No. 6
Squadron. Success of the experiment. A naval squadron on the western
front near Amiens, October 1916. Four fighting naval squadrons on the
western front in 1917. The achievements of these squadrons.

The problem of unity of control. The War Office and the Admiralty.
Director of the Air Department responsible to each of the Sea Lords. The
Central Air Office at Sheerness, under the Nore Command, abolished in
February 1915, and the Royal Naval Air Service placed under the orders
of the Director of the Air Department. Points of difficulty raised by
Commander-in-Chief of the Nore. Verdict of the naval law branch. The
question of discipline. Rapid growth of Naval Air Service. Small
professional training of officers entered from civil life. The navy
absorbs the Royal Naval Air Service into itself, August 1915.
Consequences of this. Appointment of senior naval officers to air
service commands. Discipline and science. Some advantages of the
change--establishment of training depot at Cranwell, and of the famous
Fifth Group at Dunkirk.

Naval plan for long-distance bombing raids over Essen and Berlin. No. 3
Wing at Luxeuil formed for this purpose. The army's needs; the Luxeuil
Wing broken up. Probable effects of such raids. Believers in
frightfulness are very susceptible to fright.

The emergence of the new air force. How the air will come into its
own.

INTRODUCTION

When Great Britain declared war upon Germany in August 1914, she staked
her very existence as a free nation upon an incalculable adventure. Two
new means and modes of warfare, both of recent invention, enormously
increased the difficulties of forecast and seemed to make precedents
useless. Former wars had been waged on the land and on the sea; the
development of submarines and aircraft opened up secret ways of travel
for armed vessels under the sea and promised almost unlimited
possibilities of observation and offence from the heights of the air.

Of these two new weapons the submarine was brought earlier to a state of
war efficiency, and because it seemed to threaten the security of our
island and the power of our navy, it excited the greater apprehension.
But the navigation of the air, whether by airship or aeroplane, is now
recognized for the more formidable novelty. The progress of the war has
proved that within the narrow seas the submarine can be countered, and
that the extension of its capabilities on the high seas is beset with
difficult