part of the war had not the necessary power and range. To build a vessel
which should be able to carry seaplanes or aeroplanes for work with the
fleet was not a simple matter. Such a vessel would be an encumbrance
unless it could keep station with the Grand Fleet or with the Battle
Cruiser Squadron, that is, unless it could steam up to thirty knots for
a period of many hours together. Further, a stationary ship at sea is
exposed to attack by submarines, so that it was desirable, if not
necessary, that the flying machines should be able to take the air and
return to their base without stopping the ship. This consideration led,
at a later period of the war, to the use by the navy of aeroplanes flown
from specially constructed decks. But this was a matter of time and
experiment. As early as December 1911 Commander Samson had succeeded in
flying off the deck of H.M.S. _Africa_, and when the war broke out the
_Hermes_, which had formerly served as headquarters for the Royal Naval
Air Service, was fitted with a launching-deck for aeroplanes. The
_Hermes_ was sunk in the third month of the war; thereafter the _Ark
Royal_, the _Campania_, the _Vindex_, the _Manxman_, the _Furious_, the
_Pegasus_, and the _Nairana_ were each of them successively fitted with
a launching-deck. But launching proved easier than alighting. It may
seem to be a simple thing for an aeroplane to overtake a ship that is
being driven into the wind, and to alight quietly on its afterdeck. But
immediately behind such a ship there is always a strong up-current of
air. This up-current--the bump that the albatross sits on--is what makes
the difficulty and danger of the attempt. An aeroplane which resists it
by diving through it will almost certainly crash on the deck beyond. The
business of landing an aeroplane on the ship from which it had been
launched was not accomplished until the 2nd of August 1917, when Flight
Commander E. H. Dunning succeeded, at Scapa Flow, in landing a Sopwith
Pup on the forecastle deck of the _Furious_, while she was under way.
Five days later, when he was repeating this performance, his machine
rolled over into the sea, and he was drowned. His work was not lost; the
_Furious_ was fitted thereafter with a special landing-deck aft, and it
was by naval aeroplanes flown from the deck of the _Furious_ that one of
the large Zeppelin sheds at Tondern was destroyed on the 19th of July
1918.

The next ships in the succession were the _Vindicti