The fourth raid into enemy territory, this time by seaplanes, was carried out on Christmas Day of 1914. How deeply the threat of the Zeppelins had impressed the public imagination and the minds of those who were responsible for the Royal Naval Air Service may be seen by this—that all four naval raids were directed against Zeppelin sheds. This fourth raid, though it did not succeed in destroying any German airship, achieved some useful observation, and had the incidental advantage that it brought the navy into conflict with Zeppelins, and diminished the portentous respect in which they had been held. Two naval officers, famous by their achievements in the war—Commodore R. J. B. Keyes and Commodore R. Y. Tyrwhitt—were in command of the supporting force. Two light cruisers, with eight destroyers of the Third Flotilla, sailed from Harwich for the Bight of Heligoland at 5.0 a.m. on Thursday, the 24th of December, escorting the three seaplane-carriers, each with three seaplanes aboard. The air was clear and the sea calm, but it was bitterly cold. The Arethusa, preceded by a screen of four destroyers, led the way; she was followed, at intervals of one and a half cables, or 300 yards, by the Engadine and Riviera. A mile behind, with a similar screen of four destroyers, came the Undaunted, followed by the Empress. Two destroyers and ten submarines, under the command of Commodore Keyes, co-operated with this force, to fend off the attacks of hostile ships and to pick up the aviators on their return. The purpose of the raid was to destroy the airship sheds at Cuxhaven, but the Admiralty were eager to get such information as might be obtainable without detriment to this purpose, and the seaplanes were instructed to report, if possible, on the numbers and classes of ships inside the basin at Wilhelmshaven, or anchored in the Schillig Roads (that is, the estuary of Wilhelmshaven), or in the mouth of the Elbe. The little fleet made straight for the Bight and reached a position some twelve miles north of Heligoland by 6.0 a.m. on Christmas morning. No time was lost in getting the machines out; seven of the nine got away soon after 7.0 a.m., the other two could not get off the water, and were hoisted in again. Then the supporting force cruised for some hours off Heligoland to await the return of the machines. At a very early hour in the morning it had become evident from the agitated condition of the German wireless that the presence of the squadron had been discovered, but they were not attacked by enemy ships of war. A ship was seen approaching from between Heligoland and the mainland, but she turned back before she could be identified. At 7.35 a.m. a Zeppelin was seen about ten miles distant, coming from the direction of Heligoland, and at 7.55 a hostile seaplane from the same direction. The seaplane attacked the squadron and dropped four bombs, which were not bad shots, but failed to hit. The squadron replied with anti-aircraft guns, maxims, and rifles. When the Zeppelin was within 11,000 yards, fire was opened on her with 6-inch guns and shrapnel shell at extreme elevation. The Undaunted burst several shells fairly close to her; she retreated to Heligoland and was not seen again. Soon after ten o'clock three of the British raiding seaplanes, having returned from the raid, were sighted and recovered, but the cruisers continued to await the return of the remaining four. A second Zeppelin and several hostile seaplanes now approached from the southward; all dropped bombs without success. The British seaplanes, it was known, carried fuel sufficient only for a three-hours' flight; when they had been gone for four and a half hours it was evident that they were not likely to be in the air, so the cruiser and destroyer squadron, after searching the waters of the Frisian coast, reluctantly shaped its course for home. Commodore Tyrwhitt, in his report of the encounter with the German aircraft, remarks that both Zeppelins practised the same method of attack, namely, to get behind the line of ships and to drop their bombs on the fore and aft line. Their speed was great, but they seemed to suffer from one disability which made them clumsy to handle. 'It was repeatedly noted', he says, 'that the Zeppelins, when altering course, invariably "wore", and did not appear to be able to turn head to wind. This made them ridiculously easy to avoid in spite of their speed, which was surprising.' That is to say, the Zeppelins did not tack. Perhaps it was their policy to maintain rapid movement, so as not to present a stationary target. To alter their course in the eye of the wind they fell off from the wind and, after presenting their stern to it, came up on the other side. 'The seaplane attacks', the commodore adds, 'were of a much more active nature, but they do not appear to have discovered the art of hitting.' German seaplanes, when they approached end on, were very like British seaplanes, so the order was given to wait for a bomb to be dropped before opening fire. This order caused 'considerable merriment' among the ships' companies. 'I am quite convinced', says Commodore Tyrwhitt, 'that, given ordinary sea-room, our ships have nothing to fear from seaplanes and Zeppelins.'

For eight hours, in perfect weather, the British squadron occupied German waters just off the principal German naval ports. The Germans knew the composition of the British force, and as visibility was extraordinarily good they must have known also that there were no supports; but their navy made no attempt to interfere with the British ships.

Three of the four missing pilots returned, and were picked up by submarine E 11, close to Norderney Gat. They were there attacked by a hostile airship; the submarine, as soon as it had taken the pilots on board, was forced to dive, and the machines were abandoned. The missing pilot, Flight Commander F. E. T. Hewlett, had engine failure, and came down on the sea near a Dutch trawler; he was picked up and detained for a time in Holland. The Cuxhaven sheds were not located, but the German naval ports were pretty thoroughly surveyed, and a good deal of damage was done by bomb-dropping. Seaplane No. 136, piloted by Flight Commander C. F. Kilner, with Lieutenant Erskine Childers as observer, flew over the Schillig Roads, and reported, lying at anchor there, seven battleships of the Deutschland and Braunschweig classes, three battle cruisers, apparently the Seydlitz, Moltke, and Von der Tann, one four-funnelled cruiser, probably the Roon, two old light cruisers of the Frauenlob and Bremen classes, ten destroyers, one large two-funnelled merchantman or liner, and three ships which appeared to be colliers. Anti-aircraft guns, firing shrapnel, were used against the seaplane and very nearly scored a direct hit. On issuing from the Roads the officers in the seaplane saw a large number of ships in the northern part of the fairway of the Weser, and two destroyers east of Wangeroog. As a result of this reconnaissance a part of the German fleet was moved from Cuxhaven to various places farther up the Kiel canal.

The day before the Cuxhaven raid the Germans made their first raid over England, and dropped their first bomb on English soil. The air raids over England during the war were many and serious; they were an important and characteristic part of the German plan of campaign, and their story must be told separately. They began with a curious timid little adventure. On the 21st of December a German aeroplane made its appearance above Dover; it dropped a bomb which was aimed, no doubt, at some part of the harbour, but fell harmlessly in the sea. The aeroplane then went home. Three days later, on the 24th, a single aeroplane again dropped a bomb, this time on English soil near Dover. This was the prelude to a formidable series of air raids, which, however, were not made in strength till well on in the following year.

The close of the year 1914, and of the first five months of the war, saw the German assault on the European commonwealth held, though not vanquished. If the German plans had succeeded, the war would have been over before the coming of the new year. The failure of these plans was inevitably a longer business. The best-informed judges, from Lord Kitchener downwards, recognized that this was not a war which could be ended at a blow. A great nation does not so readily give up the dreams on which it has been fed for the better part of a hundred years. The German people had been educated for the war, taught to regard the war as their brightest hope, to concentrate their imagination on what it might do for them, and to devote their energies to carrying it through. The movement of so great a mass of opinion and zeal, when once it has begun, is not soon reversed. Germany settled down to the business of winning the war. The Germans had had some partial successes, in the destruction of a Russian army at Tannenberg, and of a British squadron at Coronel. They began to realize the immensity of their task, but they still believed that they could perform it, and that if they could not beat down the opposing forces, they could wear them down.

Month by month, as the war continued, it spread, and involved nation after nation. In the first summer Japan came in, and in the first autumn, Turkey. As the number of Germany's enemies increased, so did the tale of Great Britain's responsibilities. British troops, during the course of the war, fought upon every front, against every one of the Powers allied to Germany; British help in men, or money or material, was given to every one of Germany's enemies. Already in August 1914 British naval and military forces were operating in Togoland, in the Cameroons, and at Dar-es-Salaam in German East Africa. By November Basra, in the Persian Gulf, was occupied, and the Mesopotamian campaign had begun. In addition to all these new burdens, the anxieties of administration in many countries, and especially in Egypt, which owed allegiance to the Sultan, were increased tenfold by the war. Those who had pleased themselves with the fancy that Great Britain is an island were rudely undeceived.

Aircraft had proved their utility, or rather their necessity, in the campaign on the western front; they were not less needed in all these distant theatres. In uncivilized or thinly peopled countries a single squadron of aeroplanes may save the work of whole battalions of infantry. The great problem of the first year of the war was a problem of manufacture and training, the problem, indeed, of the creation of values. With the instruments that we had at the outbreak of war we had done all that we could, and more than all that we had promised; but what we had achieved, at the best, was something very like a deadlock. The war, if it was to be won, could only be won in the workshop and the training-school. These places are not much in the public eye; but it was in these places that the nation prepared itself for the decisive struggle. The New Army, and an air force that ultimately numbered not hundreds but tens of thousands, emerged from the discipline of preparation. The process took time; months and even years passed before its results were apparent. But some account of it must be given at this point in the story if the events of the later years of the war in the air are to be made intelligible or credible.

The greatest creation of all, the temper of the new force, was not so much a creation as a discovery. Good machines and trained men, however great their number, are not enough to win a war. War is a social affair, and wars are won by well-knit societies. The community of habits and ideas which unites civilized mankind is too loose a bond for this purpose; it has too much in it of mere love of comfort and ease and diversion. Patriotism will go farther, but for the making of a first-class fighting force patriotism is not enough. A narrower and tighter loyalty and a closer companionship are needed, as every regiment knows, before men will cheerfully go to meet the ultimate realities of war. They must live together and work together and think together. Their society must be governed by a high and exacting code, imposed by consent, as the creed of all. The creation, or the tended growth, of such a society, that is to say, of the new air force, was one of the miracles of the war. The recruits of the air were young, some of them no more than boys. Their training lasted only a few months. They put their home life behind them, or kept it only as a fortifying memory, and threw themselves with fervour and abandon into the work to be done. Pride in their squadron became a part of their religion. The demands made upon them, which, it might reasonably have been believed, were greater than human nature can endure, were taken by them as a matter of course; they fulfilled them, and went beyond. They were not a melancholy company; they had something of the lightness of the element in which they moved. Indeed, it would be difficult to find, in the world's history, any body of fighters who, for sheer gaiety and zest, could hold a candle to them. They have opened up a new vista for their country and for mankind. Their story, if it could ever be fully and truly written, is the Epic of Youth.



CHAPTER VIII

THE EXPANSION OF THE AIR FORCE

When the war broke out, the Royal Flying Corps, as has been told, took the field with all its available forces. The four squadrons which were ready for service went abroad at once. In their desire to rise to their great opportunity the officers appointed to command in France made something like a clean sweep, taking abroad with them almost all the efficient pilots, and almost all the serviceable machines. There were at Farnborough at that time a small group of officers belonging to the newly formed Indian Flying Corps, and another small group training as a nucleus for a South African Aviation Corps. All these were swept into the net. Captains H. L. Reilly and D. Le G. Pitcher, of the Indian Flying Corps, were at once made flying officers of No. 4 Squadron; three others, that is to say, Captain S. D. Massy (an early pioneer, who had flown with the Air Battalion during 1911, and was commandant of the Indian Central Flying School at Sitapur), Captain C. G. Hoare, and Lieutenant C. L. N. Newall, were posted to squadrons forming at home. Three officers of the South African Aviation Corps, namely, Lieutenants K. R. Van der Spuy, E. C. Emmett, and G. S. Creed, were at once incorporated in Nos. 2, 3, and 5 Squadrons respectively. Two others, Captain G. P. Wallace and Lieutenant B. H. Turner, joined No. 4 Squadron in the field early in September. Later on, both groups of officers were used for operations in distant theatres. When in November 1914 the Turks were preparing to attack the Suez canal, a flight, consisting of Captain Massy, Captain Reilly, and Lieutenant S. P. Cockerell, with three Maurice Farman machines, left England to give to the forces in Egypt the indispensable aerial support. This small flight was the beginning of the Middle East Brigade, which, under the command of Major-General W. G. H. Salmond, played so great a part in the campaigns of Mesopotamia and Palestine. Again, when in November 1914 the Union Government of South Africa undertook to invade German South-West Africa, the officers of the South African Aviation Corps were recalled from their squadrons in France to provide the needed air force. When that campaign was ended, these officers returned to England to form No. 26 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, which was immediately dispatched to East Africa, and co-operated with the forces under the command of General Smuts.

This rapid summary may serve to show how Farnborough, at the outbreak of war, was a generating centre for the air forces of the British Empire, and how, until the Germans were held in France, all other purposes had to be postponed.

Official returns show that with the four squadrons there went to France 105 officers, 755 other ranks, 63 aeroplanes, and 95 mechanical transport vehicles. At home there remained 41 officers, 116 aeroplanes, and 23 mechanical transport vehicles. But these latter figures are misleading. All the experienced officers at home were fully employed on necessary work, and the hundred and sixteen aeroplanes were impressive only by their number. About twenty of them, more or less old-fashioned, were in use at the Central Flying School for purposes of training; the rest were worn out or broken, and were fit only for the scrap-heap. By the time that the war was a month old, the efficiency of the machines which had gone abroad was threatened by the progress of events at the front. The B.E. 2, which was generally reckoned the best of these machines, had been designed for the purposes of reconnaissance; it had a fair degree of stability, and gave the observer a clear view around him and beneath him. So long as it was not interfered with in the air it was an admirable machine for the reconnoitring of enemy dispositions and movements. But the process of interference had begun. During the months of October and November fighting in the air became fairly frequent. This fighting had been foreseen, but only as a speculative possibility. Major-General Seely, speaking on the Air Estimates for 1919-20, told the House of Commons that he had witnessed the first air combat in France, one of those referred to in Sir John French's first dispatch, and that Sir David Henderson had said to him: 'This is the beginning of a fight which will ultimately end in great battles in the air, in which hundreds, and possibly thousands, of men may be engaged at heights varying from 10,000 to 20,000 feet.'

A call for fighting machines soon followed these early combats. On the 4th of September 1914 General Henderson wired home: 'There are no aeroplanes with the Royal Flying Corps really suitable for carrying machine-guns; grenades and bombs are therefore at present most suitable. If suitable aeroplanes are available, machines-guns are better undoubtedly. Request you to endeavour to supply efficient fighting machines as soon as possible.' A day or two earlier a request had been sent home for nine aeroplanes to replace losses, and for a complete new set of reserve aeroplanes for the Aircraft Park.

War is the only adequate training for war, and it was the necessities of the war which revealed the needs of the Flying Corps, and gradually, by hard-won experience, determined the best types of aeroplane and the best kinds of armament. The enemy, driving with all his might for speedy victory, allowed no holiday for research and manufacture. What hope was there that the handful of officers in charge of the few centres of military aeronautics in England would be able to meet the growing needs of the campaign in France? The outbreak of war found this country practically without an aeroplane engine industry. The few British firms who understood anything about aeroplane manufacture had in time of peace received only small experimental orders, and so were not organized for rapid production. The situation might well be called desperate. How could trained pilots, and machines fit to hold their own in the air, be produced in sufficient numbers to secure for us not the mastery of the air—that was too distant a goal—but the power to keep the air, and to give much-needed assistance to the British army in France?

No one knows what he can do until he tries. If the situation was desperate, it was also familiar. The English temper is at its best in desperate situations. The little old army held the pass in France and Flanders against enormous odds, and so procured time for the building up of the New Army, the instrument of victory. The Royal Flying Corps, a small body of highly trained men, kept the air in France, alongside of the splendid French air service, while a new and greater air force was brought to birth at home. The creation of this new force was of a piece with that wonder of the war—the creation of the New Army. In some ways it was the most difficult part of that great achievement. The new infantry battalions were made largely by the imitation of a magnificent model and the repetition of methods proved by many past successes. The men who brought the Flying Corps to an unexpected strength had to explore untried ways; the problems presented to them were complicated and novel; they had no safe models to copy, and no ancient tradition to follow. They had to cope patiently and resolutely with the most recent of sciences, and, more than that, they had to procure and train a body of men who should transform the timid and gradual science into a confident and rapid art. The engine is the heart of an aeroplane, but the pilot is its soul. They succeeded so well that at the opening of the battles of the Somme, on the 1st of July 1916, the Royal Flying Corps held the mastery of the air, that is to say, they held a predominant position in the air, and were able to impose their will upon the enemy. At the date of the armistice, the 11th of November 1918, the united Royal Air Force was incomparably the strongest air force in the world. Most of the pilots and observers who were flying at that time are now scattered in civil employ, but they will never forget the pride of their old allegiance nor the perils and raptures of their old life in the air.

It is the business of this history to tell of their doings. But before recording the appearance at the front of squadron after squadron, it is essential to tell something of the making of these squadrons. The whole elaborate system which was the basis of the Royal Air Force, the production of machines and armament and the training of men, was devised and put in action during the first year of the war. It was elastic in character, and was capable of great expansion, but its main outlines were never changed, even when the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, after a divorce of four years, were reunited in 1918. Englishmen are much in the habit of decrying their own achievements. This they do, not from modesty, but from a kind of inverted pride. Even a fair measure of success seems to them a little thing when it is compared with their own estimate of their abilities. Before the war the German power of organization was tediously praised in England, and our own incapacity for organization was tediously censured. There is truth in the contrast; the Germans love organization and pattern in human society, both for their own sake and for the rest and support that they give to the individual. The British hate elaborate organization, and are willing to accept it only when it is seen to be necessary for achieving a highly desired end. With the Germans, the individual is the servant of the society; with us, the society is the servant of the individual, and is judged by its success, not only in promoting his material welfare, but in enhancing his opportunities and giving free play to his character. We do not readily organize ourselves except under the spur of immediate necessity. But those of us who are honest and frank will never again say that we cannot organize ourselves. The making of our air force was a masterpiece of organization. The men who achieved it have earned a place in the memory of their country.

When military aviation had outgrown its early pupilage to the Royal Engineers it came under the immediate control of the War Office. It was dealt with at first by the small committee, under Brigadier-General Henderson, which had prepared the plans for the formation of the Flying Corps, and which was continued in being after the Flying Corps was formed. In November 1912 Captain E. L. Ellington, of the Royal Artillery, succeeded Major MacInnes as secretary to this committee; in June 1913 the committee was dissolved, and its work was taken over by a newly formed section of the Military Training Directorate, with Captain Ellington in charge. A little later, on the 1st of September 1913, a Military Aeronautics Directorate was established in the War Office, and at once took charge of the military air service. It was independent of the four great departments of the War Office, and the Director-General of Military Aeronautics dealt in person with the Secretary of State for War. There were three sections or branches (officially called subdivisions) of the directorate. The first of these was responsible for general policy, administration, and training. The second was responsible for equipment—the provision and inspection of material. The third had charge of contracts. It was a new departure to place a contracts branch under the control of a military director-general, but aviation is a highly technical business, and the arranging of contracts for aircraft and air engines could not be profitably separated from the other aspects of the work. In immediate touch with the directorate, and completing the original organization of military aeronautics, there were the Central Flying School at Upavon, the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps with its eight authorized squadrons, the Royal Aircraft Factory, and the Aeronautical Inspection Department.

In July 1914 Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson was Director-General of Military Aeronautics; Captain Godfrey Paine, R.N., was Commandant of the Central Flying School; and Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes was the Officer Commanding the Military Wing. When the war broke out Sir David Henderson was appointed to command the Royal Flying Corps in the field, with Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes as his Chief of Staff.

Thus, at a time when rapid development was essential if we were to hold the air, the two most important officers, who had nursed the Flying Corps from its infancy, were called away to more urgent service. General Henderson still held his directorship of military aviation. If he thought the war likely to be short, he was not alone in that belief. Major Burke's squadron, when they left their quarters at Montrose, fastened up the doors of their rooms with sealing-wax and tape, and affixed written instructions that nothing was to be disturbed during their absence. Meantime, the duties of the directorate and of the home command of the Flying Corps had to be carried on, at high pressure, in the face of enormous difficulties. The practical work of the directorate was undertaken by the little group of staff officers who were familiar with it, and especially by Major W. S. Brancker, who, on the outbreak of war, was appointed an Assistant Director of Military Aeronautics, and soon after became Deputy Director. The command of the Military Wing at Farnborough was given to Major Hugh Montague Trenchard, and the Royal Flying Corps had found its destined Chief.

'We should be modest for a modest man,' Charles Lamb somewhere remarks, 'as he is for himself.' But this is no personal question. What is said of General Trenchard is said of the Flying Corps. The power which Nature made his own, and which attends him like his shadow, is the power given him by his singleness of purpose and his faith in the men whom he commands. He has never called on them to do anything that he would not do himself, if he were not very unfortunately condemned, as he once told the pilots of a squadron, to go about in a Rolls-Royce car and to sit in a comfortable chair. He has never thought any deed of sacrifice and devotion too great for their powers. His faith in them was justified. Speaking, in 1918, to a squadron of the Independent Force, newly brought to the neighbourhood of Nancy for the bombing of the munition factories of Germany, he reminded them that if sending them all at once across the lines, never to return, would shorten the war by a week, it would be his duty to send them. The pilots listened to him with pride. He had their confidence, as they had his. 'Don't cramp the pilots into never talking,' is one of his advices to commanders, and the system whereby the pilots and observers, returning dazed and exhausted from a raid or a fight in the air, were brought to the office of the aerodrome and encouraged by sympathetic questions to tell what they had seen and done, was a system which grew up at once under his command. His intuitive understanding of the men who served under him, his quickness in learning the lessons of experience, and his resourcefulness and daring in immediately applying these lessons for the bettering of the Flying Corps, have been worth many brigades to his country. His name will occur often in this record, but here, at his first entry, he must be introduced to the reader.

He was born in 1873, the son of Captain Montague Trenchard, of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry. He was educated privately, and after several failures in examination entered the army by way of the militia, receiving his commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. After some years in India he served in the South African War, at first with the Imperial Yeomanry Bushman Corps, and later with the Canadian Scouts. During the operations west of Pretoria, in the autumn of 1900, he was dangerously wounded, but served again, during the concluding years of the war, with the mounted infantry in the Transvaal, the Orange River Colony, and the Cape Colony. There followed a period of distinguished service in Nigeria, and then he was at home for a time. In February 1912, three months before the Royal Flying Corps came into being, he applied for employment with the mounted branch of the Colonial Defence Forces, in Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa. In May he applied for employment with the Macedonian Gendarmerie. These applications were noted for consideration at the War Office; in the meantime his mind turned to the newly-formed Flying Corps. Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith tells the story of how he learned to fly.

'Major Trenchard (as he was then) arrived at my School at Brooklands one morning in August 1912. He told me that the War Office had given him ten days in which to learn to fly and pass his tests for an aviator's certificate, adding that if he could not pass by that date he would be over age. It was no easy performance to undertake, but Major Trenchard tackled it with a wonderful spirit. He was out at dawn every morning, and only too keen to do anything to expedite tuition. He passed in about one week from first going into the air as a passenger. He was a model pupil from whom many younger men should have taken a lead.'

On the 13th of August 1912 he took his certificate, flying a Farman machine. Then he went to the Central Flying School, where he took the necessary courses and passed the necessary examination. On the 1st of October he was appointed instructor on the staff of the school. These were arduous times; an efficient British air force was yet to make, and the political horizon was even more threatening than it was a year later. He continued at this work till the 23rd of September 1913, when he was appointed assistant commandant to Captain Godfrey Paine, a post which he held up to the outbreak of war. By that time a very large proportion of the officers of the Flying Corps had passed through his hands. His policy was the policy of Thorough. He played his part in producing the efficiency of the original Flying Corps.

On the 7th of August 1914 he was appointed Officer Commanding the Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing), with the temporary rank of lieutenant-colonel. The headquarters, the aircraft park, and the four squadrons left for France at once. Mr. G. B. Cockburn at that time was at Farnborough, where, from April onwards, he had held an appointment in the Aeronautical Inspection Department. He has kindly contributed a note:

'The squadrons hurried off to the front,' he says, and in a short time there remained practically nothing in the way of machines or pilots in the country. Colonel Trenchard took charge to create something out of nothing. His presence at Farnborough had a most enlivening effect on every one who came in touch with him, and as I had to pass through to him all the machines issued in those days, it was my good fortune to have very close observation of those methods which have led to his great success.'

In his attempt to create something out of nothing he had the whole-hearted support and help of the small but admirably efficient aeronautical department of the War Office, directed for the time by Colonel Brancker. One great strength of military aviation in its early days was that it attracted into its service, by natural magnetism, men of an adventurous disposition. The dangers of the Flying Corps, rather than the good pay that it offered, brought to it recruits strong in all the virtues of the pioneer. No one who covets a life of routine, with defined duties and limited liabilities, ever yet took up with aviation as a profession. The men who explored and took possession of the air in the twentieth century are the inheritors of the men who explored and took possession of America in the sixteenth century. It is one of our chief title-deeds as a nation that adventurers are very numerous among us. We were not the first to show the way, in either case, but because we are a breeding-ground of adventurers we are richer than other nations in the required type of character, and we soon outgo them. When the war came there was a long list of officers and men who were seeking admission to the Flying Corps—the best of them as good as could be found in the world. The very staff of the directorate at the War Office had the same quality. They were men of spirit and initiative, not easily to be bound by red tape. A short account of Colonel Brancker, who was Colonel Trenchard's main support, will illustrate this special good fortune of the Flying Corps.

Major-General Sir William Sefton Brancker, as he now is, began his soldiering in the Royal Artillery. He saw much active service in the South African War, and thereafter was chosen for staff service in India. His opportunity came in the winter of 1910. In that year the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, in order to demonstrate the new art to the General Staff in India, sent out to Calcutta an expedition consisting of a manager, the French pilot Monsieur H. Jullerot, two British mechanics, and three Bristol box-kites fitted with 50 horse-power Gnome engines. Captain Brancker, as Quartermaster-General of the Presidency Brigade, was responsible for the disembarkation of the party. What he had already heard of flying had excited his keen interest; he attached himself firmly to the expedition, and was permitted to fly, unofficially, in the character of observer. The first aeroplane was erected on the Calcutta racecourse, and flew in the presence of a huge crowd of spectators.

There were cavalry manoeuvres that year in the Deccan, and General Rimington, who was organizing them, set aside a part of his manoeuvre grant to enable Captain Brancker to bring an aeroplane and take part in them. The aeroplane arrived at Aurangabad early in January 1911, and was hastily erected under a tree by the two mechanics, assisted by six willing and jocular privates of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was ready forty-eight hours after detrainment, just in the nick of time. The first flight was made by M. Jullerot and Captain Brancker, the day before the manoeuvres began, in the presence of twelve generals, one of whom was Sir Douglas Haig, at that time Chief of the Staff in India, and a numerous company of staff officers. Next morning the aeroplane was attached to the northern force at Aurangabad, whose task was to drive back the rearguard of a southern force retreating towards Jalna. Captain Brancker and M. Jullerot made a flight of about twenty-seven miles at a height of 1,100 feet, and the hostile rearguard was accurately located. A full report was in the hands of the commander of the northern force in less than an hour and a half from the time of his demand for information.

Subsequent flights were less successful; indeed, the next morning the aeroplane crashed from a height of a hundred feet; the two aviators escaped with a few scratches, but the machine was reduced to matchwood. Nevertheless, the first thorough performance by a military aeroplane of a really practical military mission deeply impressed General Sir O'Moore Creagh, the then Commander-in-Chief, and, had it not been for lack of money, he would have started a flying organization in India a year before the Flying Corps in England came into being.

Not long after his return to England, Major Brancker was employed at the War Office under General Henderson. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, he learned to fly. He took the short course at the Central Flying School and was appointed to the Royal Flying Corps Reserve. In October 1913 he succeeded Captain Ellington on the staff of the Military Aeronautics Directorate. He continued to fly. The first really stable aeroplane, the B.E. 2c, was produced in June 1914; and Major Brancker, who describes himself as 'a very moderate pilot', flew the first of the type from Farnborough to Upavon, without the use of his hands except to throttle back the engine before alighting; during the flight he wrote a full reconnaissance report.

These then, Lieutenant-Colonel Trenchard and Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker, were the two officers on whom fell the chief burden of responsibility at home for the maintenance and increase of the Flying Corps. Others gave invaluable help; but these were the prime movers. The maintenance of the squadrons in the field, that is, the replacing of wastage in pilots and machines, was all that was originally expected of them by the command of the Royal Flying Corps in France. When, just after the outbreak of war, Lord Kitchener took control of the War Office, the creation of new squadrons at once became a question of the first importance. Lord Kitchener has many titles to the gratitude of his country, none of them stronger than this, that he recognized the immensity of the war. The day after the four squadrons took their departure for France he sent for Lieutenant-Colonel Brancker in the War Office, explained to him his policy for the creation of the New Army, and told him that a large number of new squadrons would be required to equip that army.

The position was serious. Farnborough was now the only station occupied by the Royal Flying Corps; it had an assemblage of half-trained and inefficient pilots, and a collection of inferior aeroplanes, discarded as useless by the squadrons which had gone overseas. The Central Flying School itself had been heavily depleted. There was a grave shortage of mechanics. But the officers in charge were not to be disheartened; and they had one advantage, without which the most complete material preparation would have been of no avail—they had the nation behind them. The invasion of Belgium by German troops during the first few weeks of war, and the ordered cruelties inflicted by those troops on a helpless population, set England on fire; never since the old war with Spain had the fervour of national indignation reached so white a heat. Except the unfit and the eccentric, it might almost be said, there were no civilians left; the nation made the war its own, and miracles of recruiting and training became the order of every day.

The Directorate of Military Aeronautics took the bull by the horns; without Treasury sanction, on their own initiative, they began to enlist civilian mechanics at the rates authorized for the Army Service Corps, up to 10s. a day. In a very few days they had got together eleven hundred good men, trained mechanics, who eventually became the main support of the squadrons which were created during the next two years. They also enlisted some civilian pilots. It was their intention to grade these pilots as non-commissioned officers, but the Admiralty meantime decided to give commissions to all pilots recruited from the civil population, which decision forced the hand of the military. Thus, in the first few days of the war, the question of the rank of pilots was settled at a blow, and it was not until much later in the war that non-commissioned officers were again employed as pilots.

A definite scheme for the steady recruitment of expert mechanics, so many a month, at peace rates of pay, was then laid down by the directorate. Naturally, at the beginning, large numbers could not be absorbed, and as there was no system of control to allot recruits to the work for which they were specially suited, very many of the best mechanics in the country, inspired by patriotism, enlisted in the ranks of the infantry, and were lost to the technical service for ever. These men would have been of inestimable value for the expansion of the Flying Corps, but no system of classification existed, to meet the needs of a nation in arms. The New Army engulfed men of all professions and all crafts; never, perhaps, in the world's history was there an army richer in diversity of skill. If special services were required from a bacteriologist, or a conjurer, an appeal to the rank and file of the New Army was seldom made in vain. Trained mechanics were glad to forgo all the advantages of their training, and, in their country's cause, to handle a rifle and a bayonet.

The procuring of a sufficient number of expert men for the sheds was only one part of the business of the directorate. They had also to procure and train a large number of pilots, and to arrange for the supply of a very large number of aeroplanes and engines. Until the machine is there, to be tended and flown, there is nothing for pilot or mechanic to do, so the question of the machines naturally came first. As soon as the four squadrons of the expeditionary force had left England, Colonel Brancker conferred with Captain Sueter, the Director of the Air Department in the Admiralty. It was agreed between them provisionally that all aeroplanes available in the British Isles should at once be allotted to the War Office, and all seaplanes to the Admiralty. It was further agreed that all engines of 100 horse-power and less, together with the 120 horse-power Beardmore engine, should be allotted to the War Office, and that engines of higher horse-power, together with a certain number, for training purposes, of lower-powered engines, should be allotted to the Admiralty. Both services recognized the urgent need for a water-cooled engine of high power, and the two directors combined to persuade Messrs. Rolls-Royce to produce a 250 horse-power water-cooled engine. The experts of the Royal Aircraft Factory gave all possible help; they lent the drawings prepared for the high-powered engine designed by the factory, and so became sponsors for the famous Rolls-Royce engines of the later days of the war. The output of the Rolls-Royce works, in accordance with the agreement, was placed at the disposal of the Admiralty.

This immediate co-operation between the two great services did the work of the old Air Committee, which had quietly faded away. The War Committee could not take its place; it was a large body of Ministers, too numerous to agree on special decisions, and not expert enough to deal with the complicated problems of aviation. The understanding between the two services seemed to augur well for the future.

The available contractors and types of engine having been allotted, it became necessary to decide what orders should be placed. In this matter the initiative rested with the directorate. Very little experience was available as a guide to what the expeditionary force might require in the future. Every order placed was practically a gamble, and every new type of aircraft and engine gave the staff twofold cause for anxiety. Would the new machine prove reliable when the trade produced it, and, if it proved reliable, would it then fulfil the rapidly changing requirements of the war? The quickest way to produce aeroplanes in quantity would have been to choose a few of the best types, and to standardize these for production in bulk at all the available factories. To do this would have been a fatal mistake. The art of military aviation was changing and growing rapidly; any hard and fast system would have proved a huge barrier to progress, making it impossible to take advantage of the lessons taught every week by experience in the field. At a later stage of the war the Germans standardized their excellent Mercedes engine. This gave them an immediate advantage, but, as knowledge increased and construction improved, what had been an advantage became a brake upon their progress.

Even the lessons of experience were not always easy to read. An aeroplane and its engine are judged by the pilot who uses them. Every one who knows the Royal Flying Corps knows how sensitive to rumour and how contagious opinion is among pilots. This is only natural; a pilot trusts his life to his machine, and his machine, if he is to fly and fight confidently, must be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion. To distrust the machine is to suffer a kind of paralysis in the air. The breath of unfavourable rumour easily takes away the character of a machine, and makes it, in effect, valueless. A pilot has one life, and has to take many risks; this is the only risk that he will not take gladly. It follows that the opinion of pilots concerning their machines is peculiarly liable to error. They talk to one another, and an ill report spreads like wildfire. When the Sopwith Tabloid was first produced, it was unfavourably reported on by those who flew it, and at once fell into disrepute throughout the squadrons. The fact is that the pilots of that time were not good enough for the machine; if they had stuck to it, and learnt its ways, they would soon have sworn by it as, later on in the war, they swore by the Sopwith Camel. A similar ill repute attached itself, like an invisible label, to the De Havilland machine called the D.H. 2. This machine, when it made its first appearance at the front, was nicknamed 'The Spinning Incinerator'. Like many other machines which are quick to respond to control, the D.H. 2 very easily fell into a spin, and in one accident of this kind it had caught fire. In February 1916, when the Fokker menace was at its height, No. 24 Squadron—the first British squadron of single-seater fighting scouts—arrived in France. It was equipped with D.H. 2's, and the pilots of the Fokkers had no reason to think the D.H. 2 an inferior machine. The historian of No. 24 Squadron says:

'A certain amount of trouble was caused at first through the ease with which these machines used to "spin"—a manoeuvre not at that time understood—and several casualties resulted. Lieutenant Cowan did much to inspire confidence by the facility with which he handled his machine. He was the first pilot really to "stunt" this machine, and gradually the squadron gained complete assurance.'

Nerves are tense in war, and a mishap at the front usually led to an immediate demand for new material or a new policy from those at home who supplied the expeditionary force. Major-General Sir Sefton Brancker, in his notes on the early part of the war, mentions three of these quick demands. When the aeroplane piloted by Lieutenant Waterfall was brought down by infantry fire in Belgium, this first mishap of the kind led to an immediate demand for armoured aeroplanes. The demand was not fulfilled until 1918, and then only in a special type of machine, designed for low flying. Again, the alarm of the 1st of September 1914, when the machines of the Flying Corps, being unable to fly by night, ran the risk of capture by German cavalry, led to a demand for folding aeroplanes suitable for towing along the road. This demand was never met. Lastly, the rapid movement of the retreat caused a report to be sent home that the canvas sheds on wooden frameworks, called Bessoneaux hangars, were useless. With the coming of trench warfare more stable conditions prevailed, and Bessoneaux hangars housed the Royal Flying Corps in great comfort throughout the war.

Incidents like these serve to show how great was the responsibility which rested on the home command. Fortunately, the home command were cool and far-sighted. Colonel Trenchard was the last man in the world to subordinate life to mechanism; and Colonel Brancker knew how to fly without fidgeting with the controls.

The resources to hand were not many. A certain small number of aeroplanes, in July 1914, were actually on order, and were being manufactured in slow and uncertain fashion. These belonged to several types. The earlier variants of the B.E. 2 machine were of Government design. Of proprietary designs, on order or in process of delivery, the most important at that time were the British Sopwith and Avro machines, and the French Maurice Farmans, Henri Farmans, and Bleriots, which were erected in England from parts supplied by France. Certain new types—the F.E. 2 (a pusher biplane), the R.E. 5 (a tractor two-seater bombing machine), the S.E. 2 (a single-seater tractor scout), the Vickers fighter, the Bristol scout, and several others—were hardly past the experimental stage. Some were in process of design; others were represented by a few experimental machines. In the matter of engines, the factory was engaged in designing its own, and a few British proprietary designs had been tried, but without sufficient success to warrant an order. In fact, the Royal Flying Corps had to depend entirely on French engines, that is to say, on the 70 horse-power Renault and the 80 horse-power Gnome. Large purchases of these engines were made during the week before the declaration of war; indeed, the whole of the funds available were spent twice over in anticipation of further credits.

When the war came, Avros, Farmans, and Bleriots were ordered to the full capacity of the factories that produced them. Vickers fighters were also ordered in numbers, though the latest model of the machine was untried, and though there was no certainty that the necessary 100 horse-power Monosoupape-Gnome engine could be obtained, or that when obtained it would run reliably. On the advice of the superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory it was decided to choose B.E. 2c for production in bulk rather than the earlier variants of the same type. This involved some little delay, for the drawings were not complete, but the superiority of the machine in construction, performance, and stability was judged to be worth the delay. Some firms which had never before touched aviation took large orders for this machine; the earliest to lend their services were the Daimler Company and Weir Brothers of Glasgow. For fighting purposes the F.E. 2, a two-seater pusher, which gave a clear field of fire forward, was chosen, and the drawings were pushed on at top speed. Smaller orders were placed among private firms for untried types of single-seater fighters, especially the Bristol scout and the Martinsyde scout. Messrs. Armstrong Whitworth, on receiving orders for B.E. 2 c's, undertook to produce an equally efficient and more easily manufactured aeroplane, and received permission to do so. Thus, before any definite policy could be laid down, and while experience gained in the field was still very small, the production of a large number of aircraft and air engines had been set on foot in England. Until the orders placed should begin to bear fruit, the Farman pusher machines, which could mount a machine-gun with a clear field of fire in front, were the only suitable fighting machines.

The enlisting and training of pilots, in numbers sufficient for the creation of new squadrons when the wastage in the field had been made good, was a matter of pressing concern. The only expert military pilots available as instructors were those employed at the Central Flying School. These were reinforced, first by certain civilian pilots who at once offered their services, and then, about the end of September, by the return from France of Major Longcroft and some other military pilots who in response to urgent requests were spared from the expeditionary force. A reserve aeroplane squadron was at once formed at Farnborough, and a large training scheme was initiated. The aerodromes at Netheravon, Gosport, Montrose, and Dover (this last still in process of making) were empty. Montrose, being far from London and from France, was handed over to the army; the others were made into training stations. Brooklands and Hounslow were taken over, and, during September, Shoreham and Joyce Green. New aerodromes were established at Norwich, Castle Bromwich, Beaulieu, Catterick, and Northolt. Each of these, it was decided, should be occupied by a reserve squadron, which, besides the regular work of training pilots, should prepare to throw off an active service squadron. The policy of distributing the new training stations all over England was decided on for several reasons. The congestion and delay inevitable at a few crowded centres would be avoided. The complete arrest of training by bad weather in one place would be insured against. The scattered aerodromes would be useful halting-places for new machines delivered by air; and, not least important, the New Army, training in various parts of England, would see something of aviation and would gain some knowledge of its uses. The chief disadvantage of the system was temporary; the available talent in instructors was scattered, so that a larger number of instructors was required.

In all these arrangements Lord Kitchener took a keen and detailed interest. He saw Colonel Brancker almost every day. He insisted on the creation of new units as a matter of the first importance. He investigated the possibilities of long-range bombing offensives against Germany, and continually urged the development of aircraft with a fuel endurance and a carrying capacity sufficient for a raid upon Essen. For this purpose he knew that trained and disciplined flights would be required, and he gave orders that formation flying was to be taught and practised at once. He did not fully understand the crippling effect of the shortage of pilots and the inefficiency of the available aircraft. Soon after the outbreak of war he said to Colonel Trenchard:

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough I want to see machines flying in formation.'

'But that is impossible,' said Colonel Trenchard. 'The machines are all of different types and different performances; we cannot fly in formation.'

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough I want to see machines flying in formation.'

'But, Sir, it cannot be done.'

'Trenchard, when I come down to Farnborough, you will have four machines paraded for me, to fly in formation.'

Lord Kitchener's foresight was unerring, and his will was strong, but the facts were too stubborn even for him. It proved impossible to fly our machines in formation until about a year later. The first formation flying seen over England during the war occurred on the 23rd of February 1915, when H.M.S. Hearty reported seven German aeroplanes flying very high over the Maplin Lightship, just off the coast of Essex.

The value of Lord Kitchener's support was immense. In the early months of 1915 an order of battle for the New Army was produced, showing its organization in corps and divisions. Colonel Brancker, when he saw this order, reckoned that at the rate of one artillery reconnaissance squadron for each division, and two or three fighting and reconnaissance squadrons for each corps, at least fifty service squadrons would be required. This, while the system of training was not yet in full working order, and while the output of engines and aeroplanes was still so small, seemed a very ambitious programme. But the squadrons were needed, so a minute to that effect was circulated among the departments concerned, who promptly added to it their remarks and comments, all critical and sceptical. At last the paper reached the Secretary of State for War, who, without an hour's delay, sent it straight back by hand to the Deputy Director of Military Aeronautics, bearing an inscription scribbled at the foot—'Double this. K.' These two words, initialled, swept away all conservative and financial obstruction; from that time forward the main difficulty was to prevent the development of the squadrons from running so far ahead of the output of material as to weaken the whole structure. The hundred squadrons took a long time to make; but before the war ended a still more generous programme, with provision for more than two hundred squadrons in the field, was in process of fulfilment.

No account can be given here of all the difficulties, problems, and mishaps which had to be faced, not only at Farnborough or in the War Office, but at the stations all over the country, in the building up of the squadrons. The building went on, and those who did their work on it—the civilian and mechanic volunteers, the novices who learned their business only to teach it again to others, the men of special knowledge, trained engineers, experts in wireless telegraphy, photography, and gunnery, who by their work on the ground contributed to the efficiency of the work to be done in the air—have a living monument in the existence of the Royal Air Force. The material which lay ready to their hands was little in quantity, but some of it was very good, and served well to set a standard. British aviation was a small and late development compared with the achievement of the French; but the skill and science of the Royal Aircraft Factory, and of the best of the private firms, had already given it a name for safety, quality, and performance, and the zeal and character of its new recruits assured its continued increase and multiplied its merits. What was needed now was a plan for the building. Bricks and mortar, however good, and labour, however willing, are of no effect until they are disposed by the skill of the architect. It was the happiness of the Royal Flying Corps that that skill was not lacking. Those who designed the work to be executed in human material were worthy of their opportunity. It is not always so. There were many military misadventures in our history which give point to the criticism of the famous French cook, who, when he saw the beef and chickens of England, wept to think of the uses to which that magnificent material would be put by the resolute monotony of British cooking.

Long before the new squadrons were ready a plan had been made for using them, and controlling them, to the best advantage. The command of the Flying Corps were very quick to learn and apply the lessons of experience. These lessons, though not very many, were very important. By the end of October 1914, all the squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps in the field were settled down in the area of the British army, which held a line running from Givenchy to Zonnebeke. The duties of the Flying Corps had thus become local in character, so that knowledge of the particular piece of country over which they did their work now became very important for pilots and observers. To enable the several army corps and divisions to obtain full value from the services of the Flying Corps it was necessary that the squadrons should be put into touch directly with the corps commanders. A central command cannot judge the necessities of the case as those on the spot can judge it; and much time is lost in sending messages to and fro. Corps commanders were already calling for squadrons to be put at their disposal for observation and photography. A scheme was worked out whereby squadrons were arranged in groups of from two to four squadrons, each group being called a wing. The scheme was accepted by the command of the expeditionary force, and came into operation in November 1914. Already the new arrangement had been anticipated in practice. During the battles of Ypres in 1914, it had been found necessary to detach squadrons, instead of flights, to co-operate with the several army corps; and these squadrons, instead of returning at night to the central landing-place at the Flying Corps headquarters, as they did during the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, remained permanently with the army corps which they were helping. The new scheme regularized and extended this practice.

The creation of wings involved some transfers and promotions. The First Wing, intended to operate with the Indian Corps and the Fourth Army Corps, consisted of Squadrons Nos. 2 and 3; the command was given to Lieutenant-Colonel H. M. Trenchard, who came to St.-Omer on the 18th of November. The Second Wing, intended to operate with the Second and Third Army Corps, consisted of Squadrons Nos. 5 and 6, and was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel C. J. Burke.

No. 4 Squadron and the wireless unit (afterwards No. 9 Squadron) were kept under the direct control of the Royal Flying Corps headquarters. Shortly before the battle of Neuve-Chapelle the Third Wing was formed under Lieutenant-Colonel H. R. M. Brooke-Popham, and No. 9 Squadron was dispersed amongst the other squadrons. What had been the Military Wing at Farnborough was now decentralized into two separate commands—the Administrative Wing and the Fourth Wing—each controlled directly by the War Office. The Administrative Wing, with headquarters at Farnborough, consisting of Nos. 1 and 2 Reserve Aeroplane Squadrons, the Depot, the Aircraft Park, and the Record Office, was placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel E. B. Ashmore, who was transferred from the staff of the General Officer Commanding the Home Forces. The Fourth Wing, with headquarters at Netheravon, was placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel J. F. A. Higgins, who had commanded No. 5 Squadron in France, and had been wounded, on the 30th of October, in the air above Bailleul. This wing consisted of Nos. 1 and 7 Squadrons, preparing for service in France.

The institution of wings was a great step in advance, and made it easy to provide for later additions to the strength of the Flying Corps. When the newly-formed squadrons began to appear in number, they were formed into wings, and the wings themselves, in the winter of 1915-16, were combined in pairs to form brigades. The brigade became a self-sufficient unit, to work with an army; it was commanded by a brigadier-general, and comprised, besides the two aeroplane wings, a third wing for kite balloons, an aircraft park, and everything necessary for a complete aerial force. Further, when fighting in the air became all-important, whole wings were made up of fighting squadrons, and these wings were symmetrically paired with other wings made up of squadrons designed for artillery co-operation, close reconnaissance, and photography. The wing which carried out long reconnaissances and offensive patrols, bombing the enemy, attacking him in the air, and, in effect, protecting the machines which did their observation work above the lines, was called the army wing, and worked for army headquarters. The wing which observed and photographed for the corps command, reporting on the character of the enemy defences, the movement of troops, and, above all, the effects of our artillery fire, was called the corps wing, and worked for corps headquarters.

This powerful organization of the later years of the war was achieved by a natural and easy expansion of the system of wings. In the early days of the war machines of various types were included in one squadron; then uniform squadrons of various types were included in one wing; at last, wings of various types were included in one brigade. The Flying Corps grew and increased in close correspondence with the army to which it lent essential aid. The institution of wings was a formal recognition of the necessity of its services. This recognition had taken some little time to achieve. Military aviation was a wholly new thing, quite unfamiliar to many an old soldier. There was a certain shyness at first between the army and the Flying Corps. The command of the army did not always ask for help from the air, and the command of the Flying Corps did not always offer it. When the squadrons got into touch with the corps commands, and did work for the artillery and the infantry, their value was proved beyond a doubt.

The commanding officer of a wing was given the rank of lieutenant-colonel. To assist him he had an adjutant and an equipment officer. The introduction of equipment officers into the Royal Flying Corps involved a new departure. Up to this time the rule had been that all officers in the Flying Corps, whether employed on the ground or in the air, must learn to fly. But to apply this rule, in time of war, to officers whose duties would never take them off the ground, and who would have to learn at schools already more than fully occupied with training pilots, seemed a waste of energy. There were, for instance, many trained engineers, in civil life, who were eminently capable of supervising the mechanical equipment, but who did not want to learn to fly, and could be made into indifferent pilots only at a great expense of time and labour, and at not a little risk. At first the equipment officer was concerned only with stores, but soon the same grading was given to specialist officers concerned with wireless telegraphy, photography, or machine-guns. At a later time in the war some senior officers, skilled in the handling of men, learned to fly, and were at once given the command of squadrons. A man with a talent for command, who can teach and maintain discipline, encourage his subordinates, and organize the work to be done, will have a good squadron, and is free from those insidious temptations which so easily beset commanding officers who have earned distinction as pilots. Yet the instinct of the Royal Air Force is strong—that a commanding officer should know the air, if he is to control aircraft. The right solution, no doubt, is that he should be able to fly well, and should be careful not to fly too much. A born commander who cannot fly is likely to have a better squadron than a born flyer who cannot command.

Technical matters, that is to say, all matters of design and equipment, were controlled by the War Office. This cast a great responsibility on the War Office, and might have worked unhappily, if the authorities at home had concentrated their attention on mechanical improvements without sufficient regard to the men who had to use them. But the two officers who, in the beginning, were chiefly responsible for development at home subsequently held commands in the field, so that theory was not divorced from practice. Colonel Trenchard was the first officer in the Royal Flying Corps to command a wing, and Colonel Brancker, at a later time, from August to December, 1915, was given the command of the Third Wing in France.

The whole development and expansion of the Royal Flying Corps in France was carried on while the conditions were altering every month, at high pressure, in rivalry with the Germans. It was a race to obtain machines of the greatest possible speed consistent with reliability. But no machine is reliable when it is first turned out. Only experience can prove a mechanism, discover its faults, and teach the right method of handling it. This experience had to be gained in war. The conditions of success were never at a stay. As soon as a machine was tried and proved, and the faults of its engine corrected, so that it became comparatively reliable, a faster German machine appeared. This had a depressing effect on the pilot, who, though he had been well satisfied with his own machine, could find no words too bad for it when a German machine left him standing in the air. After a time a new British machine would appear, and in its turn would outgo the German. In the meantime the important thing was to maintain the spirit of the pilot. It was the wisdom of General Trenchard to know that our success depended upon this. In his own words, he sacrificed everything to morale. To think only of dangers and drawbacks, to make much of the points in which the Germans had attained a fleeting superiority, to lay stress on the imperfections of our own equipment—all this, he knew, was to invite defeat. Just before the battles of the Somme, in 1916, a lively agitation of these matters was carried on by the newspaper press in England. Major Maurice Baring, in his published diary, has recorded that the results of this agitation were—not the hastening of one bolt, turnbuckle, or split-pin (for the factories were fully at work), but a real danger of the spread of alarm and despondency among the younger members of the Flying Corps in France. More than any other man, General Trenchard averted this danger. He put confidence into the pilots. He knew that if their hearts were not light they would do worse than die; and he fostered in them, by sympathy, the feelings which make for life and are life. Inferiority in engines and machines could be remedied in time, inferiority in resolution and confidence would have been irremediable.

Among the points which were early brought home by the experience of the war to those who had control of the production of machines, one or two deserve special mention. The absolute necessity for an efficient fighting aeroplane was realized, it has been seen, within a month. The enormous value of artillery observation and the immense superiority of wireless telegraphy over all earlier and more rudimentary kinds of signalling were soon demonstrated, and the call for machines fitted with wireless became insistent. Some of the pilots and some of the equipment of the wireless section which existed before mobilization had been used to bring the squadrons of the expeditionary force up to war strength. The section, though much emaciated, was not allowed to lapse; it was attached to No. 4 Squadron, and went out with it to France. The pilots of this section, Lieutenants Lewis, James, and Winfield Smith, worked with the squadron, but spent most of their time in making ready the wireless telegraphy equipment which, when once the retreat was ended and ground stations were established on a fixed front, came into effective use. Again, the very rapid development of an efficient German anti-aircraft service, and the equally rapid improvement in range and accuracy of anti-aircraft guns, changed the conditions of reconnaissance. In the almost pastoral simplicity of the first days of the war, four thousand feet was held to be a sufficient height for immunity from the effect of fire from the ground. Before long four times that height gave no such immunity. Machines, therefore, had to be built to climb quickly, and had to be given a higher 'ceiling', as it is called; that is, they had to be able to maintain level flight in a more rarefied medium. But observation with the human eye from a height of several miles is almost useless for the detective work of military reconnaissance. So it came about that the improvement of the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery gave a direct impulse to the improvement of our aerial photography. A photograph, taken in a good light and enlarged, reveals many things invisible to the naked eye; a series of photographs reveals those changes in the appearance of the earth's surface which result from the digging of new trenches or gun-positions and the making of new ammunition-dumps.

Improvements in mechanical science, to be of any use in war, depend on the skill and practice of those who use them. General Trenchard never forgot this. He thought first of the pilot, and then of the gadgets. 'The good gun-mounting', he once said, 'is the mounting that the pilot can work.' This was a thing essential to remember at a time when the pilot got the best part of his training in the war itself. If he could not work the gun-mounting, the gun-mounting would probably survive him. To study the tastes and preferences of pilots, even when these tastes were prejudices, was the only way to efficiency. At the beginning of 1916 General Trenchard made it a rule to supply one experimental machine, without standardized mountings, to every squadron of the Royal Flying Corps, so that the pilots might put their own ideas to the test of practice. They had had but little opportunity to test their own ideas in the course of their training at the Central Flying School or the other training stations. The great practical School of Research for pilots was the war.

During the first winter of the war, the training given at the Central Flying School and the other training stations was still very elementary in character. The main part of the pupil's business was to learn to fly with safety, and when he could do this he was passed out to the squadrons. Such a training would have been terribly inadequate a year or two later, when no one could hope to fly long without fighting. At the training station in Shawbury, during the winter of 1917-18, Lieutenant W. L. S. Keith-Jopp, who, after losing a hand in the war, continued to be a capable pilot, was in the habit of teaching his pupils all the acrobatics of the air, and would urge them on with the motto—'Stunt, or die.' Those who could not or would not learn to side-slip, to loop, to imitate a fall out of control, and to perform a dozen other gymnastic feats in the air had little prospect of a long flying career in France. But the first winter of the war was innocent of all these fighting manoeuvres. Group Captain J. G. Hearson, who made acquaintance with the Central Flying School at that time, has kindly contributed some notes on the system then in vogue. The Central Flying School, he says, was the Mecca of all who wished to learn to fly. For serviceable machines, competent instructors, and the material and knowledge necessary to turn out a finished pilot, it was believed to be better than any other training centre. Some of the instructors had seen active service in France, and all were veterans in aviation. Of the pupils a certain number were regular officers, army or navy, but the majority were civilians of promise. The ambition of all was the same, to get into the air as quickly as possible, and to qualify for the coveted wings, which, once obtained, assured their wearer of immediate service, either in France, or with a naval unit. There were lectures on engines, aeroplanes, wireless telegraphy, meteorology, tactics, and organization. Flying was taught in four flights of service machines, two of them being made up of various types of the B.E. machines, while the other two consisted of Henri Farmans and Avros. The pupil was first taken up as a passenger, and the method of using the controls was demonstrated to him. He was then allowed to attempt flight for himself, either on a machine fitted with dual controls, or with the watchful instructor on the pounce to save him from dangerous mistakes. If he prospered well, the great day soon came, which, however carefully it may have been prepared for, is always a thrilling experience and a searching test of self-reliance, the day of the first solo flight, sometimes ending in a too violent or too timid landing—that is, in a crash or a pancake. The training was almost wholly directed to producing airworthiness in the pupil. The various activities which had developed at the front, such as artillery observation, fighting, and bombing, had no counterpart as yet in the training establishment. Most of the pupils were eager to fly and to get to France; they endured workshop instruction as a necessary evil. Most of the instructors were unable to answer the questions of a pupil interested in the science of aviation. They knew, and taught, that when a machine is steeply banked the rudder and the elevator appear to exchange functions, so that the rudder directs the machine up or down and the elevator turns it to this side or that, but they could not always explain the reason of this mystery. Nor could they explain why in a fog or cloud the compass of an aeroplane is suddenly possessed of a devil, and begins to spin around. But although they were not all well versed in technical knowledge and theory, they were all fit to teach the most important lesson—the lesson of confidence, resource, and initiative.

There was no special school for the systematic training of observers until the spring of 1918, when the school of aeronautics at Bath was formed with that purpose in view. During the greater part of the war the instruction given to observers in the schools at home was occasional and desultory. From 1916 onwards a certain number were sent to Brooklands to learn wireless telegraphy, and a certain number to the machine gun school at Hythe to learn aerial gunnery. This school had been formed at Dover in September 1915, and two months later had been moved to Hythe, where firing from the air could be more freely and safely practised. In the earlier part of the war the observer's duties were usually undertaken by officers or non-commissioned officers who volunteered for the business. When they joined the Flying Corps they already had some considerable acquaintance with the things to be observed—the disposition and appearance of the mobile forces and earthworks of a modern army—but their experience of observation from the air had to be gained over the enemy lines. It has always been the tendency of our air forces to make more of the pilot than of the observer. When battles in the air became frequent, this tendency was strengthened. The pilot is the captain of the craft. If he is killed, the craft cannot keep the air. But if more depends on the pilot, it is equally true to say that a higher degree of cold-drawn courage is demanded from the observer. He suffers with the pilot for all the pilot's mistakes. For hours together he has nothing to do but to sit still and keep his eyes open. He has not the relief that activity and the sense of control give to strained nerves. He is often an older man than the pilot, and better able to recognize danger. There is no more splendid record of service in the war than the record of the best observers. The two embroidered wings of the pilot's badge are the mark of a gallant profession, and are worn by novices and veterans alike; the single wing of the observer's badge was the mark of service done over the fire of enemy guns.

It has already been told how a large scheme for the expansion of the Royal Flying Corps was set on foot at home by Lord Kitchener, Colonel Trenchard, and Colonel Brancker. In November 1914 Colonel Trenchard was given the command of the First Wing. In August 1915 he succeeded General Henderson in the command of the Royal Flying Corps in France. General Henderson had held this command during the whole of the first year of the war. Under his guidance the new, small, tentative air force, which he had done so much to create and foster, took its part in a great European war, and rapidly gained recognition for itself from the other branches of the service. When he relinquished his command in the field, General Henderson continued until October 1917 to be General Officer Commanding the Royal Flying Corps, and Director-General of Military Aeronautics. Soon after that, when the Air Ministry was formed, he was given a seat on the Air Council, which he resigned in March 1918. At the close of the war he took over the control of the International Red Cross organization at Geneva, where he did good work until his death in August 1921. He was a white man, a good friend, and an honourable enemy, high-spirited and sensitive—too sensitive to be happy among those compromises and makeshifts which are usual in the world of politics. The first chief of the Royal Flying Corps was a loyal and simple soldier.

Men take their turn and pass, but their work lives after them. The story of the Royal Flying Corps during the war is a continuous story of growth. Better, faster, and more numerous machines; more powerful, more trustworthy, and more numerous engines; better trained, more skilful, and more numerous pilots—the increase went on, when once the initial difficulties were vanquished, by leaps and bounds. The growth in power and bulk is striking enough, but the vitality of the new force is even better seen in the growing diversity of its purposes and of the tasks which it was called on to perform. Reconnaissance, or observation, can never be superseded; knowledge comes before power; and the air is first of all a place to see from. It is also a place to strike from, but, speaking historically, offensive action in the air, on any large scale, began, as had been anticipated, in the effort of the conflicting forces to deprive each other of the opportunity and means of vision. As the British expeditionary force grew, more squadrons of reconnaissance machines were required to serve the armies, their principal duties being to observe for the artillery and to photograph enemy positions. While they could perform these duties, they were content, but before very long they could not perform them. The change in the situation is well summarized in a letter written on the 31st of July 1915 by Colonel Brooke-Popham to Colonel Ashmore, who commanded the Administrative Wing in England. 'The German aeroplanes', says Colonel Brooke-Popham, 'are becoming far more active, and are making a regular habit of attacking our machines when on reconnaissance, and we are having to fight for all our information. We are now having fights by pairs of machines, as well as individual duels. It will probably be necessary to send machines by pairs or even by flights on all reconnaissances. The General Officer Commanding, therefore, wants you to practise flying by pairs of machines in keeping station. Simple manoeuvres might also be carried out.' That this forecast was correct is shown by a letter sent in March 1916 from General Headquarters to the War Office. 'Under existing conditions,' the letter runs, 'it is essential to provide protection in the form of patrols for machines employed on artillery work. Information can no longer be obtained by despatching single machines on reconnaissance duties. The information has now to be fought for, and it is necessary for reconnaissances to consist of at least five machines flying in formation.'

Fighting in the air had by 1916 become a regular incident of reconnaissance work. But when once fighting machines were produced, it was obvious that their use would not be restricted to attacks on enemy aircraft. Bombing raids on enemy positions became a regular duty of the Flying Corps. A machine built to take a heavy load of bombs is clumsy and slow in manoeuvre, not well able to repel the attack of light fighting scouts. To borrow a phrase from the pilots, it is cold meat in the air. Hence bombing raids were carried out chiefly at night, and night flying, on machines designed for the purpose, became another special duty of the Flying Corps. These raids were what may be called short-distance raids, aimed at the aerodromes, munition stores, and communications of the German forces on the western front. They were followed, later, by long-distance raids, carried out by the Independent Air Force of 1918 against those centres in Germany which were sources of supply for the German army. In his dispatch of January 1919, on the work of the Independent Air Force, General Trenchard reviews and summarizes what had been his policy from the beginning. It was necessary, he says, to equip the British expeditionary force on the western front with sufficient aircraft to hold and beat the German aerial forces on the western front; the bombing of Germany was a luxury till this had been accomplished, but once this had been accomplished, it became a necessity.

A good general idea of the growth of the Flying Corps can be obtained from a study of the programmes put up in 1915 to Sir John French, and in later years to Sir Douglas Haig, by the command of the Flying Corps in the field. These programmes are consistent and progressive; they look ahead, and attempt to provide the Flying Corps, in good time, with the means of meeting the demands certain to be made on it. On the 21st of August 1915, some two or three days after he had taken over the command in the field, Colonel Trenchard wrote to the Chief of the General Staff at General Headquarters. In this letter he speaks of the number of hostile aeroplanes seen on the Second Army front, and asks for another squadron to be sent out from home by the middle of September. 'I think a guide for the future', he says, 'should be at least one squadron to each corps, one squadron to each army headquarters, and one for General Headquarters.' The corps squadrons were needed for artillery work and photography; the others to carry out reconnaissances for the three armies and for General Headquarters. On this basis he asks for three more squadrons as soon as possible. 'In addition I would ask that a squadron per army be sent out when formed, for special work such as bomb raids.' His plea for a good supply of anti-aircraft guns illustrates a difference which persisted throughout the war between British and German usages. The British corps machines were incessantly at work over the enemy. The German corps machines were more prudent. Their constant practice was to carry out their observation of artillery fire and their photographic work obliquely, from a position in the air low down over their own lines, so that they were protected by their own guns, and could be attacked from the air only at very great risk. But the German anti-aircraft guns had already succeeded in hitting some of our aeroplanes when they were flying more than three miles inside our own lines, at a height of six thousand feet. If we had guns as good as this, says Colonel Trenchard, and in sufficient number, we could attack the German machines and could protect our own machines when they are at work above the enemy lines. Hostile aeroplanes are easier to see from the ground than from the air, and the bursts of our anti-aircraft shell would serve to show our aircraft the whereabouts of enemy machines.

At this time there were three British armies on the western front. When news came in September that a Fourth Army was about to be formed, General Trenchard at once asked for a fourth wing, to consist of headquarters and three squadrons.

These demands were all fulfilled as soon as the uncertainty of deliveries permitted. In March 1916, some three and a half months before the beginning of the battles of the Somme, General Trenchard took another step forward. The work to be done by the Royal Flying Corps had outgrown its strength. Each of the British armies on the front had allotted to it at this time one brigade of the Royal Flying Corps, consisting of two aeroplane wings, namely, a corps wing and an army wing, and two kite balloon sections. But in practice it had been found necessary to use the squadrons of the corps wing to help the army wing in patrol work, army reconnaissance, and bombing, so that corps commanders were often deprived of the essential services of the Flying Corps in artillery work and photography. General Trenchard's proposals, accepted and forwarded by the Chief of the General Staff, were based on the assumption that thirty-two squadrons would be in France by the middle of April. Sixteen of these, it was recommended, should be allotted, one to every corps of the four armies, for corps work; twelve to the four armies, at the rate of three squadrons to each army, for army work; and four squadrons to General Headquarters.

Ever since the formation of the Royal Flying Corps a squadron had consisted of twelve machines, that is, three flights of four machines each. It was now recommended and agreed that this number should be raised to eighteen, that is, three flights of six machines each, and that the establishment of pilots should be raised from twelve to twenty for each squadron. It was further agreed that the raising of all squadrons to the higher establishment should take precedence over the formation of new squadrons.