ability, was a new and untried arm. In the early reports there
are occasional inaccuracies. Some of the early observers, among those
who were hastily enrolled to bring newly formed squadrons up to
strength, had not much military knowledge, and were not practised in
reading the appearances of things seen from the air. At the time of the
battles of Ypres, 1914, observers of No. 6 Squadron, which had prepared
itself in hot haste for foreign service, mistook long patches of tar on
macadamized roads for troops on the move, and the shadows cast by the
gravestones in a churchyard for a military bivouac. Mistakes like these,
though they were not very many, naturally made commanding officers shy
of trusting implicitly to reports from the air. Yet the early reports of
the first four squadrons did show without any possibility of mistake how
formidable the German movements were.

Sir John French remained at Mons and was led into fighting a battle in a
perilous position against much superior forces. The air reports of the
22nd had given some hints of the success of von Buelow's army in crossing
the Sambre, had indicated a possible enveloping movement from the
direction of Grammont, and had revealed something of the strength of the
enemy troops on the British front. On the following day the attack began
on the position at Mons, and pilots and observers were flying over and
behind the battle-field looking for enemy movements, and locating enemy
batteries.

On the 24th the retreat was in progress. As early as the morning of the
23rd the Royal Flying Corps had begun to shift its quarters from
Maubeuge to Le Cateau. The transport and machines of No. 3 Squadron
moved southward on that day, and on the 24th headquarters and other
squadrons also moved to Le Cateau. 'We slept,' says Major Maurice
Baring, 'and when I say we I mean dozens of pilots, fully dressed in a
barn, on the top of, and underneath, an enormous load of straw....
Everybody was quite cheerful, especially the pilots.' On the afternoon
of the 25th they moved again to St.-Quentin. The rapidity of the retreat
put a heavy strain upon the headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps,
which had to travel before the retreating army, to select an old
aerodrome or to make a new one almost every day, and in the brief hours
between arrival and departure to carry on all the complicated and
delicate business of ministering to the needs of the squadrons. The
places occupied by headquarters dur