Geoffrey L. Rossano - Striking the Hornets Nest: Naval Aviation and the Origins of Strategic Bombing in World War I

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2015 by Geoffrey Rossano and Thomas Wildenberg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rossano, Geoffrey Louis.

Striking the hornets nest: naval aviation and the origins of strategic bombing in World War I / Geoffrey L. Rossano and Thomas Wildenberg.

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-61251-391-1 (epub) 1. World War, 1914-1918Aerial operations. 2. Naval aviationHistory20th century. 3. Bombing, AerialHistory20th century. 4. Great Britain. Royal Naval Air ServiceHistory. 5. United States. NavyNorthern Bombing GroupHistory. 6. Air powerHistory20th century. I. Wildenberg, Thomas, 1947- II. Title. III. Title: Naval aviation and the origins of strategic bombing in World War I.

D602

940.44dc23

2015028818

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.481992 (Permanence of Paper).

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First printing

To all Naval Aviators past, present, and future, who place themselves in harms way to defend the United States of America

The most ambitious operational project undertaken by Naval Aviation during World War I.

Clifford Lord

Contents

C ompleting a project such as this depends extensively on the enthusiastic assistance of many individuals and institutions. The authors have relied particularly on the collections and staff of several major repositories, including the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the Naval History and Heritage Command, and the Archives and Special Collections Branch of the Library of the Marine Corps. We would like to offer special thanks to Joshua Stoff of the Cradle of Aviation Museum of Garden City, New York; Pati Threatt, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Frazar Memorial Library, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, Louisiana; Mike Miller, Greg Cina, and Jim Ginther of the Archives and Special Collections Branch of the Library of the Marine Corps; now-retired Air Force Historian Roger G. Miller; and Barbara Gilbert, Archivist, Fleet Air Arm Museum. Nattalie Will graciously prepared the maps for this volume. Finally, we wish to acknowledge our appreciation of the work of the Naval Institute Press and its director, Rick Russell.

W orld War I witnessed military conflict on a previously unimaginable scale. Older strategies such as trench warfare and maritime blockade were expanded, joined by revolutionary new concepts and technologies that included the first widespread use of poison gas, radio, gasoline-powered transport, dreadnoughts, tanks, airplanes, and submarines. During the war, United States naval aviation participated directly and aggressively in this seismic change. The largest of the Navys aeronautic activities, ultimately named the Northern Bombing Group (NBG), represented a pathbreaking attempt to implement an innovative concept with far-reaching implications known as strategic bombing. The program envisioned the use of scores, then hundreds, of day and night bombers to destroy German U-boat facilities located along the Belgian coast, something President Woodrow Wilson described as striking the hornets in their nest. Efforts to employ long-range aircraft to conduct strategic missions also extended to the establishment of a bombing base at Killingholme, England, development of speedy sea sleds to launch heavy bombers from the sea, and plans to create a Southern Bombing Program to attack Austrian military infrastructure in the Adriatic region.

Throughout World War I, the greater part of the Allies air strength provided tactical support to the land armies. Nearly all the strategic bombing operations conducted on the Western Front before the formation of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1918, were undertaken by the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). The French preferred not to carry out such missions for fear of instigating German reprisals. And while the Italian air service did conduct a number of strategic raids, tactical considerations remained its principal preoccupation. Because early strategic bombing was practiced on a very small scale, its direct impact on the future development of this form of aerial warfare has been overlooked by most historians. Thus, little has been written about the important role played by the United States Navys Northern Bombing Group or its mentor and patron the Royal Naval Air Service. This omission needs redressing.

In the early months of the war, the RNAS carried out its first raids against targets in Germany, and by the end of 1915 plans were in hand for a systematic offensive against enemy industrial centers. From 1916 onward, and especially during the last year of the war, much work, involving practical experiments, operation research, and staff planning, was undertaken in the field and a considerable body of knowledge assembled. As Neville Jones related in his seminal work The Origins of Strategic Bombing, The leaders of the Royal Naval Air Service were convinced that strategic bombing had a valuable part to play in the air war and made great efforts to provide suitable aircraft and equipment for this work. But their endeavors were frustrated by a scarcity of resources and the aerial demands of the land battle that consumed pilots and planes at a prodigious rate. In desperation, they turned to the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

The United States Navy, like its British counterpart, had traditionally played a wide-ranging strategic role with the emphasis on mobility and flexibility of response, and a few visionaries grasped the opportunity offered by the airplane as an offensive weapon. But the Navy, having arrived late on the European scene, depended utterly on the cooperation, expertise, guidance, facilities, and equipment of its allies. The large strategic bombing offensive eventually planned against enemy submarine facilities followed a blueprint created by the Royal Naval Air Service, and revealed the Americans deference toward British priorities and their reliance upon the assistance of their allies.