Review of 'The Royal Naval Air Service' by Phil Tomaselli (October 2018)

In 1910, the Royal Aero Club (thanks to one of its members, Frank McClean) offered the Royal Navy two aircraft with which to train its first pilots. It also offered instructors and the use of its airfield at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. Over 200 applications were received and among the four chosen officers was Lt CR Sampson who would rise to prominence with the RNAS within years. By 1912 the nascent Naval air detachment had been absorbed into the Royal Flying Corps but in July 1914, the RNAS was formally independent of the RFC and part of the Royal Navy.

Initially all aeroplanes landed on wheels, it would take some time before wheels were replaced by floats. Accidents were common, all pilots had them, but 10 of the first 100 died as a result of an accident. By the outbreak of WW1, the RNAS had over 90 aircraft, six airships, two balloons and over 700 personnel. As well as seaplanes, the RNAS maintained fighter squadrons and an independent bombing force in France.  Recovery of ‘downed pilots’ led to evolution of the armoured car as pilots were rescued in No Man’s Land. Initially commander by Commander Sampson, the originally unarmoured touring Rolls Royce cars were armoured with boiler plate and defended by Maxim machine guns.

Zeppelins were seen as a major menace and the RNAS mounted many bombing raids on Zeppelin sheds. The first raids were on Zeppelin sheds outside Cologne and Dusseldorf (September and October 1914) when at least one Zeppelin was destroyed. In November 1914, the planes of the RNAS flew across Lake Constance to bomb the sheds at Friedrichshafen and in December 1914 came the raid on Cuxhaven.

The raid on Cuxhaven (December 25, 1914)involved three seaplane carriers and part of the Harwich defensive force (cruisers, destroyers & submarines). The seaplanes were ‘folders’, two-seater biplanes with floats and folding wings to aid storage. The folders were lowered into the water and took off armed with 50kg bombs. Fog, low cloud and anti-aircraft fire prevented the raid from being a complete success. Several sites were bombed and some damage caused. The squadron returned to harbour without loss of ships or men although only three of the seaplanes were able to return to their tenders.

In June 1915, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Reginald Warneford encountered a Zeppelin (LZ37) off the coast at Ostend. He chased the airship until he was in a position to drop bombs on it. The airship was set alight and crashed near Ghent. Warneford was awarded the VC for this action.

July 1915 saw the denouement of the battle of the Rufiji Delta where SMS Könisberg was finally taken out of action. SMS Könisberg , a light cruiser, had been a successful surface raider, hampered only by a shortage of coal, off the coast of East Africa. When the ship’s engines required a thorough overall, she sheltered in the Rufiji Delta (Tanganyika) to affect the repairs. Tracked down by a British naval squadron, the battle commenced when the Royal Navy brought two monitors (gun platforms on a shallow keel) and RNAS observers (to observe the fall of shells) for the final action. When SMS Könisberg was finally wrecked by shell fire, she was scuttled and the crew escaped inland.

In November 1915, Sub-Lieutenant HF Fowler was the first pilot to fly a Bristol Scout fighter from the flight deck of a converted carrier. In November 1915 also, Squadron Commander Richard Bell-Davies, while posted to the Dardanelles, took part in a bombing raid in Bulgaria, where he rescued Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smylie when Smylie’s aircraft had been shot down. Bell-Davies was awarded the VC for this action.

In late 1916 the RNAS received twenty new bombers, the Handley Page 0/100. These were biplane bombers, the largest aircraft built in the UK with a wing span of 100ft (30.5 m), a crew of four, defended by five Lewis guns and capable of carrying a bomb load of 2,000 lb (900 kg). Flying out of Dunkirk, they were initially used for daytime bombing but this changed to night time in April 1917. They bombed German occupied Belgian ports, railway stations in the German rear areas and airfields.

During 1916 and into 1917, the RNAS investigated using platforms on cruisers for wheel-based aircraft. Commander CR Samson pioneered various ways to fly aircraft from moving ships, he also led the development of aerial wireless communications.

Lt. Raymond Collishaw, a Canadian fighter pilot with the RNAS was the highest scoring RNAS flying ace and the second highest scoring Canadian pilot of the Great War with 60 victories. He studied flight training in Toronto and qualified as a pilot in 1916. His flying career with the RNAS started with patrols of the English coast in Sopwith 1½  Strutters. Posted to France and now flying Sopwith Triplanes, he was part of the All-Black Flight in 1917 during ‘Bloody April’. He was awarded the DSC and the DSO. In 1918 he commanded No 3 Squadron on the Western Front, now flying Bristol Sopwith Camels and continued his score of victories. When the RNAS and RFC merged to form the RAF, he continued as a squadron commander. Now a major he was awarded the DFC and a bar to his DSO.

The RNAS also crewed the dirigibles, or SS class airships (AKA blimps), used by the RN for anti-submarine reconnaissance. The crew of pilot and observer/wireless operator could carry bombs and their defence was a Lewis gun. In defence of convoys and in reconnaissance, over 10,000 patrols of these airships were carried out in the last 15 months of the war.

The onset of the Gotha bomber raids on London was to bring about the founding of the RAF. In 1917, the German Air Service started using the heavy Gotha bombers to bomb the UK. Gotha bombers had a wingspan of 77ft, a crew of three, carried two or three machine guns for defence and a bomb load of up to 500kg. Initially the attacks on London failed to reach the city but eventually London received its first Gotha raid during daylight in June 1917.

Further Gotha raids resulted in bombers being shot down and an improvement in anti-aircraft defence. The German Air Service changed to night time bombing in September 1917. The RFC and RNAS proceeded to bomb the aerodromes where the Gotha bombers started their journey with the result that the bombers started from bases further into Belgium. The prime minister Lloyd George instructed Jan Smuts, the South African military leader and statesman, to hold an enquiry. The recommendation was to combine the RFC and RNAS to stop their rivalry and to create an air force independent of the Army and Navy. This was the origin of the RAF which was created on April 1st 1918.

Report by Peter Palmer