1161 ROYAL NAVY SEAPLANE DECKSIDE BASE

May 1912 is often taken as the birth date of naval aviation in the Royal Navy, when one of the pioneers of British aviation - Charles Rumney Samson - took off from the deck of the sailing battleship HMS Hibernia. During World War I (1914-1918), British naval aviation was concentrated in the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), and its main tasks were recognized as reconnaissance, patrol and search operations. Also in the course of the Washington Disarmament Conference (1921-1922), British naval officers saw aircraft carriers and the planes operating from them as auxiliary units to battleships. Despite this, as early as 1924, the first real aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, was launched for the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA for short), i.e. the Royal Navy air force, was formed. At the beginning of World War II, the FAA operated not very modern machines, such as Fairey Swordfish or Gloster Sea Gladiator machines. However, in the period 1939-1945 there was a very intensive development of British naval aviation, which resulted in the fact that in May 1945 the Royal Navy had nearly 60 aircraft carriers (fleets and escorts), and the FAA had nearly 3,700 aircraft, among which they were as successful as the Supermarine Seafire or Fairey Barracuda, but also Vought Corsair, Grumman Wildcat and Hellcat machines, obtained under the Lend-and-Lease program. It is also worth adding that during World War II, the British FAA had at least several very successful combat actions, including the attack on Taranto (November 1940) or actions against the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz.