Cover created by Transcriber, usingan illustration from the original book, and placed in the Public Domain.
BALLOON STRAFING.
Attacking an enemy kite balloon with incendiary ammunition.
By Capt. W. E. Molesworth, M.C.
[Frontispiece
SIXTY SQUADRON
R.A.F.
A HISTORY OF THE SQUADRON
FROM ITS FORMATION
BY
GROUP-CAPTAIN A. J. L. SCOTT,
C.B., M.C., A.F.C.
WITH A PREFACE BY
THE RT. HON. LORD HUGH CECIL, M.P.
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
NEW YORK: GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
DEDICATED
TO THOSE WHO WERE
KILLED WITH THE SQUADRON
Flawless in faith and fame.”
PREFACE
This book tells the story of Squadron No. 60 ofthe Royal Flying Corps, afterwards of the RoyalAir Force.
When the war began, in August 1914, the RoyalFlying Corps was a very small body which sentfour squadrons on active service and had arudimentary training organisation at home. Inthose days the only functions contemplated foran airman were reconnaissance and occasionallybombing. Fighting in the air was almost unknown.The aeroplanes were just flying machinesof different types, but intended to performsubstantially the same functions. Gradually asthe war continued specialisation developed. Fightingin the air began, machine guns being mountedfor the purpose in the aeroplanes. Then someaeroplanes were designed particularly for reconnaissance,some particularly for fighting, some forbombing, and so on. It was in the early part ofthis period of specialisation that Squadron No. 60was embodied. And, as this narrative tells us,its main work was fighting in the air. It wasequipped for the most part with aeroplanes whichwere called scouts—not very felicitously, since ascout suggests rather reconnaissance than combat.viiiThese machines carried only one man, were fast,easy to manœuvre, and quick in responding tocontrol. They were armed with one or twomachine guns, and they engaged in a form ofwarfare new in the history of the world, and themost thrilling that can be imagined—for each manfought with his own hand, trusting wholly to hisown skill, and that not on his own element, but inoutrage of nature, high in the air, surrounded onlyby the winds and clouds.
The embodiment of the fighting scout squadronswas part of the expansion and organisation ofwhat became the Royal Air Force. Among allthe achievements of the war there has been,perhaps, nothing more wonderful than the development