The Dardanelles campaign of 1915 pioneered the use of aircraft at sea. Despite the inevitable teething troubles, the impact on the future of aerial and naval warfare was huge
DARDANELLES CAMPAIGN
It is a little-known fact that, from the outset, aviation was considered a key element in the execution of the plan to invade Turkey via a seaborne assault through the Dardanelles Straits. Before the outbreak of war in 1914, bombardment of shorebased fortresses by naval guns was considered an inexact science, with little chance of success owing to the precise plotting of the fall of shells being nearly impossible. At sea, range to target and fall of shot were gauged optically by the proximity to the target of the splashes made by the plunging shells as they entered the water. Against land-based targets, this was more difficult to estimate owing to the lack of a visual cue of precisely where the shells fell. As predicted by Maurice Hankey, secretary of the War Council, aircraft equipped with wireless were seen as the means by which fall of shot could be determined with greater accuracy than before, against targets on land and at sea.
The then First Lord of the Admiralty and keen aviation advocate Winston Churc…
