On this day in military history…
On 13 August 1914, just nine days after Britain declared war on Germany, a small force of fragile aircraft lifted away from southern England and headed across the English Channel towards France. It was a remarkable moment in military history. The Royal Flying Corps was deploying overseas with the British Expeditionary Force, carrying out what became the first large-scale overseas deployment of British military aviation. The aeroplanes were primitive, their engines unreliable and their crews had little idea of the enormous role aircraft would eventually play in the First World War, yet their journey to France marked the beginning of British air power operating alongside an army on foreign soil.
The Royal Flying Corps had itself only existed since 1912. Before the war, many senior officers still regarded aeroplanes largely as experimental machines useful for observation rather than weapons in their own right. There were no specialised fighter aircraft as we would recognise them today, and aerial combat was still something largely discussed in theory. The primary purpose of the RFC was reconnaissance: flying above the battlefield, locating enemy troops and reporting their movements to commanders on the ground.
Following mobilisation in August 1914, Headquarters Royal Flying Corps, Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 Squadrons and an Aircraft Park were ordered to deploy in support of the British Expeditionary Force. The Aircraft Park acted as the organisation's mobile repair and supply unit, maintaining machines and providing replacement aircraft and equipment. Altogether the RFC force sent to the Continent initially consisted of around 105 officers, 63 aeroplanes and 95 vehicles under Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson.
Early on the morning of 13 August, aircraft from Nos. 2 and 3 Squadrons began leaving Dover for France. No. 4 Squadron, which had been delayed by fog at Eastchurch, followed later. Their destination was the area around Amiens, where the British aviation force would initially concentrate. The crossing itself was considered dangerous. These early aircraft were built mainly of wood, fabric and wire, with engines whose reliability was far removed from later aviation standards. An engine failure over the Channel could easily be fatal.
Pilots were instructed to gain sufficient altitude before crossing the sea so that they would have at least some chance of gliding towards land if their engines failed. Naval vessels were positioned along the route to rescue crews forced into the water. Proper life jackets were not available in sufficient numbers, and some of the men were reportedly issued inflated inner tubes as emergency flotation devices. Many aircraft also carried mechanics as passengers so repairs could be attempted if the machine developed problems after landing.
Among the most important aircraft making the crossing was the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2a. Nos. 2 and 4 Squadrons were equipped with the type, which had been designed primarily as a stable reconnaissance aeroplane rather than an aggressive fighting machine. Other aircraft used by the early expeditionary force included Blériot designs, Farmans and later a small number of Avro 504s. They were lightly built machines with open cockpits, limited instruments and little protection for either pilot or observer.
The exact identity of the first RFC aircraft to touch down in France has been debated by aviation historians, although a B.E.2a was almost certainly responsible. Lieutenant Hubert Dunsterville Harvey-Kelly of No. 2 Squadron became famous for being among the very first British military pilots to reach France during the deployment. Whatever the precise landing order, the significance of the day was far greater than the identity of a single aircraft. Britain now had an organised military flying force operating overseas as part of an army in wartime.
No. 5 Squadron followed shortly afterwards, and by the middle of August the four squadrons were assembling around Amiens before moving closer to the advancing British Expeditionary Force. The RFC subsequently transferred much of its strength towards Maubeuge, close to the Belgian frontier. There the crews prepared to perform the role for which they had originally been sent to France: discovering where the German Army was.
On 19 August, RFC aircraft carried out their first important reconnaissance sorties of the campaign. A B.E.2a and a Blériot were among the machines involved. Flying without radios capable of providing the constant communication later generations would take for granted, observers recorded enemy positions and troop movements before returning to their airfields to deliver reports. Maps, handwritten notes, sketches and visual observation were among their most important tools.
Their contribution became particularly important as the British Expeditionary Force approached Mons. From the air, RFC crews could see movements that were extremely difficult for soldiers and cavalry patrols on the ground to detect. Reports began revealing the enormous scale of the German advance through Belgium and northern France. Aircraft could travel farther and faster than traditional cavalry reconnaissance, while seeing roads, columns and railway movements from a viewpoint no ground observer could match.
There was initially considerable scepticism among some commanders about information obtained from aircraft. Military aviation was so new that many officers had spent their careers relying almost entirely upon cavalry patrols, scouts and intelligence reports. The opening weeks of the war began changing those attitudes. The RFC supplied information concerning German troop concentrations and movements around the British flanks, demonstrating that the aeroplane could influence decisions made by commanders thousands of feet below.
The deployment was nevertheless extremely difficult. Airfields were often little more than suitable areas of grass. Maintenance had to be performed under field conditions, spare parts were limited and frequent movement placed enormous strain on delicate machines. After the Battles of Mons and Le Cateau, the RFC became caught up in the great British retreat towards the Marne. Squadrons repeatedly dismantled workshops, loaded supplies onto vehicles and moved south before operating again from another temporary landing ground.
Aircraft losses were substantial, although many had nothing to do with enemy action. Mechanical failure, hard landings, accidents and simple wear rapidly destroyed machines. Many of the aircraft that had proudly crossed the Channel in August 1914 survived only a matter of weeks or months. Engines required constant attention while fabric coverings, wooden structures and wire bracing suffered badly from intensive operational flying.
There was initially little organised aerial warfare between opposing aircraft. Pilots occasionally carried pistols, rifles or other weapons, and encounters between enemy machines could involve little more than crews taking ineffective shots at one another. The idea of purpose-built fighter aircraft armed with synchronised machine guns was still in the future. In August 1914, the most valuable weapon carried by an RFC aircraft was usually the eyes of its observer.
Yet within months aviation began changing dramatically. Aircraft started directing artillery, photographing enemy positions and attempting bombing missions. Pilots increasingly attacked enemy reconnaissance machines because both sides realised how valuable aerial intelligence had become. The demand for control of the sky eventually produced dedicated fighters, specialised bombers and increasingly sophisticated reconnaissance aircraft.
The small force that crossed the Channel in August 1914 therefore became the foundation of something far greater. During the following four years the Royal Flying Corps expanded from a comparatively tiny organisation into a vast fighting force containing thousands of aircraft and tens of thousands of personnel. Technology advanced at extraordinary speed, with aircraft of 1918 bearing little resemblance in performance and armament to the delicate machines that had departed England in 1914.
On 1 April 1918 the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were combined to create the Royal Air Force, establishing the world's first independent air force. Many of the lessons that shaped the RAF had been learned by the pioneering pilots, observers, mechanics and ground crews who had struggled across northern France during the opening weeks of the First World War.
The deployment beginning on 13 August 1914 can therefore be regarded as one of the defining moments in British military aviation. Just two years after the Royal Flying Corps had been formed, Britain had sent an organised air component overseas to operate alongside its army. Sixty-three aircraft and little more than a hundred officers may have seemed insignificant beside the millions of soldiers who would eventually fight on the Western Front, but they represented the beginning of a new form of warfare.
Those fragile B.E.2s, Blériots and Farmans crossing the English Channel had no armour, sophisticated navigation equipment or powerful weapons. Their crews sat exposed to the weather in machines whose survival depended upon wood, fabric, wire and engines that could stop without warning. Yet when they landed in France in August 1914 they began a continuous tradition of British military air operations overseas that would ultimately lead from the Royal Flying Corps to the modern Royal Air Force.
