not believed.
The officers responsible for the Flying Corps in France were concerned
chiefly for the maintenance of that admirable little force in full
efficiency. They suffered continually from a shortage of aeroplanes, and
although their casualties had been far lighter than any one had
anticipated, they had every reason to fear a shortage of flying
officers. Their first demand was not for new squadrons, but for a
reserve of pilots and machines, to keep the existing squadrons in
working trim. It was only by degrees that the portentous dimensions of
the war began to be perceived--a war which, just before it ended, was
employing ninety-nine squadrons of British aeroplanes on the western
front alone.

The discovery, or rather the practical development, of new uses for
aircraft in war quickened the demand for additional squadrons and made
it easier for the two branches of the air service to co-operate. As the
war progressed aerial fighting and bomb-dropping became more and more
important. These were new arts, and required no special naval or
military training; they belonged to the air. When the Fokker fighting
monoplane appeared in strength on the western front in the early months
of 1916, the losses of the Royal Flying Corps in reconnaissance and
artillery observation became very heavy. It was then that the Admiralty
were again appealed to for help, and four Nieuport scouts, with pilots
and mechanics, were dispatched from Eastchurch, arriving at the
aerodrome of No. 6 Squadron, at Abeele, between Cassel and Poperinghe,
on the 29th of March 1916. Before this time the pilots of the Royal
Flying Corps in the Ypres salient had had only the barest acquaintance
with the pilots of the Naval Air Service at Dunkirk. Some of the earlier
Flying Corps pilots had met those of the other service at the Central
Flying School; some of the later pilots had had occasion to land at
Dunkirk and had been filled with admiration and envy when they were
shown the machines and equipment belonging to the Naval Air Service.
Sometimes a naval pilot, flying a little south of his usual beat, would
come across a military pilot in the air, and the two would make some
token of recognition. But the four naval Nieuport scouts of March 1916
sent to the salient to help to meet the attacks of German fighting
scouts were the first naval detachment to co-operate with the Royal
Flying Corps in the field under military command. The experiment, though
it lasted o