Chapter V: The Royal Flying Corps (2)

In the same year the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps began to experiment with a light wireless set for aeroplanes. As no machines were available for fitting, a station was constructed on Burntwick Island, the conditions being as nearly as possible the conditions in an aeroplane. Stray signals were received from this station by H.M.S. _Actaeon_, about one mile distant. In June 1912 Commander Samson, flying the first Short seaplane, fitted with a practice wireless set such as used in destroyers, succeeded in sending messages a distance of three, four, and, on occasions, of ten miles. In August 1912 Lieutenant Raymond Fitzmaurice, R.N., who had served as a wireless telegraphy officer with the fleet, was appointed to arrange for the installation of wireless apparatus in naval aircraft. A few days after his arrival at Eastchurch he was ordered to go to Farnborough to take charge of the wireless in the airship _Gamma_ on the defending side in the forthcoming army manoeuvres. Captain Lefroy was to take charge of the wireless in the airship _Delta_, which was intended to operate on the attacking side. Both these airships had been equipped with wireless apparatus by Captain Lefroy, on instructions from the War Office, to ascertain what could be done by wireless from aircraft in the manoeuvres. The set of wireless for the _Gamma_ had to be improvised from odds and ends--an old magneto and some Moscicki jars. The 'aerial', which does the work of one of the plates of a condenser, was a double trailer of wire let down from the bottom of the car off two drums; the 'earth', which does the work of the other plate, was made of insulated wires triced out to the bow and stern of the gas-bag. The magneto was run by a belt from one of the ballonet blowers. Receiving instruments were also installed, but these could only be used when the engine was stopped.

As soon as the weather was favourable the two airships sailed from Farnborough; the _Gamma_ for Kneesworth camp, on the defending side, the _Delta_ for Thetford, on the attacking side. The _Delta_ broke down over North London, but so successful was the wireless installation that her messages reporting the break-down were received near Thetford and at Portsmouth by H.M.S. _Vernon_; the _Beta_ took her place, but was too small to carry the wireless installation. The _Gamma_ was thus the only craft fitted with wireless, and the efforts of the attacking side were devoted to intercepting her messages at a ground station. The _Gamma_ was an unqualified success. Her signals came in strong and loud from a distance of thirty-five miles to a station at Whittlesford fitted with naval service receiving apparatus. Speaking of the work of aircraft, General Grierson, who commanded the defending force, says: 'The impression left on my mind is that their use has revolutionized the art of war. So long as hostile aircraft are hovering over one's troops all movements are liable to be seen and reported, and therefore the first step in war will be to get rid of the hostile aircraft. He who does this first or who keeps the last aeroplane afloat will win, other things being approximately equal.... The airship, as long as she remained afloat, was of more use to me for strategical reconnaissance than the aeroplanes, as, being fitted with wireless telegraphy, I received her messages in a continuous stream and immediately after the observations had been made.... It is a pity that the airship cannot _receive_ messages by wireless, but doubtless modern science will soon remedy this defect.'

This was the first triumph of aerial reconnaissance in England. Every morning the _Gamma_ went out at daybreak and scouted over the enemy; within half an hour the general in command was in receipt of very full information which enabled him to make out his dispositions and movements for the day. Some attempts were made to conceal troops at the halt from the view of aircraft; but, as General Grierson remarks, for troops on the move there is only one certain cover--the shades of night. So complete was the information supplied from the air that the commander of the defending force was enabled to organize his attack and end the manoeuvres a day sooner than was expected. After the manoeuvres the _Gamma_ flew by night over Cambridge and bombarded that seat of learning with Very lights. It took three hours to fly twenty miles, from Kneesworth to Cambridge, against a strong head wind, and at one o'clock at night the mechanic informed Major Maitland, who commanded the _Gamma_, that only one-quarter hour's supply of lubricating oil remained. So the ship had to shut off her engines and float on the tide of the air. By throwing out all her ballast she kept afloat till dawn, and made a safe landing in the neighbourhood of Bristol. 'I don't think I shall ever forget', says Captain Fitzmaurice, 'the feeling of perfect peace and quiet one experiences when ballooning by night.' The same feeling was experienced by Lunardi during his first ascent in a balloon. The history of aeronautics, if it could be fully written, is in the main a history of Peace in the air.

The two years before the war were years of progress. In 1912 M. Lucien Rouzet invented a transmitting apparatus which, in proportion to its power, was lighter in weight than anything that had previously been in use; a number of these sets were purchased by the Naval and Military Wings to be used in aircraft. During May 1913 successful wireless trials were carried out by Lieutenant Fitzmaurice in a Short seaplane piloted by Sub-Lieutenant J. T. Babington. During one of these a flight was made along the coast from the Isle of Grain to the North Foreland, the seaplane being in communication with the receiving stations at Grain and Eastchurch and with ships at sea during the whole of its flight. Its signals were read up to a distance of forty-five miles. During this flight the seaplane signalled a wireless salute to the Royal Yacht, which was taking the King and Queen to Flushing on a visit to Germany. In the naval manoeuvres of the summer, Lieutenant Fitzmaurice and Commander Samson were sent out to scout over the sea due east from Yarmouth in the latest Short seaplane, No. 81. Her engine failed, and she was compelled to come down on the sea, but the wireless messages which she had sent to H.M.S. _Hermes_ served to locate her, and when the _Hermes_ went to look for her she was found near the expected place on board a German timber boat which had come to her assistance.

The airships _Delta_ and _Eta_ were both equipped with wireless for the army manoeuvres of 1913, and were based on Dunchurch, near Rugby. In all, _Delta_ sent sixty-six messages during her seven voyages, and on the 24th of September carried out a successful night reconnaissance. The _Eta_, owing to engine trouble, played no effective part in the manoeuvres, but during her journey from Farnborough to Dunchurch she maintained wireless communication with Aldershot till she reached Woodstock, when she called up Dunchurch and kept in communication for the remainder of the voyage. Captain Lefroy in his report says: 'It seems probable that H.M. Airships _Delta_ and _Eta_ can exchange messages with each other when 100 miles apart in the air, which may prove useful for organization purposes, &c. I received clear signals from the North Foreland station (and a ship to which she was talking) when 130 miles N.W. of it, and whilst H.M.A. _Eta_ was cruising northwards at touring speed.'

Just before the 1913 army manoeuvres, Lieutenant B. T. James, piloting a B.E. aeroplane, succeeded in receiving wireless signals with the engine running at full power. To enable him to do this his machine was fitted with Captain Lefroy's new receiving set in which magneto disturbances were screened off and the signals strengthened by Brown relays, that is, microphones invented by Mr. S. G. Brown. In June 1914 Lieutenants D. S. Lewis and B. T. James flew from Netheravon to Bournemouth each in a B.E. aeroplane equipped with sending and receiving apparatus; they flew about ten miles apart, and kept in close communication with each other the whole way.

Captain Lefroy continued to act as wireless expert to the Royal Flying Corps up to the outbreak of the war. The work done by him and by Lieutenant Fitzmaurice was of great value. When the war broke out wireless sets had been fitted to sixteen seaplanes, as well as to the two airships _Astra-Torres_ and _Parseval_, which did good service in patrolling the Channel during the passage of the Expeditionary Force.

The development of wireless telegraphy for the uses of aircraft was only one small part of the work which had to be arranged and supervised by the headquarters staff at Farnborough. They had to recruit, organize, and train the new force. Energy, faith, and self-sacrifice were asked for, not in vain, from the officers and men who came into the corps. The headquarters staff was small, but with the help of the officers commanding the squadrons and the staff of the flying school at Upavon, they inaugurated a great tradition. There were no precedents. The staff had first to invent their work, and then to do it. The details of supply and transport, the ordering of machines from the makers, the training and equipment of every recruit--all these things had to be thought out in advance. The official text-books, regulations, and standing orders, which were all complete and ready for issue when the war came, bear witness to the foresight and initiative of Major Sykes and the small staff who worked under him at headquarters. The Flying Corps resembles the navy in this respect, that its daily work in time of peace is not very much unlike its daily work in time of war, so that if the work is hard and incessant, at least it is rewarded by the sense of achievement.

One particular achievement was greater than all the rest. When flight began it attracted men of romantic and adventurous temper, some of whom were much concerned with their own performances and had a natural liking for display. If these tendencies had been encouraged, or even permitted, they would have ruined the corps. The staff, to a man, set their faces like flint against all such indulgences. Publicity, advertisement, the rubbish of popular applause, were anathema to them. What they sought to create was a service temper, and they were so successful that the typical pilot of the war was as modest and dutiful as a lieutenant of infantry. The building up of the Flying Corps on these lines, remote from the public gaze, deprived it of popular support, but it gained for it what was a thousand times more valuable--a severe code of duty, a high standard of quiet courage, and an immense corporate pride. To have kept the infant corps and all its doings in the public eye would have been as disastrous an experiment as to attempt to educate a child on the music-hall stage.

A great part of the early work of the Flying Corps was experimental. Various kinds of experiment were assigned by the corps headquarters to the several squadrons, and the headquarters staff took care that any success achieved by one squadron should become the rule for the betterment of all. An experimental branch of the Military Wing was formed in March 1913 under Major Herbert Musgrave; it dealt, among other things, with experimental work in connexion with ballooning, kiting, wireless telegraphy, photography, meteorology, bomb-dropping, musketry, and gunnery, and co-operation with artillery. Major Musgrave deserves more than a passing mention in any military history of the air. After serving throughout the South African War as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers he had passed through the Staff College. The possibilities of aviation very early took possession of his mind. In 1909, from the cliffs of Dover, he saw M. Bleriot arrive in a monoplane, and was so impressed by the sight that he went straight to the War Office to draw attention to the military significance of this portent, and its threat to our insular security. From this time forward his mind was set on aeronautics. He applied for military aviation service before the Flying Corps was formed, and in May 1912 repeated his application. 'A Staff Officer', he noted in his diary, 'should know the capabilities of aviation. He should be able to observe from an aeroplane and to travel by aeroplane with dispatches.' At last, in October 1912, during a short period of leave, he learned to fly at the Bristol Flying School on Salisbury Plain. In the following spring he was gazetted a squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps. He was at once appointed assistant commandant and officer in charge of experiments. His utility to the Flying Corps, while it was in the making, was immense. He urged that new squadrons should be formed even while machines were lacking, so that the organization and discipline should be perfected in advance. The flying training of the corps, he insisted, should always have a clear military purpose in view. He was no militarist, but he was a good soldier, and he knew the imminence of war with Germany. As early as December 1911, in a lecture which he delivered in Malta, he predicted the war. 'When it comes,' he said, 'be assured it will come suddenly. We shall wake up one night, and find ourselves at war.... Another thing is certain. This war will be no walk-over.... In the military sphere it will be the hardest, fiercest, and bloodiest struggle we have ever had to face; let us fully make up our minds to that, and probably every one of us here to-night will take part in it. We need not be afraid of overdoing our preparations.'

For two years Major Musgrave worked hard in helping to prepare the Flying Corps for its coming ordeal. In the spring of 1914 a headquarters flight was placed at his disposal for technical work in many kinds. Up to this time there had been two kinds of experimental work; the National Physical Laboratory was responsible for purely scientific experiments, while the commanders of squadrons tested new ideas in practice. But these two sets of men worked under very different conditions, and neither of them fully understood the aims and difficulties of the other branch. The headquarters flight was intended to serve as a link between theory and practice. Major Musgrave gave special attention to wireless telegraphy, and with the assistance of Lieutenants D. S. Lewis and B. T. James, both also of the Royal Engineers and both pioneers of wireless, he made good progress in its practical application to the needs of the Flying Corps. When the war came, the headquarters flight was broken up in order to bring the four original squadrons up to strength, but the wireless section was attached for a time to No. 4 Squadron, and in September 1914 a headquarters wireless unit was formed at Fere-en-Tardenois in France, with Major Musgrave in command. From this unit the whole wireless telegraphy organization of the Royal Flying Corps was gradually developed. In December 1914 the unit was enlarged, and became No. 9 Squadron stationed at headquarters. Having worked out all details for the supply of wireless machines to the squadrons in the field, Major Musgrave in March 1915 left the Royal Flying Corps to take up duty with the staff of the army. He was severely wounded in August 1916. Almost two years later, on the night of the 2nd of June 1918, having persuaded a battalion commander to let him accompany a patrol, he was killed by a rifle grenade, inside the German lines. He desired no personal advancement, and would have thought no other honour so great as to die for his country. Such men, though the records of their lives are buried under a mass of tedious detail, are the engineers of victory.

When the airships were handed over to the navy, it became necessary to reorganize No. 1 Squadron as an aeroplane squadron. This was put in hand on the 1st of May 1914, and was not completed when the war broke out. The senior aeroplane squadrons of the Military Wing were, therefore, No. 2 Squadron under Major Burke, and No. 3 Squadron under Major Brooke-Popham.

The officers of these squadrons, to whom it fell to set the example and to show the way, were a remarkable group of pioneers. Some of them were accomplished flyers, who took delight in the mastery of the air. But none of them practised the art for the art's sake. They were not virtuosos, bent on exhibiting the heights to which individual skill can attain. They did not play a lone hand. The risks that they took were the risks, not of adventure, but of duty. They were soldiers first. One and all they were impressed with the importance of military aviation for their country's need. 'It has got to come,' said Captain Patrick Hamilton, 'and we have got to do it.' Their lives were pledged to their country, and until their country should call for them, were held in trust, not to be lightly thrown away. Some were called early, during the exercises of peace; others during the war. Others again, a minority, were marked down for a third chance, and were given the duty of carrying on, through the war and after it. The time of the call, early or late, made no difference; the work of the corps was not interrupted. When Captain Eustace Loraine, the first to go, was killed with his passenger, Staff-Sergeant R. H. V. Wilson, near Stonehenge, on the 5th of July 1912, the order was issued that flying would go on as usual that evening. An order like this not only creates a tradition, it pays the right honour to the dead, who died on duty no less than if they had been brought down by the guns of the enemy. The casualties of the first summer were not light in proportion to the strength of the corps, and in one respect were very heavy, for almost all of those who were killed were creators and founders, whose work and influence would have been invaluable in building up the corps. They could ill be spared. They left nothing but their example; yet any one who remembers what the Flying Corps achieved during the war may well wonder whether that example does not count for as much as a long life of devoted service.

Captain Eustace Broke Loraine had served with the Grenadier Guards in the South African War. His great-grandfather was the famous British admiral, Sir Philip Broke, who in 1813 commanded H.M.S. _Shannon_, and after a fifteen minutes' battle outside the port of New York compelled the surrender of the United States frigate _Chesapeake_. That battle, it has been truly said, was won before it was fought; the _Shannon_ had been many years cruising at sea; she was in perfect fighting trim, her men were disciplined and her gunners practised. The men of the _Chesapeake_ were fresh from the shore, strangers to each other and to their officers, so that the heavier armament of the _Chesapeake_ was of no avail. When Captain Loraine joined the Flying Corps he applied his great-grandfather's methods, and set himself by study, care, discipline, and skill to prepare the materials of victory. He was a highly skilled pilot, perhaps overbold. The machine he was flying on the 5th of July was the fast two-seater Nieuport monoplane on which Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett had achieved some records. It seems that he attempted too sharp a turn, lost flying speed, side-slipped, and nose-dived. He was only a few hundred feet up, and there was no time to save the crash. Those who knew him believe that he would have done much for the Flying Corps. He spared no pains to understand his business, and to make theory and practice help each other. Staff-Sergeant Wilson, who was killed with him, was the senior technical non-commissioned officer of No. 3 Squadron, a first-class man, and a heavy loss.

Other fatalities were to follow. On the 6th of September Captain Patrick Hamilton and Lieutenant A. Wyness-Stuart, flying a hundred horse-power Deperdussin monoplane on reconnaissance duties connected with the cavalry divisional training, crashed and were killed at Graveley, near Hitchin. Four days later Lieutenant E. Hotchkiss and Lieutenant C. A. Bettington, flying an eighty horse-power Bristol monoplane from Larkhill to Cambridge, crashed and were killed at Wolvercote, near Oxford. A committee was appointed to investigate these accidents, and in the meantime an order was issued by the War Office forbidding the use of monoplanes in the Royal Flying Corps. This order altered the scheme for the army manoeuvres, where it had been intended to allot a squadron of monoplanes to one force and a squadron of biplanes to the other, in order to compare results. No. 3 Squadron, nevertheless, assembled near Cambridge in such strength as it could muster; there were Major Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox, and Second Lieutenant G. de Havilland of the squadron; these were joined by Mr. Cody, who came as a civilian with his own machine, and by officers of the Naval Air Service, who flew Short biplanes.

The ban on monoplanes, it may be remarked in passing, was a heavy blow to one of the earliest pioneers of aviation in this country. Mr. L. Howard Flanders, who had worked with Mr. A. V. Roe at Lea Marshes, and had designed the 'Pup' monoplane for Mr. J. V. Neale at Brooklands, had subsequently formed a company for the building of aeroplanes, with works at Richmond. He obtained a War Office contract for four monoplanes, but when, after trial, he was engaged in reconstructing the under-carriages, the use of the monoplane was forbidden to army pilots. This and other disappointments put an end to Mr. Flanders's building activities, but his name deserves record among the pioneers.

When Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett of the Grenadier Guards became adjutant of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps he made a vow that the corps should combine the smartness of the Guards with the efficiency of the Sappers. In spite of difficulties and disasters, the corps went far, in the first two years of its existence, towards attaining that ideal. In the summer of 1912 the Central Flying School at Upavon got to work, and thenceforward supplied a steady stream of trained reinforcements for the corps. There was inevitable delay at first; but as soon as some of the new wooden buildings were nearing completion they were taken over, and on the 19th of June the school was opened. The plan was that there should be three courses every year, each of them lasting three months and passing on its graduates for further training either with the military squadrons or at the naval school. The first course began on the 17th of August 1912, and was not completed until the end of December, but the subsequent courses were punctually completed in the time prescribed. The delay in the first course was due chiefly to a shortage of machines. The use of monoplanes was forbidden, and the nineteen pupils who presented themselves in August had to be instructed on the only four available biplanes, which were soon damaged by the maiden efforts of the learners. For a short time the pupils were sent on leave, and the school was closed; then new machines and new recruits began to arrive, and the work of education went forward. Besides the main business of flying, the pupils were instructed and examined in map-reading and signalling, the management of the internal-combustion engine, and the theoretical aspects of the art of reconnaissance. Of a total of thirty-four pupils who were examined at the end of the course, only two failed to pass. During the next year and a half, up to the very eve of the war, the work of the school went on steadily, with improving material and increasing efficiency. There were three fatal accidents: on the 3rd of October 1913 Major G. C. Merrick was killed on a Short biplane; on the 10th of March 1914 Captain C. P. Downer, on a B.E. biplane; and on the 19th of March 1914 Lieutenant H. F. Treeby, on a Maurice Farman biplane. On an average about thirty officers passed out from the school, into one branch or another of the service, at the end of each course. Most of these were army officers, but there was also a fair number of naval officers, marine officers, and naval volunteer and civilian reservists. The school was run on army lines, so that a good deal of adjustment and tact were called for in dealing with the navy pupils, who were accustomed to a more generous scale of allowances and a different system of discipline. But the resolve to make a success of the new air force prevailed over lesser difficulties, and harmony was maintained.

The steady flow of recruits from Upavon soon enabled the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps to form new squadrons. These squadrons all started in the same fashion; they hived off, so to say, from the earlier squadrons. As early as September 1912, a part of Major Burke's squadron, stationed at Farnborough, was detached, and became the basis of No. 4 Squadron, commanded by Major G. H. Raleigh, of the Essex Regiment, who had joined the Air Battalion just before the birth of the Royal Flying Corps. In August 1913 a single flight of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron became the basis of No. 5 Squadron, under Major J. F. A. Higgins. In January 1914 No. 6 Squadron, under Captain J. H. W. Becke, of the Notts. and Derby Regiment, and in May 1914 No. 7 Squadron, which was commanded later by Major J. M. Salmond, began to be formed at Farnborough.

The history of the Military Wing of the Royal Flying Corps before the war may be best illustrated by a more detailed account of the doings of the two earliest squadrons, commanded by Major Brooke-Popham and Major Burke. These showed the way to the others. There was no generally recognized orthodox method of training flying men for the purposes of war. Most of the work of the early squadrons was, in the strictest sense of the word, experimental. There was at first a vague idea, expressed in the Army Estimates of 1912, that the Royal Aircraft Factory was responsible for experiments, and that the squadrons had only to apply methods and use machinery already tested and approved by others. But it was soon found that the problems of the air could not be effectively anticipated in the laboratory. They were many of them soldiers' problems. The man who is to meet the enemy in the air, and to be shot at, has a quick imagination in dealing with such matters as the protective colouring of aircraft, their defences against enemy bullets, or the designing of them so as to give a good field of fire to any weapon that they carry; and he takes a lively personal interest in such questions as stability, speed, rate of climbing, and ease in handling. The ultimate appeal on the various devices, for the use by aircraft of musketry, gunnery, photography, wireless telegraphy, bomb-dropping, and signalling, must in the long run be made to the pilot. If he is prejudiced, and sometimes prefers a known evil to an unknown good, his hourly experiences and dangers are a wonderful solvent of that prejudice. It is not in the laboratory that the Derby is won, or the manoeuvres and tactics of the air worked out.

Major Brooke-Popham's squadron on Salisbury Plain was the first to get to work. In its origin, as has been told, it was the old aeroplane company of the Air Battalion, so that it was free from some of the difficulties which attend the creation of a new unit. It had at its disposal about ten machines of various types, and, for transport, one Mercedes car belonging to Captain Eustace Loraine and another belonging to the Government. Besides instructional flights and practice in reconnaissance, which were of course a regular part of the business of the squadron, it devoted its attention at once to co-operation with other arms, and especially to the observation of artillery fire. It was fortunate in getting the whole-hearted support of Colonel the Hon. F. Bingham, who was at that time commandant of the school at Shoeburyness, and chief instructor of the artillery practice camp at Larkhill. The great difficulty was to devise a sufficient method of signalling to the guns. Wireless telegraphy, which was destined to provide the solution of this problem, was then at an early stage of its development, and the apparatus was too cumbrous and heavy to be carried on the machines. Experiments were made with flags, with written messages carried back and dropped to the gunners, and finally with coloured Very lights. Progress was slow. Only a small amount of ammunition was allowed to the gunners. On windy days flying was far from safe; on calm days there was sometimes fog, or, if the weather was hot, the air became dangerously bumpy. Nevertheless the squadron flew in strong winds, and took every opportunity of demonstrating to the troops on the plain that it was worth their while to cultivate relations with the new arm. Towards the end of May there was a big field day, and though the wind was almost a gale, four machines went up, flown by Major Brooke-Popham, Captain Fox, Captain Hamilton, and by Major Burke, who had come over from Farnborough on purpose. The important thing at this time, and for long after, was to show the infantry what aeroplanes could do for them. At a later time, during the war, it became necessary to teach the infantry what aeroplanes could not do for them--that they could not, for instance, supply them with a complete defence against enemy aircraft.

At the beginning of August 1912 Military Aeroplane Trials took place on Salisbury Plain. These trials were competitions, arranged by the War Office, to determine the type of aeroplane best suited to the requirements of the army. One competition, with a first prize of L4,000, was open to the world; the other, with a first prize of L1,000, was limited to aeroplanes manufactured wholly, except for the engines, in the United Kingdom. The judges were Brigadier-General Henderson, Captain Godfrey Paine, Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, and Major Sykes. The tests imposed and the award of the prizes showed clearly enough that what the military authorities were seeking was a strong, fairly fast machine, a good climber, able to take off and alight on uneven ground and to pull up within a short distance after alighting. Further, a high value was attached to range of speed, that is, to the power of flying both fast and slow, and to a free and open view from the seat of the observer. Both the first prizes were won by Mr. Cody on his own biplane, which was of the 'canard', or tail-first type, and was fitted with an Austro-Daimler engine of a hundred and twenty horse-power. The winning machine did not in the end prove to be suitable for army purposes, and only a few were ordered, but the trials gave timely and needed encouragement to the aeroplane industry. The army machines and the army pilots were, of course, not eligible for these competitions, but the factory machine B.E. 2 made a great impression on those who saw it fly. It was in this machine that Mr. G. de Havilland, with Major Sykes as passenger, created a British record by rising to a height of 9,500 feet in one hour and twenty minutes. A few years later, when the war had quickened invention, a good two-seater machine could rise to that height in less than ten minutes. The only engine of British manufacture which completed all the trials was a sixty horse-power Green engine, fitted in an Avro machine.

Certainly the British public did not know what was being done for them, against the real day of trial, by the handful of officers who foresaw that that day would soon come, and who strove unceasingly to be prepared for it. About two hundred members of Parliament came down to Salisbury Plain on the 8th of August to witness the competition of the aeroplanes in the Military Trials. The wind was judged to be too tempestuous for flying, and the flights were limited to a few short circuits round the aerodrome in the afternoon. On the morning of that same day a brigade of territorials, training at Wareham, asked for a couple of military machines to co-operate with them. Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant G. T. Porter started off in an Avro, and, a little later, Captain Hamilton followed in his Deperdussin. The wind was so strong that Captain Hamilton could make no headway, and was obliged to turn back. Major Brooke-Popham and Lieutenant Porter battled their way to Wareham, but could not get farther to co-operate with the troops, and flew back to the plain in the afternoon. On their arrival there they found that the wind had abated a little, and that flying had just begun in the trials. The next day the newspapers published long accounts of the exhibition flying over the aerodrome, with a single line at the end recording that 'military airmen also flew'.

In the early days of September No. 3 Squadron co-operated in the cavalry divisional training, but without much success. The weather was bad, and the cavalry, being preoccupied with their own work, had not much attention to spare for the aeroplanes. In France, a year earlier, aeroplanes had been systematically practised with cavalry, sometimes to direct a forced march, sometimes to detect dummy field works, prepared to deceive the cavalry and to lead them into a trap.

But if their co-operation with the cavalry was imperfect and disappointing, the work done by aeroplanes a few days later, during the army manoeuvres, was a complete vindication of the Flying Corps. There were two divisions on each side; the attacking force, under Sir Douglas Haig, advanced from the east; the defending force was commanded by General Grierson. The services rendered to the defence by the airship _Gamma_ have already been described. The fatal accidents of the summer and the consequent prohibition of monoplanes diminished the available force of aeroplanes, but a squadron of seven was allotted to each side. Major Burke's squadron, with its headquarters at Thetford, operated with the attacking force; Major Brooke-Popham was with the defence at Cambridge. Operations started at six o'clock on the morning of Monday, the 16th of September. At a conference on Sunday afternoon, General Briggs, who commanded the cavalry on the side of the defence, told General Grierson that the forces were far apart, and he could not hope to bring in any definite information till Tuesday. General Grierson was then reminded by his chief staff officer that he had some aeroplanes. 'Do you think the aeroplanes could do anything?' he asked of Major Brooke-Popham, and on hearing that they could, ordered them to get out, 'and if you see anything, let us know.' Monday morning was fine and clear; the aeroplanes started at six o'clock; soon after nine o'clock they supplied General Grierson with complete, accurate, and detailed information concerning the disposition of all the enemy troops. During the rest of the manoeuvres he based his plans on information from the air. On his left flank there were only two roads by which the enemy could advance; he left this flank entirely unguarded, keeping one aeroplane in continual observation above the two roads, and so was able to concentrate the whole of his forces at the decisive point. In the course of a few days the aeroplanes rose into such esteem that they were asked to verify information which had been brought in by the cavalry.

Air Commodore C. A. H. Longcroft, who flew in Major Burke's squadron on the attacking side, has kindly set down some of his memories of this time. The work of the Flying Corps, he says, was impeded by the enormous crowds which used to collect round the hangars. But the weather was good, and it was soon found that no considerable body of troops could move without being seen from the air. To avoid observation the troops moved on either side of the road, under the hedges. They even practised a primitive sort of camouflage, covering wagons and guns with branches of trees, which, while they were on the road, made them more conspicuous than ever. This first experience of moving warfare taught many lessons. The difficulty of communication between pilot and observer when the voice is drowned in the noise of the engine was met by devising a code of signals, and many of these signals continued in use throughout the war, after speaking-tubes had been fitted to machines. The selection of landing grounds when moving camp, the methods of parking aeroplanes in the open, and the means of providing a regular supply of fuel, were all studied and improved.

In another way these manoeuvres, which were witnessed by General Foch, were a date in the progress of army aviation. No weapon, however good, can be of much use in the hands of those who have not learned to trust it. The progress of the aeroplane was so rapid that the education of commanding officers in its use became a thing of the first importance. Some of them, even when war broke out, had had but few opportunities of testing the powers of aeroplanes.

After the manoeuvres No. 3 Squadron returned to Larkhill, to do battle all the winter with the old difficulties. The officers were accommodated at an inn called the 'Bustard', about two and a half miles to the west of the Larkhill sheds; the men were at Bulford camp, three miles to the east of the sheds. After a time the men were shifted to the cavalry school at Netheravon, which, though it was a little farther off, gave better quarters. Meantime a new aerodrome was being made, with sheds complete, at Netheravon, for the use of the squadron. The winter was passed in the old exercise of co-operation with the artillery and in new experiments. At Easter a 'fly past' of aeroplanes took place at a review of a territorial brigade on Perham Down. General Smith-Dorrien, who reviewed the troops, took the salute from the aeroplanes. There was a cross-wind, so that the symmetry of the spectacle was a little marred by the crab-like motion of the aeroplanes, which had to keep their noses some points into the wind to allow for drift.

Several officers joined during the winter, and the squadron began to be better supplied with machines. For the manoeuvres of 1913 it was made up to war strength both in aeroplanes and transport. These manoeuvres, however, did not give much opportunity to aeroplanes; the idea was that four divisions, and with them No. 3 Squadron, should operate against a skeleton army. The squadron had next to nothing to observe; the other side had plenty to observe, but could not get full value out of their skeleton force. The tactics of the air had hardly reached the point at which a theoretic trial of this kind might have been of value. Yet a good deal was learnt by the Flying Corps from these manoeuvres. Major Brooke-Popham drew up a very full report on them, and in the following winter Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett, under the title 'What I learnt on Manoeuvres, 1913', brought together the information he had obtained as adjutant from the talk and written statements of those who took part in them. Both reports show a relentless attention to detail, and an unfailing imagination for the realities of war. The squadron had twelve machines at work during the manoeuvres. Of these one was wrecked. Two had to be brought home by road, one for lack of spare parts, the other because it had been taken over with a damaged engine--both avoidable accidents. The one wrecked machine, Major Brooke-Popham remarks, does not represent the loss that would have occurred on a campaign. Four machines had to land, and would have been captured in war. That is to say, the loss amounted, to five machines in four days, or one-tenth of the force every day.

One of the lessons learnt at the manoeuvres was that accurate observations could be made from a height of at least six thousand feet. This was one of those many things which, having been habitually ridiculed by theorists, are at once established by those who make the experiment. So high flying came into fashion, and brought with it a new set of problems concerning the effect of atmospheric height on the human body and on the aeroplane engine.

The total mileage covered by the machines on divisional and army manoeuvres was 4,545 miles on reconnaissance and 3,310 miles on other flights. Among the many suggestions made by Major Brooke-Popham for improving the efficiency of the corps, some of the most important have been vindicated by the subsequent experience of the war. It is necessary, he says, that the Flying Corps should be taken seriously by commanders and their staffs. The work of the flying officers involves strain and danger; it is not enough that they should be praised for skill and daring; they must feel that their information is wanted, that an accurate report will be used, and that failure to obtain information from the air will be treated as worthy of censure. If a squadron commander finds that no one cares for the information he brings, he will keep his machines on the ground in rough weather. On divisional manoeuvres the Flying Corps were not always made to feel that they were wanted.

No great stress, perhaps, should be laid on this complaint; it belongs to the early days of military flying, and its date is past. A new invention is often slow in gaining recognition. When its utility is as great as the utility of flying a little experience soon converts objectors. What was important was that the experience should be gained before the war. Observers in the early months of the war sometimes found it difficult to convince the military command that their reports were true.

The value of information, says Major Brooke-Popham, depends also upon the rapidity with which it is handed in to the proper quarters. 'More than once movements of a hostile cavalry brigade were seen within a few miles of our own troops. The information was not of great value to the Commander-in-Chief, but was of great importance to the advanced guard or cavalry commander, yet by the time it had got out to him from headquarters probably two hours or more had elapsed.' This delay was sometimes avoided on manoeuvres by dropping messages from the air, but the whole large question of the relations of the Flying Corps to the various army commands and the organization of the machinery of report was left until the pressure of war compelled an answer. Then, during the first winter of the war, when the growth of the Flying Corps allowed of more complex arrangements, the machinery was decentralized, and subordinate commanders were furnished directly with the information most needed by them.

Lieutenant Barrington-Kennett's essay well illustrates his keenness and foresight in preparing the corps for their ordeal of 1914. He was a great disciplinarian, he knew every officer and man individually, he was universally liked, and he did more perhaps than any one else to hold the corps together and to train it in an efficient routine. He knew--no one better--that the corps, though it did its work in the air, had to live on the ground, and that its efficiency depended on a hundred important details. Here are some of his suggestions:

Landing-grounds should be chosen, if possible, from the air, to avoid the employment of numerous parties of officers touring the country in cars. The drivers of lorries and cars should be trained in map-reading. Semaphore signalling should be taught to all ranks, to save the employment of messengers. There should be oil lorries for the distribution of petrol, and leather tool-bags to be carried on motor-bicycles to the scene of an engine break-down. Acetylene and petrol are better illuminants than paraffin for working on machines by night. Experiments should be made in towing aeroplanes, swinging freely on their own wheels, behind a motor-lorry; they are often damaged when they are carried on lorries. Recruits for the motor transport should be taught system in packing and unloading, and should be trained in march discipline. All recruits should be drilled in the routine of pitching and striking camp. All ranks should know something of field cookery. The main lessons of the manoeuvres, the writer says, are first, that subsidiary training in the business of soldiering is of enormous importance; and, second, that responsibility must be regularly distributed, and duties allotted, so that when the strain of war comes, the whole burden shall not crush the few devoted officers who have been eager to shoulder it in time of peace. The work of the pilots and mechanics of the British air service, he remarks in conclusion, is second to none; if only this work can be fitted into a solid framework of systematic administration and sound military discipline, the British Flying Corps will lead the world.

These are not the matters that a lover of romance looks for in a history of the war in the air. But they are the essentials of success; without them the brilliancy of individual courage is of no avail. War is a tedious kind of scholarship. When Sir Henry Savile was Provost of Eton in the reign of Elizabeth, and a young scholar was recommended to him for a good wit, 'Out upon him,' he would say, 'I'll have nothing to do with him; give me the plodding student. If I would look for wits, I would go to Newgate; there be the wits.' It was by the energy and forethought of the plodding student that the Flying Corps, when it took the field with the little British Expeditionary Force, was enabled to bear a part in saving the British army, and perhaps the civilization of free men, from the blind onrush of the German tide.

The work of Major Brooke-Popham's squadron, during these years of preparation, included a great diversity of experiment. With the progress of flight it began to be realized that fighting in the air was, sooner or later, inevitable, and in the winter of 1913 a series of experiments was carried out at Hythe, by a single flight of No. 3 Squadron, under Captain P. L. W. Herbert, to determine the most suitable kind of machine-gun for use in aeroplanes. A large number of types were tested, and the Lewis gun was at last chosen, with the proviso that it should go through a series of tests on the ground. These took a long time, and it was not till September 1914 that the first machines fitted with Lewis guns reached the Flying Corps in France.

From the beginning of 1914 onwards, No. 3 Squadron also began a whole series of experiments in photography; Government funds were scanty, and the officers bought their own cameras. There was no skilled photographer among them, but they set themselves to learn. They devised the type of camera which was used in the air service until 1915, when Messrs. J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon and C. D. M. Campbell brought out their first camera. They would develop negatives in the air, and, after a reconnaissance would land with the negatives ready to print. In one day, at a height of five thousand feet and over, they took a complete series of photographs of the defences of the Isle of Wight and the Solent.

From time to time there were a good many adventures by members of the squadron outside the daily routine. The first night flight made by any officer of the Military Wing was made on the 16th of April, 1913, by Lieutenant Cholmondeley, who flew a Maurice Farman machine by moonlight from the camp at Larkhill to the Central Flying School at Upavon, and back again. Later in the year Commander Samson, of the Naval Wing, successfully practised night flying, without any lights on the machine or the aerodrome; but as a regular business night flying was not taken in hand by the squadrons until well on in the war. During the month of July 1913 Lieutenants R. Cholmondeley and G. I. Carmichael became evangelists for the Flying Corps; they went on a recruiting tour to Colchester, and gave free passenger trips to all likely converts among the officers of the garrison there. Long before this, in 1912, the squadron had begun to train non-commissioned officers to fly. The first of these to get his certificate was Sergeant F. Ridd. He had originally been a bricklayer, but after joining the Air Battalion had developed an extraordinary talent for rigging, and became an all-round accomplished airman. Others who were taught to fly soon after were W. T. J. McCudden, the eldest of the four brothers of that name, and W. V. Strugnell, who, later on, became a flight commander in France. The most famous of the McCuddens, James Byford McCudden, V.C., who brought down over fifty enemy aeroplanes, joined the squadron as a mechanic in 1913, and became a pilot in the second year of the war. In his book, _Five Years with the Royal Flying Corps_ (1918), he says, 'I often look back and think what a splendid Squadron No. 3 was. We had a magnificent set of officers, and the N.C.O.'s and men were as one family.'

The other of the two pioneer aeroplane squadrons was formed at Farnborough in May 1912, and was put under the command of Major Charles James Burke, of the Royal Irish Regiment. Major Burke rendered enormous service to the cause of military flying. He took it up because he fully realized the importance of the part it was destined to play in war. He had served in the ranks in the South African War, and at the close of the war was commissioned in the Royal Irish Regiment, becoming captain in September 1909. In 1910 he learned in France to fly a Farman biplane, and obtained the aviation certificate of the French Aero Club. Thereafter he was employed at the balloon school, and in 1911 was attached to the newly-formed Air Battalion. He was something of a missionary, and in that same year contributed two papers to the Royal United Service Institution, one on _Aeroplanes of To-day and their Use in War_, the other on _The Airship as an aid to the solution of existing strategical problems_. On the formation of the Royal Flying Corps he was given command of No. 2 Squadron, which, after a time at Farnborough, was stationed as a complete unit at Montrose on the east coast of Scotland. He brought his squadron to a high state of efficiency, and on the outbreak of war flew with it to France. There he did good service, till he was invalided home in the summer of 1915 and became temporary commandant of the Central Flying School. In 1916 he was again in France. The war was taking a huge toll, and he rejoined his old regiment, which was in straits for officers. In the previous year Major Barrington-Kennett, under the same pressure, had returned to duty with the Grenadier Guards, and had been killed in action near Festubert. Colonel Burke rejoined the Royal Irish Regiment in the summer of 1916, and was killed on the 9th of April 1917, on the first day of the Arras offensive.

He impressed those who knew him by his character. He was not a good pilot, and was almost famous for his crashes. He was not a popular officer. He was not what would be called a clever man. But he was single-minded, and utterly brave and determined, careless alike of danger and of ridicule. There is often granted to singleness of purpose a kind of second sight which is denied to mere intelligence. Major Burke (to give him his earlier title) knew many things about military aviation and the handling of a squadron which it was left for the war to prove, and which, even with the experience of war to teach them, some commanding officers were slow to learn. A paper of 'Maxims' which he jotted down as early as 1912 contains many wise and practical remarks. Some of them are of general application, as, for instance, these:

_When things are going well, the man in charge can give play to his fears._

_Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems._

_If you know what you want, you can do your part, and get others to do theirs. Most people don't know what they want._

But by far the greater number of them deal with aviation and its problems. Here are some worthy of remembrance:

_Time in the air is needed to make a pilot._

_In training pilots, no machine should go out without knowing what it is to do, do that and that alone, then land._

_No young pilot should be allowed out in 'bumps' until he has done fifteen hours' piloting._