-
1. The First Aeronautic Detachment
- University Press of Florida
- Chapter
- Additional Information
1 The First Aeronautic Detachment Naval aviation took a first tentative step toward its wartime mission in Europe in September 1908 when the Department of the Navy assigned an officer to observe acceptance trials of a Wright Brothers aircraft being purchased by the U.S. Army. In September 1910 Capt. Washington Chambers, assistant to the Aide for Material, was designated to handle all correspondence and questions related to aviation. Other events quickly followed. During the next few months Curtiss pilot Eugene Ely executed takeoffs and landings from specially fitted warships at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and San Francisco. A handful of junior officers—Theodore Ellyson, John Rodgers, John Towers— began flight instruction at Wright and Curtiss schools, the trailblazers for all who followed. In 1911 the U.S. Navy ordered its first fragile aircraft and established an aviation camp at Greenbury Point (Annapolis), Maryland. By 1912 nine aviators had begun or completed flight training. During the winter of 1913 the flyers relocated to Guanatanamo Bay to coordinate activities with the fleet. The following winter U.S. Marine elements of the aviation force relocated to Culebra, Puerto Rico, for exercises, while a Navy unit of 9 officers, 23 men, and 7 aircraft cruised to Pensacola aboard Mississippi to establish a flying school. Only two months later in April 1914 two aviation detachments aboard Birmingham and Mississippi hurried to Mexican waters to participate in operations at Tampico and Vera Cruz. Later that summer, war broke out in Europe, leading to new levels of activity. Three officers—John Towers, Bernard Smith, and Victor Herbster—were assigned as aviation assistants to the naval attachés at London, Paris, and Berlin, respectively. That fall the first Naval Aeronautical Station was established at Pensacola, with organized classes commencing the following year. While the period between the outbreak of war in Europe in summer 1914 and America’s entrance into the conflict in April 1917 is sometimes characterized as backward and shortsighted, the Navy did make progress in many areas of aviation. Aircraft were launched from warships by catapult, and several vessels were equipped with these devices. The Department ordered its first 6 Stalking the U-Boat dirigible and first kite balloons, and in February 1917 an additional 14 airships of an improved design. The first group of enlisted men began receiving flight training. New aircraft were tested and purchased. The Naval Appropriations of 1916 allocated $3,500,000 for aviation and authorized a Naval Flying Corps and a Naval Reserve Flying Corps. The latter provided the organization in which several thousand aviators would serve in the war soon to come. Various boards developed plans for expanded aeronautic activity. Still, developments on the home front could not possibly keep pace with those occurring overseas, and the Navy remained woefully unprepared to take on the great challenge it would soon face. When war was declared, naval aviation forces totaled 48 officers (34 aviators), 239 enlisted men, 54 aircraft, 1 airship, 3 balloons, and 1 air station. After months of escalating tensions and acrimonious debate the United States entered the cauldron of the Great War on April 6, 1917. The arrival in Washington of British and French military missions a few weeks later did much to focus attention on the daunting challenges confronting the nation. Defeating the German submarine menace, casus belli for President Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter the conflict, stood atop the list. England’s population faced the very real possibility of starvation, while the French army was bled nearly white. It would soon be necessary to transport vast quantities of men and equipment to Europe right through the enemy’s deadly U-boat gauntlet. Allied coastal aviation stations and antisubmarine patrols had thus far proven incapable of deterring submarine attacks. Clearly, German submarines must be driven away from Allied ports and coasts at all costs. Many hoped the Navy’s infant aviation arm would play a significant role in this endeavor. Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, who first flew at the Annapolis aviation camp in May 1913, began the process of projecting aeronautic forces overseas on April 20, 1917, by cabling Adm. William Sims in London, soon to be designated commander of Naval Forces Operating in European Waters. Daniels requested immediate and full information concerning British naval aviation, including descriptions of aircraft types employed and tactics that had proven most successful over water, on coastal patrol, and searching for submarines. The British Air Ministry prepared a memo for the American Naval Attaché that he forwarded...