Australian Naval Aviation - Part 2

Author
Issacs, Group Captain Keith
Categories
Naval Aviation, Naval Historical Review
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Sopwith Ship’s Pup (Refer 36)

Although, as mentioned, the Sopwith Pup was used by the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force, it was originally produced - like its predecessor the 1½ Strutter - for the Royal Naval Air Service. The prototype Pup, 3691, went to Furness for evaluation trials in the spring of 1916, and this aircraft was later exhibited in America in December 1917. The first production Pups were delivered as fighting scouts to No. 1 Wing, Royal Naval Air Service, at Dunkirk where an Australian scored an early success. On 24 September 1916 Flight Sub-Lieutenant S.J. Goble took off two minutes after several German aircraft had bombed the base, caught up with an LVG two-seater and shot it down in flames near Ghistelles. No. 8 Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service, began operating Pups in October 1916, and it was while flying one of the ‘Naval Eight’ scouts the following month that Sub-Lieutenant R.A. Little shot down the first of his 47 enemy aircraft. In February 1917 the Grand Fleet Aircraft Committee recommended that Pup landplanes replace Sopwith Baby seaplanes in carriers and other appropriate types of warships. Thus the Sopwith Ship’s Pup came into being.

This aircraft was equipped with flotation gear and either an upward firing machinegun, or eight Le Prieur anti-Zeppelin rockets. The Ship’s Pups established quite a number of naval ‘firsts’, but from an Australian viewpoint the Pup is remembered as the machine in which Squadron Commander H.R. Busteed did so much naval pioneer flying. Busteed’s experiments have been described by the historian J.M. Bruce in War Planes of the First World War Volume I, and accompanying photographs show Pup Type 9901 (N.6453), and two types 9901a (9497 and N.6190) which were both fitted with skids in place of wheels. Busteed himself is pictured beside a Beardmore-built Folding Pup on HMS Furious in another book by pioneer naval aviator W.G. Moore, Early Bird.

Another noted Australian serving with the Royal Navy at this time was Captain J.S. Dumaresq, who was born in Sydney on 26 October 1873. He was Rear-Admiral commanding the Royal Australian Navy when he died in 1922 (the first Australianborn officer to achieve this appointment), and a street in the Canberra suburb of Dickson honours the name of his family forebears who were early Australian pioneers. In 1917 Dumaresq was keenly interested in the development of naval aviation and he played an important part in arranging several flying trials. On 2 April 1917 Dumaresq took over command of Sydney at Rosyth, Scotland, at a time when he was advocating the use of scout aircraft from light cruisers to combat Zeppelins. His case was conveniently strengthened a month later, on 4 May, when a Zeppelin climbed out of range of Sydney’s anti-aircraft guns and continued to bomb the ship at its leisure.

The acquisition of a fighter aircraft became almost an obsession with Dumaresq and his enthusiasm soon reaped its reward. As from August Sydney spent three months undergoing a refit at Chatham - it was at this time that she acquired the tripod mast which, in later years, was positioned at Bradley’s Head, Sydney Harbour, as a memorial to the ship that sank the Emden in the Royal Australian Navy’s first sea battle. But, more importantly, Sydney was also fitted with an aircraft launching platform, immediately behind and partly over the forward 6-inch gun turret. And much to the satisfaction of Dumaresq, who supervised the installation, it was the first revolving platform to be installed in a warship.

Meanwhile, in June 1917 Flight Commander F.J. Rutland - whose Short 184 seaplane, 8359, from the carrier HMS Engadine was the sole aircraft to participate in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916 and earned for its pilot the sobriquet ‘Rutland of Jutland’ - had flown a Sopwith Pup for the first time from a fixed platform on the light cruiser HMS Yarmouth. Soon afterwards Flight Sub-Lieutenant B.A. Smart, on 21 August, used Yarmouth’s diminutive Pup to shoot down the Goliath Zeppelin L.23. As a result of these successful flights, Dumaresq was appointed to supervise similar trials with a battle cruiser. The ship chosen was HMS Repulse, the flagship of Rear-Admiral R.F. Phillimore, who was later appointed the first Rear-Admiral for Air in January 1918. A sloped platform of 2-inch deals, supported on steel angle bars, was constructed on ‘B’ turret, and on 1 October 1917 Rutland flew off a Pup while the turret was trained 42° on the starboard bow into a ‘felt’ wind of 31½ miles per hour. The platform was then transferred to the after turret, and Rutland made a second flight on the 9th with the 15- inch gun turret trained on a forward bearing.

After these trials Dumaresq obtained a decision that light cruisers and battle cruisers should carry fighting aircraft, provided that they did not interfere with the ship’s gun armament. The battle-cruiser technique of swinging a turret and its platform into wind, to save the ship from changing course, could not be duplicated on the smaller 6-inch gun turrets of light cruisers, and consequently the revolving platform was evolved. On 30 November, while Sydney was steaming back to her war station at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, she called at Rosyth where her aircraft launching platform was inspected ‘with a view to framing proposals for flying arrangements in other light cruisers.’ But Dumaresq was still at loose ends for he had a specially equipped warship for operating aircraft, but no aircraft. This ludicrous situation was unacceptable to the impatient Dumaresq and, on arrival at Scapa Flow, he made arrangements to borrow the Sopwith Pup which was operating from a fixed platform on the light cruiser HMS Dublin. A trial flight was made from Sydney on 8 December 1917 when the Pup was launched from the platform in the fixed position; this was the first time on record that an aircraft had actually taken off from an Australian warship. Another ‘first’ occurred nine days later when the Pup flew off the platform turned into wind - the very first time any aircraft had been launched from such a platform in the revolved position. These two experimental launchings were the only occasions that a Sopwith Pup operated from an Australian light cruiser. Early in 1918 Sydney took aboard her own Sopwith Camel, as did Melbourne later in the year.

Another Sopwith Pup, however, operated with the flagship of the Royal Australian Navy. In December 1917 HMAS Australia was stationed at Rosyth as flagship of the British Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, and the Australian Official History recorded that ‘Australia was apparently used for experiments with aeroplanes; the first appears to have occurred on the 18th of December 1917 when - apparently for the first time on record - a machine was launched from the deck by Flight Lieutenant Fox (Captain F.M. Fox).’ The words ‘apparently’ and ‘appears’ bear emphasising, because in a preceding sentence Jose had stated that on 12 December Australia ‘ . . . came into collision with HMS Repulse and sustained damages which kept her in dock for nearly three weeks.’ Again Jose does not mention the aircraft type, nor does the ship’s log refer to this historic occasion. Nevertheless at least two members of Australia’s crew have independently testified that Flight Sub-Lieutenant Fox flew a Sopwith Pup off the quarter deck of Australia while she was at anchor late in 1917 - presumably this is the flight Jose refers to on 18 December. Hearsay has it that this Pup was obtained on loan from Donibristle aerodrome by Rear-Admiral A.C. Leveson of Australia.

Information on early air operations from Royal Australian Navy ships is sparse, and even when such incidents are mentioned the details are vague and incomplete. For example, the next mention of air activity recorded in the Ship’s Log of Australia are two brief entries for 30 January 1918 - ‘9.30 Aeroplane arrived on board,’ and ‘1.30 Aeroplane flew off ship.’ There is every possibility that this was another take off from the ship’s deck by a Sopwith Pup, particularly in view of a further log entry for 5 February recording that at 9.30 a.m. work parties were ‘rigging ‘Q’ aeroplane platform.’ This is the first mention of a launching platform on Australia, and the 6.30 p.m. entry for the same day - ‘hoisted in aeroplane’ - probably refers to a Sopwith Ship’s Camel, as one of these aircraft was also allotted to Sydney about that time. It was not until July 1918 that the term ‘aeroplane’ was superseded in Australia’s log by specific mentions of ‘Camels’ and ‘Strutters.’ In summary, therefore, a Sopwith Ship’s Pup, on loan from HMS Dublin, was launched twice from a platform on Sydney on 8 and 17 December 1917, while another Ship’s Pup from Donibristle took off from the quarter deck of Australia on the 18th of that month; there is also the possibility that a Pup carried out a second deck take off from Australia on 30 January 1918.

Originally printed in the Naval Historical Review - December 1974 Edition

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