ue and Petite Synthe,
and were occupied, the first by No. 5 Wing, under Squadron Commander
Spenser Grey, the other by No. 4 Wing, under Wing Commander C. L.
Courtney, R.N. No. 5 Wing was specially trained for the work of
long-distance bombing.

From the very beginning the Naval Air Service had set their heart on the
fitting out of big bombing raids against distant German centres--Essen,
or Berlin. It was a grief to them, when the war ended, that Berlin had
suffered no damage from the air. The success of their early raids on
Duesseldorf and Friedrichshafen naturally strengthened their desire to
carry out more destructive raids over more important centres. In this
way, they believed, they could best help the army. This idea inspired
some of the documents drawn up by Mr. Winston Churchill while he was
First Lord of the Admiralty. When in February 1916 Rear-Admiral
Vaughan-Lee submitted to the Admiralty his scheme for the employment of
the reorganized Royal Naval Air Service the same idea dominated his
advices. 'I consider', his report concludes, 'that we should develop
long-distance offensive work as much as possible.' The preference shown
by the navy, in their orders from the makers, for powerful bomb-carrying
machines tells the same story. When the navy set about carrying out this
policy by the formation of a special force, called No. 3 Wing, at
Luxeuil, for the express purpose of making long-distance raids over
German munition centres, the army, which was preparing its great effort
on the Somme front, and which needed more and yet more machines for the
immediate purposes of the campaign, protested against the use of British
aircraft for what seemed to them a luxury in comparison with their own
dire needs. So the Luxeuil Wing was, for the time, broken up; but the
idea took shape again later when the Independent Force came into being.

The sound doctrine on this matter is laid down in General Trenchard's
reports, which shall be given hereafter. Yet it may be admitted, without
prejudice to that doctrine, that if bombing raids had been possible over
Essen and Berlin their effect would have been very great. The Germans
spent not a little effort on their raids over London, and hoped for the
weakening or shattering of the British war temper as a consequence of
those raids. Their belief in frightfulness was a belief in fright. They
judged others by themselves. No people on earth, it may readily be
admitted, can maintain the ef