5 Squadron, with three machines, was to report for
tactical reconnaissance direct to Sir Douglas Haig at Chaubuisson farm,
one and a half miles east of Fontenay; and the officer commanding No. 3
Squadron, also with three machines, was to report direct to Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien at Combreux Chateau, near Tournan. With each detachment
was to go a wireless aeroplane from No. 4 Squadron to keep Royal Flying
Corps headquarters informed by wireless. The machines were to return to
headquarters at night. This was the beginning of the decentralization of
the Royal Flying Corps, whereby certain squadrons, which came to be
called corps squadrons, were attached to the corps commands. The German
air service from the beginning had been thus organized. With the German
First Army headquarters there was one aeroplane section for
long-distance strategic reconnaissance and each of the corps, with the
exception of the Fourth Reserve Corps, had its own section for tactical
work. From Maubeuge to the Marne the squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps
had been kept together under the immediate control of General Henderson.
The experiment of detaching machines to report direct to the First and
Second Corps worked well on the 6th of September, and Sir John French
gave orders that this arrangement was to continue.

Aeroplanes which were sent out on the morning of the 6th brought
information of confused movements of the German First Army. On the
British front a certain amount of movement northwards was seen in the
afternoon. Of the progress of the battle on his flanks Sir John French
had little knowledge. Aeroplanes were sent up to reconnoitre the
position. One which flew over the area of the Sixth French Army west of
the Ourcq saw at about five o'clock a good deal of movement and shells
bursting in the area Etavigny-Marcilly-May-en-Multien. Another machine
which flew along the line of the Fifth French Army on the British right
came back with the information that at four o'clock fighting was going
on south of Esternay and north of Villiers-St.-Georges. By seven o'clock
that evening Sir John French had no definite news of the progress of the
French armies on his wings save what was contained in these air reports,
and the orders which he issued stated simply that all troops should be
ready to move at any time after 8.0 a.m. on the morrow.

Early on the 7th the situation became clearer; a general retirement of
the Germans on the British front was in pro