Aviation in Peace and War. Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
ordered, but for various reasons was delayed or never completed up to the outbreak of war.
Although at first sight the functions of the Naval Wing—coast defence and work with the Fleet—seemed hardly more difficult to perform than those of the Military Wing, in practice, as I was to find later from personal experience when in command of the R.N.A.S. at Gallipoli, they were more complicated, while the slowness of the Admiralty in evolving a clear scheme of employment and a definite objective made itself felt. Before the war the achievements of the Naval Wing were due rather to individual effort than to a definite policy of organized expansion. It was the pilot and the machine rather than the organization which developed.
As already stated, Eastchurch was chosen by the Short Brothers for their experiments in aeroplanes in 1909, but it was not until 1911 that the Admiralty bought two machines and established the first Naval Flying School at that place. The same year Commander O. Swann purchased from Messrs. A. V. Roe a 35 horse-power biplane and began to carry out experiments with different types of floats, as a result of which a twin-float seaplane was produced—the first to rise off the water in this country.
For some time seaplanes were in a very experimental stage and at best could only rise from, and alight on, calm water, though it is interesting to note that as far back as 1911 the employment of seaplanes for torpedo attack, which I think will be one of the most important developments of aircraft in the future, engaged the attention of the Navy, and a Sopwith seaplane carrying a 14-inch torpedo made its first flight at Calshot in 1913. For this reason, therefore, it appeared that principally aeroplanes and airships would have to be employed from shore bases for coast defence and that "carrier" ships would be necessary to enable seaplanes to work with the Fleet.
The first stations set up were Eastchurch, Isle of Grain, Calshot, Felixstowe, Yarmouth, Cromarty and Kingsnorth, from which at the outbreak of war an organized coastal patrol was established.
From the outset the Naval Wing, assisted by its large percentage of skilled technical personnel, paid great attention to experimental work of all sorts. Thus in 1912 the detection of submarines by aircraft was taken up, in 1913 valuable results were obtained from bomb-dropping, and a large number of experiments in wireless, machine gunnery and fighting carried out. In addition, efforts were made to extend the power, range and capacity of engine and machine.
The second Naval problem, that of co-operation with the Fleet, involved the flight of aircraft from ships and the design of aircraft carriers. In 1911 an aeroplane for the first time took off successfully from the deck of a cruiser at anchor, and the following year an aeroplane flew from H.M.S. "Hibernia," while under weigh, but it was not until after the outbreak of war that alighting on decks was successfully accomplished. The first ship to be fitted up as a parent ship for seaplanes was the "Hermes" in 1913.
These specialized technical requirements and developments explain why the Naval Wing and the Royal Naval Air Service tended towards individualism rather than cohesion. While the Military Wing, or Royal Flying Corps, progressed further as an organized fighting force, the Royal Naval Air Service, amongst the 100 odd aeroplanes and seaplanes on charge which were mainly of the Short, Sopwith, Avro, Farman and Wright types, possessed in 1914 the more powerful engines and a number of aeroplanes fitted with wireless and machine guns, while their bomb-dropping arrangements were also in a more advanced stage of development.
An Air Department was formed at the Admiralty in 1912 to deal with all questions relating to naval aircraft. Naval officers were trained from the beginning at Eastchurch rather than at the Central Flying School, and in 1913 the appointment of an Inspecting Captain for Aircraft, with a Central Air Office at Sheerness as his headquarters, accentuated a growing tendency for the Naval Wing to work on independent lines.
The Naval Wing grew rapidly and in the middle of 1914 was reorganized as the Royal Naval Air Service, comprising the Air Department of the Admiralty, the Central Air Office, the Royal Naval Flying School, the Royal Naval Air Stations, and all aircraft, seaplane ships and balloons employed for naval purposes. This placed the naval air force on a self-supporting basis and the entity of the Royal Flying Corps as a whole, as originally provided for, was lost.
Tactics and the Machine.
The value of the application of flying to war requires little demonstration. The most important attributes of generalship are quick appreciation of a situation and quick decision. To the ordinary Commander the absence of information is paralysing. In the nineteenth century the mass of cavalry was the special instrument of information and to obtain it contact with the enemy's main forces had to be effected. It thus acted as a shield and also tried to provide the information necessary to enable the infantry to take the offensive.
Aviation, by the wide field of observation it commands, by the speed with which it can collect and transmit information, to a great extent lifts the fog of war and enables a general to act on knowledge where before he acted largely on deduction. Information once obtained, its mobile and far-reaching offensive power introduces the element of surprise, and permits of lightning strokes against the enemy's vital points.
Before the war reconnaissance was regarded as the principal duty of the aircraft of the Military Wing. This was due to two reasons, first, the obvious one that aircraft possessed advantages shared by no other arm for obtaining information quickly and over wide areas and reporting to Headquarters, and second, that experiment had proved the difficulty of loading aeroplanes with offensive weapons, such as bombs or machine guns, without impairing speed and climb.
The following statement, which I drafted and which was issued by the General Staff before the Army Manœuvres of 1912, summarizes the position:—
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.