f
development and the success attending it the following chapters will
show.

CHAPTER VI

NAVAL AIRSHIPS.--THE NON-RIGIDS--S.S. TYPE

The development of the British airships of to-day may be said to date
from February 28th, 1915. On that day approval was given for the
construction of the original S.S. airship.

At this time the Germans had embarked upon their submarine campaign,
realizing, with the failure of their great assaults on the British
troops in Flanders, that their main hope of victory lay in starving
Great Britain into surrender. There is no doubt that the wholesale
sinking of our merchant shipping was sufficient to cause grave alarm,
and the authorities were much concerned to devise means of minimizing,
even if they could not completely eliminate the danger. One proposal
which was adopted, and which chiefly concerns the interests of this
book, was the establishment of airship stations round the coasts of
Great Britain. These stations were to be equipped with airships
capable of patrolling the main shipping routes, whose functions were to
search for submarines and mines and to escort shipping through the
danger zones in conjunction with surface craft.

Airship construction in this country at the time was, practically
speaking, non-existent. There was no time to be wasted in carrying out
long and expensive experiments, for the demand for airships which could
fulfil these requirements was terribly urgent, and speed of
construction was of primary importance. The non-rigid design having
been selected for simplicity in construction, the expedient was tried
of slinging the fuselage of an ordinary B.E. 2C aeroplane, minus the
wings, rudder and elevators and one or two other minor fittings,
beneath an envelope with tangential suspensions, as considerable
experience had been gained already in a design of this type.

For this purpose the envelope of airship No. 2, which was lying
deflated in the shed at Farnborough, was rushed post haste to
Kingsnorth, inflated and rigged to the fuselage prepared for it. The
work was completed with such despatch that the airship carried out her
trial flight in less than a fortnight from approval being granted to
the scheme. The trials were in every way most satisfactory, and a large
number of ships of this design was ordered immediately. At the same
time two private firms were invited to submit designs of their own to
fulfil the Admiralty requirements. One firm's de