by Guy Warner
A report has survived covering the period from 26 September 1910 to January 1912, when Lieutenant Usborne served under Sueter. He was appointed to HMS Hermione for Naval Airship No 1. Hermione was a small 2nd Class cruiser which was intended to act as a sea going depot ship for the airship, which was going to be named Hermione, but is better remembered now by the nickname bestowed upon it – Mayfly. HMS Hermione proceeded from Portsmouth to Barrow in September 1910 under conditions of great secrecy – as indeed was all work in the airship shed. Sueter made a significant entry in the ship’s logbook on 25 October:
‘Airship Officer of the Day is to keep herein a careful record of all work carried out in connection with the airship. Lt Usborne is to generally supervise what is entered to ensure that the record is accurate.’63
Sueter’s later report stated:
‘He has conducted himself with sobriety and to my entire satisfaction. A very zealous and capable officer, he has worked hard in making himself an expert in aeronautical work and has considerable knowledge in this line. I have strongly recommended Lieutenant Usborne for promotion. He was selected as captain of Naval Airship No 1.’64
According to a contemporary and more senior officer, Usborne made many useful technical contributions. Indeed, he applied for Aeronautical Patent 6150 ‘Dirigible Airships’ in 1910, which concerned a system to conserve, as a buoyancy aid, the water vapour given off in the process of the combustion of petrol and air.65 Commander E.A.D. Masterman went on to write:
‘He would then have been about twenty-seven years of age, close on his half-stripe as Lieutenant Commander RN. It is no exaggeration to say that of that collection of officers, many of whom were brother torpedo men, his was the outstanding personality. Nothing was decided without his advice and few things undertaken of which he disapproved. His was the knowledge, slight though it now appears, for undertaking the construction of a rigid airship larger then any existing, his the brain and the ingenuity in overcoming unforeseen obstacles and his the drive which he continually brought to bear on Messrs Vickers when the firm demanded time to set matters going and on anyone else connected with the progress of the great experiment. He was the expert and revelled in so being.’66
What was he like? Masterman stated:
‘In appearance he was rather below normal size, a slightly prominent nose, blue eyes, sandy coloured hair and very forcible expression. He hardly ever spoke without emphasis. He had a dominating personality with a vital spark, most difficult to withstand in argument. Not sparing of others, but himself prepared to do as much, or more, than he demanded of them. He was interested in spiritualism, socialism and new thought, music and motor bikes. He was abstemious in his pleasures, very self-disciplined, lived for work, talked, thought and dreamt airships, kept himself very fit. He indulged in ‘height training’, climbing to high parts of the shed or scaffolding and making perilous walks.’67
Lt Cdr N.F. Usborne about 1913 or 1914.
Developments elsewhere while Naval Airship No 1 was under construction
In April 1909 the Parliamentary Aerial Defence Committee was formed to exert pressure upon the government to improve the measures and resources provided for the aerial defence of the nation. An early result of its effectiveness, but not necessarily its sound judgement, was announced in June 1909:
‘AIRSHIPS FOR THE NATION.
‘In connection with the combined efforts of the Morning Post, Daily Mail, and the Parliamentary Aerial Defence Committee to provide the nation with the beginning, at least, of a fleet of airships, we summarise the chief items of the information which has been made public regarding the projects in hand. The new Clément-Bayard airship, on which the Parliamentary Committee has secured a month’s option, is to be about twice the size of its predecessor. According to Mr Arthur Du Cros, MP, the Secretary of the Committee, the length of the envelope will be 300 feet, and the cubic capacity about 227,500 cubic feet. This should provide for the carrying of twenty-five passengers, but during the trip which it is proposed to make from Paris to London, probably only six will be on board, consisting of M Clément, Mr Arthur Du Cros, and the crew of four. This, however, is not definitely settled, except so far as relates to the crew, which will include the pilot, two helmsmen – one for the elevating planes and one for the rudder – and the engineer. Instead of a single engine and propeller, as in Clément-Bayard No I, the new vessel will have two propellers, one on each side of the hull, and each will be driven by a motor of 220 hp. Sufficient petrol can be carried to enable the airship to travel 700 miles, and it is capable of ascending to a height of 6,000 feet. The vessel is still only in sections, but the work of completing her is being pushed on as fast as possible and it is hoped that she will be ready to make the trip to London at the end of August. Since he made his first trip in the original airship last October, it has been a cherished wish of M Clément to be the first man to visit London from abroad by airship. Although he had not contemplated remaining with his vessel in Great Britain for more than a few days, in view of the offer from the proprietors of the Daily Mail to provide a shed for the accommodation of the airship, he has readily acquiesced in the suggestion that he should remain for a month, so as to give as great an opportunity as possible for Members of Parliament and government officials to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with its possibilities. On one day, too, the general public will be enabled to see the airship, for the Aerial League have arranged with Mr Arthur Du Cros to have it on exhibition for that period. With regard to the shed for the airship, towards the cost of which the Daily Mail have so generously supplied £5,000, Mr Herbert Ellis has been entrusted with the work of designing it, and he has visited France in order to make himself acquainted with the sheds already erected there. M. Clément’s own shed is constructed of galvanized iron lined with cork, so as to keep the temperature fairly even both in summer and winter. He suggests that the dimensions of the building should be 300 feet long, 90 feet high and 75 feet wide. With regard to a site for the shed, the War Office have had under consideration the question of providing this, and both Farnborough and Salisbury Plain have been suggested as possible locations, but it is hoped that a suitable piece of land may be obtained nearer London.’68
The Daily Mail in fact raised £6000 for the construction of an airship shed at Wormwood Scrubs, on land provided by the War Office and a private donation of £5000, in what might be described as a fit of misguided, patriotic enthusiasm, had enabled the ordering and purchase of an airship from the French Clément-Bayard Airship Co.
On 19 February 1910, in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for War, R.B. Haldane, made the customary speech introducing the army estimates for the forthcoming year. He took the opportunity to clarify the government’s policy with regard to aviation:
‘I want now to say a word about dirigibles and aeronautics. The aeronautical department at the National Physical Laboratory got to work almost at once after it was set up last year, and since then it has been found necessary to increase its staff, and the work at Teddington is in full swing. We have also reorganised the construction department at Aldershot, which used to be under the care of Colonel Capper, who did remarkably good work. We want Colonel Capper’s great abilities, however, for the training of officers and men at the Balloon School, and for the work which he has hitherto done we have got hold of a man of great capacity and high eminence, Mr O’Gorman, who is very well known in connection with the construction, not only of motor engines, but other subjects connected with motoring. Mr O’Gorman has now organised a construction department at Aldershot. The next step we propose to take – and we have already decided on its lines – is to substitute for the present corps a regular aeronautical corps, such as exists in Germany, separate from any other corps in the army, devoted to aeronautics. The Balloon School will become the training school for that corps. I am convinced that until we get everything perfectly clear we shall only make very slow progress. The results of the investigations of the committee presided over by L
ord Rayleigh are now being used for the designs we are now engaged upon. At present we have one small dirigible at Aldershot, designed by Colonel Capper, (Baby/Beta) which so far has been doing well, and two more are coming from France. There is the Clément-Bayard, the negotiations for which have been undertaken by the Aeronautical Committee of the House, and, if they are satisfactory, it is not impossible that the War Office may purchase it. There is also the Lebaudy, which, through the patriotism of the Morning Post, has been offered to us. It is coming over before long. We are also working on designs of a large dirigible of our own (Gamma) which I hope will be completed, certainly commenced, in the course of the financial year. Then, of course, there is the great naval dirigible, which is rapidly approaching completion at Barrow, and which, I believe, will be launched in the summer. As soon as we have made ourselves masters of the lessons which these teach, we shall go on working at the construction of other dirigibles and shall be in a position of having a fleet. The whole subject is in its infancy. I am never alarmed by reading about the progress of other nations in this respect. Already much of the material possessed by foreign nations is being found to be unsatisfactory, and I have not very much fear that if we put our backs to it we shall find ourselves ahead.’69
It was reported in The Times of 7 April 1910, that Lieutenant Neville Usborne, ‘who had been superintending the construction of the naval dirigible,’ had travelled from Barrow to Paris and would return in the Clément-Bayard airship, taking charge of navigation as soon as the vessel was over British soil. In May it was noted that he was still in France attending the trials.70 Furthermore, Captain Bacon warned him that when crossing the Channel on no account should any mock attacks be made on any of His Majesty’s ships they might fly over.71 Sadly, delays to the programme foiled this plan, no doubt to Usborne’s great disappointment, as he had first been given the Admiralty’s permission to travel to France in connection with the airship project as early as September 1909.72
On 16 October 1910, the first airship flight from France to the UK was made by Baudry’s Clément-Bayard II from La Motte-Breuil to Wormwood Scrubs, some 246 miles (398 km) at an average speed of 41mph (64kph). The craft had a length of 251 feet (76 metres), a diameter of 43 feet (13 metres) and a capacity of 247,200 cubic feet (7000 cubic metres), being powered by two 120 hp (90 kW) Clément-Bayard engines. A photograph of the airship’s arrival graced the front cover of Flight Magazine of 22 October 1910 with the caption:
‘PARIS TO LONDON BY AIRSHIP.—The arrival of the Clément-Bayard airship at Wormwood Scrubs on Sunday last. Note the sand ballast being thrown out in order to check too rapid a descent in landing. The military helpers are seen in the distance in readiness to receive the airship immediately it arrives within reach.’
The Clément-Bayard II lands at Wormwood Scrubs.
The airship thereafter was a complete disaster; it had already made more than forty ascents in France, the envelope leaked badly and an argument over payment with the manufacturers ensued. Eventually, half of the originally agreed price of £25,000 was paid. She was dismantled and taken to Farnborough, never to fly again. Had she done so she would have been re-named Zeta.73 The War Office had announced to the House of Commons certain requirements which it desired Clément-Bayard II to meet. These throw light on what was then considered to be the ideal airship for military purposes and are reproduced in Appendix 4.
Not to be outdone, a rival newspaper, the august Morning Post, organised in its columns a National Fund which raised £18,000 to acquire a second French airship, from Lebaudy-Frères of Soissons, announcing the success of this venture on 21 July 1909 and described as, ‘a real war-type of dirigible, than which no more up-to-date model exists throughout the world.’74 (Paul and Pierre Lebaudy, together with the engineer Henri Julliot, had been building airships since 1902, including the first dirigible supplied to the French Army in 1906, to which three more had been added by 1909, including République, which was the first to be used by the French Army on manoeuvres.)
The Morning Post Lebaudy first flew in France in August, at which time Colonel Capper and a Daily Mail journalist, Hamilton Fyfe, were up in her.75 When she arrived on 26 October 1910, she was the largest airship to have been seen in Britain to that date; being 337 feet (102 metres) long, with a diameter of 39 feet (12 metres), a capacity of 353,000 cubic feet (9990 cubic metres) and was powered by twin 135 hp (100 kW) Panard engines, which gave a top speed of 34mph (55kph). In fact helpful winds on its Channel crossing, with a crew of seven, enabled it to average 36mph (58kph). One of those on board was Major Sir Alexander Bannerman, RE, ‘a stout, moustached, dyed-in-the-wool officer’76 who had succeeded Capper at the Balloon School a fortnight earlier, despite knowing little about airships or aeroplanes, but possessing, ‘a certain amount of practical experience in ordinary gasbag ballooning,’77 and an absolute belief that attack from the air would be a hit and miss affair, with the likelihood that not one bomb in 10,000, from a height of 5000 feet (1524 metres), would hit a battleship.78 In the opinion of one aviation historian:
‘The War Office attitude was demonstrated still further in its treatment of the purely military Balloon School. Colonel Capper retained his post until he became due to promotion from brevet to substantive rank on 7 October 1910. The War Office refused to let him continue as commandant at this higher rank, but instead downgraded the post to that of major, and appointed Major Sir Alexander Bannerman as his successor.’79
The Lebaudy airship arrives at Farnborough on 26 October 1910. (Via Ces Mowthorpe)
Colonel John Capper (1861–1955) became the Commandant of the Royal School of Military Engineering at Chatham, so removing an air expert with a worldwide reputation from direct involvement in military aviation. He served throughout the First World War as a Corps Chief Engineer, Divisional Commander and Director General Tank Corps, attaining the rank of major general and a knighthood.
The Lebaudy was no more successful than the Clément-Bayard II. Unbeknown to the authorities at Farnborough, the designers had increased the height of the airship, with the result that as it was being walked into its specially built shed, the envelope caught on the roof and suffered a serious tear. (This is described in full in Appendix 5.) Repairs (and alterations to the shed) took several months. When it flew again in May of the following year, with a French test crew in control and Major Bannerman in attendance, all went well at first, with Cody and Geoffrey de Havilland circling around the airship in their aeroplanes. But after about an hour in the air it proved to be unmanageable, and it descended and crashed out of control, tearing down telegraph poles and uprooting railings in its path, and in front of a large crowd which had come to watch the spectacle, luckily without killing or badly injuring anyone.80 After another Franco-British argument the airship was scrapped. So ended: ‘A sad and ridiculous chapter in British aeronautical history.’81 R.B. Haldane may well have been tempted to say, ‘I told you so’ as the two debacles certainly vindicated his view of a measured scientific approach as opposed to buying something foreign off the shelf just because it was there.
A purely civilian enterprise had much greater success, as on 4 November 1910, E.T. Willows and Frank Gooden made the first crossing of the English Channel by a British aircraft in the Willows No 3 City of Cardiff, which was 120 feet (36 metres) long, 23 feet (7 metres) in diameter and with a capacity of 32,000 cubic feet (905 cubic metres). Departing from Wormwood Scrubs they crossed to Douai, where they force-landed. The airship was deflated and repaired at the Clément-Bayard works and then flew to Paris on 7 January 1911, where it undertook a number of passenger-carrying flights:
‘The Willows Trip to France.
‘In view of the way in which foreign aviators are treated when they happen to land on British soil, it is instructive to note the treatment meted out by our neighbours across the Channel when a Britisher happens to land there. On Mr Willows coming down at Corbehem, near Douai, in order to discover his whereabouts, he was rather surprised when three gendarmes
mounted guard over his ship, and an officer demanded the payment of about £30 Customs duty. Matters were eventually smoothed out by the Aero Club of France, who explained that the incident arose simply owing to the fact that notice had not been given to the Customs authorities, who were bound to act as they did. The airship was brought out from the Daily Mail garage at Wormwood Scrubs on Friday afternoon, and, with Mr E.T. Willows piloting her, assisted by Mr W. Gooden in charge of the engines, a start was made at 3.25 pm. Steering straight across London, the aeronaut then made for Bexhill, and at 6.35 the English coast was left behind. Two hours later the French coast was in sight. At 10 o’clock the vessel was taken to a height of 5,500 feet, in order to enable Mr Willows to steer by the stars, as the clouds prevented him picking out the places passed over. Later, the weather became very foggy, and at 2 o’clock in the morning Mr Willows decided to bring his craft down. Mr Willows had no idea where he was, but when the two aeronauts had got the machine on the ground safely anchored they found a peasant and sent him off to the village to get help. The framework of the car was somewhat damaged in the landing. M Breguet, whose flying ground at La Brayelle is not far off, motored over to render what aid he could to Mr Willows, and afterwards, when making a second visit, he flew over in his aeroplane. Mr Willows had intended, after repairing his machine, to complete the journey to Issy, and a large crowd gathered there on Sunday afternoon to welcome him. The weather conditions, however, changed in the meantime, so that Mr Willows deemed it advisable not to go on. He therefore had his balloon deflated, packed up and sent to Issy by rail, where it found a temporary home in M Clément’s dirigible shed.’82
Willows No 3. (Via Patrick Abbott)
