eatty, Royal Engineers.
Captain R. Cholmondeley, Rifle Brigade.
Lieutenant G. B. Hynes, Royal Artillery.

_Flying Officers._

Lieutenant G. T. Porter, Royal Artillery.
2nd Lieutenant C. G. Bell, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
2nd Lieutenant N. C. Spratt, Royal Flying Corps, Special Reserve.
Lieutenant R. H. Verney, Army Service Corps.

Something must be said of the machines which flew to France. Experience
at manoeuvres had favoured the factory B.E. 2 biplane; of the other
types most in use the Henri Farman had been found fatiguing to fly, and
the Maurice Farman was too slow. Accordingly, in the winter of 1913-14
Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes had urged the gradual substitution of
B.E. machines for the Farmans. Major W. S. Brancker, writing for the
Director-General of Military Aeronautics, objected to this proposal on
the ground that until a satisfactory type of fighting aeroplane should
be evolved, the Henri Farman was the only machine that could mount
weapons effectively; and further, that a slow machine had some
advantages for observation. The first of these objections was not fully
met until firing through the airscrew was introduced; the second was for
a long time an accepted idea. The war was to prove that a slow machine,
exposed to armed attack, cannot live in the air. The battle of the
machines ended, for the time, in compromise. It was judged important
that the Flying Corps should have four squadrons ready for war by the
spring of 1914, and large changes would have caused delay. In the event,
at the date of mobilization, No. 2 Squadron and No. 4 Squadron were
furnished throughout with B.E. 2 machines; No. 3 Squadron made use of
Bleriots and Henri Farmans, and No. 5 of Henri Farmans, Avros, and B.E.
8's. A single type of machine for a single squadron is a thing to be
desired; the squadron is easier for the pilots and the mechanics to
handle; but in the early days of the war there was no formation flying;
each machine did its work alone, so that uniformity was of less
importance.

When the Flying Corps arrived in France they were received by the French
with enthusiasm, and had their full share of the hospitality of those
days. The officers were treated as honoured guests; the men with the
transport were greeted by crowds of villagers, who at all their
stopping-places pressed on them bottles of wine, bunches of flowers,
fruit, and eggs. At Amiens the transport and machines were parked
outsi