Air and Sea Power in World War 1

The First World War is often considered to be the first mechanised conflict because the combination of several innovations, including aeroplanes and submarines, changed the breadth and depth of warfare.1 This chapter examines the relationship between combatants and their weapons, through current debates in the the history of technology. The role of machinery is reconsidered in its broader historical context to argue for the importance of the navy and airforce in research and innovation. The Royal Flying Corps was pragmatic and democratic in its approach to development. Despite industrial issues that held up production, the advances that characterized the war in the air were largely pilot-led. This enhanced the professional culture of the RFC, accustomed to informal regulation and personal influence in battle. By contrast, the Royal Navy was in the ascendancy in 1914 and had little reason to pursue innovation. The sailors of the navy did not instigate battle and this resulted in inertia in the fleet and disappointment amongst its sailors. Not only did the armed forces play a highly significant role in the growth of many new technologies, but these were the product of trial and error, rather than sudden innovation. Consequently, this war has much to teach the historian of technology, not least about the involvement of pilots and sailors in the development of machines and systems to engage the enemy. This chapter, therefore, takes a user-led perspective on technological advancement to understand how combatants responded to and led development of their weapons.

In recent years technological determinism has been widely criticised as too simplistic and historians such as Edgerton have suggested further modes of study. As Arnold Pacey has explained, determinist ideas ‘may seem to indicate an unvarying pattern in the unfolding of technological rationality – a pattern which is independent of the ups and downs of human affairs.’⁴ The aeroplane is a key example of a technology that has not followed a pre-determined path. No one could have foreseen how valuable and diverse aircraft would become by the end of the First World War because much of that development was pilot-led and not in the hands of civilian scientists. Furthermore, the impact of an invention is the culmination of years of planning and research embedded within the broader socio-cultural context in which it develops.

The second key feature of writing on the history of technology is a concentration on the successful work of scientists. Little attention is given to the many failed attempts that precede invention – a process of trial and error that leads to thousands of technological failures. The dominance of the dreadnought in naval warfare was the culmination of experimentation with steam and firepower by naval scientists; it did not appear magically into the annals of war. The strength of the dreadnought was partly the result of numerous unsuccessful attempts to improve the strength of the navy; a successful invention can only come from experiencing previous failure. Even so, invention was not the culmination of development but the beginning. As Arnold Pacey explained, ‘new ideas in technology have come from small firms and even from individuals working on their own.’⁵ The dreadnought was soon replaced by the super-dreadnought, capable of greater power and with larger, more accurate guns. The history of technology generally fails to account for the evolution of a product both before and after its launch into the consumer world.

The final issue for technological historians has been to understand the relationship of the military to development. This has largely been misconceived. It has been assumed that military and naval bodies were resistant to change, so historians such as Jon Sumida have argued that during the First World War policy-makers looked back to the nineteenth century for inspiration. Yet the support of military bodies has been fundamental to technological developments in the twentieth century. ‘Even in 1914, industrial laboratories were rare,’ Edgerton argued, ‘but innovation was proceeding strongly. The development of great new ships, motor cars and aviation are, rightly, not associated with laboratories.’⁶ The aeroplane, long described as a civilian development, was, as this chapter will demonstrate, initially supported by the Army whose investment expanded workshops and stimulated production. The military was also responsible for the refinement of the aeroplane during the war, led by the pilots who flew them. Civilian scientists had little control over the significant developments of aerial combat in this period and had a contentious relationship with the navy. This chapter will examine the developments in technology from the perspective of their users, the men of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Navy.

The history of technology has a significant contribution to make to studies of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Navy. As stated above, pilot-led developments in aerial combat continued throughout the war, but these improvements were by no means inevitable. The breadth of RFC capabilities by the end of the war depended on two distinct strands of development – one reconnaissance and the other combative. Yet the RFC’s role in photography and map-making did not automatically lead to dog-fighting. Aerial combat was the result of stabilized production in Britain, of systematic supply to the front, improvements in plane design, speed and ceiling heights, as well as more stringent training. Yet none of these things were solely reliant on technological availability and together they combined to form the historical context that has to be considered. Most importantly, an understanding of the role of technology in the lives of combatants needs to include the reflections of pilots who used it.

The Royal Navy was the most technologically capable force in the world at the start of the Great War, and by 1918 had apparently floundered, an argument against the Whig interpretation of history. For the navy, the history of technological use is one of great expectation followed by disappointment for those involved. Yet this does not entirely accord with the successful blockade that eventually starved Germany into surrender and the threat of confrontation, which prevented the High Seas Fleet from attempting an attack. What this disparity demonstrates is the importance of the user-perspective. Although the Royal Navy successfully withstood German attacks, the men who fought did not feel that victory was achieved. Fundamentally, this chapter argues that technology alone was not the determining factor in Britain’s success, but its effective use. As Ernest Braun argues, a ‘ship, an aircraft {or} a car, are all but links in a chain which constitutes the system and are quite useless in isolation.’⁷ Braun supports Martin Van Creveld’s suggestion that success in war depends on more than effective armour. ‘It is dominated by such irrational factors as resolution, courage, honor and duty,’ Braun argues, but when ‘everything is said and done, none of these have anything to do with technology.’⁸ Wars are not won by machines; they are won by the men who fight them.

Arguably, had war not come to Europe in 1914, there would have been little reason for the army to encourage the development of the Royal Flying Corps. The Flying Corps had been established for only two years when war broke out, but there was little industry to speak of. ‘At the beginning of the war only two contractors were building aeroplanes of Government design,’ the War Office reported.¹⁰ Consequently, the effectiveness of the Flying Corps was a significant problem in the early months of war. Initially, the RFC had to rely on French aviators, in particular, to stimulate the aircraft industry. Official Historian H. A. Jones explained the various factors retarding development:

(1) the pre-war starvation of the Royal Flying Corps which resulted in a home aircraft industry of minute proportions and small experience, (2) Our entire dependence on the French in the early days of the war for engines and our lesser dependence for aeroplanes, (3) Our pre-war dependence on Germany for magnetos.¹¹

As casualties escalated, and the need to match technological advances on the continent increased, Britain had to establish its own supply. The development of the aircraft industry was inconsistent and largely responsive to German developments. In 1915, German pilots flew the Fokker and in 1917, the Albatross, both of which were faster machines than those used by the British. ‘The advent of the Fokker put new heart into those who flew the older German types,’ R. H. Kiernan explained, which, for the British, resulted in a period of ‘great danger and strain’.¹² British policy was to outnumber the German pilots, and to do so manufacturers had to supply enough planes. By March 1917, over 11,000 machines and 20,000 engines were being manufactured and it was hoped that numerical rather than technological strength would be the answer.¹³ Historian Jonathan Nicholls noted that whilst ‘the British had numerical superiority, the Germans enjoyed the advantages of quality – and not just in the machines themselves, for on the whole the Germans possessed much better pilots.’¹⁴ This sentiment was shared by the RFC pilots, who often wrote admiringly of the German machinery and technique. James McCudden wrote of the fruitless attempts to prevent enemy observation in 1916; even when chased by the RFC, ‘the German machine was invariably faster, even when we got up to them, which was very seldom’. Of the same period McCudden felt that the ‘German Albatrosse D1 was very superior to the de Havilland Scout, and we rarely got a look in. The Huns simply climbed above us and remained until they wanted to go home.’¹⁵ Likewise H. H. Balfour explained that their ‘chief feeling towards the enemy Flying Corps was one of envy. Envy that our enemy could be equipped with better aeroplanes than those which we were forced to fly.’¹⁶ With the pace of technological innovation, it became necessary for the RFC pilot to rely on tactical strength to outperform the enemy, so recruitment and machine production levels were increased to put more British pilots into the sky. The merging of the RFC with its naval counterpart, the RNAS, was also an attempt to better allocate resources and ensure that aerial superiority over the Western Front would belong to the Allies.¹⁷

Although the production rates of industry increased throughout the war, supply remained a continual problem for pilots. Maurice Baring, a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps, complained that it ‘took more than nine months for anything in the shape of a machine or engine to be available. By the time a machine or engine or the spare part of both were available in sufficient quantities ... {they} were out of date.’¹⁸ The process of developing a machine, once requested by the airforce, could be long. As in the Second World War, air staff would compile their operational reports and recommendations which, as M. M. Postan, D. Hay and J. D. Scott explained, would ‘give birth to preliminary designs in anticipation of coming operational requirements’ by manufacturers.¹⁹ By May 1915, there were nearly 200 contractors working for the Military Aeronautics Directorate. In total there were orders for over 2,000 aeroplanes distributed amongst them.²⁰ However, only a quarter of these had been delivered. To speed the process of allocation, pilot L. A. Strange had a more effective method of obtaining replacements. He claimed ‘the only way to get anything was to go up to the RFC’s headquarters and sit on someone’s doorstep with a long face ... . {W}hen I had made enough of a nuisance, they listened to my complaints to get rid of me.’²¹ It became clear that the RFC would need to find a strategic advantage to make up for their technological sloth.

Competition for resources between the RFC and RNAS exacerbated problems of supply throughout the war and undermined developments in industrial output. It was also becoming clear that some of the machines being developed needed to be altered by the pilots to suit the purposes of the air services. Leonard Rochford, of the RNAS, recalled an incident of informal technological liaison in 1916:

I got into conversation with a 2nd Lieutenant of the Royal Flying Corps. He told me that he had come to Eastchurch to collect a Short biplane which the RFC had taken over from the RNAS ... . The RFC were about to be equipped with the DH4 two-seater, a very fine bomber/reconnaissance aeroplane ... but they had difficulty obtaining the Rolls-Royce water-cooled engine with which it was powered ... . The War Office got over the difficulty by buying the Shorts, flying them to an RFC aerodrome where the engines were taken out and fitted to the DH4’s while the airframe was scrapped.²²

The air services had officially cooperated throughout the war on the Home and Western Fronts, as well as on long-distance bombing missions, but these were usually casual agreements between members of the services.²³ By 1918, it was necessary to formalize their relationship and to utilize Britain’s resources more effectively.

The formation of the Royal Air Force had a lasting impact on the management of aviation. With production focused on supplying one service, it became possible to produce the volume of machinery necessary to overwhelm the enemy.²⁴ Consequently, the role of the aircraft industry within the history of technology should be reconsidered. Not only was it initiated and sustained by military investment, but it also showed continual improvement.²⁵ Britain’s aircraft development was reactive to German invention and without the drive offered by war, Britain would have remained amongst the small manufacturers. What is significant about the response of the aircraft industry to the First World War is the reliance on numerical advantage to defeat the enemy and the use of its pilots to push technological development.

A straffed {sic} village looks very peculiar from the air when there is snow on the ground; Herbuterne reminded me of a model village made in chocolate that had been nibbled by mice. Everything was wonderfully clear at 3,500 ft ... . The stump of the church spire still stands and looks like a badly damaged pencil point.26

Smart’s role was to recognise the strategic value of his surroundings and to relay that information to the ground forces for ranging the artillery. To understand this vital intelligence, Smart was trained to recognise the strange terrain with its craterous surface and camouflaged German bases.²⁷ Smart’s position as an observer was a consequence of aeroplane development that brought a new aspect to warfare. Inventions rarely stand alone, and often have multiple effects on their historical contexts.

Observation was the basis of the new breed of cameras that photographed the Western Front during the war, becoming the most reliable of intelligence tools. As the demand for images of enemy positions grew, the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps were instrumental in developing the effectiveness of cameras and speeding print delivery. The No 3 Squadron was among the first to recognize the camera’s value, and with supplies unforthcoming, resorted to buying their own.²⁸ It took time for photographs to become integral elements of intelligence gathering, but as the use of cameras became more commonplace, ‘the wing sections were getting overburdened and there were unavoidable delays in the delivery of prints’, H. A. Jones recalled. With the changeable nature of warfare, this meant that ‘prints reached the units too late for full advantage to be taken of the new information they revealed’. The solution, Jones continued, was to establish efficient processing units in each Corps so that by mid-April 1916, data was available almost instantly at the Front.²⁹

The utilization of the camera in this period is an excellent example of an old invention finding a new role. This is relevant to the history of technology for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the military reinvention of the camera, and second it shows that development was not pre-determined. Pilots, in fact, admitted to having a limited scientific understanding of photography. Instead, they used the camera without any real scientific knowledge, as Colonel N. M. McLeod revealed in 1919:

Those of us who engaged on plotting aeroplane photographs had never seen or thought of such a thing before and when photographs arrived we had not time to think out the theoretically best way of using them. The early methods, undoubtedly, were not the best and it is only lately that we have really had time to go into the matter from a theoretical point of view.³⁰

Pilots recognized the potential value of the camera and began to improve it by an uncertain process of trial and error, as McLeod suggests. This flexible attitude to development allowed 127,000 aerial photographs and 3,900,000 prints to be made in 1917 alone. Half a million photographs had been taken by the end of the war and were invaluable to the British army.³¹

Improved observational and photographic techniques also led to the development of the aerial map, which became a valuable guide to the battlefield. This consequence of aerial innovation was entirely the result of the skilled work of pilots and observers. To range the guns and plan offensives, accuracy in mapping was vital, as Henry Woodhouse, editor of American journal Flying, explained in 1917:

{The map} must show the land as it is, the exact shape of cities, woods and lakes; the course of rivers, railways and roads; it must indicate clearly the prominent landmarks and the established aerodromes and open fields for landing etc. In short the aeronautical map must show the land as near as possible as it looks to the aviator from the air.

Consequently the most useful maps for the RFC, Woodhouse argued, were pictorial so these had to be renewed ‘several times a day, to include the changes shown by the photographs taken by the aviators from their aeroplanes’.³² Fundamentally, the success of pilot observation led to the production of maps. Both have been overlooked by innovation-centric technological historians.

A long-standing assumption in aviation history is that the aeroplane was a civilian invention harnessed by the army during the war.³³ This notion supposes that without war civilian aircraft would have inevitably developed anyway. According to contemporary experts Henry Woodhouse, editor of the journal Flying, and G. M. B. Dobson of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, the origins of civilian transportation actually lay in the development of the map and the compass – both military advances.³⁴ Until 1917, Woodhouse explained, each belligerent nation had its own map specifications. The success of the RFC’s accurate observation led to the development of a standard world flight map and then plans for commercial flights. In May 1917, Parliament announced the development of a Civil Aerial Transport Committee to plot the future of aerial transportation. As Henry Woodhouse succinctly concluded, ‘aerial navigation is the only navigation that is international in character, because no natural obstacle can prevent the progress of the aircraft as they prevent the progress of ships and trains.’³⁵ The value of the maps made by the Royal Flying Corps ensured that not only would aeroplanes have an invaluable role in warfare, but also in Britain’s commercial future.

{I had} the unpleasant job of applying a generous layer of whale grease to my face, especially the parts that will be exposed – the cheeks, lips and tip of the nose – for if they are not protected I can be sure of frost-bite ... . {T}his is all part of the high flyer’s burden.³⁹

Men also wore their own jumpers and coats in layers to keep warm, as RFC pilot W. T. Blake explained:

Pilots and observers both muffle themselves up in sweaters and thick leather coats, an extra pair of socks and fur-lined knee boots are donned, a woolen {sic} balaclava is worn under the fur-lined helmet, scarves are wrapped round the neck to protect the face, for the intense cold causes frostbite and the most ghastly mutilations of the features, and lastly, big fur gauntlets are pulled well up to the elbow.⁴⁰

Little official guidance was provided on how to defend an airman’s health from the altitudes, so pilots were forced to react to the technological consequences of flight to protect themselves from its effects.

The action of aviation upon the body could be emotional as well as physical. This was another unexpected outcome of the aeroplane. By June 1917, after three years of service, Commander William Fry was sent home to recover from the strain of flying. Between 23 April and 21 June, Fry had flown on 118 sorties, logging approximately 170 flying hours. In his memoir Fry recalled ‘that the pressure and pace were so great that the nerves of a number of pilots were a little stretched and nearly everyone was liable to flare up at the slightest provocation.’ Although reluctant to leave his squadron, he accepted that the only cure was to return home to rest. Fry realised that he was of ‘little or no use to the squadron and was probably a liability. I had grown difficult and nervy and by then I had lost any offensive spirit I once possessed.’⁴¹ To protect their emotional health, weary pilots were returned to Britain as instructors at the training schools. However, the erosion of a pilot’s resolve took months, sometimes years to take effect, during which time they would endure the physical consequences of flying.⁴² These effects are as much a part of the history of the aeroplane as engines and bombs. Technological historians must contextualise their obsession with single innovations to understand the many inventions that resulted from the aeroplane. For the pilots of the Flying Corps, invention, development and design were an integral part of their experience of war. Their input was also fundamental to developments in offensive technology that heightened the dangers of aerial warfare and increased their personal involvement in combat.

The first offensive use of aircraft was recorded in 1911 when the Italian Air Force bombed Tripoli, but it was not until 1915 that the first fully-armoured planes reached the Western Front.43 In the earliest months of war, British airmen carried their standard service revolver as protection, but as the enemy became increasingly protective of their territory, skirmishes between pilots occurred. In the first six months of the conflict, it was not expected that men would engage with each other in the air, and contact was relatively rare. ‘The chances of actually sighting an enemy were still fairly remote,’ Herbert Ward wrote of 1915, because the German planes ‘rarely ventured over our lines, and even when on their own side, they showed little inclination to become involved in a fight. They had their work to do and we had ours.’⁴⁴ This was a period of reconnaissance development and it was not until much later when technological advances in aeroplane speed, height and guns combined to make aerial combat possible. None of this was predicted or inevitable in 1915.

Various attempts were made to fix machine guns to the aeroplane but, whether on the wing or behind the pilot, this resulted in reduced manoeuvrability and the possibility that bullets could puncture the machine. It was the invention of the interrupter gear by French pilot Roland Garros that allowed the airman to fire from the cockpit through the propeller, and it was this system that determined the future of air fire.⁴⁵ The development of the gun was a process of trial and error that must be viewed in the context of war at that time. Garros’s machine-gun system was rapidly adopted by all fighting nations, but it was the German Army that first capitalized on it when they stole a French prototype. The deadly Fokker aircraft arrived on the Western Front in the spring of 1915 and seriously challenged the position of the Flying Corps. British pilots were more easily repelled from the German lines and casualties escalated. Attempts to replicate Garros’s invention followed quickly. ‘The armament of the aeroplane became more and more important,’ the Air Council noted, and by the end of 1915, ‘nearly every British aeroplane that crossed the lines was machine-gun armed.’⁴⁶ However, their reliability was a constant problem in aerial combat. James McCudden wrote to his father about the failure of his guns during a dog-fight in 1917:

I have had a lot of trouble with my guns jambing {sic} of late and have lost a lot of Huns over it ... . This morning I got twenty yds behind a Hun, and took a sight of the back of his neck and pulled the triggers, and neither gun fired a single shot and while I was rectifying the stoppages, the Hun got away.⁴⁷

What is interesting about McCudden’s statement is that it not only demonstrates the continuing problem of effectiveness in British manufacture, but more importantly it also hints at the superiority of the British airman on the Western Front. In this situation, McCudden’s position was extremely vulnerable. He was close to an enemy aircraft with no means of defending himself – yet the German pilot flew away rather than turning to shoot McCudden. Whilst the gun had a significant influence on the future of aerial warfare, it was the effective use of technology by the pilots of the Flying Corps that distinguished them from their more advanced German counterparts.

Using their technology in a ‘system’ was the RFC’s most significant tactic. As technological historian Ernest Braun has argued, technologies ‘tend to form clusters which operate as systems’.⁴⁸ Whilst in the large scale of war the airforce is only one link in the overall strategy, Braun’s argument can be applied to suggest that the various elements of aerial combat formed a micro-system governed by the pilot. The most effective demonstration of this was the development of the scout fighter squadron, which arrived on the Western Front in February 1916. The advanced squadrons were comprised of the single seater DH2 made by the De Havilland factory, with a flexible Lewis gun. This plane were lighter and faster than the German Fokker, with a wingspan of 28 feet (compared to the 47 feet of a standard FE2d reconnaissance plane). The DH2 was quickly followed by the more famous Sopworth Pup, which at just 26 feet in wingspan could reach over 100 miles per hour. The job of these squadrons was to escort reconnaissance planes in formation and to protect them from enemy fire. For the history of technology this should signify the continuing importance of the reconnaissance machine. Aerial growth, therefore, was not an inevitable push towards aggressive combat, but came from the need to implement a system to protect observation, which was the primary purpose of the Royal Flying Corps throughout the war.

Developing the system was largely the work of the scout pilots who spent time enhancing their machines to offer better, more tailored performance. The effective system developed between the reconnaissance and fighter machine was a winning strategy for the RFC which developed an excellent relationship amongst its pilots. Alan Bott, stationed in France in 1916, was full of praise for his companions who protected him during sorties over enemy territory:

Thanks to them, our aircraft were able to carry out reconnaissance, artillery observation and photography with minimum interruption, while the German planes were so hard pressed to defend their place in the air that they could seldom guide their own guns or collect useful information.⁴⁹

During 1916, this effective system facilitated aerial victory in the Somme campaign. This was enhanced by increased recruitment and production that put more British planes in the sky.⁵⁰ Germany, however, was not defeated and the next leap in technological power led to the first consistent bout of aerial fighting – the dogfight.

Again, it was Germany who produced the next generation of fighting machine with the introduction of the Albatrosse in 1917, which exceeded British capabilities. The planes arrived at the Front in April (later termed ‘Bloody April’) and the losses they inflicted meant that the Royal Flying Corps came closer to losing the war than at any other time. The ‘Flying Circus’ led by Baron von Richthofen decimated British formations, killing and wounding hundreds of pilots in a month. For March 1917 the War Office recorded 180 pilots killed, wounded or missing; just four weeks later on 27 April the monthly rate had leapt to 343, and for May was 361.⁵¹ The system that had served the Flying Corps in the previous year was no longer applicable. Contemporary biographers R. H. Kiernan and Walter Briscoe recorded that the RFC fighter pilot ‘came to be familiar with death and terror’. They frequently saw ‘men burned in the air; men blinded and falling in mad spirals for miles in the sky, shattered men in ugly wreckage; men capable of heroic self-sacrifice.’⁵² The nature of aerial warfare had changed, and the relatively safe era of reconnaissance was replaced with a more dangerous period. This affected the developments that took place. Whilst the gun was produced at a relatively safe time in the war, by 1917 not only were there two distinct roles for the airmen, but the dangers of aerial combat were also beginning to be recognized.

The dogfight was a highly unpredictable encounter and the RFC was ultimately better at exploiting it. As the Flying Corps had aerial superiority for much of the war, the majority of encounters happened over German lines and there were consequently far fewer German pilots captured as prisoners of war. Rules were developed to help the airman control these encounters and protect the reconnaissance machines. In 1916 pilots were advised by the Flying Corps to remain ‘about 2,000 feet or more above’ the enemy and to use three or four escorts, two of which ‘should be as high as they can get, up to about 12,000 to 13,000 feet, and the remaining ones 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the slow machines’.⁵³ However, this was a guide and pilots still experienced confusion. McCudden, in a letter to his father, enthused at having ‘four huns {sic} in the air to-day, and had two scraps. I sent one Hun down in a very steep dive but did not see him hit the ground because I was attacked by another Hun behind me, and he attracted all my attention.’⁵⁴ Despite the superiority of the German machine, McCudden’s adventure shows the confusion of aerial fighting and the rapid reactions necessary to survive. Fellow pilot Alan Bott explained that:

the faculties must be concentrated on opening the attack, since an air duel is often decided in the first few seconds at close quarters. What happens in these few seconds may depend on a trifle ... . An airman should regard his body as part of the machine when there is the prospect of a fight, and his brain which commands the machine must be instinctive with insight into what the enemy will attempt.⁵⁵

Formation flying meant that there could be as many as 40 coordinated planes in the air at one time, all bent on destroying their opponents, so Britain’s pilots had to use their tactical advantage to outwit the enemy’s superior planes.⁵⁶ To succeed, the RFC advised, it was necessary for all machines in the formation to be of similar types and for men to above all ‘to “KEEP STATION” {sic} especially in reconnaissance and escort work. The enemy’s tactics are based on attack on stragglers. A well kept formation is rarely vigorously assaulted.’⁵⁷ By late 1917, the aircraft industry was producing machines at an expanding rate to ensure all pilots in the formation used a similar machine, and would soon allow the RFC to numerically overwhelm their opponents.⁵⁸

Historians of technology have also failed to explore the influence of national culture on the modes of development. In the final year of war, the RFC exploited the German preference for order. As Briscoe and Stannard explained, German pilots liked ‘to carry out rigidly the rules of the game it has been trained to’.⁵⁹ To counter the technological advantage of von Richthofen’s men, the RFC established a squadron of handpicked highly-skilled pilots who could upset the German formations and introduce an element of chaos. The greatest asset of No. 56 Squadron was its unpredictability. As Briscoe and Stannard explained, the squadrons ‘were quicker to adapt themselves to circumstances of the moment than their opponents.’ Facilitating their success were the latest fighters from the SE5 series that matched the prowess of the German machine, in the hope that their combination of skill and technology would triumph. McCudden adapted his SE5a to suit his style of flying and this was typical of the flexible attitude of the pilots, not only to the machine they flew but also to how they flew it. As noted by William Fry in the previous chapter, men shared information as part of their professional culture because their commanders, who rarely flew, did not have the same level of technical knowledge to advise.⁶⁰ This was a great asset to pilots like Alan Bott who felt their work provided ‘plenty of scope for the individual who in most {other} sections of the Army is held on the leash of system and co-operation’.⁶¹ Starved of resources and lacking initiative, the German air force was unable to respond to the overwhelming numbers and unpredictability of British planes.

So what does all this mean for the history of technology? Armed aircraft development throughout the war was intermittent. The RFC was largely responsive to German developments in machinery. Although guns ultimately led to dogfighting, this was not inevitable. Many of the developments in aerial capabilities grew out of their particular historical context, and it is for good reason that dogfights could not occur earlier in the war. They were partly the product of war experience, of the need to maintain observational intelligence-gathering, of industrial capabilities, and most importantly, of the work of pilots in developing skilled flight. Though technology improved by the end of the war and had become integral to the combat system, it was the effectiveness of the RFC pilot that made that possible. It had been assumed that aircraft would have a minor role in the war, and so it would have, without the inventive and flexible British airmen who created a position for it.

this had the distinction of being the first real attempt at organising bombing from the air in war ... . {T}he general atmosphere was one of confidence buoyed up by optimistic communiqués.⁶⁴

To enhance its manpower during raids, the RFC cooperated with the RNAS but its optimism soon faded when faced with the realities of flying over the German lines. C. P. O. Bartlett of the RNAS recorded the dangers of his 1916 mission in his memoir:

{I} Loosened off my bombs over the objective and was immediately picked up by searchlights ... . {D}ive, dodge and turn as I would, could not shake them off. Several guns were quickly on to me and for some two or three minutes I had an extremely lively time. The air seemed full of bursting shells.⁶⁵

At this stage of the war, men were throwing bombs over the side of the aircraft, leaving them in a position of danger, having to simultaneously control the machine, avoid enemy reprisals and effectively deposit their volatile load. There were still several major technological issues to solve if bombing was to become a significant feature of the war.

Accurate navigation was the first problem for pilots whose instruments were largely ineffectual. The compass in particularly was vastly inadequate as G. M. B. Dobson, from the Royal Air Craft Establishment in Farnborough, explained:

Unfortunately this is ... perhaps, the least satisfactory instrument on the aeroplane ... {T}here is no possibility of a complete and simple solution ... . {with} particular conditions of vibration ... . a pilot may turn left while the compass may lead him to believe his is turning right.

Dobson, who worked in aircraft construction during the war, concluded that although ‘instruments are now available which enable an aeroplane to be flown in a given direction through the air {sic} with an accuracy amply sufficient for present requirements’, it was the effect of wind and drift that continued to be problematic.⁶⁶ Dobson, writing in 1920, suggests that no solution could be found to this problem during the war and pilots had to navigate as well as they could with the instruments they had. As with the camera, there was little time to work on the theoretical background of the compass, so pilots managed with limited technology.

Long-range bombing of German industry could not be carried out until an effective solution was found that would enable pilots to release bombs from the cockpit whilst in flight. As with many elements of technology during the war, inventions were a product of their contemporary context and were not inevitable. The leading aircraft manufacturers, such as De Havilland, developed bomber aeroplanes at the Royal Aircraft Factory and at the Aircraft Manufacturing Company (AIRCO) for the Flying Corps, with the DH4 in particular becoming one of the leading bombers of the First World War. It had racks beneath the fuselage to carry the bombs whilst the release mechanism could be activated from the cockpit. This eventually formed the basis of longer-range bombing. The first attempts were carried out on the iron foundry in Saarbrucken in October 1917 and pilots were able to hit buildings and a railway line.⁶⁷ Subsequently, the elite squadron was provided with the latest equipment for the 300-mile round trip into Germany and they achieved some success. Long-range bombing in aeroplanes was a relatively new possibility. Germany had reached Britain repeatedly in the Zeppelin airships but could not introduce a bomber-plane until the Gotha in 1917, and that only reached the south of England.⁶⁸ British bombing attempts during the war were only possible once an effective plane had been developed and pilots had the skills to fly for several hours. As with the Fokker in 1915, it seemed that Germany technology led the way with the Gotha, and Britain followed.

The human element was once again important in the growth of bombardment. Not only did pilot skill make the new bombs and planes effective, but their accuracy made them feared. The occasional sound of the enemy bomber overhead was an unnerving experience for a pilot, as H. H. Balfour confessed:

We ourselves were terrified of being bombed ... every night the Gothas would come over ... and on the first sounds of their engines no one was quicker to get into the emergency trenches than were the pilots of our Squadron. I know of no more terrifying experience than being bombed on the ground.⁶⁹

In the air, pilots were in control, being able to use their skill and experience to evade the enemy, but when grounded in the aerodrome, they felt vulnerable. The true value of bombardment, in all theatres of war, was the effect it had on servicemen and civilians, in particular the sense of powerlessness it created.⁷⁰ For the historian this suggests that technologies become significant mainly by the impact they have on people.

The Great War pilot was a key figure in the history of technology and their accounts of the conflict demonstrate their role in development and innovation. British pilots can be credited with expanding the role of the military aeroplane and assuring its future in the twentieth-century. At the start of this conflict, the Royal Flying Corps had an insignificant role and little was expected from it. By 1918, it had become a central and permanent addition to Britain’s armoury. In the Second World War, the role of the RAF in assisting the development of suitable weapons was crucial. As historians Postan, Hay and Scott have shown, war meant ‘a new class of operational evidence was opened by reports’, and these came ‘to form the main fund of the collective operational experience of the Royal Air Force’.⁷¹ By taking this user-led perspective on the development of the aeroplane, historians gain a greater insight into the ways innovation occurred and the systems that needed to be created to make the technology effective. Fundamentally, it is the pilots rather than the aeroplanes that should be of interest to historians of technology because they determined and developed the future of aerial combat. Re-evaluating the evolution of the aeroplane to consider the human element will give greater relevance to the history of technology and its anonymous accounts of growth.

The arms race has emerged as a more significant event in naval history than the war itself. Technological historians have been particularly interested in the number of developments that were created in an atmosphere of exaggerated fear and concerns for the future of the Empire. Much rested on the performance of the navy in a future conflict and Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord from 1906, initiated a series of technological advances to ensure the navy retained its advantage over its competitors. Significantly, these were based on the opinion of the men who were using them, as Lord Fisher recalled:

I was virulently attacked for selecting young officers as consultants ... . Physical endurance alone necessitated it, so it was but just that those who were going to do the fighting should determine the weapons.

The improvements were not linear but resulted from a process of trial and error, combined with rediscovered older technologies. ‘There were two thousand more misses than hits,’ Fisher continued, and ‘the fighting ships were the emanations of the past – museums of guns and samples of hulls.’⁷⁴ These were entirely naval developments and ones that involved cooperation across the service. Invention, historian Jon Sumida explained, was ‘carried out by informal communications between members of the board, various technical departments and subdepartments, occasionally an ad hoc committee, and even with individuals or bodies outside of the Admiralty altogether.’⁷⁵ The relevance of the dreadnought to the history of technology is not the exciting new power it unleashed, but the combination of human activity and research that made it possible.

The navy’s role in the First World War is often seen as being unremarkable and defensive. Whilst it is true that there were few encounters with the enemy, the role of the navy in the Great War was primarily to blockade German trade and restrict access to all kinds of supplies. This in itself was an aggressive form of warfare affecting both military and civilian populations. Historians have seen this type of warfare as a failure because both the media and the sailors wrote in disappointed terms about their achievements.⁷⁶ Some historians have suggested that the conservatism of the navy after the outbreak of war, and its initial failure to utilize its submarines and aeroplanes, was somehow reflective of widespread decline in the industry. Fundamentally, argued Corelli Barnett, ‘it was the Victorian navy that fought at Jutland. The Victorian navy had forgotten it was a fighting service,’ and its officers were unschooled in technical progress and relying on an eighteenth-century command structure that produced a ‘decadence hardly matched in any force of modern times’.⁷⁷ Richard Hough agreed, explaining that the ‘inability of the Royal Navy to wage war successfully in 1914 had many causes, from unsuitable materiel to lack of imaginative leadership, from inadequate preparations to a deep-seated and abiding national arrogance.’⁷⁸ In fact, for the Royal Navy, the opposite was the case; it held a position of vast superiority over an enemy that was unable to engage in an obvious battle. Meanwhile, it continued to experiment with a variety of subsidiary technologies. Many of these trials failed because the navy lacked the opportunity to refine them in combat. Poor relations between naval and civilian scientists also inhibited progress, but this does not indicate that the navy was unable to fight the war. The next section examines the multiple technological developments during the war and, despite their diversity, how they came to be viewed by participants.

There were any amount of volunteer beaters among the midshipmen and lower deck, and we always took a signalman to watch the ship ... {A}t Scapa there was never the slightest risk of not returning in good time, when the ships were at four hours notice ... . Those days at Scapa will always be a happy memory and it was a wonderfully restful and healthy life.79

The developments at Scapa represent a process driven by the men of the station. It was their initiative and investment that transformed Scapa. Further distractions enjoyed by Keyes included a golf course, with each hole designed by a different ship; there was a shooting range for officers and men to practice their gunnery skills and ‘an annual Grand Fleet boxing championship, which drew 10,000 cheering spectators’, historian Robert Massie explained. As training theorist H. W. Richmond suggested in the 1930s, educational activities were encouraged, including regular lectures, tours of the Western Front and evening classes.⁸⁰ The development of Scapa, therefore, became a consequence of technological refinement during the war. It was a necessary fortification, place of sanctuary and maintenance berth that became as intrinsic to Britain’s system of war as the dreadnought ships.

Developments in technology have often been attributed to civilian rather than military scientists, with the latter seen as generally uninterested in progress. In his criticism of the technocratic argument, Edgerton explains that this has involved ‘the critique of elites for not being scientific and technical enough’.81 The Royal Navy, however, enjoyed considerable advantages in the decade before the First World War and had a vast armoury, including some submarines, aeroplanes and the most advanced battleships in the world. Growth was slow at the start of war, partly because Britain’s marine superiority prevented German attacks, but also because there were proprietorial clashes between the navy and inventors. The Board of Invention and Research (BIR) was established in July 1915 to provide scientific advance to military bodies, most especially to the Royal Navy. The relationship was uneasy because the navy was unwilling to share vital information with those outside its narrow circle. The feeling in the navy, expressed by Commodore Hall, was that ‘the only information to be given was that enemy submarines were in the sea and that means were required to detect their presence.’⁸² The BIR was divided into subcommittees dealing with a number of research areas including submarines and defence. The Board contained a mixture of civilians and naval officers, who were in the minority.

The Board’s initial role was to sort and test ideas submitted by naval departments and members of the public. The Committee consisted of eminent scientists from across the country-who were experts in physics, chemistry, metallurgy and engineering. Each man was hand-picked and personally invited by Arthur Balfour who was then First Lord of the Admiralty. ‘A panel of consultants ... is being formed to advise on questions of Invention and Research, and in the interests of public service, I hope you will permit me to include your name in the list of members,’ Balfour wrote. The panel of scientists, Balfour continued,

should work in close association with the Inventions and Research Board which, under the Chairmanship of the Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, has recently been created to assist the Admiralty in co-ordinating and encouraging scientific effort in its relation to the requirements of the Navy.⁸³

Paid expenses only, these invitations were accepted by scientists including Professor H. B. Baker, Sir William Crookes and Sir Ernest Rutherford, representing institutions as diverse as Imperial College of Science and Technology, and the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.

The Board met for the first time on 29 July 1915 when its terms of reference were finalized. It was noted that members could contribute ideas for invention but the ‘most important part of their business would be, with the help of the Departments concerned, to formulate practical demands for new devices.’⁸⁴ Suggestions flooded in and from July 1915 to December 1916 they received 20,698 ideas for examination, including 4,729 submarine and anti-submarine devices and 5,196 plans for guns, explosives and navigation. The panel considered each suggestion and carried out experiments on feasible options. Members of the board, depending on their speciality, were assigned to each of the six sub-departments: airships and aeronautics; submarines and wireless telegraphy; naval construction; anti-aircraft equipment; ordnance and ammunition; armament of aircraft, bombs and bomb sights. Working with scientific naval officers, the civilian scientists coordinated experiments and contributed numerous reports to the Board for consideration by the Admiralty.

Despite the productivity of the Board of Invention and Research, its existence was undermined by a difficult relationship with the Admiralty. In a report on the organization of the BIR by R. Sothern Holland, H. Ross Skinner and Alfred Egerton in 1917, that strain was reported as being ‘a great obstacle in the way of the Board receiving as much information as possible from the Admiralty, and of the Admiralty obtaining as much as it should out of BIR’.⁸⁵ This was partly because the navy had alternative experimental stations at Parkstone Quay, Teddington, South Kensington, Portsmouth, Hawkcraig, Cardiff, Portland, Shoeburyness, Mullion, Felixstowe, Woolwich and London. Each of these research centres was also testing new equipment but the results were not being shared in spite of instructions to do so. Departments were reminded that it was their duty ‘to keep the BIR in touch with and fully informed as to the technical and scientific devices in use ... and to supply such other information as may be necessary for the investigation of scientific problems.’⁸⁶ Consequently, the Admiralty sought to centralize this information and regulate the control over research and development.

In the 1917 report, Sir O. Murray highlighted that the BIR had ‘never filled the position it was intended to take’ because ‘Senior Officers here were afraid that Lord Fisher would use the BIR as a means of jointing off into the Admiralty, while the junior officers feared they would be deprived of their own ideas’. Meanwhile, members of the BIR feared that losing direct access to the First Lord of the Admiralty would undermine their role in the conflict. So, when the Admiralty drafted a memorandum to all Departments reminding them of the research process, the BIR wrote that ‘Lord Fisher especially took the view that so long as we were entitled to correspond directly with the First Lord and have access to him on important matters, it was desirable that this should be specified in the memorandum so as not to be lost-sight of’.⁸⁷ Ultimately, in response to the internal politics of the navy, Holland, Skinner and Egerton concluded that that ‘men of the greatest scientific knowledge are not being used to their fullest extent and are being wasted on committee work’. When combined with the duplication of research material across the country, this had led to ‘dissipation of forces and to confusion’.⁸⁸ Consequently, it was decided to abandon the Board of Invention and Research, redistributing its civilian scientists to more valuable work.

Although the board was beset by problems, its existence was significant, not only as one of the first official examples of military and civilian cooperation, refuting the notion that technological development was driven by civilian scientists alone, but in that its work emphasizes the process of trial and error which contributed to innovation. The navy may have been somewhat resistant to revealing its service secrets to those appointed by the Government but this is understandable given that there had rarely been cooperation outside the service before. The board was very productive throughout the war, offering a number of solutions to the problems of defence in particular. Mines and nets were used to protect the British coast from enemy intrusion but, lacking drive, naval development in this area was lacklustre. ‘British mines were more dangerous to the Navy than to the enemy,’ Official Historian Arthur Marder complained, because they ‘had a nasty habit of blowing off the sterns of the minelayers.’ At best these mines were unpredictable, at worst incompetent. Production problems meant that, in April 1917, only 1,500 of the 20,000 mines were suitable. Some months later, the Royal Navy finally captured a 1914 German mine and was able to build an improvised version.⁸⁹ Even when key information was openly available to them, the navy was unable to develop an effective defence. Gambling on the threat of battleship action left it unprepared for the smaller skirmishes with covert craft.

Despite their potential, contemporaries complained that submarines were generally used before the main battle. British submarines first saw combat at the Battle of Heligoland Blight on 28 August 1914. Gordon Maxwell was an illustrator serving with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and recalled the battle plan. Using ‘eight submarines and two destroyers ... the plan of attack was for these vessels to draw the Germans in pursuit ... into the range of a flotilla of our destroyer.’ The senior ships would then be left to fight each other.⁹¹ In spite of German’s declaration of unrestricted warfare in February 1915, the Admiralty refused to respond to Germany’s aggression and the submarine remained a defensive weapon in the British armoury. Edwyn Gray complained that ‘despite the assistance of the Secret Service the Admiralty did not make use of the German designs and our submarines remained at a disadvantage throughout the war.’⁹² Yet, for the Royal Navy, this was an important period of modernization, as sailor accounts suggest; not only was the navy liaising with civilian scientists to develop countermeasures against the impact of enemy U-boats, but it was also finding limited ways to introduce the submarine into combat.

By the end of the war, Britain ‘had submarines of 334 ft long, 1883 tons surface / 2,560 submerged displacement ... armed with the largest torpedoes in existence’, Admiral Sir Roger Keyes explained. There were also three larger submarines with superior diving power and 12-inch guns previously used for pre-dreadnought ships.⁹³ However, as Keyes, Maxwell and Gray have observed, senior naval commanders failed to use them aggressively. Contemporaries show that the true power of the submarine was demonstrated by Germany in her response to the threat of British battleships, as it was the only way to even fractionally undermine that superiority. Developments in submarine technology did occur slowly but their classification as a defensive weapon meant they were reactive to German advances. British submarines in the Great War, as sailors explained, were used to lure unsuspecting German ships into an ambush, and in partnership with the anti-submarine technologies, formed the largest portion of naval invention during the war.

When going on these trawler towing patrols the submarine and the trawler used to leave Aberdeen separately well before dawn ... . Also the trawler used to berth in the harbour well away from the submarines so as to prevent any unauthorised person from finding out that we worked together ... . When towed we used to dive at about forty feet ... . {W}e rang up the trawler at regular intervals to make certain that the telephone was working alright.94

The development of a reliable submarine system was difficult because technology remained relatively unreliable during this period. As Mackness suggested, the connection between the trawler and submarine had to be frequently tested for the ploy to work.⁹⁵ The navy used this entrapment system before suitably sophisticated technology was available for it to be successful. This is mirrored by the use of submarines to lure German battleships into the range of British destroyers. However, the process of trial and error evident in contemporary accounts was less smooth in the Royal Navy than it was in the RFC, and the plan had limited success.

Unlike submarines, the defensive hydrophones were a major technological investment and although much time was spent in their development, they were ultimately flawed. These underwater telephones were considered by contemporaries as a significant weapon to use against the U-boat. The hydrophone worked when a ‘noise {was} made in the water, say by the twin propellers of a submarine revolving, the sound is picked up by a diaphragm in the hydrophone’, naval pilot ‘PIX’ explained in his 1919 memoir. The idea was first mooted in November 1914 and experiments began the following March. Initially, Rear-Admiral William Jameson complained, they ‘picked up sound but gave no indication of the position of its source. They could only be tested when a ship was stopped.’⁹⁶ Civilian scientist Professor Sir Ernest Rutherford coordinated experiments on behalf of the Board of Invention and Research. In a report presented to the committee in September 1915, Rutherford concluded that the hydrophone ‘is only satisfactory when the ship is at rest, and in fairly quiet weather. Any motion of the hydrophone through the water gives rise to marked sound disturbances.’⁹⁷ The navy continued to plough resources into the development of this device, hopeful of aiding the fight against the submarine.

By 1917, hydrophones could be used when sailing but their ability to locate the source of underwater noise was highly questionable. The hydrophone developers continued to use a process of trial and error to make advances, but with limited success. Their position in contemporary discussions was far larger than their effectiveness deserved, as Official Historian Arthur Marder explained. There ‘were not many occasions when a hydrophone brought or at least contributed to the destruction of a U-boat’, he wrote. In October 1918, the detection of only three submarines was attributed to the hydrophone, so by 1921 they had been abandoned completely.⁹⁸

As contemporary accounts have shown, tracking submarines was a key problem for the Royal Navy and, frustrated by the limited value of the hydrophone, a plan was developed to train sea lions to spot U-boats. Again, the BIR coordinated the research with the specially selected creatures. ‘The sealions employed in the experiments,’ scientist A. B. Wood reported in January 1917, ‘were two highly trained animals which were capable of performing tasks of considerable difficulty.’⁹⁹ Experiments continued throughout the early part of 1917, aided by the arrival of ‘Queenie’, donated by London Zoo.¹⁰⁰ Serious experiments with Queenie and her fellow sea lions began in May, as Commander Kemp recalled:

Experiments with two trained animals in a circus were first carried out in a Glasgow swimming bath. Men stationed at various points ... rang little bells and the sealions swam to the source of the sound ... . {T}he sealions went for final trials in the Solent, but here, alas, they met their Waterloo. They seemed to be unable to distinguish between the sound of a submarine’s propellers and those of any other ship. They followed liners, cruisers, destroyers, motor boats, with reckless abandon, but not a submarine.¹⁰¹

The problem was that once at sea, the animals would often ‘play truant’ for several hours, with Queenie being especially unruly. In a progress report submitted to the BIR in July 1917, E. J. Allen, Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Plymouth, wrote despairingly of tests with Queenie in a lake:

At any rate during the early stages, when the methods were being worked out, ‘Queenie’ became gradually less reliable in her work. From the first this animal had occasionally ‘played truant’, and would altogether refuse to respond to sounds. Once she remained out all night, and two or three times she was lost for several hours ... . ‘Queenie’ became very unwilling especially, to go to the home station, and at the end of a morning’s work when she should have come in, she grew more and more accustomed to swim right away down the lake.¹⁰²

Similar experiments with seagulls were tried but neither resulted in the submarine tracking device the navy required. Whilst failed plans tend to be derided by historians, these user accounts suggest the increasing desperation of the navy to find solutions to the uncontrollable intrusion of German submarines. This questions whether, even as late as 1917, the navy had a serious grasp of twentieth-century warfare. Whilst the naval blockade was ultimately successful, and the policy of threat kept the High Seas Fleet at bay, technological development during the war was slow. As the sea lion plan suggests, the Royal Navy was frustrated by being unable to confine the enemy with its superior technology and this led to ideas for less scientific solutions.

The experiments with hydrophones and animals did eventually lead to an effective method of submarine hunting – ASDIC (later known as Sonar). ASDIC was named after the Allied Submarine Defence Investigation Committee and had a transformatory effect on naval warfare. The device used ultra-sonic waves to ascertain the distance of submerged objects and allowed them to be tracked through the sea. This had significant ramifications for Britain’s defensive naval position because it allowed the Royal Navy to finally consolidate its advantage. The blockade combined with Britain’s superior battleships forced Germany to respond with covert warfare, but if the Royal Navy was able to spot and scuttle the U-boats quickly, it could potentially give them full command of the war. Again, this development suggests that a system was more important than the sum of its parts. The blockade was highly effective but after almost four years of war, Germany was still fighting. Likewise the threat of engagement prevented the High Seas Fleet from putting to sea, but Germany was not defeated. The submarine was the only reasonable method of attack for Germany and ASDIC could feasibly end that domination. Unfortunately for the Royal Navy, this crucial device was not available in sufficient numbers to arm all ships, nor could the navy consistently destroy the submarine if they spotted it, but its future value would be extraordinary.

Contemporary accounts demonstrate that the story of naval technology in the First World War was concerned with the development of and response to the submarine. The creation of the Board of Invention and Research meant a variety of experiments were possible, in response to aggressive German U-boat deployment. Despite the navy’s superior technological position in 1914, it was Germany’s unrestricted campaign that forced Britain’s response. ‘The submarine accomplished other remarkable things in the war,’ John Leyland wrote in 1918:

She has converted benevolent neutrals into resolute enemies ... . She has transformed the mercantile opposed to her into an actual fighting force ... . She has created a whole array of means directed to her destruction. Countless inventors have been set at work ... . {I}ngenious methods have been employed with the purpose of putting an end to the submarine activities by sinking every boat as she appeared.¹⁰³

The Royal Navy never defeated the submarine because its strategy and inventive stultification allowed the German U-boat to dominate British research. Sailor accounts show that superior battleship technology was not enough to win the First World War. Instead, the effective use of the submarine was able to undermine the strategy of threat, and transform the nature of marine warfare.

Contemporary accounts have an important contribution to make to the history of technology. Exploring technological development from the perspective of pilots and sailors sheds new light on the nature of invention and industry during the First World War. Although better machinery frequently became available, this alone was not enough to decide the outcome of the conflict. Inventions had to be used within the entire system of war for them to be effective, so their relevance was often limited. The Fokker and the Albatrosse had a devastating effect on the lives of RFC pilots when they were launched on the Western Front, but it was only a matter of months before effective countermeasures were in place. Significantly, for both the RFC and Royal Navy, these solutions were rarely technological but the result of effective systems.

Contemporary naval accounts are often negative, suggesting that sailors were disappointed by their contribution to war. Naval training relied heavily on the victories of the past to motivate men in battle and it is understandable that men expected a more active war than the one they experienced. The technological historian has recently seen the First World War as a period of great naval strength for Britain. Edgerton feels the experience of battleships in this conflict ‘points to the significance of the threat of use, rather than actual use. The British battleships stationed at Scapa Flow imposed a punishing blockade on Germany simply by being there.’¹⁰⁴ As Lord Fisher stated, the Royal Navy won the war on its first day and this left them with little drive for development. In his 1919 articles, Fisher claimed that the threat of the Royal Navy won the war, ‘and won it on 4th August 1914, the day war was declared! Our Fleet then was unchallengeable and many times superior to the German Fleet, and the Germans knew it!’¹⁰⁵ Contemporary accounts show that it was covert technologies like the submarine that threatened this dominance. Yet, unlike the Flying Corps, the navy did not need to match or exceed Germany because the submarine, though problematic, could not entirely undermine it. For Niall Ferguson, ‘so decisive was the British victory in the naval arms race that it is hard to regard it as in any meaningful sense a cause of the First World War.’¹⁰⁶ For the men of the navy, however, this led to an inactive conflict and consequent frustration.

The effectiveness of the German submarine shook the Royal Navy’s complacency. As sailor sources have shown, attempts to resist the U-boat highlighted that weakness. Winston Churchill descried the freedom of German submarines and reflected the frustration of combatants:

Germany cannot be allowed to adopt a system of open piracy and murder ... on the high seas, while remaining herself protected by the bulwark of international instruments which she has utterly repudiated and defied and which we, much to our detriment, have respected.¹⁰⁷

From the perspective of the sailor, the navy had no opportunity to fight and could not effectively deter the submarine. This focus in contemporary accounts has led to a wider dismissal of the navy’s role in the Great War. Understandably, sailors inculcated with the glory of the navy, who saw their fellow servicemen engaged in daily travails, did not see the technological security of this position. Later reflections on the technological development of the navy have, therefore, become confused. The men of the Royal Navy had little need to fight in the First World War, which was seen by them, and later by historians, as a sign of inability rather than victory. Van Crevald argued that the Royal Navy was so afraid of losing its valuable battleships it was almost pathological, and this transformed warfare in to a ‘highly centralized, cautious and almost timid affair’.¹⁰⁸ Likewise, Geoffrey Bennett felt that because the navy had failed to tackle the problems ‘arising out of the transformation of sail to steam and the introduction of new weapons’, this left them believing that ‘fighting efficiency was of smaller importance than spotless paint and polished brass’.¹⁰⁹ Such conclusions have incorrectly coloured accounts of the naval war.

By contrast, the men of the Royal Flying Corps had a much greater involvement in the developments of aerial combat. Pilot-led innovation facilitated daily flight over the German lines and men engaged in a continual battle for technical and aerial superiority above the Western Front. They effectively established systems for combat that were not wholly reliant on technology. Instead, it was a combination of skilled flying and pilots’ adaptability in the changing nature of warfare that enabled their success. The technological experience of the navy and the airforce in the First World War has much to offer historians. Both services used their technology to create effective systems of defence and continued to experiment with improvements to existing inventions. Though the Flying Corps mostly produced offensive measures and the navy defensive, both were effective. Taking a user-led perspective on these developments shows the airman’s enthusiasm contrasted with the disappointment of the sailor. Yet the latter had less personal involvement in naval innovation and was less likely to understand it. In both cases, technology alone was not enough to win the war; it had to be used in an effective system. Historians have been swayed by contemporary perception of the fighting experience and the next chapter examines a very different kind of combat – on the home front.

CHAPTER 3

TECHNOLOGY