The Spider Web: Royal Navy Air Service Flying Boat Operations During the First World War by a Flight Commander

War at sea-war in the air

This is an account of the early days, during the Great War, of the service that became the Fleet Air Arm. It did not take long after hostilities commenced for the Royal Navy to appreciate the potential of an 'air force' both as an eye in the sky and as an effective method of countering enemy surface vessels and most especially German submarine activity. Endurance, speed and surprise were the essential components of the sea-plane and flying boat war. Appearing suddenly out of the sun, a surface cruising U-Boat had little time to dive to safety before destruction rained down upon it. This book contains may gripping incidents of U-Boat hunting in the 'Spider Web', a great tract of the North Sea which was the Navy flyer's patrol area and battlefield. This was a hard war fraught with dangers from mechanical breakdowns, attacks from enemy aircraft, lethal weather and anti-aircraft fire among its many perils. A riveting account of the sea and early aviation warfare.