The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914[1] to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), the world's first independent air force.
It was replaced by the Fleet Air Arm, initially consisting of those RAF units that normally operated from ships, but emerging as a separate unit similar to the original RNAS by the time of the Second World War.
On 21 July 1908 Captain Reginald Bacon, who was a member of the Aerial Navigation Sub-Committee, submitted to the First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher that a rigid airship based on the German Zeppelin be designed and constructed by the firm of Vickers. After much discussion on the Committee of Imperial Defence the suggestion was approved on 7 May 1909. Though Bacon had been intended as the Superintendent of Construction, his departure from the Royal Navy in November 1909 saw the role fall to his protegee at the Naval Ordnance Department, Captain Murray Sueter. Consequently Sueter was the first Royal Navy officer assigned to a naval air project.[2]
On 21 June 1910, Lt. George Cyril Colmore became the first qualified pilot in the Royal Navy. After completing training, which Colmore paid for out of his own pocket, he was issued with Royal Aero Club Certificate Number 15.
In November 1910, the Royal Aero Club, thanks to one of its members, Francis McClean, offered the Royal Navy two aircraft with which to train its first pilots. The club also offered its members as instructors and the use of its airfield at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. The Admiralty accepted and on 6 December the Commander-in-Chief, The Nore promulgated the scheme to the officers under his jurisdiction and requested that applicants be unmarried and able to pay the membership fees of the Royal Aero Club. The airfield became the Naval Flying School, Eastchurch. Two hundred applications were received, and four were accepted: Lieutenant C. R. Samson, Lieutenant A. M. Longmore, Lieutenant A. Gregory and Captain E. L. Gerrard, RMLI.
After prolonged discussion on the Committee of Imperial Defence, the Royal Flying Corps was constituted by Royal Warrant on 13 April 1912. It absorbed the nascent naval air detachment and also the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers. It consisted of two wings with the Military Wing making up the Army element and Naval Wing, under Commander C. R. Samson. A Central Flying School staffed by officers and men of both the navy and the army was created at Upavon for the pilot training of both wings, and opened on 19 June 1912 under the command of Captain Godfrey Paine, a naval officer. The Naval Wing, by the terms of its inception was permitted to carry out experimentation at its flying school at Eastchurch. The Royal Flying Corps, although formed of two separate branches, allowed for direct entry to either branch through a joint Special Reserve of Officers, although soon the Navy inducted new entries into the Royal Naval Reserve. In the summer of 1912, in recognition of the air branch's expansion, Captain Murray Sueter was appointed Director of the newly formed Air Department at the Admiralty. Sueter's remit as outlined in September 1912 stated that he was responsible to the Admiralty for "all matters connected with the Naval Air Service."
In the same month as the Air Department was set up, four naval seaplanes participated in Army Manoeuvres. In 1913 a seaplane base on the Isle of Grain and an airship base at Kingsnorth were approved for construction. The same year provision was made in the naval estimates for eight airfields to be constructed, and for the first time aircraft participated in manoeuvres with the Royal Navy, using the converted cruiser as a seaplane carrier. On 16 April ten officers of the naval service graduated from the Central Flying School. As of 7 June 44 officers and 105 other ranks had been trained at the Central Flying School and at Eastchurch, and 35 officers and men had been trained in airship work. Three non-rigid airships built for the army, the Willows, Astra-Torres and the Parseval were taken over by the navy. On 1 July 1914, the Admiralty made the Royal Naval Air Service, forming the Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps, part of the Military Branch of the Royal Navy.[3] Promotions to the rank were first gazetted on 30 June 1914.
By the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the RNAS had 93 aircraft, six airships, two balloons and 727 personnel.[4] The Navy maintained twelve airship stations around the coast of Britain from Longside, Aberdeenshire, in the northeast to Anglesey in the west. On 1 August 1915 the Royal Naval Air Service officially came under the control of the Royal Navy. In addition to seaplanes, carrier-borne aircraft, and other aircraft with a legitimate "naval" application the RNAS also maintained several crack fighter squadrons on the Western Front, as well as allocating scarce resources to an independent strategic bombing force at a time when such operations were highly speculative. Inter-service rivalry even affected aircraft procurement. Urgently required Sopwith 1½ Strutter two-seaters had to be transferred from the planned RNAS strategic bombing force to RFC squadrons on the Western Front because the Sopwith firm were contracted to supply the RNAS exclusively. This situation continued, although most of Sopwith's post-1915 products were not designed specifically as naval aircraft. Thus RNAS fighter squadrons obtained Sopwith Pup fighters months before the RFC, and then replaced these first with Sopwith Triplanes and then Camels while the hard-pressed RFC squadrons soldiered on with their obsolescent Pups.[5]
On 23 June 1917, after the Second Battle of Gaza, RNAS aircraft attacked Tulkarm in the Judean Hills.
On 1 April 1918, the RNAS was merged with the RFC to form the Royal Air Force.
At the time of the merger, the Navy's air service had 55,066 officers and men, 2,949 aircraft, 103 airships and 126 coastal stations.
The RNAS squadrons were absorbed into the new structure, individual squadrons receiving new squadron numbers by effectively adding 200 to the number so No. 1 Squadron RNAS (a famous fighter squadron) became No. 201 Squadron RAF.
The Royal Navy regained its own air service in 1937, when the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Air Force (covering carrier borne aircraft, but not the seaplanes and maritime reconnaissance aircraft of Coastal Command) was returned to Admiralty control and renamed the Naval Air Branch. In 1952, the service returned to its pre-1937 name of the Fleet Air Arm.
The main "naval" roles of the RNAS (ignoring for the minute the service's direct field "support" of the RFC) were fleet reconnaissance, patrolling coasts for enemy ships and submarines, and attacking enemy coastal territory. The RNAS systematically searched 4000sqmi of the Channel, the North Sea and the vicinity of the Strait of Gibraltar for U-boats. In 1917 alone, they sighted 175 U-boats and attacked 107. Because of the technology of the time the attacks were not very successful in terms of submarines sunk, but the sightings greatly assisted the Navy's surface fleets in combatting the enemy submarines.
It was the RNAS which provided much of the mobile cover using armoured cars, during the withdrawal from Antwerp to the Yser, in 1914 (see RNAS Armoured Car Section below). Later in the war, squadrons of the RNAS were sent to France to directly support the RFC. The RNAS was also at one stage entrusted with the air defence of London. This led to its raids on airship stations in Germany, in places as far from the sea as the manufacturing site at Friedrichshafen.
Before techniques were developed for taking off and landing on ships, the RNAS had to use seaplanes in order to operate at sea. Beginning with experiments on the old cruiser, special seaplane tenders were developed to support these aircraft. It was from these ships that a raid on Zeppelin bases at Cuxhaven, Nordholz Airbase and Wilhelmshaven was launched on Christmas Day of 1914. This was the first attack by British ship-borne aircraft; the first ship-borne aircraft raid was launched by the Japanese seaplane carrier Wakamiya on 6 September. A chain of coastal air stations was also constructed. This was followed with the Tondern raid, again against Zeppelins, which was the first instance of carrier launched aircraft.
The first informal use of armoured cars by the RNAS was when Commander Charles Samson, on withdrawing The Eastchurch Squadron from Antwerp to Dunkirk, used the squadrons unarmoured touring cars to provide line of communications security and to pick up aircrew who had been forced to land in hostile territory. Commander Samson's younger brother Felix saw the possibilities when he armed one car with a Maxim gun and ambushed a German car near Cassel on 4 September 1914. Commander Samson then had a shipbuilder in Dunkirk, Forges et Chantiers de France, add boilerplate to his Rolls-Royce and Mercedes vehicles.
The Admiralty set up the UK's first mechanised armoured land force, The Naval Airmans Armoured Car Force, to support the Marine Battalions fighting as infantry in France and Flanders. Established with 60 fighting vehicles in September 1914, 18 x Rolls Royce, 21 x Clement-Talbot and 21 Wolsey armoured cars supported by 40 non-fighting vehicles, 4 x Wolsey ambulances, 8 x cars to carry spare parts, 8 x general service cars and 20 lorries it had its headquarters in 48 Dover Street, London and Depot at Wormwood Scrubs.[9]
By November 1914 the Force had become the Royal Naval Armoured Car Division (RNACD) with a planned expansion to 23 squadrons. In the end it mustered 20 active squadrons, 3 equipped with armoured cars, 7 with mixed armoured cars and lorries, 5 with motorcycle-combinations, 3 with armoured lorries, 1 experimental squadron (No.20) and an emergency squadron formed in Alexandria using armoured car sections from N.. 3 and 4 Squadrons not landed in the Dardanelles.
As trench warfare developed, the armoured cars could no longer operate on the Western Front and were redeployed to other theatres including the Middle East, Romania and Russia. In the summer of 1915 the 12 squadrons were disbanded and the army took over control of 4 squadrons of armoured cars, with the units coming under the command of the Motor Branch of the Machine Gun Corps.
On formation in December No. 1 Squadron was put on defence of the East Coast.[10] No 2, commanded by Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, arrived in France in March 1915. The firepower of the Armoured Cars was reinforced by Seabrook lorries (three per squadron) armed with 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns.
No 3 and No. 4 Squadron, with Rolls Royce Armoured Cars were sent to Gallipoli but spent most of their time their protected in trenches until they were removed to Egypt - where the terrain was more favourable - to protect the canal and operate in the Western Desert.Squadrons of the RNACD were used in German South West Africa (Rolls Royce Armoured Cars) and in British East Africa (Lanchester Armoured Cars with British Army Leyland lorries, later reinforced with a section of Rolls Royce from SW Africa).
In 1915, a RN armed steamer the SS Tara and SS Moorina had been sunk off the North African coast by the German submarine U-35, he survivors had ended up in Senousi hands and taken inland to Bir Hakiem. In 1916 under the Duke of Westminister took a force of nine armoured cars, three Ford cars with Lewis gun armament, and 28 other cars and ambulances on a operation to recover them. After travelling 100 miles across the desert, the column reached the location where the Senousi gave up the captives without a fight.[11]
The Russian Armoured Car Division consisted of 3 squadrons formed from 15 and 17 Squadrons plus volunteers from disbanded units under Oliver Locker-Lampson, sent to Russia in 1915, the Caucasus in 1916 and Galicia in 1917. It was transferred to Royal marines' control in November 1917 before leaving Russia in early 1918.
However, RNAS experience of the Western Front would not be lost, No. 20 Squadron RNAS was retained under Naval control to further develop armoured vehicles for land battle, these personnel later becoming the nucleus of the team working under the Landship Committee that developed the first tanks.
The RAF later inherited some ex-RNAS armoured cars left in the Middle East, and during the Second World War, the Number 1 Armoured Car Company RAF played an important role in the defence of RAF Habbaniya when the base was attacked by Iraqi nationalists.
Scotland
Wales
France
Eastern Mediterranean
Elsewhere
Unlike the RFC, the RNAS was organised on a non-central basis so there were several No 1 Squadrons. Even wings numbers were not consistently given to the same unit, so there are many exceptions in historic data.
At the start of the war there were three wings 1, 2 and 3. As the war progressed, other wings were formed.
Squadrons serving in France were given numbers from 1 to 17. At the formation of the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, they became 201 to 217 squadrons of the RAF.
Squadrons serving in the Eastern Mediterranean were given letters (A to G, and Z).
In 1918, Squadron A became Squadron 222; Squadron B became Squadron 223; Squadron C became Squadron 220; and Squadron D became Squadron 221, all of the RAF. Squadron Z was transferred to the Royal Greek Navy.
In the RNAS both pilots and observers held appointments as well as their normal Royal Navy ranks, and wore insignia appropriate to the appointment instead of the rank. The insignia consisted of standard Royal Navy cuff stripes corresponding to their normal ranks, surmounted by an eagle (for pilots) or a winged letter "O" (for observers). In addition, Squadron Commanders and Squadron Observers with less than eight years' seniority had their insignia surmounted by two eight-pointed stars, one above the other, while Flight Commanders and Flight Observers had their insignia surmounted by one such star.
| Royal Naval Air Service (1914–April 1918) |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wing Captain | Wing Commander | Squadron Commander (more than 8 years seniority) | Flight Sub-Lieutenant | Officer Cadet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wing Observer | Squadron Observer (more than 8 years seniority) | Observer Sub-Lieutenant | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After the RNAS merged with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force in 1918, the RNAS pilot appointments became the basis of certain RAF officer ranks, most notably Wing Commander and Flight Lieutenant.
The following grades were introduced for other ranks in the RNAS and were announced in the London Gazette in 1914.
| Rank group | Senior NCOs | Junior NCOs | Enlisted | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Naval Air Service (1914–April 1918) |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Petty Officer Mechanic | Leading Mechanic | Air Mechanic, 1st Class | Air Mechanic, 1st Class (acting) | Air Mechanic, 2nd Class | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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