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NAVY NEWS, APRIL 2007 25
‘War can’t last for ever’
GLORIOUS SUMMER MIRACLE OF FLIGHT
FIRST FLIGHTS NEW HUN LEADERS
‘HEAVIER THAN AIR CRAFT’ HIDEOUS LOSSES
IT WAS a splendid summer’s After little more than a fortnight’s
afternoon when the train pulled into instructions, including 13 brief
the station at Eastbourne, a fine
fl ights over Sussex, WO Lloyd was
cream-bricked building with a rather
suffi ciently satisfi ed with Edward
ostentatious clock tower.
Crundall’s progress to permit him
A small tender was waiting for
to fl y solo. At 7.36am on September
the train. It would take a handful of
3 1916 he told the young fl ier: “All
passengers to their billets in large
right, if you really want to go solo,
houses around the resort.
you can.” Just one circuit of the
The war was at its height, yet so
aerodrome, he insisted, no more, then
too was the season in the Sussex
Crundall should land. “Remember,
seaside town.
I’ve warned you, so I suppose this is
Four young naval officers put all
the last time I shall see this aeroplane
thoughts of conflict to one side and
in one piece,” Lloyd imparted.
booked a box in one of Eastbourne’s
Just one circuit. But in the air
many theatres.
Edward Crundall lost himself.
It was all great fun. The cast
Physically. Spiritually.
hurled ‘snowballs’ – balls of soft
“It was marvellous to be sailing
white cloth – into the audience. The
along by myself for I was absolutely
sailors tossed the balls back on to
certain I could cope,” he enthused.
stage or hurled them at four young
“I was enjoying myself so much,
ladies in the adjacent box.
looking at objects and people on the
There were four days of tedious
ground, that I forgot I was supposed
instruction to endure – how to rig an
to do one circuit only.”
aircraft, how to maintain the engine
Eventually Crundall brought his
– and then, at 6.25pm on August 16
aircraft to earth. The warrant offi cer
1916, Edward Crundall climbed into
was waiting for him, seething. As
he was getting out of the machine,
the back seat of a Maurice Farman
Lloyd shouted: “I said one circuit, no
‘pusher’ biplane – the propeller was
excuses, you lost yourself.”
behind the crew, pushing the aircraft
forwards – as a gruff warrant officer
Erich Ludendorff had no time for
scrambled into the front seat. For
wistful dreams.
two minutes the aircraft lumbered
As Edward Crundall took to the
through the Sussex sky.
skies for the first time on his own,
Edward Crundall peered down
the imposing First Quartermaster
into the gardens of Eastbourne’s elite
General – Chief-of-Staff – of the
before the Farman made an abrupt
Kaiserheer, the Imperial German
landing. It was the 19-year-old
Army, took stock of the Western
officer’s first taste of powered flight.
Front.
Within six months Crundall would
Ludendorff and his master,
be posted to the Western Front with
Field Marshal Paul Ludwig Hans
Royal Naval Air Service Squadron
Anton von Beneckendorff und von
No.8 – the legendary ‘Naval Eight’.
Hindenburg had been charged with
Within eight months, Crundall would
reversing Germany’s fortunes.
score his first victories in the air, a
1916 had begun brightly.
pair of German Albatros two-seat Stormtroops had swept across the
biplanes, shot down on the same day rolling terrain of the Meuse and seized
high above the pockmarked Western the most potent forts at Verdun.
Front. The German Chief-of-Staff, Erich
Crundall would down his first von Falkenhayn, was determined to
enemy in April 1917 – ‘Bloody bleed France white.
April’ to the men of the Royal Flying But the French picked up the
Corps and Royal Naval Air Service. gauntlet; the German Army too began
More than 270 British aircraft were to be bled white at Verdun.
lost – and more than 200 pilots and Then the British joined in, striking
aircrew killed – on the Western Front on the Somme. Falkenhayn’s strategy
as the British Army tried yet again to was simple: Hold on to what you
smash its way through the German have and never surrender a square
defences east of the city of Arras.
foot of what you have won.
It was too costly. After two months
Powered flight was barely a dozen
of fighting on the Somme, 300,000
years old; naval aviation, officially,
German soldiers were casualties.
had existed since just a month before
The Kaiser acted. He dismissed
war engulfed Europe.
Falkenhayn and replaced him with
It had been born five years before,
the formidable duo of Ludendorff
in 1909, when the Admiralty ordered
and Hindenburg.
Naval Airship No.1 – commonly
Their first act was to visit the
referred to as the Mayfly – from the
German Army in the West.
Vickers company.
The landser, the ordinary German
A flimsy contraption at best,
soldier, was fighting heroically
Mayfly had been in Admiralty service
against the odds. The enemy
just three days when a gust of wind
outclassed him in the air, in artillery,
caught her and broke her back.
in numbers, yet still, man for man,
Experiments with heavier than air
the German soldier felt superior to
craft proved rather more successful.
his foe.
Cdr Charles Rumney Sampson
Simply holding ground for the
demonstrated it was possible to
sake of it was madness, Erich
launch an aircraft from the deck of
Ludendorff quickly concluded, and
a warship (the craft had to be craned
costly. “Enormous errors have been
back aboard).
made,” he fumed. “It’s high time to
Seaplane bases began to spring up
put things right.”
around the British coast. A seaplane
carrier was commissioned, HMS
Edward Crundall spent the autumn
of 1916 high above the Lincolnshire
Hermes, and finally, on July 1 1914,
plains.
Whitehall agreed to the formation
It was here, at the Royal Naval
of the Royal Naval Air Service. It
Air Service Central Flying School
counted more than 200 pilots and
at Cranwell – today the cradle of
nearly 100 aircraft, most of them
the Royal Air Force – that the young
seaplanes, whose domain was the sea
officer learned the art of aerial
and the sky.
warfare, first in Avro 504b and BE2c
War in Europe would ensure that
trainers, then in a Bristol Scout.
the youngest branch of the Royal
Bombing, strafing and dogfighting
Navy would see action over land
● The eye of the hunter... Reginald ‘Reggie’ Soar peers out of the cockpit. Soar, a close friend of Edward Crundall and fellow ace, served in
as well.
Naval Eight and Naval One on the Western Front in 1917
Picture: Fleet Air Arm Museum Continued on page 26marina
Bloody April.indd 1 14/3/07 15:50:21
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