By Graham Mottram,
Director of Collections, Research and Learning, National Museum of the Royal Navy; Museum Director, Fleet Air Arm Museum.
Although it existed for little more than four years under the title of Royal Naval Air Service, the RNAS had its first seed planted in May 1909, when the Admiralty placed the contract for the first naval aircraft, the rigid airship Mayfly. It has been said that the Royal Navy had experienced, for Victorian times, a long period of extremely rapid technological change. In little more than fifty years the Navy had seen its ships change from wood to iron and steel, their mode of propulsion change from sail to steam and screw, their guns change from smoothbore cannon on wooden carriages to rifled guns in motorised turrets. Totally new technologies such as the torpedo, wireless telegraphy and the submarine had also forced themselves into the Navy’s operations. The advent of aviation in the first years of the twentieth century was almost one new tool too many.
In many ways the Royal Navy of 1910 was still a hidebound Victorian institution whose track record of building and then controlling the British Empire had given it a unique place in British society, and its senior officers held high social status. Aviation was seen by many as the plaything of the rich sportsman or the eccentric inventor, and the light and unreliable aircraft of 1908 would never develop into a worthwhile capability for a fleet at sea. An offer by the Wright Brothers to the Admiralty in that year was declined for such a reason. Other countries were not so casual in adopting aviation for military uses and the British Government gradually accepted that the country could not be left behind. The Navy was voted funds to build the airship, and the Army Balloon Factory moved from Andover to Farnborough so that it had more space for experiments.
Unfortunately, Mayfly suffered a catastrophic structural failure in September 1911 but, by then, the wealthy aviator and patriot Francis K. McClean had offered the Navy the facilities so that four naval officers could learn to fly at Eastchurch. The Committee of Imperial Defence examined Britain’s position in early 1912 and recommended that military aviation must be formalised and properly organised. In April of that year the Royal Flying Corps was formed, whose major elements were a Military Wing, a Naval Wing, and a Central Flying School. Over the next two years it was obvious that the Army’s demands over a land battlefield were significantly different to those of the Navy over a massive ocean. The Admiralty declared independence in July 1914 and the Naval Wing became the Royal Naval Air Service.
It was less than four years later that the RFC and RNAS were combined again, to form the Royal Air Force. By that time, the RNAS had achieved an enormous amount, its crowning glory being the creation of the aircraft carrier. The often buccaneering spirit of the RNAS led it down some unusual roads, not least the creation of armoured cars, which had a major influence on the development of the tank. It had fought in all the major theatres of war and some fairly minor ones as well. Malcolm Smith has harvested a wide range of material, which demonstrates just how much the men of the RNAS attempted, and often suffered. Much of the book’s content is personal reminiscence, in the words of the individuals themselves. If nothing else, being published as it is during the centenary of the First World War, it will show its readers that the Great War was not just about the dreadful slaughter on the Western Front. It was also fought all over the world by men in dark blue.