Balloon Observers in the RFC.
Apart from observers and gunners there was another distinct group of aviators who wore the flying ‘O’, those who flew in lighter-than-air craft. To complete the non-pilot aircrew picture it is appropriate to consider the wartime evolution of the military balloonist. Balloon observers had originally been introduced to carry out much the same tasks as the earliest aeroplane observers. As the war progressed, however, the contrast between their very different operating environments, and the differing perspectives of the battlefield which these provided, meant that they had increasingly little in common.
The most obvious reason for these differences was that, although its location could be changed, a tethered balloon operated from a fixed site and thus offered a very restricted field of view, compared to that available to an aeroplane observer. On the other hand, this permitted a balloon observer to become extremely familiar with the terrain he surveyed, enabling him to detect the smallest sign of unusual activity, whereas aeroplane observers tended to gain a more general impression. Another major difference was that balloonists worked exclusively with the guns, communicating with the batteries under their control via telephone landlines. Since they had comparatively little involvement in photography, used voice rather than Morse to communicate, never dropped bombs and had no Lewis gun to look after, a balloon observer was able to devote all of his energies to the task in hand and they became expert in dealing with the more esoteric implications of ballistics, trajectories, times of flight and so on.
The introduction of observation balloons to support land operations in France was complicated by the fact that the RN had been given sole responsibility for all lighter-than-air affairs in January 1914. Satisfying the Army’s demands, therefore, required an extensive exercise in inter-Service cooperation. As a first step, the Admiralty made available to the War Office the facilities of its balloon training ground at Roehampton, which had been formally established under the overall command of Wg Cdr E M Maitland on 21 March 1915, following the first successful flight of a kite balloon in the UK from there on the 15th.1 The first lighter-than-air unit assigned to work with the Army, No 2 Kite Balloon Section (KBS) of the RNAS, arrived in France on 8 May.
At a conference convened by the Admiralty on 19 July, Sir David Henderson proposed that responsibility for all aspects of military ballooning should be transferred to the War Office. Whether they liked it or not, it would have been difficult for the admirals to have resisted Henderson’s approach, as the War Cabinet was already of the opinion that the Navy had become far too deeply involved in land warfare. Shortly afterwards it was decided that control of most of the quasi-military naval units operating in France (including, in addition to the balloon sections, armoured cars and trains and a variety of infantry and artillery formations) was to be transferred to the Army.
Following their acquisition of two French examples, the British began to deploy observation balloons in the late spring of 1915. At first the RFC used Spencer-built copies of the German Drachen design, like this one, which was photographed at Fricourt in the Somme Sector where it was being operated by one of the sections controlled by Maj C Bovill’s No 1 Kite Balloon Company. (IWM Q11864)
Since the Navy currently controlled all lighter-than-air affairs, hardware as well as manpower, it was inevitably going to take some time to implement the new arrangements. Nevertheless, a start was made in August 1915 when the RFC’s Capt J D Boyle was authorised to begin internal recruiting with the aim of raising further balloon units which were to be entirely army-manned. Training soon gathered pace at Roehampton under the overall supervision of a naval officer, Flt Cdr H Delacombe, with the parochial interests of the attached soldiery being looked after by Boyle. By the end of the month three more RNAS balloon units had been despatched to France (Nos 4, 6 and 8 KBSs).
In the meantime, the generals having effectively recovered their balloons from the admirals, there had been some discussion as to who should exercise control over them: the end-users? – the gunners; or the operators? – the flyers. The RFC contended that the logistic requirements, of what were indisputably ‘air’ assets, could be adequately met only by the RFC’s dedicated supply channels. Furthermore, while the balloons were plainly only there to serve the guns, the aviators argued that any form of flying was a highly specialised business which only they could conduct efficiently, the implication being that they probably already knew how to do it. Both of these arguments would prove to be deeply flawed but this was not apparent at the time and the air lobby won the debate. Control of the four naval balloon sections was assumed by the RFC on 16 October 1915.2
The RFC’s claim that its specialised logistic system was bound to be best suited to supporting lighter-than-air operations had helped to carry the day, but the argument was ill-founded. After all, the flyers had had no more experience of handling the equipment associated with ballooning than the gunners when the issue was being debated in 1915. Kite balloons were virtually an unknown quantity at the time and the RFC could not, therefore, have known whether its specialised supply train was really any better placed to deal with them than the Royal Artillery’s would have been. In the event, despite the Army’s increasing involvement in lighter-than-air operations, it continued to be wholly dependent upon naval sources for the supply of balloons, gas-making plant, winches and other ancillary technical equipment for many months, the War Office not beginning to place its own orders until as late as July 1916.
This cartoon (by Bernard Hugh and reproduced in Air Pie of 1919) graphically portrays all that needs to be said about the most important physical characteristic of a ‘balloon hand’. The date is unknown but the fact that the artist has made a point of illustrating both RFC and RNAS uniforms suggests that it may have been drawn in the spring of 1916, when kite balloon sections were still being jointly manned.
The RFC’s other key claim, that its familiarity with air operations made it the natural choice to control ballooning, was equally insubstantial. Balloons were an innovation. No one really knew how to organise them operationally and whoever gained control was going to have to find out by trial and error. To begin with, the RFC tried grouping its lighter-than-air assets into Kite Balloon Squadrons, each having an established strength of two KBSs (four from March 1916). These operated under the auspices of the existing (Corps) Wings. While the activities of the aeroplane and balloon units certainly complemented each other, however, their operating procedures, lines of communication and logistic requirements proved to be very different. The scale of the problems caused by these differences increased with the proliferation of KBSs (there were twenty-two in France by the autumn of 1916) and a greater degree of autonomy became appropriate. From December 1916, therefore, the Kite Balloon Squadrons were redesignated as Companies and reorganised into newly established (Balloon) Wings, one of which was allocated to each Brigade to operate alongside its (Corps) Wing and its (Army) Wing.3
Early operational experience in France had shown that it was essential for balloonists to have an intimate knowledge of field gunnery procedures and several army officers were attached to the (still RNAS) balloon units to provide the necessary expertise. Thus, as early as October 1915, ten of the total of thirty-two officers carried on the books of Nos 2, 4, 6 and 8 KBSs were soldiers (seven artillerymen and three from the RFC). All of the remainder were naval officers, including the four COs, then Flt Lts W F MacNeece (but see Note 5), G StC Rollo and J Ogilvie-Davis and FSLt A S Byng.4 The first army-manned balloon units (Nos 5, 7, 9 and 10 KBSs) crossed the Channel during March 1916, along with sufficient additional trained soldiers to make a start on replacing the sailors still serving with Nos 2 and 4 KBSs. There were problems with finding enough RFC men to complete the process with Nos 6 and 8 KBSs but these were eased by the Admiralty’s granting a dispensation permitting RN balloon personnel to remuster to the Army.5 By the end of June fourteen sections were in action in France, all of them manned by the RFC, apart from two which were located on the coast to co-operate with naval batteries.
From late-1916, the early Drachen-style balloons were superseded by the 82 feet long, 28,000 cu ft, French-designed Caquot Type M. (IWM Q12029)
By this time the demand for balloon personnel had outstripped the capacity of the existing RNAS-run training school at Roehampton, which had already been complemented by an RFC-run facility in nearby Richmond Park. Having already set up its own Kite Balloon Training Depot at Roehampton,6 the RFC opened Balloon Training Schools at Rollestone Camp (Larkhill) and Lydd in July 1916.7 Thenceforth balloon pilots and EOs were trained at Roehampton/Richmond Park, the two new schools providing tactical training in artillery observation, and handling the technical instruction of NCOs and men. The Depot was tasked with being able to form (up to) two new kite balloon sections per week; each of the schools could also form new sections if required, but at a much lower rate. Although the Army was now ostensibly carrying out its own training, the RFC was not in a position to dispense completely with the assistance being provided by the RNAS at Roehampton until as late as June 1917 when it was able to offer a reciprocal arrangement under which naval free balloons could be launched from a military facility at the Kennington Oval if and when required.
As with aeroplane observers, it became necessary to supplement the output of the home-based training organisation by recruiting and training additional balloon observers in France. This practice became increasingly widespread from late 1916 onwards. Most of these ‘do-it-yourself’ balloonists were drawn from the Royal Artillery and they proved to be ideally suited to the task. Inevitably, however, questions soon began to be asked about the precise standing of these attached ‘gunners’ within the increasingly complex hierarchy of aviators. These questions proved to be difficult to answer and it took several months for the problems to be resolved (see below).
In action, kite balloons (initially Spencer-built copies of the German Drachen, but standardising on the French-designed Caquot Type M from late 1916) would frequently remain aloft for ten hours or more at a stretch. Suspended above the lines, typically at about 3,000 feet, beneath 28,000 cu ft of highly inflammable hydrogen in what amounted to a wickerwork laundry hamper that swung wildly in windy conditions, the balloon observer’s occupation was not an enviable one. Furthermore, balloons were very vulnerable to marauding German fighters, at some risk from the friendly anti-aircraft guns that were supposed to ward off these attackers and occasionally in the direct line of fire in an artillery duel. Many were shot down and damage to cables caused others to slip their moorings and drift away over the battlefield, usually towards the enemy lines as a result of the prevailing westerly winds (although at least one finished up in Derbyshire). To cater for these situations balloon observers were unique among RFC aviators in that they were provided with parachutes, and while these were far from perfect, they did save many lives.8
1916-17. Another dispute over ‘wings’ and status.
Since the RFC’s balloonists were plainly aviators, it was deemed necessary to recognise them as specialists but, since they were not pilots in the conventional sense, it was decided to introduce a new category. The grade of ‘balloon officer’ was introduced in October 1915, the first two, 2/Lts L E Brown-Greaves and E B Broughton, appearing in that month’s Army List.9 By the following January they had been joined by a further seventeen.
The formal recognition of balloon officers inevitably created a demand for them to have some form of distinguishing badge – predating by more than a year the (previously discussed) requirement for aerial gunners to wear some kind of distinctive emblem. Needless to say, there could be no question of balloonists wearing pilots ‘wings’ and as early as October 1915 (then Brig-Gen) Trenchard had opposed the use of the observers flying ‘O’ on the grounds that it might ‘cheapen’ it.10 For its part, London had vetoed the idea of a special badge, leaving the balloonists in France totally unadorned.
In February 1916, Roehampton’s Maj Boyle made a second attempt to gain authority for his protégés to wear a badge and this time the War Office acceded to his request. Overruling Trenchard’s views, the DMA announced that qualified balloon pilots, who were also certified as being observers by the Commandant at Roehampton, would be entitled to wear the same badge as aeroplane observers.11 Trenchard, as GOC (and, not unreasonably, in view of the precedent represented by the case of aeroplane observers), immediately claimed the right to certify those ‘balloonatics’ who were being recruited and trained in the field. London denied him this right. Boyle promptly stepped in to point out that the General had already been doing it, citing Maj C Bovill and Lt J A G Swaine as examples of badge-wearing balloonists whose qualifications had not been endorsed by Roehampton.12
The crux of the problem was that, although they actually functioned as observers and wore an observers single wing, to be fully qualified, balloon officers were also required to be able to ‘pilot’ a free balloon. There were no facilities (or time) for free ballooning in France, however, which meant that, at Roehampton’s insistence, locally-trained balloon observers, however experienced they might be, could not be regarded as being fully qualified. The wrangling dragged on, reflecting to some degree the differences in opinion which were to surface in 1917 as to whether a flying ‘O’ was a ‘war service’ or a ‘qualification’ badge (see page 61).
A compromise was arrived at in April whereby the GOC was empowered to license a balloon observer to go aloft operationally and, once satisfied as to his competence, to authorise him to wear an observers badge.13 These men could not, however, be graded as flying officer (observers); nor could they be graded as balloon officers without first being additionally trained as free balloon pilots, which still required an unacceptably lengthy detachment to the UK. Since they continued to be ungraded (and thus unrecognised as members of the RFC) this still left locally-trained balloonists in France at something of a disadvantage, but these arrangements had to suffice for the time being. Just as these negotiations were drawing to a close, Trenchard wrote to the DAO to complain that ‘several balloon officers have lately been posted to the Expeditionary Force who have had little, or no, experience in a kite balloon before proceeding overseas. One officer had never been up in a kite balloon and one only once.’14 In view of Roehampton’s earlier pious protestations, this must surely have provided the GOC with a degree of mischievous satisfaction.
The situation was rationalised in June by the introduction, again at Maj Boyle’s urging, of the grade of balloon officer (observer) to cater for those balloonists who had not been trained as ‘pilots’.15 This finally permitted the RFC to acknowledge the many officers who had previously been on active service in a kind of bureaucratic limbo – much like the aeroplane observers of 1914-15 had been. Despite this acknowledgement, however, no provision appears to have been made for distinguishing these men in the Army List before the realities of the supply and demand equation prompted a further revision of the rules.
In February 1917 Trenchard returned to the fray. Arguing that free ballooning was of little practical value, he went on to point out that the pay of officers who had not qualified as balloon pilots was adversely affected, compared to those who had. Since he could ill afford to send these men home to acquire what amounted to a useless certificate, Trenchard asked that this situation be rationalised.16 This time he won his case. The mandatory requirement for free ballooning was promptly dropped and, although some of the men being trained at home continued to qualify as balloon pilots, the previous distinction was abandoned. The balloon officer (observer) was rendered redundant and thereafter all ‘certified balloonatics’ were graded as balloon officers and all were listed as such.17
This decision was accompanied by confirmation of the GOC’s standing authority to award a flying ‘O’ to any field-trained balloon observer whose competence had been assessed on the basis of local examination, this milestone generally being passed after the accumulation of about 100 hours of airborne time. The significance of this was that the wearer of a badge awarded in the field could now be graded, and thus paid, under the same terms as applied to a balloonist who had passed through the formal training system at home.
It would seem that some uncertainty still lingered, however, and a year later the War Office was still having occasionally to advise units that balloon officers could be authorised to wear a flying ‘O’ on ‘the recommendation of the General Officer Commanding, RFC, under whom they are serving.’18 This form of words made it quite clear, incidentally, that authority to grade balloonists had not been vested in Trenchard alone and that similar provisions applied to, for instance, the air commander in the Middle East.
The more realistic attitude being shown towards balloonists brought with it a discrete hierarchy. Until January 1917 only balloon officers, ie the subaltern ‘drones’, had been specifically identified as such in the Army List. Officers filling executive appointments within the lighter-than-air organisation as Section, Company and Wing Commanders were embedded among the aeroplane officers of equivalent grades. In the February edition, however, they were listed separately under the generic heading of Balloon Officers; there were six lieutenant-colonels, seven majors, twenty-seven captains and 174 junior officers. This exercise, incidentally, provides yet more evidence to support the contention that the RFC discriminated against its aeroplane observers. After all, if observers who flew in balloons could be lieutenant-colonels, why were those who flew in aeroplanes still prevented from progressing beyond the rank of lieutenant?
HMS Erin with a moored Caquot balloon. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
It should perhaps be pointed out that the numerical requirement for balloon observers was quite substantial and perhaps much larger than is generally appreciated. In early 1917, for instance, it was forecast that another forty men were needed to meet the then current expansion programme, after which it would be necessary to train a further 150 every six months to cater for wastage across the deployed force. Allowing for the constraints of training capacity, this equated to an intake of thirty men every three weeks. There were actually ninety-four trainee RFC balloon officers in residence at Roehampton as at 2 March 1917. The course at this time was of some seven weeks’ duration, this being followed by a similar stint at Larkhill or Lydd, although the periodic need to replace losses and/or form new sections as a matter of urgency meant that training had sometimes to be considerably shortened. As with its aeroplane observers, the RFC maintained a strong preference for balloonists to be commissioned but a few NCOs managed to qualify from as early as 1916 and for a period in late 1917/early 1918 they appear to have been trained in relatively large numbers.
In the context of recruiting, it is worth recording that, possibly in anticipation of a shortage of volunteers, the Standing Medical Board was prevailed upon to lower the minimum standards for employment as a balloon observer.19 From September 1917 onwards it was deemed to be acceptable to train men who had lost one or even both legs, so long as they had been cut off below the knee.20
Balloon Observers in the RNAS.
While much of the Navy’s initial ballooning effort had been shore-based, supporting army operations in France, it had not neglected its own requirements. With No 1 KBS on board, the 3,500 ton Manica (the first vessel to be converted into a balloon carrier) had sailed for the Aegean before the end of March 1915. Within a month its Drachen had seen action, directing naval gunfire in the Dardanelles. In July another RNAS balloon, carried by the Menelaus, began working with naval guns bombarding the Belgian Coast. The experience accumulated during these early deployments laid the foundations for subsequent shipborne balloon operations for, despite its being obliged to relinquish control of military ballooning over the next twelve months, the Navy continued to deploy its own balloons at sea until 1918.
To begin with, the naval programme was entirely supported by courses run at Roehampton but further training grounds were set up later at Sheerness, Wormwood Scrubs and Hurlingham.21 Shipborne ballooning really began to get into its stride from mid-1917 onwards, a notable difference from army practice being that the RNAS never dispensed with the requirement for all of its balloonists to qualify as free balloon pilots. Furthermore, the RN saw no reason to differentiate between its landplane, seaplane, airship and balloon pilots. They were all regarded as being birds of an only slightly different feather and, as aviators in control of some kind of airborne craft, they were all graded generically as flight officers. This, of course, was in marked contrast to the RFC whose balloonists were regarded as a form of observer. As discussed below, this fundamental difference of opinion was to cause a degree of friction when the two air arms were merged in 1918 (see page 103).
Fig 11. The naval and military training facilities inherited by the RAF as reorganised with effect from May 1918. No 1 BT Wg handled balloonists destined to go to sea while No 2 BT Wg dealt with those who were to work with the Army. (BT = Balloon Training)
Scores of ships were eventually equipped to handle a balloon and by November 1918 the RAF was operating from some twenty-one naval Balloon Bases, fifteen of them in the UK and the remainder at Mediterranean ports, individual holdings varying from two to twelve balloons per Base. While they had considerable potential as observation platforms in Fleet actions, these never materialised so many naval balloons were actually employed on anti-submarine work. Being unable to engage the enemy himself, the idea was for the balloonist to look out for periscopes and then direct destroyers into the attack. Unfortunately, a balloon, which could be seen from miles away, betrayed the presence of surface ships at a much greater range than the observer could hope to spot a periscope. Nevertheless, the mere presence of a balloon obliged U-boat captains to remain submerged and passive. As a result there were few successful engagements.22
Because of their effectiveness in countering the submarine threat, balloons were also extensively employed for convoy protection. For convoy work a balloon, complete with its flight crew and a handling party, would be attached to a ship at its home port and accompany a convoy to its destination. From there it would repeat the exercise on the homebound run, being transferred, if necessary, to a returning vessel.
Compared to military operations, there was little risk of a naval balloon’s being shot down but that did not mean that ballooning at sea was a sinecure. Typically, the watch system while afloat would involve four hours aloft, followed by eight hours off duty, although, since an observer was also a ship’s officer, the demands of shipboard routine would have absorbed much of his nominally ‘off duty’ time. Like their counterparts in the RFC, the Navy’s balloon observers were provided with parachutes to cater for the unforeseen, and changing crews in a balloon tethered to the heaving deck of a destroyer steering a zigzag course at up to 25 knots meant that the unforeseen could occur quite frequently. The provision of a parachute may have provided a fillip for morale, but in reality the U-boat threat was such that there was no guarantee that a commodore would risk any of the ships in his convoy stopping to effect a rescue. Despite the hazards, however, casualties were very few and the shipborne balloon proved to be a very cost-effective deterent to the captains of enemy submarines.
Ballooning in the RAF
Because the War Office and the Admiralty had adopted quite different approaches to the grading of balloonists, there were some teething troubles when, following the creation of the RAF, it became necessary to harmonise the grading of ex-RNAS and ex-RFC personnel. This is discussed in Chapter 13. That aside, the functions of balloon observers operating under the different conditions imposed by their naval and military environments were unchanged. The only other development which is worthy of note is that the existing training facilities were rationalised to reflect the unified single-service organisation, although their army and navy origins were preserved. The late-wartime RAF training organisation is illustrated at Figure 11.23
While naval airships, like this North Sea Class, had ten-man crews they included few (if any) observer officers, although substantial numbers of enlisted ex-RNAS W/T operators were beginning to sport flying ‘O’ badges by late-1918 (see pages 104–105). Having been retained in service to train American crews for the R.28, NS-7 was the last non-rigid airship to be operated by the RAF, making its final flight in October 1921. (MAP) Below – members of the crew of a North Sea airship, illustrating the precarious nature of some of the duties involved. There was no form of safety harness. Note the Lewis gunner – for shooting at mines rather than enemy aircraft. (Chaz Bowyer)
Airships.
Although the Army had cracked the RN’s lighter-than-air monopoly by regaining control of its own balloons before the end of 1915, this did not include dirigibles. The operation of airships remained an exclusively naval preserve until the creation of the RAF, and even then the Admiralty retained a controlling interest.24 Airship training was conducted at Kingsnorth (Nore) and/or Wormwood Scrubs until the RNAS Central Training Establishment opened at Cranwell on 1 April 1916.25 Thereafter HMS Daedalus26 became an increasingly important centre for naval aircrew training for the remainder of the war, continuing its lighter-than-air association after the formation of the RAF under the new title of the Airship Training Wing. It should be noted, however, that, while powered lighter-than-air craft required crews of between two and thirty men, very few (if any) true ‘observers’ were directly involved in maritime airship operations. Interestingly, however, when the RNAS deployed a Sea Scout and crew to France in July 1916, so that the Army could assess the value of airships for inserting and extracting secret agents, the RFC assigned a fully accredited observer, 2/Lt C R Robbins, to participate in the project.27
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1 All balloons used previously by the Army and Navy, whether for observation or to train airship pilots, had had relatively simple spherical envelopes. A kite balloon had an elongated shape, stabilising fins and a much more complicated rigging system.
2 AIR1/832/204/5/226. A Royal Warrant of 4 November 1915 amended that of 1 December 1914 (which laid down conditions of service and pay for the wartime Army) by recognising the addition of ‘a Kite Balloon Section to our Royal Flying Corps (Military Wing)’ with effect from 16 October 1915. The Warrant was promulgated by Army Order II of 10 November and published in HQ RFC’s Routine Orders of the 25th.
3 Ibid. The restructuring of its lighter-than-air organisation was announced in HQ RFC’s Routine Orders for 5 December 1916. Like that of an aeroplane wing, the establishment of a (Balloon) Wing was not fixed but the usual strength ran to one Balloon Company (normally of two Sections) for each Corps served by the parent RFC Brigade.
4 AIR1/377/15/231/18. This information was extracted from a nominal roll of all officers serving with the RFC as at 15 October 1915, covered by War Office letter 114/Returns/1869(MA1) dated six days later.
5 AIR1/373/15/231/14. As early as 27 August 1915 War Office letter 87/5808(MA1) had proposed that the Admiralty should permit RNAS balloon personnel serving in France to transfer to the RFC, albeit only for the duration of the war. This was agreed in principle but the arrangement was not implemented until 9 March 1916 when another letter, carrying the same reference, announced the details. Ratings wishing to remain in France were to be locally discharged from the RNAS and immediately re-engaged by the RFC. RN officers would be loaned to the Army while officers of the RNAS, RNR and RNVR were to resign their commissions and join the RFC, this being a purely administrative procedure. In all cases personnel were to be taken on by the RFC at an equivalent rank/grade to that held previously and with the same seniority. The extent to which people actually exercised this option has not been determined.
Despite the de facto independence of the RNAS, the more conservative elements of the bureaucracy had ignored this reality. The Army and Navy Lists, for instance, both continued to reflect the de jure situation whereby the RFC was still supposedly divided into Military and Naval Wings. This adherence to the letter of the law probably made inter-Service transfers by officers relatively straightforward. It was never a common practice but several prominent personalities did ‘switch sides’. For instance, when Col F H Sykes was posted to command naval air units in the Aegean in 1915 (after losing a debate between leading personalities, including Trenchard, as to how the RFC in France should be controlled) he adopted the rank of wing captain RNAS. In the specific context of ballooning the most significant figure to transfer was Lt-Col E M Maitland, the doyen of the lighter-than-air community and the original CO of No 1 Airship Company RE (later No 1 Sqn RFC). He changed his army uniform for that of a RNAS wing commander in July 1914 after his field of expertise had become an entirely nautical affair.
Another example is provided by the Hon C M P Brabazon who, as a major serving with the RFC, was appointed to command No 2 KBS, the first to go to France. Since this was a naval unit, it was presumably considered politic for him to hold RNAS rank and he duly became a squadron commander with effect from 19 April 1915. He continued to function as a lighter-than-air ‘sailor’ until April 1918 when he was transferred again, this time to the RAF as a lieutenant-colonel dirigible officer. Needless to say, despite these transfers, he continued to be carried on the books of his original tribe, the Irish Guards, who regarded him as a major with seniority dating from 19 April 1913. Somewhat anachronistically, however, as late as May 1919 his entry in the Army List still had him serving ‘on attachment to the RNAS’, an organisation which had by then been defunct for more than a year.
Brabazon’s successor as OC No 2 KBS, Flt Lt W F MacNeece, was, incidentally, another RFC pilot (originally of the Royal West Kents) who became a naval balloonist while ‘on loan’ to the RNAS, although he returned to the khaki fold when manning of the KBSs in France was taken over by the Army.
6 Originally set up with its Headquarters at 331 Upper Richmond Rd, Putney, the RFC’s Kite Balloon Training Depot was restyled the Balloon Training Wing on 21 October 1916 by which time it was operating from the Pole Pavilion of the Roehampton Club.
7 The initial manpower establishments of Nos 1 and 2 Balloon Training Schools, at Larkhill and Lydd respectively, were published on 28 July 1916, which will have been close to, possibly their actual, date of formation.
8 Alan Morris notes, in The Balloonatics (1970), pp198-199, that 106 parachute descents were made between June 1916 and June 1917 within 2nd (Balloon) Wing alone, 2/Lt S Jolley making five (of an eventual total of seven) jumps in the course of a mere 97 hours of airborne time in May-June 1917.
9 Balloon officers were effectively introduced with effect from 16 October 1915, when the RFC had been given formal authority to operate balloons (see Note 2).
10 AIR1/404/15/231/45. HQ RFC letter CRFC 1701(A) dated 30 October 1915.
11 Ibid. War Office letter 87/6912(MA1) dated 26 February 1916.
12 In point of fact, although he had evidently not passed through Roehampton, Bovill would actually have been entitled to wear his flying ‘O’ as he had been rated as a qualified aeroplane observer with effect from 10 February 1915.
13 AIR1/404/15/231/45. War Office letter 87/6912(MA1) dated 17 April 1916.
14 AIR1/861/204/5/472. HQ RFC letter CRFC 934/21(A) dated 18 April 1916.
15 AIR1/404/15/231/45. DAO letter 87/6912(AO1) dated 17 June 1916.
16 AIR2/8/87/6912/D 155. HQ RFC letter CRFC 1706/13G dated 10 February 1917.
17 Ibid. DAO letter 87/(Inst)/104(AO 1 a) dated 16 February 1917.
18 Ibid. DAO letter 87/6912(O.2) dated 9 January 1918.
19 AIR1/123/15/40/138. War Office letter 87/9384(O.2) dated 25 September 1917.
20 In his Aces Falling (2007), pp76-77, Peter Hart identifies two amputees, Capt W Giffard and Lt-Col F H Cleaver, OC 3rd Balloon Wing, who saw active service in balloons.
21 As part of the rationalisation of training facilities, following the creation of the RAF, the ex-RFC facility at the Kennington Oval closed down on 11 May 1918. The ex-RNAS unit at Hurlingham became No 1 Free Balloon School, providing experience of free ballooning for the remainder of the war for all airship officers and those kite balloon officers who needed it – see AMWO 265 of 23 May 1918.
22 In the immediate post-WW I accounting HMS Patriot was credited with the only significant balloon-assisted engagement when, having been directed into the attack from aloft by Flt Lt C A Butcher, she sank the U69 to the east of the Shetlands on 12 July 1917 – see, for instance Alan Morris, op cit, p97. As late as 1996, this was still being reported as the only success by R D Layman in his Naval Aviation in the First World War, p124. Curiously, however, at Appx 2 to the same book Layman lists the UB83 as the only submarine lost due to the presence of a balloon, this incident involving HMS Ophelia on 10 September 1918. In his U-Boats Destroyed, (1997), Paul Kemp also attributes the loss of the UB83 to an initial sighting by a balloon observer but lists the U69 as having been lost to unknown causes SW of Ireland on an unspecified date after 23 July 1917 and goes on to state, categorically, that ‘no Allied or American claims exist for the loss of U69.’ That said, there is, at AIR1/724/78/1, a convincingly comprehensive contemporary account of the 12 July 1917 incident, which certainly avers that the U69 was sunk by the Patriot – and Butcher’s contribution to the success of this engagement earned him a DSC.
23 AMWO 263 of 15 May 1918.
24 In January 1918 it was agreed that the Air Ministry would assume responsibility for the provision of airship personnel following the formation of the RAF. In view of the exclusively maritime application of these craft, and the fact that operational policy was still evolving, however, the Admiralty was to continue to direct employment, retain control over procurement and provide the operating bases. While operations continued to be conducted successfully for the remainder of the war and some progress was made with the development of a new generation of large rigid airships, the division of responsibility proved to be unrealistic, as it created administrative and organisational problems and fostered divided loyalties. The situation was finally resolved in 1919 at an Air Ministry meeting held on 22 August. It was decided that the Air Council would assume full responsibility for airship policy with immediate effect, responsibility for construction and staff following in October. Thereafter the Admiralty was to retain only a marginal involvement in that it continued to be responsible for paying any RN personnel still associated with airship activities; all other costs were to be billed against the Air Ministry Vote. These arrangements were publicised by AO 1435 which announced that all lighter-than-air affairs had been taken over by the Air Council with effect from 22 October.
The RAF had little enthusiasm (or funding) for lighter-than-air activities and, although the Air Ministry retained overall responsibility for all airships, its military branch began to close down in January 1921. This was a prolonged process, however, largely because of contractual obligations concerning the delivery of the ill-fated R.38 to the US Navy.
25 Although training did not start until April 1916, the RNAS unit at Cranwell had been commissioned as an independent entity as early as 10 December 1915 when Capt G M Paine had been appointed as commodore; see Admiralty Monthly Order 146 of 1 March 1916.
26 HMS Daedalus was actually a floating pierhead (created by converting HMS Thunderbolt, an erstwhile floating battery) on the Medway which, from 1916 onwards, served as the nominal depot ship for RNAS personnel serving elsewhere, specifically including Cranwell. Although the commodore of the Central Training Establishment will actually have flown his pennant in HMS Daedalus (at Chatham), that ship’s name subsequently became, and still is, inseparable from Cranwell itself.
27 This airship, the uniquely black-painted SS 40, does not appear to have undertaken any espionage missions but it did carry out nocturnal reconnaissance sorties during the Battle of the Somme. A first-hand account of the activities of SS 40 by one of its pilots FSLt V Goddard, was published in Cross & Cockade (Great Britain) Journal, Vol 12, No 4.