he airbags should alight on the water under
the lee of the ship, whence it could be lifted on board. The platform
was erected on board H.M.S. _Africa_, and Lieutenant Samson made a
successful flight from it in December 1911. Thereafter, with the help of
Mr. Horace Short, he worked out a design for a seaplane; the machine
was completed in March 1912 and its first flight was made at Portland.
On this seaplane Lieutenant Samson flew, first and last, for about a
hundred and fifty hours, without breaking a strut or a float, which is a
signal testimony to the merits of both the design and the construction.
The Royal Aircraft Factory, working for the Air Department of the
Admiralty, also produced a seaplane, which was successfully tested on
Fleet Pond. Meantime the first flying boat had been designed by Mr.
Sopwith, so that all the material requisite for naval aviation was
rapidly making its appearance. If the number of aviators was still very
small, that was due to lack of opportunity, not to lack of zeal among
naval officers. When the original four were taught to fly their names
were selected from a list of about two hundred, all of whom had
volunteered for the new service.

Scattered incidents and experiments, like those narrated above, are what
make up the history of the beginnings of the national air force. In such
a story no closely-knit dramatic sequence is possible. The history of
the growth of an oak tree from an acorn may perhaps be told in dramatic
form, but who can tell the history of the obscure workings of yeast, or
of the growth of a field of grass? The earliest aviators were
self-willed and diverse. As Captain Bertram Dickson remarked, when he
was questioned concerning their enrolment for the national service, 'One
man is a rich man; another man is an artist, or he is an actor; another
man is a mechanic. They are funny fellows. You will get a certain number
if you pay them well, because they are out for making money; you will
get others who will do it for sport, and others who will do it for the
advertisement.' The problem for the Government and for those who advised
the Government was how to make a united body out of these odds and
ends; how to reduce these talented, excitable, artistic, highly
individual elements to the discipline and purpose of a great service.
Two admirable instructors were at hand--the army and the navy. The thing
had to be done quickly, and most of those soldiers and sailors who
realized