. In the case of fast reconnaissance aeroplanes it will often be advisable to avoid fighting, in order to carry out a mission or to deliver information; but it must be borne in mind that this will be sometimes impossible, and that, as in every other cla.s.s of fighting, a fixed determination to attack and win will be the surest road to victory."

Speaking generally, the evolution of the machine, as apart from the engine, which hung behind, followed upon the evolution of air tactics.

As soon as experience, often hard won at the cost of a valuable life, opened up new fields of activity for aircraft, the designer and constructor evolved new designs to meet the new requirements. It was no small achievement in this period to have solved the problem of inherent stability, both in theory and practice, so successfully, that from the aerodynamic standpoint our machines in 1914 compare favourably with those in use at the end of the war.

In dealing with the evolution of the machine during the three years prior to the war there are three landmarks: in the autumn of 1911 the few machines belonging to the Air Battalion failed to reach their destination for Army Man[oe]uvres; in May, 1912, the Royal Flying Corps was formed and experiments with a view to meeting military requirements were for the first time energetically and methodically prosecuted; and in August, 1914, four squadrons flew to France with machines which had attained a high degree of stability and were not inferior to any of those possessed by other countries. When it is remembered in what a short time these machines were evolved, it is not surprising that attention had been chiefly confined to the problem of the 'plane and stability, the engine and speed and reliability. Wireless, bombing, photography, night flying and machine gunnery had been discussed and experimented with, but no progress was made comparable to that effected under war conditions.

Machines and engines before the war were chiefly French. It is interesting to note those with which No. 3 Squadron, one of the first to be formed, commenced its career in May, 1912. They consisted of one 50 horse-power Gnome Nieuport, one Deperdussin, which by the way was privately owned, one Gnome Bristol, two Gnome Bleriot monoplanes, one Avro and one Bristol box-kite biplane. By September, 1912, the Squadron possessed fourteen monoplanes, but in that month, owing to the number of accidents incurred by them, the use of monoplanes was temporarily forbidden, and it was not until April, 1913, that the Squadron was fully equipped with B.E. and Maurice Farman biplanes organized in flights.

These types formed the backbone of the Military Wing, which also included Codys, Breguets, Avros, and, later, Sopwiths. The B.E.2c was produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory in the autumn of 1913 and demonstrated its high degree of stability by flying from Aldershot to Froyle and from Froyle to Fleet, distances of 6-3/4 and 8 miles respectively, without the use of ailerons or elevators. The progress made is ill.u.s.trated by the fact that at the Army Man[oe]uvres of 1913 twelve machines covered 4,545 miles on reconnaissance and 3,210 miles on other flights, accurate observations being made from a height of 6,000 feet, without serious mishap.

In 1913 I recommended the gradual subst.i.tution of B.E.'s for Farmans on the ground of the all-round efficiency and superior fighting qualities of the former, and to secure the advantage of standardization, but it was objected by the War Office that the Farmans were the only machines that could mount weapons in front--an objection which was not met until firing through the airscrew was introduced--and that the slower Farmans offered greater advantages for observation, an idea which was long prevalent. As a result, a compromise was effected, and two squadrons were equipped with B.E.'s and two with h.o.m.ogeneous flights of Farmans, Bleriots and Avros.

At the outbreak of war the most successful machines possessed by the Military Wing were the B.E.2 tractor with a 70 horse-power Renault engine, a speed of 73 miles an hour, and a climb of 3,000 feet in nine minutes; and a Henri Farman pusher with a speed of 60 miles an hour, and a climb of 3,000 feet in fourteen minutes. A special study was being made in 1914 of the best methods of ensuring clear observation of the ground, and partly in this connection staggered planes were introduced, culminating in the B.E.2c's, which were not, however, available for service in any numbers until 1915.

To sum up, the technical development of aircraft has taken place, and will continue side by side with the evolution of the uses to which aircraft can be put. While due attention was paid to problems connected with the antic.i.p.ated duties of aircraft ancillary to that of reconnaissance, owing to the short s.p.a.ce of time between the formation of the Royal Flying Corps and the outbreak of war, to the difficulties connected with the engine, and to causes inseparable from peace conditions, development had been more or less confined to evolving a stable and reliable machine with a good field of view.

CONCLUSIONS.

The foregoing outline of the development of aviation from the earliest times up to the war--a story of human endeavour and achievement in the air with its attendant dangers and difficulties--is not without value in endeavouring to a.s.sess that which has since occurred.

At the beginning of the year 1912 the Royal Flying Corps did not exist.

At the beginning of the Great War, in 1914, England found herself with an air service which, though much smaller than those of Germany or France, was so excellently manned and organized, trained and equipped, that it placed her at a bound in the front rank of aviation.

The machine was stable, but the engine still unequal to the tasks laid upon it. Civil Aviation practically did not exist.

I shall now describe the extension of air duties under war conditions; the increasing value of aircraft for general action and air tactics and their development and far-reaching effect as the right hand of strategy.

This resulted in the expansion of our flying corps from a total of 1,844 officers and men, and seven squadrons with some 150 machines fit for war use, to a total of nearly 300,000 officers and men, and 201 squadrons and 22,000 machines in use at the end of the war, and in the evolution of the machine to a point where we can regard it, not only as a weapon of war, but as a new method of transport for commercial purposes in peace.

CHAPTER II

WAR

GENERAL REMARKS ON WAR DEVELOPMENT.

In dealing with the story of the beginnings of aviation and the evolution of aircraft up to the war, we have seen that though its growth was infinitesimal compared with that which came with the impetus of war, the air service took definite and practical shape more rapidly than had up to that time any other arm of the Army or Navy in peace.

In 1914 we had reached a point where we possessed a small but mobile and efficient flying force, equipped and trained essentially for reconnaissance. Although experiments had been made, little had been achieved in the use of wireless from aircraft, air photography, bomb dropping, armament or the development of air fighting. As with the Army and Navy, war quickened and expanded all the attributes of air operations in a way which could not have been foreseen before the struggle occurred; and, as it would have been impossible for the Army and Navy to build up their war organization without the foundation of the pre-war service, so it was the splendid quality of the original Royal Flying Corps that made this expansion possible.

Before the war the Royal Flying Corps was considerably smaller than the air services of either France or Germany, and to attain even the strength with which the Military Wing left England the bulk of the trained officers and men, and almost all the machines fit for service, had to be taken. When I started to raise the Corps, in May, 1912, the War Office estimated that its organization, (of a headquarters and seven aeroplane and one airs.h.i.+p squadrons) would take at least four years; instead, there had been little more than two. Even at the risk of leaving insufficient personnel and material behind to form and train new squadrons, I recommended that four complete squadrons (including the wireless machines which had to be thrown in to make up the numbers) should be sent overseas to help the British Expeditionary Force in bearing the brunt of the terrific blow that was to come. It was a very serious matter that so little could be left with which to carry on in England, but we considered it essential to dispatch at once to France every available machine and pilot, because both political and military authorities were of opinion that for economic and financial reasons a war with a great European power could not last more than a few months.

Another reason was that those of us who had been at the Staff College during the few years before the war, or who had recently served on the General Staff at the War Office, believed that the weight of the German attack would be made through Belgium, where, owing to the enclosed nature of the country, cavalry would be at a disadvantage, and we realized therefore, and urged, the great effect which the air would have from the commencement of operations--a view which was not widely held, especially among senior officers in the Army. We also felt the necessity of using our maximum air strength from the outset, so as to prove its supreme importance as quickly and practically as possible. It required the Retreat from Mons before even G.H.Q. as a whole would accept the fact, though Colonel Macdonogh, the head of the intelligence section, was our firm ally. The iron of confidence, both to used and user, had to be welded with the first great blows on the anvil of war.

For these reasons it was vital that every available trained pilot and suitable machine should be employed with the Army, even at the danger of serious initial depletion at Home. The smooth progress of expansion was largely attributable alike to the strength of the pre-war spirit, organization and training,[2] and to the results actual and moral obtained by the first four squadrons during the Retreat and the following weeks of the war under centralized control. The French distributed their "Escadrilles," which were approximately of the size of our "flight," from the beginning, and it is probable that one cause of failure in the German air service during the same period lay in the initial dispersion of units and lack of unified control by the higher command. The British Expeditionary Force having been saved during the Retreat, Paris having been saved at the Marne, the great German army having made a retirement, a lengthy war of position having become obvious, confidence in the air service, both within and without, having been established, the centralized system necessarily adopted up to that time could be relaxed, and we were able to send home officers and men with greatly increased experience to help build up the many new squadrons which would be required to co-operate with the new armies.

[2] On October 17, 1914, Sir J. French wrote: "Such efficiency as the R.F.C. may have shown in the field is, in my opinion, princ.i.p.ally due to organization and training."

Gradually, as the numbers in the field permitted, increased duties were undertaken. The Army, though it did not do so at first, yet came to understand the immense importance to itself of air reconnaissance. So much so indeed that our machines and pilots were generally many too few to attempt more than the absolute essentials, and calls were often made upon them which were beyond their strength to meet. An ironic contrast to this was supplied, however, at the evacuation of the Dardanelles, where I was commanding the air service (the R.N.A.S.), and was asked to be careful not to do too much air work. This at a time when through stress and strain and loss we had, I think, a total of five machines left able to take the air!

Observation was, and remains, the prime purpose for which the Royal Flying Corps was formed. 1914 was a year of reconnaissance, but with the advent of trench warfare at the Battle of the Aisne, the first attempts were made to extend its scope by the use of wireless for artillery co-operation, and by air photography, both of which developed rapidly.

Headway was also being made with bombing. Then machines carrying out their special duties had to be protected, while it became necessary to prevent hostile machines from effecting similar functions, with the result that 1915 saw the beginnings of systematic air fighting.

In 1915 the easily man[oe]uvrable Fokker, with its machine-gun synchronizing gear for firing through the propeller, gave the Germans a temporary lead, but by the Battle of the Somme this was outcla.s.sed and in 1916 our air superiority became marked. The Royal Flying Corps was by that time organized into Brigades and Wings, one Wing operating with each Army for fighting and distant reconnaissance, and one Wing with each Corps for short reconnaissance and such specialized work as artillery co-operation and contact patrols. Both types of machine took part in bombing operations.

There is generally perhaps a tendency, when reviewing the army and air effort in the war, to deal almost entirely with the Western Front and to forget the prodigious work done in many other theatres.

In 1915 the Royal Naval Air Service carried out all air work with the Army and Navy in the Gallipoli campaign and showed how a single air force could effect really important co-operation with both services. In addition to the normal duties of co-operation with the Army and the Fleet, and in spite of the difficulties of transport, supply and workshop arrangements, photographs were taken from the air of the greater part of the Peninsula, and the original inaccurate maps corrected therefrom; frequent bombing raids were carried out against objectives on the Peninsula, the Turkish lines of communications, and even Constantinople itself. In this campaign, too, torpedoes were used for the first time by aircraft and three s.h.i.+ps were destroyed in the Dardanelles by this means. The distance from the hub of affairs, a line of supply about 6,000 miles in length, sickness and the climatic and geographical conditions rendered maintenance very difficult. Sand and dust driven in clouds by high winds greatly shortened the working life of engines. The heat during the summer caused the rapid deterioration of machines, while long oversea flights entailed loss from forced landings.

There are many aspects of the deepest interest to be brought out when a complete history of the Campaign in Gallipoli comes to be written. It is true that the Allies would have lost all if they had been defeated in the west, and that the call of the Armies for more and more men and munitions for that theatre was insistent; it is equally true, however, that in France there could be nothing but batter and counter-batter, and the only remaining point where strategic principles could be brought to bear was at the Dardanelles. But what is more relevant to the subject of these pages is that when in future years the story of h.e.l.les and Anzac and Suvla is weighed, it will, I think, appear that had the necessary air service been built up from the beginning and sustained, the Army and Navy could have forced the Straits and taken Constantinople. I insistently urged the dependence of the naval and military forces upon air a.s.sistance and the necessity for carrying out a strong aerial offensive, especially by bombing, for which the local conditions governing the enemy operations on the Peninsula offered exceptional advantages.

From the autumn of 1915 onwards Egypt became the centre of training and expansion for operations in the Middle East and, as the organization developed, a brigade was formed with Wings in Macedonia, Sinai and a training Wing, which by 1918 had become a training brigade, in Egypt.

The work of the Wing sent to Sinai in 1916, and expanded in 1917 into a brigade, is well summarized in the following extract from a telegram received from Egypt on October 3rd, 1918:--

"Before operations commenced our mastery of the air was complete and this was maintained throughout, enabling the cavalry turning movement to be completely protected and concealed. Enemy retreating columns were so effectively machine gunned and bombed by offensive machines that in all three cases the surviving personnel abandoned their vehicles and consequently upset all plans of retirement. An enemy column thus abandoned was seven miles in length."

The Wings in Macedonia and Mesopotamia, though they could not beat the record of the Palestine Brigade, gained a marked supremacy over the enemy. Air operations in East Africa were originally carried out by the Royal Naval Air Service with seaplanes, which in 1915 were brought up to the strength of two squadrons and replaced by aeroplanes under the orders of the military forces, their duties being carried out under the difficult conditions of bush warfare. Valuable work was also done by the Royal Flying Corps squadrons which were sent out to operate in the south.

In addition to these major operations, air forces were used in the expeditions on the Indian frontier, against Darfur and in the vicinity of Aden. Five squadrons were sent to Italy after the Italian retreat from the Isonzo and took a prominent part in the final Austrian defeat; a Royal Air Force contingent was sent to Russia to operate from Archangel; and material a.s.sistance was given to France and the other Allies, but especially to the United States in the training and equipment of her air forces.

At the beginning of 1918 the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Force were amalgamated and the Royal Air Force came into existence, and during the year achieved a supremacy more complete than that at any time since the Somme.

The following description gives a vivid idea of air activity at the front in 1918:--

"All day long there were 'dog fights' waged at heights up to three or four miles above the sh.e.l.l-torn battlefields of France, whilst the low-flying aeroplanes were attacking suitable targets from the height of a few dozen feet. Pa.s.sing backwards and forwards went the reconnaissance machines and the bombers, and along the whole front observers were sending out by wireless to the artillery the point of impact of their sh.e.l.ls. Such was the picture of the air on any fine day at the time."

1918, however, saw not only the acc.u.mulative effect of the tactical co-operation of aircraft with our armies in the field, but also the formation of the Independent Air Force and the carrying out of the strategic air offensive against centres of war industry in the interior of Germany.

A vast organization was also required at Home to meet the rapid expansion of units in the Field and to supply reinforcements. Thus at the Armistice there were 199 training squadrons, the pupils under instruction including cadets numbered 30,000, and during the war some 22,000 graduated as efficient for active service. At the beginning of the war pilots were sent overseas with only 11 hours' flying experience.

This was much too little and there is no doubt that increased training would have ensured fewer casualties. Fortunately, however, the length of training was increased in the latter part of the war and a remarkable advance in training was made possible by the use of an entirely new and extraordinarily efficient system of instruction evolved by Smith-Barry.

The war demonstrated the beginnings of what air power meant, though in November, 1918, it was still in its infancy. Before many years the ability to make war successfully, or even at all, will depend upon air power.

Let us now briefly survey the development of the several duties of aircraft, the evolution of machines and progress in tactics, strategy and the organization of our Air Forces during the war.

I had recognized the great difficulty of mobilizing with the clockwork precision of older units and, in the belief that war was coming, had ordered a provisional mobilization of the Corps some days before it was actually declared. Thanks to this step and to the work done at our Concentration Camp at Netheravon in June, 1914, the greater part of the Royal Flying Corps was enabled to concentrate without hitch at our aerodrome at Dover, and the machines flew via Calais to Amiens on August 13th.