less important, the spares which must be procured in adequate quantities if these engines are to be kept in running condition. The training units, too, must be increased in order to keep the new service formation up to strength in pilots. A sufficient number of trained mechanics must be got from somewhere, and these have usually to be wrung from the commanders of other units, themselves already short of trained personnel, and as a rule most reluctant to part with good men.

All these matters were at last decided, and 60 Squadron was formed on May 1, 1916. At that time there were in the Royal Flying Corps about thirty-five service squadrons all told, of which by far the greater number were in France. The Royal Naval Air Service had at this date considerably fewer service units. When the Armistice was signed, there were well over two hundred service squadrons in the Royal Air Force, which had come into being as an independent entity distinct from the Army or the Navy on April 1, 1918. During the months previous to the formation of 60, the Germans, with the aid of the Fokker monoplane, which they produced in the autumn of 1915, had begun seriously to interfere with our artillery observation machines. At this period of the war—early 1916—we had no complete single-seater fighting scout squadrons, but achieved the protection of the artillery machines, mostly B.E.2C.s, by having a few Bristol and other scouts in each two-seater squadron.

As a result of these losses, General Trenchard decided to form some new scout squadrons, of which 60 shortly became one, and also to re-equip some of the existing squadrons with scouts. No. 1 Squadron, for example, was given Nieuports (a French machine), at that time the equal of any German fighter.

No. 60 was formed from No. 1 Reserve Aeroplane Squadron at Gosport. Major F. Waldron, known to his friends as “Ferdy,” was the first commander of the new unit. He had previously commanded No. 1 R.A.S., and was a cavalry officer who had been seconded from his Hussar regiment (the 19th), some time before the war, to the R.F.C. He was one of the earlier military aviators. He had been an instructor at the Central Flying School at Upavon and was a first-class pilot. The three original flight commanders (Capts. R. Smith-Barry, A. S. M. Somers, and H. C. Tower) were all three old Etonians. The original flying officers were: Capt. D. B. Gray; Lieuts. H. A. Browning-Paterson, J. N. Simpson, G. F. A. Portal, H. H. Balfour, H. Meintjies, A. D. Bell-Irving; 2/Lieuts. C. A. Ridley, D. V. Armstrong, H. G. Smart, and G. D. F. Keddie.

The observers were: Lieuts. R. H. Knowles and G. Williams; 2/Lieuts. L. L. Clark, H. J. Newton, H. H. Harris, H. Good, C. F. Overy, J. I. M. O’Beirne, W. E. G. Bryant, J. Laurie-Reid, J. N. O. Heenan (A.E.O.), and J. Bigood (A.E.O., wireless).

Usually a new squadron received its machines in England at its home station and flew them over to France. 60 Squadron, however, was to be equipped with Moranes, French machines which were not built in England at that time. Consequently the squadron, with its motor transport, stores, etc., crossed to France by sea, and went to St. Omer, where its equipment was completed.

An R.F.C. squadron had two sergeant-majors: one disciplinary, the other technical. Waldron, when forming 60, chose these warrant officers with considerable discretion. Sergt.-Maj. Aspinall, an old Guardsman brought into the Flying Corps by Basil Barrington-Kennet in the very early days, was the disciplinary warrant officer. He had qualified as a rigger and had tried to learn to fly, but it was as a disciplinarian that he really shone. He played no inconsiderable part in the achievement of whatever success the squadron may have had. He was a first-class soldier, and his instructions to flight commanders in the form of little typewritten lectures were gems of their kind. It should be remembered that at times the casualties in the squadron were very heavy, and officers became flight commanders at an age which would have been regarded as absurd before the war. “The Great Man,” as we called him, would explain with profound respect to a captain promoted, most deservedly, at the age of nineteen the necessity for assuming a judicial demeanour when an air mechanic was brought up before him on some minor charge; he would, further, instruct the young flight commander most carefully in the punishments appropriate to each offence, and all this without in the smallest particular transgressing that code of military etiquette which regulates so strictly the relations between commissioned and warrant officers. Only his successive commanding officers know how much of the tranquillity and contentment of the men was due to “the Great Man.” The technical sergeant-major, Smyrk by name, was a wizard with an internal combustion engine. He had been employed at the Gramophone Co.’s factory at Hayes in civil life before joining the R.F.C. in 1912, and had a gift for teaching fitters their business. During almost all the war, two fitters a month had to be sent home to assist in the manning of new units, while the squadrons in the field had, in consequence, always to carry a percentage of untrained or partially trained men, who had to be made into experts on the engines with which they were equipped. The technical sergeant-major had to train these men, and was also the specialist who was called in whenever one of the flights had an unusually refractory engine which had baffled both the flight commander and his flight sergeant. Smyrk was always equal to every call upon him, and a long line of pilots should, and no doubt do, remember him with gratitude, for, after all, the degree of efficiency with which the engine was looked after often meant the difference between a landing in Hunland and getting home.

After a few days at St. Omer we received our machines, which were Moranes of three different types: “A” Flight had Morane “bullets,” 80 h.p.; “B” Flight, 110 h.p. Morane biplanes; and “C” Flight, Morane “parasols.”

Of the “parasol,” a two-seater monoplane, it is unnecessary to say very much, as they were soon replaced by “bullets,” and “C” Flight did practically no work on them. The machine is best, perhaps, described as a biplane without any bottom planes, by which is meant that the wings were above the pilot’s head, a feature which suggested its nickname. It had an 80 h.p. Le Rhone at that time, almost the best air-cooled rotary engine. They were good for artillery registration, as the view downward was excellent; they were very stable also, easy to fly and to land, and, in fact, were “kind” machines, giving their pilots the sort of feeling afforded by a good-tempered, confidential old hunter.

The Morane biplane had a more powerful engine, the 110 Le Rhone, also an air-cooled rotary, and was quite an efficient “kite,” as the R.F.C. called them, with its inveterate habit of inventing pet names for its aeroplanes. It was draughty and cold to sit in, but was light on the controls and had a reasonably good performance. This machine was also a two-seater, like the “parasol,” with the observer’s seat behind the pilot’s.

PATROL OF MORANE “BULLETS” ABOUT TO LEAVE THE GROUND, VERT GALANT, JUNE 1916.

The Morane “bullet,” with a 80 h.p. Le Rhone engine, was quite a different proposition.

This was a monoplane with a fuselage (body) of the monococque, or cigar-shaped, type and very small wings, giving, therefore, a very high loading per square foot of lifting surface. The speed near the ground was