BRITISH AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, 1914-24
A year ago some officers of the British Royal Flying Corps were discussing the history of naval aviation with certain members of the English aircraft industry. One civilian gentleman expressed his regret that, throughout all the proceedings, no mention had been made of the pioneer work done by the American Ely. Whereupon a distinguished officer of the R.F.C.—an expert on deck flying—retorted that Ely must have been before his time, because he had never heard of him! Such is fame!
Hampton Roads: (1862 and 1910.)—In the history of naval armaments, two memorable events have taken place upon and over the waters of Hampton Roads. One was the first duel ever fought between ironclad warships; the other was the first flight made by an airplane from a ship. One wonders which of these two events will be ranked the higher by posterity!
The feat of the flying machine is well within living memory, and the fight of the primitive ironclads is almost outside it. Yet it is far easier to find full accounts of the battle of Hampton Roads, seventy years ago, than to ascertain the exact circumstances of the aircraft exploit, which took place only twenty-one years back. The reason is that the engagement between “the cheese box on a shingle” and “the roof of a barn” has become history, and has gone into all the standard textbooks; whereas Ely’s flight from off the bows of the Birmingham is only “near history,” and as such remains buried in the files of old newspapers and magazines. In writing his article “Covered Wagons of the Sea,” (published in the November, 1931, issue of Proceedings), Lieutenant (J. G.) H. B. Miller U.S. Navy, has therefore done us a real service by collecting and publishing a full account of the circumstances under which the late Eugene Ely made his historic departure and landing upon United States war vessels.
An apology by the author.—So interesting was “Covered Wagons of the Sea” that, when reading it, the present writer made reference to the notes and documents which he has collected during twenty years study of naval affairs. And upon doing so he found that there were sundry errors and misstatements in Lieutenant Miller’s references to British aircraft carriers. Such errors appear to have arisen from the want of authentic materials, or from the misreading of those available. What is written hereafter must, in no way, be regarded as an attempt to refute what Lieutenant Miller has written. It is rather an attempt to give a fuller and more coherent narrative, describing the genesis and growth of the British aircraft carriers. In such a subject American naval officers may be interested, for it will be generally agreed that the pedigree of the Lexington and Langley can be traced back to the Argus and Eagle of the Royal Navy.
It may be urged hereafter that, in the following pages, there are far too many quotations. In extenuation, let it be remembered that the writer is an Englishman, and in England dire results may follow an infraction of a draconic law, known as the Official Secrets Act. Amongst those matters which the British Admiralty regards as strictly confidential are the design of aircraft carriers, their equipment, and methods of operation. The author is obliged to confine himself to information that has already been published for public information; and he must cite the authorities on which he has drawn for his materials. It is therefore by a process of selection and synthesis that the following history of British seaplane and aircraft carriers has been built up.
The Sheerness Trials (1912).—Of the flying-off experiments, made in British battleships at Sheerness early in 1912, Lieutenant Miller gave a brief account in his article. But he omitted one important date in the history of naval aviation—the occasion when a seaplane first went away into flight from a British warship. The feat was performed by Commander C. R. Samson, R.N., when he flew a Short biplane off the bows of the moored battleship Africa.
Lieutenant Miller goes on to say:
... on May 8, 1912, Samson and Lieutenant Malone made two flights from H.M.S. Hibernia whilst she was under way at 12-knots speed. A Farman plane fitted with pontoons mounting small runner wheels was used on this occasion.
Three views of the “Hibernia Trials” can be found on page 43e of the historical section contained in Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, 1918. One of these views shows the battleship under way, and Samson’s machine, well in flight, rising above the end of the elevated launching ways. In the accompanying text, it is distinctly stated that a British Short seaplane was used, and not a French Farman machine, as Lieutenant Miller states. (The date of this pioneer flight is also given as May 4, and not May 8.) It is a little-known fact, but one which can be attested by photographic evidence, that the trials, initiated in the Africa and Hibernia, were afterwards continued in another British battleship, H.M.S. London.1
1Captain E. E Grafton R.N. commanded H.M.S. Hibernia during the period of the flying-off experiments. On May 14,1912, this battleship became the flagship of the late Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, R.N. Captain Grafton (and the experiments with aircraft) were accordingly transferred to the London.
A plate illustration was published on page 1458 of the Proceedings, November, 1931, with the attached description: “An Early Seaplane Launching Platform on a British Battleship.” The ship there depicted is either the Africa or Hibernia—probably the latter vessel. On referring to that illustration, it will be seen that there is no “platform,” properly speaking, but only a couple of guiding rails (or troughs), raised and supported on a kind of trestle bridge. Much confusion of thought could be avoided were it borne in mind that, in the British Navy, flying-off has passed through three stages of development: (1) the use of trucks or trolleys running down the slant of a twin-rail, “elevated-railway” type of launching ways; (2) elevated planked platforms, likewise with a descending gradient to the bows of the ship; (3) genuine deck flying, as represented by a take-off from a deck which is an integral part of the carrier ship.
H.M.S. “Hermes” (1913-14).—Here commences the history of the British seaplane and aircraft carriers. The Hermes had so brief a career, it is very difficult to recover information now describing her services in connection with naval aviation. She was an old cruiser, commissioned on May 7, 1913, for duty with the naval wing of the Royal Flying Corps. She continued in that capacity until December 30, 1913, when she was paid off and placed out of commission.2
2Lieutenant Miller says, in his article: “The British continued their experiments, and in 1913 many flights were made from the cruiser Hermes. A Caudron seaplane with an 80-horsepower engine was used for these tests. The floats of the craft were mounted on small wheeled trucks which rolled down narrow troughs fitted on the forecastle of the cruiser.” This is rather puzzling. Ely had a 57-foot run in his take-off from the Birmingham, and Samson had about 80-foot run down the launching ways of the Africa and Hibernia. But the forecastle of the Hermes was so short, it would only have allowed a run of about 30 feet. Remembering how primitive seaplanes were at that time, it is doubtful if a machine could have been brought up to flying speed in so short a length of travel. The Hermes was an old cruiser of depreciated speed, and therefore could not work up much of a wind speed over her deck. So far as can be traced, she carried no special aircraft fittings in 1913. If the tests with the Caudron seaplane, alluded to by Lieutenant Miller, were made, it is far more likely that they were made in the battleship London.
The old cruiser reappeared a little while before the World War in the guise of a seaplane carrier. Photographs of her in that guise are very rare indeed—so rare that, up to the present, only two have been traced. One is an indifferent view in the Imperial War Museum, London, which shows her with canvas hangars rigged over her forecastle and quarter-deck for housing her planes. The other picture is a mournful memento. It was taken on October 31, 1914, shortly after the Hermes had received her death wound by torpedo from U27. She is there seen settling down by the stern. Her quarter-deck is awash, and is littered by the ruin of the collapsed hangar and the wrecks of seaplanes.3 Brief was the life of the first British seaplane carrier.
H.M.S. Ark Royal (1914).—By curtly dismissing this ship in the space of a few lines, Lieutenant Miller hardly does justice to a notable vessel, upon which was conferred a name famous in British naval history.4 The Ark Royal may perhaps be considered as the first true aircraft carrier, endowed with all the special equipment that such a vessel should possess. Lieutenant Miller merely remarks:
. . . the English in 1914 purchased the freighter Ark Royal and fitted her out with ten seaplanes. The attempt to fly planes off a deck was definitely given up for the time being.
From which it might be inferred that no attempt was made to fly planes from the Ark Royal.
3The photograph was taken close up on the port quarter. The charthouse, port bridge wing, etc., block out all view of the forecastle. It is, therefore, impossible to discern, in this view, what kind of equipment the Hermes had forward, for stowing and launching her seaplanes when she was lost.
4The Ark Royal was built at Deptford in 1587 as the Ark Raleigh, to the order of Sir Walter Raleigh, but was taken over for the Navy in part payment of Raleigh’s debts to the Crown. Under the name of the Ark Royal she became the flagship of Charles, second Lord Howard of Effingham (later the Earl of Nottingham) who for thirty-three years was the Lord High Admiral of England. She was his flagship during all the fighting with (and chase of) the Spanish Armada in July, 1588.
What are the facts? Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt, K.C.B., was the director of naval construction, before and during the war. The position he held corresponded to that of the chief of bureau of Construction and Repair, Navy Department. He was the Admiralty official responsible for the Ark Royal design. No higher authority than he can be cited, and this is his version of the vessel in question:
Prior to the war, an 11-knot merchant vessel, the Ark Royal, was taken up, redesigned and fitted out as a seaplane carrier. She was provided with a hangar, workshop, and means of hoisting her seaplanes in and out and handling them generally, and she was provided with a flush, horizontal forecastle deck, about 160 feet long, from which seaplanes could fly off by means of wheels which dropped into the sea when the seaplane cleared the ship. That vessel was quickly completed after the war began, and hurried to the Mediterranean, where she remained and rendered excellent service.5
Lord Howard of Effingham so admired the qualities of his flagship that he wrote to Burghley on February 29,1588:
. . . And I pray you tell her Majesty that her money was well given for the Ark Royal for I think her the odd ship in the world for all conditions . . .
5Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, London, 1923, page 11.
The Ark Royal of George V’s reign was at the time of her completion like her predecessor in the days of Queen Elizabeth, “the odd ship in the world for all conditions”—the one ship in the world fully fitted out to serve the new conditions of aëro-naval warfare. To the honor of “the Ark,” let these three things be remembered. First, she was the original aircraft-carrying vessel with a “built-in” hangar wherein aircraft could be stowed below the level of the upper deck or flight deck. Second, she was the first vessel from whose deck aircraft could take off. And lastly, amongst all British seaplane and aircraft carriers of the war period, she was about the only one that never went through elaborate alterations. From the start she served her purpose well, and kept on serving it right down to the Armistice. In 1931, she was still doing useful work in the testing of aircraft catapults.6
The war period.—It is now that we enter the war period, that phase wherein the design of British aircraft and their vehicular vessels underwent intensive development. So fast, so frequent were the changes in design and policy, it is difficult to trace out now the true sequence of events. Remembered must it be that, between 1914 and 1918, British naval aviation was under three forms of control. It commenced as the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps; it was converted into the Royal Naval Air Service, and it ended as a branch of the Royal Air Force. These transfers from one form of administration to another have resulted in historic records becoming lost or nonaccessible.
Amidst doubts and difficulties, it is with relief that one turns to an authority in whom reliance can be placed. On January 22, 1931, at a meeting of the Royal Aëronautical Society in London, a lecture was delivered by Squadron Leader W. R. D. Acland, D.F.C., A.F.C., on the subject of deck flying. It was a notable event, for two reasons. It was the first time a lecture had been given in public on that subject with the permission of the Admiralty and the Air Ministry. For another thing, Squadron Leader Acland is a distinguished officer of the R.A.F., who has initiated and carried on a great deal of experimental work in connection with deck flying. On this matter, then, he is qualified by knowledge and first-hand experience to speak with authority and his remarks merit attention. It is only natural that there should be frequent references to his lecture hereafter, seeing that he is the only British authority on deck flying whose remarks are permissible for quotation.
6 The aircraft carriers Albatross (built 1926-28 for the Royal Australian Navy) and the Sacadura Cabral (ordered in 1931 for the Portuguese Navy) are simply improved versions of the Ark Royal design of 1914.
The “packet” carriers (1914-17).—When war broke out in Europe, the British merchant marine included a number of small, fast steamers (or “packets”), which were used in carrying passengers, baggage, and mails from England to the Continent and between Liverpool and the Isle of Man. In August, 1914, the Admiralty acquired the use of three such vessels, employed on the cross-channel service, namely the Riviera, Empress, and Engadine. All three were converted into seaplane carriers.7 Another small and fast steamer, the Ben-my-Chree, (built in 1908 for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company), was similarly treated, and about March, 1915, she was sent out to the Mediterranean.8 She was followed into the seaplane-carrying service by the Vindex—a famous vessel of which more will be said later. No further improvised carriers were added until 1917, when the Manxman, Pegasus, and Nairana came into service.9 These last three vessels were very fully fitted out, with substantial and roomy hangars, flying-off platforms, and powerful long-arm cranes.
7The Engadine and Riviera were commissioned on August 13, 1914, and the Empress on August 25. The Ark Royal was not completed until December, 1914. The Empress, Riviera, and Engadine were only chartered by the Admiralty for the duration of the war; the other “packet-type” seaplane carriers were purchased outright for the Royal Navy, some of them after being under charter.
8The Ark Royal had preceded her thither, and the Empress followed later. The Ben-my-Chree was sunk by the fire of Turkish shore batteries in Kastelorizo Harbor, Asia Minor, January 11, 1917. During the Dardanelles Campaign the British made use of two other seaplane carriers, the Anne and Raven II. They were respectively the captured German steamers Anne Rickmers and Rabenfels, and each only had an extemporized canvas hangar.
9The SS. City of Oxford was purchased in 1916 and figured on the list of aircraft carriers at the end of the war, but she is said to have been only a kite baloon ship, like the Canning, Hector, Manica, and Menelaus. The biggest of all the British seaplane-carriers would have been the P. & O. liner Naldera of 15,993 tons gross, but the work of converting her was stopped.
Speaking of the earlier, extemporized seaplane carriers, Squadron Leader Acland says:
To accommodate the planes working with the fleet, various merchant ships were at first fitted with more or less improvised arrangements, and at intervals they were returned to be improved, until finally each of these vessels was fitted with a substantial hangar, workshops, etc.10
During the earlier half of the World War, nearly all the aero-naval raids on the German naval bases and airship stations were carried out by seaplanes embarked in the Riviera and Vindex, as the following short statement shows:
The results of these operations were very disappointing indeed. It may be objected that most of the attacks were made during the winter months, so that fog, frost, and snowstorms so hampered the pilots that no outstanding success could be gained. But the real cause of failure was—as Lord Jellicoe has pointed out in his book, The Grand Fleet, 1914-16—“the difficulty experienced in getting seaplanes to rise from the water except in the finest weather.” If a proof be needed, one can cite the fiasco of the Tondern raid by the Vindex and Riviera. It was planned as a raid by nine seaplanes. The carrier ships arrived off the German coast, and put their seaplanes in the water, but all, except two, had to be hoisted back again with damaged propellers. Of the two machines that took off from the surface, one fouled the mast of a destroyer and crashed. The raid, planned for execution by nine seaplanes, was actually carried out by a solitary machine!
10The words “with the fleet” are not to be interpreted as meaning “with the Grand Fleet.” As noted above, the Empress went to the Mediterranean. The Vindex and Riviera operated from Harwich and Dover. Only the Engadine went up to join the battle cruiser fleet at Rosyth and so came to take part in the Battle of Jutland.
As for the seaplane carriers themselves, they were small in size, capacity, and endurance. Ships like the Empress, Engadine, and Riviera displaced about 2,550 tons, and were therefore only a little bigger than modern flotilla leaders and destroyers. They could only embark three or four seaplanes apiece. Built originally for short voyages between the English and French Channel ports (or the Isle of Man and the Mersey, etc.), they only carried a few hundred tons of coal. Their want of size and steaming endurance made them quite unfit to work from Scapa Flow with the battleship squadrons in the stormy North Sea. If the Grand Fleet was to be equipped with an air arm, something much bigger and better than these little “packet carriers” would have to be used.
H.M.S. Campania (1915).—And so the Cunard liner Campania, acquired by the Admiralty in 1914, underwent conversion and was ready by April, 1915. She was sent up to join the Grand Fleet, so that practical investigation could be made of the problems of aërial operations, with and for the battle squadrons. The old Atlantic flyer, at this stage, appears to have been nothing more than a seaplane carrier, and she retained her two original funnels placed upon her center line. Over the forecastle extended a long, raised structure, so flat and level that it had little or no slant down to the bows. In “Covered Wagons of the Sea,” Lieutenant Miller says that, in April, 1915, a Sopwith 1914 Schneider Trophy type of seaplane was sent away into flight from the Campania:
As before, the pontoons were mounted on a small truck fitted with wheels. When the craft took the air after a short run, the truck rolled on and fell into the sea.
From which it would seem that, up to this time, no advance had been made on the launching methods used in the Sheerness trials of 1912. Clumsy as the old Cunarder may have been at this stage of her career, she did add something to naval history. On June 11, 1915, the Grand Fleet proceeded to sea, to carry out gunnery and battle exercises in northern waters. Lord Jellicoe says:
On this occasion, the seaplanes working from the Campania were utilized, so far as I am aware, for the first time in history in observing the movements of the squadrons which were ordered to represent a large hostile fleet (The Grand Fleet, 1914-16, p. 222).
However, the experiences gained with the Campania during the summer of 1915 corresponded with the results given by the smaller “packet carriers” in the southern part of the North Sea. Seaplanes could not be relied on for fleet operations, for they could only lift themselves off the surface under the most favorable weather conditions. The only course left was to use land- planes, and to launch those planes into flight from off the decks of their carrying vessel. The Campania was therefore sent back to Liverpool at the end of 1915 to undergo a transformation.
“Campania” versus “Vindex” (1915-16). Here comes the transition from the pure seaplane carriers to the “mixed” carriers—that is, the vessels which could carry and operate both land- and seaplanes. But in what vessel the change was first made is very hard to discern. Squadron Leader Acland in his lecture said:
The Vindex, equipped with five seaplanes and two single-seater landplanes, was the first ship to be fitted with a forward hangar and flying deck.
His opinion carried great weight. None the less, officers who served in the Grand Fleet will stoutly assert that the Campania, as rebuilt during the winter of 1915-16, was really “the first ship to be fitted with a forward hangar and flying deck.” The cause of the dispute appears to be that the Vindex and Campania were, at first, nothing more than seaplane carriers; that they both underwent reconstruction about the same time, and that they returned to service simultaneously. To avoid controversy, we will compromise and bracket them together for honorable mention as the first of the “mixed” carriers.
H.M.S. “Campania” (1916).—The Campania returned to Scapa Flow on April 12, 1916, vastly improved and much altered in looks. She had the appearance in which she was afterwards seen by the officers and men of the Sixth (U.S.) Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet. Many, no doubt, will recollect her three funnels, set in a triangle. Two funnels stood forward, abeam of one another, and were so spaced apart as to permit the passage of a plane between them; the third funnel stood further aft, abaft the center line. Forward there was a hangar from whose roof a long flying-off platform slanted steeply down right to the bows. It was at Lord Jellicoe’s wish that the after half of the ship was fitted with a big well, winches, wind screens, hydrogen plant, etc., so that kite baloons could be stowed, sent up, and maintained. In her way, the rebuilt Campania was rather a freak. She was not so much an aircraft carrier, as we understand that term today, as a kind of aëronautical panjandrum. Her forward half was devoted to the heavier-than-air machines; her after half was occupied by the lighter-than-air equipment. Better methods seem to have been evolved for launching seaplanes into flight than the old truck-and-rail system. Speaking of the Campania and her 150-foot, flying-off platform, Squadron Leader Acland said:
. . . seaplanes were successfully launched from this deck in conditions under which it would have been impossible to have taken off from the surface of the sea. An axle and wheels were attached to the underside of the floats and the aircraft was flown off like a land machine. As soon as it was in the air, the pilot pulled a quick-releasing device which allowed the axle and wheels to drop off.
Arresting gears and landing nets (1915-16).—The decision had been taken to embark land machines in ships for operations over the sea. Thereupon arose the problem of how those planes were to be recovered at the termination of their flights. A landplane, after being dispatched from a ship, might make its way to a shore landing field and alight there. But if aircraft were going to be used from carriers in the Heligoland Bight, close to the German coast, a long trip across the North Sea to a British shore airdrome was neither a practical nor exhilarating prospect. A desperate expedient was to let a land machine flop into the sea close alongside its carrier, but that course would result in the certain loss of the plane and the probable demise of its pilot. Some method of flying the aircraft back on to the carrying ships had to be provided.
Accordingly, during the winter of 1915-16 (about the time when the Campania was being rebuilt), the problem of deck-landing gear was attacked by the Marine Experimental Aircraft Depot on the Isle of Grain, and various solutions were attempted.
The first of these—an inclined wire ropeway to be fitted over the stern of the ship—was tried and a B.E. with a special chassis was actually landed thereon. The idea was dropped in favor of sandbags attached to ropes stretched across the landing deck, and an attachment on the machine which picked up successive ropes in the process of pulling up. This line of experiment went as far as the manufacture of all the fittings for test on a standard Avro but was then dropped for nearly eighteen months.11
The transverse ropes with sandbag weights, described above were, of course, no more than a revival of the arresting gear used by Ely in his landing on the Pennsylvania in 1911. Why was the method dropped so suddenly, after all preparations had been made for testing it at the Isle of Grain early in 1916? The answer seems to be that the Admiralty had put forward another solution of the deck-landing problem.
11“The Marine Experimental Depot, the Isle of Grain” a special article included in the 1920 edition of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, (hereafter alluded to as “M.E.A.D.—Jane A.W.A., 1920”). This article mentions the first British experiments made with aircraft catapults for ships, made at the Isle of Grain in 1916. The author’s recollection is that the Chambers compressed-air catapult was first tested during 1914 for adoption by the U. S. Navy, being tried first on a navy-yard barge, and then upon the quarter-deck of the cruiser North Carolina.
Speaking of improvements proposed for the Ark Royal and Campania during the earlier part of the World War, Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt has said:
The idea of returning directly to the ship instead of landing in the water and being picked up by a derrick or crane arose immediately in both ships. It was a very attractive one and a scheme was drawn up in the constructive department of the Admiralty, by which it was proposed that the Campania should be provided with a system of wires, stretched from a transverse boom near the stern of the ship to another strong beam fitted near the after funnel. The aircraft were to fly on to the system of parallel wires, which sloped upwards and forward from the boom to the beam. This was not, however, developed into a working arrangement, but the pursuit of the idea was carried out by the Naval Air Service and the constructive department, jointly with Messrs. Beardmore . . .12
12Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, London, 1923, p. 11.
Mark the difference in ideas! The Ely-Pennsylvania arresting gear had consisted of ropes stretched across the ship, whereas the proposed landing net or “grid” for the Campania was to have consisted of wires stretched along and over the ship in an aft-to-fore direction. Nothing came of the project for the time being because—as related above—the after half of the Campania had been used for kite balloon service, and so no landing device for aircraft could be placed there.
The “Argus” design (1916-17).—Moreover, something far better, far bigger, and far more ambitious than alterations to the old Cunarder were now in prospect. It was the idea of a ship without funnels, surmounted by an immense wooden flying field, upon which aircraft could alight and from which they could depart. The first, rudimentary ideas of the “floating airdrome” appear to have originated with Admiral Mark Kerr, R.N., who, in 1913
drew out on a piece of paper and gave to the naval secretary of the Admiralty a sketch of a ship with its funnels coming out on each side, giving the full length of the ship to fly off from and land on.13
13Ibid. p. 21.
Before the Admiralty would commit itself to the projected new type of aircraft carrier, it had to be assured that there was a reasonable prospect of flying aircraft on to the deck of a ship at sea with safety. The board having been assured on this vital point, sanction was given to the new ship. Messrs. Beardmore, Ltd., had, lying unfinished on the stocks at their Dalmuir shipyard on the Clyde, the hull of a big liner, ordered for the Italian Lloyd Sabaudo Company. She was to have been named the Conte Rosso at her launch, but all work on her had stopped in 1914. The Admiralty purchased the hull in 1916, and plans were prepared for finishing her as the aircraft carrier Argus. From keel to shelter deck, the liner design was left more or less unaltered, but above the shelter deck came all the innovations in the way of hangars, elevators, flight deck, etc.
The proposal that the new Argus should be fitted with horizontal smoke ducts and induced-draught fans, instead of funnels, originated with Engineer Captain William Onyon, R. N. (Retired), who was on Beardmore’s technical staff. Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt has alluded to Beardmore’s “somewhat startling proposal to carry the funnels horizontally to the stern of the ship in the Argus.” The Admiralty seems to have been rather astonished by the idea, and had so little confidence in it, that the builders were ordered to get funnels and uptakes of a normal pattern ready, in case the duct-and-fan system failed on the ship’s steam trials.14 Engineer Captain Onyon, when describing the development of his idea, said:
Messrs. Yarrows’ experts were also asked to come and visit the ship towards completion, to see if it would not be possible to fit the Yarrow smoke-damping arrangement to the funnels, so as to direct the smoke, which was saturated with water by a spray, on to the surface of the sea, and prevent it from rising and thus interfering with the pilots flying on board.15
However, Beardmores had confidence enough to go ahead with the “tunnel-funnel” system. Some trouble was experienced over the design of the induced-draught fans, to be fitted to the ends of the long, horizontal smoke ducts. Messrs. Howdens, Ltd. (the manufacturers of forced-draught systems for ships), were called in, and with their help the problems were overcome, and the ship came through her trials most successfully.
14Ibid. p. 21. From a description published in Brassey’s The Royal Navy, vol. II, p. 157, (published in 1882), the experimental “smokeless and noiseless” torpedo vessel Vesuvius, built for the British Navy in 1874, had a horizontal smoke duct and fan on the same lines as those fitted to the Argus in 1917-18.
15Ibid. The writer believes that Yarrow’s smoke-damping device was an old patent held by the firm, first proposed for application to torpedo boats. During the World War it was revived with a view to use in merchant ships, the idea being to keep the smoke from those ships close to the surface and so render them less conspicuous to the German submarines.
H.M.S. “Furious” (1917).—To allude to the completion of the Argus at this stage is somewhat premature. So much had to be done in the way of experiment and research, completion was not attained until September 16, 1918, so that the Argus only went through the last eight weeks of hostilities. “Beardmore’s floating barn” was still a long way from being finished, when the Furious was passed into service during July, 1917. Since the latter was the only vessel suitable and available for the deck landing of aircraft, it was in her that the first practical tests were made at sea.
Alluding to the Furious, Lieutenant Miller said, in his article: “As first designed, she only had a flying-off platform.” From which statement we would beg leave to dissent. With a view to naval operations in the Baltic, the late Lord Fisher had three “large light cruisers” commenced in 1915—the Glorious and Courageous (18,600 tons, 32-knots speed, four 15-inch guns), and the Furious (19,100 tons, 31.5-knots speed, two 18-inch guns). The two 18-inch guns of the Furious were to have been mounted in single turrets, one forward and the other aft, but provision was made for substituting pairs of 15-inch guns for the single 18-inch, if necessity arose. Describing the Furious, Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt says:
Early in the spring of 1917, however, the necessity for having fast airplane carriers became very urgent, and it was approved to fit Furious for this purpose. This entailed doing away altogether with the fore turret and making other considerable alterations. A large hangar was built on the forecastle deck, and a flying-off platform 160 feet long was arranged on the roof of the hangar, which was designed to house about ten machines.16
16“Naval Construction during the War” by Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt, K.C.B., Inst. Nav. Archs. London, 1919, (p. 7).
According to Squadron Leader Acland, the old trolley-and-rail method of launching seaplanes was still used in the Furious, but in a much improved form:
The seaplane rested on a trolley which ran down a slotted rail fixed to the deck. On reaching the end of the deck, the trolley was arrested by two arms fitted with shock absorbers. This method of flying seaplanes off got over the difficulty of getting aircraft into the air on a day when it would not have been possible to fly from the surface of the sea.
With the Furious completed, the critical test could at last be made of flying a land-plane on to the deck of a ship at sea and under way. Ely had done it in 1911 but the feat had not hitherto been attempted by the British Navy. The venture was made and it ended in a disaster. And yet it was on the strength of assurances that aircraft could alight with safety on the deck of a ship that the Admiralty had committed itself to the building of the Argus!
Lieutenant Miller has given an account which, in the main, is correct of the procedure adopted in the Furious flying-on trials. Squadron Leader Acland gives a much fuller description of events, and his version is worth quoting verbatim for two reasons. Firstly, his narrative of the first successful airplane landing on the deck of a British warship in 1917 can be set alongside Lieutenant Miller’s very full recollection of Ely’s success in 1911. Secondly, the tragic accident which marred the British tests had a marked influence on the subsequent development of deck flying, aircraft design, and the equipment of aircraft carriers.
It was Squadron Commander E. H. Dunning, D.S.C., who made the attempt to land a Sopwith Pup on the forward end of the Furious, and this is Squadron Leader Acland’s tale of what took place:
The ship steamed head to wind, so as to give as large a relative wind speed as possible. The pilot then flew past the ship as close as possible, drifted round the bridge and so arrived over the flying deck. He would then throttle down and allow his machine to sink on the deck. There was no kind of gear to hold the machine down on the deck once it was landed, but a party of officers and men were detailed to grab the machine as soon as it touched, and in the first successful landing, it was caught whilst it was still in the air.
Squadron-Commander Dunning realized that this was not practical and gave instructions that, on his second attempt, the aircraft was not to be touched until after he was on the deck. In thus attempting to arrive on the deck with his engine running, he burst a tire with the inevitable result that, in the high relative wind, the aircraft dropped a wing and slewed over the side before it could be touched, and the pilot was drowned.
Such, in brief, was the famous “Dunning Disaster.” When the problem of deck landing had first been attacked, it was assumed that the main difficulty would be the arrest of a landed machine upon and within a limited fore-and-aft length of deck space. But now it was proved—and tragically proved—that lack of width in a landing deck was even more dangerous than any want of length. Landing upon the moving deck of a ship had turned out to be a very different matter to landing on solid earth, or upon a stationary, wooden, dummy, flying deck, erected on an airdrome.
It is to be remembered that the conditions are entirely different from those of a normal landing. With a 10-knot wind and a 30-knot carrier, it is quite possible for the airplane to be flying at a negative speed relatively to the ship, and it is obvious that the machine may be on the deck with no forward velocity relatively to the ship, and yet have an air speed little less than that necessary to sustain it in the air.
Arresting gears, landing nets, etc. (1917).
Under these conditions the wheels are obviously not rolling on the deck, and if an oblique gust causes the machine to slew, there is some risk of tires being rolled off the wheels, which usually results in the machine spinning round on the rolled-off tire. This actually occurred on several occasions and appears to have been the cause of at least one fatal accident.17
17“M.E.A.D.” Jane A.W.A., 1920, p. 33a.
These lessons led to a new series of experiments being made during 1917. Tired wheels appeared to be a source of real danger in deck landing, and so an attempt was made to abolish them entirely. The Experimental Aircraft Depot at the Isle of Grain therefore produced Sopwith Pups fitted with sprung and unsprung skid undercarriages devoid of wheels. It also appeared essential to provide some means of artificial adhesion between the carrier and the plane, immediately after the airplane had made contact with the deck, so as to stop the aircraft from slewing across the deck and running over the side. The skid undercarriages of the Sopwith Pups were fitted with hooks for picking up arresting cables, or with hooks for catching in the guiding wires of a landing net. Research was also resumed at the Isle of Grain upon the design of deck-landing gear; and of one such device Squadron Leader Acland gives this description:
This gear consisted of fore-and-aft wires a few inches apart. At the forward end they ran over a sloping ramp. When landing was in progress the wires were supported 5 or 6 inches off the deck by small wooden blocks, thus ensuring that the horns or hooks on the undercarriage engaged in these fore-and-aft wires. Stretched transversely across these wires, at about 30-foot intervals, were ropes to each end of which was attached a bag of sand. The intention was that a pilot should let down a hook which would pick up successive transverse ropes as the machine ran down the deck, thus progressively increasing the drag and arresting the machine. The hooks or horns on the undercarriage engaging in the fore-and-aft wires kept the machine straight. In practice our hopes were not realized.
It will be noticed that the device, described above, was a combination of the type of arresting gear used by Ely in 1911 with the form of landing net proposed for the Campania in 1915-16. Squadron Leader Acland says the gear did not come up to expectation, but another account says that this net, composed of longitudinal and transverse wire and rope elements, was laid out, at the Isle of Grain in 1917, upon a dummy wooden landing deck; and that a Sopwith Pup was landed thereon and brought to rest with a travel of only 50 feet from the point of contact, although there were only light head winds to help the test.
E.M.S. “Furious” (1918).—The Furious was withdrawn from service in November, 1917, and during the ensuing four months she underwent those extensive alterations described by Lieutenant Miller. The alter turret with its 18-inch gun, the tripod mainmast and a 5.5-inch gun were removed, and were replaced by an after hangar (with elevator) and a flying-on deck 300 feet long. Small curved runways on each side of the funnel allowed planes, mounted on small trolleys, to be trundled from the after- to the fore-flying deck and vice versa.
The ship returned to duty in March, 1918, but even after all these elaborate and costly changes, she was a failure so far as flying on was concerned. Squadron Leader Acland reveals that only three successful landings were ever made on her! Lieutenant Miller alludes to the great “gallows,” with its depending mantlet of 2-inch Manila ropes, that stood just abaft the funnel of the Furious. His explanation is that this safety net had been rigged to catch aircraft fitted with skid undercarriages, in case such machines did not take the deck far enough aft. The real reason for the huge “gallows” is given by Squadron Leader Acland. Reviewing the failures of attempts to fly aircraft on the after part of the Furious, he remarks:
. . . looking back, the cause is not far to seek. The disturbance caused by the mast, bridge and funnel, all of which stood directly in the line of flight, made it so “bumpy” that the pilot had to fly faster than would ordinarily have been necessary. Further, halfway down the deck the natural wind was so blanketed by the superstructure that it ceased to have any effect on the aircraft, which was thus deprived of a very large proportion of the relative wind. For instance, assume that the aircraft is landing into a relative wind of 30 knots, composed of ship’s speed 15 and natural wind 15. Half way up the deck the natural wind was almost completely blanketed by the funnel, mast and bridge, so that the relative wind at this point dropped by as much as 10-15 knots—a serious matter when the aircraft has to be brought in fast, because of the bumps caused by the superstructure. Fortunately for the pilots, a strong rope net was fixed at the forward end of the landing deck, so that no one hit the funnel although many made determined attempts to break through the net.
In July, 1918, as Lieutenant Miller recalls, the most successful aëro-naval raid of the World War was launched from the Furious against the German naval airship base at Tondern. But the wastage of machines was so great, it was decided that, in view of the approaching completion of the Argus, no further landings of airplanes should be carried out with the Furious. Other employment was found for her, and as an experiment, one or two of the small British nonrigid airships (such as the S.S.Z.59 and the N.S.1) were flown on to the landing deck of the Furious and berthed there, both when the ship was at anchor and under way.18
18H.M.S. Vindictive was completed in October 1918. She may be regarded as the first “hybrid” cruiser. Although she had a flight deck, hanger, elevator, etc., and carried several aircraft, she was not officially rated as an “aircraft carrier” but as a “cruiser.”
H.M.S. “Argus” (1918)19—During early trials with the Argus, a dummy “island” superstructure (made of wood and canvas and representing a bridge and funnel), was erected on the starboard side of the flight deck. The test was made to determine if it would be possible to land aircraft on a flight deck with such an erection on either side of the ship. The system of horizontal funnels and fans had proved quite successful in the Argus, but it embodied three disadvantages. Firstly, the ducts and fans meant a great deal of additional complication in the design of the ship and her machinery, besides adding very considerably to the cost of construction. Secondly, the temperature in the after ends of the smoke ducts, as measured during the steam trials of the Argus, was as high as 426°; consequently, the interior of the hangar became hot, and it was difficult to keep the aircraft stowed there from developing “sogginess.” Thirdly, the built- in ducts narrowed down the internal width of the hangar, and so restricted the wing span of the machines which could be housed therein. The dummy tests with the Argus resulted in the “island” superstructure being adopted for the aircraft carriers Hermes and Eagle, both of which were at that time under construction.
19Information regarding H. M. Ships Argus and Eagle in the remaining sections of this article is derived from Squadron Leader Acland’s lecture and the Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, London, 1923.
In the first deck landing trials, made with the Argus, no use was made of any arresting gear, composed of wires or ropes stretched transversely across the flight deck. But the fore-and-aft landing “grid” was employed, and was so laid out that its component wires passed over the well of the central elevator in the flight deck. When aircraft were taking off, the central elevator was brought up flush with the deck, and all the wires of the landing gear lay flat along the deck, so that there was no obstruction whatever to a clear run of the aircraft, preliminary to taking off. When landings were being carried out, the central elevator was dropped about 9 inches down its well and a sloping ramp was fixed under the forward end of the wire “grid.” The aircraft, in landing, made contact with the flight deck; ran along it, and dropped into the elevator well. The hooks or clips on their undercarriages then bit on and engaged the fore-and-aft wires of the landing “grid”; and, as the aircraft ran up the ramp-supported slope—“the artificial hill of wire”—it was securely held and stopped.
In calm weather this method proved quite successful and was used throughout 1919. When the Argus went to the Mediterranean in 1920, deck landings in rough weather were attempted for the first time. Twenty-five landings at sea were made under service conditions, and about half of these were failures. Still, the trials seemed to prove that, in rough weather, aircraft would have to be caught and securely held, as they made their landings upon the flight deck of a rolling or pitching carrier.
The cause of failure in deck landings appeared to be that, in the Argus, the central elevator was in the form of a narrow oblong, measuring 60 feet in the fore-and-aft direction and only 18 feet across.20 This well, moreover, was set somewhat to starboard of the center line. Pilots, when flying on, had a very natural tendency to aim for and keep to the center of the flight deck, with the result that their machines sometimes only dropped one wheel into the well, or they missed it completely. The design of the landing net was accordingly altered, and it was made to extend all over the deck. Subsequently to these alterations, about 500 landings were made, and of these four-fifths were successful. The failures amounted to fifty machines slightly damaged, forty severely damaged or wrecked and one machine over the side.
20According to a description of H.M.S. Argus, published by The Shipbuilder (Newcastle-on-Tyne) during 1919, the wings of aircraft had to be detached before they could be placed upon the elevator and shipped below into the hangar.
H.M.S. “Eagle” (1920).—In April, 1920, the first aircraft carrier with an “island” superstructure, H.M.S. Eagle, was hurried to sea for preliminary trials in a half-finished condition. This ship, named in honor of the entry of the United States into the World War, embodied a notable improvement in the downswept curve to the tail of the flight deck. To make a final quotation from the Acland lecture:
In Argus and Furious the landing deck ended in a straight edge. This caused pilots to land too far forward, as an approach which ended in the aircraft reaching the after limits of the deck too low, even a few inches resulted in the undercarriage being severely damaged, and, in some cases, in the aircraft crashing into the sea. In the Eagle, the after end of the deck was curved down, so that there was no longer any need to worry about approaching so as to give the end of the deck a wide clearance. This “round down” gave the pilots confidence to land well aft, with the result that, during the trials in Eagle, larger and faster-landing aircraft were successfully landed, including a D.H.9 and a D.H.9A.
Abolition of deck landing gear (1924).—So long as the landing “grid” or fore-and-aft wires was used, deck-flying aircraft had to be stilted up on specially high undercarriages, in order that their propellers could be kept clear of the wires. In addition, the undercarriages had to be made specially strong, to resist the shock of knocking down the supporting flaps under the wires (which flaps had replaced the original “fiddle-bow” wooden supporting blocks). If a plane, after landing and clipping itself on to the “grid,” had a tendency to swing to one side or the other, the wires exerted such twisting strains, that the hooks were often damaged, and repairs to them had to be effected before the plane could be flown off the deck again. Such mishaps were much more frequent when landings were being made upon the deck of the carrier in a seaway.
In 1924 the whole position was reviewed and the decision was taken that the landing net was more of a hindrance than a help. In nine cases out of ten, it converted what might have been a moderately good landing into a bad one, and it was a most prolific cause of minor damages to the aircraft. The heavy, high, and re-enforced undercarriages, with their hook, gear, entailed added weight; they also increased head-on resistance and so depreciated the air performance of deck-flying machines. With the landing gear abolished, they were no longer required.
So, after being used for seven years, the landing gear and the special undercarriages were abandoned, and landing-on went back to the position where it was in 1917, when the first attempt was made to place an airplane upon the bare, planked deck of the Furious. But those seven intervening years had brought better aircraft design, a better understanding of the problem, and better methods of training pilots. The result was that the method, found dangerous in 1917, was found in 1924 to be the simplest and safest after all. Still, there was difficulty in holding a landed machine to a steady course down the deck of a rolling carrier, and some safeguard had still to be provided, to prevent aircraft from running over the side. Palisades have therefore been fixed along each edge of the flight deck for a distance of about 150 feet amidships. They are composed of stancheons and wires, the stancheons (spaced about 8 feet apart) raking outboard and upwards, and the wires being stretched across them in the fore-and-aft direction.
Conclusion.—Further than this we cannot advance our history of the British seaplane and aircraft carriers. However, it may be said, in a general way, that faster machines, bigger machines, and more heavily laden machines are now being flown on and taken off than was the case eight years ago. Deck flying has now become a matter of pure routine; and of the thousands of landings, made upon the decks of aircraft carriers in the course of a year, fully 99 per cent are normal and in every way successful. Not only has the problem of deck landing in daylight been mastered, but research has also been carried out into the placing of planes upon the decks of carriers by night.
So we leave the aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy. Most remarkable was the swiftness with which the new type of fighting ship developed to maturity, for a span of less than four years intervened between the completions of the Ark Royal and the Argus. Wings and wheels, wood decks and wire nets, trolleys and rails, arresting and landing gears—these were some of the problems which had to be mastered in the development of the new type of war vessel. The dispatch of aircraft into flight from ships was soon solved; but far more difficult was the matter of deck landing—the fusing together of the vehicles of the sea and air, of vastly differing bulks, structural strengths and ranges of speed. Looking back in retrospect, and contemplating the vast sums expended, the number of airplanes wrecked, the sacrifice of human life, and all that has gone to make the modern aircraft carrier a success, one cannot but marvel at the intrepidity and skill of Eugene Ely, when he made his memorable landing with his primitive plane upon the Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay . . . how long, ah, how long ago? . . . Twenty-one years ago!
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ABILITY
The young officer, at least, should be able to do everything that he requires others to do, and do it better, no matter how small the detail or humble the task. When the men find that you are right even in small things they will have faith in you for the bigger things.
loyalty
There is loyalty “down” as well as loyalty “up,” and one cannot exist without the other. As you feel toward your men, so will they feel toward you. Give, and unto you it shall be given.
JUSTICE
It is not enough to think yourself that you are just and fair; make your men think so too. You do not demean yourself by explaining the why and wherefore of an order or decision. A sense of injustice will kill spirit and morale quicker than any other agency.
COURAGE
We know you have it; but take heed that never by the slightest accident or error your men get the idea that there is any danger you would not undergo or hardship you would not share with them. If ever you lose your nerve before them, pack your trunk and get transferred quickly.
TRUTH
Tell them what you can, when you can. Neither conceal nor exaggerate nor minimize. Keep your word whether it be to give a promotion or a court-martial.
FIRMNESS AND CONSISTENCY
Be firm as a rock when right, but never obstinate; if wrong, admit it, and you will gain rather than lose in prestige. Finish what you start. Never give up. Never blow hot and cold according to circumstances, but invariably live up to the same principles.
The foregoing are a few, a very few, of the points which no officer can neglect. Ceaseless study and constant effort are none too much. For in the final analysis, he who has mastered the Art of Leadership has mastered everything, since through others all other arts are subject to him!—Parker on “Leadership.”