The Royal Naval Air Service During the Great War

Malcolm Smith

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Aviation
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781783463831
• eBook ISBN: 9781473838482
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Following in the same style as his previous book of Fleet Air Arm recollections, Malcolm Smith has collected a compendium of reminiscences from pilots who flew for the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines during the First World War. He includes first-hand testimonies from pilots manning early seaplane stations, an enthralling account from F.J. Rutland (the 'Rutland of Jutland'), who became the first pilot to take off in a Sopwith Pup from a platform on the roof of one of HMS Yarmouth's gun turrets, the true tale behind Rudyard Kipling's short story 'A Flight of Fact' (concerning Guy Duncan-Smith's experience of becoming marooned in the Maldives following a dramatic shoot-down), amongst many other personalized and illuminating stories. All these anecdotes are drawn from the extensive archive maintained by the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton, Somerset. The archive contains an enormous quantity of material, in the form of handwritten diaries, transcripts, log books and documentation of many kinds. Alongside the written material, the Museum maintains an unrivaled photographic archive and a representative sample of these images is included in the book.Excerpts from diaries, transcripts of spoken first-hand accounts and other recorded narratives make up the bulk of the book, with whole chapters dedicated to some of the most vocal members to see service during the course of the RNAS's Great War history. Guy Leather, a pilot destined to track an impressive trajectory with the RNAS features in one such chapter; his day to day accounts relay the full gamut of pilot experience at this time. This humane and thoughtful consolidation of pilot reflections is sure to appeal broadly, particularly as we approach the one hundredth year anniversary of the First World War.

Part One

Pre-War

THE ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE

A Contemporary History

In the days to come the year 1912 will be memorable for the establishment of a sure foundation of a British naval aeronautical corps. Some four or five years earlier, it had been decided arbitrarily by the authorities to divide the application of aeronautics between the land and sea services by giving to the former the aeroplane and to the latter the airship. The decision was accepted by the seamen and the construction of the lighter-than-air machine was in hand at the Barrow for the purpose of carrying out trials. Meanwhile, however, the belief that sea flying was bound to become an important asset for the Royal Navy led to developments. On 1 March 1911, four officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines were granted permission to undergo training in aeroplane work at Eastchurch while others, at their own expense, started experimental work with hydroplanes (seaplanes) on Lake Windermere and similar places. At this time the Government had not awakened to the necessity for creating air fleets and training airmen to navigate and handle them. The destruction of the first naval airship before she could make a trial trip acted as a deterrent to progress and the experience gained by its construction was wasted. It was the patriotism and public spirit displayed by the Daily Mail for offering prizes for long flights which gave impetus to the development of the air services and did much to make the importance of the new arm recognised in high quarters and its value to the Navy appreciated. Until towards the end of 1911, the only machines which the Navy possessed were gifts from private donors and no proper organisation for their employment existed. In the following year, under the inspiration of Winston Churchill, who had become first Lord of the Admiralty, the Navy took up the practice of aviation with enthusiasm and rapid development followed. The first four months of 1912 showed far more progress towards the provision of an adequate and qualified core of flying men with efficient machines than that made in the four preceding years. The First Lord himself qualified as an air pilot and when King George V visited his fleet at Weymouth in May the naval flyers were able to provide an exhibition of the advances made. In March 1912 a School of Naval Aviation was established at Upavon and in July the First Lord announced that a new department had been formed to coordinate the various branches of aerial navigation and develop the training and material to the best advantage. The Central Flying School on Salisbury Plain, the aerodrome of the Naval Wing in the Isle of Sheppey and the Air Department at the Admiralty were all instituted at this time. It is astonishing now to reflect that only two and a half years before the Great War none of these departments were in existence.

In fact the Royal Naval Air Service under its present name was not formed until within six weeks of the outbreak of hostilities. Today its personnel is numbered in thousands and it has aerodromes, air stations, training centres, repair depots and experimental depots in large numbers, not only in the British Isles but in many places abroad. With its organisation in such an underdeveloped state, it is little short of marvellous that the RNAS did what it did in the early days of the war. One advantage was that those who had been responsible for its establishment in peace were still in office when the war came and so had the handling of the machine they had brought into being.

EARLY DAYS OF FLYING

By Air Commodore E. L. Gerrard

In England little attention was paid to flying until Blériot flew the Channel, violating our inviolate moat. The Army had a Balloon Battalion, and it began to take an interest in heavier-than-air craft. In 1909 they enlisted the services of an American showman, Colonel Cody. Captain J. Fulton, Royal Artillery, bought the machine on which Blériot flew the Channel and taught himself to fly on it; later he became an instructor at the Central Flying School. The Navy first turned its attention to airships and laid down a most ambitious venture at Barrow in Furness, embodying many untried experiments, and bigger than anything previously attempted anywhere.

In 1910 I was appointed to HMS Hermione, which was commissioning at Portsmouth as tender to the Airship No. 1 under construction at Barrow. Hermione’s crew consisted almost entirely of Marines, the handling party for the airship. A Captain and the navigating officer were the only deck officers for the short trip to Barrow. Soon after we sailed the weather began to get sick; the captain sent for me and told me we might have to anchor and I would be in charge of the operation on the forecastle. I had never even seen a ship anchored, my job had always been aft on the quarterdeck. I saw visions of mangled Marines being pulled through the hawse pipe by the cable. I got a book on seamanship from the ship’s library and sweated at it. Of course, like a cookery book, it omitted all the things you really wanted to know; cat davits and capstans were mysteries to me. But Zeus was on my side: the weather cleared!

Many private individuals had been experimenting with aeroplanes: Maxim (of the machine gun) built a machine on very sound lines but its steam engine was too heavy. A. V. Roe was perhaps the most successful of the very early experimenters in England, and it is good to think that he remained at the forefront for many years. It is the common lot of inventors to fade away and see others exploit their ideas, but aviation furnishes a notable exception: in addition to Roe there are Short, Sopwith, de Havilland, Handley Page and Fairey. The Honourable Charles Rolls did not survive to see the engine he helped produce encircle the world; the tailplane of his aircraft broke off as he came in to land in a competition in 1910.

My personal connection with aviation began with Airship No. 1. One of my duties was that of meteorologist to the airship; of course I knew nothing of meteorology, nor did anybody else, so at least they had no solid grounds for criticism. The only book I could find on the subject was one by a naval officer. Considering the period at which it was written, it was extraordinarily good. The cyclone and the anticyclone were well described but, of course, much remained unexplained. For example, if you pointed out it was raining and the barometer had not fallen, you were told, ‘Oh that is non-isobaric rain’! It was my horrible responsibility to name the date and time for the launch. If quite a mild gust of wind struck her when partly out of her shed, she would break in two. I had to issue a weather forecast every night (the local green keeper was useful). She did, in fact, break her back at the second launching but, fortunately for me, by then I’d gone off to learn to fly heavier-than-air craft. This airship took so long to build that the press called her the Mayfly. Vickers personnel, of course, had no experience of airship building and things often had to be done over again. We were all highly amused one afternoon when a very worried young man from Vickers came into the mess carrying a paper which notified the despatch by rail of 500,000 cubic feet of hydrogen. He had calculated that that amount of hydrogen would lift the railway truck into the air! He had forgotten that it was highly compressed into heavy steel cylinders.

I never had any confidence in airships; what I knew of meteorology convinced me that their life was ephemeral, and when the Navy called for volunteers for aeroplanes my name was easily first in. The knowledge of aeronautics it was thought I possessed accounted for my being among the four officers selected from over 300 applicants. The first choice to be the senior in charge of us was Ramsay, an excellent choice (many years later he commanded the Navy at the invasion of Normandy) but it was found he was married! So, Lieutenant Commander C. R. Sampson was appointed. He came to us from the Persian Gulf where he had been hunting pirates; doubtless his fierce pointed beard helped to inspire terror in the wrongdoer.

In mid-Victorian times the thwarted swain went lion hunting in Africa; Gregory’s modern version was to go up in one of those crazy things called aeroplanes. He was very superstitious: one day he was starting a flight, and had just left the ground, when he switched off and the aircraft came to rest at the far extremity of the aerodrome. He got out and strode over to our hut; I followed to enquire the trouble, he was looking worried with a very large whiskey and soda in his hand. He said ‘My God, I nearly left the ground and it is Friday!’

Longmore says he was selected because he was regarded as expendable and would leave no widow to claim a pension. I think his good looks and tactful bonhomie must have helped. Cockburn was flying instructor, unpaid of course. He had studied with Henri Farman in France; he took infinite care and none of us so much as broke a wire up to the time of taking our ‘tickets’, though afterwards we had some adventures. Horace Short, underpaid again, taught us theory. Horace was very serious over anything to do with flying but gave full rein to humour between whiles. His favourite quip was the invention of ridiculous words, some of which passed into the language and are now found in the dictionary, e.g. Blimp for a non-rigid airship. He pretended the words were invented by his son. An expression of Henri Farman is also in the dictionary: ‘joystick’. He told us an incident at his school; a pupil got out a machine on a Sunday and put his sweetie in the backseat. Seeing a joystick between her legs she instinctively pulled it towards her and stalled the machine.

We four – Lieutenant Commander C. R. Sampson, Lieutenant Gregory, Lieutenant A. M. Longmore, and myself, Lieutenant E. L. Gerrard, RM, assembled at Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey, in January 1911 to start the difficult process of getting the Navy into the air. The Admiralty was very disinclined to start, but their hand was forced by Frank McLean who gave a gift of two Short aeroplanes and offered the aerodrome as well. For some reason the gift was not accepted and their Lordships insisted on paying him one shilling a year rent! We were fortunate in finding a tin-roofed bungalow available, practically on the aerodrome. By now I was becoming accustomed to taking on jobs of which I was completely ignorant, so raised no demur when voted in charge of domestic arrangements. Two Marine batmen had been allotted us. I fell the men in, the two-badge man to the right, the one-badge man to the left. I said to the right-hand man,‘Can you cook?’ He said ‘yes’. I said, ‘There is the kitchen’ and, to the other, ‘You take charge of the rest of the house’. It turned out afterwards that the one-badge man was much the better cook, but he got his opportunity later when we taught the two-badge man to fly. Often, when the dinner hour approached, cook was a mere dot above the distant horizon. I fed them chiefly on mutton chops, though later got more ambitious. We were lunching a Royal party, the weather was very hot so I determined on consommé glacé. I designed and built an ice chest, and put the soup in it in plenty of time in ginger beer bottles. When the great moment arrived I began to pour it out, but nothing happened, it was frozen solid. I thawed it out and then found it was lukewarm. Once more into the ice chest! The party exhibited Royal tact during the long wait and great appreciation when, eventually, lunch started.

THE FIRST ROYAL MARINE PRIVATE TO FLY

By Captain Roy Swales BSc RN

The first naval officers to qualify as pilots were granted their certificates by the Royal Aero Club in late April and early May 1911. Major Eugene L. Gerrard, Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI), was one of the pioneering four who were trained at Eastchurch. Other RM officers would follow his example over the next three years. By the time that the 500th Royal Aero Club Certificate was issued in May 1913, nine members of the Corps were qualified as pilots. Eight of these were officers, but one man – the third member of the Corps to learn to fly – did not hold a commission.

John Edmonds was born in Walworth, London, on 4 December 1881 and by the age of eighteen he was earning a living as a slater’s labourer. In 1912, at the age of thirty, he became the first non-commissioned pilot of the Royal Navy, the twentieth qualified naval pilot, and one of the earliest pioneers of manned flight. He achieved this singular distinction as a private in the RMLI. Edmonds enlisted on 29 June 1900, at the age of eighteen and a half. He followed the usual recruit training at Deal until February 1901 and for the next ten years had a typical career. His first draft was what must have been a pleasant three years (1902-05) in HMS Terror, the base ship on the island of Bermuda, for duty at the ‘Commissioner’s House’. His sea time was spent mainly in cruisers, including two years on the China Station in HMS Astraea and twenty-one months in the scout cruisers Attentive and Foresight. Throughout this time he remained a private RMLI, consistently assessed as ‘VG’ and being awarded two Good Conduct badges, with no time forfeited. His ‘crime sheets’ show a couple of minor offences: one charge of ‘Parading with his rifle in a filthy condition’ shortly after leaving Deal and a charge of ‘Idling on the works’ one (probably sunny) afternoon in Bermuda. A run ashore in1908 resulted in one more serious charge: ‘did return from leave drunk and remained unfit for duty 9 hours’. In April 1911 he was drafted to HMS Wildfire, the shore base at Sheerness.

In September 1911, his career took a major change of direction. He was drafted to HMS Actaeon, also at Sheerness. Actaeon was the depot ship for torpedo training, but she was also the pay and administration base for the Naval Flying School, which had just been established on the Isle of Sheppey at Eastchurch, the cradle of Royal Navy aviation. John Edmonds was formally drafted into the Royal Naval Air Service from this date (he was, presumably, a volunteer for this exciting new trade), retaining his RMLI register number and rank of private. Strictly speaking, the RNAS did not yet exist. The Naval Flying School, Eastchurch, and the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers were the aviation units in 1911. The Royal Flying Corps was formed on 13 April 1912 and absorbed these two units, but the staunchly independent Eastchurch organisation was soon known as the Naval Wing. On 1 July 1914 the Naval Wing became the Royal Naval Air Service under direct RN control.

From September 1911 until May 1913, Edmonds served at Eastchurch as a private, but was undoubtedly employed as an aircraft mechanic. His record of service gives no indication as to where a former slater’s labourer acquired any technical skills. Presumably, like most early aviation experience, it was gained on the job. The Commanding Officer at Eastchurch was Lieutenant Charles Rumney Samson RN, the first qualified naval pilot. It must have been under Samson’s patronage that John Edmonds was taught to fly. Why an RMLI private should have been the first man selected for this training is unclear, because the Eastchurch school had many more senior and more experienced technical ratings than Edmonds. One of Edmonds’ flying instructors was Captain Robert Gordon RM, who was noted as having flown with him in the ‘School biplane’ on 13 July at Eastchurch. Flight magazine recorded that on Friday 26 July John Edmonds went for his brevet, but was unable to land within the specified distance of the landing spot. He again tried on Saturday, but had to come down owing to engine trouble, which was apparently due to castor oil having found its way into the petrol feed through a leak in the tank. This was rectified, and on Monday he successfully accomplished the test.

FROM CANADA TO THE RNAS

By James Steel Maitland

In 1907 I emigrated to Montreal, Canada. I was twenty years of age, a trained and qualified architect, who had found that the old country did not want more architects. In Scotland I was offered £45 per annum. In Canada I found full scope, working ultimately on the University of Saskatchewan which was in the course of erection at Saskatoon. There I earned £250 per annum. The work, of course, ceased at the outbreak of the Great War.

I had made friends with fellow Scots who had gone out before me, colonials now, yet all of us bound by strong ties to the Mother Country. The threat of war had been already in the air and we all wanted ‘to do our bit’. My particular friend was keen to join the local Air Training Corps, and I was soon talked into taking an interest in flying. We found they were full up with recruits at Montreal and short of machines and instructors. At Toronto the situation was similar. Then we learned that the ‘flying ticket’, which was essential, could be gained at the Thomas School of Aviation at Ithaca, NY State, and I joined that private company which offered lessons and training on their ‘hydro-planes’. The advertised course proved to be a scandal; only one plane was in use, and it crashed the day I joined. As they seemed in no hurry to supply another, we students, all Canadians, combined, and with the Company, built one for ourselves! The Company supplied the engine and the float, and from drawings we made the wings which balanced the plane. We learned that the Company at that time was busy supplying planes for the British Army and Navy, and, after our arrival in Britain, we found that all those machines had been scrapp...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• In Association with the Society of Friends of the Fleet Air Arm Museum
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Author’s Preface
• Part One: Early Days
• Part Two: Home Waters
• Part Three: Secret History
• Part Four: Western Front
• Part Five: Mediterranean and the Middle East
• Part Six: My Time as a Prisoner of War
• Part Seven: Armoured Cars in Gallipoli and Russia
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Notes