Knights of the Air

[Barrett]

I can hardly believe I gotta ask this question
but:
What was/were the WW I source(s) of KOTA?

I find nothing helpful online although I recall seeing a statement by a UK politician and maybe from a French parliament member as well.

Similarly:

At one time there was an internet tribute to Guynemer from Brocard, and a 1960s C&C had Willy Coppens's marvelous tribute to GG. BUt the Brocard item seems inaccessible and I lost most of my C&Cs in a long-ago basement flood.

Many thanks for help with what should be an unnecessary question!

[Gregvan]

Hi Barrett,

Well, David Lloyd George reportedly made this speech to Parliament:

"They are the knighthood of this war, without fear and without reproach: they recall the legendary days of chivalry not merely by the daring of their exploits but by the nobility of their spirit’."

Prime Minister David Lloyd George on the pilots of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

That may have been where the whole thing started.
Greg

[Graeme]

‘Hansard’ carries details of the speech made by Earl Curzon of Kedleston, leader of the House of Lords with the office of Lord President:

Vote Of Thanks To The Forces, debated on Monday 29 October 1917

There is another Service about which your Lordships will expect me to say a word. I might have dealt with it under the Army or the Navy because it belongs to both, but I have reserved a special category for it, because of the quite exceptional nature of its service - I allude to the "Knights of the Air," whether belonging to the Royal Flying Corps or to the Royal Naval Air Service. I deliberately call them "Knights of the Air," because nowhere in this war more than in these aerial excursions and combats does it seem to me that the spirit of knight errantry has reappeared. The solitary ride on the machine through the heavens, the call for constant presence of mind and courage, the fierce combat, the swift victory or the sudden death - all of these seem like a survival of the romance of a bygone age. When, in August, 1914, 100 officers and 66 machines - for that was all we had - made their way either by sea or the air to France, who could have foreseen that this would develop into a great fleet of thousands of machines and ten thousands of men?

Let me give you an idea of their work on the Western front. In the first nine months of 1917 the men of the Royal Flying Corps brought down 876 machines of the enemy, drove down 759 out of action, and 52 were brought down by antiaircraft gunfire. They dropped thousands of tons of explosives on aerodromes, military buildings, railways, bridges, communications, even on moving regiments of the enemy, swooping down to within a few feet of the ground and scattering and killing the enemy as he marched. And this is not all. Apart from the offensive operations and activities of the Air Service, you must remember that they are in a true sense the "eyes" of the Army fighting in the field. They are always engaged in spotting the enemy batteries, taking photographs - and marvellous these photographs are; I have no doubt your Lordships have seen many of them - while by wireless telegraphy they enable our Artillery to control gunfire with deadly precision. Let us not forget also the airmen at home who have shattered the menace of the Zeppelin, and by their skill and bravery, on many occasions now, brought these great gas bags in flames to the ground. I sometimes think, when the Gothas are shrieking over London at night, and the civil population retreats to its cellars, that we might turn a thought to those brave men who are riding the darkness and the whirlwind, high up in the air, and who in those lofty altitudes are risking their lives to save us from destruction. My Lords, the war abounds in stories of the heroism of the airmen in every field; and I do not know whether to admire most the actual gallantry of the men, or the extraordinary and marvellous development of scientific resources and ingenuity which has provided them with the means of carrying out their task.

I need hardly say that I include in the same tribute, in full and equal measure, the officers and the men of the Royal Naval Air Service. There is no distinction between the two except the branch of the Service with which they are connected. At the beginning of the war the personnel of the R.N.A.S. was 800; it is now 42,000. Its fleet at the beginning of the war consisted of 7 airships, 30 aeroplanes, 34 seaplanes; the number is now many thousands. Perhaps the most effective branch of that Service has been the Naval Squadron at Dunkirk. It has really been one of the most efficient agencies of the war. Almost daily in our newspapers we read of their energy in bombing the enemy aerodromes - valuable, not merely for the destruction that is thus wrought, but also because every time they go forth and attack the aerodromes of the enemy they are diminishing, and indeed at times they absolutely frustrate, the invasion which may be contemplated by the enemy here. The aircraft of the R.N.A.S. have been similarly in evidence in every theatre of the war. They have flown over Damascus; they have dropped bombs on Beirut; they have destroyed buildings at Constantinople; and I dare say you will remember in the early operations of the war that splendid effort by which the Zeppelin shed was destroyed on Lake Constance.

Graeme

[Gregvan]

Thanks, Graeme!!

[Barrett]

Thanks to all, chaps. Oddish that googling does not produce any references to DLG & KotA...

Long ago I ran across a similar sentiment from a French parliament member, probably in reference to Guynemer, but my memory was much younger then.

[Graeme]

Looking deeper, in the House of Commons on Monday 29 October 1917, Lloyd George, as prime minister, moved a motion of thanks to all the members of the armed services in the war. In the section of his speech concerning the air force he said:

"The heavens are their battlefield. They are the Cavalry of the Clouds. High above the squalor and the mud, so high in the firmament that they are not visible from earth, they fight out the eternal issues of right and wrong. They are struggling there by day, yea and by night in that titanic conflict between the great foes of light and of darkness. They fight the foe high up and they fight low down. They skim like armed swallows along the front, taking in their flights men armed with rifle and machine gun. They scatter infantry on the march, they destroy convoys, the scatter dismay. Every flight is romance, every record is an epic. They are the knight errants of this war, without fear and without reproach. They recall the old legends of chivalry, not merely by the daring of individual exploits, but by the nobility of their spirit and amongst the multitudes of heroes, we must continuously thank the cavalry of the air."

Graeme