Captain Jack and the Furious Few

[Buster11]

A programme on BBC 4 at 2000 today about early carrier operations in WW1 is well worth a look on I-Player. It's mainly concerned with HMS Furious, which was converted first with a forward deck enabling take-offs but not landings and later with an aft deck, allowing landings as long as the turbulence from the bridge superstructure amidships didn't get you.

[SLXOwft]

I caught part of the programme and also recommend it. (I believe it was first aired in 2018). It is based around the experiences and archives of Capt Jack McCleery RAF who joined the RNAS in 1917 as a teenager and ended the war as the 20 year old acting CO of the air complement on Furious. It shows photos of the first deck landings including arresting by available hands grabbing on to the aircraft. It's presented by the actor David Hayman who has presented a number of interesting documentaries regarding ships both merchant and RN.

[MPN11]

Also watched and recommended. Starting from the proverbial Square One, and risking their lives on a daily basis ... while also doing normal ship's Watchkeeping duties!

[Chugalug2]

I also enjoyed it and can only wonder at the near suicidal missions that the design of Furious required. Launched from the foredeck some 12 miles off shore they braved interception and/or flak to attack their targets and return to Furious. SOP there was not to attempt a landing onboard but to ditch alongside (it was presumably deemed to be less hazardous!). It was not that the obvious solution wasn't clear, ie to clear all the superstructure out of the way and provide a through deck, it was simply that the war would not allow for the luxury of such an extensive and time consuming modification. Brave men simply had to put up with the resultant dangers involved!

Which brings me to my grouch. These programmes invariably seek out one man or woman in such a story and concentrate on them almost to the exclusion of all the others. Why? Because it makes for good TV, or so they calculate. I think that they underestimate their audience who very often have some family member of their own who gave their lives or perhaps survived but terribly maimed in body and/or mind. Every year we pay tribute to their sacrifice and are acutely aware that most were unknown to history. Today is the 100th anniversary of the formal laying to rest of one such by this nation. This programme could have simply told the story of this prototype for the modern carrier, and the very dangerous flying it entailed for all the aviators involved. It would have thus been more embracing, more informative, more balanced in my view.