When Great Britain went to war with Germany in August 1914, the aeroplane was still at a very rudimentary stage in its development. Indeed even as the hostile nations clashed, there persisted a school of thought among some military officers that those flimsy contraptions of linen and spruce, which would admittedly carry a man aloft, would nevertheless be of little strategic value in the ensuing conflict. It was conceded that aeroplanes made excellent reconnaissance vehicles from which observation reports on enemy troop movements could be obtained, but other than that quite a number of the more short-sighted generals and admirals could foresee no advantage in the employment of aeroplanes as a key weapon in contemporary warfare...