1914-1915. Slow progress in the RNAS.
Before the war the Naval Wing of the RFC had been as keen to demonstrate its potential to the Admiralty, as the Military Wing had been to sell itself to the War Office. Having previously experimented with launching aeroplanes from ships, the use of airborne W/T and bomb dropping, the flying sailors’ first opportunity to make a practical contribution was presented by the Naval Manoeuvres of 1913. Although the impact of the aeroplane on the conduct of this exercise was not as marked as it had been in the Army’s War Games of the previous year, valuable lessons were certainly learned. The need for more robust machines was underlined, as was the tactical value of wireless and, most significantly, it had been shown that aeroplanes might well be able to detect submarines. In marked contrast to the Army, however, the RN did not conclude that a need for specialist observers had been demonstrated.
Thus, while the RFC had taken steps shortly before the war to prepare a handful of officers to act as airborne observers, the RNAS had not. The Navy began its war unconvinced that it was necessary to have people dedicated to being observers at all and, even if it was, it was certainly not persuaded that they needed to be officers. To begin with, therefore, the RNAS was content to use another pilot or any available seaman to fill up its two-seaters. Eventually, however, the Navy did begin to address the question of observers when it approached the Royal Marine Artillery in January 1915, seeking volunteers for flying duties in France.
Five men came forward of whom four (2/Lts L Innes-Baillie, R F Ogston, A R Collon and J H D’Albiac) were selected. They reported to OC 1 (Naval) Sqn, Wg Cdr A M Longmore, at Dover on 3 February. There was evidently some uncertainty as to how best to use these men and D’Albiac later recalled that they spent their time boning up on Morse and semaphore while gaining some airborne experience in the available Avros, ‘Bloaters’ and Vickers Fighters before moving to St Pol on 27 February.1 These four men were included in a nominal roll of all officers serving with the RNAS as at 15 March. Clearly identified as observers, they were the first to be formally acknowledged as such by that Service.
Early productive employment was found in spotting for the guns of HMS Revenge and HMS Bustard, using the RFC’s Clock Code and communicating initially by Aldis lamp, pending the acquisition of W/T equipment. In the early days the RNAS’s first four observer officers encountered similar credibility problems to those which their RFC counterparts had experienced with the field artillery. The results spoke for themselves, however, and the Navy’s Gunnery Officers did eventually learn to trust the information that was being provided by their airborne colleagues. By June there were still only four commissioned observers flying with the RNAS, still all with No 1 (Naval) Sqn, although by this time the first naval officers had appeared, Ogston and Collon having been replaced by Sub-Lts F D Casey and H W Furnival, both of the RNR.
In the meantime, like the RFC, the RNAS was finding that role specialisation was beginning to emerge. In the Navy’s case the contrast between different styles of operation could be quite marked and significant differences in emphasis would gradually become apparent between the functions of crews flying shore-based airships and seaplanes, those flying ship-based floatplanes and those operating landplanes over the Belgian coast and elsewhere. For the first year of the war, however, the naval approach to the training of aircrew other than pilots was even more haphazard than that of the Army, and its manning situation was considerably worse.
In the autumn of 1915 Capt O Schwann brought this matter to the attention of his immediate superior, Vice-Admiral Sir George Warrender (commander of the Second Battle Squadron). His specific complaint was that, while commanding the seaplane carrier HMS Campania, in the absence of any appropriately trained personnel, he had been obliged to employ totally inexperienced RNR midshipmen as air observers. Before they could be sent aloft it had been necessary to provide these young men with some inkling of what was required of them, which included teaching them such basic skills as signalling.2
This had not been an isolated instance, Wg Cdr C R Samson having encountered a similar problem several months earlier while commanding No 3 (Naval) Sqn at Tenedos in the Aegean. He subsequently recalled that, prior to the arrival of the first two army observers from England ‘three midshipman were obtained from the Fleet for this work but they were not very efficient.’3
It seems clear that prior to 1916 most admirals of the old school were prepared to tolerate professional pilots and even to accept that for the odd RN officer to spend a few years associating with aeroplanes was a relatively harmless diversion from his proper employment, that is to say serving on the bridge of one of HM warships.4 On the other hand, it is also evident that the admirals had little appreciation of what observers were supposed to do and sitting in the ‘other’ seat of an aeroplane was not perceived to be a suitable pastime for a ‘proper’ naval officer.
The prevalent view in the upper reaches of the naval hierarchy seems to have been that flying was simply an avant garde form of seamanship. The captain of an aeroplane was expected, therefore, much like the captain of a ship, to be in possession of a kind of Watchkeeping Certificate which endowed him with the ability to undertake all airborne activities. The reality, of course, was that a pilot, even one who had once been a sailor, could not actually do everything himself and he obviously needed to be accompanied by a competent assistant. Prior to the formation of the RAF, however, most naval flyers other than pilots were petty officers or ratings, many of whom had received little, if any, specialist training in aviation, especially in the early days.
Late 1915. The beginnings of a training system for naval Observers.
Throughout 1915 the RNAS continued to supplement its small group of commissioned observers by employing RNVR officers, ideally those already possessing what were thought to be appropriate qualifications and/or experience. There were, however, no dedicated instructional facilities for them until October when a unit was set up to co-ordinate the training of selected officers. Housed in the requisitioned Clement Talbot Works near Wormwood Scrubs,5 the school was established as an element of the RNAS Central Depot at White City. In addition to carrying out a range of logistic functions, including the direct support of the RNAS Armoured Motor Car Section, the White City Depot also accommodated an Armament Training Establishment and provided facilities for training RNAS W/T operators.
With an experienced pre-war pilot in charge, Flt Cdr E T Newton-Clare, the first six trainees were in residence at the Talbot factory by the end of October. They were: Lt R G St John and Sub-Lts H A Furniss, E B C Betts, R M Inge, C J A Mullens and J A MacNab, all of them being members of the RNVR.
Details of this early phase of naval observer training are obscure but it seems likely that the establishment at White City would have been more concerned with providing an introduction to Service procedures and the responsibilities of being an officer than with professional instruction. What is known is that, having spent a few weeks at the Clement Talbot Works, pupils were detached to a variety of RN schools, mostly in and around Portsmouth, and it was there that they were introduced to the arts of naval gunnery, signalling, navigation, Fleet tactics, ship recognition and the like.
In the meantime an attempt was being made to respond to Capt Schwann’s earlier complaint. While HMS Campania was being refitted in late 1915 her next class of midshipmen had been sent to Dunkirk to gain some initial flying experience, their practical instruction in signals and other applied skills subsequently being carried out, still under local arrangements, after they had rejoined their ship. About half of this group turned out to be satisfactory. They were eventually supplemented by a handful of RNVR officers who had spent a short time at the RNAS Gunnery School at Eastchurch. Since they had never been to sea, however, Schwann regarded most of these men as being somewhat ill-prepared for life afloat.
Since neither the home-grown midshipmen nor the RNVR officers had been entirely successful, it was decided to try internal recruiting among experienced W/T operators. The Admiralty called for volunteers and received 120 responses against its requirement for twenty. Those who were selected (four Signals Boatswains, one Chief Yeoman and fifteen Yeomen of Signals) began training on board Campania on 25 January 1916. The course ended in May, by which time five of its members had fallen by the wayside. Of those who were successful, eight were allocated to Campania and the seaplane station at Scapa Flow (Houton Bay), four went to Engadine and three to Manxman. To make up the shortfall another five signallers began training in July but Campania was called away in August and their course had to be completed ashore at East Fortune. All of the second batch were successful and the twenty men trained in 1916 were to constitute the core of the Grand Fleet’s team of seagoing ‘W/T Operator Observers’ until 1918.
Representative of the two-seater floatplanes operated by the RNAS/RAF, this one, a Salmson-powered Short 830, had the early observer-in-the-front seating arrangement for the crew. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
Early 1916. The shortage of naval Observers persists and pressure increases for their status to be recognised.
Reference has already been made to the lack of trained naval observers in the Aegean in 1915. Similar problems were experienced elsewhere within the Mediterranean theatre where the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron had been obliged to employ attached army officers, this arrangement persisting for much of the remainder of the war. Attention was drawn to this generally unsatisfactory situation in Sqn Cdr C J L’Estrange-Malone’s report on operations conducted by the seaplane carrier Ben-my-Chree during March/April 1916. Noting that most of the Navy’s handful of observers were a rather motley collection of failed pilots, RNVR recruits and RNAS petty officers, he advised that their trade needed to be provided with a much firmer foundation.
Ideally, Malone thought that all observers should undergo a familiarisation course as pilots, although he accepted that this refinement could be deferred until after the war, except (taking a leaf from the RFC’s book – see page 30) for those who were selected to fill executive appointments. Much more significantly, he also recommended that the professional training of observers should be substantially improved and that they should be recognised as fully accredited members of the RNAS, rather than being treated as mere RNVR appendages. In other words, that, like pilots, observers should be ‘graded’.6
On 31 May 1916, during the Battle of Jutland, HMS Engadine, (seen here wearing the ’dazzle’ camouflage scheme applied in 1918) launched one of her four seaplanes, a Short 184, on a successful reconnaissance flight which located the German fleet. The observer, Assistant Paymaster George Trewin, sent three W/T messages which were received by the parent ship but, unfortunately, not passed on. Trewin’s rank, incidentally, stands as mute testimony to the RNAS’s attitude towards the provision of back-seaters in 1916.
Like the War Office, the Admiralty had appreciated from the outset that if it was going to be in the flying business at all it would need full-time professional pilots and the grading system had been introduced to reflect their individual levels of seniority and skill. With little experience to go on, however, neither wing of the pre-war RFC had foreseen that there would also be a permanent need for professional observers so no proper provision had been made for them. Since they were not graded, naval observers, in common with their army colleagues, had no status and no career structure. As a result (as the RFC was also beginning to discover – see page 9), it was difficult to attract and retain high quality personnel for employment in an occupation which offered virtually no opportunities for advancement.
Concern over the unsatisfactory position regarding naval observers was also being expressed in other quarters. In January 1916 the Admiralty’s Civil Secretariat (as distinct from its uniformed Naval Staff) had pointed out that, unless the situation were redressed, once the war ended all RNVR personnel would be demobilised, leaving the RNAS very short of expertise and with at least one of the seats in many of its aeroplanes empty.7
Observations such as these, raised by experienced commanders at sea and informed civil servants alike, were symptomatic of the fact that the Admiralty was still reluctant to recognise the need for dedicated observers. Under the circumstances it is hardly surprising that no distinguishing badge had been authorised for them, making it, perhaps, equally surprising that from April 1916 observers were authorised to wear the RNAS eagle.8 The tide was turning, however, and the pleas of L’Estrange-Malone, Schwann and others for more and better observers were beginning to induce a slow change in the Admiralty’s conservatism.
Nevertheless, despite their poor prospects, the number of commissioned observers serving with (as distinct from being members of) the RNAS was steadily increasing. At the end of December 1915 there were fifty-seven of them, of whom twenty-four were actually available for duty, the other thirty-three still being on the books of the training school at the Clement Talbot Works.9
One of the first batch of observers to be formally trained for service with the RNAS, Sub-Lt R W Gow, RNVR, photographed at Dunkirk alongside a Nieuport 10. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
By mid-March 1916 the total of observers available to the RNAS had crept up to seventy-eight. They were distributed as follows:10
a. Nine were at Dover, seven with Nos 2, 7 and 8 Sqns of A Gp and two at the Seaplane Station.
b. One was at the Central Flying School.
c. One was with No 2 Wg in the Aegean.
d. Twelve were in France, eleven with No 1 Wg and one at the RNAS Headquarters at Dunkirk.
e. Two were with Force D in Mesopotamia.
f. Five were assigned to seaplane carriers, three to Ark Royal, one to Campania and one to Engadine.
g. Forty-eight were under training. Thirteen were at the White City Depot; twenty-four were attending courses at RN establishments and eleven were at Eastchurch.
In arriving at this disposition it is informative to consider what had become of the thirty-three RNVR officers who, as noted above, had been under training at the end of 1915. Having been attached to the RNAS on a variety of dates between October and December, they had been organised into two batches. Running about one month apart, each batch did an initial stint at the Talbot factory, followed by a month or more attached to RN establishments. The subsequent progress of each group followed different patterns with individuals sometimes breaking away to pursue separate courses. By late-January 1916 the leading group was at Dover but a few weeks later, still under training, several of them moved to Dunkirk. By the end of February they were all deemed to be qualified. The initial assignments of the first thirteen observers to be formally trained by the RNAS are listed at Figure 6.
Fig 6. The initial assignments of the first thirteen RNVR observer officers to graduate from the RNAS training system; all were in post by 3 March 1916.
Following their initial training at the White City Depot and elsewhere, half of the second, and rather larger, group went to Eastchurch at the end of February. At the beginning of April they moved to Roehampton where they were joined by the rest of the course a week later. Most of this group graduated from Roehampton at the end of the month. Three joined the recently re-formed No 3 Wg at Detling, two were assigned to HMS Campania and one to Ark Royal; one was sent out to Egypt; two were retained at Roehampton until early June before joining HMS Empress, the remainder being distributed between Dover, Westgate, Yarmouth, Manston, Felixstowe and the Isle of Grain.
It is interesting to note that by May 1917, only fourteen of these thirty-three men were still serving as observers. Of the rest: three appear to have left the Service altogether; one (no longer annotated as an observer) was on the staff of the RN Air Department in London; three had been killed in action and one was a prisoner of war. The other eleven had all become pilots; two were already operational, the remaining nine still being at various stages of training.
1916-17. The RNAS revises its Observer training sequence and sets up dedicated schools at Eastchurch.
If the granting of formal authorisation for observers to wear the RNAS eagle in April 1916 had been a sign that the Admiralty was becoming increasingly aware of them, the introduction of revised rates of pay only a month later was another.11 The chief innovation in the latter case was that the new pay scales belatedly recognised the contribution that had been made by the previously overlooked midshipmen who had been ordered into the air by Capt Schwann and others. There was a curious anomaly in the new rules, in that officers and midshipmen who were deemed to be fully trained observers drew five shillings per day continuously while being employed as such (as in the RFC), whereas warrant officers and petty officers drew three shillings and two shillings respectively but only on those days on which they actually flew, unless they happened to be in ‘an area of operations’, effectively, at sea or overseas.
By 1917 the RNAS was beginning to operate large multi-engined aeroplanes like this Felixstowe F.2A, N4545, and their complexity obliged the Navy to accept that it needed to provide itself with properly trained aviators in categories other than that of the pilot. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
Nevertheless, it was clear that the Navy was finally beginning to come to terms with the idea of observers – and other non-pilot aircrew. Despite these positive developments, however, the naval aircrew problem was actually getting worse, because, in contrast to the RFC, the RNAS was beginning to operate relatively large aircraft. These flying boats, airships and, later on, heavy bombers, required crews of three, four or even more men. The RNAS was a much smaller-scale operation than the RFC, of course, but in relative terms naval pilots tended to need much larger numbers of competent airborne assistants – wireless operators, gunlayers12 and engineers, as well as observers – than their opposite numbers in the Army.
Along with acceptance of the need for more crewmen came an appreciation that their training needed to be improved and a more seamanlike approach was adopted with the opening of a dedicated Gunnery School at Eastchurch under the overall command of Wg Cdr J L Forbes. The first CO, Sqn Cdr A C Barnby (another pre-war pilot), arrived in April 1916 and the school officially opened for business on 31 May.13 Although most new naval observers passed through the Gunnery School between June and December, this still did not involve very large numbers. This was of little consequence, however, as the school had not been set up solely for their benefit, the bulk of its throughput actually consisting of pilots and non-commissioned crewmen.
Since the Gunnery School was now able to provide a focal point for the training of all naval back-seaters, it was decided to dispense with the establishment at White City. At the beginning of June the trainees in residence at Wormwood Scrubs were transferred to Eastchurch and the Clement Talbot Works closed down shortly afterwards.14
For the remainder of 1916 the training of naval observers embraced a series of courses which appear to have been attended on a somewhat selective (or random?) basis, few trainees completing the whole sequence. A substantial proportion of naval observers continued to be obtained by the appointment of suitably qualified officers from other Branches and by reselecting pilots who had been unsuccessful in flying training. Direct recruiting was taking place, however, and most of the RNVR officers involved began their careers at the RNAS Depot at Crystal Palace which had been commissioned in May 1916. Mostly concerned with the initial training of prospective pilots, the number of directly-recruited observers needing to attend this ‘Disciplinary Course’ was relatively small, the monthly intake rarely exceeding half-a-dozen.
With or without having spent some time at Crystal Palace, the specialist training of observers involved attendance at some or all of the following.
a. The RN Gunnery School at Whale Island.
b. The RN Navigation School in Portsmouth.
c. The RN Signals School in Portsmouth.
d. The RNAS Kite Balloon Depot at Roehampton.15
e. The RNAS Gunnery School at Eastchurch.
Two points are worth making. First, although most of these courses appear to have been about four weeks in duration, the time that individuals spent at each location varied considerably. Secondly, while observers could spend as long as eight months under training, they acquired very few flying hours. Only Eastchurch offered practical training facilities and even here the amount of flying provided was minimal in 1916.
While the RN would doubtless have done its best to adapt the content of its courses to meet the peculiar needs of its aviators, the use of traditional schools, more accustomed to dealing with seafarers, was clearly a second-best solution. What the RNAS really needed was a school of its own, one which could provide instruction tailored to fit the specific requirements of its back-seaters. This approach was finally adopted in December 1916 when Flt Cdr K S Savory was posted to Eastchurch to set up an Observers School. Savory was a pilot, the senior qualified specialist on his staff being Lt Cdr F H Swann who was to become CO himself a year later.16
When Savory’s unit began training in January 1917 the RNAS already had more than one hundred observers on its books. Almost half of these were ineffective, however, as they were attending a variety of courses: ten were at Roehampton; eleven were in Portsmouth; seventeen were with the Observers School at Eastchurch where there were a further eleven, still annotated as observers, who were actually being retrained as pilots.
By this time much more attention was beginning to be paid to air navigation techniques and a course of six weeks’ duration was set up at Cranwell early in 1917 to train specialist instructors who were then posted to the various flying schools to pass on the good word. While this refinement was aimed primarily at pilots, the Observers School at Eastchurch was to have been included in the programme. Once the new specialists were in post it was intended to withdraw the two air instructors on the staff of the RN Navigation School at Portsmouth, although, as it happened, they had already become redundant by that time (see page 82).
Some idea of the complex and disjointed nature of naval observer training in 1916-17 can be gained by considering the progress of a typical individual. Sub-Lt Gordon Keigthley’s career as an aviator began at the RNAS Depot on 9 July 1916. From Crystal Palace he went to Portsmouth for two specialist courses. The first of these started on 13 August and dealt with signals procedures. It was followed immediately by the second, which was concerned with navigation and started on 8 September. From Portsmouth Keigthley moved to Roehampton on 28 October and from there to the RNAS Gunnery School on 19 November. During his time at Eastchurch, probably in January, he will have been transferred to the books of the newly established Observers School. He finally graduated on 17 March 1917, more than eight months after entering training. His initial posting was to HMS Empress, then assigned to the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron based on Port Said. Keigthley never reached his ship, however, as he was killed in action flying in a Farman of No 2 Wg on 20 May.17
Despite the establishment of a dedicated school and a gradual increase in numbers, progress was still painfully slow. Furthermore, it was not until as late as the spring of 1917 that the RN felt able to take the long overdue step of formally recognising its air observers as graded aircrew. Thus, despite the demands of the future having been recognised in some circles, whenever a second man flew in an RNAS aeroplane during the first three years of the war he was far more likely to be another pilot, a bewildered midshipman, a seaman rating, a misemployed ground tradesman or a seconded army officer than a properly trained, commissioned naval observer.
Later developments in the provision and employment of naval observers are discussed in Chapter 11.
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1 AIR1/2390/228/11/128. Taken from an account of his previous Service experience, written by Sqn Ldr J H D’Albiac at the RAF Staff College in 1929. He retired in April 1947, by then Air Mshl Sir John D’Albiac KCVO KBE CB DSO
2 AIR1/636/17/122/132. Letter 31/E/15 dated 8 October 1915. Schwann’s letter worked its way rapidly up the chain of command and four days later it was on its way to the Admiralty under cover of a note from Admiral Jellicoe.
3 AIR1/724/76/6. Notes, dated 16 March 1923, on an interview conducted with Air Cdre Samson the previous day. Samson actually identified the first two army observers as Lts Jenkins and Hogg. According to a nominal roll of all officers known to have served with the RNAS ‘at the Dardanelles’ (AIR1/675/21/13/1563) these would appear to have been Maj R E T Hogg (Central India Horse) and Capt J H Jenkins (2nd Highland Ammunition Column, RA).
4 The notional length of a period of secondment to the RNAS was four years or the duration of the war, whichever was longer.
5 At the time Wormwood Scrubs still boasted a double ‘b’, ie Scrubbs, but the more familiar modern rendering will be used here. The actual address of the Clement Talbot Works, previously a motor car factory, was Barlby Road, Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington.
6 The grading scheme for officer pilots, which was applicable to both the Military and the Naval Wings of the RFC, had been introduced before the war. Although the Army and Navy went their separate ways in 1914, both retained the grading system virtually unchanged. Within the RFC (and later the RAF) a qualified pilot was graded as a Flying Officer, officers of this grade being ranked as subalterns. The same term was originally used in the RNAS but with the passage of time Flight Officer became increasingly common. Higher grades, those of Flight, Squadron and Wing Commander, were associated with the ranks of captain, major and lieutenant-colonel (or their naval equivalents). In most cases, wartime promotions to fill higher grade appointments were made on a temporary basis.
It should be appreciated that because an officer was graded as, for instance, a Squadron Commander this did not necessarily mean that he would be in command of a squadron. Technically, it indicated only that he was considered to be capable of exercising command at that level, although in nearly every case, he would actually have done so at some stage.
7 AIR1/668/17/122/773. This argument was put forward in a minute (CW36998 dated 6 January 1916) raised by Mr W A Medrow.
8 The first regulations governing the wearing of naval ‘wings’, ie a gilt eagle, were contained within Admiralty Weekly Order 55 of 26 June 1914. It was to be worn on the left sleeve, above the rank distinction lace, by naval officers and on the left cuff by Royal Marine officers. At this stage the eagle signified not so much that the wearer was an active pilot but that he was a member of the Military (ie the Executive) Branch of the RNAS – although this usually amounted to the same thing. Nevertheless, it appears that it may well have been the original intention to confine the wearing of the eagle to pilots but that the regulations had been expressed with insufficient precision. In any event, by late 1915 eagles were commonly being sported by non-graded officers and, presumably in imitation of the RFC, the badge also began to be worn on the left breast. This, and another malpractice concerning the improper use of RNAS rank titles, drew an adverse comment from the Director of the Air Service, Rear-Admiral C L Vaughan-Lee, in February 1916. The regulations were suitably revised and republished in Weekly Order 756 of 21 April.
The new rules were quite specific. RN officers graded as Flying Officers, ie pilots, were to wear the eagle on the left sleeve, above the rank lace, as before (and, when appropriate, on the left epaulette), but graded RM officers were now to wear it on the left breast. Observers were not addressed as such but were covered by a provision which stated that other naval officers ‘under a continuous liability to make ascents in aircraft’ were also entitled to wear the eagle on the left sleeve and left shoulder; RM and attached Army officers who fell into the same category were to wear the badge on the left breast. The Order went on specifically to direct that all other non-graded officers serving with the RNAS were not to wear the eagle. Weekly Order 1865 of 11 August 1916 subsequently authorised RNVR officers who were not graded within the RNAS but who held pilots certificates as Acceptance Officers (non-operational pilots employed since February 1916 to air test new and repaired aircraft) to wear the eagle. This Order specifically stressed, once again, the exclusive link between the eagle and flying personnel.
It is of interest to note that the ‘continuous liability’ provision also covered aircrew who were as yet unqualified so that naval pilots and observers were entitled to wear the eagle while they were still under training. Thus, whatever its original significance may have been, by early 1916 the RNAS eagle indicated only that its wearer was a flyer. It was impossible to tell by inspection whether he was a pilot or an observer or even whether he was qualified. This represented a marked contrast to RFC practice where the wearing of ‘wings’ was a jealously protected privilege and a sometimes contentious issue. (For reference to the introduction of the naval observers badge, see Chapter 11, Note 3).
The situation was complicated further by the publication of Weekly Order 2842 of 11 November 1916 which authorised naval officers serving ashore overseas to wear an army-style khaki uniform. Provision was made for the normally gilt naval buttons and cap badge to be in bronze but the Order specifically directed that on khaki jackets distinction marks relating to Branch were to be worn ‘as on blue uniform.’ This clause would have embraced the RNAS eagle which should, therefore, have been worn on the left sleeve. Nevertheless, from the evidence of contemporary photographs, it is quite clear that, on khaki, the eagle was almost universally worn on the left breast á la RFC. While this practice appears to have been improper, it was clearly condoned and may have been justified by stretching the conditions governing the wearing of eagles by RM and army officers to cover the case of sailors dressed as soldiers.
9 AIR1/2108/207/49 series. RNAS Disposition Lists, which permit the movements of officers serving with the RNAS to be traced, were published at relatively frequent, if irregular, intervals from April 1914 onwards.
10 Ibid.
11 Regular and casual rates of flying pay for ‘officers and men who do not belong’ to the RNAS but who were obliged to go aloft as observers in naval aircraft had originally been authorised on 26 June 1914 by Admiralty Weekly Order 55. The revised rates were published by Admiralty Weekly Order 894 of 12 May 1916. The latter amplified the pre-existing regulations and, in the case of the previously omitted midshipmen, provided for flying pay to be backdated to as early as 1 April 1915, where applicable.
12 Although the RNAS had been employing de facto non-commissioned gunners ever since the beginning of the war, as with its observers, the Admiralty had been slow to acknowledge them. A specific date for the introduction of the rate of aerial gunlayer has not been established but it was probably in 1916, as an appropriate badge was authorised for them late in that year; see Admiralty Monthly Order 3319 of 1 December. The badge consisted of a single gun with a star above; it was to be worn on each collar by chief petty officers and on the right sleeve by all other ranks.
13 Prior to this there had been a less formally organised Gunnery School at Eastchurch. This had been operating there since October 1915, apparently in association with a collocated element of No 4(N) Sqn commanded by Sqn Cdr A Ogilvie (although, because the RNAS tended to apply designations in a rather haphazard manner, it is possible that Ogilvie’s unit may actually have been a part of No 4 Wg – rather than Sqn). Whatever it was called, it was this unit which had looked after the group of trainee observers who had been at Eastchurch in February-March 1916 before moving on to Roehampton. By the time that the next batch of observers began to arrive at Eastchurch in late May/early June, some of them from the Clement Talbot Works and some from Roehampton, the new Gunnery School was being set up under Sqn Cdr Barnby.
14 At much the same time as the student observers were being moved to Eastchurch, ie late May, Admiralty Monthly Order 411 of 1 June 1916 announced that the Armament Training Establishment and the W/T Operators being trained within the White City complex had been moved to the new RNAS Depot at Crystal Palace and the recently opened RNAS Central Training Establishment at Cranwell, respectively. Now redundant, closure of the Clement Talbot Works was announced (in arrears) by Admiralty Weekly Order 2022 of 25 August 1916.
15 The facilities at Roehampton were exploited to provide practical instruction in map-reading from free balloons and in ship recognition and gunnery control from tethered balloons, the latter involving model ships floating on a lake and simulated procedures in much the same way as the RFC employed its Artillery Targets.
16 Despite its specialist role, and the availability of an appropriately qualified senior officer, the Observers School at Eastchurch had to be commanded by a pilot (as had the earlier one at the Talbot Works) because the Admiralty did not recognise observers as being members of the Executive Branch of the RNAS until 1917, and until they were so recognised they could not exercise command of a unit.
17 The sortie in which Keigthley was engaged when he was shot down involved spotting for the guns of HMS Raglan, bombarding the town of Kavalla on the coast of Macedonia. It is quite possible that Keigthley may have been formally reassigned to 2 Wg at some stage, but evidence for this appears to be lacking and he may simply have been temporarily pressed into service locally to met an urgent operational requirement while passing through the Aegean on his way to Egypt.