of the battles of the Somme the Royal Flying
Corps maintained a clear measure of superiority over the enemy in the
air. At the close of those battles, on the 30th of September 1916, Sir
Douglas Haig informed the War Office that the enemy had been making
extraordinary efforts to increase the number and develop the speed and
power of his fighting machines, and within the last few days had brought
into action a considerable number of fighting aeroplanes which were
faster, handier, and capable of attaining a greater height than any of
the British machines, with the exception of three squadrons composed of
Nieuports, F.E.'s, and Sopwiths. To meet this situation he asked for
more and better fighting aeroplanes, and promised a further statement,
to be based on the estimate of the General Officer Commanding the Royal
Flying Corps. Fighting in the air continued to increase, and on the 16th
of November Sir Douglas Haig asked for twenty additional fighting
squadrons. 'Aerial battles on a large scale', he says, 'have practically
superseded individual combats, with the result that, in order to get
information and to allow artillery machines to carry on their work, it
is becoming more and more necessary for the fighting squadrons to be in
strength in the air the whole day.'

The new types of machine asked for did not arrive until the spring of
the following year, and they could not be used to advantage on their
arrival, for the pilots had first to learn to handle them. Accordingly,
as early as April 1917, General Trenchard wrote to the Director-General
of Military Aeronautics, outlining the requirements of the Royal Flying
Corps for the winter of 1917 and the spring of 1918. 'I anticipate', he
says, 'that the Germans will produce a machine as much better than their
present Albatross scout as the Albatross scout is better than the
Fokker.' The great need was still single-seater fighters, and he urges
that all available energy should be concentrated on these.

These programmes have been quoted, not so much to show how fighting in
the air became, in 1916, the most important activity of the Royal Flying
Corps, as to illustrate the initiative and foresight of the command.
Experience at the front of our own successes and failures, and of the
successes and failures of the Germans, suggested the needs of the
future; the provision to be made, so that we might be able to meet those
needs, was thought out beforehand, and was carefully and comp