eography and with
strategical problems. The two attitudes and two methods lent a certain
richness and diversity to our air operations in the war. When Commander
Samson established himself at Dunkirk during the first year of the war,
his variegated activities bore very little resemblance to the operations
of the military squadrons on the battle-front.

The review of the fleet by the King, at Spithead, from the 18th to the
22nd of July 1914, gave to the Royal Naval Air Service an opportunity to
demonstrate its use in connexion with naval operations. Most of the
available naval aircraft were concentrated at Portsmouth, Weymouth, and
Calshot to take part in the review. On the 20th of July an organized
flight of seventeen seaplanes, and two flights of aeroplanes in
formation headed by Commander Samson, manoeuvred over the fleet. This
formation flying had been practised at Eastchurch before the review.
Three airships from Farnborough and one from Kingsnorth also took part
in the demonstration. Within a few weeks all were to take part in the
operations of war. The aeroplanes and seaplanes flew low over the fleet.
Some naval officers, who had previously seen little of aircraft,
expressed the opinion that the planes flew low because they could not
fly high, and that their performance was an acrobatic exhibition,
useless for the purposes of war. These and other doubters were soon
converted by the war.

When the review was over, the seaplanes and airships returned to their
several bases. The flights of aeroplanes, under Commander Samson, went
on tour, first to Dorchester, where they stayed four or five days, and
thence to the Central Flying School. They had been there only a few
hours when they received urgent orders to return to Eastchurch, where
they arrived on the 27th of July. On the same day seaplanes from other
stations were assembled at Grain Island, Felixstowe, and Yarmouth, to be
ready to patrol the coast in the event of war. These precautionary
orders, and the orders given by the Admiralty on the previous day,
arresting the dispersal of the British fleet, were among the first
orders of the war. On the 29th of July instructions were issued to the
Naval Air Service that the duties of scouting and patrol were to be
secondary to the protection of the country against hostile aircraft. All
machines were to be kept tuned up and ready for action. On the 30th of
July the Army Council agreed to send No. 4 Squadron of aeroplanes t