Cambridgeshire 1912
CAMBRIDGESHIRE: Multiple military Flying Grounds
NOTES: This information was gleaned in early 2014 when reading Patrick Bishop’s excellent book Wings regarding a big military exercise in 1912.
“They opened on Monday, 16 September 1912 in the flatlands east of Cambridge. There were two divisions on either side. Red Force, under Sir Douglas Haig, was the attacker. Blue Force, under Sir James Grierson, defended. Both had aircraft to support them – a balloon and seven aeroplanes each.
More had been intended, but summer had seen a spate of fatal accidents. Most of the crashes had involved monoplanes. The decision was made to drop single-wing aircraft, relatively quick and nimble though they were, in favour of more stable biplanes.”
“The afternoon before the war game began, the commander of Blue Force’s cavalry element delivered some unwelcome news to Grierson. He reported that, as the forces were positioned so far apart, his men would be unable to provide information about the enemy’s wherabouts until at least twenty-four hours after the exercise began. Grierson turned to Major Robert Brooke-Popham, who had obtained his Royal Aero Club certificate only two months before, but was commanding the tiny air component. ‘Do you think the aeroplanes could do anything?’ he asked. Brooke-Popham assured him they could."
“The following day, at 6 a.m., his pilots and observers took off into clear blue skies. Three hours later they were back with ‘complete, accurate and detailed information concerning the disposition of the enemy troops’. From then on Grierson relied almost entirely on aircraft for reconnaissance.” Blue Force won the war game.
THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY?
This was, quite probably, the first opportunity for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) formed in April 1912 to prove their worth to the Army, of which they were of course, now an intrinsic part. When the first RFC squadrons flew across to France at the initial stages of WW.1 their primary role was reconnaissance. It was only when meeting an enemy aircraft engaged on similar duties that the idea arose that they should carry weapons and attack them. Needless to say, with pilots and observers armed with only a pistol and/or rifle, and some with large hand-thrown darts, very few encounters resulted in downing an enemy aircraft.
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