Royal Naval Air Service Pilot 1914–18 (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

The Royal Navy's association with airborne warfare began in 1911, when Frank Maclean taught three Royal Navy and one Royal Marine Light Infantry officers to fly at Eastchurch in Kent. In May 1912 the Royal Flying Corps was established, consisting of a Military and a Naval Wing, plus a reserve. However, the Admiralty wished to retain complete control over its air capabilities, and so on 1 July 1914 the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps was subsumed into the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The onus of defending Britain from aerial attack fell upon the Admiralty. With the bulk of the Royal Flying Corps engaged in France, the aircraft and seaplane pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service stepped into the breach to counter the deadly and terrifying Zeppelin menace, which first materialized on 19 January 1915. The first success was achieved by Flight Sub-Lieutenant Reginald Warneford, RNAS on 7 June 1915, when he downed the lone Zeppelin LZ37 at Gontrode, south-west of Ghent. Royal Naval Air Service pilots also conducted reconnaissance missions looking for enemy submarines. The Royal Naval Air Service sent aircraft to support the operations in the Dardanelles in 1915, to conduct reconnaissance of potential landing sites, spotting missions for naval gunfire, and opportunistic bombings of Turkish positions. From early 1915, the aircraft of the Royal Naval Air Service also gave increasing support to the Royal Flying Corps units engaged on the Western Front, conducting reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and artillery spotting, bombing raids, and plane versus plane engagements against German pilots. By the war's end, the number of aircraft in RNAS service had multiplied massively from barely 100 in 1914 to almost 3,000. Calls for a unified air service had been growing for some time, and the Royal Air Force was formed on 1 April 1918, with the squadrons of the Royal Naval Air Service subsumed into the new organization. It would not be until 1937, with the creation of the Fleet Air Arm, that the Royal Navy would regain its own air service.