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Updated: July 29, 2025
Back and forth above flew seaplanes and airplanes, giving battle to the aircraft which the Germans sent up in the forlorn hope of heading off that attack and dropping their bombs on points carefully mapped long in advance. It is true that the aim of the aviators was necessarily inaccurate. That is the chief weakness of a bombardment from the sky.
One remarkable enterprise of Russian airmen was reported officially on April 3, 1917, from Petrograd and deserves, on account of its highly adventurous nature, detailed repetition. The statement read: "On the Black Sea on March 27, 1917, during a raid by our seaplanes on Derkas, one of them was hit by the enemy. The petrol tank being punctured, the machine was compelled to descend.
Owing to its situation, Venice is extremely vulnerable to air attacks, for the Austrian seaplanes, operating from Trieste or Pola, can glide across the Adriatic under cover of darkness, and are over the city before their presence is discovered. Before the anti-aircraft guns can get their range, or the Italian airmen can rise and engage them, they have dropped their bombs and fled.
For some time seaplanes were in a very experimental stage and at best could only rise from, and alight on, calm water, though it is interesting to note that as far back as 1911 the employment of seaplanes for torpedo attack, which I think will be one of the most important developments of aircraft in the future, engaged the attention of the Navy, and a Sopwith seaplane carrying a 14-inch torpedo made its first flight at Calshot in 1913.
Control of the Royal Flying Corps is vested in the Admiralty, the government holding that the strategy of airships was distinctly naval. In the use of seaplanes the British were early far in the lead of other nations, as we shall see in a later chapter.
The seaplanes that did return were soon hoisted in, but in the meanwhile eight destroyers and a couple of other craft had been sent on to steam down the coast in line abreast to see if by any chance the two missing ones had come down on the water.
Of course, this does not detract from the confidence we have in our superiority." I heard also that seaplanes have been called upon to serve at all sorts of tasks on the dismal briny. On one occasion a senior naval officer of an English port received word that neutrals were out in boats, and that they had no water or food.
"I am returning home," Crawshay continued, "because I intend to join the British Army, I was unfortunate enough to miss the boat, and being in company with a person of authority and influence, he suggested, partly in joke, that I should try to persuade one of the pilots of your new seaplanes at Jersey to bring me out. He further bet me five hundred dollars that I would not attempt the flight.
Will you in your turn assist me in getting the seaplanes arriving here in Ganges? I have wired to Admiral de Robeck, I want them badly, so please help me if you can. "Forwarded by ADMIRAL ROBINSON." Cutlet for cutlet! I wish it had occurred to me sooner to do a deal with some aeroplanes. But, then I have none. No matter: I should have promised him de Robeck's! South Africa repeats itself!
The Naval Flying Corps What The Navy Department Has Accomplished And Is Accomplishing in the Way of Air-Fighting Experience of a Naval Ensign Adrift in the English Channel Seaplanes and Flying Boats Schools of Instruction Instances of Heroism
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