Grasping Gallipoli

by Peter Chasseaud

  The British services had no permanent organisation in place before the war, as the German Army and Navy did by 1914, for the taking, analysis and evaluation of air photographs.3 Serious British experiments in the taking of air photographs were under way in the RFC and RNAS in 1913–14 (e.g., a photographic survey of the Isle of Wight and Solent), but not in plotting from them. Knowledge of plotting from air photographs existed within the international scientific community. A ‘state of the art’ defence of the British would not stand up to scrutiny in this respect; if the technology existed, the question is why the British did not exploit it. The answer has to be sought in cultural attitudes and official complacency and parsimony.

  There is no doubt that suitable airships, aeroplanes and cameras existed by 1914. Unfortunately in Britain neither the military nor the political imagination and will existed to put these to use, no institute or university department of photogrammetry had been set up as in Germany, and there was no trained body of air photographers and photogrammetric draughtsmen. Neither was there an air survey unit in the forces. All that existed was an experimental photographic section; in 1913 Victor Laws, an NCO, took overlapping photos of the Basingstoke Canal with the new, experimental, Watson camera. Churchill was presumably aware of this when, in March 1914, he advocated a photographic survey from an airship of trade routes in Somaliland, and proposed to order photographic gear and equipment.4 A simple air survey of the Gallipoli Peninsula could perhaps have been made prior to the war, or in the first few months, when there was very little chance of Turkish (or German) interference from anti-aircraft fire or air interception. Such an air survey, even if insufficiently resourced, might at least have warned the command about the difficult terrain of the Peninsula and forced them to reconsider the wisdom of a landing operation.

  By contrast, the Germans had early begun serious research into the military applications of photogrammetry. In 1901 the Prussian Survey had adopted terrestrial photogrammetry for fortress and siege warfare, especially for artillery map-shooting, a stereoscopic method using Pulfrich’s photo-theodolite providing the first practical results. In 1903–4 it established sections for fortress artillery surveys and to produce artillery Planmaterial – i.e. a dense, gridded 1:25,000 trigonometrical and topographical framework including fixed points of the fortress area, battery emplacements and observation posts, for use in German fortresses and attacks on enemy fortresses.5 After the start of army aerial photography in 1911, enemy battery positions and other targets were plotted from air photographs. The Photogrammetric Section arranged for survey practice in fortresses. Two Survey Detachments (Vermessungs-Abteilungen), incorporating Photogrammetry Sections, were set up in 1912 and practised terrestrial and aerial photogrammetric cooperation from airships, balloons and aeroplanes at Wahn (near Cologne) and Thorn in East Prussia. In December 1912 Moltke issued an instruction ‘Reconnaissance and Survey in Siege Warfare’, Fortress Survey Detachments (Festungsvermessungs-Abteilungen, or FestVAs) being formed in 1912–13 for frontier-fortress artillery photogrammetry using balloon and aeroplane photographs. In March 1914 three FestVAs, created from the Photogrammetry Department of the Prussian Survey, existed at Cologne, Metz and Strassburg,6 the Survey’s photogrammeters being transferred to the FestVAs on mobilisation.7 Much of the German lead in photogrammetry can be traced to this development, for the FestVAs became the nuclei of the wartime survey units with the field armies. Unlike British and French practice, aerial photogrammetry featured in German survey units from the start of the war.

  By 1914 the Germans and Austrians were significantly ahead in aerial photogrammetry, notably with two more developments full of significance for the future. The first was the Scheimpflug multiple-lens camera, made in Austria. The lack of suitable lenses for air cameras at first meant a very restricted field of view, and even the development of wider-angle lenses did not satisfy the demands of the map-makers for photographs which would cover large areas with a single exposure. This led to the invention of multi-lens air cameras; Scheimpflug’s comprised seven oblique lenses surrounding a central vertical lens. This was used experimentally before and during the First World War, fitted to a Zeppelin gondola, the concept of using a ‘survey airship’ as a ‘spy-plane’ being widely discussed in Germany before the war;8 a Zeppelin captured in France in 1914 was carrying an aerial camera.9 However, mechanical problems and lack of suitable aircraft meant that the use of the multi-lens camera was never extensive, and it was not until 1918, when Major Bagley (USA) invented the tri-lens camera, that a practical multi-lens camera was available.10 The second important development was the Zeiss 1909 ‘balloon camera’, a survey camera with which gun-flashes, shell bursts, enemy positions, observation posts, etc., could be photographed from high ground, balloons or Zeppelins. Plotting was initially done by hand, and later with the stereoautograph. A ‘photo-plane-table’, incorporating a photogoniometer (an angle-measuring instrument), was developed to be used in conjunction with this camera, on the Porro-Koppe principle to eliminate lens distortion.11 The photogoniometer method was to be further developed during the war by Hugershoff and Cranz, and later by Zeiss, becoming a key feature of post-war precision instruments for air survey. Soon after German military flying sections were created in 1911, the first vertical and oblique air survey photographs were taken from aeropanes.12

  Despite F V Thompson’s pioneering work on terrestrial stereophotogrammetry and automatic plotting in 1907–8, and a growing awareness of the German lead in technical education, optics and applied science, the British attitude to terrestrial and air photogrammetry was remarkably sceptical in the period before, during and even after the war. It was summed up by a British reviewer of a new German publication on this subject in 1913 who remarked in the highly regarded Royal Geographical Society’s Geographical Journal that ‘photo-surveying is more akin to an amusing game than to a useful art’.13 By 1914 surprisingly little progress had been made in Britain in air survey, considering the developments in airships and aeroplanes in the previous decade and progress in other countries. The British were only dimly aware of progress in Germany and Austria – to them these crucial applications of technology to military cartography might have been occurring on another planet. This makes Thompson’s contribution even more remarkable.

  Air support for the Dardanelles

  When Hamilton was summoned by Kitchener, on 12 March 1915, to be given command of the Force supporting the naval action in the Dardanelles, Braithwaite insisted on the importance of having a better air service than that of the Turks in case fighting over the Gallipoli Peninsula became necessary, and asked for modern aeroplanes crewed by experienced pilots and observers. Hamilton famously recorded that Kitchener, who was determined to reserve RFC support for the Western Front, retorted, with flashing spectacles, ‘Not one!’14 The only air support therefore came from the Admiralty, at Churchill’s insistence. At first, apart from the seaplanes, Commander Samson’s RNAS machines, and initially with only one camera, were all that would support the expedition.

  Despite the fact that Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) aerial photography was very much encouraged by Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty from 1911) before and during the war, Britain still lagged behind the Germans in this respect. At an Admiralty conference on 3 April 1915, during a discussion of aircraft types, Churchill ‘pointed out that an additional very desirable attribute for the reconnaissance types was a photographic apparatus to enable detailed photographs to be taken of the enemy’s country. This point was strongly emphasised.’ Commodore Sueter, Director of the Air Department and Inspecting Captain of Airships, stated that this had already been considered, and ‘a start had been made by sending out the expert Photographer of the Air Service, with an assistant and complete photographic outfit (including a cinematograph and a telephoto camera), to the Dardanelles to enable photographs of the minefields to be taken….’ He was presumably referring to Flight Lieutenant Butler of Samson’s No 3 Aeroplane Squadron, or Lieutenant W Park RNVR of Ark
Royal. Churchill then ‘again emphasised the great importance of developing aerial photography as quickly as possible; and said that we must not let the army get ahead of us in this’.15

  Churchill, however, like Kitchener, had his eyes not just on Gallipoli but also on Naval operations and the Western Front, and certain of his strictures about air photography were to do with operations in the North Sea, RNAS operations from Dunkirk, his plans for building up a massive strategic bombing in the west, and the great double-pronged Allied land offensive, planned for May, in Artois and Champagne. On 3 April, after seaplanes from Dover and Dunkirk had bombed German submarine facilities at Antwerp, he minuted the War Council that he attached great importance to the development of photography, which was certain to be required for important reconnaissances (in connection with North Sea operations) from May onwards. He emphasised that the Navy should keep fully abreast of the latest army progress in air photography and artillery spotting. The Navy should take every opportunity of learning from the more experienced RFC.16 Again, on 24 April, two days after the German gas attack at Ypres opened the desperate Second Battle there, he demanded that Sueter tell him what he had been doing about aerial photography. Churchill had heard that only one officer was actively engaged in such work, and that the RNAS had not yet taken any satisfactory photographs (on the Flanders coast). He stressed the great importance and urgency of the matter, and asked Sueter to see General Henderson (GOC RFC) immediately, and ensure that the RNAS was ready, by borrowing cameras or photographers from the RFC, to take photographs after 1 May.17

  Here Churchill was referring to impending operations off the German coast. In Gallipoli, where the landings took place the day after he wrote the last instruction, the army had no cameras or photographers to lend, and Flight Lieutenant Butler of No. 3 Squadron had been hard at work taking photographs over the Dardanelles and the Peninsula since early April.

  Ark Royal, commissioned as a seaplane carrier on 9 December 1914, had sailed from Sheerness on 1 February, arriving at Tenedos on the 17th. It is not clear whether Sueter was referring to Park and Ark Royal or Samson’s squadron when speaking of the photographers and cameras; reports from Ark Royal covering this period make no mention at all of air photography. However, photos were taken of the Ark Royal’s seaplanes, of the seaplane carrier Aenne Rickmers and of the balloon ship Manica, in this period, by one or more of Ark Royal’s complement and sent back to Sueter with a report covering the period up to 22 May.

  It is, however, possible that the RNAS seaplanes made use of cameras before Samson’s aeroplane squadron arrived on 23 March. Park was responsible for photographic and mapping work, but it is unclear at what stage the various cameras were introduced. Park himself was an architect in civilian life, and reckoned to be ‘a very skilful and accurate observer from the air’.18 At a later stage, a hand-held Ross half-plate camera was used in the Short seaplanes. This had originally been designed for use in airships, and in the seaplanes was used for obliques or verticals, the latter through a hatch in the bottom of the fuselage. An excellent German camera captured in France was also used, but this was seriously damaged by sea-water when one of the Sopwith Schneider seaplanes crashed. Also used was the RFC A-type cameras, heavy and unwieldy, introduced in France at the end of February 1915 but not available at the Dardanelles for many months. Given that only fifty-five photos had been taken by the end of October over the Gallipoli Peninsula by the Ark Royal’s seaplanes, most of these of the Anzac area,19 it is unlikely that many, if any, were taken before the initial landings. They may, however, have been taken of the forts, minefields and during naval bombardments.

  A post-war Admiralty report, part of which was written by Samson, stated baldly that as far as aerial photography was concerned:

  In this branch of aviation [the enemy] were in 1915 certainly ahead of the British and possibly of the French. Photographs taken during the campaign were seen at Constantinople [after the war], and they are much better than ours of this period, although taken at 8,000 feet, whilst ours were taken at 4,000 feet. They are more distinct and give clearer details.20

  Ark Royal and RNAS seaplanes

  The RNAS was active in the eastern Mediterranean theatre from the outbreak of hostilities. In late November 1914 the Navy reported that Tenedos was the only potential aeroplane (as opposed to seaplane) base near the Dardanelles.21 The Tenedos airfield was at the west end of the island, on low, flat ground about half a mile from the landing beach. It was only 300 yards square,22 but this was sufficient for all the aeroplanes which were to arrive in the theatre except for the Ark Royal’s Sopwith Tabloids. The airfield was ready for use just days before Samson’s No. 3 Squadron arrived at the end of March 1915.

  The Ark Royal, a converted merchantman, was the Navy’s first seaplane carrier. A report written before she arrived at the Dardanelles indicated that she carried ‘six seaplanes and four land machines’. The seaplanes had a speed of about 60 knots in still air and an endurance of three to four hours; two of the large seaplanes could be fitted to carry Lewis guns. The Sopwith single-seater aeroplanes could take off and land from a 400-yard field, reach 85–90 mph, carry four 20-pound bombs or steel flechettes, and had an endurance of three and a half hours. They could also take off from the ship’s deck, but not land there. No information was given about cameras.23

  Ark Royal arrived at Tenedos on 17 February 1915, with Squadron Commander R H Clarke Hall, carrying eight aircraft – three large 200 HP (one Short, two Wight) and three lighter 100 HP Sopwith two-seaters seaplanes and two Sopwith Tabloid single-seater aeroplanes. The Short was the only one up to the work, the others being ‘sadly inefficient for the work they would be called upon to do’.24 Ark Royal’s Sopwith Tabloids, needing a large, smooth field from which to operate, could not fly from Tenedos; the 400-yard field there was too rough for them to take off.25

  One of her aircraft, out of four attempts, managed to take off on 17 February, the very day of Ark Royal’s arrival, when a seaplane reconnaissance of Forts 1 to 6 at the entrance to the Dardanelles was carried out; trenches were seen in the Cape Tekeh area, and south of Fort 4 several new batteries were spotted from 4,000 feet. The machine received several hits from rifle fire.26 Two days later an aircraft attempted to use wireless to spot for the fleet’s gunfire during the bombardment of the forts, but the set failed.27 On this day, 19 February, a reconnaissance of the whole coast from Gaba Tepe southwards to Cape Tekeh and across the mouth of the Dardanelles to Besika Bay was carried out to locate Turkish defences, and gun emplacements were reported in naval grid squares U36 and 2C.22; one, three quarters of a mile north of Cape Tekeh, was for three guns, while the other on Gaba Tepe had no guns in position. However, the seaplanes failed in their naval fire-spotting task because of adverse weather conditions which prevented further flying until 25 and 26 February. On the latter day, Ark Royal noted: ‘Sent seaplane to reconnoitre for trenches, troops, howitzer batteries … Trenches observed running inland from coast about 3 miles to S of Fort 4 (South Coast). North Coast – many trenches round Cape Tekeh.’ Sketches were made of trenches seen in the Cape Tekeh area.28 Such visual reconnaissance was better than nothing, but had no pretensions to accuracy.

  Most of the initial work was visual reconnaissance and spotting for the Navy’s guns. By early March the Ark Royal’s seaplanes, heavy, slow and underpowered, with little capacity for climbing to any great altitude (3,000 feet, gained slowly, was a great achievement), had been found practically useless for reconnaissance sorties due to their unreliability and the lack of experience of their observers.29 They were sitting ducks, and on reconnaissance missions were always within range of rifle-fire from the ground.

  The shortage of aircraft led to desperate signals to London and Egypt for more. On 26 February the War Office in London signalled to Maxwell in Cairo: ‘ … Navy have four aeroplanes besides seaplanes off Dardanelles. We have none available.’30 Ark Royal located trenches and field guns south of Gaba Tepe on 5 March, and on 8 March report
ed: ‘Objects, possibly mines, 18 in number, seen in position as previously reported by seaplanes (Narrows – Fort 13 area).’31 On the same day, the War Office sent a further signal to Maxwell on the subject of air support: ‘Admiralty are sending out 12 aeroplanes and 12 pilots, also 1 kite balloon section.’32 This was a reference to Samson’s No. 3 Squadron RNAS, and to No. 1 Kite Balloon Section in the Manica. On 9 March Carden signalled to the Admiralty that he could not make any further progress against the Dardanelles defences until his air service was reinforced.33

  On 1 and 4 March seaplanes identified the moves of mobile 6-inch howitzer batteries.34 On 4 March seaplane observers visually located old trenches at Sedd-el-Bahr, behind the Old Castle.35 On 10–12 March, air reconnaissances of Saros Bay and the Bulair Lines were carried out; at Bulair a seaplane reported four lines of traversed trenches and an entrenched camp with two redoubts.36 The sortie on the 12th was directed at the area from the Kavak river to the Bulair Lines and beyond, but low cloud and mist prevented any detailed reconnaissance. It was, however, determined that the Kavak Bridge, which was viewed from a low altitude, was still intact. As far as the Bulair Lines were concerned, Ark Royal reported that a large camp and two new earthworks were located, as well as trenches between Kavak and Bulair. Old earthworks marked N, S. and R1, on map plate 58 of NID Report 838 were reported to be in disrepair and full of water. Forts Sultan and Napoleon were little damaged, and two gun emplacements were located protecting the landing places in naval grid square 2.D.33. Further, ‘A considerable amount of flying over this area will be necessary to locate and map various trenches, works, etc.’37

  The RNAS seaplanes practised spotting mines submerged at various depths near Ark Royal, and made further visual minefield and other reconnaissance flights daily from 13 and 17 March. On the 13th, five lines of mines were seen running halfway across the channel between the Kephez Light and the Swandere river, but the Asiatic side of the Straits was reported clear. The experiments with locating mines by visual observation were inconclusive; it all depended on the weather conditions. Even a slight breeze would ripple the surface of the water and prevent a view below the surface to where the mines were moored a few feet down. On the other hand, in good light and still conditions, a remarkably clear view could be obtained.