The Development of British Naval Aviation, 1914–1918

Alexander Howlett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000387629
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) revolutionized warfare at sea, on land, and in the air. This little-known naval aviation organization introduced and operationalized aircraft carrier strike, aerial anti-submarine warfare, strategic bombing, and the air defence of the British Isles more than 20 years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Traditionally marginalized in a literature dominated by the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force, the RNAS and its innovative practitioners, nevertheless, shaped the fundamentals of air power and contributed significantly to the Allied victory in the First World War. The Development of British Naval Aviation utilizes archival documents and newly published research to resurrect the legacy of the RNAS and demonstrate its central role in Britain's war effort.

1Fleet Naval Aviation

This chapter examines the evolution of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) as a component of the fleet at sea. It was well established before the war that the primary mission of naval aviation would be fleet reconnaissance, as was demonstrated during the 1913 naval maneuvers. The outbreak of the European war in August 1914 necessitated new roles, including seaplane carrier operations, anti-Zeppelin base raids, gunfire spotting, and carrier strike. Although envisioned before the war, few of these roles had yet transitioned from the experimental to the operational stage. Indeed, although the route was beset with hazards, the RNAS did eventually meet and surmount the material and doctrinal challenges. The wartime transformation is best illustrated by the Grand Fleet Flying Squadron’s successful destruction of the Tondern Zeppelin sheds, a naval air strike that destroyed Zeppelins L54 and L60 on 19 July 1918. When HMS Argus joined the Flying Squadron in October, Admiral Commanding Aircraft (ACA) Rear Admiral Richard Phillimore, furthermore, gained an aerial torpedo strike capability – 22 years before the battle of Taranto.

The RNAS certainly experienced its share of setbacks as it developed fleet aviation operations: the prewar rigid airship R1 ‘Mayfly’ disaster, gunfire spotting limitations exposed at the Dardanelles, only a single seaplane flight at the Battle of Jutland and, most spectacular of all, the planning for the aerial torpedo attack against the High Sea Fleet base at Wilhelmshaven that fell through late in 1917, all attest to the difficulty of integrating new technology during the chaos of wartime. Flying accidents cost the RNAS dearly: Squadron Commander Edwin Dunning, a skilled test pilot, was killed in a carrier-landing experiment; Lieutenant Commander W. P. de Courcy Ireland, who formulated the first aerial torpedo strike plans, was killed testing an airship-plane, as was notable airship pioneer Wing Commander Neville Usborne. The final success of the RNAS as a component of the fleet, and the skills encoded in naval doctrine as the Grand Fleet Air Orders (GFAO), were therefore acquired with both difficulty and real human cost.

This chapter examines the transformation of the RNAS’ roles within the fleet, beginning as a purely reconnaissance platform but ultimately developing into an essential instrument of naval warfare, capable of gunfire spotting, close air support, and carrier strike missions. First, it explores the development of rigid airships by the Royal Navy. This was a controversial and much-delayed program that, although ultimately successful, has been generally relegated to enthusiast studies. Despite early setbacks, the Royal Navy concluded the First World War with rigid airships that were as good as, if not better than, the Zeppelins they were copied from in 1916–17. Second, the development of the aircraft carrier is considered, from the introduction of Britain’s first seaplane carriers through to the development of naval air strike as demonstrated at the Cuxhaven raid of December 1914. Third, the chapter examines the use of naval aviation for gunfire spotting and reconnaissance, including the effort at the Dardanelles, the involvement of the RNAS in the destruction of the Königsberg at the Rufiji river delta, the utilization of the RNAS at the Battle of Jutland, and the operations of the little known East Indies & Egypt Seaplane Squadron (EIESS) in the Mediterranean. Fourth, the focus returns to the North Sea and Grand Fleet C-in-C Admiral Sir David Beatty’s convening of the Grand Fleet Air Committee (GFAC), a watershed organization that established the path forward for fleet naval aviation. The aborted Wilhelmshaven strike planning of 1917, perhaps the most audacious conceptualization of the RNAS as an instrument of the naval offensive, which could have been carried out had the war lasted into 1919, is also considered.¹ The chapter concludes by examining the doctrinal and technological development of the Flying Squadron of the Grand Fleet, Rear Admiral Richard Phillimore’s aircraft carrier group that conducted the Tondern raid of July 1918.²

Britain’s Rigid Airships

The Admiralty’s efforts to catch up with Count Zeppelin’s work for the German armed forces spurred the development of the airship in Britain. The success of Germany’s rigid airship program, and its rapid integration into the Imperial Navy as a reconnaissance and signaling platform, was observed with apprehension in Britain, although it was not clear if the answer was the development of Britain’s own rigids or more advanced airplanes.³ Captain Reginald Bacon, the Director of Naval Ordnance in 1908, was the leading British advocate for the construction of rigid airships and he ought to be considered, along with Frank McClean, Winston Churchill, and Captain Murray Sueter, as one of the godfathers of British naval aviation.⁴ Captain Bacon had been the Admiralty’s representative at several air-related Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) subcommittee meetings, including the Subcommittee on Aerial Navigation that was chaired by Lord Esher and then Lord Haldane. Bacon, along with Inspecting Captain of Airships (ICA) Sueter, was also on the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics which was presided over by John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, who was the chancellor of Cambridge University and formerly the president of the Royal Society.⁵

On 21 July 1908, Bacon recommended to Admiral Sir John Fisher, the First Sea Lord, that Britain begin development of an indigenous rigid airship by placing an order for a prototype with the Vickers armament firm.⁶ When Lord Esher’s CID Subcommittee on Aerial Navigation met that December, First Sea Lord Fisher instructed Bacon to oversee the rigid airship program.⁷ The CID subcommittee met again on 28 January 1909, and agreed to budget £35,000 for construction of the airship, plus £50,000 for the cost of the shed.⁸ This £85,000 expenditure compared well with a destroyer (£80,000) and was significantly more economical than a new light cruiser (£400,000).⁹ On 9 May, the contract with Vickers was signed and construction commenced.¹⁰

Bacon was thus in overall charge of the project from the Admiralty’s end. An experienced submarine and torpedo expert, Bacon drew inspiration from the submarine specialists he had worked with in the past, including Captain Sueter. Sueter, who, as we have seen, had previously worked with Bacon on Lord Rayleigh’s Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, was appointed the chief Admiralty liaison with Vickers.¹¹ Sir James McKechnie, manager of the Naval Construction Works at Barrow-in-Furness, led the Vickers team that also included Charles Robertson, head of engineering at Barrow, B. Comyn, the general manager of Cavendish, James Watson, the works manager, S. W. Hunt, the chief draughtsman, and H. B. Pratt, senior mathematician. Commander Oliver Schwann, Sueter’s Assistant Inspecting Captain of Airships, and his technical advisors Lt. Neville Usborne, Lt. C. P. Talbot, Engineer Lieutenant C. R. J. Randall, and Chief Artificer Engineer A. Sharpe, oversaw the work at the Barrow yard on behalf of the Navy.¹²

The Navy’s requirements specified an airship with a top speed of 40 knots, an operational ceiling of 1,500 ft, equipped with wireless-telegraphy (W/T), interior telephone communication, and a Zeiss reconnaissance camera.¹³ The design team recommended an airship 500 ft in length, 48 ft in diameter, with gasbags protected by a waterproof silk canvas that altogether provided for a lifting capacity of 663,000 cubic ft. The frame was to be made of wood but the Admiralty overruled this decision on the grounds that the ship was experimental and for this reason aluminum and then, in 1910, when Vickers acquired the patents from a German metallurgist, duralumin was selected.¹⁴

The result of these efforts was the technologically advanced but structurally weak airship No. 1, hopefully nicknamed the ‘Mayfly’. Despite the strong management and technical teams, progress was slow, over budget, and the airship was not completed until May 1911. Bacon, in November 1909, had retired from the Navy to assume the position of managing director of the Coventry ordnance works, leaving Sueter in charge of the airship project.¹⁵ After completion, it was discovered that the airship was deficient in lift and thus elements of the superstructure and other components were removed.¹⁶ Unfortunately for the rigid airship program, the experimental duralumin frame was wrecked when the spine split in half as the airship was being maneuvered out of its shed on a windy 24 September 1911.¹⁷

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