1918. The Observer’s involvement in bomb-aiming grows as the air weapon matures.
The increasing reliance being placed on the observer in aerial combat suggests that by early 1918 his functions had been largely reduced to those of an air gunner. This was only partially true, however, and in other respects his responsibilities were growing significantly to deal with the increasing sophistication of role equipment. In the early days, for instance, there had never been any doubt that it was the pilot’s prerogative to squint over the side and judge when to drop bombs, with or without the aid of a primitive bomb sight. A recollection of, what passed for, the ‘technique’ being employed by No 18 Sqn’s FE2b crews during the Battle of the Somme, for instance, is provided by Flt Lt P S Jackson-Taylor:1
‘Usually two or four 20 lb bombs were carried on each patrol and dropped whenever and wherever the pilot wished. I do not remember any form of standard bomb sighting being used. Consequently the bombing was of a very elementary character and the absence of individual knowledge of the principles of Bomb Dropping made the process of pulling the release toggle a delightful game of chance. I shall never forget peering over the side to watch the effects of a salvo of two bombs on the German trenches at Martinpuich (or) my consternation on seeing the bombs fall and burst quite half a mile away to the west in front of our own front line.’
By 1918, the development of increasingly efficient aiming devices was rendering such haphazard methods redundant. Furthermore, since these devices tended to be operated by the observer, there had been a detectable, if still slight, shift in the balance of power within a crew.
In June of that year the Air Ministry convened a conference to review the situation regarding bomb-aiming, the outcome effectively endorsing what was already tending to become common practice.2 It was recognised that pilots needed to handle bombing in ground support operations and, for attacks delivered from below 1,000 feet, they were to continue to do so. Above that height, however, a more scientific approach to bomb-aiming was to be adopted.
It had been noted from observation of practice sorties carried out on academic ranges that when pilots carried out their own bomb-aiming they often did so with as much as 6° of bank applied. This was probably a result of their having to lean to one side (sometimes right out of the cockpit) to use the sight but, whatever the reason, it did nothing to improve accuracy, which was bound to be further degraded under the stress of a combat situation. It was decided that in future ‘high’ altitude bomb aiming should become the business of the observer, the pilot’s contribution being confined to endeavouring to maintain his aeroplane in balanced, level flight at a constant airspeed. The only proviso was that, for attacks delivered from above 10,000 feet by formations of day bombers, the preferred procedure would be for one crew to act as the ‘master bomber’ with the others releasing their weapons on a given signal. Maj-Gen Salmond required each bomber squadron to nominate two such crews within each flight – two to allow for attrition.3
A Klaxon mounted on a DH 4 during trials carried out in 1917. (TNA AIR1/885/204/5/621)
So far as the provision of equipment was concerned, O/400s, DH 9s, DH 10s and Vimys were all to have a Negative Lens Sight to provide their pilots with a downwards view and to enable them to assist in lining up on the target. It was intended, however, that this sight should cease to be used for bomb-aiming. O/400s, DH 9s and DH 10s were to have a High Altitude Drift (HAD) Sight installed, along with the release system, at the observer’s station. A duplicate release system was provided in the DH 9 to permit the pilot to drop bombs in formation attacks. The Vimy, and large flying boats, were to have the Low Height Drift Sight as standard but it was anticipated that these would eventually be replaced by a Course Setting Sight. Whichever model was provided, it was to be installed in the nose of the aircraft and operated by the observer. The only other bomber being used in substantial numbers was the night flying FE2b but by this time their normal delivery mode was a shallow dive attack, releasing at 500 feet or even lower, and this tended to be done by the pilot without the aid of a sight.
It is interesting to note that during the conference some consideration had been given to providing the observer with a means of controlling the rudder so that fine adjustments could be made during the bomb run. This was an attempt to overcome the long-standing problem of how to best to pass steering signals from the bomb-aimer, who could always see the target, to the pilot who often could not.
As an aside, it is worth noting that a satisfactory solution to the problem of intercommunication between crew members, for all purposes, not just bombing, had not really been found before the war ended. In the case of the DH 4 (in which the crew members were separated by some six feet), for instance, a system was implemented in the summer of 1917 which involved the observer using a Klaxon horn to pass critical information to his pilot when under attack or, possibly, to direct him on a bomb run. The system used one or more ‘longs’ (ie Morse Ts) or ‘shorts’ (Es), thus:4
Turn to Port |
T |
Turn to Starboard |
TT |
Machine Under Tail |
TTT |
Gun Jambed |
EEEEEEEE |
Gun OK Again |
Steady Note |
Photographs of wartime two-seaters with a bomb sight rigged for use by the observer are surprisingly rare. This one, of a DH 9A, F1001, of No 205 Sqn, actually dates from shortly after the Armistice but it does feature an aeroplane fitted with a High Altitude Drift Sight (presumably a Mk Ia, which was calibrated in mph, as distinct from the Mk I which was calibrated in knots for maritime use) mounted alongside the rear cockpit. The Crew are Lt W B Esplen (pilot) and C H Latimer-Needham. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
In the specific context of bomb-aiming, depending upon the type of aeroplane involved and whether he was located behind, beneath or in front of the pilot, observers employed a variety of methods to pass steering instructions, eg tapping on the appropriate shoulder or flying boot, or using hand signals. On its big Handley Pages the RNAS had tried a system of signal lights. Controlled by switches at the bomb-aimer’s station, the observer could direct the aircraft to turn left or right or fly straight ahead by illuminating a red, green or white light on the pilot’s instrument panel.5 Since all of these approaches lacked responsiveness and precision, it seemed a logical idea to cut the pilot out of the loop altogether and allow the bomb-aimer to fly the bombing run himself. It was a very far-sighted proposal but one which was at least one war too early. It would happen eventually, but it was to be many years before pilots would be content to tolerate such a degree of overt interference in their domain.
While the July 1918 discussions had effectively laid down the officially approved bombing policy for the immediate future, the degree to which it could actually be implemented would depend upon the extent to which the appropriate sights could be supplied and fitted. Observers certainly tended to look after bombing in Handley Pages in the summer of 1918, but then they always had. On the other hand it may have taken a while before all of the DH 9 squadrons were in a position to adopt the new procedures. The Drift Sight was intended to be mounted externally and it should, therefore, be readily visible in photographs. In practice, pictures of DH 9s with a bomb sight rigged for use by the observer, or by the pilot for that matter, are extremely rare which suggests that the Negative Lens Sight may well have remained in use with pilots continuing to do the aiming. (Some notes on bomb sight development during WW I are at Annex G.)
Despite the paucity of photographs, however, there is authoritative contemporary documentary evidence to indicate the extent to which both Negative Lens and Drift Sights were being used in the summer of 1918, with the latter becoming increasingly predominant. The following extracts are taken from a report raised in September:6
‘The HAD sight is in general use. On DH 9s it is fitted outside the Observer’s nacelle on the left hand side. On DH 4s, in some cases, it is fitted as above, and in others, inside the Observer’s nacelle.’
And:
‘The Negative Lens Sight is in use on DH 4s with the Independent Force for actually dropping, and everywhere else for allowing the Pilot to roughly get his line, though some DH 9 Pilots prefer looking over the side (the negative lens is blocked by the 230 lb bomb on a DH 9).’
A month later another report stated that:7
‘The system of flock (sic) bombing is universally adopted, in the majority of cases formations drop on a signal from the leader, photographic records prove that results are extremely good. In nearly every case the HAD sight is in use, generally speaking, however, only the leader’s Observer uses the sight at the objective – other Observers are employed in defending their machines. Release gears are as a rule fitted for the pilot to operate.’
1918. The introduction of a comprehensive system of air armament training.
The availability of purpose-built bomber aircraft, bigger bombs and more sophisticated sighting devices had created a need for yet more training and this began to be arranged in the months immediately preceding the creation of the RAF. To provide specialist instructors in this field a School of Bombing was set up in London (at 14 Langham Place) on 1 October 1917.8 This school moved to Uxbridge on 22 March 1918 to join the Bombing Squadron which was then being organised within the existing Armament School (see Chapter 12, Note 18). Commanded by Capt W H J Eldridge (previously a lieutenant RNVR – most of the officers assigned to the original directing staff at Uxbridge were contributed by the Navy), the Bombing Squadron was staffed mainly by NCO instructors drawn from the infantry who had themselves only recently been trained by their own officers, using RNAS facilities at Eastchurch.
Following the merging of the two air arms in April, the Armament School began running a variety of courses on bombs and bomb gear tailored to the needs of prospective observers (and others). At the same time instruction on bombing was deleted from the syllabuses of the SoAs, responsibility for this aspect of basic training passing initially to the ex-RNAS School of Armament at Eastchurch. Over the next few months the facilities at Uxbridge were considerably expanded and it gradually took over most of the courses being run by Eastchurch so that the Armament School eventually became the main RAF training centre for the technical aspects of offensive weapons. The ex-RNAS school was not entirely eclipsed, however, and it continued to operate, under its RAF name of the Ground Armament School, until the end of the war. Despite its name, Eastchurch still catered for aircrew, especially those destined for maritime units, most of whom continued to learn about bombs the navy way.
On 1 August 1918 the rapidly expanding Armament School was reorganised, being internally sub-divided into a Bombing Wing and a Gunnery and Gears Wing. Two weeks later instruction in gunnery was finally deleted from the curriculum of the SoAs, where it had been in steady decline since April. Responsibility for this element of the overall curriculum was largely assumed by Uxbridge, although, as with bombing training, Eastchurch continued to run gunnery courses for maritime aviators.
While Eastchurch still had a role to play, Uxbridge handled the lion’s share of the overall RAF task for the remainder of the war, turning out ever-increasing numbers of Armament Officers, armourers and flight cadets, as well as its own officer and NCO instructors. Some idea of the scale of this operation can be gauged from a headcount taken on 11 November when the Gunnery and Gears Wing alone had forty-nine officers on its staff along with 301 NCO instructors; there were 2,089 students (of all types) in residence, some of them in overspill accommodation in Ealing. By this time, leaving aside technical personnel, the aircrew throughput of the whole school was reported to have been running at a remarkable 1,200 flight cadets (pilots and observers) per month.9
1918. Navigation training is placed on a firm footing.
While the RFC had been establishing a training system dedicated to air armaments, the associated need to improve navigational standards had been receiving similar attention. The initiative in this case came from the RNAS whose Director of Air Services, Cdre G M Paine, sought the advice of the Admiralty Compass Observatory in the autumn of 1917. The observatory’s director, Frank Creagh-Osborne (a retired captain RN), responded on 2 October. He recommended a four-week course, three of compass theory to be held at Slough and one of practical air pilotage (a combination of map-reading and rule of thumb dead reckoning) at Manston. Joint army/navy participation was anticipated with suggested intakes of twelve at weekly intervals. Academic instruction was to be handled by the Navy, Slough’s Lt L H Pelly being offered up as a suitable chief instructor. In addition, one RFC and one RNAS staff pilot would be needed to supervise the flying phase.
This proposal was passed to the War Office for its consideration. Maj-Gen Brancker’s immediate response was positive and, recognising the Navy’s expertise in this field, he readily acknowledged that the RNAS was best placed to handle instruction in the theory and practice of air navigation. On the other hand, while Creagh-Osborne’s concept might have satisfied the relatively modest needs of the RNAS, it would have been quite incapable of dealing with those of the RFC. Thinking on a military scale, Brancker envisaged fifty-man courses, so that there would be something like 200 pupils in residence at any one time, and he considered that the whole business ought to be conducted at an aerodrome.
The eventual outcome of these deliberations was the first unit dedicated to the provision of academic and practical training in both navigation and bombing. From the resources made available by disbanding the RFC’s No 2 TDS and the transfer of the RNAS’ Handley Page Training Squadron from Manston, No 1 School of Navigation and Bomb Dropping came into being at Stonehenge on 5 January 1918. Although the school was nominally an army unit, its joint-Service constitution was underlined by the fact that its first CO, who was to have the status of a Wing Commander, was Sqn Cdr J T Babington, one of the most experienced naval Handley Page pilots. His two Squadron Commanders were Sqn Cdr G L Thomson RNAS and Maj T M Scott RFC, and the Chief Instructor was Capt W R Read RFC. By the end of the war the school’s planned output amounted to some 120 aircrew per month, half of them qualified by day and half by night. The notional aircraft establishment stood at forty-eight DH 4/9s for prospective day bomber crews, ten Handley Pages for heavy night work and forty FE2bs for crews destined for light night bombers. When the Armistice was signed a second such school was operating at Andover; there was a third in Egypt and a fourth had recently been opened at Thetford.
By the time that this picture was taken in September 1918, No 1 School of Navigation and Bomb Dropping at Stonehenge had become quite a substantial unit. In this photograph it is possible to make out thirteen DH 4s, three O/400s and a stray Sopwith single-seater (possibly a Snipe). (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
While this clearly represented a substantial, and largely RNAS-inspired, attempt to enhance post-graduate, but still pre-operational, instruction, the RFC had also embraced another aspect of the Navy’s approach to training in that it had decided to increase the emphasis being given to navigation at the elementary, pre-flying, stage. As previously observed (at Note 13 to Chapter 11) the RNAS had adopted a comprehensive navigation syllabus by (at the latest) the autumn of 1916. In October 1917 the War Office despatched an officer to assess the navigational aspects of the initial ground-based course for prospective aviators that was by then being run by the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. He concluded that it was ‘very thorough and practical’ and went on to recommend that the RFC should adopt the syllabus and that officers who would be required to teach it should themselves first be taught the subject at Greenwich.10 These recommendations were promptly put into effect (see Note 12).
1918. The establishment of a comprehensive training sequence for Observers.
It will have become apparent from earlier chapters that until the summer of 1917 the various schemes devised to train observers had never really lived up to expectations. Since recruiting had consistently failed to keep pace with the demands of the expanding air services, the system had frequently had to resort to sending men into action before they had been adequately trained. This situation was exacerbated from time to time by the need to replace substantial combat losses as a matter of urgency and further complicated by the changing requirements of the front line squadrons. As a result there had always been a degree of dissatisfaction with the quantity, the quality and/or the nature of the training being provided. Major advances were made thereafter, however, and the situation had been completely transformed by the time of the Armistice. During 1917 the RNAS and the RFC had both stepped up direct recruiting considerably and the latter’s ‘do-it-yourself’ squadron-based training system had finally been abandoned. It was still possible for an officer to request a transfer from the trenches to flying duties, of course, but this now invariably involved a posting home for a series of formal courses.
So far as directly-recruited observers were concerned, along with prospective pilots and officers of ground branches, they continued to be inducted into the RFC/RAF via the Cadet Brigade at Hastings. From there some (but certainly not all) went to No 7 (Observers) School of Military Aeronautics [(O)SoMA] which had been set up at Bath on 14 January 1918 to provide a dedicated ground-based aviation course specifically tailored to the needs of back-seaters.
It is clear from this picture that by mid-1918 observers were being trained on an industrial scale. Taken at Bath on Sports Day, 27 July, a rough count indicates that some 750 shorts-and-singlet-clad young men were involved in creating this representation of No 7 (O)SoA’s title. The fact that there were still enough left over to form the sizeable parade in the background suggests that there were at least 1,000 cadets on the ration strength. (Reproduced from Roosters and Fledglings, the RAF Cadet Journal, October 1918)
Ground instruction was evidently considered to be largely the province of tradesmen and the official establishment for No 7 (O)SoMA, as originally published, provided a total of thirty-two NCOs, most of them corporals, to deal with airframes and engines, wireless, photography and map reading plus another thirty for ‘disciplinary’ instruction. The supervision of day-to-day activities and routine administration were the responsibilities of a number of junior officers: three Squadron Commanders graded as staff captains; six lieutenant/captain Squadron Officers; plus an EO1 and eight EO3s as Instructors and Assistant Instruc-tors.11 Rather surprisingly, in view of its very specialised function, there was no specific provision for any flying officer (observers), not even an annotation to the effect that some of the staff really ought to have some practical experience of being an observer. That said, half of the forty-six officers featured in a group photograph taken much later in the year, by which time the unit had evidently been considerably expanded, were wearing a flying ‘O’.
Over the first few months of its existence the syllabus at Bath was gradually amended to emphasise basic military topics (drill, PT, deportment, organisation, messing arrangements and rations, law, pay, etc) at the expense of its more technical content. Much of the latter was progressively deferred to later stages of training when it could be dealt with in greater depth at appropriate specialist schools after a cadet had been selected for a particular role.
The first topic to be deleted was artillery co-operation in January, followed by bombing in April and eventually gunnery. A substantial aviation content still remained, however, Bath continuing to deal with subjects which were common to all roles, eg elementary airframe rigging, signalling, instruments, the principles of aero-engines (including the ability to start one by swinging the propeller) and navigation; in fact the emphasis on aerial navigation had been significantly increased.12 This process was not confined to observers, incidentally. The curriculum at the SoMAs/SoAs attended by cadet pilots underwent similar changes during the early part of 1918, instruction in role-related matters and tactical skills being progressively deferred to later stages of training, permitting more time to be devoted to basic subjects at the initial stage.
While the initial training of pilots remained substantially unchanged thereafter, a further rationalisation of that for observers took place in mid-1918. Precise details are obscure but it would appear that it had been decided to separate the induction training of pilots, observers and administrative and technical officers. The closing down of the Officers Technical Training Wings13 in July released sufficient instructional staff to permit the formation of No 7 (Observers) Cadet Wing at Hastings. On 8 August the nucleus of this unit moved to Reading. In the meantime, however, a revised syllabus had been introduced at Bath, this now incorporating much of the Cadet Wing curriculum. Thereafter (probably from July14) prospective observers bypassed the Cadet Wing phase and reported directly to No 7 (O)SoA which now offered twelve- (and later eight-) week courses.
Based on their performance at Bath, the Commandant (Lt-Col C P Rooke DSO, Middlesex Regt) determined whether his cadets would graduate as flight cadets, ie potential officers, or as NCOs (non-technical).15 He was also required to select them for a particular role, the most promising trainees being earmarked for corps, fleet or antisubmarine work. By the late summer of 1918 there were considered to be five roles for ‘proper’ observers: corps; fighter reconnaissance; day bomber; night bomber and maritime, ie for shipboard and anti-submarine duties. The first three of these could be undertaken by officers or NCOs, night bombers and floatplanes being the exclusive preserve of officers. In addition there were NCO W/T and engineer observers to satisfy the special requirements of flying boats and airships.
Two examples will give some idea of the length of training at this stage.16 A fighter reconnaissance observer was expected to spend twelve weeks at Bath, followed by three weeks of ground armament training at Eastchurch and four of practical work at Hythe/New Romney, three at the School of Photography, a fortnight at one of the Schools of Aerial Fighting and Gunnery and a week’s course at the Wireless Telephony School at Chattis Hill; a total of twenty-five weeks.
A corps observer did the same twelve weeks at Bath, plus another fortnight with No 1 SoA at Reading, two weeks of ground armament at Uxbridge plus three weeks practical at Hythe/New Romney and a fortnight at the Artillery and Infantry Co-operation School at Worthy Down; a total of twenty-one weeks. It is interesting to note, incidentally, that in mid-1918 Reading was still employing much the same, by now well-tried, techniques as had been used at Gosport in 1915 (see page 13). As described by Frank Shrive:17
‘… we had to climb trees where they had fixed seats and a sending key for Morse. On the ground below a miniature of the front line in France was mapped out, trenches, artillery positions, barbed wire, etc. A target was assigned to us, then a puff of smoke was ignited, this being a shell exploding near the target. We then had to send by Morse the ‘clock’ position of the burst from the target. This was repeated until we had registered a direct hit.
Since No 1 SoA was primarily concerned with pilots, it was decided to open another (O)SoA for the specific benefit of corps observers. To create this unit, the redundant No 7 (Observers) Cadet Wing at Reading was disbanded on 23 September to furnish the nucleus of the second (O)SoA, No 9, which moved to Cheltenham on 26 October, although it can have achieved very little before the Armistice.
In the meantime, the situation had been complicated by a revised forecast of the numbers of observers required which meant that output would need to be more than trebled. In July 1918 the RAF was putting 120 corps and 400 army observers per month through its two-stage Uxbridge/Eastchurch and Hythe/New Romney sequence, plus an undetermined number for maritime work at Eastchurch. The new requirement envisaged an output of no fewer than 1,500 observers per month, 500 corps, 600 army and 400 maritime, the latter figure being of particular interest in view of the Admiralty’s complaints over what it perceived to be the RAF’s lack of interest in naval air requirements (see pages 85-87). To handle this throughput it was decided: to exclude Uxbridge from the sequence; to provide expanded all-through air/ground facilities both at Eastchurch and at Hythe/New Romney and to establish a third such unit at Manston. It was estimated that a total of 328 aircraft would be needed to equip all of these units to the required scale.18
Although some progress was made with implementing these proposals, notably the establishment of No 2 Observers School at Manston, the system was a long way short of completing its expansion when the war ended. That said, however, it seems likely that the requirement for 1,500 observers per month, as projected in July 1918, might subsequently have been moderated as it does appear to have been unnecessarily over-ambitious. In August 1918 the War Cabinet requested a forecast of the reinforcements that would be required to sustain the RAF in France and Italy up to the end of December 1919. Because the currency of contemporary unit establishments expired on 31 January 1919, pending the approval of updated manning provisions, the Air Ministry was able to provide estimates covering only the five months to that date. The figures reflected a requirement for a total of 2,038 new observers,19 an average of only 408 per month. Even allowing for the needs of other theatres, home defence units and the maritime commitment, it is difficult to see why the RAF might still have needed as many as 1,500. That said, the RAF was only half-way to reaching its authorised strength of 200 squadrons and, had it ever done so, it could well have required 1,500 new observers per month.
Some idea of the actual size of the enterprise when the war ended is provided by a statistical return reflecting the position at the end of October 1918 when there were 2,109 cadets, 600 officers and twenty-one other ranks under training as observers (of these 1,672, 552 and eleven respectively, were with units stationed in the UK, the others being in Egypt and Canada).20 Bearing in mind that, depending upon his eventual role, an observer spent about five months under training (two at Bath and three at a variety of professional schools), the 2,109 would appear to have been sufficient to have sustained an output of the order of 420 per month.
While little increase in output may have been achieved before the Armistice,21 substantial headway had been made in other respects and by the late summer the two legacy training systems which the RAF had inherited from the RFC and the RNAS had been harmonised. Where possible, common ground between various specialisations had been identified and a dozen broad categories of non-pilot aircrew had been recognised; these are summarised at Figure 17. For each of these ‘trades’ a logical training sequence had been developed; Figure 18 represents the UK-based system circa October 1918, the ‘Types’ in the first column being the same as those in Figure 17.
It is stressed that the arrangements reflected in Figure 18 must be regarded as a snapshot and not a definitive picture, as the system was still evolving and subject to frequent changes.22 Training units moved from time to time and, apart from a seemingly unending process of redesignating existing schools, new ones were constantly being opened. The changes to the initial training of observers, which have already been discussed, provide one example of this trend, but there were many others. For instance: No 3 Fighting School moved from Bircham Newton to Sedgeford in November; as previously noted, No 2 Observers School had opened at Manston before the end of the war, as had No 4 School of Navigation and Bomb Dropping at Thetford; and an Observers School of Reconnaissance and Aerial Photography had been set up at Shrewsbury in October. Had the war continued these units, and others, would have been integrated into the training sequence but, in view of their formation dates, none of these latecomers can have made any significant contribution to wartime training.
It will be recalled that, despite the notional amount of flying time allocated to a trainee observer, as late as the spring of 1918 he could still be packed off to France having spent no more than six hours in the air (see Chapter 8, Note 4). By the late summer that should no longer have been the case. To take some examples from Figure 18, an observer destined for:23
a. corps work would (should) have logged 19 hours;
b. fighter reconnaissance duties, 20 hours (plus another 10 for those who went to Farnborough);
c. day bombers, 44 hours;
d. night bombers, 32 hours;
e. anti-submarine (aka ‘inshore’) patrol work, 25 hours; and
f. home defence work, about 40 hours.
While the late-war training sequence was extremely comprehensive, as Figure 18 indicates, it was also lengthy. As a result, very few of the observers who had been exposed to this quite sophisticated system completed all of their courses in time to see any action. Consider, as a random example, the case of Lt F L Barlow, a Canadian infantry officer. He transferred to the RAF on 25 July 1918, beginning his indoctrination training at No 1 SoA on 23 August. Earmarked for fighter reconnaissance duties, he began a two-week armament course at Eastchurch on 14 September, moving on to No 1 (O)SAG for live firing on the 28th. A month later he was transferred to No 1 Fighting School for a final tactical polish before being put at the disposal of the Air Ministry on 9 November. Posted to Italy, he reported to No 139 Sqn on the 18th – two weeks after the shooting had stopped.
1918. The effectiveness of Observer training during the final months of the war.
As previously noted (see Chapter 12, Note 4), the introduction of the new TDS-based pilot training system had caused an hiatus in the formation of new squadrons from July onwards. As Barlow’s experience shows, it had caused a similar hiatus in the provision of aircrew, pilots as well as observers. Replacements were available,, but many of these were products of the old RFC/RNAS schemes or of hybrid interim arrangements. As a result, the training of many of the observers being despatched to France still left much to be desired.
Fig 17. The recognised categories of observer in September 1918.
Fig 18. Training sequences in use for the various categories of observer (see Fig 17) circa October 1918
Prior to embarking on the sequences tabulated above, all direct entrant Types 1-10 had spent eight weeks as cadets at No 7 (Observers) School of Aeronautics at Bath, leaving there (or, in the special case of Type 1, after leaving Reading) as observer flight cadets or sergeants (non-technical). On completion of their training they graduated in the ranks of 2nd Lieutenant or Sergeant (Mechanic) and were awarded their observers badges. Trainees with previous service, remustering as observers, particularly Types 9, 10 and 12, attended their courses in their current ranks. W/T observers (Type 11) had previously completed a five-month course at No 1(T) Wireless School at Flowerdown, the syllabus content including wireless theory, spark and CW telegraphy, wireless telephony, directional wireless and signalling.
Notes:
1 No 1 [or possibly No 9 (Observers)] School of Aeronautics – map-reading, signalling, theory of artillery and infantry co-operation.
2 Armament School – the Lewis gun, ground firing, bombs, bomb gear. Some students destined for maritime operations may still have been attending equivalent courses run by the Ground Armament School at Eastchurch.
3 No 1 (Observers) School of Aerial Gunnery – the Lewis gun, air firing, reconnaissance, photography, map-reading.
4 RAF and Army Co-operation School – photography, map-reading, practical artillery and infantry co-operation.
5 School of Photography, Maps and Reconnaissance – photography, map-reading and reconnaissance.
6 Nos 1, 2 and 3 Fighting Schools, respectively – aerial fighting, guncamera work.
7 Wireless Telephony School – voice telephony.
8 Nos 1, 2 and 3 Fighting Schools, respectively – aerial fighting, gun-camera work, map-reading, photography.
9 Nos 1 and 2 Schools of Navigation and Bomb Dropping, respectively – bombs, bomb gear and sights; practical map-reading, navigation, bombing and photography.
10 No 1 Observers School – high rate visual and W/T signalling, wireless theory, navigation, seamanship, Fleet tactics, ship recognition, photography, the Lewis gun, bombs and bombing.
11 Marine Observers School – similar to Note 10, plus hydrophone techniques. NB Some Anti-submarine Observers did the sixteen/eighteen-week Fleet Observers course at Eastchurch instead.
12 Nos 192, 199 and 200 Night Training Squadrons, respectively – day/night cross-country flying and bombing, night reconnaissance, navigation, gunnery, W/T; minimum of 5 hrs night flying to qualify.
13 No 1 Balloon Training Depot – winches, rigging, knotting and splicing, fabric, valves, balloon and parachute packing, signalling, ship recognition; seven ascents to qualify as a free balloon pilot.
14 No 1 Balloon Training Base – transfer of balloons shore-to-ship and ship-to-ship, handling with and without a winch, use of snatch blocks, flying leads, etc, repairs, meteorology, gunnery direction, Fleet tactics.
15 No 2 Balloon Training Depot – technical content similar to Note 13 plus maps, photography, compasses, artillery observation, flash spotting, dummy shoots; seven ascents to qualify as a free balloon pilot.
16 Nos 1 and 2 Balloon Training Schools, respectively – map-reading, artillery co-operation, advanced practical observation work.
17 ‘No 3 Observers School’ (see Footnote 22 to this Chapter) – the Lewis gun, ground firing and aerial gunnery.
18 ‘No 3 Observers School’ – as above.
As late as September 1918, for instance, OC 215 Sqn, Maj J F Jones, was obliged to complain about the abilities of some of his observers. One of them, 2/Lt W J N Chalklin, had joined the RAF on 22 April 1918. He had spent a month with the Cadet Brigade at Hastings before moving to Reading where his instruction in navigation had comprised a single one-hour lecture. Following armament training at Eastchurch and Hythe/New Romney, he had been sent to No 33 Sqn for specific training in night work. The only instruction provided having any relevance to navigation had been a single lecture on the construction of the compass and several on compass swinging. Practical work had consisted of one 50-mile reconnaissance sortie by day and one of 100 miles by night. On neither flight had there been a compass in the observers cockpit and the staff pilot had simply map-read his way around the route.
Once committed to operations, it soon became apparent that Chalklin had no grasp of ‘even the elementary principles of reaching an objective by means of a compass course’ and no knowledge whatsoever of the Course and Distance calculator. Similar inadequacies were reported in the case of 2/Lt H Davies. Maj Jones made it quite clear that the deficiencies exhibited by these two officers were not of their own making and it was noted that both were making good progress with remedial training under arrangements being provided by HQ 83rd Wg.24
We have no specific observations on the abilities of Lt Barlow but, being an early product of what appears, at least on paper, to have been a very sophisticated training scheme, one would like to think that he had been provided with adequate instruction. Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that this may not have been the case, although it was certainly not for want of trying. The situation was summed up by Sqn Ldr K R (later Air Chf Mshl Sir Keith) Park, when writing, in 1922, of his wartime experiences.25
‘The best observers were undoubtedly those with experience at the front with the army. Few pilots had confidence in the very young observers, coming to France for the first time, until they had several months’ experience over the lines. Observers required training on joining (No 48 Sqn in the summer of 1918), and for some weeks after commencing war flying, in the following:
1. Aerial firing on ground target.
2. Map reading and reconnaissance.
2. Gunnery on range, and in armoury.
4. Recognition of EA and allied machines.
5. Photography.’
Although questions remain as to the effectiveness of the late-wartime training system, this photograph of the bombing range at Lakenheath provides some indication of the level of sophistication that was becoming increasingly common. (P G Cooksley)
Clearly, while a real effort was being made to improve training at home during 1918, this had not had much impact in France where Squadron Commanders were still having to cope with a substantial residual training task until the end of the war.
By the summer of 1918, field commanders were being asked for their specific advice on the nature and content of training and influential staff officers from the UK were paying visits to units in France to see the situation for themselves. The results of this liaison, along with other forms of feedback from the front line, were being used to update, adapt and refine the syllabus being taught at each of the various schools.
Nevertheless, despite all of this effort, something was still lacking, and in October 1918, for example, the Air Ministry felt it necessary to urge the COs of maritime units to provide continuation training because ‘the present pressure is such that the period of training is not sufficient to ensure that observers have complete knowledge of all subjects’.26
This was not an isolated instance and at much the same time Maj S M Cleverly, an armament specialist on the staff of HQ Independent Force, noted that, ‘Modern bomb sights enable extremely accurate bombing (attacks) to be made – though it is safe to say that insufficient interest is taken in this art – and far too little endeavour made to obtain practice in the same by something like 95% of pilots and observers.’27
Some idea of the scale of the training system by late 1918 is conveyed by this line up offorty-odd Bristol Fighters at No 1 (Observers) School of Aerial Gunnery at New Romney. (J M Bruce/G S Leslie collection)
While this complaint was expressed in terms of lack of practice, the real problem was the lack of time being devoted to live bombing in training. Another staff officer in the same HQ, Maj A Murray, lamented that, ‘Observers must realise the great importance of placing the fusing lever in the ‘armed’ position before release; many cases are on record where this action has been neglected in the excitement of a critical moment, with the result that the expedition has been a failure.’28 While such an oversight could be attributed to inadequate training, this problem could have been easily addressed by adherence to the kind of check list that a modern aviator would take for granted. It would seem, however, that what appears to us to be an obvious solution had yet to be devised.
The truncated training sequence and perhaps a degree of lack of application aside, an even more fundamental problem appears to have lain at the root of the system’s continuing failure to produce the desired results. It appears that there was a lack of appropriate instructors.
By 1918 the RFC/RAF bureaucracy was quite meticulous over the issue and subsequent amendment of unit establishments. These were based on a grid with (broadly speaking) trades down the left hand side and ranks across the top. By inserting a number in the appropriate boxes, it was possible to specify how many officers, NCOs and other ranks each unit was to have in each trade, running from major-generals to junior air mechanics. The interesting thing is that, until as late as the end of June 1918, no training unit ever appears to have been provided with any observers. Even a unit as dedicated to the production of back-seaters as No 1 (O)SAG at Hythe/New Romney failed to attract any, although it was entitled to no fewer than ninety-nine staff pilots!29 A similar total lack of observers was reflected in the establishments for such pivotal training units as Training Depot Stations, No 1 School of Navigation and Bomb Dropping, the Artillery and Infantry Co-operation School and so on.
If experienced observers were not being cycled back through the training organisation to pass on their knowledge, it would hardly be surprising if the output from the system turned out to be somewhat lacking. There is some evidence to suggest that this situation may have begun to change during the last months of the war.30 Even if it had, however, it would have been too late to have had any impact at squadron level, because a cadet who entered training after July 1918 was unlikely to have become operational before the Armistice. As it happened, the reorganised training scheme, which was poised to start turning out very large numbers of observers in the autumn, was a case of too much, too late and many of its graduates simply cooled their heels until they could be demobilised.
‘1919’. The Observers who might have been.
While the training system had been more or less rationalised by the summer of 1918, this was less true of the various types of observer which the RAF had inherited. The existing matrix of pigeon holes (see Figure 17 on page 124) had been created more by accident than by design and it was decided to revise the system with a view to creating a more logical subdivision of specialisations. Responsibility for this task fell to Maj-Gen Brancker, by now the Master General of Personnel. After some weeks of deliberation he came up with a suitable proposition and circulated the draft of a revised breakdown of trades to the RAF GOCs in France and Egypt and to Maj-Gen Trenchard, now commanding the autonomous Independent Force.31 Brancker’s ideas met with broad approval and after minor amendment it was intended to implement the system.
The new structure would have provided for seven recognised categories of aircrew (other than pilots and balloonists) which would have applied, irrespective of whether they flew in aeroplanes or airships. In essence, any aviators who were fully trained as such were to be regarded as graded aircrew, regardless of the nature of their subsequent employment. If they were not fully trained, they were to be regarded as ‘walking freight’, which, as discussed previously, caused some concern within the lighter-than-air community.
An Air Ministry Weekly Order explaining the new arrangements was drafted during October but it was still doing the rounds of the concerned staffs when the Armistice was signed. Within the Department of Air Personal Services the importance of refining wartime employment patterns was immediately eclipsed by the need to handle the problems associated with demobilisation, which had been receiving some attention since as early as June. Consequently, the ultimate wartime order concerning the categorisation and employment of observers was never published. Nevertheless, since it is of some historical interest to consider what these arrangements might have been, they are summarised at Figure 19.
Fig 19. Proposed aircrew categories, autumn 1918.
Among the new titles (some of which, had begun to acquire a limited degree of currency in advance of their official endorsement) could be discerned the navigators, wireless operators (air gunner), flight engineers, air bombers and the like of WW II, but Brancker did not go quite that far. Under his system all non-pilot aircrew would have been generically classified as ‘observers’ and all would have worn an observers badge, but there were to have been two major distinctions. First, only the first four categories would have worn the single-winged flying ‘O’; the other three would have had a simple ‘O’, without any embellishment. The second innovation related to ranks. While direct entrants for the first four categories would automatically have been commissioned on completion of their training, no specific status attached to the other three trades; promotion within these categories was to have been dependent upon seniority, merit and overall performance, both on the ground and in the air.
Another problem that needed to be addressed was that of estimating the numbers of each of the new trades that the system would be required to produce, these in turn dictating both the recruiting targets and the size of each specialised training unit. This calculation depended upon the eventual distribution of the various categories of observer, which would be determined by the role of each operational squadron and the composition of its crews. It was a complicated knot to unravel, as military aviation was maturing rapidly in late 1918 and the implications of the imminent introduction of very advanced aircraft types, such as V/1500s fitted with directional wireless equipment, could only really be guessed at.
Despite this uncertainty, some indication of the likely pattern is provided by Figure 20, which represents Brancker’s own thoughts at the end of September. Two points are of interest. First, while Brancker’s list had included the O/400 he had declined to suggest what its future crew complement might be. It is thought that this may have been in deference to Trenchard whom Brancker might well have expected to have had firm views on the manning of ‘his’ aeroplanes.32 Secondly, while the inclusion of maritime Vimys and DH 10s reflected contemporary planning, some doubts were already being expressed over the suitability of these types for this role.
Fig 20. Proposed rear crew allocations, late 1918.
There is one other interesting statistic relating to this end-of-the war period. As previously noted (see page 123), within the RAF’s global training machine, as at 31 October 1918, there were 2,109 cadets (whose eventual status/rank had yet to be decided) earmarked to become observers along with 600 officers, but only twenty-one other ranks, actually under training as such.33 This would suggest that the Service may have finally come to terms with the fact that most back-seaters really did need to be officer-quality material. If we project the balance of manpower under training in the autumn of 1918 onto the squadron-level RAF of mid-1919 it would seem that less than 4% of its observers were going to be NCOs.
Oddly enough, the pendulum had swung in quite the opposite direction where pilots were concerned. Whereas sergeants had never represented more than 3% of pilots in the past (see page 98), the numbers under training in October 1918 suggest that by the following summer they might have constituted as much as 20% of the total.34 It would seem, therefore, that the future pilot:back-seater/Officer:NCO ratios would be roughly the reverse of what they had been at the beginning of 1918. That said, the situation was still very fluid. If Brancker’s vision had actually been implemented it would clearly have had a significant impact on the rank structure among non-pilot aircrew and, if the recommendations of the (as yet unfinished) NCO pilot trial were also allowed to influence policy, it would seem likely that more, rather than fewer, pilots would be commissioned.
Fig 21. The distribution of observers serving in France (in units subordinated to HQ RAF) at an unspecified early date in November 1918, in effect, as the war ended.
All of this future planning (and this writer’s speculation) was rendered redundant by the Armistice. Within a matter of days the whole system began to grind to a halt: the deployment of Nos 39 and 119 Sqns was suspended while they were actually en route to France; the mobilisation of the next ten squadrons was permitted to proceed, although their deployment was held in abeyance; all formed squadrons whose mobilisation was less advanced were to be disbanded and plans for the formation of other units were cancelled.35
1919. Peace and the balance sheet.
With no further need for additional personnel, recruiting stopped and the training machine began to shut down. In numerical terms, the system had almost certainly been producing sufficient observers to match the targets set in mid- 1917 (see page 71). This was still a long way short of providing the 18,000 newly qualified men per year which had been projected for 1918, of course, but this was no longer an issue and within three weeks of the guns falling silent the flow had completely dried up. Having processed their last intakes, the Cadet Wings and Schools of Aeronautics began to close down in the New Year, the suspension of instructional pay from 15 February 1919 effectively marking the end of the wartime flying training programme.36
Unfortunately, it has not been possible to ascertain precisely what the training system had achieved in numerical terms. We do not even know for certain how many observers there had actually been, although it is possible to speculate with reasonable confidence. Although references to individual back-seaters are widely scattered throughout surviving WW I documentation, it has been possible to establish that (trained, part-trained or untrained) at one time or another something in excess of 8,500 officers flew as observers with the RFC/RNAS/RAF.
Records relating to non-commissioned personnel are far more difficult to reconstruct but several thousand of them will have flown as back-seaters. In terms of formally qualified observers, gunners, W/T operators and the like, the numbers will have been relatively small, perhaps 1,000 or so. These professionals were preceded and backed-up, however, by hundreds of virtually untrained air mechanics and naval ratings who flew as back-seaters and by the substantial numbers of soldiers who flew as probationary gunners with the RFC in 1917, albeit many of them only briefly.
Although the observer’s involvement in, and responsibility for, bomb aiming and navigation increased throughout 1918, aerial gunnery remained the primary function of many back-seaters until the Armistice. This picture shows a pair of observers of No 27 Sqn checking their weapons in the Squadron Armoury before a sortie. They are Lewis Mk IIs with Norman vane sights. (Chaz Bowyer)
While it is possible only to ‘guesstimate’ the overall total of wartime observers, we do know how some of them were distributed when it ended. Figure 21 is derived from a return raised by HQ RAF in the Field during the first week of November 1918, mere days before the Armistice came into effect.37 This indicates that there were a little over 1,000 observers on active service in France when the fighting stopped and that 87% of them were commissioned.38 The employment pattern established earlier in the year (see Fig 13 on page 95) had been sustained with NCOs generally being confined to day bomber, night bomber and fighter reconnaissance units, only a handful serving with corps reconnaissance squadrons. Note also that although the same return indicated that, in terms of pilots, five of the twenty corps squadrons were now manned to the intended twenty-four-aircraft establishment (see page 91), none had yet been provided with the necessary twenty-six observers.
Figure 21 does not, of course, reflect the whole picture as there were ten more multi-seat squadrons serving in France (with the Independent Force and with No 5 Gp on the Channel coast) which were not controlled by HQ RAF and these would have required another 200 or so observers. In addition there were the squadrons operating in more remote theatres which would have required at least 200 more.39 On top of that, there were the demands of the steadily proliferating ship- and shore-based maritime units at home and abroad. All of which suggests that there would have been well in excess of 1,500 observers in the front-line when the shooting stopped.
The RAF’s peak strength in observer officers is no easier to establish than the overall total but the largest numbers to be reflected in any Air Force List appeared in the January 1919 edition. Correct as at the 6th of that month, it identifies 4,478 observer officers, plus another 1,035 flying ‘O’-wearing kite balloon officers, for a grand total of 5,513 commissioned non-pilot aircrew. By comparison, the RAF had 15,817 officer pilots (ranked as lieutenant-colonels or below) on strength in January 1919, also the maximum figure to be recorded in any List. They comprised 14,375 aeroplane officers, 695 seaplane officers, 413 dual-rated aeroplane and seaplane officers, and 334 airship officers.40
As a matter of interest, it is informative to compare the situation of observers in January 1919 with that of August 1918, when there had been fifty-seven nominal captains and majors (see page 103). Since the number of qualified observers had risen by some 61% over the next five months, it followed that, simply to maintain the same proportions, one could reasonably expect the January total to have included at least ninety-two captains and majors. ‘At least’ because it would be equally reasonable to expect a rather larger number, since observers were supposed to have had the same (improved) promotion prospects as pilots since the previous June.
In fact, despite the substantial increase in overall numbers, there were fewer captains and majors. The RAF could now boast only two majors and forty-nine nominal captains among its back-seaters, thirty-two of the latter actually being graded as lieutenants. Predictably, with one exception, they were all ex-RNAS.41 Thus, while the ranks had been swelled by an additional 1,695 observers in the five months since August 1918, the proportion afforded any substantial degree of recognition had been virtually halved, from 2% down to 11%. This compared to the 13·4% of pilots who were ranked as captains or above. If that was ‘equal opportunities’ in action, it boded ill for the future.
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1 AIR1/2388/228/11/84. Taken from an account of his previous Service experience, written by Flt Lt P S Jackson-Taylor at the RAF Staff College in 1926. Before training as a pilot, Jackson-Taylor had spent August 1916 to March 1917 flying as an observer with No 18 Sqn.
2 AIR2/84 B.5386. A summary of the conference’s conclusions was circulated under cover of Air Ministry letter 11224/1918/DAE dated 11 July 1918.
3 Ibid. Salmond’s stipulation was contained in his letter AF1821/QB2 dated 31 July 1918.
4 AIR1/920/204/5/885. War Office letter 87/358(OG) dated 13 August 1917. Trials had indicated that it was difficult to interpret combinations of ‘dits’ and ‘dahs’, as in some Morse letters, hence the system’s reliance on Es and Ts, in effect, ‘longs’ and ‘shorts’. It is not known to what extent this procedure was actually used, but it is suspected that it was not widespread.
5 For a first-hand description of the problems involved in bomb-aiming from Handley-Pages, see P Bewsher, op cit, pp 253-254.
6 AIR1/1987/204/273/124. Taken from a report raised by Brig-Gen F V Holt, GOC No 7 (Training) Group, following a visit to bomber squadrons in France carried out between 26 and 31 August 1918.
7 Ibid. Taken from a report raised following a visit to bomber squadrons in France conducted by Lt-Col J T Babington and Capt G E Godsave between 16 and 28 September 1918.
8 The CO of this school, Lt W Moulding, took up his post with effect from 16 October.
9 Ironically, in view of the way in which the wartime pattern of armament training had evolved, it was the school at Uxbridge which closed down after the war, leaving Eastchurch to become the RAF’s peacetime ‘centre of excellence’ for air weapons training, a function which it discharged until 1938.
10 AIR1/160/15/123/8. Report dated 9 November 1917 submitted by the President of the RFC Examining Board, Maj T E Gilmore, on a visit to Greenwich carried out on 29 October.
11 AIR/1/395/15/231/39. Establishment Schools/314 dated 14 January 1918.
12 AIR1/396/15/231/37. DAO letter 87/Inst/378(O.2) dated 27 November 1917 directed that increased emphasis was to be given to navigation at the SoMAs and that selected officers from their instructional staffs were to be attached to the Royal Naval College at Greenwich to attend an appropriate specialist course in aerial navigation. A copy of the March 1918 SoMA syllabus covering navigation and meteorology is on file in AIR1/160/15/123/10.
13 The Officers Technical Training Corps (later restyled No 1 Officers Technical Training Wing) had been set up at Hursley Park, Winchester, in mid-1917. Its function was to permit the RFC to engage promising young men, who had been members of the Officers Training Corps (OTC) while at school, some three months before they actually became eligible for military service at the age of eighteen. The scheme was considered to be a success and in the autumn No 2 OTTW was formed, both units being located at Hastings/St Leonards as part of the Cadet Brigade. By mid-1918 the need for the OTTWs had passed and they had effectively become a Brigade Pool, holding cadets, many of them by now from the Dominions, pending their entry into formal training with one of the Cadet Wings. In July the OTTWs were closed down, their redundant staffs being used to form three additional Cadet Wings, Nos 6, 7(O) and 8.
14 One contemporary reference states that the ‘first’ course at No 7 (O)SoA began on 8 July 1918. It is known, however, that training had actually been under way at Bath since the unit had first opened in January. It is possible that the significance of the July course may have been that it was the first to be run against a combined syllabus, incorporating the curriculum previously handled by a Cadet Wing.
15 In the RFC/RAF patois of the day Cadets were known as ‘Fledglings’ and Flight Cadets as ‘Roosters’.
16 Both examples are taken from a May 1918 edition of FS Form 224, the Training Transfer Card for Observers.
17 F J Shrive, The Diary of a PBO (1981), p32.
18 AIR6/17. Details of the current and proposed situations regarding the training of observers were contained in the minutes of a Training Expansion Committee meeting held on 12 July 1918. These were subsequently submitted to the Air Council in support of a request for authority to cease work on the underground hangars then under construction at Manston and to reallocate the airfield for use as an observers training school.
19 AIR1/2296/209/77/16. Figures annexed to Air Ministry letter 5071/1918(FO1) dated 6 September 1918. The overall requirement of 2,038 was presented by role (and further broken down by month) and reflected the following totals: 455 for Corps work; 190 for fighter reconnaissance; 1,020 for day bombers; 160 for night bombers (FEs) and 213 for Handley Pages.
20 AIR1/2423/305/18/36. Statistical return reflecting the position as at 31 October 1918, amplifying figures annexed to Air Ministry letter B/6660/A.1.1.A dated 2 December 1918 (filed in AIR1/2296/209/77/16).
21 No precise figures regarding the output from training during WW I appear to have been compiled but the Air Force List for March 1919 provides some indication. This can only be approximate, however, as this List does not reflect observers who had died, had left the Service or had been transferred to another branch; moreover it deals only with officers, there being no equivalent list for NCOs. Nevertheless, despite these reservations, it is interesting to note that at least 550 observers were commissioned during August 1918, 450 in September and 420 in October. While these figures may well be imprecise, they serve to indicate that the RAF was still a long way short of achieving the 1,500 per month target that had been set in July.
22 AIR10/64. The information used to create Figures 17 and 18 was derived from FS 39, Training Courses in the RAF for Commissioned and Non-commissioned Personnel, showing Status and Pay, which appeared in October 1918, and an earlier draft of the same document. FS 39 opens with a number of caveats, including notes to the effect that individuals would not all necessarily follow the standard pattern, that alterations to the specified courses could be expected and that the missing arrangements for airship pilots and technical officers would be included in a subsequent edition. Publication of the consolidated edition appears to have been pre-empted by the Armistice although details of the revised syllabus for airship pilots were announced in AMWO 1241 of 17 October and for administrative officers and technical officers specialising in stores, W/T, armament, photography and general engineering (aero-engines, rigging and MT) in AMWO 1387 of 7 November. It is symptomatic of the instability within the system that the first of these regulations was already out of date, as it stated that an airship pilot’s career was to start with an eight-week course as a cadet at Hastings; in fact the Cadet Brigade had already moved to Shorncliffe by this time – see AMWO 1209 of 10 October.
One other point is worthy of comment. According to FS 39, W/T and engineer observers were expected to receive their gunnery training at ‘No 3 Observers School’. To date this writer has failed to find any other references to this unit. The titles applied to the training units inherited from the RNAS, and to some of those subsequently set up by the RAF to support maritime activities, were often rather vague and there was a confusing tendency toward duplication. Towards the end of the war several of these schools were redesignated, in an apparent attempt to establish a logical pattern of individually numbered units. It is conjectured that No 3 Observers School may have been the designation earmarked for the aerial gunnery training facilities at Leysdown which provided practical experience for students attending courses at Eastchurch.
23 AIR1/2423/305/18/36. Memo dated 13 September 1918 providing the ‘average flying time of an observer before he proceeds overseas’ broken down by role.
24 AIR1/1982/204/273/88. Letter 215/1555 dated 4 September 1918 from OC No 215 Sqn to HQ 83rd Wg whose CO, Lt-Col J H A Landon, forwarded it to HQ VIII Bde with a covering note stressing the paramount need to ensure that all observers were properly trained.
25 From ‘Experiences in the War, 1914-1918 – An Essay’, a paper held in the Library of the Joint Service Command and Staff College at Shrivenham, and reproduced in the Air Power Review, Special Edition, Spring 2013.
26 AMWO 1289 of 24 October 1918.
27 AIR1/1988/204/273/125. From a contribution to a draft document, to be known as ‘Hints to Pilots and Observers on Joining the Independent Force’ which was being compiled in early October 1918.
28 Ibid.
29 AIR/1/403/15/231/44. Establishment AF/H/30 as at May 1918.
30 It is known, for instance, that on 15 September 1918 six observers (Lts G R Thornley and A O Fraser, and 2/Lts A McInnes, A F Pope, A Outhwaite and J A Blythe), all of them experienced in night operations, had been posted from France to Andover. They were earmarked to join No 166 Sqn but, pending the availability of V/1500s, they were attached to No 2 School of Navigation and Bomb Dropping for instructional duties. That said, while such an ad hoc arrangement was clearly intended to make the best use of the available manpower, it fell a long way short of providing a formal establishment of instructor posts.
31 AIR2/91/C.49935. Air Ministry letter 21322/1918 MGP dated 26 September 1918.
32 Ibid. In commenting on Brancker’s proposals in his RAF 1701A of 23 October 1918, Trenchard expressed an initial preference for his Handley Pages to be manned on a 50:50 basis with aerial gunners and aerial bombers. Somewhat surprisingly, he appears to have seen no need to employ specialist navigators.
33 AIR1/2423/305/18/36. Statistical return reflecting the position as at 31 October 1918.
34 Ibid. The corresponding figures for potential pilots under training were 18,000 cadets (of indeterminate status) plus 7,681 pilots under instruction as officers and 1,853 as Other Ranks.
35 AIR1/913/204/5/856. These curtailments were announced by Air Organisation Memoranda 1155 and 1156 dated 15 and 16 November 1918, respectively.
36 AMWO 306 of 6 March 1919.
37 AIR1/1163/204/5/2532. Although undated, the units listed and their assignments to wings and brigades fixes the date of this document as being no earlier than 1 November and no later than the 9th.
38 The 1,046 observers on the multi-seat units were more or less matched by 1,060 pilots but there were another 819 of the latter flying single-seaters and their numbers were gradually increasing because the fighter squadrons in France were being progressively enlarged from eighteen aircraft and twenty-one pilots to twenty-five aircraft and twenty-seven pilots. The intention to expand the fighter squadrons, first to nineteen aircraft, and then to twenty-five, had been noted in GHQ letter OB/1826/E of 3 March 1918, signed by Maj Gen G P Dawnay on behalf of GOCinC, requesting that War Office make appropriate amendments to the published establishments (AIR1/17/15/1/87). No 74 Sqn was the first unit to deploy to France with ‘one extra machine for use by the Squadron Commander’ (AIR1/400/15/231/41). By the time of the Armistice ten of the thirty-six single-seater units involved were manned against the new twenty-five aircraft scale.
39 The units in France were Nos 55, 97, 99, 100, 104, 110, 115, 215 and 216 Sqns with the Independent Force and No 202 Sqn which operated under naval control. Further afield there were: Nos 34 and 139 Sqns in northern Italy; Nos 14, 113 and 142 Sqns with the Palestine Brigade; Nos 17, 47 and 144 Sqns in Macedonia; Nos 30 and 63 Sqns in Mesopotamia and Nos 31 and 114 Sqns in India. To these could be added the ex-RNAS units in the Aegean and southern Italy, including Nos 220, 221, 222, 223, 224 and 226 Sqns, all of which tended to be rather less formally organised than those that had originated with the RFC but which would still have required observers to fill up their two-seaters.
40 The names of an additional 1,418 aeroplane and seaplane officers were recorded under a note to the effect that they would be incorporated into the List in a later edition. The reasons behind this are obscure. Subsequent Lists indicate that few (if any) of these men ever were relisted and demobilisation meant that, along with all of the other totals, their numbers began to decline from the February edition onwards. By November 1919, the last List to record pilots under sub-Branches, only 388 remained in this half-acknowledged category.
41 There were several other acting and honorary captains (honorary rank carrying neither the associated level of command nor rate of pay) scattered among the listed lieutenants but the only ex-soldier listed as a substantive captain was Capt A D Wright (ex-RFA and RFC) who had seen service as a kite balloon officer prior to his becoming an observer officer.