Royal Naval Air Service
On 21 July 1908 Captain Reginald Bacon, who was a member of the Aerial Navigation Sub-Committee, submitted to the First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher that a rigid airship based on the German Zeppelin be designed and constructed by the firm of Vickers.
[2] Though Bacon had been intended as the Superintendent of Construction, his departure from the Royal Navy in November 1909 saw the role fall to his protegee at the Naval Ordnance Department, Captain Murray Sueter.
After completing training, which Colmore paid for out of his own pocket, he was issued with Royal Aero Club Certificate Number 15.
The Admiralty accepted and on 6 December the Commander-in-Chief, The Nore promulgated the scheme to the officers under his jurisdiction and requested that applicants be unmarried and able to pay the membership fees of the Royal Aero Club.
[11] Sueter's remit as outlined in September 1912 stated that he was responsible to the Admiralty for "all matters connected with the Naval Air Service.
The same year provision was made in the naval estimates for eight airfields to be constructed,[13] and for the first time aircraft participated in manoeuvres with the Royal Navy, using the converted cruiser Hermes as a seaplane carrier.
[21][22] The Navy maintained twelve airship stations around the coast of Britain from Longside, Aberdeenshire, in the northeast to Anglesey in the west.
[23] In addition to seaplanes, carrier-borne aircraft, and other aircraft with a legitimate "naval" application the RNAS also maintained several crack fighter squadrons on the Western Front, as well as allocating scarce resources to an independent strategic bombing force at a time when such operations were highly speculative.
At the time of the merger, the Navy's air service had 55,066 officers and men, 2,949 aircraft,[26] 103 airships and 126 coastal stations.
The RNAS systematically searched 4,000 square miles (10,000 km2) of the Channel, the North Sea and the vicinity of the Strait of Gibraltar for U-boats.
Beginning with experiments on the old cruiser HMS Hermes, special seaplane tenders were developed to support these aircraft.
It was from these ships that a raid on Zeppelin bases at Cuxhaven, Nordholz Airbase and Wilhelmshaven was launched on Christmas Day of 1914.
The first informal use of armoured cars by the RNAS was when Commander Charles Samson, on withdrawing The Eastchurch Squadron from Antwerp to Dunkirk, used the squadron's unarmoured touring cars to provide line of communications security and to pick up aircrew who had been forced to land in hostile territory.
Commander Samson then had a shipbuilder in Dunkirk, Forges et Chantiers de France, add boilerplate to his Rolls-Royce and Mercedes vehicles.
[36] By November 1914 the Force had become the Royal Naval Armoured Car Division (RNACD) with a planned expansion to 23 squadrons.
As trench warfare developed, the armoured cars could no longer operate on the Western Front and were redeployed to other theatres including the Middle East, Romania and Russia.
Scotland Wales France Eastern Mediterranean Elsewhere Before the poutbreak of War, the navy was charged with the home defence of Britain, which must inevitably mean the prevention of an invasion by sea or air, whilst the army was responsible for offensive action overseas.
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was formally created on 1 July 1914 with HQ at Eastchurch.
On 26 August 1914 a section of the RNAS, under Wing Commander Samson, was ordered to move to Ostend, Belgium, to support the Belgian Army in defending the Channel ports.
In January 1916 No.3 Wing was withdrawn from the Middle East and disbanded, but it was reformed soon after as a specialist bomber force and sent to Belfort on the Western Front charged with disrupting German industrial production sites.
The insignia consisted of standard Royal Navy cuff stripes corresponding to their normal ranks, surmounted by an eagle (for pilots) or a winged letter "O" (for observers).
