Air power was new. In 1903 the Wright Brothers made the first powered flight and progress was rapid. By the start of the Great War great strides had been taken but the early machines were still underpowered and unreliable. Military use of aeroplanes was attractive and the Royal Flying Corps was formed in 1913, the Royal Naval Flying Service followed in 1914. It was not until 1918 that they were merged into the new Royal Air Force.
At first the new planes were used mainly for observation and communications. Air combat was limited to opposing pilots firing at each other with revolvers and bombing was the occasional dropping of grenades on enemy troops. War stimulated research and development and better aircraft were fitted with machine guns and bomb racks. 'Dog fights' between planes resulted in the 'Aces' who shot down enemy planes and this captured the public's imagination. The truth was that much of this was encouraged by those who advocated air power in competition with the Army and the Royal Navy. The greatest value of aircraft for much of the war on the Western Front was in aerial photography which was used to produce accurate maps of the front line.
One of the core concepts in both England and Germany was that bombing of the civilian population in towns and cities would shatter morale. The Germans started this with Zeppelin bombing raids, the first being an attack on Liege in August 1914 and we soon joined in by manufacturing heavy flying machines called 'bombers' with the express intention of bombing Germany. The first British strategic bombing attacks were made by the RNAS in September and October 1914 against Zeppelin bases at Cologne and Düsseldorf. War accelerates technical development and by 1916 the Germans were attacking London with heavy bombers. By 1918 they had conducted 325 sorties inflicting nearly 3,000 casualties but losing 62 machines in the process. It is a little known fact that the Reisenflugzeuge or 'Giant' heavy bombers they were using at the end of the war were the largest bombers ever to attack the capital, including the Luftwaffe attacks in the Second World War. The concept of bombing to break morale was to endure beyond WW2 and resulted in many civilian casualties. Only now have the figures been collated and one surprising fact that has surfaced is that as many French civilians were killed by bombing during the Normandy Landing in 1944 as during the whole of the London Blitz. It is salutary to note that under modern rules of war, much of this bombing in both world wars would be classed as war crimes.
The casualties from the RFC/RNAS/RAF for 1914–18 totalled 9,378 killed or missing, with 7,245 wounded. During all this sacrifice and valiant effort it is sad to note that the flying services were under internal attack from the Army and Navy who wanted control of air warfare themselves. This continued during the Inter War years.
The Reisenflugzeuge, the largest German bomber ever to attack London.