e at high
pressure, in the early days of August, to increase the resources, in men
and material, of the Naval Air Service. The reserve was called up; in
addition a certain number of officers were entered direct from civilian
life, and were put to school, at Upavon or Eastchurch, to learn their
new duties. Thousands of young men were eager to enter the service as
pilots, but the training accommodation was wholly inadequate. The
Bristol School at Brooklands, the Grahame-White School at Hendon, and
the Eastbourne Aviation School were pressed into the service; in
addition to these the naval air station at Calshot undertook to make
seaplane pilots of some of those who had taken their flying certificates
elsewhere. As was to be expected, training under these conditions proved
difficult. All efficient machines were wanted for the war, so that
machines which had been condemned for use on active service were
sometimes employed in training new pilots.

If all those who deserve credit and praise for their part in the war in
the air were to be mentioned, their names on the Roll of Honour would be
thick as the motes that people the sunbeam. Most of them must be
content, and are content, to know that they did their work and served
their country. But here and there occurs a name which must not be passed
without comment. On the 5th of August 1914 Mr. F. K. McClean, by whose
help the first naval air pilots had been trained, joined the Royal Naval
Air Service as a flight lieutenant. At the same time he offered to the
service his three motor-cars, his motor-boat at Teddington, his yacht
_Zenaida_, with two machines, and his private house at Eastchurch, which
was converted into a hospital. A nation which commands the allegiance of
such citizens need never fear defeat.

The earliest measure of defence undertaken by the Naval Air Service was
the institution of a coastal patrol for the whole of the East Coast,
from Kinnaird's Head, in Aberdeenshire, to Dungeness, between Dover and
Hastings. This was ordered by the Admiralty on the 8th of August. The
Royal Flying Corps, or rather, such incomplete squadrons of the Royal
Flying Corps as were not yet ordered abroad, undertook the northern and
southern extremes of this patrol, that is to say, the northern section
between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Forth, from Kinnaird's Head to
Fife Ness, and the southern section between the Thames and the coast of
Sussex, from the North Foreland to Dungene