The First Great Air War

by Richard Townsend Bickers

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  Another minor conflict, the Balkan war, flared up in 1912 when Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro formed an alliance to free Macedonia from Turkish rule. The Bulgars were surprisingly air-minded. Having, however, few pilots or aircraft, they employed mercenaries who brought their own aeroplanes. Among these was the swashbuckling American Bert Hall, who was later notorious in the Great War for his boasting and the liberties he took with the truth. Hall knew that another American, Riley Scott, had invented a combined bomb sight and bomb rack, the previous year: the world’s first and only instrument for either function. Hall had the device copied and was able to bomb with greater accuracy than his comrades, who sighted by guesswork; and attached a twenty-two-pound bomb to one foot by a slipknot, which they kicked free over the target. Another mercenary pilot, a Russian named Sakoff, was shot down and killed by rifle fire from the ground: the first airman ever killed in action.

  This was also the year when France and Germany formed their air forces. The major decisions about the organisation of aeronautics in the British armed forces were resolved on 13th May 1912, when the Royal Flying Corps came into being with a Military Wing, a Naval Wing, and, at Upavon, a Central Flying School for the instruction of pilots from both.

  When Trenchard arrived at Central Flying School from Brooklands, its Commandant, Captain Godfrey Paine, RN, appointed him Adjutant. It was already obvious that he would rise high in the new Service, although Longmore, his instructor, described him as: “At best an indifferent flyer … his age told against him.” But age had not handicapped Henderson, who was ten years older. Trenchard’s height and heavy weight also made him an unwelcome passenger in the small, low-powered, contemporary aeroplanes.

  A year later Henderson promoted him lieutenant colonel and second-in-command. He earned great esteem at Upavon by his drive and for his thorough familiarisation with every aspect of the school’s work. He sought also to minimise accidents, in what was an inherently dangerous activity, by strict discipline and adherence to precise training programmes. As usual, he was respected, if not universally liked.

  The Military Wing’s function was defined at its inception: to operate with the other branches of the Army by carrying out reconnaissance to provide intelligence on enemy strength, disposition and movements. It would comprise 133 officers. Specially attractive terms would be offered to technical ground staff, in order to attract the most skilled. The war establishment called for 364 pilots, of whom half should be officers and half NCOs. Here was evidence of the comparative lack of social discrimination that was always to distinguish the RFC and is still notable in the RAF. No provision was made for specifically trained observers.

  The plan for the Naval Wing, however, remained nebulous. It was still experimenting. There was not yet a clear design for the use of aircraft in Naval tactics. Only thirty or forty officers would initially be required.

  The status of the new formation did not immediately warrant high ranks. Command of the Military Wing was given to Captain F. H. Sykes, with Lieutenant B. H. Barrington-Kennett, Grenadier Guards, as Adjutant. The latter’s declared intention was to ensure that it would have the smartness of the Guards and the efficiency of the Royal Engineers. In time, both ideals were attained. By the end of the First World War, the RAF was — and has remained — the most efficient air force in the world; and the Colour Squadron of the RAF Regiment, which came into being in the Second, is renowned on parade.

  The pride of the Senior Service and its assertion of the right to independence soon became manifest. Within a few months it ceased to call its air arm the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps and unofficially substituted the title Royal Naval Air Service. There was then no need for the appellation “Military Wing” to continue in use: reference to the RFC henceforth became recognised as applicable only to the Army. The designations “Airship Company” and “Aeroplane Company” also ceased to exist. Squadrons were born. They were to consist of three flights, each with eight pilots and four aircraft; plus the squadron commander and his.

  The Airship Company, based at Farnborough, had descended from the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers, was therefore the senior unit, and became No. 1 Squadron. Its Commanding Officer, Captain Edward Maitland, was one of the few pilots who still preferred airships. He had begun aviating with balloons in 1908, and that year, accompanied by Mr C. C. Turner and Professor A. E. Gaudron, made a thirty-six-and-a-half-hour journey of 1117 miles, which began at the Crystal Palace and ended in Russia, at Mateki Derevni. He progressed the following year to flying aeroplanes. In 1913 he made the first parachute descent from one. Two years later he parachuted from a balloon, at a height of 10,500 feet.

  Captain C. J. Burke took command of No. 2 Squadron, of which the aeroplane pilots at Farnborough formed the nucleus. What had been the Aeroplane Company at Larkhill became No. 3 Squadron, under Captain H. R. M. Brooke-Popham.

  More aeroplane squadrons were planned, using the flights of the first two as the nuclei for each. The establishment was raised to a major in command, with captains leading the flights.

  Advances in technology were not reducing accidents. The Corps’s first fatalities occurred on No. 3 Squadron in July, when Captain Loraine and his passenger, Staff Sergeant Wilson, crashed. In September, two officers were killed in a Deperdussin, on an exercise with the cavalry. Four days later, two more died in a Bristol. These three accidents prompted the War Office to prohibit monoplanes.

  The young Service was looking for a biplane that was sturdy and fast, climbed well, could operate from rough ground and had a short landing run. The Royal Aircraft Factory’s 70 m.p.h. BE2 met these requirements fairly well. In August, flown by Geoffrey de Havilland, with Major Sykes as passenger, it set a British altitude record of 10,560 feet, in 80 minutes, and was ordered as standard equipment for the squadrons.

  In the following month, before deliveries could begin, Nos 2 and 3 Squadrons took part in the Army manoeuvres. The former operated with the two divisions constituting the attacking force, under General Haig, the latter, with the defending force of two divisions commanded by General Grierson. On the first afternoon of the exercise, the Cavalry Commander told Grierson that, on account of the distance separating the opposing forces, he would be unable to supply information about the enemy until two days later. Grierson referred the matter to Brooke-Popham, whose aircraft took off at 6 a.m. next day and returned three hours later with the detailed information that the Force Commander needed. Thereafter he planned his tactics entirely on aerial reconnaissance.

  After the manoeuvres, a flight was detached from No. 2 Squadron as the foundation of No. 4 Squadron, commanded by Major G. H. Raleigh.

  During the remaining three months of 1912, all three aeroplane squadrons increased their pilot and aircraft strength; and No. 3 Squadron moved from Larkhill to a new aerodrome nearby, Netheravon, where it began teaching non-commissioned officers to fly. The first to qualify was a rigger, Corporal (later Sergeant) F. Ridd. Another was W. T. M. McCudden, whose younger brother, James, joined the squadron as a mechanic in 1913, qualified as a pilot in 1915 and became one of the most respected squadron commanders in the Service, decorated with the VC, DSO and MC.

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  In August 1913 the RFC attained further independence when Brigadier General Sir David Henderson, already Director of Military Training, was appointed Director General of a new Branch at the War Office, the Military Aeronautics Directorate. He was therefore the first Chief of the Royal Flying Corps and surely, in all fairness, the real father of the Royal Air Force. Or perhaps, in view of Trenchard’s later enormous contribution, we should acknowledge him in that role and revere Henderson as its grandfather.

  For that year’s manoeuvres, No. 3 Squadron’s aircraft were made up to war strength of twelve. One crashed and was written off. Two were hauled back to Netheravon, unserviceable. Four forced-landed in enemy territory. Unfortunately, the strategy and tactics of the exercise allowed scant opportunity for the use of the air, but v
aluable lessons were learned. One of these was that accurate observation did not have to be done from a few hundred feet, but was possible as high as 6000.

  The squadron also practised aerial gunnery that year, to prepare for the time when aircraft would have to be armed and join combat. After much air-to-ground firing, and air-to-air with balloons as targets, the American-designed Lewis gun proved the most suitable machinegun: but, as usual, there had to be many months’ wait for deliveries and none was received until after the outbreak of war.

  No. 4 Squadron was also, by this time, at Netheravon, and presently No. 5 Squadron was at Dover.

  No. 2 Squadron had meanwhile been posted to Montrose, on the east coast of Scotland, some twenty-five miles north-east of Dundee. The logic of this is obscure, for the area hardly enjoyed conspicuously good flying weather.

  Its remoteness, however, gave rise to some pioneering long-distance flights. In August, Captain Longcroft, carrying Lieutenant Colonel Sykes in the passenger cockpit, flew a BE fitted with an auxiliary petrol tank from Farnborough to Montrose in seven hours forty minutes, with one refuelling stop.

  The squadron took part in the Irish Command manoeuvres, which entailed flights of over 400 miles there and back. During the exercise a further thousand miles were flown without a single engine failure. The squadron’s general efficiency was of the highest and it flew in all weathers. A touch of farce was seldom absent even from this all-weather aviating. Sometimes the wind speed was greater than that at which the aircraft could fly. The pilots then delighted in “tortoise races” in which the winner was the one who was blown farthest backwards over the course.

  Major Burke, the squadron commander, had from the outset the sound order of priorities that has become established in every air force in the world: flying has to have precedence over all else. One of his diary entries reads: “… though barracks must be kept spotlessly clean, this work must be done by the minimum number of men, in order to swell the numbers of those available for technical work and instruction.” It seems incongruous that, despite the clarity with which he saw what needed to be done and the efficacy of his leadership, he was an indifferent pilot who crashed frequently.

  On all squadrons, instruction included map-reading, signalling, propeller-swinging, car-starting, and military and technical training. The pilots were engaged in practice reconnaissance, artillery co-operation, cross-countries and night flying. This last was in its infancy. Lieutenant Cholmondeley’s flight by moonlight from Larkhill to the Central Flying School at Upavon on 16th April 1913, in a Farman, was the RFC’s first.

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  The beginning of 1914, therefore, found the RFC efficient, possessed of an intelligent appreciation of the developments that must be expected in the event of war, and, although still small in numbers of pilots and aircraft, already vibrant with the inexhaustible vitality that was the hallmark which it handed on to the RAF.

  The general restlessness in Europe heightened the feeling that war must be imminent and prompted the need for some special event to prepare the flying Service for it. Accordingly, June was devoted to an assembly of all the squadrons at Netheravon, for what was called a concentration camp. The mornings were spent in experimental work and trials; the afternoons at lectures and discussions. There were exercises in reconnaissance and in co-operation with other arms; in photography, balloon handling, and moving between landing grounds. Rivalry between the squadrons bred a strengthening of the comradeship and common loyalty that united them all in the one Service.

  When, five weeks after the concentration camp dispersed, the RFC was mobilised, it was in all respects ready for war.

  No. 2 Squadron’s aircraft took off from Montrose for Farnborough on 3rd August, hours before war was declared, and eventually reached Dover by the 12th, after sundry accidents. The ground party left by rail on the 8th to embark near Glasgow for Boulogne. At 6.25 a.m. on 13th August, Lieutenant H. D. Harvey-Kelly was the first to take off from Dover and the first to land at Amiens one hour and fifty-five minutes later.

  No. 3 Squadron’s aircraft left Netheravon for Dover on the 12th, while the road party for Boulogne was embarking at Southampton. One pilot, with an air mechanic aboard, crashed and both were killed.

  No. 4 Squadron had recently been transferred to Eastchurch. Its pilots also flew to Dover, and the remainder boarded ship at Southampton, on the 12th.

  No. 5 Squadron was delayed by a dearth of shipping and by accidents to some of its aircraft. It flew from its new base at Gosport to Dover on the 14th and on to France the following day.

  It was not until 22nd August that all aircraft caught up with their squadrons. There were unexpected hazards apart from those of mechanical failures and adverse weather. Lieutenant R. M. Vaughan, of No. 5 Squadron, was the last to arrive. He had taken off on the 15th but made a forced landing near Boulogne. Aircraft bore no national markings. Despite the pilot’s uniform (“Comment? La RFC? Ça c’est quoi, alors? Je n’en pige quedale. Je m’en fiche de votre Air Eff Say, Monsieur”) and other means of recognition, the French immediately arrested him and kept him in a police cell for a week: until he had satisfied them that he was not an enemy. Claiming to be an ally would cut no ice with them: they probably took it as a mortal insult to suggest that La France needed help from anyone in yet another conflict with les sales Boches. A poor advocacy for l’entente cordiale.

  Nos. 6 and 7 Squadrons were in the process of being formed at Larkhill.

  The responsibility for airships had been handed over entirely to the RNAS on 1st January, so No. 1 Squadron had parted with its two and existed, temporarily, on paper only: but was now immediately to be reactivated and equipped with aeroplanes.

  Brigadier General Henderson and his Headquarters arrived at Amiens on 13th August. The Aircraft Park arrived there on the 21st. Twenty aeroplanes had been allocated to it, but of the nine BE2S, one BE2C, three BE8s (called “Bloaters”), and three Farmans, it had to supply half to the squadrons to bring them up to strength. It also took four crated Sopwith Tabloids.

  The Royal Flying Corps, an amalgam of officers and men from diverse regiments and corps, bringing with them a great diversity of customs, traditions and uniforms, and equipped with a gallimaufry of six different types of aeroplane, had, none the less, begun to establish its own style and traditions. It was already a cohesive entity that was proud of itself and full of confidence.

  CHAPTER 4 - 1914. At the Front

  In the matter of leadership, with Henderson in command at the Western Front, the British were better placed than ally or enemy.

  It was rare for a man who had been primarily responsible for the creation of a new arm to lead it in battle; and so soon after its inception. In Henderson, the RFC had a commander who was both intellectual and practical. He had studied Engineering at Glasgow University; but found his recreations in reading poetry and prose, writing songs, playing the piano, trying to compose music, inventing plots for short stories and working on a biography of the Black Prince.

  After university, his father sent him around the world. He returned broad-minded, self-reliant and with a thirst for travel that never left him. He was to have ample opportunity to slake it. When, in 1883 at the age of twenty-one, he joined the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the battalion was already preparing to set off for Cape Town. He immediately impressed his brother officers with his charm and his ability to take on any task and do it better than anyone else. In 1884 he saw action for the first time, against the Zulus. The next year the battalion went to Ceylon, and, three years later, on to Hong Kong. It returned home in 1892.

  In 1898 Henderson was ADC to Brigadier General Lyttleton at the Battle of Omdurman. In 1900, during the South African War, he was wounded at Ladysmith when a brevet colonel on Kitchener’s staff.

  In 1904 the War Office published his Field Intelligence, which became an official textbook. He further increased his military reputation three years after that with the publication of The Art of Reconnaissance. In 1907 he became St
aff Officer to the Inspector General of Forces; and accompanied Field Marshal Sir John French — who commanded the British Expeditionary Force in 1914 — to India and Malaya in 1909, then to Canada in 1910. When, therefore, he qualified as a pilot in 1911, he was a well-rounded, sophisticated and popular man of many parts, with all the social graces to complement his natural talents and considerable intelligence.

  It must have been the artistic side of his nature and his love of books, as much as shrewdness and foresight, that prompted him to appoint as his personal assistant a man who seemed an unlikely candidate for such an appointment but proved surprisingly efficient in practical matters, and later as constant to Trenchard as to Henderson. This was the Hon. Maurice Baring, forty-year-old fourth son of Lord Revelstoke, who had forsaken the Diplomatic Service to become a foreign correspondent, war reporter, travel writer, novelist and critic. His only apparent credential for his duties at Henderson’s right hand appears to have been competence in seven languages, including French, German, Russian and Italian. Although, when war was declared, he went at once to see Henderson, whom he believed to be still Director of Military Training, to volunteer for the Army and service at the Front as an interpreter, he did so only because they had known each other for seventeen years; not because his old friend was head of the RFC. “I did not know what the Flying Corps was or that there was a Flying Corps,” he confides in his memoirs.

  As an example of the most fatuous tautology, this avowal is hard to equal. If he were unaware of the Flying Corps’s existence, it is self-evident that he could not possibly know its function. How a newspaperman, particularly one who reported wars, could be unaware of the creation of the RFC is not readily intelligible. Perhaps his protestation was a pose. Neither ignorance of basic facts nor affectation seems a desirable quality in someone aspiring to a position of military trust.