AIR CO-OPERATION WITH A NAVY The object of aircraft co-operation is to assist a navy in the destruction or neutralization of a hostile battle fleet, and in the control of sea communications. Aircraft can afford indirect as sistance in battle by providing information of enemy naval forces obtained from long-distance or close reconnaissance, and can give direct assistance by offensive action against enemy sur face and submarine craft with torpedo, bomb, and mac-hine-gun. It is also their duty to afford protection to a fleet from enemy aircraft by attacking them in the air, on the sea, or at shore bases, and thus deny the enemy the use of his aircraft. In the control of sea communications, aircraft can be employed on reconnaissance, anti-submarine patrol, convoy escort, and for torpedo and bomb attacks on enemy forces which dispute control. Aircraft for naval co-operation operate from aircraft-carriers and from shore bases within flying range of the fleet. Aircraft borne in carriers are specially designed for launching from and alighting on their car riers, and are called ship-planes. They may be landplanes, float planes (aircraft provided with floats for alighting on the water), or amphibians (aeroplanes which can alight on or rise from both land and water). Shore-based aircraft may be landplanes, sea planes (floatplanes and flying-boats), amphibians, or lighter-than air craft.
Prior to the War 1914-18, there were few instances of aircraft co-operation with a fleet, although seaplanes took part in the British naval manoeuvres of 1912-13-14. At the outbreak of war in 1914 none of the Powers had many naval aircraft, and the development of naval aviation was slow; in fact throughout the whole war the development of aircraft for naval purposes was not as rapid as that of aircraft for work with land forces. Perhaps the hardest problem was to provide aircraft to work with a fleet operating beyond the limited range of aircraft based on shore. Seaplane carriers were hastily improvised from fast merchant steamers, but the inability of the seaplanes of that time to rise from a rough sea, and the risk from submarine attack when stop ping to hoist the seaplanes in and out, militated against their use. However about a dozen ships were so equipped by the Allies, and their aircraft were able to carry out observation and bombing flights.
To cope with the Zeppelins used by the Gerrhans on long distance reconnaissance, experiments were begun in Nov. 1915 in flying small fighting landplanes from British cruisers and sea plane carriers. These were successful, and in Aug. '9'7 a Zeppe lin was shot down by an aeroplane from the British cruiser "Yarmouth." The practice of carrying landplanes in fighting ships was extended in i918 to all British battleships, battle cruisers, and cruisers; the two former types carrying in addition to a fighter a two-seater aeroplane for observation duties. Flights were thus possible in weather which precluded the use of sea planes. Such aircraft were, however, unable to return to their ships, and were forced to fly to the nearest land or alight on the water.
In the meantime experiments in landing aircraft on the decks of specially designed ships had been progressing. In Aug. 1917 an aeroplane alighted on the deck of a ship for the first time, and in Oct. 1918 the British aircraft carrier "Argus," constructed for aircraft to fly both on and off, was commissioned for service in the Grand Fleet.
As regards employment, naval aircraft played a small part in close co-operation with the fleets in the War 1914-18. Seaplanes, kite-balloons, and airships carried out limited reconnaissance for the Grand Fleet, one British seaplane being present at the battle of Jutland. This aircraft sighted the German light cruisers, but low visibility prevented further observation, and only one flight was made. Seaplanes and kite-balloons were also used to observe the fire of the monitors off the Belgian coast, and of the bom barding ships in the Dardanelles. In the German fleet, Zeppelins provided valuable reconnaissance by _reporting the approach of British surface craft, and by keeping down British submarines in the Heligoland Bight. The value, of aircraft observation was greatly enhanced by developments in wireless telegraphy from the air.
Except for a few German attacks on British shipping in 1916 and '9'7 and the attack on the Turkish battle-cruiser "Goeben" aground in the Dardanelles in 1918, there were very few instances of bombing attacks on surface craft at sea. Many naval objectives on shore, however, were bombed; as examples, Cuxhaven in 1914, the airship sheds at Dusseldorf and Friedrichshafen in 1914, the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern in 1918, and the intensive bombing of submarine bases in Flanders throughout the war.
Although as early as 1913 a Sopwith seaplane had carried a torpedo, the first torpedo attack by aircraft was carried out on Aug. 12, '9'5, when for the first time in history a seaplane from the British seaplane carrier "Ben-my-chree" sank a steamer off Gallipoli. This form of attack was, however, slow to develop, and although in Oct. 1916 the British Admiralty decided to build large numbers of torpedo aircraft, it was not until three weeks before the Armistice that a squadron of torpedo-carrying aircraft was ready for service in the Grand Fleet.
By far the largest parts played by naval aircraft were those of anti-submarine patrol and convoy escort. Airships, kite-balloons, seaplanes, and, in i9i8—when the supply of aircraft for the western front exceeded the demand—landplanes, were all used on these duties. From the first days of the war, when the British Expeditionary Force was crossing to France, until the Armistice, areas round the British Isles, off the Belgian coast, and in the Mediterranean—small at first, but increasing rapidly in size as the supply of aircraft became more plentiful—were systematically patrolled by aircraft: as the result, submarine activity Was greatly reduced. Only ic) of the 178 German submarines sunk by anti submarine measures were actually sunk by aircraft, although another 21 were probably seriously damaged, but the value of aircraft thus employed lay in their power to harass the submarine commander, to force him to dive to escape detection, to prevent him from taking up a suitable position for attack, and to locate submarines for their subsequent destruction by surface craft In 1917, when the convoy system was introduced for the pro tection of merchant shipping, air escort was provided and a fair measure of security was afforded to convoys. For example, from April i9i 7 to Nov. ig18, neglecting ocean convoys, a total of 312 ships were torpedoed in convoy, but only two of these attacks occurred when vessels of the convoy were under air escort.