Thoughts and Adventures by Winston S. Churchill James W. Muller

Thoughts and Adventures by Winston S. Churchill James W. Muller

Author:Winston S. Churchill, James W. Muller [Winston S. Churchill, James W. Muller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary Criticism, European, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh
ISBN: 9781935191469
Google: fvkLAQAAMAAJ
Publisher: ISI Books
Published: 2009-01-15T00:18:48+00:00


IN THE AIR

In the Air

Except for the year 1916, I was continually in control of one or the other branch of the Air Service during the first eleven years of its existence. From 1911 to 1915 I was responsible at the Admiralty for the creation and development of the Royal Naval Air Service; from July, 1917, to the end of the War I was in charge of the design, manufacture and supply of all kinds of aircraft and air material needed for the War; and from 1919 to 1921 I was Air Minister as well as Secretary of State for War. Thus it happens to have fallen to my lot to have witnessed, and to some extent shaped in its initial phases, the whole of this tremendous new arm, undoubtedly destined to revolutionize war by land and sea, and possibly in the end to dominate or supersede armies and navies as we have known them.

At the very beginning in 1911 the Royal Navy possessed half a dozen aeroplanes and perhaps as many pilots. The art of flying was in its childhood, and flying for war purposes was a sphere about which only the vaguest ideas existed. The skill of the pilots, the quality of engines and machines, were alike rudimentary. Even the nomenclature had to be invented, and I may claim myself to have added the words ‘seaplane’ and ‘flight’ (of aeroplanes) to the dictionary.1

From the outset I was deeply interested in the air and vividly conscious of the changes which it must bring to every form of war. On first going to the Admiralty I resolved to develop and extend the naval air service by every means in my power. I thus came into contact with a little band of adventurous young men who, under the {182} leadership of Commander Sampson,2 were the pioneers of naval flying. I was fascinated by the idea of flying, and yet side by side with desire was also a dread of going into the air for the first time. Indeed it must have been three or four months before I made my first flight. We had already had several accidents, and I felt a very keen sympathy with these young officers who were risking their lives in time of peace. I thought it would be a stimulus to progress generally if I, as First Lord, participated to some extent. Other ministers in charge of the Air Service have usually taken the same view.

Accordingly early in 1912 I took my seat in a seaplane piloted by Commander Spenser Grey,3 and resigned myself to what was in those days at once a novel and a thrilling experience. I was astonished to find, after with some difficulty we had got off the water and had surged into the air, that looking down from seven or eight hundred feet did not make me dizzy. Still I am bound to confess that my imagination supplied me at every moment with the most realistic anticipations of a crash, and



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